Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a European I'm quite surprised how deep the conspiracy theories and suspicions against the state go in the US. You don't need tp take everything at face value, but to be so suspicious of essential institutions like the CDC seems crazy to me. Except for a vocal but tiny minority there's a lot of trust in the institutions of the EU and (Western) Europe, where citizrns at most worry about incompetence, not malicious…
I think the CDC's original statements on masks (they aren't necessary, they're only effective at preventing the spread of COVID if the wearer has a medical degree, don't wear masks on planes, etc) contributed a lot to the distrust and politicization of mask wearing. When you expect an institution to always be impartial and tell the truth, those sorts of white lies can quickly erode trust.
Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
401–410 of 925 posts
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems pretty logical to me. Every decision is a risk/reward calculation. The vaccine does carry the risk of side effects and adverse reactions. That risk, for most, is VERY small. But if the person in question also has very low risk of contracting or spreading Covid (works from home, rarely goes out, young, healthy) and if being vaccinated doesn’t actually enable you to live any differently than you already are, t…
The logical decision here involves civic duty. I certainly fit into the low risk category, etc., but I also exist in society and am a willing participant, and as such have certain responsibilities to other people in my community.
Also, if vaccination doesn’t change the risk enough for you to drop some of the other precautions, that also lowers the perceived value of the efficacy of the vaccine as well.
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the Atlantic noted recently [0] there are many who see masks and safety measures due to COVID as part of their political identity. Likes guns to some, the masks, more critically the forcing of others to wear masks and abide by certain precautions, has become a weapon in politics. My distrust of the masks, and friction at being forced to wear one, really comes from that distrust of those who are forcing me; they ar…
I could comprehend annoyance, but what political gain do you expect them to obtain once you wear your mask in full submission ? At best that you dont get sick, at worst that you dont contaminate other. I really dont see the link between "we must provide an advantage on the job market to black people", a political side we can disagree on, and "wear a mask", something that bring nobody any pleasure nor comfort nor adva…
What political gain does a ruling clique get when e.g. they force people to admit "2+2=5"?
About the falsity of "two plus two equals five", in Room 101, the interrogator O'Brien tells the thought criminal Smith that control over physical reality is unimportant to the Party, provided the citizens of Oceania subordinate their real-world perceptions to the political will of the Party; and that, by way of doublethink: "Sometimes, Winston. [Sometimes it is four fingers.] Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once".[3]
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please also note it is unnecessary to do any additional analysis to describe the example cited as a "lie." We know it was a deliberate lie because the then head of the CDC has said so [1] - unless he was lying about claiming he was lying there's not much doubt in that case. The CDC lie when it suits them isn't something that's really debatable. Does it matter that they lied? This is the proposition that can be debate…
I know this gets repeated a lot, but that doesn't make it more true. Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks", and "we changed our message about masks" doesn't count. The reality is that the knowledge about Covid changed significantly in march/April last year. In particular the understanding about unsymptomatic spread lead to a significant change of thinking. That makes sense, if the virus only spreads f…
If mask initial recommendation actually was a white lie a case can be made that they are unfit for communicating their results to the masses as they think their peers to be petulant children unfit for handling truths, and they should be stripped of that function
The other cases just convert into variations of them politicising a pandemic to unknown ends
As for the WHO, these organisations shouldn't have an easy way out of their responsibilities
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#405It’s good to give better incentives for people to be vaccinated, as many have urged for some time. I worry this carrot isn’t tied to an adequate stick - the unvaccinated can simply go without a mask regardless of their status. Will this move actually counter our slowing vaccination rates?
Good lord. It is almost like they want to discourage people to not get vaccinated.
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#406For some people the goalposts are moving faster than the speed of light. The goal was to flatten the curve. Remember that? Flatten. The. Curve. Is the curve not flat? How much flatter do you want it to be before returning to normal life? Do you want literally 0.000% risk?
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CDC/surgeon general recommended not wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic, while Silicon Valley was way ahead of the curve (meanwhile hit pieces were posted by journalists with an axe to grind saying they we’re overreacting). So yes it has lost its credibility.
This is the citation I found for this claim: https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/06/the-cdc-now-recommend... Overall, science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. This is no different in my mind than the gradual change in the recommendations towards cigarette smoking over the decades, only in this case it played out over weeks and months (that article wa…
CDC is a public health organization, not a science making organization. Its responsibility is to make the competent public health decisions based on the best available data and sound risk management. No one is faulting CDC for eventually course correcting, they are criticizing it for not having followed a more risk averse strategy from the get go and not having communicated their rationale honestly.
Imagine if FDA behaved like CDC; roll out the vaccines to general public with minimal trial, updating their decision on safety as more data came in. Scientific incrementalism doesn't suit all use cases, and this has nothing to do with infallibility.
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#408I find it interesting that the people who screamed "trust/listen to the CDC!" the loudest when the CDC's position was "everyone wear your mask and stay home as much as you can" are now the ones looking hardest for reasons to ignore/downplay/criticize the CDC's guidance.
Because it's a publicly visible political statement and tribal signaling. What the MAGA hat was for the right, the mask is for the left.
Over here in my parts of Eastern-Europe the government just announced yesterday that starting tomorrow (Saturday) the mask won't be mandatory anymore in almost all outdoor spaces for everyone, a statement which was received with joy and relief by almost everyone, no matter their political orientation.
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 10-30% of Americans got COVID-19 so far, depending on how you tally the numbers. Of those, approximately 8% can be expected to experience long-term effects that disrupt their daily lives: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/91270 >About 8% of all participants said at least one activity of daily living suffered long-term consequences, most commonly household chores. That puts the net risk for…
And how do you measure the mid to long term risk of a novel mRNA technology which is effectively in trial now, under emergency approval, when vaccines typically take years of safety evaluations? Particularly considering that there are preprints out with a mechanism identified for reverse transcription of the spike producing mRNA, which could result in chronic inflammatory disease in some proportion of recipients, giv…
And we have a long track record of understanding this because viruses and vaccine cause the same kinds of autoimmune conditions. I had viral pericarditis once from a common cold that struck a month or two after I got over it. We've got hundreds of years of experience with it.
The issue with vaccines taking a long time to get approval is development time and efficacy data. Both of those were able to be done quickly due to the massive pandemic and due to the 10 years of preparatory work done on SARS-CoV-1 and mRNA vaccines.
And your interpretation of the reverse transcription article is just bullshit misinformation.
And you're still not escaping from being exposed to SARS-CoV-1 mRNA, it'll become endemic. You're getting it from the virus or the vaccine, there's not really going to be any skipping out.
(And if the LINE-1 results are correct this is how we pick up genetic material from all kinds of RNA viruses, our genome is littered with historical pandemics).
Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said
#410I’m curious. Does the CDC say the same for people who have had Covid itself? I was not able to read the post (paywalled). Or people who test positive for antibodies?