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Face mask effectiveness: What science knows now
(www.cbsnews.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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So fucked up masks became politicized: I had hoped that the pandemic would help normalize them so people would just mask up whenever they feel sick. It could've mitigated the spread of all sorts of airborne disease.
Instead, they've been demonized by insane fascists. What a stupid world we live in...
Sometimes I just wear a mask to piss them off lol.
God I remember when this happened.
Right at the beginning of the pandemic, masks were being recommended by the CDC and everyone just sort of did it. COVID was novel and we were still trying to wrap our heads around it and being over cautious.
Weeks earlier, Trump was lamenting his polling numbers and complained that he didn't have a "Katrina" that would rally his favorables.
Trump could have done something simple and just worn the damn mask. He could have told people that until they had better data, let's be cautious and following the CDC guidelines.
But when he was asked point blank, he said he wouldn't wear one.
Before that, conservatives and liberals were wearing masks. It wasn't a "tribal" signal. But the second he said it, it was. You could tell immediately after that who conservatives were.
The funny thing is had Trump handled COVID better, he probably would have won re-election. Or at least it would have been closer.
But nope. That's not the kind of person he was.
He could have made a MAGA mask and told his cultists that it was more effective and blessed with holy water or something, and then go on to make piles of cash. At the time, that's what I was expecting to happen, but sadly I was wrong.
There was so much happening around this time. There was a story that didn't get a lot of runtime about some company that he or someone who was connected to him set up where the federal government purchased masks bought a bunch of boxes from them but never got delivered.
The internal audit found that they basically the funds were misappropriated. The whole management of funds were so.....shady to say the least.
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This is not what happened, they recommended people not to wear masks at the start. This might have undermined their later recommendation to wear a mask
This is true. They didn't want to cause a mad rush for N95s and other medical masks, because they knew medical professionals needed them more. Because then as soon as they recommended the masks, there was a huge shortage.
But some people took the changing recommendation as some kind of conspiracy, that the government is just making it all up.
Unfortunately, the recommendations from most (all?) top-level officials in the US right at the beginning of the pandemic was for the general public NOT to wear masks (including Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, etc). This absolutely didn't help matters when later they had to change their tune and recommend then mandate masks, after they had said that they were not needed.
Here's a nice compilation video of these statements over the first couple of months of the pandemic: https://piped.video/watch?v=tRE59LJc6CA
He would have had more voters at least.
I'm Asian. So I could wear a mask and not get the stink eye even before covid.
Things that should become obviously acceptable often doesn't seem to do so due to some sort of cultural acceptance.
Like in regions most susceptible to malaria, they hate mosquito nets. Yet if I lived there, I'd mosquito net everything even without malaria!
They're normalized in some places. I see people wearing them and not just the "Covid isn't over!" folks.
I mean, COVID isn't over lol: It didn't go anywhere, we're just dying from it a little less often. Must be nice avoiding colds and flu if masks are common in your area though, getting sick sucks.
Is COVID over though?
Covid has reached a ubiquitous state where it's a constant presence around us. Similar to how cold and flu virus are. So in a sense, the high concern and detailed tracking is over. And we must simply accept that there is one more virus as part of our lives. It's not over in the sense that it's gone. That certainly will never be now.
It is over in the same way that the Spanish Flu is over, still around but not a massively infectious and deadly threat in the way it was originally due to vaccinations and herd immunity.
Yes, it no longer impacts our comings and goings meaningfully anymore, so now it's just one of the boys (influenza, sars, those and more here) Let's hope, someday, it can join this list.
I wore a mask in crowded places for three and a half years without getting sick. Then I stopped and two weeks later I got COVID. It wasn't much fun and it took weeks to get over. Maybe that was coincidence, but now we're back into flu season I'm wearing masks in crowded places again. I figure each person who wears one makes it a little easier for those who would like to but don't want to go against the social tide.
If not wearing a mask meant only that person died, I'd be extremely happy to let the idiotic right wing die. Unfortunately, they affect everyone else.
We really need to stop treating right wing extremism as the same "difference of opinion" tier as "i like my bedroom walls painted blue vs green".
The problem is the cdc basically lied at the start and killed all their credibility before things even got started. Then you had apologists claiming they didn't lie, making everything even worse.
It had (almost) nothing to do with the cdc. In other countries the same happened.
Source: am german
They did not provide the context, which was misconstrued as lying.
Everyone did not need to wear a mask at first because it was not widespread enough for them to be effective for the general population compared to making sure medical staff who were far more likely to be exposed had masks. Masking by the general public at the very beginning was a waste of masks compared to just reducing the time spent in groups. It became effective as time went on and the mask supply ramped up.
That context doesn't make it not a lie. They could have said mask supplies were needed for medical professionals first, but they chose a convenient lie.
The context makes it like saying life jackets won't keep you from drowning in a boat. They will if the boat starts sinking.
That is not a lie. What you are doing is twisting the first statement into the second to call it a lie.
They were trying to keep it simple, and while I agree that they should have said it was for medical professional use first I can see why they would leave it out to avoid panic buying since so many people are idiots.
I don't necessarily think someone wanting to protect themselves against a potentially deadly infection makes them an idiot. I don't think it's fair to shame people who want to protect themselves and others by wearing a mask. Having a limit per customer prevents panic buying fairly well, at least it did during the pandemic where I live.
I also don't entirely fault people for not believing the CDC when they said that masks weren't effective for the general public, they could have said that they were for medical professionals first who were more likely to be exposed to the virus. They weren't being entirely upfront and I could see why people would feel burned about that. Personally I'm not huge on the way they framed it either.
I basically agree with you but I'm not huge on the way you're wording it, whatever I'm probably in the wrong here but I still wanted to get my thoughts out there.
With that said, even as early as the middle of 2020 they recommended mask usage for the general public.
People aren't idiots for wanting to protect themselves.
They are idiots who panicked and hoarded toilet paper when there was no indication there would be a toilet paper shortage. Of course they would do the same thing with medical supplies.
The worst part is, in the actual post, there is a 30 second video explaining that they do indeed recommend medical professionals and others in close contact with the infected wear masks. So it even specifically had that context, and somehow people got the message that masks don't help from it.
But I'm willing to bet most people who thought it said masks weren't effective never saw the actual source. Just had one snippet of one sentence read to them on fox News with the "hosts" filling in what they should think about that half sentence.
The post also only say "not recommended -for the general public- at this time" which is not at all saying they wouldn't work. Just don't hoard them away from the people that need them, at this time. So, literally not even a lie anywhere in there. Directly stating exactly the message everyone that actually read the post took away from it.
That was a problem, but I wouldn't say it was the problem.
The political body responsible for messaging and action during a pandemic immediately ruining it's credibility is a pretty big problem. It creates the opening for a masks don't work campaign, when the cdc opens with masks aren't useful.
I can't recall their exact messaging anymore, but I know at the time I got the impression that they said to save the limited supply of masks for the people that really need them. I remember constantly arguing on the internet at the time that that was what they said. They didn't say that they don't work, they just said not to start buying and hoarding them away from the people that need them.
But I guess one specific sentence caught "the other side's" attention more than the rest of the message. Probably because they never actually check the source for what was actually said, and only read small clips from it that they have been told to react against.
Now you are lying. Just like CDC blatantly lied saying masks don't help, against any common sense. What kind of medical group would ever say this in the face of an airborne novel respiratory virus. It's inexcusable. They lied, you are now lying.
https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1233134710638825473?lang=en
It literally says "does not recommend for the general public" implying it is recommended for people that are actually in need if it, yes that is indeed the post everyone cherry picked from and never read the whole thing. Good find and good job reminding me of those idiots from years ago.
The video in that link even says they are recommended for medical professionals and other people in close contact with the infected. Literally saying, yes masks do work, but the general public shouldn't be hoarding them yet, save them for people that need them.
Opens with "at this time" not recommended for public, yet. Like they will be at some point.
Nowhere at all does it say masks don't help. In fact it says the opposite several times... but if you cherry pick parts of individual sentences, not even any one full sentence, you can misconstrue the message, I guess.
What is the specifics of the lie that they said?
They initially stated masks weren't effective for general population use. This was a lie. There were reasons at the time for the lie, but it doesn't make it not a lie.
Initially the CDC didn't know how much asymptomatic spread was going to be a factor: that definitely changes the math on advising everyone to mask up. By July of 2020 they were unequivocal: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0714-americans-to-wear-masks.html
I remember that now. Yeah, no idea why they said such at the beginning. It's not like masks were a new invention with covid. Asian countries regularly use mask with flu.
They did it because the US didn't have enough masks if they said anything positive about masks. So they lied initially to prevent people trying to buy masks, so they could go to hospitals first.
Also, they never actually lied, you can see the post here in some of the other comments, people were just idiots at the time and didn't actually read the full post, just saw "not recommended for general public use at this time" and somehow took that to mean masks didn't help. Instead of that they do help, but save them for the people in need, not general use. The post actually has a video in it that also specifies masks should be worn by medical professionals and other close contacts with the infected. Which is very much specifically saying masks do actually help.
But of course, at the time, the detractors wouldn't link the actual source, they would just pick one sentence and "...quote..." it, completely removing all the context and making it look like it said the opposite.
Also it's not like the idea of masks helping was ever in doubt among educated people. It's literally been a go-to for more than a hundred years already. It was only the uneducated that needed to be told.
They literally didn't lie, the post is linked in this thread. Of course at the time people weren't linking the source, they were quoting part of one sentence and getting inflamed that half of a sentence seemed to say the opposite of what the actual post said.
It literally says "not recommended -for the general public- at this time" how is that miscontrued to "they don't work"? It doesn't say that at all. In fact the video in that post, I know it's a full 30 seconds long and slow and boring... but the video specifically says to save them for medical professionals and others in close contact with the infected. Again very much stating specifically that they do help.