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

nytimes.com

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

#771

Post by anthonygd »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #256
josephcsible wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continuing to wear a mask yourself is harmless, but trying to make everyone else continue wearing masks is harmful.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Yes, that's true at this point in time, but I don't think that's what anthonygd was arguing. They were complaining about the act of personally wearing a mask without a scientific basis.

It's probably late for you to see this but here's an attempt to clarify... my complaint is with wearing a mask as a statement _while_ complaining about the other side being overly aggressive in making their statement.

Essentially 6 months ago you somewhat had the moral high ground because science was on your side, but now it's just personal preference.

If you feel safer with a mask, that's fine (it might do some miniscule good). If you wear a mask to show everyone where you fall on the political spectrum, than just own up to the fact that you're being divisive.

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

#772

Post by ceejayoz »

stolenmerch wrote: post #766
ceejayoz wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As it stands, most people were compelled by law to wear a mask under every circumstance whether it made sense or not. The CDC's recommendations changed yesterday . It'll take a couple days for states to adjust accordingly.

Of course. I'm talking about the life we all had for over a year and some of the harm it did.

The subject of this HN thread is the CDC lifting the masking requirement, and some folks choosing individually to still wear them at times; an act that causes no one any harm.

A debate on mask mandates in general over the last year is probably off topic, but I'm inclined to see them as quite justifiable.

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

#773

Post by Siira »

teachingassist wrote: post #700
Siira wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those laws are fixed norms against doing concrete bad things. A norm of listening to any bullshit some authority figure spouses is not a fixed norm, but a meta-norm to respect any new norms created by that authority. My media consumption is also extremely limited, and comes almost exclusively from left-centrist (HN top posts, Techmeme) sources.

You should probably read more sources if you think that news aggregators (and Hacker News in particular) are left of centre.

What are some left-centrist sources then?

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

#774

Post by fl0wenol »

_nosewings_ wrote: post #573
estaseuropano wrote: post #269

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…

The mistrust runs in both directions (although the timbre is different). I believe that the CDC has had nothing but the best of intentions throughout the pandemic, but it's clear that they don't really trust US citizens enough to say what they really think. They see us through the lens of management; e.g., "How do we manage these people?" Now, it's perhaps inevitable that they would use that lens, but it seems like i…

I think that, considering the mandate of the CDC, a certain amount of cynical understanding of the average American in its messaging is the only practical thing to do. That's a really tough line to take, and I do not envy the PR guys that have to negotiate it.

You may not like this, but what it boils down to (as you indicated) is that unless you can improve the average American through education or cultural shift, you've got this pretty grim baseline. The PR culture is a response to that reality.

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

#775

Post by garmaine »

herbst wrote: post #399
garmaine wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is not entirely true. All the political parties and ideas from back then are gone. The government was replaced completely multiple times and time has changed to the better. IMO the past is not hidden at all in fact we are regularly reminded about all these things, we just embrace our better future.

Are they? There's plenty of far-right parties in Europe, some of which have even entered into governments or came close to it. And in any case the core threat isn't fascism per se, but the darker aspects of human nature which remain unchanged. The USA after all didn't have a fascist government in that time period but nevertheless performed widespread involuntary sterilizations. More relevant to the circumstances under consideration, the CDC itself performed secret experiments on human subjects as recently as the 1970's--infecting black men with syphilis without their knowledge, just to watch the results. Or the 1980's when the FDA an CDC turned their back on AIDS victims for political reasons, because it was largely gay men who were dying.

Europeans seem to think that they are above all this and such atrocities could never, ever happen again. But history shows otherwise, and human nature remains the same. Checks and balances and eternal vigilance is how you make sure it really doesn't happen, which requires the belief that it seriously can happen again.

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

#776

Post by ljlolel »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #696
o-__-o wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fauci had said the reason they made a misspeak about masks is because they were afraid there would not be enough for first responders

It wasn't a "misspeak" it was a lie. He admitted it was a lie, and that he knew it was lie. If he wanted to give the Gov and CDC any credibility then he should have been honest about the need to reserve masks for health care professionals and urged people not to buy them and make home-made one instead. There is no valid excuse "I was lying for the greater good", that is bullshit.

https://medium.com/p/4ef05aa357c5

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

#777

Post by syops »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #749
syops wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overwhelmingly we follow laws against public drinking, noise ordinances, littering, etc. How is following a mask mandate adopting a mindset of conformity that is different than following laws on littering? Consider the possibility that you have been manipulated to find outrage/concern/defiance over wearing a mask.

In my country, laws compelling mask wearing outdoors in non-crowded spaces have been criticized by scientists (often the same ones advising the government on COVID) for various reasons, e.g.: 1) regardless of how you might think masks are unobtrusive, enough of the population will consider it annoying to wear a mask when jogging or cycling that they won't exercise. Even during this pandemic, public-health officials t…

There are legitimate grounds of criticism but not legitimate grounds for talking about a mindset of conformity in the sense Siira meant.

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

#778

Post by syops »

Siira wrote: post #770
syops wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wearing a mask is not suffering. If you think this then you have a badly misconstrued idea of what the word suffering means.

Now you're just gaslighting.

You wrote:

It adds up to significant unnecessary suffering.

The it, I assume, refers to the topic at hand. Namely wearing masks. It does not in any way add up to suffering.

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

#779

Post by syops »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #763
syops wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greater good in this case means following rules/mandates that do not in any way lead to an outcome of supporting atrocities. There is no valid critical analysis by which one concludes that not wearing masks or engaging in social distancing is a fight against atrocities.

>There is no valid critical analysis by which one concludes that not wearing masks or engaging in social distancing is a fight against atrocities. 100 % disagree. The "social distancing" has caused state governments to take extreme measures closing down many business. The distancing has also put undo stress upon families. How many business have closed permanently? How many people are now suffering major depression du…

Masks have not in any way contributed to the problems you cite. Suicide numbers are nowhere close to the total number of Covid dead. There has been economic hardship caused by social distancing and mental health problems too have been caused by social distancing. Masks contributed virtually zero to this. Far more people would have died had we not implemented the policies that were enacted. In no way is social distancing an atrocity even if one assumes your distorted view of the severity of the negative effects of social distancing is correct.

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

#780

Post by galgalesh »

buzzert wrote: post #477
walrus01 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a good point. Somewhat similar, we seem to accept in the range of 10,000-11,000 drunk driving deaths a year as fairly normal [1]. Because it is, for the most part, a widely spread out set of events with a few cars crashing by themselves, or into one other car... Yet we still drive everywhere. But if you ask people, someone might tell you that they're more nervous flying (despite statistics clearly showing tha…

How about 1,300 deaths a day from smoking? https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...

I consider this somewhat different because people who smoke knowingly do it onto themselves. If people think the benefits outweigh the risks, I don't see that as a "failure" in any way.

Passive smoking is the main cause of harm to _other_ people and is unsurprisingly also the thing that's the most regulated. (Smoking in bars etc.)

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