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Comment by hilliardfarmer | Hacker News Reader

Great article but it should have included some remarks about how unnecessary, fruitless and a waste of time and resources it all was.

Are people on average still not able to accept the whole thing was idiotic from start to finish? The very idea masking ever helped a single person avoid getting covid is just stilly at this point, right? Otherwise we'd still be doing it or at least getting the vaccine, I don't know anyone that's gotten it the last 3 years.

Article would have been better from the angle of, "look at all the stupid stuff people were doing, ha" not, "these people were HEROES!" At best they were misled, at worst, profiteer idiots.

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That is a bold claim contrary to the consensus of evidence I could find. From what I've read, masks were generally effective at reducing the spread of COVID, found mostly through observational studies, but backed by some random trials as well.

You should either cite evidence or amend your claim.

I think the main point was to flatten the curve, as hospitals were overloaded. Masks (at least the better ones) did reduce the likelihood of getting covid, and people didn't have the antibodies they have now.

And if you lived in a state that published open data you could see this happen — hospitalization rate goes up and bed count goes down, and we’d go to tighter restrictions until the trend reversed and the bed count went back up. A lot of the public health response wasn’t about stopping COVID transmission, it was about limiting the effect on a hospital’s ability to provide care for things like life-threatening injuries.

Viruses get less dangerous over time. Hospitals absolutely were overwhelmed back then, and anything to reduce spread helped.

Virus spread follows exponential/logistic growth. Something could reduce spread 5% per month and that would still have an extremely big impact in a pandemic that lasted years. It's not necessary for any of the precautions to have been remotely close to 100% effective to argue they were helpful and important.

We now know the comparison: https://theconversation.com/did-swedens-controversial-covid-...

Elderly in Sweden got hurt really badly while the very youngest didn't have the education losses seen elsewhere.

However, Swedes, unlike dumbass Americans, took sensible precautions even though there weren't required by law.

> Swedes were not forced to take action against the spread of the virus, but they did so anyway. This voluntary approach might not have worked everywhere, but Sweden has a history of high trust in authorities, and people tend to comply with public health recommendations.

> In its final report on the pandemic response, the Corona Commission concluded that tougher measures should have been taken early in the pandemic, such as quarantine for those returning from high-risk areas and a temporary ban on entry to Sweden.

This seems extremely reductionist in a reckless manner.

You're taking some partial truths (sure, some responses were overblown, though some were frustratingly half-measures too) and making an enormous logical leap that the entire response was "idiotic from start to finish".

You can't assume that because we eventually ended certain interventions, they never did anything at all. You're retrojecting.

Once you get the vaccine you generally only need a few boosters and you're done.

I haven't gotten a diphtheria vax since I was a child. What a waste of time!

If masks don't do anything why do surgeons wear them?

That's the nuance missing from the parent's snark, masks are most effective at preventing the wearer from transmitting infections to the people around them (especially important in an operating theater). Masks may also help prevent the wearer from inhaling airborne pathogens, though they're less effective there.

Also missing from the discussion is that it is easy to prove that an N95 mask works because the effect is so dramatic.

The fact that the efficacy of a surgical mask is more difficult to prove does not mean that it doesn't work. And, as you point out, the major benefit is to the people around you so that you don't unintentionally spread the disease before you realize you have it.

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