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Comment by ghoward | Hacker News Reader

I admit that every time I see a CDC study, I wonder if they began the study with their desired end in mind. The CDC has admitted that they lied multiple times; why should I believe their studies?

Edit: I see that this study did begin with the desired end in mind because they have a blurb titled "What are the implications for public health practice?" that says:

> All eligible persons should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, including unvaccinated persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.

In other words, these "scientists" decided to comment on public policy in their study. Such an act makes it extremely suspect for several reasons, not least of which the scientists are making a political statement in what is supposed to be a scientific study.

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What study did they admit to lying about?

Not a study, but they admitted to lying. They lied about masks. They lied about what percentage of people need to be vaccinated for herd immunity. I'm sure there's more.

Did the people involved with this particular study admit to previous lies?

Does that matter? No! It was a study commissioned by an organization I don't trust anymore because they lost that trust.

But even if I did trust these scientists before, I don't know that they decided to put a political statement in a scientific study. The only agenda scientists should have is truth.

Would you fully trust a study done by scientists hired by Fox News or the CNN?

FWIW Fox has some of the highest rated political polling as per 538. And I personally think their news is garbage.

Lying about percentage needed to reach herd immunity?! I’m not actually familiar with the claims this is directed at, but due to the changing circumstance with more transmissible variants and not even 100% of data on the original, it’s hard to take a comment like that seriously. Being incorrect or becoming no longer correct due to changed circumstances doesn’t make a claim a lie or the person making it a liar.

The moment he uses that word, his impartiality goes out of the window. Viruses adapt, the science adapts. You give your best information at that point and you don't want to muddy the public with confidence intervals and all that.

Fauci did not give us his best information.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

So he lied. Plain and simple.

I used that word because it's the truth, even though it's strong because sugarcoating the truth is lying. Using the term "sugarcoating" is, in fact, trying to sugarcoat the fact that sugarcoating is lying!

Fauci said that he keeps moving the goalposts based on what he thinks we are "ready to hear":

> He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

Sure, if he said it was because of more information, I could take him seriously. But when he says the above, it means he's making excuses for lying.

From the article

> “ We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

We don’t know, he doesn’t know, no one knows the exact number. Yeah he’s being a bit coy, but all the numbers he’s thrown out since the delta are in that range

Btw Fauci technically isn’t cdc. Just saying bc we’re being ultra strict on the herd immunity estimates but very lax on other facts when accusing the cdc. Seems inconsistent.

A "bit coy"? No. He said it explicitly that he's picking the highest number on the range. He gives no reason. Why not just tell us the range and leave it there?

Also, if "we need to have some humility," then perhaps maybe experts should stop thinking that they know best for everyone?

"lied" - interesting choice of words. So did Newton "lie" about his theories because he was disproved by Einstein?

You're being disingenuous. Newton's model still "works" (at low speeds and when we don't need high precision), so he didn't lie. He also believed what he was saying.

Fauci, on the other hand, does not believe himself. He says things as we are "ready to hear" them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

That's lying. If he got updated information and told us so, that's not lying. But he didn't; he just decided to say something different because it was now politically expedient.

Fauci is a political operative, not a scientist.

You’re saying Fauci isn’t a scientist? Ridiculous.

Paywalled. Herd immunity is not one strict number. It depends on the transmissibility of the virus. Alpha was more. Delta is much more. Now A.Y variant is slightly more than Delta. All these affect the herd immunity number. But you can't lay out these sort of qualifiers when you are communicating to public. Seems like by using words like "political operative" and all you really show your ignorance.

I have JavaScript disabled, so it appears for me.

The relevant quote is:

> In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

(Emphasis added.)

In other words, he only tells us what is politically expedient. That is, by definition, what a political operative does.

I would suggest you not assume I'm ignorant before reading articles I link to.

The masks thing has been talked over a bunch on HN so I won’t revisit that argument but it’s a dead end: it was a potentially incorrect measure to take but also not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be.

Percentage of people/herd immunity: they straight up did not lie. They said that based on what we know of similar diseases the guess would be 75-95% of the population need to be vaccinated. Everyone immediately latched onto the 75% mark and also this was in 2020 when we knew comparatively approximately nothing about COVID. This is like saying “based on our knowledge of Toyota Corollas, a Ferrari will do 0-60 in at most 5 seconds”. Technically true, but not backed by studies until studies are able to be completed.

Your last sentence sounds like you formed an opinion before doing the research so I see no point in addressing it.

Sounds like there is no study you can point to that was compromised?

> it was a potentially incorrect measure to take but also not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be.

Any lie from an expert is a big deal. We are supposed to "trust experts", right? Any lie makes them lose trust.

> Percentage of people/herd immunity: they straight up did not lie.

Fauci did. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

> Sounds like there is no study you can point to that was compromised?

Not one from the CDC directly, but https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/health/coronavirus-hydrox... .

However, the CDC is definitely fudging the numbers on deaths, per https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-I... :

> COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.

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