All: I know it's a topic that brings up strong feelings, but please only post if you're in a curious state [1]—not an agitated one. We all get agitated, because we're all human—but it leads to repetitive, predictable, and eventually nasty internet comments, so please don't go there until that subsides.
The story is on topic because it's significant new information [2], but we're only going to get an interesting thread if people stick to the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
I have a personal theory that humans do not fully understand death rate when it's spread out widely across many geographic areas. Let's say, for instance, that the covid19 death rate is about 450 people a day. It might be more or less than that right now, I haven't specifically checked (but I do recall that it's easily been 2000-3000 a day for some periods of time in very recent memory). But that might be 450 people where 1 dies in some town, another 2 die in another city, and so on, totaling 450.
Whereas if you were to load a 747-400 with 450 people and fly it into the side of a mountain in one catastrophic absurd event every day of the week, for months, it would be shocking world stopping news. Why? What changed? It's the same number of dead people, right?
Following this theory to a further extent, I think it helps to explain a lot about the people who believe covid19 is a "hoax" or a "scam". They don't see it, it isn't splashy and shocking, it's diffuse and spread out in such a way that their instinctual response is to go "just get on with your life...".
I think your point cuts both ways. People can’t appreciate how big the US population is and the normal death rate. Every year around 2.8 million people die in the US from all causes. Around 7,500 people every day. So 450 a day isn’t that incredible of a number given the scale of the population.
When an airplane crashes, the reaction is less about loss of 100-300 lives, but the way in which it happens. If a loaded 747 crashed every day, the negative reaction wouldn’t be primarily because people died (that happens en masse daily), but because the safest mode of travel just became unsafe.
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 that per hour of driving, or per hour riding in a 777, you're far more likely to die in the car).
How about 1,300 deaths a day from smoking?
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...
At this point, isn't non-mask-wearing somewhat similar? The death risk to vaccinated people (for now) is lower than for getting the flu (even with the flu vaccine). So, the risk is only significant to unvaccinated people, who have had plenty of opportunity to get the shot. So the risk here to those people isn't from themselves (like in smoking), but from others - but the risk is their own choice to take?
It always amazes me how casual people are about traveling at 70+ mph with opposing traffic traveling at similar speeds, sometimes less than 4 feet to your left with no protection other than a few inches of paint. There are some places that you could die just from losing focus for less than a second.
USA roads are seriously scary. It's no small wonder that drunk drivers kill so many people.
I don't think "the safest mode of travel just became unsafe" is really what is going on. If 400 people die in a single incident, it doesn't matter so much what people's association of how safe what they are doing is. If that many die in a fire, or a ship sinking, or a flood, or whatever.... the reason we care is because it is a singular event.
You could the logic of broken precedent of assumed safety to people shopping in a grocery store and contracting Covid. What's safer than buying groceries or hanging out at a friend's BBQ? No one was doing anything ostensibly dangerous or out of the ordinary.
The only thing that makes sense is if we admit that there is a deliberate attempt to deprogram the masses and politicize science. People are indifferent because they're instructed to be on a daily basis by the talking heads.
Agree. To add, 450 individuals dying separately from different causes in different places is not as newsworthy as 450 people dying in one event in one place in spectacular fashion.
> What changed? It's the same number of dead people, right?
Aside from general aviation concerns, that 747-400 will have young families, infants and children on board, whereas exposing everyone on that 747-400 to COVID-19 would mostly result in the deaths of the elderly and the infirm.
If we had an outbreak of Spanish flu with the same overall death rate it would not be as bad. It would be much worse. The deaths of the young who have their whole life ahead of them is a much worse outcome than someone who statistically would be dead anyway from old age or other disease in a few years.
This is intuitively understandable to every human being. If a 95 year old dies in their sleep we mourn them but think "wow, they made it to 95!". If an infant dies in their sleep it's a tragedy.
I genuinely don't understand why everyone has insisted on talking about COVID-19 in terms of absolute deaths. For everything else like heart disease etc. we talk about statistically "losing X years of life".
The median age of death for COVID-19 has been at or above the statistical life expectancy.
In the worst case we could have an outbreak of another strain of Coronavirus next year that'll kill 1/2 as many as COVID-19, but disproportionately target those under 10 years of age. Because of this nonsensical messaging people will think "oh, only half as bad as COVID-19".
> I genuinely don't understand why everyone has insisted on talking about COVID-19 in terms of absolute deaths. For everything else like heart disease etc. we talk about statistically "losing X years of life".
We do this because people misunderstand the "losing x years of life" statistics...
> The median age of death for COVID-19 has been at or above the statistical life expectancy.
...just like you've done here.
https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75
> Results: Using the standard WHO life tables, YLL per COVID-19 death was 14 for men and 12 for women. After adjustment for number and type of LTCs, the mean YLL was slightly lower, but remained high (11.6 and 9.4 years for men and women, respectively). The number and type of LTCs led to wide variability in the estimated YLL at a given age (e.g. at ≥80 years, YLL was >10 years for people with 0 LTCs, and <3 years for people with ≥6).
> Conclusions: Deaths from COVID-19 represent a substantial burden in terms of per-person YLL, more than a decade, even after adjusting for the typical number and type of LTCs found in people dying of COVID-19. The extent of multimorbidity heavily influences the estimated YLL at a given age. More comprehensive and standardised collection of data (including LTC type, severity, and potential confounders such as socioeconomic-deprivation and care-home status) is needed to optimise YLL estimates for specific populations, and to understand the global burden of COVID-19, and guide policy-making and interventions.
> For everything else like heart disease etc. we talk about statistically "losing X years of life".
> We do this because people misunderstand the "losing x years of life" statistics...
It makes sense, but this is honestly the first time I've heard anything expressed this way. Perhaps geographical differences.
What I thought you were going to say was what's been annoying the hell out of me all pandemic: no shit [very populous country] has massively higher #new infections and #deaths than [tiny country]..
There's just no value in it beyond internal comparisons over time (which you could do with any externally relevant relative measure too), but that won't stop the press of course! Absolute numbers are bigger!
(Perhaps one day they'll work out they could use it to their advantage - '#UK deaths per billion'...)
> ...just like you've done here.
For what it's worth I did not mean to imply a relationship between the average median life expectancy for the population as a whole and the life expediency of a person who's reached that age.
As you point out doing so would be a statistical fallacy. E.g. someone who's reached the age of 5 has already made it "past" infant mortality, and therefore has a higher life expectancy than a newborn.
I was using it as a shorthand to reference how lopsided the age distribution of COVID-19 deaths is. We can quibble over whether an 80 year old who's died from it would have lived an extra 0, 1, 5, 10 years.
But even if you were to completely misunderstand how life expectancy works, you'd be a lot more accurate than the GP's reference to a 747 crashing into a mountain, since that example implies deaths from a random sample of the population. Now instead of being off by 5-10 years you're off by many decades.
Early on, I read that even though people who die of covid are typically old, they have plenty of time left. E.g. an 85 year old dies, who would be expected to live 10 more years.
That study only compared age at death to life expectancy at that age. Since those who die from covid are generally in much poorer health than average, the real number is somewhere much lower than that, although I’m sure finding a way to estimate it would be pretty difficult.
Median age of COVID deaths here in the UK is 83[1]. Life expectancy is 81.
1: https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/fre...
Life expectancy for an 83 year old is 90 (male) or 91 (female):
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
COVID largely impacted only the geriatric and obese. If the airplane were full of women and children then your analogy would be more poignant.
Edit: interesting note … if you were to take the number of deaths in the Second World War that would amount to 86 fully loaded 747 aircraft flying into the side of a mountain per day for six years.
And I believe that humans are so closed off from reality and don't care about others so much the point that they don't realize how little of a rate that is compared to everything else. We got people claiming they almost died from covid. Then testing negative realizing that they just got normal flu, holy crap normal flu is so bad it can make you lose weight? Yes idiot.
I just spent about 3 months non-stop hospital visits for the past year and a half for open reduction internal fixation multiple times. The hospital was empty like literally the lights are out in this hallway I have to find the light switch and turn it on so that I can go down to the X-ray room. This is a city of 300,000 with an empty hospital. Yet they claim it's full when all 35 covid beds are taken. I walked all around the hospital hoax fake are the first words that came to my mind.
We should probably change how it is talked about then, because there is a fairly constant flow of medical reports showing that even young who catch Covid and have minimal symptoms actually have severe hidden internal organ damage which is predicted to result in a generation with heart and lung problems in the next couple of decades.
I think it has a lot to do with expectations and how they need to change in light of such an event.
In 2017 there were no commercial passenger jet deaths - that's how amazingly safe these machines are. Any such crash casts doubt on this idea.
Imagine the difference between "literally perfectly safe" and "can (rarely) cause death".
Same with events like 9/11 - no one going to work that day expected to die like this just hours later.
Pneumonia has a death rate of up to 10% among hospitalized patients(mostly older folks), so people who drop off their parent at the hospital are often already mentally preparing for the worst.
well, not literally perfectly safe. just not enough data
>"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." – Josef Stalin
not necessarily because humans don't care, but simply because most humans don't usually reason with numbers that large. I can understand the approximate size and volume of a dozen eggs. I can't for a million unless you show me an acre stacked with them. Death tolls are similar.
How cynical is it to question whether or not this was timed at least in part to bolster economic outlook in the face of the market shrinkage this week over inflation fears?
(Experts have been asking for more explicit guidance from the CDC for months now.)
Edit: for reference, up until this point, the CDC has not even been willing to concede the safety of outdoor activities: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-tr...
Not cynical at all.
There are a ton of factors worth considering, the jobs report and economic outlook at the top of the list IMO. Next are the set of realities that require confronting... such as the facts that vaccination sites are sitting vacant and doses are going to waste, everyone who got a vaccine has at least one dose and everyone who hasn't got one yet probably never will, states like FL and TX "reopening completely" regardless... and honestly, the people at large are pretty much unfazed, at this point, by hospitalization/death numbers that stay flat or trend somewhat downward. And(!), not to mention, the fact that no politician wants to be caught dead approving another round of stimulus checks and paycheck loans.
I do wonder if they will try and stimulate the retail/hospitality industries though as one more nudge undercover as a COVID measure rather than economic austerity.
I am as cynical as you but I suspect the tipping point is probably more when even CNN has been calling the CDC’s bullshit on air.
A straightforward explanation is that cases are going down even in places that had large recent outbreaks like Michigan and the communication about masking is frequently cited by people that are on the fence about getting vaccinated.
I can't judge your cynicism, but I can say it's quite suspect that media outlets—apparently—behaved as the mouthpiece of the state:
Why is it suspect? It's huge news, and will affect businesses, events, weddings, vacation, personal life for the millions of people who have still been taking public health and the CDC seriously. It's news. And I don't think it's surprising that they would have the scoop around the same time.
It’s not that it is all over the news nor that they all had the news at roughly the same time; it’s that they apparently released news saying the CDC said so before the CDC actually publicly said so.
Also, it's worth noting that this is usually done with good intentions: News outlets are highly incentivized to be the first one to break any particular story, so if a press release is not embargo'd, everyone will rush as fast as possible (on the order of minutes) to make it into a news alert. Even assuming the best possible reporter, such an article is bound to be poorly researched and edited because it is being rushed out. By putting a press release under a few hours of embargo, news outlets get a bit more time to prepare their coverage before it goes live.
(Please don't reply with specific examples where this standard is not upheld. I'm clearly not arguing that this strategy is 100% effective.)
The CDC has no authority regarding the masking of either vaccinated or unvaccinated people. Its guidelines may influence state response, but they do not supercede or even augment them. Yet they have been treated as supreme authority by many, as you well point out.
I understand the importance of unified messaging, please don't get me wrong. But the media has acted as the mouthpiece of the state for years, and this is yet another example of that.
Why might this be harmful? Can you conceive of why such marriage between the state and the press may not be in the best interest of the people?
Meh, I don’t think it’s that complicated. It’s because vaccines have finally been widely available for approximately the time it takes to achieve immunity.
Americans are very patriotic. Singing the national anthem and waving the flag is second nature. I don't think a conspiracy is needed: every opportunity to show how great America is will be used.
>Americans are very patriotic. Singing the national anthem and waving the flag is second nature.
I'm pretty sick of these kind of nation-based generalizations.
They're never as true as the person pretends they are, and they're usually just thinnly-veiled hate speech of various types.
Generalizing other human beings by what country they were given membership to -- usually uncontrolled by birth, by the way -- is about the weakest way to gain an insight into the persona of another person.
This is especially true given how common criticism of the US is among Americans these days. Not to mention it also leaves out that plenty of other countries around the world don't hesitate to sing their national anthem and wave their flag either.
I think the criticism is valid, especially from its own citizens. What I found most bizarre is how kids are trained/required/mandated to pledge allegiance to the flag EVERY day without even knowing what they are actually doing. 30minutes later as the lesson unfolds we hear of how atrocious those Nazi Germans were- how brainwashed the Japs were, condemning them as animals unworthy of life. You question it for a sec but 'Praise the Supreme Leader' comes on over the speakers so you jump again with your hand across the heart and join the rest of the group with Praise.
There is a non-paywalled story here. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fully-vaccinated-americans-r...
Neither the NYT nor ABC stories have links to the actual guidance, and I don't see anything about this on cdc.gov. I guess this was embargoed and the story was released before cdc got around to publishing the guidance.
Update: Guidance is now at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac...
Thank you for noticing this.
This is a media blitz, and one may wonder why there are prepared, published stories about CDC guidance that hadn't yet even been published.
I'm sure there are many rational reasons for this. One, indeed, is particularly salient.
This is 100% normal. Press is informed under embargo to assure information goes out quickly and widely once the information is ready/ public. Nothing nefarious about it.
Why wouldn’t the CDC publish guidance once it is ready, which the media can than report on? The mere coordination (and normalcy thereof) is exactly why people view these policies (gatekeeping) as nefarious.
You post on your website, somebody notices, 'spreaders' race to get faulty quick copy out (better fast than right), gives the conspiracy theorists a headstart as people start looking for more detail.
Or you issue an embargoed release, allowing responsible 'spreaders' to get their ducks in a row, and then cometh the hour, cometh the copy-edited verbose well referenced pieces.
The latter is far better than the former.
I hope my thinking on this is overly pessimistic but I think wearing masks is going to be perhaps the biggest lightning rod in America for a while. It’s going to act as a proxy issue for many other sociopolitical and psychological issues that will be channeled into this conflict.
I think the perhaps the best advice is entirely cliche. We are going to need to respect other people’s choices and try to be as patient and kind as we can.
> It’s going to act as a proxy issue for many other sociopolitical and psychological issues that will be channeled into this conflict.
That's the key observation, I think. It's not about the mask, it's about something else entirely, and I don't know what that is. Where I live (Sweden), there is little of that tension, and so masks weren't needed.
> We are going to need to respect other people’s choices and try to be as patient and kind as we can.
You cannot just stand by what amounts to religious zeal. It will affect you one way or another.
The reason for the contention is because it is not simply one side wearing masks and the other side not. It is one side wearing masks and demanding the other side do as well.
That’s progressivism in a nutshell. It’s not just that these people have an opinion, but that all dissenting opinions must be eradicated.
It’s particularly amusing on masks because of the endless talk of “follow the science.” I guess science is only to be followed when it fits the existing worldview. Now that the CDC is changing course it’s “we need to independently review this.”
I find it interesting that the people who screamed "trust/listen to the CDC!" the loudest when the CDC's position was "everyone wear your mask and stay home as much as you can" are now the ones looking hardest for reasons to ignore/downplay/criticize the CDC's guidance.
One must evaluate the consequences of not following a particular piece of advice.
If masks work, and you don’t wear one, you are potentially killing people and worsening the pandemic.
If they aren’t needed, and you do wear one anyways, no harm has been done.
> no harm has been done
This isn't the evaluation we're having though. If it was purely a personal choice to wear one or not then maybe. As it stands, most people were compelled by law to wear a mask under every circumstance whether it made sense or not. The argument quickly went from "wear a mask to protect yourself" to "everyone MUST wear a mask under every situation". It then split into two silly sides signally to their camps and a horrible political divide got much worse. Yeah, harm has been done.
> 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.
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.
I'm sorry, what was the harm of wearing a mask? Like, if the US and CDC said "hey, the flu sucks - face masks are mandatory in any public space during the 3 months of flu season", what's the cost there? Other than the cost of the mask of course.
> The argument quickly went from "wear a mask to protect yourself"
That was never the argument. Wearing masks isn't about protecting yourself (only properly-fitted high-grade masks do that well, and regular people wearing those would have taken supply away from medical staff). Wearing masks is about protecting other people from you spreading the virus (which they do a decent job of when combined with distancing).
The reason it can't just be a personal choice is because not wearing a mask isn't endangering you, it's endangering other people. It's the same reason we don't let people smoke indoors. And having a blanket rule to always wear a mask in public was mainly about keeping the messaging simple. Constant debating over which situations were safe or not for going maskless would have harmed our overall responnse to the virus. The reason the CDC changed their guidance is that there's now enough evidence to confidently say that vaccinated people can't spread the virus to others, but honestly it may potentially cause those same issues.
> That was never the argument.
Yes it was. It's easy to forget what the actual messaging was in the early days. Originally we were all talking about not using up medical masks or N95 masks, which were meant to "protect the wearer from contact with droplets and sprays that may contain germs."[1] Then we all switched to wearing these homemade masks and the messaging turned to wearing them was important to stop the spread to other people. And it had to be done in every single circumstance.
> Constant debating over which situations were safe or not for going maskless would have harmed our overall responnse to the virus.
That is legitimately up for debate. One could make a good case that a noble lie to the public does more harm because it erodes trust in the institution that fibbed in order to "keep it simple". Part of the reason we were in this mask controversy mess is because the authorities were saying one thing and scientist were saying other things in many cases. Not always, but in some cases.
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i...
I'm as pro-science (and progressive) as anyone, but under this logic you would have to wear a mask at all times for the rest of your life. This is just not reasonable. We have dealt with flus and other infections that kill people every year without feeling like we have a moral obligation to prophylactically wear a mask at all times, whether we feel sick or not. At some point the mandate needs to end.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27157672
I’m not proposing keeping the mandate.
> If they aren’t needed, and you do force other people to wear it
There, corrected your typo for you.
No, you entirely changed my point to construct a straw man.
> you are potentially killing people
No, you absolutely are not killing people. This is absurd alarmist propaganda designed to guilt people into acting a certain way.
> If they aren’t needed, and you do wear one anyways, no harm has been done.
This is a particularly insidious argument. First, you’re required to agree to your first point about killing people. Second, you’re required to agree that compelled mask wearing has no harm.
Neither of these statements are true.
Since this is oriented to the general public, one would assume that this information has already been factored in the announcement. i.e. that the CDC has published this guidance because now the evidence for the vaccinated population not needing masks in most places is overwhelming.
I'm saying that some people may still choose to go beyond what the CDC recommends, by continuing to wear a mask in some situations. This harms no one.
Because it's a publicly visible political statement and tribal signaling. What the MAGA hat was for the right, the mask is for the left.
It's crazy how politicised the mask has become in the States.
Over here in my parts of Eastern-Europe the government just announced yesterday that starting tomorrow (Saturday) the mask won't be mandatory anymore in almost all outdoor spaces for everyone, a statement which was received with joy and relief by almost everyone, no matter their political orientation.
Yup, as an American I agree with you. I'm also thrilled to see these new CDC guidelines. It's absolutely sickened me that refusal to wear a mask is seen as "patriotic" in some circles.
Ah, Romania. Though this country does seem to have one of the lowest vaccination rates.
It could be also Poland.
Respectfully, I think your suggestion is an exaggeration of reality.
There is perhaps a correlation between masks and political leaning, but there is also cross correlation between those things and higher education, age, race, urban residence, and other confounding variables.
Moreover, I think it's a greater signal to refuse to wear a mask. At least where I live, pretty much everyone goes along with the mask guidance despite a large Republican presence. So if you're simply wearing a mask, there's not much ground to assume anything about your political affiliations.
This is such a bullshit strawman. Most of my friends are family are very liberal. Most of them are already vaccinated. Not a single one of them wants to wear a mask unless absolutely necessary and everyone is ready for this to be over.
If they've been vaccinated and still insist on wearing the masks, I kinda think you're proving OP's point here. What do you even mean with "waiting for this to be over"? You're vaccinated, it's over, are you now waiting for a super-vaccine or something?
You are kind of proving my point by reading 'unless absolutely necessary' (meaning: they don't want to use a mask and they don't most of the time, except when there's a rule saying they should) as 'THEY TOTALLY WANT TO KEEP USING A MASK!!!'.
I know people who had masks before the pandemic
lol. this is hilarious
On the other hand, I walked down the street last night without a mask and almost everyone I crossed paths with wasn't wearing one either.
This would have been unthinkable yesterday.
Really? That's wild to me. I haven't worn a mask outside since the pandemic began.
Suburbs and rural areas differ greatly from major cities in this regard.
I don't find it "interesting" at all that a particular group of people has decided to err on the side of caution in both cases. It's entirely consistent.
This is how critical thinking works. If an organization advises something you think might be risky, you question it, and maybe don't do the potentially-risky thing until you have more information. But if an organization advises you to do something they claim reduces risk, you go ahead and do it. If information later comes out that this risk-reducing thing wasn't useful, then you stop doing it; you haven't lost anything by trying it.
Regardless, we've all seen what happens in places where restrictions were lifted earlier than they should have been. Being cautious is the right move.
As for myself, I'll be fully protected by the vaccine in about two weeks. I'll likely continue wearing a mask in public in order to help others around me feel more comfortable (because they have no idea if I've been vaccinated or not), but among people I know, I'll take the mask off. Once the vaccination rate is high enough around here, I'll leave it off in public, too, assuming state/local mandates allow it.
> If an organization advises something you think might be risky, you question it
My point is that last year, the party line was "the CDC is above questioning."
> If information later comes out that this risk-reducing thing wasn't useful, then you stop doing it; you haven't lost anything by trying it.
Pretty much every COVID mitigation has some negative effect, so I don't think "you haven't lost anything" is accurate.
I think most probably have a more nuanced position than that.
My personal hesitation is that people are just going to ignore the explicit condition of full vaccination. Worst case outcome could result in dragging the pandemic out and providing opportunity for new variants to develop.
A concern closer to home is that this will increase risk for my parents, who have been hesitant about the mRNA vaccines and refuse J&J because is produced using a fetal cell line.
Not sure why the rest of us should be required to continue to change our lives because of your parents (unfortunately) unfounded, anti-scientific personal views?
That’s fair, my point is just that it’s a valid source of anxiety.
And it’s not just my own parents. Like 30% of the US seems like they are not going to get a vaccine any time soon, and I worry that the guidance critically depends on the assumption that unvaccinated people will still mask up and distance. I don’t think it’s a very good assumption (would love to be proven wrong), and I don’t know what that means for the public health outlook of this new guidance.
Ideas are easy to be against. Right now, covid is just an idea to a lot of people. They don't know anyone who's gotten sick, or worse. It's harder to be against a person. Once a few people in their social circles get the vaccine and live to tell the tale, the hesitance will fall away. Polls are a snapshot and can turn quickly. That's why pollsters keep repeating them.
Your parents are making their own tradeoffs. People need to accept responsibility for the tradeoffs they choose.
Yes, I agree.
The point is, how much does this new public health guidance depend on the assumption that people will accept the responsibility to either mask up or get vaccinated?
The folks who won't do either have likely been doing that for the last year and would thus be already factored in to any case/infection numbers they're evaluating.
I'm not sure the cause of their concern with the J&J being produced with a fetal cell line, but the Catholic Church has some fairly vocal guidance on why the J&J vaccine is acceptable that address this.
Also, for the mRNA vaccine, you may want to emphasize that this is the result of several decades of research, not a one-year crash program in new technology.
> the Catholic Church has some fairly vocal guidance on why the J&J vaccine is acceptable
The Catholic Church's position is that the J&J vaccine is acceptable if it's the only vaccine you can get, but you should not get it if any of the other vaccines are available to you. Your comment makes it sound like they consider it acceptable unconditionally, which isn't the case.
There's a big difference between "don't have an alternative" and "don't have one they will accept." I don't think the Church means that it's okay to take J&J just because you don't like the others.
Please tell your parents the truth, that the J&J vaccine is not produced using a fetal cell line.
Thanks, but I don’t think that’s actually accurate. AIUI, J&J grow their adenovirus vector using the cell line PERC.C6.
This is a super emotional topic for a lot of people, so it doesn’t really make a difference for them that there are no PERC.C6 cells in the actual vaccine, or that the cell line is from the 80s, or any of that. I can at least understand this hesitancy, unlike the misinformation-fueled notion that the mRNA vaccines will change your DNA or something.
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-johnson-aborted-id...
https://www.janssen.com/emea/emea/janssen-vaccine-technologi...
They are just "following the science" (when it suits them).
It’s good to give better incentives for people to be vaccinated, as many have urged for some time.
I worry this carrot isn’t tied to an adequate stick - the unvaccinated can simply go without a mask regardless of their status. Will this move actually counter our slowing vaccination rates?
For what it's (not) worth, it prompted me to sign up today. :)
> For what it's (not) worth, it prompted me to sign up today. :)
More for my understanding than anything else, and with every guarantee that I won't present any follow-up questions or statements, but why was this the tipping point and not the actual disease risk mitigation resulting from the vaccine?
Bleh, i'm 25, healthy, and more than all, lazy. But if it means I can take my mask off and be honest. I'm down.
Thanks, and thanks for getting it. :)
Not me, but a coworker of mine is the only guy in my office who hasn't been vaccinated (rest of us got second dose at end of January) because of adverse reactions to past (milder) vaccinations. He correctly assesses that he's in a very low risk environment, but at some point he'll probably risk the vaccine to not have pariah status.
But for the last 3 months, there was nothing to make the tradeoff worthwhile to him.
Glad that he didn’t value not being a disease vector which could spread the virus to someone who may be at risk. Vaccines work when most of society get vaccinated, it only requires a small minority of egos to make a forgotten disease rear its ugly head again.
It was the first clear sign that the CDC is confident in the vaccine.
My guess: GP is young and healthy, so the chance of significant harm from COVID is nearly zero, and the vaccines for COVID have significantly worse side effects than pretty much any other vaccines given today. Thus, until today, it was a high-risk low-reward proposition.
More or less spot on, but add a whole boat load of laziness to the equation.
Anecdotally, dozens of people in my social circle (aged 30-50) reported that the worst vaccine side effects were (1) a sore arm and (2) 24-48 hours of sleepy brain fog (even after the second dose). Among first and second degree connections on Facebook, I know of exactly two people who experienced the full gamut of flu-like symptoms, such as fever, chills, and whole-body aches for a day or two. Take this with a grain of salt, but I'd estimate an upper bound of 10% for "moderately unpleasant" side effects among young-ish, moderately healthy individuals.
You can't just weigh "The risk and severity of bad effects from COVID" with "the risks and severity of the bad effects from the vaccine". You also need to factor in that the probability of an unvaccinated person getting COVID isn't 100%.
Newer variants are hitting young people harder. COVID is getting more dangerous to that group. Plus, as other posters have said, the vaccine is extremely safe.
Interesting, as someone who got vaccinated the first day it was available to all adults in Utah(3/24), I'm surprised that this news changed any ones mind. But either way I'm glad it did!.
It seems pretty logical to me.
Every decision is a risk/reward calculation.
The vaccine does carry the risk of side effects and adverse reactions. That risk, for most, is VERY small.
But if the person in question also has very low risk of contracting or spreading Covid (works from home, rarely goes out, young, healthy) and if being vaccinated doesn’t actually enable you to live any differently than you already are, then there’s no compelling reason to get vaccinated and assume the risk of side effects, no matter how small.
As an American, I can tell you that most Americans aren't big on civic duty. And when we are, it's mostly limited to getting out to vote and not complaining too much when selected for jury duty.
American individualism also tends to downplay a person's responsibility to anyone outside their family, which some even restrict to their immediate nuclear family.
It's a shame, and I think it's one of our biggest failings as a culture. Ironically this is one of the few things where the American left and right are fairly on the same page, even if most won't admit it.
(I'm painting a pretty dire picture here, but it really isn't that bad. Communities exist everywhere, and people who care about others exist everywhere. It just seems like when the chips are down, people tend to turn inward rather than outward.)
It does... but again, if being vaccinated means that you still have to do all the other things that are done to limit the spread, then you are perceivably ALREADY doing your civic duty when you go out by masking up, distancing, and otherwise staying home.
Also, if vaccination doesn’t change the risk enough for you to drop some of the other precautions, that also lowers the perceived value of the efficacy of the vaccine as well.
vaccination is probably the most broadly effective, but there are many ways, big and small, to limit the risks of transmission, so don't fall for the fascist line of thinking that there is only one true way, especially when an understanding of the risks (airborne is highly unlikely) and effectiveness of the various mitigations (no, you never needed masks outside unless tightly packed for extended time) is so woefully lacking.
and civic duty is voting, educating yourself on policy issues, obeying reasonable laws, and tolerating and even celebrating differences of perspective and opinion. it's about participating effectively in our democratic republic. it doesn't encompass every possible responsibility to every other human, like the term 'moral duty' might.
If going out means the hassle of wearing a mask, staying distanced, and all the other rules, then, yes.
Put another way, if going out feels like a big hassle, and getting vaccinated doesn’t remove enough of the rules to make going out NOT feel like a hassle, then there’s no reason to change one’s “going out” habits. And if there’s no incentive to change one’s “going out” habits, then there’s no reason to go through any process or procedure that only perceivably benefits you if you leave home.
I will be getting my vaccine soon myself.
But the world has changed. If I was isolated and nervous to “put myself out there” pre-pandemic, then I’m nearly agoraphobic now.
Nobody I work with wants to return to the office, nobody wants to return to having fun outings (at least not outside their own social circle).
There’s literally nothing for me to return to doing. I’ve built up a relatively solitary life with my dad in the last 12+ months, and everything outside of it is gone.
If you feel that you have so much to return to that the idea of rarely going out, forever, sounds unrealistic, then I would consider yourself lucky.
I intend to get vaccinated just to be safe to anyone I might come in contact with, but to your point, even once I get vaccinated, I honestly see no trigger to change my behavior. I highly doubt I’m alone in this.
I would prefer to wear a mask at the grocery store, but not at work when physically on-site. I'm low risk, and don't really have any desire to go out and get vaccinated mostly because I'm lazy, don't like needles, antisocial, and generally anxious in public.
I don't really ever go out willingly, so I didn't really have an incentive to get vaccinated. Now I can get vaccinated and not wear a mask at work when it's 100+F in a few months.
Now that it's socially acceptable to wear a mask when in businesses and isn't a fashion trend, I will continue to do it since it should impede facial recognition. Except if it's a bit hot, I now can choose not to :)
I think this will be a great incentive to drive vaccination rates.
If you were in a very low risk group, I can see delaying taking the vaccine to avoid blocking a higher risk person. Absent that I truly don't understand declining any of the vaccines for COVID. The risk of serious side effects is negligible. Meanwhile, every day you are alive you move into a higher risk group both for COVID and for longer recovery of mild side effects. So why wait?
Kind of curious why you waited so long? Most people I know who are refusing are Trump followers and simply believe it's all a hoax. Literally all of it.
I waited a couple weeks after it was open to everyone here. I waited because the only available vaccines were multiple hours away. I wasn’t going to make that trip twice (and potentially find out they screwed up their count or ruined doses or something) when I could wait a couple weeks and get one in my own town. Doubly so since I have less contact with strangers than most.
I was in a similar boat, but I went ahead and drove the couple hours out for the first shot...and then as supply opened up closer to me, scheduled my second 5 miles away. Totally understand the motivation to wait though; my wife got in due to some health stuff, and so there was more pressure for me to just hurry up and get it.
It’s one of the most personal and symbolic gestures of hope for a return to normalcy. I think its power there exceeds the actual inconvenience.
For me: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-c...
When this changes or it's been a year I'll consider it.
I traveled a bit during this pandemic and in Arizona it’s like the virus didn’t exist. Nobody was wearing a mask, nobody. Even indoor. Even the waiters.
I’m back in SF now and everybody is wearing the mask. Everybody. The adults, the children, Even the vaccinated people. Yesterday the waiter asked me if we could put back our mask so she could hand us our plate.
Country of extremes. I feel like there’s no going back to normal eventhough I’m fully vaccinated.
I'm curious where in Arizona. Cities have been hit hardest because of population density and interactions, so it's somewhat more reasonable for cities to be more concerned.
> the waiter asked me if we could put back our mask so she could hand us our plate
I get the feeling behind this, but it's also silly. Either you're outdoors and the risk is already pretty low, or you're indoors, and 30s of exposure won't be a big deal, especially when it's not like everyone is wearing N95 respirators and aerosols are a bigger concern than we used to think.
In TX people often, say ~25%, ignored mask mandates inside stores. When the mandate lifted it went to more like ~10%. I get it, I'm a contrarían, but it was surprising that once it wasn't required to be thoughtful, people were.
Benefit of asking nicely instead of demanding. Texas folks are (anecdotally) very resistive to authority.
Was in Florida in March. Few masks anywhere. Almost none at bars and restaurants. It was nice to experience "normal" again. Some retail stores had "please wear a mask" signs up and I'd say the shoppers were about 70% compliant.
We had a lady on Nextdoor lauding her ability to go outside without a mask and being able to smile at a friend from afar now that she’s vaccinated. Masks haven’t been required outside when social distancing for most of the pandemic, vaccinated or not. There’s reasons for wearing masks (or not), but the decision to wear one (or not) typically has nothing to do with reason.
> There’s reasons for wearing masks (or not), but the decision to wear one (or not) typically has nothing to do with reason.
It spreads so poorly outdoors (this has been abundantly documented), especially if your exposure to someone is brief, that the main reason is a combination of virtue signaling, hygiene theater, and because it makes you feel safer.
At some point you're going to have to draw the line, though. At what point is it etiquette, and at what point is it indulging paranoia? That line might not be today, but it exists.
I live here and I see the vast majority of people wearing masks.
From what I hear, the Bay Area seems especially mask-wearing at this point. I live in the well known Trump bastion of Massachusetts </s> and, while I don't know what things are like in Boston proper, an hour west where I live, essentially no one is wearing masks at this point on hiking trails and the like. People may do the theater of pulling up a bandana for a few seconds to pass but that's mostly it. (People are still mostly wearing inside though.)
Do you think that the CDC gives guidance based on incentives instead of best health interest?
Personally they lost my trust when they told us to not wear masks for some time early in the pandemic.
I believe that guidance was based upon a prioritization necessity to make sure that medical first responders had access to PPE. Once the supply of PPE was great enough the guidance was also changed
The problem is they didn't say "masks work but please save them for first responders until we get more." They said "masks don't work." You can argue they may have had a good reason to lie, but you can't argue that they didn't lie.
There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that “improper wearing” could spread infection.
The problem is natural human bias to require higher levels of evidence to refute a practice than were required to institute it.
There was no change in the evidence on masks between March and April of 2020. This is retconning the CDC’s incompetent messaging.
So wearing a mask as a punishment? That will further trust in public health policies.
Unvaccinated should wear mask, because they are more likely to spread it. Vaccinated dont have to wear mask, because they are less likely to spread it.
Making masks into that big punishment and unfairness definitely killed my trust into whole lot of people and groups of people.
It’s mostly just accepting reality and gives states an alibi out of their partisan pandemic response
Like, on one end you have states waiting for an impossibly high threshold of vaccination before masks go away or nightclubs open up with dance floors. And now they can say “oh ok that was old guidance, we’re good now”
On the other hand it also caters to the states that ignored old guidance “ah! Sanity has prevailed! Now can these few businesses that demand masks stop fighting us on this?”
Ohio is holding five million-dollar lottery drawings for which only vaccinated people are eligible, and I expect other states to follow suit: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...
West Virginia is offering up cash, too, as are some cities. Seems to work.
https://www.wiscnews.com/news/national/a-million-dollars-in-...
I sincerely hope the trend of tying very personal, individual healthcare decisions with what is essentially gambling, NEVER spreads beyond the COVID vaccine.
I don’t know of many other ways to cheapen the significance of one’s own healthcare or the science that drives it than something like this.
I'm sure somebody will want to create vaccine coins, where the crypto currency are mined by people getting vaccinated, or walked their 1k steps for the day and what have you
Hah, that's a cool idea
It's genius. US should do a federal one.
I liked the idea of paying people to get vaccinated [1], but since that encountered public opposition, this is the next best thing.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/13/955594105/should-the-governme...
Or it could give people who are already suspect of government more reason to avoid the vaccine.
A stranger on the sidewalk is giving away free cookies. If in addition they offer $100 to each person who eats one, does that make me more, or less likely to accept a cookie?
Yes, but the important thing is that the vaccine is available. They chose not to take it. The argument that we need to keep each other safe no longer holds.
Keep in mind there are some who genuinely can't get it, for one medical reason or another. We still need to keep them safe.
There are very few people who can't tolerate the RNA-based coronavirus vaccines. For severely immuno-compromised people, the vaccines may not be effective.[1] People who are going to have their immune systems suppressed for a transplant apparently present some problems, but can be vaccinated before the transplant or weeks afterward.
That's a nice feature of the RNA-based vaccines.
[1] https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/coronavirus-disea...
Keep in mind that that’s not gonna happen.
Unless the President said that, your message is not going to get across.
848 Americans died today marked as a Covid contributed death. There were lockdowns across 90% of the country a year ago when less people were dying from this. So we’re just past that, sorry. Good luck to them.
The goal was just to keep ICU capacity available for the normal distribution of emergencies in society. We’ve done that.
Whatever you are saying is just reinforcing my point?
It means we’ve all been reduced to statistics for 15 months and we have now simply reverted to a mean where the world is not compatible with immunocompromised people and good luck to them, just like before Covid, and just like during and after Covid. They had a 15 month time period where people and the state would help reduce exposure to them, and that was the luckiest time for them to be immunocompromised and thats over now.
This right here is the argument, and has been since February 2020. We got a little lost along the way, but our original social measures to reduce the spread of COVID was due to our inability to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. Now that we have the vaccines, we have no moral reason to now baby the people who refuse to protect themselves.
Children can't get vaccinated yet, though, and I do still want to protect them. It's why my wife and I, though fully vaccinated, haven't totally returned to normal, since our toddler and infant are still susceptible.
On an objective basis, the risk to children is in line with colds and flu.
Which isn't zero, colds and flu kill a few children a year.
I support you in keeping your children healthy, not trying to second guess you as a parent. But "think of the children" is not a good basis for policy here.
Source for this??
Good point! And I don't want to imply that the only people left without a vaccine are those who "refuse" it. We're not there yet, but were close! Stay safe!
(what in the world is going on with downvotes in this thread? Are HNers really unable to have difficult conversations?)
Forcing children (or anyone really) to undergo a medical procedure for the benefit of other people is evil.
I understand wanting to protect your kids, but here’s some statistics (United States): on average, 500 kids a year die from RSV, a respiratory virus for which there is no vaccine. Last year, 200 kids died from COVID-19, for which a seemingly safe and effective vaccine exists. I understand this probably doesn’t help much since you don’t hear and think about RSV every day for a year straight, but hopefully the vaccines are approved for children soon. Hang in there :)
As long as we still bend the curve to not overwhelm the hospital system. Even vaccinated, I may need an ICU bed from a car accident or a heart attack.
I wish there was data on fully vaccinated people being able to spread infection to others, but that won't be available for a long time.
> I wish there was data on fully vaccinated people being able to spread infection to others, but that won't be available for a long time.
There is such data. That data is what led the CDC to make this change.
Really hoping that the majority of those that haven't been vaccinated are just lazy and not scared of the vaccine. Hopefully this is enough of a carrot, but also hope this doesn't embolden those that haven't been vaccinated and don't plan on it from going mask-less in public when they previously were wearing masks.
In WA it only recently opened up to all, and even those with early access may still be working on a full course. I just finished my full course because I had early access due to volunteer work. So we're not quite through those who are choosing not to take it here. Soon tho it will be all down to choice here.
Oh, good to know.. guess I assumed that because I've heard there's more vaccines than people that want to take them in the valley that it'd be like that in most other places.
That assumes that the vaccine is 100% effective, and that everyone who is at risk can safely take the vaccine. Neither of those are true.
Pfizer and Moderna are both effective to within the mid-high 90's, was my understanding.
Wait, Pfizer is only ~75% effective against B.1.351? Can you provide a source. I was not aware of that and it's worrisome.
And so we will synth a new one in a 2 weeks, just like the last one. The important thing is that we have a cold supply distribution chain, readily available production for mRNA synthesis, and emergency authorizations, which will become regular vax authorizations when it is shown to be a new cutting edge technique and a new golden age in fighting viral infections. Go, go ASAP. Get it. It won’t be your last. But it might be the last of viral cancers, covs, hiv…
The US is solving that by not getting enough people vaccinated :/
Neither of them need to be true for a critical mass of vaccinated people to demand for restrictions to be rescinded. Eventually politicians will realize they need to get re-elected and cave to pressure. It will happen, especially with this new guidance from the CDC. I would bet there are no state wide mask mandates by Jan 1, 2022.
Edit: Minnesota will be ending their mask mandate tomorrow.
I'll be surprised if there are any state wide mandates on July 31
So you are salivating at the idea that businesses that cared for their employees' safety go under just because you disagree with them politically.
Very nice.
This carrot will lead to reopen the office and commute.
Good lord. It is almost like they want to discourage people to not get vaccinated.
I just hope white vaccine resistors get what they deserve. We absolutely should not let them be among us without proof of vaccine.
But I am also hoping this convinces all the Black people, Latinx, and people of color, who might have vaccine hesitancy for totally understandable reasons that it is safe.
What do they deserve?
Don't feed the troll.
where exactly incentives end and discrimination starts? it's very narrow line
I think people should take care about their own health, if you are in risk group get vaccinated, if you are not in risk group what's the point urging someone to get vaccinated if risk groups are vaccinated or are ready to bear risks?
Some people in high-risk groups are not vaccinated, mostly due to allergies or other medical conditions.
Low-risk people can still become infected, never show symptoms, and pass the virus to someone else without realizing it. Risking that happening while a vaccine is available is just irresponsible and selfish.
Throughout this pandemic, my biggest fear was not getting COVID myself, but unwittingly giving it to someone vulnerable who then died.
Mutations and variants.
> I worry this carrot isn’t tied to an adequate stick
If most of the new cases start to be among the unvaccinated, that could make for a stick.
I just watched the most recent Last Week Tonight, and there was a clip of a man whose mother refused the vaccine, caught COVID, and is now in the ICU on a ventilator. He was asked if he was going to get vaccinated, and he said he still wasn't sure.
I really wish that stick worked, but it seems like it won't, at least not universally. But presumably there are some people for whom it will work, if one of their loved ones gets infected and ends up in a bad way.
> the unvaccinated can simply go without a mask regardless of their status.
Oh, the humanity.
This isn’t a carrot, its public health guidance based in risks and infection rates (including the induced risk of noncompliance by the unvaccinated triggered by loosening rules for the vaccinated.)
> Will this move actually counter our slowing vaccination rates?
Yes, loosening controls does that. It also reduces the harms imposed by the controls. Vaccination and infection affect the cost/benefit analysis between those effects.
The problem is also the social pressure that this will add on other people by the anti-mask who are going to say "Why are you wearing a mask ? Nobody is going to check anyway, just say you are vaccinated, pfff..."
States will begin rescinding their mask mandates soon, if they calculate their health care system can handle an outbreak among the remaining unvaccinated. Minnesota is rescinding their mask mandate once 70% of adults have had their first shot, or July 1.
Edit: MN mask mandate goes away tomorrow.
If you’re vaccinated along with a decent majority of people, why would you want to wear a mask? The vaccines have been overwhelmingly good so far at preventing hospitalization and death, they’re more effective than influenza vaccines.
I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and skepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance, and law enforcement. Yet simultaneously there is ostensibly a high degree of trust in the motives and competency of the American government when it comes to COVID.
There's been multiple threads lately, including one that is on the front page as we speak, critical of the American surveillance state. The comments exhibit a high degree of distrust towards the FBI, NSA, and other law-enforcement institutions. This degree of distrust seems almost absolute, yet the word of the CDC seems to be taken as gospel, despite clear hints of politicization of the COVID crisis on their behalf.
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 manipulation. On the contrary societal trust in the US seems immensely low.
I think the CDC's original statements on masks (they aren't necessary, they're only effective at preventing the spread of COVID if the wearer has a medical degree, don't wear masks on planes, etc) contributed a lot to the distrust and politicization of mask wearing.
When you expect an institution to always be impartial and tell the truth, those sorts of white lies can quickly erode trust.
Please also note it is unnecessary to do any additional analysis to describe the example cited as a "lie." We know it was a deliberate lie because the then head of the CDC has said so [1] - unless he was lying about claiming he was lying there's not much doubt in that case. The CDC lie when it suits them isn't something that's really debatable.
Does it matter that they lied? This is the proposition that can be debated sensibly and rationally - but will likely be overwhelmed with emotion.
In my own observation there seems to be rather a lot of people who have almost no faith in their fellow humans and believe the only way "people" believe a thing and will act is because they have been told to believe it by someone. Misinformation takes all the blame in this paradigm. The populations is dominated by people who have outsourced their critical thinking.
It may be true, I don't know. But it seems to me to be really quite worrying if a population has to be told lies to get them to do the right thing or lies have to be censored because people will not be able to assess competing evidence and reject bullshit. Does it have to be this way? Was it always? Is it fixable? Is it really a thing at all? I have no answers there.
It's my observation that even in the service of "good", the debt to the truth always comes due and the interest rate is super steep. Many will disagree.
[1] Lack of PPE for medical professionals in the front line of pandemic response is the justification. This may well be a very good justification.
2 weeks of asymptomatic spread has been known about since late January (edit: in 2020). [0]
And Fauci said at one point (2/14/2020):
“There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask” [1]
And at another point (6/15/2020):
"[...] we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N-95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply." [1]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYyH4N8VXvA
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-fauci-made-the-coronavi...
Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus). The various health organizations simply decided to prioritize supply for the medical community till production could ramp up by making statements that dissuade people from panic buying (as happened with say Toilet paper and flour later). While it's understandable, it doesn't make the early statements not "lies" and erosion in trust is a consequence.
> Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks"
The Street: "So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?"
Fauci: "Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected."
https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...
If they didn't suspect that an "atypical pneumonia" as it was called since the beginning had an aereosol component a case can be made that they were unfit for their job
If mask initial recommendation actually was a white lie a case can be made that they are unfit for communicating their results to the masses as they think their peers to be petulant children unfit for handling truths, and they should be stripped of that function
The other cases just convert into variations of them politicising a pandemic to unknown ends
As for the WHO, these organisations shouldn't have an easy way out of their responsibilities
As a Daoist, this is the important point.
"Not to value and employ men of superior ability is the way to keep the people from rivalry among themselves; not to prize articles which are difficult to procure is the way to keep them from becoming thieves; not to show them what is likely to excite their desires is the way to keep their minds from disorder. Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens their bones. He constantly (tries to) keep them without knowledge and without desire, and where there are those who have knowledge, to keep them from presuming to act (on it). When there is this abstinence from action, good order is universal."
- Dao De Jing, Chapter 3, The Chinese Text Project
I feel we are at the end result of "keeping those who have knowledge from acting on it". Misinformation is spread by people with the knowledge of how to control people and they tell people they are smart and they need to act.
I do not agree with Fauci's decision, but there was no other choice.
Look at what happened with the gas panic this week, it is the same thing was written about here:
https://songofthedao.substack.com/p/panic-at-the-gas-station
I don't blame the professionals for getting things wrong on this.
My personal feeling is that it was hard to know if masks worked for the general populace before Covid-19.
There are so many confounding variables that it very difficult to study masks from a public health side.
The best approximation was studies of health professionals in hospitals or clinics which doesn't exactly translate for a multitude of reasons.
Which leads to huge arguments which really benefits nobody as we just establish that we disagree.
Common sense seems to say that masks make s difference, but if that is the strongest argument, then why not let people decide for themselves using common sense.
Can you point me toward some of that research?
Part of the problem is that the American media spread misinformation about the effectiveness of masks for political gain. For example, I remember the New York Times pushing the idea that vaccines would be less effective than mask wearing even though all evidence suggested that even a vaccine which met the minimum standards for approval would likely be substantially more effective than mask wearing, seemingly because Trump supported vaccines but not masks.
> they aren't necessary, they're only effective at preventing the spread of COVID if the wearer has a medical degree, don't wear masks on planes, etc
Everyone seems to also forget that a lot of this took place when they wrongly thought surface transmission was the main vector. The bigger problem was the delay in recognizing aerosol transmission, Chinese scientists cottoned on to this very early but the CDC and WHO dragged their feet.
We also saw everything play out and get politicized in real time in a way that's never happened before. There are lags between data and science, further lags between science and science communication and then even more from science communication to government policy. On one end of this lag you've got scientist warning of aerosol transmission, on the other side you've got Fauci still operating under the surface transmission advice leading to some very mixed messaging. Reducing this lag will be important in future.
> there are suspect cases in Europe already at the beginning of December, of people that had never been in Wuhan.
If this is true, then it's not a given that COVID-19 even originated in China.
Chinese scientists figured out that most colds, flu, and other respiratory illnesses spread through aerosols back in 2003 during the SARS outbreak, if I understand this article correctly: https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...
> China didn't even admit human to human transmission until mid January.
Because it was even newer and more unknown at that point. Wuhan was in lockdown on the 23rd of January, so they had a pretty good idea by then. Meanwhile the rest of the world twiddled their thumbs and lost the opportunity to contain it.
> They haven't even admitted when the outbreak started, which almost certainly wasn't November 2019
How do you "admit" something unknown? Either way we know it couldn't have been too much before November/December, considering everything we know about how fast it spreads.
The Dutch CDC (RIVM) made the same statements. As a result, people don't really believe in masks here either, but it not a big political issue. I am not sure why the mask became such a symbol for the corona measures in the US, but not here.
It’s just that most people don’t really care about wearing a mask in a supermarket and those that do don’t really get bothered with it when they refuse. But it does polarize society between people who love pointing their fingers at others who don’t adhere to their favorite mitigation strategy (‘they’re killing grandma’, ‘If only they had done X’). And of course masks are a pretty visible virtue signal.
People are a lot more critical about the other rules, the curfews, the ban on outdoor dining and bars and the closure of sports facilities. And the ‘you can’t have more than one person over’ rule is generally ignored.
By the way the official Dutch position still is that surface transmission is significant and one of the three ‘main rules’ is to wash your hands a lot.
>I am not sure why the mask became such a symbol for the corona measures in the US, but not here.
Because Donald Trump wanted to downplay the potential scale of the pandemic, believing it distracted from his narrative of economic success playing into his re-election, so he attributed reporting on the pandemic to a "Democratic hoax," feeding into right-wing mistrust of the motives behind both mainstream media reportage and legal measures like lockdowns, which many considered unconstitutional and a pretext for installing a leftist police state.
Also because Trump refused to wear a mask publicly, considering it a display of weakness in front of the "liberal media" which he considered to be the enemy, and would often ridicule people who did wear a mask.
As a result, among Trump supporting Republicans, wearing a mask became associated with sheep-like submission to "leftist' (read: Democratic) authoritarianism, and not wearing a mask became a display of defiance along with the MAGA caps.
It is impossible to consider the phenomenon of the way masks are perceived in the US today outside of the context of the atmosphere of deep paranoia, polarization, mistrust of the press and "international" organizations created by the Trump administration, or the effect of conspiracy theories and misinformation spread across social media by QAnon and Trump supporters.
All national authorities did this, because the advice originated at WHO.
It's pretty simple: A lot of Americans are dogshit-stupid. They voted for Trump. They're deliberately and belligerently ignorant children, just like the former (and disgraced) "president."
This is unfairly downvoted. Much of the cultural indoctrination of Americans was to create a population that could go out and invade territory and commit genocide, which leads directly to this kind of antisocial behavior.
Lying to the public should be a jailable crime. That would greatly increase trust in public institutions.
I had COVID in NYC in Feb, the only way to get a test was to claim you just flew from Wuhan. Which even if you did, I have no idea how they were setup to respond.
Everyone else in the hotel was sick, there was a tensor of coughing, all I could do was sit in my hotel room and watch politicians go back and forth about how we should all patronize stores in Chinatown and not be horrible racists.
All I can say is the is that the CDC performed extremely poorly in their response to this, over and over again. Mishandling tests, allowing the FDA to actively block testing. Even the pausing of the J&J vaccine was an extreme CYA blunder.
NASA had Challenger, NIST had Dual_EC_DRBG and the CDC had COVID. Not the same in scope, but the systemic dysfunction was similar in its structure.
Exactly this. I normally would agree with folks saying that the CDC has little reason to be dishonest, but with COVID in particular, we see enough historical reversal to cause at least some uncertainty around their guidance.
Plus, it also makes sense, if their and the government’s interests are for the greater good. E.g. being cautious about promoting early use of masks when supplies were scarce/preserving them for the front line medical workers.
Theoretically it would also make sense for current guidance to incentivize vaccines when the remaining unvaccinated population is hesitant.
To be clear, I’m not saying I have certainly that this is what’s happening. But the theories aren’t unreasonable, and CDC’s past reversal on guidance doesn’t help the confidence others have in their guidance.
So the uncertainty isn’t completely unreasonable.
Meh, I understand your point, but as someone who follows the conspiratorial world passively, I can tell you the whole 'but they told you masks were useless' thing is a post-facto rationalization to gain some common ground with the less conspiratorial people.
In reality, the usual suspects were pushing conspiracy theories about the CDC even before they determined masks were useful. A famous conspiracy peddler famously claimed the CDC was downplaying how bad the virus was and 'it was over for humanity, it'll only be lone survivors' when we only had a handful of cases in the US.
In other words: the CDC could've nailed every single guideline and we'd still have half of the population making up conspiracy theories about it. It's just too politically convenient.
That's an oversimplification. The first thing to consider is that there's two types of masks:
* N95 masks
* Everything else
We knew N95 masks worked because that's what professionals use in hospitals. Unfortunately, there was a shortage of PPE so telling people to buy them would put them in direct competition with professionals treating very sick patients. In April 2020 we were looking at a really bleak scenario so there was a very strong incentive to keep professionals alive even if it came at the expense of some citizens (think: doomsday scenario).
We also had no idea whether 'everything else' helped at all. Recommending non-N95 use might have given people a false sense of security that might have played against more effective measures such as extreme social distancing and self-quarantining of people with symptoms.
As knowledge improved, guidance changed. Nothing crazy to see here.
As I explained in another post, originally the consensus was that only N95 masks were somewhat effective. There were no studies on the effectiveness of other masks.
Recommending people use masks could've given people a false sense of security in people and probably acted against more effective measures such as social distancing and self-quarantining of people with symptoms matching those of Covid-19 ('well, I know I have a cough, but I'll just wear a mask and it'll be fine').
Recommending people use the only masks we knew to somewhat work - N95s - would've created a huge problem for hospitals that already were having issues procuring PPE to protect the professionals who were dealing with Covid-19 patients.
Basically, there was no reason for the CDC to recommend masks. Again, there's no need for some nefarious explanation.
It's honestly been fascinating to watch the conspiracy world twist themselves into logical pretzels to fit their narrative to both reality and the political landscape. At some point, Alex Jones - who unfortunately is a weather vane for all the crap circulating in the conspiracy world - claimed the following within the span of a month:
* The virus is lethal and the government is hiding it
* The virus is just the common cold and tests are a conspiracy to make Trump look bad
* The virus is lethal and a conspiracy by dark forces to kill people
* The virus doesn't exist and people wearing masks are idiots
* The virus is lethal (again!) and a conspiracy by the Chinese to destroy the world's economy
It's no surprise that people who are marginally sucked into the conspiracy world have their brains completely fried by the constant narrative shift.
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 it's the only lens they use.
Perhaps they're even right -- perhaps the average US citizen really is selfish and lacking in independent critical thinking skills, and perhaps we can't be trusted with the truth. But it means that anyone who knows better is constantly trying to read between the lines.
I blame the pervasive PR culture in the US, as well as basic stuff like a shit education system.
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.
It's also worth pointing out that, in a world where the Web is so pervasive, being honest (and, in particular, developing a reputation for being honest) has substantial advantages. Conspiracy theories and general suspicion spread extremely easily these days. If you ask the average American about the CDC today, I guarantee you a lot of them will mention the fact that the CDC initially said masks were unnecessary, and that they have since admitted that they were lying to protect supplies for healthcare workers.
Does that mean that being honest is necessarily always the best thing to do? I'm not sure. It's worth considering. But I suspect that it will take a while for that kind of understanding to make headway in the higher levels of government.
(This goes with the caveat that people and organizations who simply lie all the time can get away with it. Basically, you either have to live firmly in reality, or you have to sell a version of the real world that's been thoroughly modified in order to conform to some vision. Living mostly in reality while occasionally lying is becoming an untenable strategy.)
I think this stems from the perception that the US federal government is monolithic, secretive, and imperceptible. The reality is that it's wildly diverse, staffed by "everyday" Americans, takes place almost entirely in the open, and very knowable (even if there is complexity -- just like computers). In the same way that many modern humans have grown distant from "nature," Americans have grown distant from our own government. I knew few Americans who truly believe our government is of the people, by the people, for the people. It's sad. :(
From and outside perspective this government you are describing is only hard to visualize. For years now voting comes down to the lesser of two evils where everywhere else in the world new parties form and establish new ideas America still has two of them only, kinda. As Swiss it's also far from our understanding what democracy is supposed to be.
Here is a good read on where it goes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html
All I know is that there is no way that I am going to be physically in the US for the next presidential election(s), if there is a neoliberal political candidate in that election.
even if people cared a lot, you think they’d get presidential primary candidates that they want? or a vice president that they want? these things are faze choices.
Even thought it's the most obvious thing ever. It's really hard to understand as a bystander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
This was ended only 50 years ago. Suspicion of the CDC is not crazy if they've pulled this sort of shit within living memory.
"...to be so suspicious of essential institutions like the CDC seems crazy to me."
To NOT be suspicious of institutions, essential or not, seems crazy to me. As Adam Smith said:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
"It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies. . . . A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows, and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies necessary. An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole."
– Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X.
This zeitgeist goes back to the creation of America: the people were mistreated by the monarchy. Distrust and accountability to the government is baked into the American constitution (that accountability has succeeded in some areas, as much as it has failed in others).
It seems that many confuse science for government, which is understandable given the very recent muzzling of science for political gain.
Fauci's facial expressions during and after the recent regime have been a pretty good litmus for me: he's a scientist that's bad a hiding his emotions. That allows me to figure out when to trust what him and his colleagues want to, or have been forced to, say.
Didn’t the Panama Papers affect your trust at all?
I find that surprising.
It's pretty clear the EU health regulatory agencies aren't much better.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
500 to 2000 people died in France because the regulatory authorities choose to ignore multiple warning signs the drug has issues.
Maybe you shouldn't be so trusting?
It's not like we expect everything to go perfectly. I do trust that bureaucrats and officials are competent with good intentions though.
I do trust the police, tax authorities, medical authorities, statistics department. I even trust the politicians work towards their stated goals and ideals, each aiming for what they consider the best for the country.
I'm from the Nordics, with a pretty good track record of honesty and societal trust. I would find that continuous mistrust immensely tiring. That would just be a sad, sad world.
It might be a sad world but it’s reality. Better than pretending your politicians are altruistic.
Because our government has been caught many many times lying to us. In particular the CIA and various police organizations are constantly covering their asses. In general when the CDC goofs that’s just what happens, diseases and health is hard, but I don’t recall a lot of reports where they were actively murdering people
It's called low trust society.
Its a thing :https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_trust_and_low_trust_soc...
As an American, I'm surprised by the LACK of anger and distrust towards the EU by Europeans, specifically in the wake of the vaccine fiasco where the EU was so dramatically behind in procuring and administering vaccines to the population.
But yes, I agree that the skepticism of the Federal government in the US is far too skewed towards assumptions of malevolence, when it really should be skewed towards incompetence.
If you've ever travelled to the US, it's absolutely embarrassing how incompetent and awful of an experience it is to enter the country. Compared to when I go to basically ANY other country, the US customs personnel are rude, unprofessional, and just outright incompetent. It's such a massive difference in experience that you it slaps you in the face, every time.
Instead of a debate limited to how big or small the Federal government in the US should be, we should be having a debate about how efficient it is. We don't, due to the absurd, theatrical polarization we have baked into our system.
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…
Unfortunately involuntary sterilizations were happening more recently than 80 years ago too.
Virginia's compulsory sterilization law was repealed in 1974[1].
Oregon performed its last compulsory sterilization in 1981[2].
Japan didn't abolish compulsory sterilization until 1996[3].
There are reports that detained immigrants were involuntarily sterilized in 2020 in the US[2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#Unite...
You don't have to go back far at all to find corporations doing evil either, and yet America forgets how bad they are on a daily basis.
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.
As said I don't think Europeans generally think that way. We are very aware about things that happened, sometimes more sometimes less, but we have a long history we are not always proud of and build our future based on that knowledge.
We do not have, and also never really had, this kind of far right here in Switzerland. Our most right party is very liberal. I think you are generalizing Germany to Europe.
>What I find strange is that Europeans have such a short memory regarding these things…
Everyone knows about these things. By everyone I mean everyone who went to the same schools as me.
Knowledge is not emotional, empathy is.
As a European I believe in science and medicine. But I have read the history books: there were a bunch of Christ idiots in the 1970s who refused the polio vaccination and it did not end well for them.
Could you please stop posting flamewar comments and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? We're trying for something other than this here.
Don't forget the Tuskagee Study: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
I personally follow the CDC guidelines. I think if everyone equally trusted CDC we wouldn't have the kind of outbreaks that we have seen in the past year. So raising doubts in CDC's credibility overall is hurtful IMO. That doesn't mean we shouldn't debate a particular recommendation and take it all as Gospel. Meaningful debate about a particular issue is useful. A general statement against credibility of CDC IMO is not.
I maybe a minority here though, because I also to a large degree trust other American institutions. And that's coming from an immigrant who grew up in a country where the population is bombarded with anti-American conspiracy theories on a daily basis. The reason that I believe in American institutions is not because I take their words as Gospel. But because I believe for the most part trusting them leads to better results than the other way around.
The CDC/surgeon general recommended not wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic, while Silicon Valley was way ahead of the curve (meanwhile hit pieces were posted by journalists with an axe to grind saying they we’re overreacting).
So yes it has lost its credibility.
This is the citation I found for this claim:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/06/the-cdc-now-recommend...
Overall, science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. This is no different in my mind than the gradual change in the recommendations towards cigarette smoking over the decades, only in this case it played out over weeks and months (that article was from April of 2020).
If you want something infallible and written in stone from day 1, that's what religious texts are for. But to claim that scientists lost credibility because new research led them to change their minds is to misunderstand the purpose of science.
Whether masks could be effective was never in debate. If you recall, they were concerned people would use the masks incorrectly and that could do more harm, as well as potential shortages in the supply chain and getting the masks to the most important workers. I don’t recall the CDC ever saying “masks do not work”
I don't think the CDC made a mistake - I think they intentionally "lied" for the sake of the public good, aka the Noble Lie.
Rather than saying "Hey lets hold off on buying masks so that we have enough for essential care workers" they instead said "do not buy masks because they aren't effective, or might even make risk of infection higher!"
Also their usefulness is very limited outside of virtue signalling.
This is the key issue at hand, science has made us understand the virus and science has provided working vaccines.
Politics decide when a country/state gets to remove restrictions, this is where the heated arguments begin.
> People have memories.
And sometimes they have false memories. For example, regarding:
> 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine.
What she said was that she would take the vaccine if the professionals said it was safe, not if Trump told her to take it [1]. A rather understandable level of skepticism given Trump's peddling of miracle cures such as hydroxychloroquine.
> updating their decision on safety as more data came in.
That’s literally what they do. They paused when there were concerns over blood clots, then expanded access to more cohorts as more studies were completed.
Our Swiss virus guy too told this 'lie' in the beginning, a few months later he explained that this was wrong and the only reason he said masks are not necessary was because there weren't enough and private people were already stockpiling it anyway.
So people wore masks and life went on.
I still don't understand why sooooo many countries can't be more honest about these things
Interesting point. Guess it comes down to his words as the initial wording was more like 'in the current situation it is not necessary to wear masks' not trump's vision of 'masks don't work' which would have been an obvious lie.
IIRC that was not exactly how it happened. They said masks are not necessary if you only meet outside and keep your 1.5m distance. Leave the FFP masks for those who really need it. source from February 2020: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20200225_04864971
In Denmark there were news stories about the real name of the AZ vaccine, just about the same time the bloodclot issue appeared.
I don't know anyone who uses the name Vaxzevria instead of the Astra Zeneca vaccine or just AZ.
The UK is about to open up fully in June but is now worried about the Indian variant (B.1.617).
Even though we in Denmark back in january was informed by health authorities that the English variant (B.1.1.7) was very worrying.
Truth is there will always be another variant, just look at this overview.
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global
The trust in health authorities have been reduced greatly and have been replaced with mistrust to politicians motives, I'm sad to say.
>> Our Swiss virus guy too told this 'lie' in the beginning
>> I still don't understand why sooooo many countries can't be more honest about these things
Interesting definition of honest. The fact is, all these large organisations believe in the "noble lie" which undermines their credibility.
Same thing here in Finland, in early months of the epidemics health officials said wearing masks has no benefit.
> So yes it has lost its credibility.
I feel like this black and white, "you get one chance" kind of bridge burning is very unproductive. When you look at these agencies not as omniscient entities but as what they are - a collaborative effort of many individuals - then you allow for the evolution of understanding.
People can be wrong, especially in regards to more novel situations, so why should we view our institutions as any different? Yes having more eyes and varied perspectives means that it may make sense to expect something more reliable than an individual, but that doesn't make it infallible and IMO that's ok.
as I said, it makes sense to expect more from governmental bodies but that still does not mean an expectation of infallibility. High standards and impossible standards are worlds apart.
It's not about being wrong, it's about intentionally misleading the public because you believe they are incapable of handling the truth (i.e. we have supply chain issues with masks because surprise outsourcing your supply chains to other countries has fatal flaws)
They specifically recommended not wearing N95 masks, which were very scarce and in limited supply at the beginning of the pandemic. With the goal of maintaining the very limited supply for medical personnel, while cargo planes moved around the globe and production ramped up.
N95s also need to be vacuum fit IIRC for max efficacy
They still are.
Genuine question, why did they not lose credibility when they started recommending them due to political pressure rather than “the science”? As I understand it, there is still very flimsy scientific backing for the effectiveness of masks.
AFAIK at best it depends upon number of layers, what kind of layers, fit, droplets (and size) vs. aerosols, humidity, interpersonal distance and dwelling time, and of course ventilation. Given the framing of the "mask debate" in the US with essentially no frequent or defining mention of face covering quality/qualities, essentially it seems like Cargo-cult science at the restrictions/policy level. There are people who meet the requirements essentially breathing through stretched or O(500um) single-layer mesh.
I have not looked closely enough at electret properties to know if meshes with larger pore sizes can really stop 0.06um virus particles. (Or 10nm according to this https://www.news-medical.net/health/The-Size-of-SARS-CoV-2-C... )
For aerosols, cloth masks are an order of magnitude less effective than dipole charged N95 (which attract sub micron scale particles with a built-in electric charge in the fibers, it’s a high-tech process.)
> I personally follow the CDC guidelines
I don't believe you. Do you use a food thermometer when cooking food? Do you make sure to cook eggs until the yoke is firm? If you're a woman, do you make sure you never have more than 1 (alcoholic) drink in a particular day? Do you never eat rare steak?
People ignore almost everything the CDC says in their regular lives as the CDC is completely optimizing for health, not quality of life.
Those are FDA guidelines, not CDC.
And the word is "yolk", not "yoke".
Found them on cdc.gov. e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foods-linked-illness.html
Not sure why would you go and make a statement about me without any evidence (And btw yes to all your questions). Your point would be stronger if you don't target a person and maybe talk about the average consumer. My point exactly that a large chuck of the population don't follow CDC guidelines, if they did we collectively would be a healthier nation.
I'm quite surprised. I have never even heard of someone who did so I thought it was a good rhetorical point (and I think it would have been if you weren't an outlier).
I definitely never eat rare steak. It does not tastes good.
The NSA and CDC are fundamentally different institutions. It does not make sense to treat them the same any more than it makes sense to treat NASA and the IRS the same...
They are not the same, but they are institutions with a lot of similarities (NSA, CDC, NASA, IRS). They largely receive funding the same way, and are answerable to the same people (congress, White House). There is some similarities to how the heads of these organizations are determined and how the heads of these organizations are fired.
In startup speak the organizations have the same VC and share many board members.
This isn't really true. The actual chain of command is, of course, completely different people until you get to the President. But more importantly, intelligence agencies conducting covert actions don't reveal their activities to all of Congress. With respect to funding, only select committees with specific clearance get to see the real budget. Everyone else sees a line item that says "classified budget." As for oversight, see here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3093
The actual committees:
https://intelligence.house.gov/ (23 members)
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/ (14 members)
So that's 37 members of Congress they're accountable to, but not directly. If you read the actual law, it only says the "President" has to inform these committees of what the intelligence agencies are doing, and if they happen to do anything illegal, the President has to tell Congress (but only these 37 members).
Theoretically, the President is not above the law, but as we've seen in recent history, if the President is of the same political party as the majority party of Congress, they're not likely to actually enforce the law.
Practically speaking, all of Congress isn't going to care what all of the Executive Branch is doing all of the time given the limited number of hours in a day, which is why they they have committees, but at least in the case of the CDC, NASA, and IRS, if all 538 members of Congress request information, they have to give it to them. With the NSA, only 37 members of Congress are authorized to even receive information and only through the President.
Yes both may be subject to some amount of political influence, but one is run by career infectious disease experts and one is run by career spies...
This broadly oversells their similarities.
Not only is the analogy questionable with board members, but it also carries the implication that they are essentially the same sorts of organizations. They are not.
If you really want to carry this analogy out further, you probably need to expand it so one is a traditional startup and the other a charitable non-profit, or something of the sort. Even if you did have the same people in charge (which again, questionably applicable here), the goals, transparency, and measures of success vary so wildly that I'm not sure it means that much.
The NSA in particular is part of the Department of Defense, a uniquely opaque federal entity. In general, federal agencies comply with accountability and transparency laws, but the DoD just doesn't.
If your criteria for conspiracy is "takes government money" then almost every company, country, and citizen is part of this conspiracy. People are in fact able to see nuance
Literally every organization is similar by criteria such as this.
The CDC is not law enforcement. The talent it attracts, its mission statement, its mode of operation are all different. The statements of fact they release pertain to public health with no human adversarial motives. The research they use to substantiate their claims can be peer reviewed, duplicated and critiqued.
Agreed. Though from experience and what I've read, they do have certain questionable commercial motives. Should call this out everytime.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/30/1017086/cdc-44-m... https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus-contracts/contra...
> no human adversarial motives
It's a historical point of fact that this is untrue.
"The statements of fact they release pertain to public health with no human adversarial motives."
The CDC has knowingly lied about the efficacy of masks intending to trick the public to deprive them of useful medical gear. They were slow to identify the spread of covid as aerosol based, even after it was widely known. CDC guidance focused on "6 feet apart" instead of the importance of ventilation. The CDC temporarily halted the J&J vaccine unnecessarily, wasting time and eroding trust in vaccines generally. Early in the pandemic the CDC blocked hundreds of labs from doing their own covid tests in favor of flawed CDC tests that took substantially longer - again, this was at an absolutely time critical moment in the pandemic.
I have never really paid attention to the CDC until this pandemic. Now, I feel like they constantly make huge blunders and don't really deserve much trust. Even when they aren't lying to you, as they did regarding masks, they don't seem like they really know what they're doing.
The temporary halt seems necessary -- the usual treatment had bad effects, and the proper treatment needed to be disseminated to doctors and nurses.
If the CDC did the opposite in each of these cases, people would find fault in that. "They told the general public to wear masks early on, leading to mask shortages at hospitals!" And "When blood clots were reported in JnJ vaccine they did nothing to protect Americans!"
False dichotomy. The CDC's only two choices weren't to say "everyone wear masks" or "masks don't work." They also could have told the whole truth and said "masks do work, but please hold off on wearing them until we're sure there's enough for first responders."
If they only had the choice to do one of two diametric opposite actions you might have a point. Of course, in reality, there is no such limitation. If the CDC had told the public masks work and research shows home made, cotton, or surgical masks are significantly better than nothing and we need to get our N95's to our medical frontline... Or, you know, been prepared with enough masks for medical frontline people. Doing nothing when blood clots were reported is a bad idea, doing analysis (ideally in advance) to know what levels of side effects should and shouldn't be cause for alarm would be a better idea.
I do agree the "avoid a medical shortage" white lie did harm their credibility, but I know why they did it (I think). It will be a good case study for bioethics and public policy students.
I always assumed the virus was airborne, and they tended to say outside was safer than inside. I haven't looked at the new way they're phrasing it, but I need to look more.
The J&J vaccine halt was done for scientific reasons, and precisely to instill confidence in people that the CDC is acting in good faith and isn't going to sling something out there without knowing all they can about its effects. That you think they made the wrong decision is funny if it weren't sad.
Finally, and I don't know you, but I think it's cute how all the CDC haters/people saying Fauci is evil are the ones who through the pandemic have laughed at the virus and said vaccines are evil. Now here we have an instance of someone skeptical of the CDC because they didn't give enough warning about the virus and they eroded trust in vaccines!
A doctor friend of mine told me, at the start of the pandemic, that they found it important to correctly follow Public Health advice whether or not they (an expert) agreed with all of it.
The importance of following the principles for public health is greater than the importance of the advice being unbiasedly perfect at every moment.
> The importance of following the principles for public health is greater than the importance of the advice being unbiasedly perfect at every moment.
You're falsely conflating "principles for public health" with "public health advice". Principles for public health include protecting yourself against airborne diseases, which meant that anybody with some knowledge on the issue and ability to think for themselves should have disregarded "public health advice" when it contradicted "principles for public health". It also means we should be wary when "public health advice" doesn't line up with "principles for public health", and even more so when "public health advice" has been shown to be a deliberate lie when it suits the advice giver.
Following principles of public health is important, but you stretch too far and without basis to equate that to following public health advice. That kind of unthinking obedience to authority is how people commit atrocities by "just following orders"
> That kind of unthinking obedience to authority is how people commit atrocities by "just following orders"
That slippery slope must be lubed up real good for anyone to fall off it. Wearing masks, staying away from people, getting vaccinated, etc are far, far away from committing atrocities, and you know it. The point GP was making is in times of crisis, following advice from public health authorities, even if it changes, is the general best strategy. It’s extremely (that’s not even a strong enough word) unlikely they’ll be goading people into committing ‘atrocities’ when a novel pandemic is taking place.
Counterpoint: many atrocities have been made acceptable to the general population, in the name of "public health" (or at least, the greater public good).
For me, "the greater good" does not over-ride personal critical analysis.
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.
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.
It adds up to something comparable to bringing up atrocities apt? I don’t see how. It’s not like the inconvenience of wearing a mask done billions of times leads to overall a massive inconvenience that becomes intolerable. This type of inconvenience is not additive. There is no compounding effect.
There's a fairly significant difference between the Tuskeegee Experiment, and having to wear a surgical facemask while in a supermarket.
> The importance of following the principles for public health is greater than the importance of the advice being unbiasedly perfect
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Also, even if this is true at some point, as more people adopt your mindset of conformity, it would become very valuable to manipulate, which is easy to do (Goodhart’s law).
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.
> 1) ...annoying to wear a mask when jogging or cycling...
This has never stopped mandatory cycle helmet laws.
> 2) ... risk ... is negligible.
This has never stopped mandatory cycle helmet laws.
Although many people vocally disagree with cycle helmet laws, nobody has ever called it an 'atrocity' or said that complying with these laws was a 'mindset of conformity'. This is a ridiculous exaggeration.
There are legitimate grounds of criticism but not legitimate grounds for talking about a mindset of conformity in the sense Siira meant.
You should probably read more sources if you think that news aggregators (and Hacker News in particular) are left of centre.
"Do what you're told to do, critical thinking is bad for your health." LOL
Public health recommendations for the individual are quite different to secret surveillance programs.
We'd be in a very different conversation if the CDC was telling everyone "we need you to take this pill. No we're not telling you what's in it, or why you should take it and no one else in the world will be reviewing it."
I highly doubt many here take the CDC's word at face value. What appears as consensus is really a tragedy of the commons -- that one person thinks everyone else will consider the CDC's announcements as gospel that they express positivity and optimism, when what they are really celebrating is the re-opening of public life itself, i.e., that restaurants, etc. will open back up and feel "normal" again.
I've been following the CDC's messaging since the start of covid. They edited the same URL without info that there were updates or informing the public. The case numbers posted in Q1/Q2 of 2020 were an absolute mess which IMO missed out on an opportunity to instill trust in the public. Previous administration's anti-science stand might have contributed to that.
I'd imagine people aren't just being "stupid" when they decide not to trust these institutions but are simply cynical knowing the process can be hi-jacked by politics (regardless what side) every 4 years, and hardly any continuity due to the deep polarization. It doesn't make people trust in institutions when its core mission can be put upside down simply because a new administration comes to power.
I’m not American but reason to not blindly trust the institutions you list to act in your best interest are unfortunately factual. What comes to my mind when I hear:
- FBI: Hoover
- NSA: Snowden
- Police: Floyd
For the CDC I know only of the recommendation to not wear a mask at the beginning of the pandemic, and it’s debatable if it was a lie given the knowledge at the time (many other health agencies did the same recommendation in other countries at the time).
The CDC has a history of performing racist medical experiments on unwitting black people:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
The CDC (like the US police and military) also does not keep track of the number of people doctors kill. A 2016 study by Johns Hopkins estimates that iatrogenesis (deaths caused by doctors) kills 250,000 people per year, making it the third leading cause of death in the US.
>"The Johns Hopkins team says the CDC’s way of collecting national health statistics fails to classify medical errors separately on the death certificate. The researchers are advocating for updated criteria for classifying deaths on death certificates."
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su...
First, this is a straw man. Nobody is saying that the CDC's guidelines are infallible. They've been widely criticized for botching the Covid-19 crisis.
Second, the difference between CIA, FBI and CDC is that usually when the CDC makes a pronouncement, it is linked to some scientific basis. Unlike the CIA that can claim Iraq has 'weapons of mass destruction' based on vague evidence that nobody - except for a handful of legislators and the president - get to see, one can go and track the science behind a CDC's announcement relatively easily.
> I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and skepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance
I don't think that many people on this site are claiming that the American government is incompetent in their surveillance and SIGINT endeavors, from a strictly scientific/technical point of view. Rather that they're too competent and being too effective. Whether those technical capabilities should be applied in certain situations is a political question.
> CDC
I would hope that the majority of the site here, who do not have doctorate level degrees in epidemiology and virology, can realize the extent of education and experience that it takes to get a PhD in those fields. My primary complaint with the American government's handling of covid19 (600,000+ dead??!) is not with any incompetence on the part of the scientists, but the policy makers, in particular the previous administration. And the general populace's resistance to measures that could have halved the cumulative death toll. Additionally with state governments that have gone through multiple rounds of "we must reopen the economy!" to "oh shit! coronavirus is spreading again!"
To treat the government as a single cohesive entity moving with unified purpose is a fallacy.
I'll take it a step further:
To treat any organization larger than about a few hundred people that way is naive to the point of being stupid.
I think the CDC had a pretty good image based on... I dunno, Hollywood movies.
I don't think the way they handled all this shows them to be as competent as advised.
You can guess at what the motivations are for the CDC when they put out a statement.
They generally match what Id expect them to be saying, so it seems trustworthy enough, but it is confirmation bias. When they'll say something I don't expect, I think bit more about it and try to figure out why there's a mismatch.
The FBI and NSA and the like don't speak publically, and when they do, they're trying to cover up wrongdoings
The NSA and FBI are built around secrecy and preventing leaks. Their opaqueness is a huge part of their advantage. They keep information from the general public as a rule. Everyone involved is vetted and knows the punishment for insubordination.
The CDC is for the benefit of the public. Peoples trust in them is needed in order to be effective. It is pretty transparent in that you can usually look at the data they are using to support their guidelines. If they were keeping something secret the chance of a leak is much greater and there is data from other countries that can be used to corroborate their conclusions.
> I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and scepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance, and law enforcement.
Snowden's leak was barely a blip on the radar. And it was a proof of how deep the surveillance went. Nobody cared. Patriot act - nobody cared.
People are addicted to outrage and conspiracies not actual reality.
I m in Hong Kong and I must be living in the definition of a conspiracy against me, but I still dont think most of the COVID measures here have been to shut me up or to prevent me to exercise political freedom. There simply is no choice, we must vaccinate, we must help each other, we must abstain from yelling loudly for a while.
Possibly the aftermath will be the crime, to continue the measure when there is no need, but we reached 200 death in a megalopolis of 8M people only because we shut the fuck up a bit and synchronized our behaviour.
In a word, I dont think the american CDC main goal is to profit or enjoy a sadist power bath... at worst, they re honestly misguided, I think.
As the Atlantic noted recently [0] there are many who see masks and safety measures due to COVID as part of their political identity. Likes guns to some, the masks, more critically the forcing of others to wear masks and abide by certain precautions, has become a weapon in politics. My distrust of the masks, and friction at being forced to wear one, really comes from that distrust of those who are forcing me; they are forcing me for politics, not for health and safety.
Decades ago, I heard similar arguments against restricting smoking in restaurants or public areas. To smoking proponents, smoking in line at the drug store was basically a constitutional right, and if you didn’t like cigarette smoke, just don’t smoke. It didn’t register that filling the air with cigarette smoke could encroach on the liberty of others.
What about the rest of the people around the world wearing masks, are they treading on the rights of people to not infect their loved ones?
Why is it political here, when it is a matter of global public safety?
First off, you didn't link this supposed article that claims what you're arguing.
But I just don't believe it. If the Atlantic published that, they sought out the small minority of people who believe that in order to make waves.
Wearing a mask is not a political statement. It is just a prudent measure you can take to help protect yourself and -- often more importantly -- others. It isn't a guarantee that you won't get (or give someone) COVID, but it can help, when combined with other things like social distancing.
It's funny, because my perception is the opposite of yours: that people who refuse to wear masks have turned that into a political identity. That somehow refusing to wear a mask is the patriotic, freedom-loving thing to do. When the fact is that they're just selfish, and view that refusal as marking themselves as part of a tribe.
I see friends of mine who, having celebrated the science behind the CDC pro-mask recommendations for the last 12 months, be suddenly appalled at the change in recommendations and seeming to want to cling the disrupted life a little longer for reasons known mostly to them.
Probably this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/05/liberal...
It's not just the mask wearing either. It's things with much more substantial actual harm, like keeping schools closed well past the point it was unjustified, along with the belief that anyone who won't deny kids education is evil and a completely inaccurate understanding of the level of risk to them.
Also, you're politicizing mask wearing right here in your comment: "It's funny, because my perception is the opposite of yours: that people who refuse to wear masks have turned that into a political identity. That somehow refusing to wear a mask is the patriotic, freedom-loving thing to do. When the fact is that they're just selfish, and view that refusal as marking themselves as part of a tribe." That you think of anyone who doesn't wear a mask as an evil, selfish right-winger is 100% politicisation.
With that logic, the compulsion to send your kids to school in the USA is on shaky ground.
Is not the US education system very ideological?
Among the US citizens (mostly LA area) which I know it was not uncommon to hear how they "love America", similarly to how Christian believers "love Jesus".
Moreover from what I understand the local historical textbooks are censoring displeasing moments from the time of oppression of the black community.
I'm far from an anarchist yet I would take my kids out of the system if I found a meaningful alternative which would not cost a fortune.
The US education system is inconsistent, so you can't really generalize. I love America, but I'm also aware of its flaws and don't have any illusions about it being perfect or anything like that. I was also taught plenty of material about the darker sides of American history: slavery, mistreatment of natives, etc. Similarly I learned a lot about 'family health', science, etc. However some schools might lean more towards non-scientific teachings or leave out unsavory material depending on what school you inspect.
Your tone makes me wonder if you're German; having studied German for many years, we learned about how Germany has somewhat of a complex around country pride given certain historical events. My school system had people from over a hundred countries and love for your country was almost universal, including to the extent of wearing clothing with the national flag on it like some Americans do
Local history curriculums never push into anything that would be politically uncomfortable locally.
This is usually done by requiring certain things be taught in great detail in order to preclude time being spent on other things.
I could comprehend annoyance, but what political gain do you expect them to obtain once you wear your mask in full submission ? At best that you dont get sick, at worst that you dont contaminate other. I really dont see the link between "we must provide an advantage on the job market to black people", a political side we can disagree on, and "wear a mask", something that bring nobody any pleasure nor comfort nor advantage...
What political gain does the Islamic Republic of Iran get when it forces women to wear head coverings?
What political gain does a ruling clique get when e.g. they force people to admit "2+2=5"?
About the falsity of "two plus two equals five", in Room 101, the interrogator O'Brien tells the thought criminal Smith that control over physical reality is unimportant to the Party, provided the citizens of Oceania subordinate their real-world perceptions to the political will of the Party; and that, by way of doublethink: "Sometimes, Winston. [Sometimes it is four fingers.] Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once".[3]
Just because the CDC/Government says to do something doesn't mean you do the opposite?
As a "side read" I started "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" in Dec 2020, and finished a couple or so weeks ago. The book is thorough. It covers history, political systems, individual psychology, sociology, and more. The context being (data-based) surveillance as a means to nudge and manipulate behavior - individually and masses. While it focuses on big tech, it's lessons are in fact universal.
In any case, stepping back from the pandemic and other personal biases, the tactics and narrative of the last 15+ months begin to feel like some new (covert?) form of totalitarianism.
- There's an evil enemy that must be intricated for the good of all.
- There's hyperbolic fear and widespread death. The deaths are real, but data is cherry-picked in a propaganda-y sort of way. Correlation is more important than causation.
- There is a lone figure-head we must promise our allegiance and dedication to. Signs on front yards, t-shirts, etc. Note: No one voted for Fauci. And while he's certainly accomplished it's difficult to imagine one single opinion - in a cloud of unknowns - could carry so much authority.
- Churches were closed, as were other assemblies. The State persists. It's powers broader.
- There is a tide of "The State knows best (your rights and liberty be damned.)" Do as you're told or you will be marginalized or (socially) silenced. As long as you cooperate and follow the gov's you will be safe.
Please try not to knee-jerk. The above list are simple facts.
All that aside, for anyone still trusting of the CDC it's best to check the data on causes of death prior to this pandemic. Make note of how many of those conditions are preventable. Nrxt track down the Covid death's comorbidies - which are rarely mentioned - that killer Covid pairs well with. To say Covid killed someone who was (e.g.) morbidly obese is misleading. It's called morbidly obese for a reason.
Ultimately, Covid 19 is a symptom. It's a symptom of our heath personally and as a society. It's a symptom of bigger and broader forces "at war" over who is in control.
Yeah, sounds like madness. But please keep in mind, so did totalitarianism.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capi...
p.s. There's a chapter in Adam Grant's book "Think Again" on jabs, and how to go about convincing someone to think again about their anti vax ideas. What we've been doing for Covid is off target. Yet why is that? Adam Grant knows something the whole of the USA readership does not?
Where do you get that idea? The CDC is catering to several interests, whereas readers of this site are free to research the facts and bring critical thinking and perhaps professional experience to bear on the issue.
The CDC just now declared that the primary mode of COVID transmission was through the air. I expect that most readers of this site reacted to that declaration with "No shit." The fervent wiping of surfaces always struck me as futile, when we've known for a long time that this thing was airborne.
What this sad chapter of our history has made clear is that the CDC is somewhat a political tool instead of a source for the latest findings.
One saves lives, the others ruin and take lives.
On the west coast now more than one third of the population is fully vaccinated (excluding BC that is severely lagging behind).
How long until coastal and urban counties reach 95%?
They won't ever reach 95%; not gonna happen.
Hmm...why not?
Berkeley 94707 zip code was already at 98% of eligible population with at least one shot on April 30th. [1] I would guess a number of cities will be overall in the 90% range pretty soon.
[1] https://abc7news.com/california-vaccination-rate-sf-vaccine-...
Berkley is possibly the most liberal and educated area in the USA (of significant population) so of course it will be high. In your average city, we will be EXTREMELY lucky if it reaches 65-70%, in the rural areas of the country 50% would be a win.
You're very right. Berkeley was the heart of the whole anti-vax movement a few years ago. So much so that I felt safer taking my (then newborn) to Eastern Europe than taking her to Berkeley.
But if you dig into the data, it's only one zip code in Berkeley with a high vax rate -- the wealthiest part of Berkeley up in the hills, which are mostly older people.
The zip code with all the students is one of the lowest in the state.
Zooming in, their map reports that vaccination rates in 94707 are now over 100% -- it's the gray region north of UC Berkeley. Perhaps folks are commuting in to 94707 to receive doses?
It could be more than 100% of the population count from the previous census.
These numbers are most likely people vaccinated whose address on the paperwork was zip code Z divided by census? population estimate of people who live in zip code Z.
There's lots of fun ways those numbers can be messed up including (but not limited to), people using a mailing address different from where they reside, census boundaries not matching mail delivery route boundaries, population movements, how people without mailing addresses are counted, data issues in the census, etc.
In the US, we have a lack of enthusiasm for comprehensive and compulsary tracking of where people reside, and as a result, data like this is always going to be messy.
Most places are probably going to hover around 60-75%.
> How long until coastal and urban counties reach 95%?
Literally never. I am hoping for 60%.
Seattle is already mostly above 60%, up to 87% https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/vaccinatio...
> How to trust that unvaccinated neighbors will wear masks when they should?
I find this sentiment curious. It seems to imply that some people would rather that everyone suffer masking than accept that some will not be masked against recommendation. It bleeds over into other things. If we see our neighbour doing something we don't like, we think "there should be a law against that!"
There is a lot of distrust and desire to control the behaviour of others in our society. It is a very common human attribute and reminds me of the famous quote from Paradise Lost: "Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n"
Sometimes, it is better to accept that others will do things that we think are stupid or even immoral, but be grateful that they will let us do things that they think are stupid. It takes empathy and humility to accept that other people disagree with us. The desire for control is a dangerous beast.
Its not black and white - we're not going for 100% security. Masks never did that anyway, and it wasn't the point in wearing them. The point was to change 'R0' to less than 1, so the epidemic wouldn't grow geometrically and swamp the healthcare system.
It's quite reasonable to say that vaccinated people are less likely to spread the disease than say, an at-risk person wearing a mask. If those two are commensurate, then sure vaccinated people can go maskless.
There are social reasons to keep wearing a mask of course. To reduce confusion about who's safe and who's just being negligent. I still wear one in public, and I've been vaccinated.
It's popular to back-seat drive during difficult times, and point out gleefully when somebody isn't 100% in line with one's own understanding. It's largely not constructive, and causes more upset and confusion. The best advice is, do your part to reduce infection risk. And stop stirring the pot.
Yes - no matter how actually effective the use of (surgical) masks is - it is a symbol.
You see all people around you wearing masks, you wear a mask, these simple facts act as reminder that it is a pandemy, that you have to be careful about what you do (keep distance where possible, etc.) besides wearing the mask in itself.
Soon you will see lots of other poeople around you not wearing masks and you have no way to know if they are actually vaccinated (and probably in this case you are "safe") or if they are simply not wearing the mask because they ignore the recommendation or don't believe in masks or whatever (but they are not actually vaccinated so potentially "unsafe" if they come near you).
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Why doesn't this article fall under this category?
I am glad that things are returning to normal and masks are now optional. I am also really glad that masks have become socially acceptable. I plan to keep wearing a mask on planes and public transportation so I don't get as many colds. I hope it stops being a political thing.
Can anyone offer guidance to one who has recovered from the actual Covid infection why they would receive the vaccine?
Edit: This recent caveat included
Lasting immunity found after recovery from Covid-19 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27125728
I have only anecdotal evidence. My brother got Covid and after he recovered he would black out from walking briskly up a single flight of stairs from sudden lack of oxygen (O2 meter on his finger showed this as well). He was otherwise fine and could breathe easily, it just didn't oxygenate his blood well. He got the vaccine and that symptom just disappeared.
Now this is interesting — we need to run a study of “long Covid” symptoms after vaccination.
Personally, I fared ok - so I’ve got to consider the cost benefit (cost in terms of disrupting my current state)
The vaccine keys your immune system on a mostly unchanging part of the virus. It’s such a key part of the virus that for the virus to mutate that part it would be a dramatically different and less deadly mutation.
In an infection your body randomly keys on any of a large number of characteristics of the virus. Those almost certainly will be less lasting than the vaccine.
That’s why to get the vaccine.
So I guess my hesitation is, if my body has already been keyed by the original virus, had a terrible viral load (was positive for longer than I ever imagined), but very few symptoms... I’m fairly proud of my immune response and personally am wondering why I should take aim with a direct mRNA shot, feels unnecessary.
Here’s a discussion with how it all works and relevant links (edit: though I wish there were more sources there. Reader will have to do some work themselves): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27125871
There’s some positing that the vaccine could help or totally stop so-called long covid symptoms. My mom had some long covid symptoms and hasn’t since she got the vaccine.
Also from the link, second exposures to infectious diseases seriously boost the immune systems ability to fight the disease.
It’s like training your immune system once with the exposure and original infection then a second (and third time for Moderna and pfizer) time with the vaccines. In the mRNA vaccine case, they train on a particularly optimal characteristic.
Or the long term symptoms are mostly nocebos, and/or the only reason they are regarded as having one cause instead of many (as well as symptoms they would have gotten anyway) is that the person in question knows about "long COVID", or a combination of those and possibly even something that's really causally related.
This needs empirical evidence though. It’s a just-so story without that. Not that I disagree with the prior.
There are conflicting stories, but I've heard a few different arguments (I'm not sure how accurate any of them are, though):
* The vaccine is stronger than a low-viral-dose infection; you wind up with more antibodies and more T/B cell engagement, so theoretically more robust immunity
* The vaccines might be better or worse than natural infection against the variants; on the one hand your body fought a whole wild virus and so the antibodies aren't restricted to the spike protein, like in the mRNA case, so your body might be less overfit. On the other hand, the vaccines seems to producer a stronger immune response, as stated above, so that might be better if the antibodies still mostly line up?
As a weird side note, at least among my cohort, the side effects seem to be a really clear marker of who's immune system recognizes the disease. My friends who didn't catch it all reported no problems the first time and symptoms on the second shot. My friends who tested positive reported symptoms from the first shot. I had to start immunosuppression after the first shot, but before the second (TNF Alpha Inhibitor), and the symptoms at the second shot were actually a relief that my immune system hadn't been tamped down too hard...
> I had to start immunosuppression after the first shot, but before the second (TNF Alpha Inhibitor), and the symptoms at the second shot were actually a relief that my immune system hadn't been tamped down too hard...
That gives me great pause. My personal preference is to avoid such experiences.
And same goes for my friends, first shot knocks out the positive cases.
There was a paper here a few weeks ago suggesting that those who had Covid and the vaccine had the highest rates of immunity against the variants. The antibodies you generate to a natural infection will be different from those generated by the vaccine, and a diverse set of antibodies seems to be the best bet against random mutation of the virus.
Some studies have shown immunity from infection may only last several weeks in some individuals, whereas vaccination has been shown to last much longer and more reliably.
This is misleading, it conflates the presence of antibodies with immunity. There is no reason to believe immunity is not durable; a strong immune response to related coronaviruses (e.g. SARS-CoV-1) lasts decades. Antibodies are only generated in response to infections, and disappear after the infection has passed at varying rates based on a number of factors.
People have no antibodies circulating for most things they are immune to. It is expensive to produce antibodies unnecessarily.
this is completely unfounded comment
there are varous studies showing most of the infected people have immunity at least for 7-8 months, while we don't have any studies about how long last immunity after vaccination, for what's worth it can last less than immunity from infection
yet people are shouting vaccine good, get it, get immunity and completely ignore the fact we should measure antibodies of vaccinated people while same people will shout oh if you were infected you are immune only for short time, I mean if you work for pharma lobby I can understand it, but are people really that trusting to pharma lobby, I remember also talking with doctors long before COVID how long last vaccination effect, they will tell you easily twice as long time as pharma company selling the vaccines, the reasons are obvious
Study from Italy - only 3 out of 162 symptomatic infected didn't have antibodies after 8 months https://www.thelocal.it/20210511/covid-antibodies-last-8-mon...
Study from England - antibodies persist for minimum 7 months https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/04/previous...
I’m curious. Does the CDC say the same for people who have had Covid itself? I was not able to read the post (paywalled). Or people who test positive for antibodies?
Doesn't the CDC (and many other organizations) recommend getting vaccinated even if you previously had Covid? Immunization from the vaccines are stronger than from natural immunity and the effect against other strains is better known. It's also been known to stop long-term symptoms from people who were still suffering from Covid. A bunch of well known people who have had Covid also later got vaccinated.
I feel like mandating masks (in US) at this point is quite pointless, pretty much everyone who wants to protect themselves can get vaccinated (and they most likely did already), so they don't need to worry about serious symptoms and people who don't wanna get vaccinated are clearly not worried about them so why force any of these groups to wear masks? Scared people are protected, not scared don't want protection and are prepare to bear consequences, the group of people who would like to get vaccinated but they can't for medical reasons is extremely small and I don't see similar restrictions because of other risks. So why even bother with recommending to mask anywhere?
This makes sense only in countries where you can't get immediately vaccinated (pretty much everywhere outside US and few other countries like Israel).
I agree, but not until mid-June.
Vaccine appointments weren't widely available for everyone until late April, so for people who got their first shot then , add four weeks until the second shot plus two weeks for the vaccine to be fully effective, many people won't be fully vaccinated until mid-June.
In the UK (prob not a good example?) masks aren't worn outside but are in shops.
Actually it might not be that bad.. on many other things we are terrible though.
Freedom at last.
It's still unclear whether or not masks helped reduce the spread of COVID-19.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Policy_Research
> The Swiss Policy Research site has been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories including claims that QAnon was a psyop of the FBI.[5] and theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2][6] German public broadcasterTagesschau calls SPR a propaganda tool[7] and Media Bias/Fact Check says the site is "a Moderate Conspiracy website based on the promotion of unproven claims."[4]
Your comment seems to be a textbook example of an ad hominem.
An ad hominem would be attacking the person making the reply itself, not the agency reporting on the issue.
My biggest question right now is with my kids who are 7 and under. But also just kids in general. Mainly I’m wondering what kind of evolutionary pressure will be put onto the virus in a population where young children represent a larger and larger target for the virus as adults become vaccinated.
Not fear-mongering. It just seems like we still don’t have a good explanation of why kids have (mostly) been spared, and so we don’t seem to have a good explanation of why that would continue to be the case. Also, low risk != low risk, and in places like Brazil, there has been heartbreak with babies dying of Covid, etc.
> low risk != low risk
What does this mean?
Autocorrected ‘low risk != no risk’
I wish we could return to a time when people didn't care if you wore a mask or not, and EVERYTHING was not so politicized.
You mean before the pandemic? I don't know how to make sense of this comment.
The reason for the pandemic is poor institutional response for ultimately political reasons. I'm not sure de-politicizing a situation where an entire civilization has endured collective trauma is going to be easy. Don't the Stoics propose to work within your means and not to wish impossible things?
> people didn't care if you wore a mask or not
I mean, imagine it was a more simple situation. What if we knew for a fact that if you wore a mask when you had the flu, then you wouldn’t spread it. In my opinion, it would be fantastic to have a healthy social expectation for an individual to limit their infectiousness while sick, instead of just going to work or school and blatantly spreading the flu. That would prevent a lot of sickness and even death! Having the flu sucks.
COVID is similar, but it’s not as easy because it’s not clear when you could be spreading anything. COVID’s a sleeper, and sometimes it spreads with no symptoms. Super dangerous, eh? That’s why it makes sense to extend that first, simpler example so that we can be more cautious as a society towards something which has caused more than three million human beings to be terminated. Not only does it make sense, but I’d argue it’s even the moral option to be cautious until we can be more confident of our society’s combined immunity towards the disease.
Someone behind the scenes must be pulling the strings at the CDC as this is terrible advice considering all vaccines are far from being 100% effective.
Additionally it takes at least 2wks after inoculation for the vaccine to work and there is no definitive answer on how long the efficacy lasts.
All of this combined with the fact that millions of Americans refuse to be vaccinated will serve as prime reservoir for the virus to spread.
It was rather troubling when CDC first stated masks were unnecessary but this recent announcement is criminally negligent, on par with Boeing/FAA publicly stating 737 Max was safe even knowing full well there was high probability of another crash.
How is a non-vaccinated person supposed to be able to tell if the person breathing on them has been vaccinated?
You don't, if you do need to be around other people, get the vaccine and/or wear a respirator. Or don't do either, you have a choice.
I don't really understand how places looking to align their precautions with CDC guidelines can do this. We don't have any required vaccination "passport", so if a movie theatre says vaccinated customers don't have to wear masks, how can they possibly tell who is vaccinated without relying on a dubious honor system?
Devil's advocate: people who say "trust the science/scientists" should do so even when they themselves disagree.
I don't know your position, but I have seen similar responses to yours from people who I know have taken the position of "trust the scientists." Don't you think that the smart folks at the CDC have gone through a similar thought process as you and are issuing these guidelines regardless? Why would we not trust their judgement now?
I consider myself very "science minded", which is why I absolutely hate the phrase "trust the scientists." Primarily because science is all about having a healthy skepticism, and if anything it's about trusting the scientific process (even then, "trust" is a not a great word here - we "trust" the scientific process because history shows it works).
The CDC has made plenty of mistakes and mishaps during this pandemic, so "trusting" them would be foolhardy in my opinion. That said, the CDC has many brilliant people working for them, and unlike many of their critics in my opinion they are always acting in good faith.
But they still exist in the area of public health policy, which is about much more than just "science". Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist, has had some of the best articles and analysis throughout the pandemic. She advocated public mask wearing when the CDC was telling people it wasn't necessary, and she just recently said the CDC's mask guidelines were too timid [1].
The message shouldn't be "trust the scientists". The science here is actually not that complicated that most people can't grasp it. The message should be to dig in to the science that is presented so you can make up your own mind.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/cdc-outdo...
When a lot of people and organizations say "trust the scientists", it seems what they actually mean/do is "trust the scientists when they say we need tighter restrictions, but ignore the scientists when they say we can loosen restrictions".
I meant people in positions of power who make rules that other people have to follow, more so than random people on the Internet just giving their opinions. For example, I predict it will take a lot longer for mask mandates to go away than it did for them to appear when the CDC first said so.
I have no problem with the CDC's guidance. I'm saying that I don't see a practical method for businesses to operate in accordance with that guidance.
The lack of specifics also gives us a lot of information. It says "do your best to enforce, but it is not critical if everyone doesn't adhere 100%." If it was critical, they wouldn't have issued these guidelines, or the guidelines would have come with other specifics like you mention with passports.
"The science" is not this monolith that stands on its own. The science behind this is the belief that fully vaccinated people are not significant spreaders of the disease. That is correct, and it's good for the CDC to recognize that. But it doesn't tell us anything about how easy it is to determine who is and isn't vaccinated and how to ensure compliance in the absence of a "vaccine passport."
The CDC is not recommending that all establishments allow people without masks though, it is only saying that if everyone is vaccinated then it is safe. If there is no way to guarantee that all are vaccinated, then this does not translate into a recommendation to drop a mask requirement.
Consider a parallel. the CDC might say if an HIV+ person is taking some treatment, it is safe to have sexual relations with them. But if you do not trust the person you are with, your own personal policy would probably not be to have unprotected sex.
I read their release carefully. They didn't say that. They said that an individual if vaccinated does not need to mask. They said nothing about everyone in a space needing to be vaccinated in order for anyone to not mask.
>it is only saying that if everyone is vaccinated then it is safe.
Right, but like the previous poster said, we have no way of verifying. Maybe people do, but I don't think everyone carries their vaccination card with them, so how are establishments going to verify? They'll probably ask, and accept the answer. And as people are starting to point out, the unvaccinated will just lie. My point is that the CDC must have played this same thought experiment, but they are issuing these guidelines regardless.
Your suggestion is contrary to the CDC's guidance. It doesn't say that it's only safe for vaccinated people to stop wearing masks if the prevailing positivity rate is low.
I think this is the part where we have to just "let people be adults". We're at the point now where those who are at risk for COVID complications should have access to a vaccine which will greatly reduce that risk. For the rest of the population, it's on you if you want to go to a crowded movie theater without a vaccination.
"If he dies, he dies"
I want to print this out and nominate it for a Pulitzer
Except it's not really "on you". If you're sick, masks protect other people from you getting them sick too. So if an irresponsible unvaccinated anti-masker goes to the theatre and there's an unvaccinated but responsibly mask-wearing person, the unmasked person can get them sick. The responsible person pays the price.
This goes for the flu as well. We've never demanded that people wear masks to protect others from the flu. Are we going to start doing that?
We probably should at least for people with flu like symptoms. We could save a lot of lives annually if we shifted our culture on mask wearing during flu season.
I don't think it is responsible in the slightest to go to a crowded movie theater, unvaccinated, only wearing a paper mask. Even more so when a safe an effective vaccine is available. I understand your point, but this road goes both ways.
I would think it is fine. There have been a total of 340 Covid related deaths for ages 0-18.
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-...
Well that depends on what dogma you choose to eat. Do you think that children are susceptible to complications from COVID? Other commenters in this thread have pointed out data that shows children have less chance of complications vs the common flu.
Since this is the dogma I choose to eat, the one supported by facts and data, I would say that it would be fine for unvaccinated 12 year olds to visit movie theaters. As long as they aren't able to spread it to vulnerable family members who are unable to get the vaccine due to medical reasons. But even then, that should be a decision the family makes. Not the government
Here's one way: The rules in NY already allow venues like baseball stadiums to ask for proof of full vaccination (i.e. 2 weeks after the second Pfizer/Moderna dose or 2 weeks after J&J) in exchange for giving those customers access to a seating section where the state's physical/social distancing and capacity limit rules are waived. There are other examples where the rules allow vaccination status to be checked in exchange for more permissive state rules. (And there's nothing in state law preventing businesses from requiring vaccination if they want to.)
For Yankee Stadium, as one example, here are their proof requirements: "(a) a CDC-approved COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card; (b) Excelsior Pass; (c) a government-issued photograph identification and proof of vaccination form; or (d) electronically stored versions of any of the foregoing."
[edit: This new system applies to Yankees games starting May 21 and later. Not sure about other venues.]
Details: https://www.mlb.com/yankees/ballpark/information/fully-vacci...
Excelsior Pass is the state's own vaccination passport app/website, which indeed isn't mandatory but which is available to anyone who gets their vaccine series in NY.
Yes, I agree this is not as practical for a small business of whatever kind.
The problem is that the vaccination record cards are trivial to forge, especially if "electronically stored version" also includes taking a photo with your phone. There are tons of photos of these cards floating around the internet. Someone with even limited photo-editing skills could slap their name on one of those images, copy it onto their phone, and an overworked ticket-checker at the stadium wouldn't tell the difference.
And I expect that this behavior would be completely in character for your standard anti-vax or covid-denier type.
You're right of course, the nonzero percentage of fraudsters isn't high enough to cause a statistically impactful problem, I suspect. The deniers who make noises about faking cards and who are actually going to go beyond talk to action can't be that numerous, despite their appeal to sensationalist journalists.
Once the pandemic is well and truly past, as is not that far in the future in places like NY, those few activist deniers' remaining impact will be even easier to handle than it is now.
They won’t, they’ll simply rescind the mask mandates and let the vaccine skeptics fend for themselves. Minnesota will be doing this within 6 weeks, I’m sure it’ll be more states soon, if not already.
The problem is that those who can't get the vaccine due to allergies or other medical conditions either a) then get lumped in with the skeptics to fend for themselves, or b) have to further increase their level of precautions and isolate from society.
Isn't that unavoidable? There are no signs covid-19 is just going to disappear.
Being vaccinated doesn't stop an individual from spreading it. It just prevents them from being severely affected.
Vaccinations have been open to 18+ for long enough now. If you're not vaccinated at this point then you either can't be (and should be wearing a mask) or aren't concerned about COVID anyway. Considering that, what is the purpose of a vaccine passport? Who does it help?
It's been little more than a month since vaccinations have been open to 18+. Even if you managed to snag an appointment on day one when things opened up, you still aren't fully protected (based on the guidelines, anyway) if you got one of the 2-dose vaccines.
Wearing a mask and distancing probably provides much less protection than a vaccine. So if you want to be vaccinated but can't be, being out among the people who inevitably have not been vaccinated but will claim to be so they can stop wearing a mask will be more dangerous to you.
The dubious honor system that we relied upon for all the other vaccines?
When did we rely on that? Before, if I went to any business and told them I wasn't vaccinated, they would reply "Okay? So what? Sorry?". And school asked for documentation of the vaccines they wanted.
For things like MMR we don't really need the honor system because the vast majority of the population has been vaccinated and we're pretty much at herd immunity.
As someone living in a country with very few cases of Covid suffice to say the govt is eagerly watching how this goes.
Since this country has good contact tracing they’ve identified multiple cases of fully vaccinated individuals getting infected (all mild so far) and transmitting it to unvaccinated individuals.
As an American abroad I'm very jealous. I've strongly considered flying back to the states to get vaccinated.
For some people the goalposts are moving faster than the speed of light.
The goal was to flatten the curve. Remember that? Flatten. The. Curve.
Is the curve not flat? How much flatter do you want it to be before returning to normal life? Do you want literally 0.000% risk?
There is a worryingly large constituency, mostly on Twitter, who believe that any unjust death at all is damning evidence that all of our institutions and economic systems must be destroyed and rebuilt. Of course unjust death is tragic, but it's not an excuse to throw out all of society and start over again. I think many of these people saw mask mandates as that "rebuilding society" step, and to get rid of it so quickly (despite it being like a year) is evidence that the state "learned nothing", so to say. I even saw someone say something like "I can't believe the anti-maskers won" which so succinctly ties up the stupid reality of our political atmosphere: you can't do anything, anything at all without it being seen as a goal attempt into the other side's net.
I really do believe that a large amount of people do want 0.000% risk, and they'd be happy to wear masks until 2030 to guarantee it.
As for myself, I'm fully vaccinated but will continue to wear masks to make other people feel comfortable. But even before being vaccinated I didn't care too much if people wore masks around me and I certainly won't care now.
I’d be pretty careful drawing any conclusions about the mood of the nation from Twitter. The Twitter crowd are very loud and quite extremist but I believe they are small in number. To be honest I’d just avoid Twitter all together. Nothing good comes out of it.
Debating how small or big they are is fruitless when their power and impact via their network effect is palpable. "Avoiding Twitter" and it's collection of extremists (and their followers that signal boost) is not possible. These people have their tweets and reactions in the news, they are constantly quoted on blogs and websites.
I'd argue the opposite that you are. Twitter extremists influence the rest of the nation and it's easy to see how the network effect has some decay on their ideas, but the thorny points remain.
At some point you have to stop treating Twitter and Twitter users like an isolation zone.
> If you are someone who is active on Twitter, your thoughts about how important Twitter is are biased by your engagement with it.
I don't have Twitter.
> Literally none of them ever mention Twitter in daily conversation. (And many of them are software devs.)
Network effects do not cause or force you to acknowledge a source. They merely require you to trust the mental gymnastics of the person who communicated the idea to you.
> That doesn't mean the people consuming the media also have those extremist belief
Generally the people adopting will adopt bits an pieces, this is what I described as "decay".
The rest I agree with.
I wish companies and politicians would follow your recommendation.
You could post this in nearly every hackernews thread and I'd upvote you each time for being the most relevant comment on the page.
I wish these people would go after cars, they're much worse and they seem to be effective at changing policy.
The individuals on Twitter are an extremist “mob” on both sides of the political spectrum that really has little relevance to larger society, except for politicians and the like who use it for communication.
Follow the science and draw your conclusions for your own life and don’t let the mob bully you, they are living in a world where dogma/politics trumps science [full disclosure that is word choice, I’m independent btw & not a Trump supporter].
I double masked up until 2 weeks after the second mRNA shot (early April), at which time COVID was effectively over for me. If others want to wear masks for years of that makes them feel better that’s totally ok, but the reality is that the pandemic is over for the vaccinated, although I’d get a booster if needed.
Also if we do have to wear masks for another pandemic I absolutely will, but not any longer than needed they really mess with my ability to read facial expressions and communicate.
The political landscape has also changed now so that the government is forced to admit that and now the fully vaccinated can go shopping without masks. It is about damn time. This pandemic has damaged the mental health of the nation but finally rolling back restrictions is the best way to give everyone an end to the pandemic that is in sight.
The goal was to minimize casualties and human misery, to prevent what some countries are going through right now. Flatten the curve was a slogan.
Lock downs also cause huge misery. Recessions are not victimless.
You would choose what is happening now in India instead?
The situation in India is the result of all the things you mentioned + recklessness of people. You have to see it first hand that how reckless people acted in large cities. They were acting like this covid thing doesn't even exist and that is one crucial point.
Of course. If going out and working and consuming is dangerous, many people will not do it, even if there is no lockdown. More people will just be extremely careful. And there is some direct cost to the sickeness and death.
This was published well over a year ago.
https://news.mit.edu/2020/pandemic-health-response-economic-...
I don’t think anyone trusts the Indian government numbers; they are downplaying, lying, and just overwhelmed. It will take a long time probably before before we get a real accounting for deaths, but everything I’ve read points to at least 5x - 10x the official numbers.
You’ll eventually get your answer though to the question of “what if we didn’t do lockdowns and just let it run” - I don’t think it will be pretty.
All the news articles I've seen mention that actual numbers are perhaps 10x or more the reported numbers due to lack of testing and overwhelmed healthcare.
Those European countries have markedly different age pyramids than India
lesser of 2 evils
What recession?
social, educational, economic
Lock downs didn’t last that long. By the time the second wave hit, everything besides large in person gatherings wetback to normal. At least in the mid west.
> a slogan
So it was a white lie?
Perhaps reality is too nuanced to fit into a single sentence? Or new information comes along that updates our understanding of the world?
I remember it very well. Yep, they said flatten the curve. People did, there was confusion about masks, guidance changed. The president said some things about bleach, lockdowns, recession, NYC overloaded, stimulus, reopenings, public protests, Sturgis, peace in the middle east, vans picking up people off the street, elections, the Thanksgiving surge, hospitals full, Jan 6. So forgive me if I don't really put a lot of weight into what was initially said at the beginning of the pandemic. It reflected the understanding of the time.
As an aside, I'll just say I my opinion that it worked. With a few limited exceptions we didn't experience what India is doing through right now. I credit lockdowns and mask wearing for much of that.
nobody ever said the end goal was to flatten the curve. like everything else, we are playing it by ear, to suggest we had plans to do otherwise is just writing your own history
> Is the curve not flat?
Yes, thanks to all the regulations.
> How much flatter do you want it to be before returning to normal life?
When returning to normal life, you want to curve to stay flat. So when a majority of people are vaccinated.
> Yes, thanks to all the regulations.
No. That was months ago. What about those with vaccination or reconvalescence immunity? Those don't affect the curve?
A majority of people ARE vaccinated in the US. And you're vaccinating over 1% more per day. Don't undersell yourselves.
36.3% are fully vaccinated. It is great progress. But it is not a majority.
NB: codingdave is referring to fully vaccinated individuals, while greedo is referring to individuals with at least one shot. Both are correct.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-trac...
"flatten the curve" was essentially a marketing slogan (which worked remarkably well, by the way, in terms of market penetration). So let's not worry too much about that.
With exponential growth, numbers either trend to 0 or to infinity, and they do so very quickly. There's only 2 endgames possible in a pandemic:
(1) The numbers trend to 0 and the risk is 0.00% (see: polio)
(2) The numbers trend to infinity (i.e. the disease goes endemic) and risk is equal to whatever risk the disease carries on infection/reinfection over your lifetime (see: the spanish flu)
Pre-vaccine, "flatten the curve" and other marketing-speak meant "stall on option 2 because we can't handle that level of risk in our society right now" - hospitals overflowing, etc. The death rate would have been out of control if we went straight to infinity at the infection rates we were seeing.
With the vaccine rollout, and with medical advances in treating severe covid, we've dramatically lowered the risk of option 2, and additionally we've opened the door to potentially taking option 1.
The CDC is probably gunning for option 1 here (and based on data in Israel it seems like it's possible with a high enough vaccination rate, although I think globally it will be a challenge).
If you keep this framework in mind, the goalposts haven't really moved at all- just the marketing used (hence: "flatten the curve" became "new normal" which then became "get vaccinated")
Edit: Evidently discussion about this sort of thing is quite polarizing. Just to be clear, this is a personal analysis of decision makers' true "goalposts", as the parent post seemed distressed by the moving of goalposts
I'm not advocating for or defending any particular policy, so please don't interpret my post as such. Thank you.
Yes, I want the virus eliminated.
This is completely unreasonable. We've never been able to eradicate any disease that affects humans other than smallpox, and not for lack of trying.
This is false. We've eradicated SARS-CoV-1, for example. The last case was in 2004. And New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan outright eliminated COVID community spread domestically (Australia did it twice!), proving it is possible.
Moving goalposts...
Well no thank you, I'm not an Australian or American but I want my citizens to be allowed to turn home. Saving your population from each covid death is perfect excuse for fascism, Trump should have been used it to build 3 walls by the look of how people are willing to accept this position.
The case numbers coming out of Israel show their (still ongoing) vaccination effort is on the precipice of eliminating it locally. So it seems incredibly reasonable it will be eliminated, at least from the developed world. From that point any reintroduction of the virus is unlikely to gain a foothold.
As I said, it can't get a foothold. If vaccinations are enough to keep the r0 below 1, which seems to be the case, it doesn't really matter how many infected people enter because it will fizzle out again. Vaccines are also likely to be mandatory for anyone traveling.
Stay inside or wear an N95. The rest of us are returning to life.
You mean like we did with flu?
Can I ask why? That feels like an enormously bigger lift for not much more gain over "the virus exists but vaccines relegate it to the level of a mere cold amongst vaccinated people," for instance.
COVID's long incubation time while infectious makes it potentially the most lethal disease ever. Most colds and flus evolve to be less lethal because lethal variants die out before spreading too far, making them evolutionarily less advantageous. That is NOT true of COVID, so there is potentially nothing preventing it from morphing into something more like MERS with a 20-30% fatality rate.
As bad as COVID was, we dodged an existential bullet. But why stay in the line of fire? We need to eradicate this disease.
Your comment doesn’t address what I wrote. Unlike most other diseases, COVID has no evolutionary pressure to become less lethal over time.
You can't flatten the curve and then immediately throw away all caution and go back to the behavior that made the curve a geometric progression.
Fortunately, we’re not. In between, there was a vaccine developed and deployed and the science strongly (overwhelmingly is probably more precise) suggests that fully vaccinated people are at minimal risk to themselves and minimal risk to spread, which is of course the entire point of vaccines and entirely unsurprising given our understanding and long experience with other vaccines, which almost all exhibited the same disease control properties.
Getting vaccinated seems to me to be the exact opposite of throwing away all caution.
I quite agree, but I think the message from health authorities has also been problematic here: they repeated that "vaccinated individuals will still spread the infection".
That is true of course: some vaccinated individuals will still spread the infection because efficacy is not 100 %. But the public has, predictably, got this message wrong: I keep getting told that "vaccinated people will get the infection and spread it just the same".
No, not just the same. Vaccinated people are radically less likely to infect others. I do understand that the officials wanted to be careful and not encourage people to move around after being vaccinated, but perhaps they could have again worded their message differently, to be more honest and direct.
The changes can be explained by two simple factors, without the need for some grand nefarious conspiracy:
* The CDC's default position is caution * We know more now than we did in the past
In February, we realized vaccinated people could still get asymptomatic infections. Out of an abundance of caution, the CDC recommends vaccinated people keep wearing masks because the vast majority of the population isn't vaccinated.
As evidence accumulates in the intermediate time, we realize that vaccines also lower the percentage of people with asymptomatic Covid-19 [1]
With even more evidence, we realize vaccinated people overwhelmingly avoid hospitalization, which is the real issue we are trying to avoid [2]
With those two pieces of information, the CDC can now change their recommendation. Nothing nefarious going on, nothing 'unknowable' to anyone paying attention.
The problem is when people who are already predisposed to distrust the CDC - most likely due to their media diet - and put 0 effort in understanding the changing landscape see the CDC change the recommendation and assume it must be 'something political'. Those of us who were paying attention weren't that surprised about the announcement.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0428-vaccinated-adu...
I don't have a source for you, but my understanding is that the main reason for the change is that very recent studies have shown that people with vaccines and asymptomatic "breakthrough" infections carry a much lower viral load + viral shedding than previously thought. So even those vaccinated people who may have an asymptomatic infection are really at an extremely minimal chance to spread it to anyone else; they just aren't shedding enough virus particles to make the risk high.
I think many of us on HN object to imprecise messaging, sometimes to the point where it’s technically incorrect.
But I also have to admit that “Defund the Police”, “Flatten the Curve”, “I have a dream”, “Think Different” are more effective than a precise 2-page memo laying out a concrete plan.
Some people struggle with nuanced, complicated messaging. Others struggle when messages are over-simplified. I posit that the first group is a few orders of magnitude larger, at least in terms of effect of public comms.
There's almost a year between the time we originally went into lockdown to 'flatten the curve' and the time a significant part of the population got vaccinated. You can't pretend that not using a mask now - once someone is vaccinated - is the same as not using a mask back then.
So basically what you are saying is that you drew your conclusion back then - who knows based on what data - and you are so set in your ways, there’s nothing that will change your mind.
Sounds like a super healthy way to approach life.
Once we achieve widespread (and seemingly very effective) vaccines, it’s not at all clear to me that spending trillions per year on masks for everyone and generating that additional amount of trash is the best use of those funds or “inconvenience points”.
Half of the US population is vaccinated now. There's no going back to a geometric progression.
Im not vaccinating period. If you try to force me with this bs Im just gonna bribe the nurse here sign this paper and good fucking bye.
What does this have to do with forcing you to do anything?
What is the reason you don't want a vaccine? I'm honestly just curious
They only did this because Fauci is GOING TO BE ARRESTED!
Fauci is a fucking terrorist - I hope he gets stoned to death on live tv.
FUCK JOE BIDEN, FUCK FAUCI!
I’ve been in the US throughout this pandemic, and I’ve had to take it extremely seriously because of vulnerable people I live with. I’m glad to be vaccinated and for my life (and my family’s) to be returning to normal.
I expect that I’ll continue wearing a mask from time to time even years from now if it becomes socially acceptable, because I like both the anonymity, and the wonders it does for my seasonal allergies. I’d also like to be able to wear a mask when I’m feeling ill in the future without people reacting strangely.
I’m definitely going to remain wearing a mask in stores and around people for the time being as my life returns to normal. Right now, not doing so is a strong social signal that you’re a special kind of belligerent asshole that probably hasn’t been vaccinated, and wants to pick a fight, and make everyone around you feel unsafe. It’s amazing to see how often this kind of public chest thumping is happening, and I feel terrible for the customer service employees who have to deal with it. It’s also been shocking how the changed political situation has galvanised certain other views. Several of my neighbours (in fairly gentrified suburbs) have replaced their American flags with trump flags, and engage in the same kind of angry belligerence in nearly all their activities. I don’t know how we deal with the difference in views at this point. It’s very obvious that there are two worlds in the US, and they’re drifting ever further apart, with the interfaces between them becoming seriously strained.
Unfortunately guidance like this is only going to give anti-mask/anti-vax people more ammunition to be belligerent in public.
The problem you're describing is real and something that needs to be resolved.
I'm assuming six months ago you would have told someone to wear a mask because that's what science says. Now you're ignoring the science to make a statement. Was it lip-service and posturing 6 months ago or is it now? Do you value science or not?
You're telling the anti-mask/anti-vax people that yes it really was just bullshit and it was never really about science.
You’re absolutely right. Six months ago I would have said something like that (and indeed many months before even when the CDC was spewing the bullshit that started all this anti mask stuff). I probably wouldn’t have hassled someone I didn’t know, just avoided them altogether.
However, the difference is, by wearing a mask where it might not strictly be necessary, I am choosing to inconvenience myself in a way that does not harm another person in any way. Choosing not to wear a mask where it is necessary puts other people in danger, and risks the overall epidemiological health of the society around you (and in my jurisdiction was also illegal). That’s quite a big difference in my opinion.
It's a trolley problem. Someone gets hurt if you put the mask on, someone gets hurt if you don't put the mask on. You're assuming that there is an objectively good decision here.
Lets wait to see what the economic impacts of this fear culture brings, before announcing there are no casualties.
Nobody, directly.
Who gets hurt if social structure is affected by the apparent identity of masking? There are plenty of instances of catastrophic social division due to physical differences.
I think your choice should be your own, and based on health and other reasons. But it's pretty myopic to ignore the history of superficial social striations.
I read something about this in The Atlantic titled "The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown." Some people's identities have become tied up in this, so giving up their mask could feel like supporting Trump, sending the message that they don't care, or give up part of who they are.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/05/liberal...
6 months ago there wasn’t a vaccine.
That's GP's point. 6 months ago it made sense for everyone to wear masks. Today it doesn't. If someone today insists that everyone should still wear masks everywhere, then they're doing so for political reasons rather than scientific ones.
Continuing to wear a mask yourself is harmless, but trying to make everyone else continue wearing masks is harmful.
I don't think that necessarily follows. Someone who still thinks we should remain masked for a while longer might believe that we should continue to err on the side of caution, because we've seen infection spikes when restrictions are eased or lifted too quickly. The CDC's initial mask recommendation came later than it should have, so why is it so hard to believe that lifting that recommendation is coming too early?
Remember that, while the CDC is advised and informed by scientists, they are ultimately a public policy agency. The science matters, to be sure, but what matters most is that the best outcome is achieved, based on people's behavior.
I think they're recommending dropping mask requirements now not because it's the best science, but because vaccine demand has been dropping, and they believe that giving people real-world, day-to-day incentives to vaccinate will convince some of the people hesitant to get vaccinated. And I agree with them on that, and I think it's the right move, even if it carries some risk.
There are literally zero downsides to wearing a mask in public, and it's crazy that anyone would shame someone for it. In many Asian countries it is considered civilized and thoughtful to wear a mask when feeling ill to prevent the spread of disease. I too hope this becomes the norm in the US.
You don't think that the continual dehumanization of people into creatures with eyes, hair, and without emotions is a downside to wearing a mask in public? A smile as you hold the elevator door for someone goes unseen; all the other person gets is a withering stare from behind a sterile surgeon's mask. A joke that's good enough to make someone grin but not laugh is now a joke that falls flat on its face. An inappropriate remark that is met with a frown or pressed lips is now emboldened with apparent silence.
Yeah, I think there is some downside to never showing your nose and mouth. Especially when you think of them as more than breathing holes.
I think it should be 100% the wearer's choice whether they want to show the world their face or not. Saying 'thank you' to someone opening the door is just as good as a smile. Nobody 'owes' anyone else anything.
This is pretty much what I'm intending to do from now on, and retrospectively it is crazy that I thought it was okay not to.
Same here, with the N95 mask because I had those for fire season. Same thing. It was fine.
Emphatically agreed. Particularly in our increasingly-polarized and dehumanized culture, smiles are worth saving. Masks definitely do have costs. Severe costs for children at school with new teachers/strangers.
You can easily tell whether someone is smiling or not underneath a mask, and I think most people have learned to "smile with their eyes" to make it even more obvious. It's not that big a deal.
At the start of all this, I saw someone point out that in Japan, where mask-wearing is more of a thing, their emoticon for smiling is ^_^ while in the US :) is used. One emphasizes the eyes, still visible with a mask on, the other the mouth. (Note: I am not an emoticon expert, let alone a cross-cultural one)
Given the number of women I've seen happy that no one has told them to smile during this pandemic, I guess a lot of folks in the US don't know how to tell when eyes are smiling.
Exactly the eye areas of regular humans (non-sociopaths) are very "vocal" as to emotions if you are paying attention.
Surely this is satire.
I hope it's not. There's a lot of non-verbal communication we miss when wearing masks. It's not as bad as how tone can be hard to communicate on the internet, but it's still not as good as being able to read someone's facial expressions.
I don't have super strong passions here. But reverting to fashion norms seems pretty appropriate, once it's safe. If it's not safe now, when would it be?
People do take a lot of cues from facial expressions and at least in "the West" we rarely wear face coverings. So there's definitely some (mild?) cost to wearing the mask, too.
I will say this, though -- organizations that insist on compelling others to wear masks outdoors are terribly misguided.
> A smile as you hold the elevator door for someone goes unseen; all the other person gets is a withering stare from behind a sterile surgeon's mask. A joke that's good enough to make someone grin but not laugh is now a joke that falls flat on its face. An inappropriate remark that is met with a frown or pressed lips is now emboldened with apparent silence.
The only significant communicative downside I've felt over a year of regularly wearing a mask in public is a slight latency at the beginning of friendly conversations with other people. Once my voice takes over the task of communicating intention and tone, I'm golden. (And unless every other mask-wearer has been gaslighting me, they have been golden, too, at least wrt to clear communication.)
> Especially when you think of them as more than breathing holes.
This has got to be the cutest expression of concern I've ever seen on HN. I feel like the euphemism "Oh, cheese and crackers!" could easily have been in the next sentence.
Whatever the case, it sure makes a nice counterpoint to a year of watching Facebook's outrage algo convert disinformed mask-less dipshits into unwitting human bioweapons.
“Literally zero downsides” is a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think? Surely you’ll concede that they make your glasses fog up.
Haha fair but they do have masks with a little bit of foam on the nosepiece for this purpose.
There's also defogger you can apply that kind of works (I got it at a hockey store, marketted for the clear face masks some people wear instead of metal cages). An adjusted mask probably works better, but the defogger is better than without in situations where I know my glasses will fog up and I have to have a mask.
I used automotive defog on my glasses.
Then someone showed me the foam...
And prevent me from unlocking my iPhone!
I knew when Apple released the iOS update that lets my Apple Watch unlock my phone when wearing a mask, that it would mean I would very soon not have to use it anymore. Some corollary of Murphy's Law.
Not that I'm complaining!
Really hoping they bring back the fingerprint sensor now. I feel like a monster when I have to lower my mask to unlock my password manager.
If your glasses fog up from wearing a mask, your mask is ineffective.
Get a better mask that actually seals around your face.
I find the Honeywell consumer mask comfortable for daily low risk wear.
If I’m going to be in an enclosed space with lots of anti maskers for a longer period of time I use a 3M elastomer mask with replaceable p100 filters. It’s less comfortable though.
Also to be exceptionally clear, if you are wearing an N95 mask and it is fogging your glasses, it is NOT sealing properly. That condensation is coming from air that’s escaping out the top.
KN94 masks with ear loops are rather less effective as they can’t pull tight enough on the face to seal.
Some see downsides. There's a reason that in many places in the US it was illegal to wear a mask in public before COVID happened. Most of the time it is to prevent potential law breakers from being anonymous, I think. I don't support it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back someday.
It seems pretty unlikely that someone who is already willing to commit a violent crime would care whether or not he violates a mask law.
The point isn't whether you're willing to violate an extra law. It's that pre-COVID, if someone walked towards a bank wearing a mask, they're going to get noticed and attract attention well before they start committing their violent crime, increasing the chance that they're caught.
Yes, but when it's illegal, it's much easier to quickly identify the law breaker before the trouble starts.
True, I guess maybe they were more to target groups who wore masks and were/are known for breaking laws. I think some were passed (and definitely at least proposed) to target antifa, and I believe some were also passed to target the KKK.
That is kind of like saying there is zero downsides to wearing a helmet or a bulletproof vest in public. It’s fine if you want to do it, but people not wanting to do it is also fine. The problem is both sides often have a degree of judgement that their way is better.
Andy Samberg has a hilarious song along these lines, called YOLO. [1] I’m surprised it hasn’t been referenced more during the pandemic, especially when multiple-masking has been discussed.
It is also a hilarious and catchy song in its own right.
Bulletproof vests and helmets are intended to only protect the wearer. Masks, on the other hand, are supposed to protect the wearer and the people surrounding them. It's not the same
The key part of your statement is "when feeling ill". They don't just wear them all the time though it may seem like that to outsiders (they tend to take "feeling ill" in the lightest respect possible).
You can't say zero because there is the low but still there possibility someone will fight you over and even end up shooting you because of the impending fight. It has happened. Again it's rare but it has happened, and I would say that the risk of an argument and physical altercation over it with Trumpian qultists will increase over time.
This is entirely based on where you live. There's places in the US where the vast majority never wore a mask, and going to the store without a mask was the more "normal" thing to do.
In those places you're almost sending more of a message by wearing a mask.
> * Right now, not doing so is a strong social signal that you’re a special kind of belligerent asshole that probably hasn’t been vaccinated, and wants to pick a fight... *
Man, I'm sorry, but you read like the belligerent one here, judging people from afar. I wear a mask when possible (and will also likely continue to do so, despite being fully vaccinated) but this self-righteous attitude I think is an enormous part of the cultural problem.
I have always tried to follow a blend of cautious common sense and the science here, so my policy throughout the pandemic has always been - Always wear a mask when indoors (other than at home or in my car alone) - Wear a mask outdoors when it's difficult to remain less than 10 (not even 6) feet from other people. If I need to pass someone on a sidewalk, or someone's approaching me at an intersection, I put my mask on. And I make sure to cover my nose. And even with the mask on, I will usually opt to go into the street or otherwise create distance.
Despite this, I have been shouted at by people more than 30 feet away across a street and from people driving cars(!) about walking outdoors without a mask at times, when nobody has been anywhere near me. I'm sorry but this is just asinine. There has to be some time when it's ok to not be wearing a mask when you're not at home. I wear glasses and am otherwise visually impaired (I have an autoimmune disease which inflames my retinas). When I wear a mask, it tends to fog my glasses and make my vision even worse, sometimes dangerously so (I've been nearly hit by bicycles riding on the sidewalks tens of times - you can't hear them coming when they decide to come up behind you on the sidewalk despite the presence of the perfectly good bike lane) If I wore a mask while driving my reduced vision would make me many many times more dangerous than an unvaccinated person not wearing a mask outdoors, and yet I see this behavior all the time - even when the driver is alone in their car!
Furthermore, one of the times I was shouted at, I actually had a painful cut on my face, and wearing the mask aggravated it. I still would wear the mask if I was in a store or actually anywhere near someone outdoors, but that didn't stop someone from berating me from across a four lane street!
I keep seeing these self-righteous claims throughout these threads that "there is no reason not to wear a mask". Frankly I think these folks are mentally lazy - I learned in my first philosophy course that it's dangerous to use any kind of universal quantifier in your reasoning. I also learned that it's better to show empathy if possible, or at least extend the benefit of the doubt, but for some reason this pandemic and the politics seem to have completely shut any nuance and / or compassion off.
On top of that, you admit further down in this thread that you would just choose not to engage someone you didn't know. I'm sorry, but that means that you shouldn't complain about them, then. It doesn't seem like you've given yourself any hope of arriving at a more charitable conclusion than "this person is a belligerent asshole".
Ugh. Apologies for the tone. I'm not anti-mask, but I think this stopped being about the masks a long time ago, and the fact that we can't seem to collectively recognize it is incredibly frustrating.
I think the belligerence comes from the fact that multiple people were killed during confrontations with anti-mask individuals.
I certainly sympathize with your experience. I behaved very similarly and got yelled at once or twice for not wearing a mask outside. But at no point was I worried that they were going to pull a gun on me. Meanwhile, people making close to minimum wage with minimal (if any) health benefits had to put up with the anti-mask zealots just so they could pay their rent and keep food on the table.
This is now a multi month off ramp for insane people’s cognitive dissonance. Nothing changed except that it was becoming political untenable to continue with these irrational mask policies. An entire country held hostage to people who are too trusting of what CNN and second rate government bureaucrats tell them.
Got some karma to burn so here goes: I disagree with this and the reasons are below.
- it is inconsistent and imprecise. Which vaccine? There are a couple of variants now, vaccines have different levels of protection against different variants and the jury is still out on some new up-and-coming things coming out of India. It also makes you ask a couple of questions. Why should you wear the mask when using public transit or healthcare facilities? Wouldn't it be more dangerous or whatever if you're waiting for over an hour at the DMV? What about schools? We can vaccinate >12 yo now. Does this apply to them when in-person schooling?
- it sends the wrong message in an already sensitive environment wrt to 'mask wearing'. When Texas lifted the mask mandate, people expected to not be wearing masks everywhere. Vaccinated people who only read headlines will walk into hospitals and get into arguments with the staff because 'that's what the CDC said'.
- it is contrary to the current consensus from field epidemiologists [1].
- we need to keep in mind that the CDC has public health as a priority. Not your individual private health status. So their goal is to manage large scale outbreaks and not necessarily to make sure that you or your family is safe. This is why guidelines were along the lines of 'gatherings of more than 5 people'. That's not to ensure that those 5 people don't get infected but to ensure that out of the 5 that may, the infection rate will not drown the healthcare system. Anyway, about that, there are still (granted very very few) breakthrough cases. This means that for people who are immunocompromised or have undergone treatments considered risk factors, this guideline needs to raise an eyebrow or two. It is up to the individual to decide what to do. Risk of getting infected vs the convenience of NOT putting on a piece of cloth indoors, which may decrease that risk.
- as any guidance requiring self-policing (vaccinated people) this is doomed to fail. I'm sure they ran the numbers and decided that from a public health standpoint the healthcare system will be able to handle small outbreaks here and there...
- for some reason it feels like an attempt at creating an incentive for getting a vaccine. This type of thing has the same smell like the initial mask guideline which was intended to protect the supply of PPE.
And to the hn-ers screaming 'but the science' 'but the hypocrisy', well it is possible to agree and disagree with the CDC at different times and on different issues. The world is not black/white are we're not in a cult (well, not all of us).
On a personal note, I will keep wearing the mask indoors although I'm vaccinated, thank you very much. Another thing I learned since last year is that wearing a mask gives me a level or privacy I only dreamed of. Also I did not get my annual cold. So, as a free American I'll keep wearing it indoors as long as I'm not breaking the law (note that when mask mandates are lifted it's not phrased as 'masks are illegals' but 'masks are not required') and as long as other countries with people flying in and out of are in deep COVID shit. Deep enough to spawn new and improved COVIDs. I'll also reserve the right to tell anyone to fuck right off if they feel strongly about me covering my face when 'look what the CDC is saying' 'but the science we all ignored now agrees with what we wanted to do last year hurr durr'.
> This type of thing has the same smell like the initial mask guideline which was intended to protect the supply of PPE.
Is there any proof the initial mask guideline was intended to do that? I feel like the initial mask guideline really was what it was, and later they added the "yeah, we knew masks work, but we wanted to protect supply" to save face.
The CDC really botched this one. Nobody will be able to take them seriously because either a) their previous guidance was correct and they only updated guidance to encourage more people to get vaccinated, or b) their previous guidance was wrong. Either way, it makes them look foolish and destroys whatever credibility still remained in the institution.
No, they didn’t.
The CDC explained that we didn’t know if people could be contagious after being vaccinated. Not sure where this stands.
Now most people who want the vaccine will soon have it but it looks like lots of holdouts.
So, now we have a carrot and stick. No mask required and people are now on their own if they choose to skip it
The CDC director herself was saying back in April that vaccinated people don't spread the virus.
> “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus — they don’t get sick,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday. That’s “not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data.”
In the future skip to the part where that was retracted.
https://people.com/health/vaccinated-people-do-not-appear-ca...
Walking back statements because they're untrue/unverified/exaggerated/unqualified shouldn't necessarily remove your credibility. But doubling down on falsehoods definitely should.
Science is the pursuit of knowledge and we can always conduct a new experiment that reveals inaccuracies or invalid conclusions from yesterday's experiment.
Yes, but you also said a wrong thing. Therefore you lack credibility and nobody should ever listen to you again.
Who sowed the seed of doubt in me.. that vaccinated folks can still transfer the disease?
They can, but it is very unlikely.
Probably not that dissimilar to people getting pregnant when on birth control.
No, a lot less likely than that. Birth control efficacy is around 91% in typical use per year for the mini-pill. The mRNA vaccines seem to perform better than that AND don't have the issue of perfect use
I specifically said mini-pill in my reply. As far as I understand, birth control most commonly refers to the pill, as it is the most commonly prescribed form of birth control (condoms, coitus interruptus etc. not being a prescribed form).
My main beef is that the percentage efficacy calculation is different and thus not comparable. Birth control is calculated at the % chance of an event within a year. Vaccines are not calculated in the same manner, so it is hard to say that one is more effective without having the data on vaccine efficacy over a year. The data I have seen thus far does not yet indicate much of a wane over time in the same manner as birth control. Furthermore, birth control failure is due to misuse most often, not due to waning effectiveness of an initial dose.
Furthermore, sperm and ovum do not tend to have selective pressure to work against birth control. It is unknown at this time whether the mRNA vaccines are generic enough to be effective against whatever mutations to the spike protein may form.
Essentially my point is this, you can also say that it is about as effective as the odds of a pitcher throwing a no hit game. But besides the numbers which communicate those odds, everything that is used to calculate and define the event is different.
Nope. Check out Singapore’s latest cluster. Multiple fully vaccinated people infected (9 at last count) who are spreading it to others.
https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/24-new-cases-... has the cases, with vaccination information.
I think there's not enough information there to make conclusions about the vaccines. There's roughly a million vaccinated people in Singapore, a small number of people that are vaccinated and still get sick is expected even with very efficacious vaccines.
Don’t get me wrong. The vaccines are great at preventing severe disease. But they won’t prevent an outbreak of 20-30% of your population is unvaccinated.
Data seem to point at keeping some level of restrictions until everyone who is vulnerable has an opportunity to get the vaccine. Otherwise you’ll be dealing with outbreaks - smaller in scale, but outbreaks none the less.
Perhaps the Yankees, with 8 vaccinated team members positive with COVID. One of them had even been sick with it before. However it's worth pointing out that they did not get the more effective mRNA versions.
false positives and crappy pcr tests, never meant as diagnostics
To their credit, false positives are the designed nature of PCR.
It's referenced as a diagnostic test: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/covid-19-diagnos...
What leads you to believe it is not?
As for false positives, a cluster like that seems unlikely give they had a less effective vaccine overall and in terms of protection from variants. If they are false positives, I'd bet on sample or protocol contamination, not a random clustering.
It was unknown whether they could spread the disease for a long time. A bunch of research has done out in recent weeks/months showing it's also effective to slow the spread.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was ~85% effective at preventing 'severe' covid (requiring medical intervention but not hospitalization) and 61% - 65% effective at preventing 'mild and moderate' covid in areas with the variants that are now the most prevalent in the US.
I would assume vaccinated people that are sick enough to be having symptoms are probably also infectious.
I have been heads down working on some things, so this is new to me.
I am curious, how will someone prove they are vaccinated?
How is this not the top story on every single news aggregator in the world right now?
This is like the BEST news since the vaccines were approved. This is a HUGE deal. Great job, CDC!
Because masks haven been politicized. Good news be damned.
The real problem to solve is how does America (maybe other countries idk) recover from this intense polarization that only increased in the last year. Personally this has given me a new perspective on alot of people
Hopefully they're careful with vaccines. There are people who don't like being told what to do and will ignore the government out of spite (mostly rural Republicans and libertarians). Doubling down on telling people they have to get vaccinated won't work for the same reason. Not that this is telling people what to do; you just have to be careful with policy so it doesn't backfire.
Biden appointing Fauci as his chief medical advisor was a mistake because Fauci has been politicized. Democrats will get the shot regardless, so finding a new face would have sent a signal to Republicans.
I hear this statement a lot and don't get it. Of course masks are politicized. Everything in modern day society is political in some way or another, since everything can be interpreted to suit some political ideology or another.
Correct. That is the problem. I think you do actually “get it.”
Unfortunately for many, rescinding the mask mandates means removing a rather convenient tool to twist the arms of their political opponents.
(as evidenced by the sheer number of downvotes in this thread, wowzers)
I’ve been wondering the same thing. This is massively good news, and I’m amazed it seems to be getting such short shrift.
I went to Taco Bueno on the way home and didn’t wear a mask. Showed the teller the headline… then found out he couldn’t read.
So yeah that wasn’t awesome.
But this news is. First time I haven’t worn a mask in like a year.
>Short shrift
It's been on the front page of CNN, Fox, Washington Post, Wallstreet Journal, Bloomberg...
Couldn't read in that he was being dense or couldn't read in that he was actually illiterate? How do you survive like that?
I would like to see the mathematical analysis that concludes it is unsafe for a vaccinated person to fly on an airplane without a mask while it is safe for a masked unvaccinated person.
The CDC lies to encourage people to do what the CDC feels is most safe for people. They don't believe people would make the right decisions on their own.
For the same reasons they cover up UFOs. (half joking about the UFOs, but not the CDC)
The issue is that now there's no way to tell whether the unmasked person next to you is vaccinated and safe or unvaccinated and dangerous.
There is no statement from any Federal official that says anything like this.
Meanwhile in more sane countries citizens choose wether to wear masks and not. We locked down early and often, so almost none died.
Anyways, studies show distance to be more preventative.
Your measure of sanity is the inverse of my measure of freedom, and the same as my measure of government authoritarianism.
By opening the economy to vaccinated people, the non-vaccinated ones have a large incentive to get vaccinated.
I suspect that in practice they'll just lie about being vaccinated.
Since vaccines are readily available to walkups, if someone lies about being vaccinated, doesn't wear the mask, and contracts Covid, it's their own fault.
At some point one must assign some personal responsibility.
I haven't been vaccinated yet. I was planning around fall of this year to give the vaccine more time to be studied and also to (I assume) have better protection during the time covid-19 is likely to come back (the winter).
Now I'll probably be vaccinated in the next week or so. Before this change I assumed there would be minuscule risk over the summer. Now it's been upgraded to a very slight risk. So might be worth the vaccine.
To an essential worker, how can they tell if someone is vaccinated or not? This is like when I got citizenship they told us all that as citizens we no longer needed to prove our citizenship (which may be true, but anyone could claim to be a citizen to get this right).
If the essential worker was concerned wouldn't they have gotten vaccinated? In which case, what difference does it make if the other person was vaccinated or not?
Essential worker can a) be an anti-vaxxer or b) unable to get the vaccine for various reasons (allergies).
Now, if it’s a) and you’re arguing that maybe they deserve the risk of infection then that’s another argument.
Or c) still get sick even though they're vaccinated (bad luck or mutations)
I'd be very cautious to say that anti-vaxxers "deserve" the risk. A large part of the anti-vaxxers I know are people who've been down on their luck for a long time, have lost all hope in society and the government, are isolated, and have been convinced by people who prey on those weaknesses.
This is horrible... And just like that, now the government can introduce laws based on people's identity/group.
Well at least it doesn't affect me personally... I didn't get the vaccine but I identify as a vaccinated person. Deep down, I feel that I'm vaccinated.
When the India variant is in more than 50 countries (and counting), and the variant roulette is on full speed in India. We desperately believe that the vaccine is better protection than an N95 mask! Utter nonsense! It's a matter of Biden showing he's doing something positive, but the vaccination is not something he can take credit for anyway. When you mix politics into healthcare, the result is often disastrous!
This is a bad idea and one that is going to backfire. The Indian variant of Covid is already spread out to over 44 countries, and although we don't have conclusive evidence yet, it is being suspected that the current crop of vaccines are not very effective againt this.
In the past one month alone, more than a 100 medics (who are all fully vaccinated), have died - albeit due to a different vaccine and higher viral load in their workplace.
It's a little premature to ask for masks to go off
Ask yourself, why now? I work at a vaccine center and they are all slowing down. For those who aren’t “hesitant” but maybe haven’t received their shot for lack of urgency (convenience issues/complacency), going to a store full of people not wearing their mask may make them feel less secure and will provide urgency to get their shots. Interesting strategy but as the unvaccinated anti-maskers stop wearing their masks in public (no one is going to check their vax card), you are going to see outbreaks and death. Let’s see if it works to get more people vaccinated.
It does feel a little soon, since there are still big unknown in terms of variants and how effective it is for people with weakened immune systems, and how long the effective protection lasts.
That said, I think what people miss is that CDC is not making recommendations for you not to catch Covid, it's making recommendations in the aggregate of what seems like acceptable risk for the pandemic. So that means some vaccinated might still get Covid, but most won't or will with minor symptoms that is not life threatening. In that regard they probably want to encourage people to go back and stimulate the economy.
I don't know if anywhere in the United States enforces mask wearing with some kind of law - but assuming they do, doesn't this severely complicate things? How do you tell quickly and easily if someone not wearing a mask is vaccinated or not?
Where I am, there is an app I can use to display my vaccine records - and I believe they are working on an even more 'convenient' version that shows something similar to a red or green QR code - but this has obvious downsides and potential future repercussions. Even with this, they are hesitant to say "It's ok to take your masks off in public now" as it'll be so difficult to enforce.
If you are vaccinated, why do you care if others are or not?
I mean sure, there is a small chance someone could infect you, and a much much smaller chance that than infection actually causes you a hospitalisation, but it’s not a big risk once you are vaccinated yourself.
If you think the vaccine works, which I assume you do, then why do you need to know others vaccine status?
_I_ don't need to know it, but my friend who can't take the vaccine as she is pregnant might wish to use the information to make risk assessments.
Further: it is literally illegal not to wear a mask here in certain public areas - I'm specifically interested in how one would enforce that if you split between those who have to wear masks and those who now don't have to.
Supposedly, pregnant women can get the vaccine. In fact, it’s recommended due to risk of certain complications with getting covid-19 while pregnant.
FYI it’s probably low risk for pregnant women to take the mRNA vaccines. If your friend wants to be vaccinated but is uncomfortable maybe they can specifically ask their GP about it?
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommend...
Also until literally today nobody under 16 could get vaccinated and we're still several months away from vaccines possibly being approved for children.
Studies show kids are less likely to catch and spread it, and when they do catch it they have less averse impacts than adults, but I'd still prefer if my kids don't catch it.
> If you are vaccinated, why do you care if others are or not?
I care -- in that, I'd prefer for their sake and for everyone else's that they were vaccinated. The vaccine's not perfect.
However, for the purposes of wearing masks or not: I don't care. Let's take them off and hope that the unvaccinated make the right choice of keeping the mask on. I imagine that very nearly zero will, but in the baseline case I didn't know who wasn't vaccinated against yet-more-serious infectious diseases. So this will be returning to the level of nonzero risk that we were before.
We engage in risky activities all the time without blinking, let's please all treat this risk with the appropriate relative weight.
If you have energy to fight the good fight, become a positive role model for vaccination. Don't mock or ridicule the antivaxxers or vaccine-hesitant. Just show them the right path.
Yup. A lot of the rules were made in this awkward middle ground between health organizations' recommendations, politics, and need to be enforceable (the later made worse because the ADA in the US makes it really hard to enforce anything since you can always just say "lol health issues!" and no one's allowed to check).
People have been constantly trying to "reason" behind certain rules. "Why do I have to X if Y is allowed, it makes no sense!" when most of the time it's purely so its possible to enforce something.
In this case as states adopt this recommendation, you can essentially assume any kind of mask rule is null and void and it's now just a suggestion, because it's now completely impossible to enforce anything.
Fortunately vaccines are readily available in the US now, and while not perfect for people who can't take it, their risk should be much, much lower (unless they're in Florida, in which case, I feel for them).
Sounds like Nazi Germany
I'm not sure this is a good approach. I'm guessing part of this declaration is due to many American's approach with masks (they took my freedums!)
I'm not sure if there's enough data out there showing that vaccinated people cannot pass the virus to others. It's possible you can catch it and still pass it, I'm thinking.
For me, I'll continue wearing a mask in public.
> I'm not sure if there's enough data out there showing that vaccinated people cannot pass the virus to others. It's possible you can catch it and still pass it, I'm thinking.
There's been plenty of data that shows this. That's why they did this. How much more data do you want?
I'm curious to how the math works... Basically they are willing to let covid explode among the unvaccinated which presumably won't impact those that can't get vaccinated (i.e. young kids < 16) and maybe that that number is smaller than what our hospitals can treat.
I'm also gonna guess that the people who have gotten vaccinated basically have always worn masks and the unvaccinated never have unless forced. That explains my town.
12 - 15 years olds can now get the Pfizer vaccine in the United States[1]. That should help a lot.
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/fda-authorizes-pfize...
Not really, < 12 is a big concern.
How so? The risk of a bad outcome from children under 12 catching COVID is basically nil.
But the older members of the household can be vaccinated.
The US population is around 30% fully vaccinated. Herd immunity requires about 90%* which we're never going to achieve because of vaccine resisters. Therefore COVID-19 is going to be endemic in the US for the rest of our lives. That means we'll see repeated temporal and geographic outbreaks forever, and people who are not vaccinated will continue to die. This is now our world.
*90% is based on the high R-value of this virus taken together with the known even-higher R-value of several of the variants. It's a realistic number, despite what some politicians would have you believe.
Covid will be like the 1895 Russian flu, the coronavirus OC43 that eventually mutated into insignificance
Covid has shown many people, including myself, how powerless the government really is in enforcing policies imo. This includes both presidential administrations. It has also showed that a lot of people that trust words of scientists do so in dogmatic ways that are unwilling to change their stance after the scientists do, like Fauci saying there is no point to wearing a mask when people get vaccinated.
This "pro-science" dogmatism has become a religion for people to the point that you cannot refute it. They hold the keys to some arbitrary insight and unwillingly compromise. It's almost like it has become a unorganized paganistic belief system in the name of science, but not even partaking in the basic fundamental steps of the scientific method by readdressing your hypothesis when brought about with new information.
Okay dang, here's what I'm curious about. People walking around without a mask. How are they going to know who is vaccinated and who isn't? Say someone who isn't vaccinated is walking around without a mask. What is the officer's reasonable suspicion to stop them and ask for ID or ask for "papers?"
How will this be enforced? How are they going to stop all the non-vaccinated people from walking around without a mask?
Are they just wagging the dog with this because Fauci's in the hot seat?
I wish it was common and expected that those that want to go maskless, wear their vaccination cards around their necks. Not a requirement, but just having it be common enough that if you do, people will know what it means.
Here in San Francisco, more than 50% of people are fully vaccinated, but everyone is still wearing masks, even outdoors. I don't think it is just that SF hasn't changed the mandate, it is more about social pressure.
And I say that while at the same time, being proud to live in the big city that has done the best (i.e. least per capita deaths of any US large city), thanks to a culture of taking the pandemic seriously. But I'm ready to take advantage of being vaccinated, without people crossing the sidewalk to avoid me or otherwise getting looks.
Is social pressure really a particularly smart way to make decisions? We're talking about a "Feature" of human behavior that evolved during a time when we were living as nomadic hunter/gatherers. Social isolation from your tribe might have cost you your life.
Fast forward to 2020. It's the exact opposite. We live in a society with billions of people. Who cares if someone saw you crossing the sidewalk gave you a bad look? Odds are that will be the last interaction with them for the rest of your life.
I somewhat feel the same way: I expect I'll continue to wear a mask in public until social signals start telling me it's ok to leave it off. I don't fear any kind of social retribution, but continuing to wear a mask is a very small, easy thing I can do to help make others feel comfortable, others who have no idea if I'm vaccinated or not.
Get a roll of stickers that say you're vaccinated? There's a lot available, and it's not too obtrusive.
Early in the pandemic, I was That Guy. I was the only person wearing a mask in O'Hare in mid-February, when I was flying to my new home.
I was That Guy in the grocery store, and CostCo, and at the bank. For almost a month.
Oh I got looks. Lots of sidelong glances. Back then I think people subconsciously (or maybe consciously sometimes) figured the mask meant I was diseased. People would physically move away from me. Good! They were standing too close.
Just, show some spine. Be That Guy. You're vaccinated, act like it.
Exactly! It has to start somewhere. I’ve been trying to be that guy. Downtown Seattle area is the same as OP described, although just barely starting to see more people go without masks outside. My wife even said so herself: she’ll stop wearing a mask “when most other people do”. A lot of people are probably thinking the same thing.
Most of the problems happened coz governments world over believed the WHO who in turn were compromised by the CCP. Don't governments/people believe in "Trust but verify" anymore. Everyone parroted the same grey truths which CCP was feeding the world.
Also the election year was another factor in politicizing each and everything.
According to a large, controlled study in Wuhan [1], asymptomatic spreading is exceedingly rare. Zero cases in the study were identified.
The article makes it quite clear that this finding cannot be extrapolated to countries where the virus has not been brought under control. Furthermore it says "there is plenty of evidence elsewhere showing that people infected with covid-19 may be temporarily asymptomatic and infectious, before going on to develop symptoms."
may be. Here's the problem, many see this as let's upend society for a "may be". Versus, isolate the sick as we've always done before
While I believe it - kinda hard to trust anything out of Wuhan at the moment.
Kinda hard to trust anything out of Washington at the moment too, considering neither nation's government appears to have publicly audited gain of function research programs or reconsidered their utility and potential risks/benefits in the first place
Is living the healthiest life you can live not the best option in every circumstance?
It seems society as a whole wants a quick fix, no matter what the problem is or the consequences from a cure.
No. This American fascination with “health” is very odd. My grandparents in Bangladesh lived as long as the average life expectancy in the US today, and they’re not even remarkable. Once you have antibiotics and make it past child mortality, you’re very close to hitting diminishing returns.
America has an enormous obesity problem which contributes to a significant number of Covid fatalities. When we tell Americans to get healthy it's mostly targeted towards those people.
The rhetoric around “health” seems a lot broader than that.
I agree with you entirely that there's an obesity problem. When it comes to covid deaths, though, the CDC report this week says that the vast majority--about 46%--are coinfections with flu.
Flu also causes pneumonia, and they're listed together, so they're talking about flu and flu-related pneumonia.
Everything in these numbers is connected to covid. That's the point.
It's not my statement. You don't have to jump through hoops to indict me for linking.
Not flu alone, but flu or pneumonia.
What's the significance of this?
and make it past child mortality
That's the hard part in less developed countries. In 1960 Bangladesh had a child mortality rate of almost 30%. At that time the US was under 3%. Even today with antibiotics etc., Bangladesh is about 5x higher than the US.
I'm honestly not sure what you mean by America's fascination with health: I'm an American, so it of course would seem normal to me. But whatever we're doing, Bangladesh isn't a great comparison to cite as though they're on par with the US because life expectancy there is still about 6 years shorter.
> I'm honestly not sure what you mean by America's fascination with health
Might be referring to the tendency (of some) to track biomarkers in meticulous detail, pay not-insignificant sums for personalized "health plans", stress about exact quantities consumed of various substances, etc
This is not every American of course, only a relatively privileged minority, but I'm not surprised it seems a strange way of living to some, indeed it does to me (also an American)
Maybe it's a form of compensation: i.e., if one feels powerless regarding health-incident factors affecting the public at large (like plastic and chemical contamination in water supplies and household products, herbicides/pesticides and seed oils and antibiotics and excess fat/sodium/sugar/etc in food) one might micromanage personal health decisions to regain a sense of control
There’s a reasonably famous anecdote I saw about that time on Pakistani television, from Qudratullah Shahab’s (federal civil servant at then time) autobiography. The US was sending sanitary aid to Pakistan and the East Bengalis asked for their fair share of it and were told sitting there in the federal secretariat building by the West Pakistanis “Go use a banana leaf” (to wipe your @$&!?!)
“Go use a banana leaf”
the history of what people have resorted to using over the centuries is pretty interesting. There's even a satirical book named Gargantua & Pantagruel written in the 1500's France where characters debate the most comfortable option. IIRC, they settle on a life goose's neck: the feathers make it quite soft.
In the US, a dried out corn cob was a popular choice during the early days, before the 1900's when toilet paper really hit the mainstream. Likely not for comfort though, just because it was what was available. It's probably not great for the average health of a population if they use discarded food that might be partially rotting to wipe their butts. Actually
I mean all the exercising and fretting about “clean food” versus “processed food,” pollution, etc. We don’t do all that.
The difference in child mortality obviously isn’t about “healthy living”—its access to clean water, basic prenatal care and post-delivery care, etc. The difference in life expectancy between Bangladesh and the US at age 60 is just 4 years.
I think you both appear to be aggressively agreeing with each other.
Yes, deaths are front-loaded towards young people because the biggest variance in average life expectancy is child mortality. In countries like Bangladesh, one's ability to clear that hurdle is certainly correlated with socioeconomic status
Yes, once you clear that hurdle (i.e. for most people in America), there are diminishing returns to life expectancy.
I, for one, am not sure that I fully agree with that last statement. I'd love to see some research studying the average life expectancy of groups that engage in, for example, regular fitness and meditation (especially their effect on life-reducing hypertension).
A lot of the discussion of "health" in the US is actually coded conversation about physical attractiveness.
Interesting observation. In Bangladesh we have blunter conversations about how people look. On meeting my wife, my mom’s first reaction was “she’s pretty. And not fat!” On a recent birthday, she said of me: “you’ve aged. And not well!”
I think you run into a blurry line of what is the healthiest possible. Everything has a risk tolerance.
Definitely not.
Sure. And living the healthiest life can include getting vaccinated and wearing a mask.
Are you suggesting we just eat good foods and exercise, and that alone will protect us from dying from COVID?
I can see an argument that lockdown has had consequences. Mask wearing too, but to a lessor degree.
But the vaccine? I'm not seeing serious consequences other than the cost to get it out there. Seems like a win-win, once it exists. Is there something I'm missing?
It's not a guarantee, but eating good foods and exercising protects most people from dying from COVID-19. Even among the the older cohort, most of the dead have had co-morbid conditions such as obesity. Relatively few patients with normal blood sugar levels and insulin responses have died.
Long term effects of an unproven technology? Who knows what this will do to your body in 10 or 20 years?
While you're not wrong, who knows what actually catching Covid will do to your body in 10 or 20 years? At least there we actually have evidence that it could in some cases cause long term deleterious effects.
Vaccines still aren't 100%. This is bad advice from the CDC. It will only lead to anti-masker/vaxxers using this as an excuse for not wearing a mask. Even the fully vaccinated should be wearing a mask around other people. 94%/97% is not 100%.
edit: Japan is a good example for how masks have drastically reduced the number of infected due to mask culture. Japan has half the US population and still isn't vaccinating the general public. Even the spikes in Japan are tiny compared to the US due to mask usage. Japan is mostly open, trains are still packed, shops are still filled with people. Masks work and should still be worn once vaccinated.
edit 2: good luck.
No.
The continual insistence by some - many in prominent leadership positions - that nothing changes after you get vaccinated is what was hurting confidence that the vaccine works. If it works, why would I have to act like it doesn't? People can make their own judgements about their personal risk, but I'm not waiting until some arbitrary effectivity point (99%? 99.9%? 99.99%?) to go back to normal. I'll be in the gym tonight for 2 hours without a mask for the first time in well over a year.
> If it works, why would I have to act like it doesn't?
This vaccine is -ridiculously- effective, which definitely changed things a bit (well, a lot). It looks like people who have it are pretty much immune, the chances of transmitting even if you DO get the virus is extremely low, etc. We're lucky.
It could have gone a very different way though. If we had a vaccine that's much less effective (eg: like the flu's), we'd have to rely on the power of statistics at scale to get rid of the pandemic. So yeah, that would have meant you'd have to get vaccine and still act like you haven't for a while until more people take it.
Thank <whatever deity> things turned out better though, since its pretty obvious that people wouldn't have been able to comprehend that scenario.
Cool
When they made those statements, it was nothing changes for now. We were always going to get to this point where enough people became vaccinated and others had enough of a natural immunity that we would start to open up, take off the masks, and get to normal. You couldn't do that when 10% of people had the vaccine dose. Did people really think that the government was going to forever make people where masks and to social distance and all the other measures?
Even if only one person in the world were vaccinated, why should that one person not get to stop wearing a mask and social distancing?
The average person can expect to be in three to four car accidents during their lifetime. I'm still driving around (vaxxed, not belligerent, happy to mask for the time being).
That is great. But still, vaccinated people shouldn't be told that they cannot get infected. There is this weird misconception floating around that just because we get vaccinated we are somehow immune to covid-19. That is a dangerous and misguided belief.
The CDC, FDA, governments, etc have said constantly that the vaccines have a 90-95% efficacy rate.
Anyone who somehow interpreted that as "completely immune" has bad reading comprehension.
This sounds like a strawman argument that you're making, I don't know where you're getting that there's a misconception of the vaccine equating to 100% immunity. No one said that.
Right now the primary question is about the comprehension, or lack of same, on the part of anti-vaxers. The actual truth about infections is almost completely irrelevant here. The question is, what tactic will keep us all safest when the primary threat comes from people who are clinically stupid?
That's purely a psychology question, and I honestly don't know what the answer is. But it's worth noting that it's pretty much all about strawmen, and which strawmen the anti-vax crowd can be manipulated into believing.
J&J definitely does not have >90% efficacy
You might find this more useful:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/of-fully-vaccinated-israelis-o...
I thought was actually mattered was hospitalizations and deaths. Why is measuring infections relevant?
According to the public perception, getting COVID is a death sentence. That's all there is to it.
That may be your goal, but that is not the goal of public health policy. If complete eradication was the goal, we would be wearing masks, social distancing, and requiring businesses to operate at lower capacity for many, many years to come. That is just not an acceptable state of life for the vast majority of people in the US. You may not agree with that, but that's just how things are.
So what is an appropriate amount of cases to go back to normal?
Nothing is 100% certain. If you don't want to risk it then stay at home.
Nothing is 100% certain.
I don't think this is true in all cases.
Death is.
No it isn't. Enoch and Elijah never died.
Enoch and Elijah are fictional characters.
In reality, death is 100% certain.
Vouched for your (dead) comment because I think it has value in the discussion, even though I think you're missing the whole picture.
Unfortunately the US political and social climate means this CDC advice has to come now, not later, when it'll probably be more scientifically appropriate. Demand for vaccines has been dropping for weeks, and vaccine-hesitant people need to see that there are clear benefits to their day-to-day lives if they get vaccinated.
Vaccines are definitely not 100%, but I think the hope is that relaxing restrictions for vaccinated people will increase demand for the vaccine enough to be worth the risk. While this recommendation may not be good science, I suspect it's good public policy, given that we are all a bunch of emotional humans who don't always do what's best for ourselves when presented only with logic.
There are commenters in other subthreads here who have said that this news made them go and sign up for a vaccine appointment. So it is having the desired effect. We'll see if it has enough of the desired effect.
The point was to get the risk/velocity of spread to a much smaller and manageable amount.
Anything after that, if it's still too much risk for someone because they're only comfortable with 100% certainty, they can choose to stay at home.
We're not going to keep society on hold until we reach 100% eradication of a virus, just to appease neurotic people.
