> Scientific consensus also not arrived at by publishing literally every crackpot idea, and answering each with "more discussion." Science has several mechanisms for "censoring" bullshit and misinformation (e.g. peer review), and it couldn't function without it.
What counts as a "crackpot idea?" We don't have to dabble in hypotheticals about JFK eating babies. We have real examples from current political events that show we're not talking about "slippery slopes" here. We have rolled down the slope with stunning speed.
In March 2020, the Surgeon General suggested that wearing masks was effective to prevent spread of COVID was a crackpot idea: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/485332-surgeon-general... ("Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus[.]").
I have a degree in aerospace engineering--I totally get that scientific understanding evolves. But it doesn't evolve like that. The truth is that the Surgeon General's March 2020 statement was ill-advised and overly-certain, and so was the October 2020 statement. Whether masks are effective at limiting the spread of COVID is quite uncertain. Mask-wearing rates vary quite dramatically between countries with similar COVID death rates: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/08/face-off.... By June 2020, the U.S. had mask-wearing rates of 75%. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were under 20%. Out of those, Sweden and the U.S. have death rates (per population) 5-10 times higher than Denmark and Norway.
Despite that uncertainty, I think most people worried about "misinformation" would use mask-denialism as a motivating example for why restrictions are needed. So what are the restrictionists really advocating for here?
And it was damned foolish to say "masks don't work" if what they wanted the public to understand was "please leave surgical and N95 masks for healthcare workers. We are exploring the effectiveness of cloth masks".
THAT would have been honesty, it would have explained the reason they didn't want the general public using masks, and it would have hinted at an alternative while not directly confirming masks work (or don't work).
NOT TO MENTION that the CDC probably could have asked South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, or any other country where mask usage was common, "How well do masks work?" and been pointed at a few relevant studies, right? But no, they make a very fishy statement to the public claiming masks don't work for normal people.
/rant
Sorry. You hit a nerve. Pretty frustrated that the CDC would throw away its credibility like that.
> The issue is actually pretty uncertain, and government bodies are making categorical statements for political reasons
I think it's more complicated than just politics, as I was saying elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26139732), public health officials advised against mask-wearing for general public initially for a very particular reason (possible shortages for medical frontline workers). As far as public healthy policy is concerned, where you cannot pass a certain threshold of complexity in communicating best practices to grandmas around the nation, masks work is a good enough message and it stands on pretty solid science: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.31.20166116v...
What counts as a "crackpot idea?" We don't have to dabble in hypotheticals about JFK eating babies. We have real examples from current political events that show we're not talking about "slippery slopes" here. We have rolled down the slope with stunning speed.
In March 2020, the Surgeon General suggested that wearing masks was effective to prevent spread of COVID was a crackpot idea: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/485332-surgeon-general... ("Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus[.]").
10 months later, the Surgeon General is calling that same assertion a "myth": https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/13189727242078986... ("There is a currently circulating MYTH suggesting masks don’t work to prevent spread of COVID-19.").
I have a degree in aerospace engineering--I totally get that scientific understanding evolves. But it doesn't evolve like that. The truth is that the Surgeon General's March 2020 statement was ill-advised and overly-certain, and so was the October 2020 statement. Whether masks are effective at limiting the spread of COVID is quite uncertain. Mask-wearing rates vary quite dramatically between countries with similar COVID death rates: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/08/face-off.... By June 2020, the U.S. had mask-wearing rates of 75%. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were under 20%. Out of those, Sweden and the U.S. have death rates (per population) 5-10 times higher than Denmark and Norway.
Despite that uncertainty, I think most people worried about "misinformation" would use mask-denialism as a motivating example for why restrictions are needed. So what are the restrictionists really advocating for here?