_euac's comments

How exactly would you confirm - beyond any doubt - that contagion happened outside? Most people live most of their lives inside a building of one sort or another, so it'd be almost impossible to 'document' a case of outside transmission.

The closest thing we have is homeless populations - they spend most of their time exclusively outside - and they still get sick: https://www.sfpublicpress.org/covid-19-cases-spike-among-hom...

So making some big claim about how outdoors transmission is impossible is kind of preposterous.

Then you shouldn't use qualifiers such as 'poor' to describe their risk assessment. Don't give the idiots pushing anti-masking rhetoric in this forum more wind than they deserve by propagating their memes.

The only people whose mental health I'm really concerned about are those who are obsessed with trying to get rid of masks.

If you are vaccinated and feel comfortable not using a mask, don't wear one. If you don't feel comfortable, then wear one. I literally have yet to hear someone complaining about someone not wearing a mask outside, but all you need to do is read this thread to see tons of comments complaining about people wearing masks.

Let people make their own decisions. They aren't cattle.

Why 'poor'? Have you factored in everything going on that person's life? Do you know if they have a friend or relative who might be at higher risk? What if they have a young kid and they don't want to risk it? What if they just consider wearing a mask a mild inconvenience when compared to - say - the risk of being intubated?

I honestly can't understand this whole obsession with shaming people for wearing masks. Who gives two shits if someone else is wearing a mask? How does it affect you?

Meanwhile, Satya Nadella isn't flashy and Jeff Bezos hasn't been involved in any kind of keynote speech on anything related to Amazon in years.

So my point stands: flashiness doesn't correlate with performance.

Meh, the outrage crowd in Hacker News is ridiculous. Any level of effort to make a company more inclusive as criticized as the company being 'too woke'. Meanwhile, Google's market cap has exploded in recent years.

Lots of people too scared of 'cancel culture' (read: being caught and having to pay the consequences) around here.

Meanwhile, Google's market cap has tripled during his tenure as CEO.

Maybe being flashy and showy isn't all that important after all.

I love the magic of Hacker News: posting a reply agreeing with someone describing a problem? WELL, THAT'S A DOWNVOTE FOR YOU!

This place sucks. I wish there was a way to delete my account.

Same

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.

Oh, I knew. I was just pointing out that even in the scenario he described it didn't even approximate to what you describe as happening in Belgium (which to be clear, I completely believe).

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.

So, nothing like Belgium then, and exactly what I described: people being asked to wear a mask and not doing it.

I don’t know the circumstances of the situation you mention, but it hardly qualifies as security theatre. Also, I doubt they screamed ‘not approved’ but I guess no anti-mask narrative sounds dire enough without a little exaggeration.

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 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...

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.

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 have no idea what happens in Belgium, but nothing like that happens here in the US. They barely ask people to wear a goddamn mask, and they are all up in arms about it.

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.