Masking Policy Is Incredibly Irrational | Hacker News Reader

Masking Policy Is Incredibly Irrational

theatlantic.com

31 pointsgamechangr36 comments

This shit is why “trust the science” always rings so disingenuous to me. Practically nobody saying it actually reads the science or cares when it disagrees with them.

How about the fact that real science is never supposed to be "trusted" but always questioned, and changes when more evidence is uncovered. Instead, "the science" is treated as a religion, with anyone who questions it labeled a heretic.

In terms of public policy in an emergency situation, "trust the science" means "trust the science based on best evidence available right now." Even in ideal circumstances the science is rarely certain, and this is doubly true in an emerging pandemic involving a novel virus. So policy in those circumstances is always going to be made with significant uncertainties, and also significant differences of opinion. And it will, as you note, change when more evidence is uncovered---which is exactly what happened. The US CDC has been widely criticized for changing guidelines over time, for that very reason, that new information came to light as the pandemic continued. It's unavoidable in such an uncertain environment that, whatever is decided, there will be a significant faction that disagrees with the policy. It is also inevitable that there will be policy winners and losers---politicians are under heavy pressure to do something, and the nature of the threat dictates that they can't wait until the evidence is overwhelming. And if you're the loser in that scenario, you're going to feel like the "real science" was in your favor and ignored for political reasons.

Aside from legitimate scientific disagreement, there is also the very human political phenomenon of anti-authoritarianism, in which there is a segment of the population that is predisposed to oppose government mandates of any kind, but particularly where they cannot directly observe the problem the mandates are designed to address. Most people in most places, at least here in the US, never directly experienced the kind of emergency that public pandemic policy was designed to avoid. Depending on your point of view, you can regard that as a success of the policy, or evidence that the policy wasn't needed. I think given the examples of places like northern Italy where the virus raged largely unabated, that the best evidence suggests that the former is the case.

>"trust the science" means "trust the science based on best evidence available right now."

That's an easier ask when we have reason to trust the CDC, Dr. Fauci etc. But when they embrace the concept of "the noble lie", that will obviously lead to people not trusting them.

Perhaps, if the CDC had lied. But they did not. Most of the distrust came from a) the policy shifts, which while justifiable based on emerging information, confused and disturbed people, and b) politically-motivated criticism from right-wing politicians.

> Perhaps, if the CDC had lied. But they did not.

They absolutely did - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/health/covid-cdc-data.htm...

More people would believe that if you communicate it exactly like that.

"We are not sure how much protection masks do offer, but if you want to be cautious it is highly recommended to wear them and we are looking to mandate use in certain locations out of caution".

Would not be too difficult and summoning a ghost just induces more mistrust. Another advantage of being honest here is that you can recall that policy without losing face. It also does not induce unrealistic expectations which will haunt you on other policies.

> there is also the very human political phenomenon of anti-authoritarianism, in which there is a segment of the population that is predisposed to oppose government mandates of any kind

I don't really see the disadvantages here to be honest and they wouldn't have much room for opposition.

If you listen to the interviews with the CDC officials, they generally did communicate it like that. But people often hear what they want to hear, and if they've heard a lot of skepticism about the CDC from trusted political leaders, they're going to listen to what those leaders say the CDC said, rather than what it actually said.

The obvious potential disadvantage of a knee-jerk reaction against authority in an emergency is that many could die because a few people opposed any mandate out of misplaced principle. Whether you think that is relevant in this case depends on whether you understand what the true dangers were. I think most of the people opposed to masking and vaccine mandates simply never understood the epidemic beyond the immediate threat it presented to themselves personally. And of course public officials are responsible for a much bigger picture.

Neil Young got to enjoy a high horse over Joe Rogan, despite spending an entire career peddling pseudoscience quackery about GMO and food additives and audio formats.

Neil Young really just embarrassed himself. Spotify obliged him though : https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/arts/music/spotify-neil-y...

My pre-school is now debating if our 4 year old kids should be able to take off their masks outdoors. Some people in the group have a problem with even that. It’s totally irrational.

I really don’t understand who masking little kids is supposed to protect? Not adults, they are vaccinated. Not the kids themselves, they aren’t at risk of any kind of serious covid stuff. So who, who does it serve by masking toddlers?

Adults are supposed to sacrifice for kids. Making kids sacrifice their one and only childhood for a bunch of fully vaccinated adults… just doesn’t seem right morally.

It serves the irrationally scared parents. Probably not a good thing, yeah.

And it serves those with/in power; they want obedience.

We are regressing and sliding down the sides to the bottom and headed towards authoritarianism. Many conservatives (and their "leadership") demand loyalty (obedience) to not just the party but the person (Trump). Many liberals are demanding obedience to government and party edicts (mandates).

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/politicalspectrum-1211081020...

Why are you so milquetoast in your assessment and criticism of this issue? It is obviously absurd, deranged and abusive. This has nothing to do with the well being of kids, it is a power-trip and humiliation ritual by insane people, and I bet some of the people imposing this have a sort of Munchausen by proxy situation going on.

Go to your school board meetings, organize with other parents, and put and end to this nonsense.

Do you ever worry about the mental weakness being instilled on your kids, the emotional and developmental disruption this will cause? Kids need to interact and communicate with people, see faces, interact normally. Why allow this to continue as a parent?

I believe this kind of policy of masking preschoolers is unique to the US. At least I’ve never heard such a thing in reporting about Europe.

For example in Germany caregivers don’t wear masks when interacting with children either because it’s considered to harm their development.

https://archive.ph/E1Vvh

(in USA)

Not any less irrational in Europe. The countries I’ve visited recently that still require masks rarely have them available anywhere.

I’ve walked into so many businesses in France and Spain that insist I should wear a mask, but yet don’t have any available for customers.

A bizarre situation, especially as WHO recommends that masks shouldn’t be worn for more than 4 hours at a time and that disposable masks should be thrown away after weraring.

What are people supposed to do? Walk around with a big box of masks?

At least in the UK ~all businesses (used to) offer free masks to customers.

If the government wants everyone to wear masks indoors, it shouldn’t be hard to supply all businesses with loads of masks to hand out.

That random businesses don't hand them out isn't a policy issue. And by now also something that's rarely needed: you can get them all over the place in shops, so ~everybody already has them, so ~nobody needs to get one in a specific restaurant or whatever. I seem how it could be occasionally convenient, but doesn't seem like a big problem.

Of course it’s a policy issue, if the government wants everyone entering random businesses to wear masks then the government should supply the masks.

Now they’ve just created a situation where random businesses will use government policy as a cover to extort multiple euros for a mask that didn’t cost them even a cent.

> you can get them all over the place in shops, so ~everybody already has them, so ~nobody needs to get one in a specific restaurant or whatever.

This isn’t true though. Very few people actually carry multiple masks with them, and you shouldn’t wear the same mask all day long.

Businesses making these things available at scale has worked way better and efficiently than governments trying to do so (same with rapid tests), given that I don't think it would be a good policy to have the government do it. I guess you could by policy require most businesses to have them at hand as a compromise.

It’s worked in places where it has worked, such as the UK as far as I can tell.

It certainly hasn’t worked in France or Spain.

> given that I don't think it would be a good policy to have the government do it.

At the very least the government could mandate random businesses to provide free masks, no? Surgical masks cost almost nothing at scale, but as it stands there are tons of businesses extorting multiple for basic surgical masks.

This is a clear government policy failure.

> It certainly hasn’t worked in France or Spain.

So you can't just get them there by the box at corner stores, supermarkets, ...? That's how its here in Germany and that's IMHO enough. (early on, when they weren't as widely available, the government tried to give a few FFP3s to people in need and that was an embarrassing clusterfuck of ... I don't even know. Probably corruption.)

Are people supposed to carry boxes of masks with them now? Perhaps easy to do if you carry a purse.

Realistically most people won’t do this, and people will just end up wearing the same mask for excessive periods of time. Contaminating it over and over, taking it off, stuffing it in a dirty pocket with money, keys, whatever and putting it back on.

That’s a big policy failure.

It was just written earlier you shouldnt wear a mask for longer than 4 h. So even if you walk around for 24h that's 6 masks, they take up literally less space than your phone. Are you comaining that it's impossible for you to carry your phone or wallet around with you? This is clearly getting ridiculous, its too difficult to carry 6 masks on you?

What sort of argument is that. Government require all sort of things without supplying them. They don't supply seat belts for example, even though you are required to wear one.

Or take the "no shoes, no shirt, no service" signs common in the US, should the businesses supply you with shoes or a t-shirt?

It was never supposed to be rational.

In what sense?

I find it very strange to be getting public health policy input from an economist.

Having more inputs from a diverse set of experience and life experiences always makes for better outcomes. If all we did was listen to public health “experts” we’d never ditch the masks.

Her book "Expecting Better" came highly recommended from multiple pediatricians - it's among the most trusted books about pregnancy.

And I would strongly recommend almost anyone read it - one of the main premises of the book is making reasonable risk assessments from complicated or conflicting research.

With Covid potential shutdowns, our heath policy is very much an economic decision. They are increasingly overlapping.

It would be great if public health policies consulted more industries.

The public health community presumably has some expertise as to the health consequences of certain policies.

However, it has no expertise wrt the social or economic consequences of said policies.

What's irrational is the function of masks is primarily to protect everybody else from the person wearing the mask, protecting the person wearing the mask is a secondary concern. Doctors in a surgical theater aren't wearing masks primarily to protect themselves from the patient, they're wearing masks to protect the patient from themselves. Given that - requiring toddlers to wear masks is pretty irrational. They don't need protection from themselves, they need protection from us. We're the ones who should be wearing masks whenever we're around toddlers.

Beyond that - teach toddlers how to properly wash their hands and keep their hands and fingers away from their face. That'll go a long way to keeping them healthy for a lifetime.

> teach toddlers how to properly wash their hands and keep their hands and fingers away from their face.

??Tell me you’ve never been around toddlers without telling me…

I have 3 children and work with kids groups - and yes, you can get toddlers to wash their hands. As I said, it’s hard but it’s worth the effort because it’ll serve them well for the rest of their lives.

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