Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#211

Post by DanBC » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #143

clairity wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you for demonstrating the exact illusion of safety that's so pervasive around mask-wearing. no, masks are marginal , that's the point, they work at the margins. it's the distancing that's doing the work of "much less coronavirus". for your statement to be relatively true, we'd need to live in a world with no lockdowns and no distancing.

Do you have a source for your claim that masks are less impactful than distancing?

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

> The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis support physical distancing of 1 m or more and provide quantitative estimates for models and contact tracing to inform policy. Optimum use of face masks, respirators, and eye protection in public and health-care settings should be informed by these findings and contextual factors. Robust randomised trials are needed to better inform the evidence for these interventions, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence might inform interim guidance.

This is clear: physical distance definitely works. Optimal use of masks might work -- that's all they can say, and they need better evidence.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#212

Post by DanBC » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

jdc wrote: post #206

DanBC wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the above tweet. Your mask is by definition contaminated (that's why you wear it, to catch the contamination), and many people fiddle with their masks. They then rub their eyes, or they touch their mouth.

Then let's solve that problem!

We need better evidence that masks provide any benefit and don't cause harm before we try to fix problems.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#213

Post by aspenmayer » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #205

ksdale wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with this very charitable interpretation, he was still completely incorrect about their effectiveness for stopping public spread, was he not?

No. There's no evidence that masks do anything at all to prevent public spread. People point to countries that had successful anti-covid work and use of masks, but they're missing all the other work those countries did around social distancing and track and trace.

Lack of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#214

Post by Hnrobert42 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #193

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow...just wow. The only way to deal with people having bad ideas is censorship? Seriously? What about improving education, building functional (and trusted) institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media? It really bothers me that there is a group of people begging for corporate overloads to control and think for the population. Its literally the opposite of everything this country stands for.

> What about improving education, building functional (and trusted) institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media? They do not work, because the time and cost to create and widely disseminate falsehoods is much less than the time and cost to refute those falsehoods. See "Firehose of falsehood" [1], which is an apt name for what happens now thanks to the internet and social media greatly lowering…

Exactly. I see a lot of posts refuting the garbage from the too post, and it does nothing. It’s like watching a whole community try to nail jello to a telephone pole.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#215

Post by DanBC » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

jdc wrote: post #204

DanBC wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> agree that the reason healthcare workers wear masks is to prevent airborne infections, especially of SARS-Cov-2. There's a big difference between a healthcare professional spending time in close contact with symptomatic people and a member of the public spending time walking round a supermarket. And healthcare professionals do not "wear masks", they wear a full set of PPE including gloves, gown, mask, eye protectio…

Healthcare professionals absolutely do wear masks. Words have meanings. Let's make our minds up about whether the lack of papers supporting mask-wearing against the virus is reason not to wear their them. Also I'm earnestly interested in your source on the distancing evidence.

But the mask is part of a set of PPE. By ignoring the eyes you're ignoring an important route.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

> 2019-nCoV transmission through the ocular surface must not be ignored

Source for distancing: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Findings

Our search identified 172 observational studies across 16 countries and six continents, with no randomised controlled trials and 44 relevant comparative studies in health-care and non-health-care settings (n=25 697 patients). Transmission of viruses was lower with physical distancing of 1 m or more, compared with a distance of less than 1 m (n=10 736, pooled adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0·18, 95% CI 0·09 to 0·38; risk difference [RD] −10·2%, 95% CI −11·5 to −7·5; moderate certainty); protection was increased as distance was lengthened (change in relative risk [RR] 2·02 per m; pinteraction=0·041; moderate certainty). Face mask use could result in a large reduction in risk of infection (n=2647; aOR 0·15, 95% CI 0·07 to 0·34, RD −14·3%, −15·9 to −10·7; low certainty), with stronger associations with N95 or similar respirators compared with disposable surgical masks or similar (eg, reusable 12–16-layer cotton masks; pinteraction=0·090; posterior probability >95%, low certainty). Eye protection also was associated with less infection (n=3713; aOR 0·22, 95% CI 0·12 to 0·39, RD −10·6%, 95% CI −12·5 to −7·7; low certainty). Unadjusted studies and subgroup and sensitivity analyses showed similar findings.

Interpretation

The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis support physical distancing of 1 m or more and provide quantitative estimates for models and contact tracing to inform policy. Optimum use of face masks, respirators, and eye protection in public and health-care settings should be informed by these findings and contextual factors. Robust randomised trials are needed to better inform the evidence for these interventions, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence might inform interim guidance.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#216

Post by SomeoneFromCA » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

tsbinz wrote: post #125

darawk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC and WHO both at various times recommended against the general public wearing masks. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/13/21214114/media-coronavi... This advice was wrong. It is not just sick people that benefit from wearing masks. It is not true that people are flattening that into "masks don't work". Masks don't work was repeated many, many times by these organizations. Here's an example: https://www.cidrap.…

I'm not sure about "severe consequences". If you compare Switzerland (where, although the government now recommends masks in public transport at least but almost nobody does wear a mask) and Austria (where wearing masks while shopping/in public transport etc was made mandatory when the restrictions were eased), you don't see much of a difference in the amount of new cases. I do believe masks work and I do wear one wh…

You'd see though a dramatic difference in death rate between Austria and Switzerland. It appears, that the virus is deadlier when you get more of it the moment you infected; countries with the strictest mask regimes, voluntary or mandatory (Taiwan, Korea etc) have the lowest death rate, but not necessarily infection rate.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#217

Post by themaninthedark » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #183

dougmany wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always amused at how effective the There is no scientific evidence line is. That just means it has not been studied. No one has studied masks on this specific strain? It's new for crying out loud.

There is a lot of work on respiratory viruses and masks, and none of the RCTs can find a benefit of wearing masks. > No one has studied masks on this specific strain? It's new for crying out loud. Yes they have. Here's one where they take four patients who have covid-19 and fit them with masks and ask them to cough onto petri dishes. They find covid outside the masks. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342

This was binary test. It looks like they were testing if Covid-19 passed through masks or not. They did not look at N95 masks, nor did they look at seeing if the viral load was decreased.

"This experiment did not include N95 masks and does not reflect the actual transmission of infection from patients with COVID-19 wearing different types of masks. We do not know whether masks shorten the travel distance of droplets during coughing. Further study is needed to recommend whether face masks decrease transmission of virus from asymptomatic individuals or those with suspected COVID-19 who are not coughing."

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#218

Post by crazygringo » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

StuntPope wrote: post #168

natechols wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure Berenson is a libertarian? He seems to be a much bigger fan of drug prohibition than any self-proclaimed libertarian I've ever met.

Berenson isn't a libertarian, the guy who wrote the article (me), is. And I grapple with the dissonance between free market libertarian principles and big tech "take-it-or-leave-it" control over discourse all the time. As Voltaire says... "uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd one". Every ideology has these complicated areas within them and you're either aware of them and grapple with i…

But the whole point of extreme political ideologies like libertarianism and anarchism is that they are dogmatic. They have simple answers to complex problems.

If you're grappling with gray areas, then congrats! You now have a more nuanced understanding that brings you closer to center, and you're not libertarian anymore.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#219

Post by dougmany » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #183

dougmany wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always amused at how effective the There is no scientific evidence line is. That just means it has not been studied. No one has studied masks on this specific strain? It's new for crying out loud.

There is a lot of work on respiratory viruses and masks, and none of the RCTs can find a benefit of wearing masks. > No one has studied masks on this specific strain? It's new for crying out loud. Yes they have. Here's one where they take four patients who have covid-19 and fit them with masks and ask them to cough onto petri dishes. They find covid outside the masks. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342

It is interesting that the cotton masks were more effective than the surgical mask:

>The median viral loads after coughs without a mask, with a surgical mask, and with a cotton mask were 2.56 log copies/mL, 2.42 log copies/mL, and 1.85 log copies/mL, respectively

My point was that if the statement read Scientific evidence shows masks are not effective it would means something. The lack of evidence showing effectiveness does not disprove effectiveness.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#220

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

panzagl wrote: post #44

akerro wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is still selling Mein Kampf, they don't seem to care about it as long as it brings profit?

Mein Kampf is an important document for understanding one of the most significant and tragic events in history. Only the truly ignorant would try to remove it.

[deleted]