In an interview for 60 Minutes, CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook posed that question to Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech University professor specializing in aerosol science.
“They are very helpful in reducing the chances that the person will get COVID because it’s reducing the amount of virus that you would inhale from the air around you,” Marr said about masks.
No mask is 100% effective. An N95, for example, is named as such because it is at least 95 percent efficient at blocking airborne particles when used properly. But even if a mask has an 80% efficiency, Marr said, it still offers meaningful protection.
“That greatly reduces the chance that I’m going to become infected,” Marr said.
Marr said research shows that high-quality masks can block particles that are the same size as those carrying the coronavirus. Masks work, Marr explained, as a filter, not as a sieve. Virus particles must weave around the layers of fibers, and as they do so, they may crash into those fibers and become trapped.
Marr likened it to running through a forest of trees. Walk slowly, and the surrounding is easy to navigate. But being forced through a forest at a high speed increases the likelihood of running into a tree.
“Masks, even cloth masks, do something,” she said.
Not that I expect most people to believe it at this point…
The problem is the cdc basically lied at the start and killed all their credibility before things even got started. Then you had apologists claiming they didn’t lie, making everything even worse.
It had (almost) nothing to do with the cdc. In other countries the same happened.
Source: am german
They did not provide the context, which was misconstrued as lying.
Everyone did not need to wear a mask at first because it was not widespread enough for them to be effective for the general population compared to making sure medical staff who were far more likely to be exposed had masks. Masking by the general public at the very beginning was a waste of masks compared to just reducing the time spent in groups. It became effective as time went on and the mask supply ramped up.
That context doesn’t make it not a lie. They could have said mask supplies were needed for medical professionals first, but they chose a convenient lie.
The context makes it like saying life jackets won’t keep you from drowning in a boat. They will if the boat starts sinking.
That is not a lie. What you are doing is twisting the first statement into the second to call it a lie.
They were trying to keep it simple, and while I agree that they should have said it was for medical professional use first I can see why they would leave it out to avoid panic buying since so many people are idiots.
The worst part is, in the actual post, there is a 30 second video explaining that they do indeed recommend medical professionals and others in close contact with the infected wear masks. So it even specifically had that context, and somehow people got the message that masks don’t help from it.
But I’m willing to bet most people who thought it said masks weren’t effective never saw the actual source. Just had one snippet of one sentence read to them on fox News with the “hosts” filling in what they should think about that half sentence.
The post also only say “not recommended -for the general public- at this time” which is not at all saying they wouldn’t work. Just don’t hoard them away from the people that need them, at this time. So, literally not even a lie anywhere in there. Directly stating exactly the message everyone that actually read the post took away from it.
I don’t necessarily think someone wanting to protect themselves against a potentially deadly infection makes them an idiot. I don’t think it’s fair to shame people who want to protect themselves and others by wearing a mask. Having a limit per customer prevents panic buying fairly well, at least it did during the pandemic where I live.
I also don’t entirely fault people for not believing the CDC when they said that masks weren’t effective for the general public, they could have said that they were for medical professionals first who were more likely to be exposed to the virus. They weren’t being entirely upfront and I could see why people would feel burned about that. Personally I’m not huge on the way they framed it either.
I basically agree with you but I’m not huge on the way you’re wording it, whatever I’m probably in the wrong here but I still wanted to get my thoughts out there.
With that said, even as early as the middle of 2020 they recommended mask usage for the general public.
People aren’t idiots for wanting to protect themselves.
They are idiots who panicked and hoarded toilet paper when there was no indication there would be a toilet paper shortage. Of course they would do the same thing with medical supplies.
That was a problem, but I wouldn’t say it was the problem.
The political body responsible for messaging and action during a pandemic immediately ruining it’s credibility is a pretty big problem. It creates the opening for a masks don’t work campaign, when the cdc opens with masks aren’t useful.
I can’t recall their exact messaging anymore, but I know at the time I got the impression that they said to save the limited supply of masks for the people that really need them. I remember constantly arguing on the internet at the time that that was what they said. They didn’t say that they don’t work, they just said not to start buying and hoarding them away from the people that need them.
But I guess one specific sentence caught “the other side’s” attention more than the rest of the message. Probably because they never actually check the source for what was actually said, and only read small clips from it that they have been told to react against.
Now you are lying. Just like CDC blatantly lied saying masks don’t help, against any common sense. What kind of medical group would ever say this in the face of an airborne novel respiratory virus. It’s inexcusable. They lied, you are now lying.
https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1233134710638825473?lang=en
It literally says “does not recommend for the general public” implying it is recommended for people that are actually in need if it, yes that is indeed the post everyone cherry picked from and never read the whole thing. Good find and good job reminding me of those idiots from years ago.
The video in that link even says they are recommended for medical professionals and other people in close contact with the infected. Literally saying, yes masks do work, but the general public shouldn’t be hoarding them yet, save them for people that need them.
Opens with “at this time” not recommended for public, yet. Like they will be at some point.
Nowhere at all does it say masks don’t help. In fact it says the opposite several times… but if you cherry pick parts of individual sentences, not even any one full sentence, you can misconstrue the message, I guess.
What is the specifics of the lie that they said?
They initially stated masks weren’t effective for general population use. This was a lie. There were reasons at the time for the lie, but it doesn’t make it not a lie.
Initially the CDC didn’t know how much asymptomatic spread was going to be a factor: that definitely changes the math on advising everyone to mask up. By July of 2020 they were unequivocal: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0714-americans-to-wear-masks.html
I remember that now. Yeah, no idea why they said such at the beginning. It’s not like masks were a new invention with covid. Asian countries regularly use mask with flu.
They did it because the US didn’t have enough masks if they said anything positive about masks. So they lied initially to prevent people trying to buy masks, so they could go to hospitals first.
Also, they never actually lied, you can see the post here in some of the other comments, people were just idiots at the time and didn’t actually read the full post, just saw “not recommended for general public use at this time” and somehow took that to mean masks didn’t help. Instead of that they do help, but save them for the people in need, not general use. The post actually has a video in it that also specifies masks should be worn by medical professionals and other close contacts with the infected. Which is very much specifically saying masks do actually help.
But of course, at the time, the detractors wouldn’t link the actual source, they would just pick one sentence and “…quote…” it, completely removing all the context and making it look like it said the opposite.
Also it’s not like the idea of masks helping was ever in doubt among educated people. It’s literally been a go-to for more than a hundred years already. It was only the uneducated that needed to be told.
They literally didn’t lie, the post is linked in this thread. Of course at the time people weren’t linking the source, they were quoting part of one sentence and getting inflamed that half of a sentence seemed to say the opposite of what the actual post said.
It literally says “not recommended -for the general public- at this time” how is that miscontrued to “they don’t work”? It doesn’t say that at all. In fact the video in that post, I know it’s a full 30 seconds long and slow and boring… but the video specifically says to save them for medical professionals and others in close contact with the infected. Again very much stating specifically that they do help.