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Comment by ummonk | Hacker News Reader

It was crazy to see suggestions to wear masks or claims that covid was airborne getting "fact-checked" by the media only to reverse their position months later after WHO put out new statements. In particular, the phrase "no credible evidence" was wildly thrown around without mentioning whether there were any credible high-powered studies that had even attempted to find evidence of the phenomenon.

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With hindsight we can see their mistakes but isn't following the expert line the best thing to do in an uncertain situation?

I mean there was a very sizable group that saw the mistakes in real time. Not necessarily the medical mistakes but the censorship mistakes. I’m not sure how anyone can know what to do in an uncertain situation like that but being unable to question authority isn’t good for most societies.

Unfortunately, we've learned that the experts are there mainly to reinforce whatever makes businesses money. That's who gets access to the airwaves and government press conferences. So if you think there's an alternative reality that might be unprofitable, you have to figure it out for yourself. The best COVID info is and was on Twitter since 2020. Just stunning amounts of primary lit being shared with expert opinion. You have to tune your bullshit sense though, and unfortunately that might require having a science background...

This is how many people realized that COVID is airborne and that only N95 and better respirators provide real protection. People now discuss air cleaning, the impacts of Long COVID, etc. The vaccines were seized upon by the political parties as a wedge issue to force the economy open. They help with medical system capacity, but do not block transmission and Long COVID.

You can find an ongoing science based pandemic response policy at https://pandemicjustice.icu

Trusting in appointed experts instead of critical thinking is the worst thing to do in uncertain times.

Nobody knew if covid was airborne at the time, so the most correct answer was nobody knows. Some people got lucky by making things up on the spot and guessed it was airborne. At a certain point their confirmation bias and distrust of media broke their perception of the world and they became antivax etc, still no critical thinking taking place.

Many did not know and took extra steps like wearing a mask. What the experts did was say anyone wearing masks is racist against asian people.

Their was no vaccine at this point so no one against it yet.

The critical thinking can be found in the independent minds of those who made the choice to wear a mask. Listening to an expert didn't play out well.

Your genius is only validated by the experts eventually proving that wearing a mask was a good idea.

Do you have the quote from the WHO saying the use of masks was racist?

Thank you. Because what you're talking about is blind trust in someone who has been put into a position of supposed authority. I can't bring myself to do it - I don't know these people so until I'm presented with credible evidence that makes sense to me, I believe a position of extreme skepticism is warranted.

Many of these things were obvious at the time if you were paying attention.

Many people were also certain of obvious beliefs that turned out to be untrue.

Following the best guess of those with the knowledge and experience is definitely the best best, but I find myself, like most people, questioning their motives. It's healthy to do so but also a sad commentary.

When experts are wrong ignore them as noise. I trust the cdc as much as I trust Jim Cramer on investments. Both are technically experts

Sure as a general rule, but that doesn't render those experts free from criticism when they make mistakes. That low confidence scientific hypotheses were treated as high confidence scientific results is a valid critique of expert interaction with the general public, as it led to search engine censorship of objectively true information.

This isn't quite correct. They eventually knew that masks worked, but delayed to help doctors get them: https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-mask-advice-was-becaus...

"delayed"? They lied.

> the phrase "no credible evidence" was wildly thrown around

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence...

Uh... are you suggesting that at some not-insignificant point into the pandemic someone credible was arguing COVID was NOT airborne?

Actually, yes. For the first half of the pandemic, much of the medical community was unsure if COVID was airborne.

Examples:

- https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-reverses-agai...

- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7

- https://archive.is/wPD2D (Tweet from WHO)

Note that "airborne" has a specific meaning in medical literature. Everyone agreed COVID could be transmitted in the air by respiratory droplets. But to be truly "airborne" means the virus could be aerosolized and float freely, without being attached to a larger droplet.

Both droplet-based and aerosolized/"airborne" spread allows viruses to be transmitted in the air. But a truly "airborne" virus can travel much farther.

It's the difference between needing 6 feet and 20 feet of distance to prevent spread.

(To put it bluntly, it's the difference between avoiding spittle, or avoiding the equivalent of cigarette smoke. Two very different threat models.)

This is the excuse hospitals used to send nurses into covid units with no or insufficient PPE when they got caught flat-footed having no stored supply. (and it was BS)

I don’t know your definition of credible. But the Swedish institute of health (my translation) still has articles of it being spread by droplets. https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/smittskydd-beredskap/utb...

Yes I believe it was the WHO or US government (the only sources I was following at the time) that explicitly stated they "did not have evidence" covid was airborne.

Yes, in the early days of the pandemic there was a lot of official resistance to acknowledging this, mostly because doing so would have meant accepting that COVID was effectively unstoppable.

You don't remember health authorities telling people masks don't work, and to wipe your groceries down? I do.

I remember Pelosi telling people to go dance around the streets of Chinatown and celebrate the new year or they're racist.

Early in the pandemic there was a very aggressive "you don't need masks and please don't buy them because hospitals need them"

Ex: "US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams not only wants people to stop buying facemasks to prevent the novel coronavirus, but warns that you actually might increase your risk of infection if facemasks are not worn properly. [...] On Sunday, Adams posted on Twitter that people should stop buying masks. Rather, he tweeted that to keep yourself and those around you healthy, wash your hands often, avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands and disinfect surfaces."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-corona...

The entirety of first half was "Nurses and Doctors need the mask, please don't buy them."

The consensus and official line amongst epidemiologists (and the health organizations and media that relayed this official line to the public) was that COVID was only transmitted by droplet transmission i.e. droplets that fall to the ground within several feet (hence the 6 feet / 2 meters social distancing rule) and don't float around in the air. This was despite obvious evidence of outbreaks that could have only occurred via ventilation systems or the virus floating around in the air in an elevator.

Here's an article going over the issue and what convinced them to change their mind: https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...

It turned out they were wrong not just about COVID, but a whole host of other diseases, based on erroneous criteria about what sized droplets could float in the air. Ironically, doctors from centuries ago with their theories of "miasma" / bad air would have been closer to the truth.

The WHO has a lot of blame itself for misinformation. And, I personally believe, a lot of conspiracy theories definitely caught fire from their mistakes.

https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898?lang=en

Also, as you can see in the replies, a lot of people called BS at the time, but who were they to question the official WHO line? Yes, the WHO later came around and came up with 6 feet instead of 1 meter, but those who called BS on the WHO's statement may have saved their lives.

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