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Comment by andreilys | Hacker News Reader

The CDC/surgeon general recommended not wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic, while Silicon Valley was way ahead of the curve (meanwhile hit pieces were posted by journalists with an axe to grind saying they we’re overreacting).

So yes it has lost its credibility.

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This is the citation I found for this claim:

https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/06/the-cdc-now-recommend...

Overall, science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. This is no different in my mind than the gradual change in the recommendations towards cigarette smoking over the decades, only in this case it played out over weeks and months (that article was from April of 2020).

If you want something infallible and written in stone from day 1, that's what religious texts are for. But to claim that scientists lost credibility because new research led them to change their minds is to misunderstand the purpose of science.

Masks weren't a mysterious new invention that the CDC just learned about at the start of the pandemic.

> science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works.

CDC is a public health organization, not a science making organization. Its responsibility is to make the competent public health decisions based on the best available data and sound risk management. No one is faulting CDC for eventually course correcting, they are criticizing it for not having followed a more risk averse strategy from the get go and not having communicated their rationale honestly.

Imagine if FDA behaved like CDC; roll out the vaccines to general public with minimal trial, updating their decision on safety as more data came in. Scientific incrementalism doesn't suit all use cases, and this has nothing to do with infallibility.

> updating their decision on safety as more data came in.

That’s literally what they do. They paused when there were concerns over blood clots, then expanded access to more cohorts as more studies were completed.

"with minimal trial" is the operative word, which didn't happen. The point being there is a balance between waiting for perfect data and making risk based policies.

Do you actually remember this in real time? Do you remember at the beginning when everyone was wondering what to do and they said wear a mask and then they said not wear a mask and everyone around you was like, "What?? What is going on??"

And then a short while later they said wear a mask again. These things have real world ramifications. You can't just point to a snopes a year later and retain the context within which this trust destroying episode went down.

People have memories. They felt the frustration. They felt the betrayal.

And they have yet to recover from that. To dismiss that very real feeling of betrayal as "well, this is what snopes says" is rewriting history.

And, all of that comes on the heels of big tobacco, DDT, thalidomide, BPA, climate change, and then the new climate change, big pharma with their oxycontin and big medicine fleecing Americans and they won't even discuss medicare for all and we have to protect corporate profits over saving humanity?? Seriously??

And you dismiss all that with "science is a process."

Except the process has been completely dismissed as well. Science created the process that takes years to approve a new vaccine, all of that has been completely dismissed exactly when a brand new technology for creating vaccines has been created.

No part of this is science. This is politics. Period. 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine.

And so now it's somehow a different vaccine that we should all get? Now folks who don't want to get Biden's vaccine are science deniers?

This. is. not. science.

This is politics and a lot of people are refusing to get the vaccine purely because it's politics and NOT science.

Did you watch Fauci get destroyed up there this week? He's a liar. Period.

This is the key issue at hand, science has made us understand the virus and science has provided working vaccines.

Politics decide when a country/state gets to remove restrictions, this is where the heated arguments begin.

> People have memories.

And sometimes they have false memories. For example, regarding:

> 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine.

What she said was that she would take the vaccine if the professionals said it was safe, not if Trump told her to take it [1]. A rather understandable level of skepticism given Trump's peddling of miracle cures such as hydroxychloroquine.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0

How would a scenario exist where Trump would say take it, but professionals wouldn't be also saying it? How would it even exist? Professionals invented it.

> If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works.

But that's not what happened. There was plenty of studies showing that masks could be effective before the pandemic started[1]. Here are a couple of Hacker news discussions from early March 2020 about studies done years earlier showing that mask use is effective[2][3]. And this article from right before the CDC changed it's recommendation, for good measure[4]: "Do you need a mask? The science hasn't changed, but public guidance might"

I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to consider the possibility that the CDC made a mistake.

[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22460630 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22498941 [4] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/do-you-need-mask-...

Whether masks could be effective was never in debate. If you recall, they were concerned people would use the masks incorrectly and that could do more harm, as well as potential shortages in the supply chain and getting the masks to the most important workers. I don’t recall the CDC ever saying “masks do not work”

Fauchi, presumed spokesman for the CDC, came as close as possible to saying so, and/or was taken as such.

If that early statement can be justified by "fog of war" changing virus-related information at that time, then Fauchi should have allowed himself that complication. By offering "there were not enough masks available then" as a later explanation, he seems to have explained it essentially by saying he lied. In doing so he apparently threw away a substantial amount of his credibility, for many people. At worst a lying move; at best a lightweight move with lives at risk.

I don't think the CDC made a mistake - I think they intentionally "lied" for the sake of the public good, aka the Noble Lie.

Rather than saying "Hey lets hold off on buying masks so that we have enough for essential care workers" they instead said "do not buy masks because they aren't effective, or might even make risk of infection higher!"

Our Swiss virus guy too told this 'lie' in the beginning, a few months later he explained that this was wrong and the only reason he said masks are not necessary was because there weren't enough and private people were already stockpiling it anyway.

So people wore masks and life went on.

I still don't understand why sooooo many countries can't be more honest about these things

> I still don't understand why so many countries can't be more honest about these things

Depending on the jurisdiction and on your political opponents what the Swiss virus guy did is liable to send you to prison for intentionally lying and acting on that lie when employed as a public servant.

Most probably the political debate is less vicious in Switzerland and that won't happen to your virus guy, but where I live (EU country from Eastern Europe) that would have been very dangerous for him to do in regards to his freedom. I guess that's why a lot of politicians double down on their lies, because if they're caught there's a small chance of them going to prison for them, so why take the risk?

Interesting point. Guess it comes down to his words as the initial wording was more like 'in the current situation it is not necessary to wear masks' not trump's vision of 'masks don't work' which would have been an obvious lie.

In Belgium we had a third version: "masks are dangerous because people don't know how to adjust and wear them, they touch them too much (spreading the virus) and masks give a false sense of security that will lead to more contagions".

The chief of our CDC equivalent said he was shopping in supermarket without mask.

Then they admitted saying that because stocks were too low and wearing a mask was gradually made mandatory and they told us to make our own masks.

In Belgium, basically the same thing happened but at the same time they also said covid was just a flu.

So, a lot of trust lost.

Now I suspect them to do the same with the astrazeneca stock they have to liquidate.

Headlines this week said the indian variant is going to be the major one in Belgium.

In Denmark there were news stories about the real name of the AZ vaccine, just about the same time the bloodclot issue appeared.

I don't know anyone who uses the name Vaxzevria instead of the Astra Zeneca vaccine or just AZ.

The UK is about to open up fully in June but is now worried about the Indian variant (B.1.617).

Even though we in Denmark back in january was informed by health authorities that the English variant (B.1.1.7) was very worrying.

Truth is there will always be another variant, just look at this overview.

https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global

The trust in health authorities have been reduced greatly and have been replaced with mistrust to politicians motives, I'm sad to say.

Reading our politician's stance their motto seem to be that they didn't want to cause a panic. I always thought democracy strongly needed transparency to be effective so now I am left with questions and a shift in how I see our governing institutions.

IIRC that was not exactly how it happened. They said masks are not necessary if you only meet outside and keep your 1.5m distance. Leave the FFP masks for those who really need it. source from February 2020: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20200225_04864971

Same thing here in Finland, in early months of the epidemics health officials said wearing masks has no benefit.

>> Our Swiss virus guy too told this 'lie' in the beginning

>> I still don't understand why sooooo many countries can't be more honest about these things

Interesting definition of honest. The fact is, all these large organisations believe in the "noble lie" which undermines their credibility.

> So yes it has lost its credibility.

I feel like this black and white, "you get one chance" kind of bridge burning is very unproductive. When you look at these agencies not as omniscient entities but as what they are - a collaborative effort of many individuals - then you allow for the evolution of understanding.

People can be wrong, especially in regards to more novel situations, so why should we view our institutions as any different? Yes having more eyes and varied perspectives means that it may make sense to expect something more reliable than an individual, but that doesn't make it infallible and IMO that's ok.

Organisations of professions should be held to extremely high standards. They are entrusted with more and in return given more privileges than any simple "collection of people".

as I said, it makes sense to expect more from governmental bodies but that still does not mean an expectation of infallibility. High standards and impossible standards are worlds apart.

It's not about being wrong, it's about intentionally misleading the public because you believe they are incapable of handling the truth (i.e. we have supply chain issues with masks because surprise outsourcing your supply chains to other countries has fatal flaws)

They specifically recommended not wearing N95 masks, which were very scarce and in limited supply at the beginning of the pandemic. With the goal of maintaining the very limited supply for medical personnel, while cargo planes moved around the globe and production ramped up.

N95s also need to be vacuum fit IIRC for max efficacy

They still are.

Genuine question, why did they not lose credibility when they started recommending them due to political pressure rather than “the science”? As I understand it, there is still very flimsy scientific backing for the effectiveness of masks.

AFAIK at best it depends upon number of layers, what kind of layers, fit, droplets (and size) vs. aerosols, humidity, interpersonal distance and dwelling time, and of course ventilation. Given the framing of the "mask debate" in the US with essentially no frequent or defining mention of face covering quality/qualities, essentially it seems like Cargo-cult science at the restrictions/policy level. There are people who meet the requirements essentially breathing through stretched or O(500um) single-layer mesh.

I have not looked closely enough at electret properties to know if meshes with larger pore sizes can really stop 0.06um virus particles. (Or 10nm according to this https://www.news-medical.net/health/The-Size-of-SARS-CoV-2-C... )

For aerosols, cloth masks are an order of magnitude less effective than dipole charged N95 (which attract sub micron scale particles with a built-in electric charge in the fibers, it’s a high-tech process.)

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