<story><title>The science of mask-wearing hasn’t changed, so why have our expectations?</title><url>https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-science-of-mask-wearing-hasnt-changed-so-why-have-our-expectations/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>standardUser</author><text>Even the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first, so while much of the naysaying is now political, there was also seemingly legitimate information being pushed by prominent organizations that encouraged people to ignore masks.&lt;p&gt;Also, there&amp;#x27;s no character limit here, you can write the entire phrase instead of using obscure acronyms.</text></item><item><author>krapp</author><text>&amp;gt;So then why so much effort into deciding if it works or not?&lt;p&gt;FUD around masks and their effectiveness is being &lt;i&gt;deliberately&lt;/i&gt; spread by people and groups with a political agenda, primarily through disinformation campaigns on social media. This isn&amp;#x27;t an entirely organic phenomenon.</text></item><item><author>davesque</author><text>What confuses me is why so much scrutiny is being placed on the practice of wearing a mask. It just hardly seems like much of an inconvenience. And common sense dictates pretty convincingly that it must have &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; benefit, however small. So then why so much effort into deciding if it works or not?&lt;p&gt;I suppose there are two answers to that question. One, health officials want to know if masks give a false sense of security so they can spend their time promoting measures that will actually make a difference. Two, folks just want a reason to avoid the minor inconvenience or, worse, have been led to believe that mask mandates seriously impinge upon their rights. My concern is that the most common answer is the second and articles like this only serve to confuse people at a time when we need to accept that we must make small sacrifices to solve this problem.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>karaterobot</author><text>The guy from Slate Star Codex made a great point about this: Initially, the CDC refused to recommend wearing masks to inhibit virus transmission because there weren&amp;#x27;t rigorous studies supporting that usage. At the time they must have viewed it as irresponsible to recommend protective measures that weren&amp;#x27;t properly evidenced.&lt;p&gt;But, the reason there weren&amp;#x27;t rigorous studies supporting mask usage was not because they don&amp;#x27;t work, but because nobody was willing to run a study where you exposed half the subjects to a virus without any protection just to prove that masks would help the other half. It&amp;#x27;s the same reason there aren&amp;#x27;t any double-blind studies proving that parachutes help you if you fall out of a plane.</text></comment>
<story><title>The science of mask-wearing hasn’t changed, so why have our expectations?</title><url>https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-science-of-mask-wearing-hasnt-changed-so-why-have-our-expectations/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>standardUser</author><text>Even the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first, so while much of the naysaying is now political, there was also seemingly legitimate information being pushed by prominent organizations that encouraged people to ignore masks.&lt;p&gt;Also, there&amp;#x27;s no character limit here, you can write the entire phrase instead of using obscure acronyms.</text></item><item><author>krapp</author><text>&amp;gt;So then why so much effort into deciding if it works or not?&lt;p&gt;FUD around masks and their effectiveness is being &lt;i&gt;deliberately&lt;/i&gt; spread by people and groups with a political agenda, primarily through disinformation campaigns on social media. This isn&amp;#x27;t an entirely organic phenomenon.</text></item><item><author>davesque</author><text>What confuses me is why so much scrutiny is being placed on the practice of wearing a mask. It just hardly seems like much of an inconvenience. And common sense dictates pretty convincingly that it must have &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; benefit, however small. So then why so much effort into deciding if it works or not?&lt;p&gt;I suppose there are two answers to that question. One, health officials want to know if masks give a false sense of security so they can spend their time promoting measures that will actually make a difference. Two, folks just want a reason to avoid the minor inconvenience or, worse, have been led to believe that mask mandates seriously impinge upon their rights. My concern is that the most common answer is the second and articles like this only serve to confuse people at a time when we need to accept that we must make small sacrifices to solve this problem.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>krapp</author><text>&amp;gt;Also, there&amp;#x27;s no character limit here, you can write the entire phrase instead of using obscure acronyms.&lt;p&gt;FUD is no more an obscure acronym than CDC. FFS this is a programming and tech forum, people throw acronyms around all the time.</text></comment>