There was a lot of stuff like that during the first month or two, not only in the US. Downplaying the importance of masks was widespread during the first months, when in a lot of places, masking up for most people meant pulling a knitted shawl up above your nose. Remember, that was the time when people stockpiled toilet paper and hand soap, and also a time when there was still a ton of speculation about what we were dealing with and how to best handle it. It wouldn't surprise me if some governments deliberately downplayed the role of proper masks in the prevention of aerosol formation just to cover up their own failure to secure essential medical supplies.
Terrible supply chain, or incredible supply chain that is 100% based on just -on-time and forecasting, and has no flexibility?
Covid has shown that the current way of things is so fucking fragile that chunks of the world economy start to go crazy from a boat going sideways. We are basically 3 days from collapse all the time.
It's not exactly misleading if you don't know you are wrong yourself. There were a number of things which they got wrong early on, like the fomite thing. Fomites were big, until they found out they were not very important for spreading the virus at all.
It is misleading to spread the impression that "there's no reason to think masks work" for an extremely contagious respiratory virus a la SARS.
These people are not idiots. This is respiratory disease 101 and the obvious PSA to provide us "wear a mask until we know what's going on, ideally N95".
They were likely spreading this disinformation because of PPE shortages.
Because they don't have that power. They can only give public health guidance and do studies.
Feds were already buying up PPE / diverting it internationally from people who had already purchased it and were going with a denial strategy. Doctors and nurses were coming up with elaborate protocols for reusing PPE because they didn't have enough.
Because they don’t have that power. They can only give public health guidance and do studies.
They don't have the power to make it happen but they have the power to request it. And, like, there is no reason why it wouldn't be done if they couldn't do it any other way. Masks weren't the only thing they were wrong about early on.
They don’t have the power to make it happen but they have the power to request it.
I'm starting to think you're just pointlessly contrarian.
Your point is incorrect. They don't have the power to do what you want them to. They are clearly not gadflies against existing power structures either, so a public request cannot be expected. It would be absurd to assume there weren't internal requests for more PPE, that was official policy early on like I already mentioned.
Please stop playing armchair expert about topics you clearly do not understand.
And, like, there is no reason why it wouldn’t be done if they couldn’t do it any other way.
Why can't it do more like?
This is vague to the point of meaningless.
Masks weren’t the only thing they were wrong about early on.
That was the big one.
I see in your comment history talking about fomites as an example of this. Again, we're talking about preliminary public health guidance regarding an extremely contagious respiratory, the etiology of which was still being nailed down. Tentative caution is the obvious call. "Wash stuff until we know more" is 100% correct advice, not getting it wrong. "Who knows abouy masks they might not even work" is erring on the side of danger for, again, a highly contagious respiratory virus.
Your point is incorrect. They don’t have the power to do what you want them to. They are clearly not gadflies against existing power structures either, so a public request cannot be expected.
What does this have to do with anything, it's not some incredibly unrealistic request to ask for rationing of PPE.
It would be absurd to assume there weren’t internal requests for more PPE, that was official policy early on like I already mentioned.
Yes, there were, and as you said, they more or less followed through, so in the case where they were afraid there wouldn't be enough PPE for healthcare personnel, why would they not just say that and still do more or less the same thing they did regardless, plus expect some rationing? Rationing PPE so that healthcare personnel has enough isn't some power structure shattering request, neither is it unrealistic. If they were absolutely certain masks would help, there is no good reason why they wouldn't just say "we need lots of masks for everyone ASAP and rationing until that is feasible". Asking for lockdowns for months is much harder. The mask thing is nothing compared to that.
Like, I don't question that they were aware what they said may not have been correct, but I wouldn't assume they were certain of it, there doesn't seem to be a good enough reason to do that.
Getting the early stages of a pandemic response right is insanely important, and they continued to back the droplet theory after they started recommending the use of masks
The CDC was wrong about masks during the start of the pandemic because pretty much the entire world was and they weren't sure how to deal with the novel virus. What I don't understand is how it follows that they're definitely wrong about everything. And, like, it wasn't a couple of weeks ago, it's been months since they started recommending masks worldwide.
The thing is, using Google I had also found tons of research which said masks didn't make much of a difference, because with many diseases which were spread largely via fomites, including many types fo flu, people used masks improperly and it ended up even making it worse in some cases. In some other cases some research showed that there is a benefit but it isn't that significant. Like, yeah, it's not hard to find that sort of research via Google, but it's not hard to find research saying the opposite either. That is the issue, there was conflicting research, there were misunderstandings about how the virus spreads, and there was also a big misunderstanding that was uncovered, which is that droplets larger than previously thought so could stay in the air for very long, since previously they had decided on a threshold which turned out to be wrong, and it had persisted so long because there weren't many physicists working on that sort of stuff to tell the doctors they were wrong. Lockdowns and distancing on the contrary are what I would never expect anyone to say they didn't know were effective.
I mean yeah I've noticed it tons, there was a point where many people were doom posting about vaccines being dangerous, or being ineffective, or impossible to supply, etc. Then there was another wave which was about how the mutations that surfaced had surely rendered them useless. None of these things happened. Unless something nasty happens in India now, it doesn't seem like there will be a big surge again this year either in the US or Europe or even most of LatAm and many places have returned to semi-normalcy already. It's like people really want to believe it's gonna last forever.
That was like the first month of the pandemic.
There was a lot of stuff like that during the first month or two, not only in the US. Downplaying the importance of masks was widespread during the first months, when in a lot of places, masking up for most people meant pulling a knitted shawl up above your nose. Remember, that was the time when people stockpiled toilet paper and hand soap, and also a time when there was still a ton of speculation about what we were dealing with and how to best handle it. It wouldn't surprise me if some governments deliberately downplayed the role of proper masks in the prevention of aerosol formation just to cover up their own failure to secure essential medical supplies.
That's exactly the motive: PPE supplies were limited so they ran a public health disinformation campaign.
And now the CDC is spreading another recommendation contrary to the most basic public health policy analysis.
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Terrible supply chain, or incredible supply chain that is 100% based on just -on-time and forecasting, and has no flexibility?
Covid has shown that the current way of things is so fucking fragile that chunks of the world economy start to go crazy from a boat going sideways. We are basically 3 days from collapse all the time.
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It's all about a good quarter, never about long-term access.
And it bred skepticism of public health authorities - who were absolutely misleading the public during a global pandemic.
It's not exactly misleading if you don't know you are wrong yourself. There were a number of things which they got wrong early on, like the fomite thing. Fomites were big, until they found out they were not very important for spreading the virus at all.
It is misleading to spread the impression that "there's no reason to think masks work" for an extremely contagious respiratory virus a la SARS.
These people are not idiots. This is respiratory disease 101 and the obvious PSA to provide us "wear a mask until we know what's going on, ideally N95".
They were likely spreading this disinformation because of PPE shortages.
Again, if they were spreading it because of PPE shortages, why couldn't they just say "we need to ration PPE" and leave it at that?
Because they don't have that power. They can only give public health guidance and do studies.
Feds were already buying up PPE / diverting it internationally from people who had already purchased it and were going with a denial strategy. Doctors and nurses were coming up with elaborate protocols for reusing PPE because they didn't have enough.
They don't have the power to make it happen but they have the power to request it. And, like, there is no reason why it wouldn't be done if they couldn't do it any other way. Masks weren't the only thing they were wrong about early on.
I'm starting to think you're just pointlessly contrarian.
Your point is incorrect. They don't have the power to do what you want them to. They are clearly not gadflies against existing power structures either, so a public request cannot be expected. It would be absurd to assume there weren't internal requests for more PPE, that was official policy early on like I already mentioned.
Please stop playing armchair expert about topics you clearly do not understand.
Why can't it do more like?
This is vague to the point of meaningless.
That was the big one.
I see in your comment history talking about fomites as an example of this. Again, we're talking about preliminary public health guidance regarding an extremely contagious respiratory, the etiology of which was still being nailed down. Tentative caution is the obvious call. "Wash stuff until we know more" is 100% correct advice, not getting it wrong. "Who knows abouy masks they might not even work" is erring on the side of danger for, again, a highly contagious respiratory virus.
What does this have to do with anything, it's not some incredibly unrealistic request to ask for rationing of PPE.
Yes, there were, and as you said, they more or less followed through, so in the case where they were afraid there wouldn't be enough PPE for healthcare personnel, why would they not just say that and still do more or less the same thing they did regardless, plus expect some rationing? Rationing PPE so that healthcare personnel has enough isn't some power structure shattering request, neither is it unrealistic. If they were absolutely certain masks would help, there is no good reason why they wouldn't just say "we need lots of masks for everyone ASAP and rationing until that is feasible". Asking for lockdowns for months is much harder. The mask thing is nothing compared to that.
Like, I don't question that they were aware what they said may not have been correct, but I wouldn't assume they were certain of it, there doesn't seem to be a good enough reason to do that.
Getting the early stages of a pandemic response right is insanely important, and they continued to back the droplet theory after they started recommending the use of masks
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Yes, like more than a year ago. And your post said a couple of weeks ago.
Like why are you just talking about the US, the same thing happened everywhere.
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The CDC was wrong about masks during the start of the pandemic because pretty much the entire world was and they weren't sure how to deal with the novel virus. What I don't understand is how it follows that they're definitely wrong about everything. And, like, it wasn't a couple of weeks ago, it's been months since they started recommending masks worldwide.
deleted by creator
The thing is, using Google I had also found tons of research which said masks didn't make much of a difference, because with many diseases which were spread largely via fomites, including many types fo flu, people used masks improperly and it ended up even making it worse in some cases. In some other cases some research showed that there is a benefit but it isn't that significant. Like, yeah, it's not hard to find that sort of research via Google, but it's not hard to find research saying the opposite either. That is the issue, there was conflicting research, there were misunderstandings about how the virus spreads, and there was also a big misunderstanding that was uncovered, which is that droplets larger than previously thought so could stay in the air for very long, since previously they had decided on a threshold which turned out to be wrong, and it had persisted so long because there weren't many physicists working on that sort of stuff to tell the doctors they were wrong. Lockdowns and distancing on the contrary are what I would never expect anyone to say they didn't know were effective.
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But there were meta studies saying the opposite too, that's the issue. And in some cases, both were true but in different contexts.
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I mean yeah I've noticed it tons, there was a point where many people were doom posting about vaccines being dangerous, or being ineffective, or impossible to supply, etc. Then there was another wave which was about how the mutations that surfaced had surely rendered them useless. None of these things happened. Unless something nasty happens in India now, it doesn't seem like there will be a big surge again this year either in the US or Europe or even most of LatAm and many places have returned to semi-normalcy already. It's like people really want to believe it's gonna last forever.