[aljungberg]

The fact that we were strongly told no and then yes with equal conviction is sufficient to demonstrate the point, regardless of whether masks work. Whether intentionally or not, media and governments can mislead in an in effect coordinated fashion.

(Note there is a straw-man counterargument where one might say “so they changed their mind as evidence evolved, that’s allowed”. But the information was presented as established and factual in both cases. We have always been at war with Eastasia.)

[ubertaco]

>(Note there is a straw-man counterargument where one might say “so they changed their mind as evidence evolved, that’s allowed”. But the information was presented as established and factual in both cases. We have always been at war with Eastasia.)

My friend, if you expect immediate inerrancy from everyone dealing with global-scale novel viruses, then I think you'll find that you'll _always_ be disappointed (or, more likely given your 1984 reference, you'll _always_ be the "victim" of another imagined conspiracy).

I do hope your friends, family, and coworkers afford you more space to learn, grow, and change (and that you practice doing so!) than you afford to others.

[lmm]

> My friend, if you expect immediate inerrancy from everyone dealing with global-scale novel viruses

The point is that if they are not certain then they should make it clear they are not certain. We were told very confidently that masks didn't work, that using them was nothing more than superstition. We are now told equally confidently that they do work. The establishment, taken as a whole, is extremely, dangerously overconfident.

[kbelder]

I don't think they were confident, but they thought they needed to pretend to be confident. Consider it the side effect of presumably competent scientists spending too much time with politicians and PR departments.

And that's why they ended up seeming like liars, and can't be trusted.

[hackerfromthefu]

Well it's not just seeming - they actually were liars, about the degree of confidence. As you said, too much time with politicians and PR professional liars!

[aljungberg]

It’s fine to make mistakes, especially in a fluid, developing situation. And it is precisely therefore we shouldn’t dress up our hypothesises as fact.

The actors here presented mask dictates as gospel. They were either wrong when anti-mask or wrong when pro-mask, but somehow conveyed absolute confidence in both cases. This is very harmful for the public discourse and for the reputation of the authorities during a time when reputation was paramount.

It’s okay not to know everything, just be honest about it.

[fireflash38]

The experts did NOT state it as fact. Pretty much ever. They couched it in terms as best they knew. If you want to argue that people consuming that and spreading that info put it in bad terms, you can, but I think that's a poor argument in general.

[aljungberg]

I disagree that people were spreading it in bad terms, if by that you mean the general public. Just look at what the officials actually said. Here’s March 2020:

> “You can increase your risk of getting it by wearing a mask if you are not a health care provider,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams said.

England’s chief medical officer, same month:

> Prof Whitty said: “In terms of wearing a mask, our advice is clear: that wearing a mask if you don’t have an infection reduces the risk almost not at all. So we do not advise that.”

Dr Fauci:

> “Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist and a public face of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, on CBS’ “60 Minutes” earlier this month. He, like the others, suggested that masks could put users at risk by causing them to touch their face more often.

The WHO advised against it (to your point they did couch their language so much that it wasn’t even clear what they were really advising [1]).

And these are just the ones I could find quickly right now. From memory, the message was even stronger than this and even proliferated in this very forum. There was a time when you kind of had to duck and speak quietly if you wanted to bring up the idea that maybe this anti-mask thing wasn’t settled fact.

1: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/03/11/whos-confusing-guidance...

[claytongulick]

> My friend, if you expect immediate inerrancy from everyone dealing with global-scale novel viruses, then I think you'll find that you'll _always_ be disappointed (or, more likely given your 1984 reference, you'll _always_ be the "victim" of another imagined conspiracy).

When public policy is based on it, people are threatened with jail, forceably removed from outdoor open-air sporting events and denied basic services, yeah - you sure as hell better not be wrong about it.

When people in the street yell at you and call you a murderer for not wearing a mask outside in the sunshine (this happened to me) - yeah, you don't get to go back later and say "oops, my bad".

When the government exercises extraordinary emergency powers by executive fiat without legislative support to impose masking rules - they had better have damned good science to back it up.

In this case, the science simply didn't exist.

It's a strawman argument to claim "numerous studies show effectiveness of masking" as I've seen several people argue in this discussion.

The only relevant studies are those that evaluate the effectiveness of universal masking, since that's what the public policy dictated.

Universal masking policy was a knee-jerk response to some early studies and models that over estimated the risk of asymptomatic transmission. However, regardless of the new science that demonstrated that asymptomatic transmission was incredibly rare, the authorities refused to change the guidance.

Where was the science that justified the arbitrary and utterly performative rules put in place for restaurants? (wear a mask to walk three meters from the front door to the table, but it's ok to take it off when you're at the table)

Or the painfully performative masking of news people, in a studio by themselves, wearing a mask. Or wearing a mask alone in a car. Or on a walk outside. Or on a video conference for work.

Masks quickly stopped being about science very early on and quickly became nothing more than a flag for showing political alliance with the utter nonscientific nonsense of cloth masks and the overnight development of "fashion masks".

Forcing this on children was especially painful to watch. Children, who will never follow proper masking protocols and who are happy to trade their batman mask for their friend's spiderman mask...

> do hope your friends, family, and coworkers afford you more space to learn, grow, and change (and that you practice doing so!) than you afford to others.

I do hope that this entire episode and the bumbling, unscientific, incoherent and political face-saving response from the government makes you take a second look at blanket, authoritarian policy in the future.

Universal masking was the public health equivalent of the TSA. Illusory safety at best, with very little demonstrable effectiveness to justify the intrusion and restrictions put in place.