Live data from Hacker News

Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

nytimes.com

611–620 of 925 posts

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#612

Earlier 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.

Genuine question, why did they not lose credibility when they started recommending them due to political pressure rather than “the science”? As I understand it, there is still very flimsy scientific backing for the effectiveness of masks.

For aerosols, cloth masks are an order of magnitude less effective than dipole charged N95 (which attract sub micron scale particles with a built-in electric charge in the fibers, it’s a high-tech process.)

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#613
post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fauci, and way too many Medical Doctors, seemed guenuinly confused over the efficacy of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of he Covid virus. A lot medical professionals were claiming the average person wearing a mask will make things worse by putting it on ineffectively. I heard one doctor say, "All it takes is one virus particle to become infected. I haven't heard any doctor talk about Viral Loads, even now. My p…

Zeynep Tufekci published an excellent article about this. Her thesis is that medical dogma insisted COVID (and other infections) spread through droplets and not aerosols. Social distancing is enough to prevent infection from droplets because they don't travel far. That, it turns out, is wrong, and COVID can spread through smaller respiratory particles that can float, making social distancing alone ineffective. https:…

There was information that it was aerosolized from the early days (March)

We were lied to because america did not stockpile enough masks for first responders

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#614
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame the professionals for getting things wrong on this. My personal feeling is that it was hard to know if masks worked for the general populace before Covid-19. There are so many confounding variables that it very difficult to study masks from a public health side. The best approximation was studies of health professionals in hospitals or clinics which doesn't exactly translate for a multitude of reasons.

To be honest, we still don't really know if masks work. They look like they probably do something, but the evidence is weak and the effect size small. It's totally worth it to bend an exponential function. But the individual benefit from mask wearing in any given interaction is negligible.

Can you point me toward some of that research?

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#616

I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and skepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance, and law enforcement. Yet simultaneously there is ostensibly a high degree of trust in the motives and competency of the American government when it comes to COVID. There's been multiple threads lately, including one that is on the front…

A doctor friend of mine told me, at the start of the pandemic, that they found it important to correctly follow Public Health advice whether or not they (an expert) agreed with all of it. The importance of following the principles for public health is greater than the importance of the advice being unbiasedly perfect at every moment.

Counterpoint: many atrocities have been made acceptable to the general population, in the name of "public health" (or at least, the greater public good).

For me, "the greater good" does not over-ride personal critical analysis.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#617
post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in January 2020 for every medical authority saying that the virus is airborne there was at least one saying: We expect this to be similar to a harsh flu season at worst, at best the virus will burn out locally. It takes time for knowledge to get formulated, broadly accepted, and turn into actual policy. It has to be like that. Most of the time, being prepared but doing nothing is the best thing to. SARS, H1N1, E…

Have you ever heard of Aumann's Agreement Theorem? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem If scientists are looking at the same data and the same set of facts, then they cannot disagree. Back when Hong Kong health authorities were warning about 14 days of asymptomatic spread, Chinese authorities had already placed multiple cities under martial law and set up concentration camps for infected people…

Was it a disinformation campaign from China funneled through Hong Kong or was it actually a breakout. We didnt know if the martial law was out of caution, China only reported 80k infections.

Lots of assumptions went wrong on this one

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#618

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…

One need only go back about 80 years to find horrific abuses by public health officials in both Europe and America (e.g. involuntary sterilization, to say nothing of Nazi experimentation). What I find strange is that Europeans have such a short memory regarding these things…

Don't forget the Tuskagee Study: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#619
post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fauci, and way too many Medical Doctors, seemed guenuinly confused over the efficacy of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of he Covid virus. A lot medical professionals were claiming the average person wearing a mask will make things worse by putting it on ineffectively. I heard one doctor say, "All it takes is one virus particle to become infected. I haven't heard any doctor talk about Viral Loads, even now. My p…

Zeynep Tufekci published an excellent article about this. Her thesis is that medical dogma insisted COVID (and other infections) spread through droplets and not aerosols. Social distancing is enough to prevent infection from droplets because they don't travel far. That, it turns out, is wrong, and COVID can spread through smaller respiratory particles that can float, making social distancing alone ineffective. https:…

I've read the article, I do just want to clarify the statement "making social distancing alone ineffective."

It's still true that if you are covid suceptible, and if a covid-shedding person is walking around, you should try to be as far as possible from the covid. But, a brief close pass e.g. on the sidewalk, isn't as risky as sharing a 20'x10' office for hours, even if you stay >6ft the entire time.

Post reply on HN