this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
105 points (99.1% liked)

Science Memes

11091 readers
633 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
105
Public trust (mander.xyz)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
226 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

IIRC, that initial “don’t use surgical masks” statement was because hospitals were already facing shortages, and a rush on the supply would have caused massive widespread longstanding shortages. Basically, the hospitals needed disposable masks, so the CDC told people not to use disposable masks.

But it was also in that brief time period between surgical masks and reusable cloth masks. So the messaging was basically just “don’t use ~~disposable~~ masks” because the “disposable” part was implied because it’s all that was commonly available on the market. Plus cloth masks hadn’t been studied yet. So when cloth masks were proven to work and the CDC started recommending them, the naysayers fell back to that initial messaging from when the cloth masks were unavailable and unproven.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

that initial “don’t use surgical masks” statement was because hospitals were already facing shortages, and a rush on the supply would have caused massive widespread longstanding shortages. Basically, the hospitals needed disposable masks, so the CDC told people not to use disposable masks.

That makes it worse that they said/implied masks won't protect you, not better. If CDC public health statements are driven by an intention to manipulate public behavior rather than disseminating the best available info about what is true, that means that those statements are unreliable and can't be trusted, regardless of the good they are hoping to do by trading their long term credibility for temporarily adjusting purchasing habits.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Just because there was an explanation doesn't magically make it acceptable to lie out your ass and give a HUGE boost to conspiracy nuts while one fucking helms the white house...