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Comment by monkeydreams | Hacker News Reader

Understanding why it took medical experts so long to realise that masks were important is a saga in its own right. It's not a case of hypocrisy as such, as the fact it went against the core belief of clinicians about what separates a serious person of medicine from a quack.

The beliefs closest to our hearts receive the least inspection.

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Rigorous science is a pretty slow process. A study taking a year to get published is pretty expected. Scientific consensus comes after several such studies.

Relying on science to dictate policy regarding a new and rapidly evolving situation is just a very bad idea.

Perhaps, but relying on best current knowledge that is backed by evidence is a pretty good policy. It may not always be correct, but it's a whole lot better than blind conjecture. Even if it's a guess made by the most educated guy in the room, that's still the most educated guess we have. Hindsight is 20/20, and we bias our view of past decisions with current knowledge.

It's good in certain situations, when there is a good body of scientific knowledge to fall back on.

The tragic flaw of science-based policymaking is that scientific understanding requires evidence, and evidence is only available after an intervention is put into place. Because of this, if you rely on science alone to dictate policy, it becomes a reactionary force that opposes all new ideas as too poorly understood to be implemented.

What the revisionist crap is this?

China told the west it was airborne and that masks should be used in like bloody February.

Right after January when they got all their party members to send masks home from the west.

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