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The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

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Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#81

Post by GeekyBear »

loeg wrote: post #24
Footkerchief wrote: post #7

Just one aspect of the huge, tragicomic waste that resulted from the medical establishment's position that airborne transmission couldn't be real because it reminded everyone too much of miasma theory. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ina.13070

> the medical establishment's position that airborne transmission couldn't be real I remember droplets being the leading theory but do not remember a time when the medical establishment was claiming airborne transmission couldn't be real.

> but do not remember a time when the medical establishment was claiming airborne transmission couldn't be real

I can remember scientists being accused of spreading "misinformation" for proposing that airborne spread best fit the available data.

For instance, at the beginning of the pandemic, passengers of the cruise ship Diamond Princess continued to spread Covid from cabin to cabin while locked down.

There was also the case of a church choir practice where over 50 people caught Covid.

>If COVID-19 could spread so thoroughly and quickly through a choir, did that mean the coronavirus was airborne? And if the primary route for the disease’s spread was through the air, had our initial response been woefully misguided?

For researchers like Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, the answer was clear: The coronavirus is airborne, and the superspreader choir proved it.

Once agencies like the WHO established the position that COVID-19 was spread primarily through heavy droplets, it was a tall order to change it. “They’ll die defending their view,” one anonymous WHO consultant told the New York Times in July. Even now, “the burden of proof is much higher for aerosols than for any other route, and yet we have more evidence for aerosols in this case than for any other route,” Marr told me.

https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/coronavirus-airborne-de...

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#82

Post by slily »

wewtyflakes wrote: post #70
slily wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obstinate appeal to authority to shut down dissenters is exactly how it took years for "The Science" to catch up to what had been obvious from the available data since 2020. From the masks to the social distancing, to denial of natural immunity and of vaccine side-effects. I agree with the sibling commentator - to anyone who was actually paying attention and considered the evidence from a variety of trustworthy sourc…

When the unknowns were high, it seems reasonable that we would err on the side of caution, including using hand sanitizer. I do not see it as insanity, but rather a reasonable thing to do given the unknowns were high at the time.

There's some nuance there. The situation was not nearly as "unknown" as the CDC advocates would like to believe, and the international community provided plenty of evidence for individuals to make more informed decisions. Even early on, the number of case reports of people getting sick despite following recommended practices or not having any contact with potentially contaminated objects made the droplet thesis dubious. I don't recall ever seeing convincing evidence that COVID-19 could be transmitted through produce in grocery stores for example... yet for a while people were told to disinfect them before using, and many avoided restaurants due to the perceived risk of contaminated food.

I'll give you that for vulnerable populations it might have made sense in the early days of the pandemic to follow the most neurotic guidelines in an abundance of caution, but again, it took government agencies far longer than necessary to update their recommendations. And let's not forget the flip-flopping about masks which contradicted the available data even at the time. The CDC was still peddling unproven and disproved claims as of last year at least, and that's how the United States was practically the last country on Earth to maintain pointless mandates, like vaccination for international travelers, far longer than even other countries that acted more aggressively prior like Canada and Australia.

The CDC was quick to make imprudent recommendations that led to authoritarian policies, and slow to retract them when they were shown to be presumptuous, so as far as I'm concerned that's grounds enough to consider them "discredited", in the sense that I'll be skeptical of what they publish in the future instead of taking their recommendations at face value.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#83

Post by loeg »

giantg2 wrote: post #56
loeg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cloth ones? They'll break down relatively quickly in landfills.

The medical ones are not really cloth and contain synthetic materials.

Sure, but the context is industries and products quickly spun up in 2020. Those masks were basic cloth ones, not the surgical masks more common now.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#84

Post by lisasays »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #68
lisasays wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may make you feel comfortable to believe that's why they mask. But (knowing many people who still mask, under varying circumstances) -- that's not why they mask.

Why do they mask then? It seems a little hard to psychologically disentangle what one does for social approval vs for other reasons. For example, maybe it feels emotionally uncomfortable to not mask. Is it because the subconscious is worried about disease, or because the subconscious is worried about social approval? Probably some of both, but if we removed one perhaps the external behavior would change, hard to tell…

I think you're overthinking this, especially as to hidden psychological motivations.

The primary reason some people still mask is very simple: For anyone who follows basic science, not what the crowd is doing -- N95 masks in enclosed / crowded situations are still a good idea, especially for those of a certain age.

Many people continue to wear useless (or only marginally) useful masks, and in non-crowded situations (even way out in the open). Which of course ranges from silly to, at best, only marginally useful. However it seems safe to suppose that they're doing so primarily out of strictly rational concerns (however faulty their understanding of better masking practices may be). Some partially, or entirely out of fear (an understandable reaction, if they've experienced a heavy bout of Covid, or have seen its effects in others).

Also, some may remember the temporary shortage of N95s, and still think they're being good, self-sacrificing citizens by wearing less effective (or even basically useless) masks. Or they just don't like wearing N95s because they're too constricting (meaning, "too effective"). However, that is at best a secondary factory, and not the main reason why they choose to mask in the first place.

But to recap: For the vast majority of folks who mask, it's mostly out of a (perhaps flawed) sense of pragmatism -- not because they are superstitious idiots, or primarily motivated by some subconscious desire to make a social statement about "who they are".

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#85

Post by burnished »

lisasays wrote: post #59
revelio wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that amazing? Masking is a social phenomenon at this point. It's about showing other people what sort of person you are, not about the mask itself.

It may make you feel comfortable to believe that's why they mask. But (knowing many people who still mask, under varying circumstances) -- that's not why they mask.

Some people do. Around me it felt like it was a very quick way to signal that you weren't a fucking crazy person at the start of the pandemic, and then it became political (jfc), and kept on being a social signal.

If I had to guess though I'd say most people mask up out of pragmatism, its kind of insane that our previous practice was to just pretend we weren't sick hard enough that we stopped being infectious.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#86

Post by MyHypatia »

buildsjets wrote: post #48
floren wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I live in the Bay Area, and my neighbors still do this shit .

What amazes me is that some people choose to continue 100% masking for various reasons, but wear ineffective or poor fitting cloth masks or generic flat surgical masks with huge gaps, when comfortable and effective N95s from name brands are readily and inexpensively available. Or they just chin-diaper.

There are lots of reasons I continue to mask that have nothing to do with COVID. 1) To keep the sun off my face. 2) if there is a lot of pollen or dust in the air. 2) If I want to avoid long chats at the checkout counter that waste my time. 3) If I want to avoid having creeps tell me to smile or catcall.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#87

Post by commandlinefan »

dabluecaboose wrote: post #30
commandlinefan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry about overuse of hand sanitizer creating antibiotic resistant "superbugs" as we've been told for decades... but I sure as hell can't go to a gas station or a grocery store without washing my hands with hand sanitizer any more. I feel like I can see the germs now.

>I worry about overuse of hand sanitizer creating antibiotic resistant "superbugs" as we've been told for decades... That's not a concern with hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is alcohol-based, not antibiotic based. Alcohol denatures proteins in germs, antibiotics are more biological (IIRC). It's akin to building up an immunity to iocane vs building up an immunity to being shot

Good to know, since I’m pretty set with this habit now.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#88

Post by pookha »

revelio wrote: post #51
buildsjets wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What amazes me is that some people choose to continue 100% masking for various reasons, but wear ineffective or poor fitting cloth masks or generic flat surgical masks with huge gaps, when comfortable and effective N95s from name brands are readily and inexpensively available. Or they just chin-diaper.

Why is that amazing? Masking is a social phenomenon at this point. It's about showing other people what sort of person you are, not about the mask itself.

I'll never forget the hate I got for letting my kids enjoy themselves at a playground OUTSIDE without those fucking nutty cloth masks...One thing 80's\90's punk-rock taught me was how to stand out in public. Served my kids emotional and physical development well during that hysteria.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#89

Post by loeg »

GeekyBear wrote: post #81
loeg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the medical establishment's position that airborne transmission couldn't be real I remember droplets being the leading theory but do not remember a time when the medical establishment was claiming airborne transmission couldn't be real.

> but do not remember a time when the medical establishment was claiming airborne transmission couldn't be real I can remember scientists being accused of spreading "misinformation" for proposing that airborne spread best fit the available data. For instance, at the beginning of the pandemic, passengers of the cruise ship Diamond Princess continued to spread Covid from cabin to cabin while locked down. There was also…

> I can remember scientists being accused of spreading "misinformation" for proposing that airborne spread best fit the available data.

This is a much lower bar. You can always find a crank on twitter accusing something of being misinformation.

The original claim I responded to was that the medical establishment claimed airborne transmission was impossible. However, the actual take from the medical establishment was significantly less confident of that claim (emphasis added):

> Airborne spread was “not believed to be a major driver of transmission based on available evidence,” the report [from May 2020] stated.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#90

Post by _a_a_a_ »

acyou wrote: post #58

This issue is a wrecking ball being swung first this way, then the other way, to create division, hatred, polarization, radicalization and the feeling of being marginalized on all sides. Who benefits from consuming this article? Was it not mass media used as a primary vector to create the hysteria in the first place? And will the wheel not again soon turn, so that the criticized can criticize the criticizers from the…

This is one peculiarly shrill post. Can you explain your mention of "division, hatred, polarization, radicalization" related to this article? I'm not saying you're wrong but it's a very strange opinion and seemingly entirely disproportionate.
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