Read on Twitter
I still haven’t read as much on it as I could’ve but there’s something really disturbing about the ‘CDC Recommends 2 Masks Now!’ media blitz
Just for starters, it’s not at all clear to me that ‘the CDC’ ‘recommends’ two masks.
Just for starters, it’s not at all clear to me that ‘the CDC’ ‘recommends’ two masks.
I clicked through to the actual (journal) article at some point, and was surprised to see:
First, it’s not really a refereed journal article (looks like some sort of pre-acceptance white paper venue that the CDC has for getting things out in a rush)
First, it’s not really a refereed journal article (looks like some sort of pre-acceptance white paper venue that the CDC has for getting things out in a rush)
Second, it’s like...4 pages long. Maybe I’m wrongly applying the standards of one field onto another, but this is pretty scant. It just comes across like some grad student’s writeup of a class final project.
Third, at a glance the main thrust of the paper & what they think they tested (they put masks on dummies & took some measurements) isn’t even really about ‘two masks’ per se, so much as *masks that fit snugly*. The ‘second mask’ seems used mostly as a hack to create a snug-fit.
So why was this ‘rushed’ out the door as a pre-journal publication by (I guess) the CDC on (I guess) their white-paper venue? Because it’s so useful and important for the public to know? Then you’d think, among other things, they’d want it reported accurately.
The article had about 5 co-authors as I recall. I think they were MD PhDs or maybe just the latter. Who are these guys? ‘The CDC’? I was gonna try to look into their affiliations (do they work directly for CDC? was this on a grant?) but got bored.
But my question remains, Are they happy and comfortable that this work became, once laundered through the media-headline machine, ‘The CDC Recommends Two Masks Now’? Either answer would be interesting
If I put myself in their shoes, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be happy, because that is (I’m pretty sure) a distortion and overstatement of what they were doing and saying. And I would never want my research distorted and over-interpreted inappropriately, ‘used’ in that way.
But I get the impression there’s a different kind of researcher around, - ‘public health’ field seems full of them - who are happy & thrilled to have a minor/marginal work extrapolated into & imposed as full-on policy.
So I dunno. What type of guys are these? (Maybe I’ll ask em)
So I dunno. What type of guys are these? (Maybe I’ll ask em)
Anyway either way we have the CDC rushing out to the public a ‘study’ and supposed ‘finding’ that ‘two masks are better’ that, when you just look a little at the details, seems like pretty thin gruel. What’s their motive for doing that?
Now I get to the second disturbing thing about it, which is how the media received and digested this thing. It wasn’t: minor study at (paid for by?) CDC tests the effect of mask-fit and -sealing on particulate flux. It was: CDC RECOMMENDS TWO MASKS NOW
In other words, the media jumped to and acted as if motivated to promote the most expansive (and restrictive, in terms of effect on the public if taken to heart) interpretation of this white-paper/press-release/whatever it was.
The dynamic here is: Whichever angle imposes more restrictions on the public, leads to more laws and regulations and rules, and government-control over individual lives - THAT’S the angle the media wants to play up. Again and again.
As a group, the media is just behaving as if they’re the enemy of individual freedom and autonomy, and the friend of the top-down government regulator, policeman, rule-maker.
But why?
But why?
When Trump was around I thought it was due to simple anti-Trump sentiment; there was an appealing ‘Trump vs. Fauci’ (‘Trump vs. Science’) storyline they were attracted to, for obvious reasons of simple bias.
It just happened to have shaken out, in that dynamic, that the ‘Trump’ side was the less-restrictive side and the ‘Fauci/Science’ side was the more-restrictive side, but that was contingent, there wasn’t anything essential about that alignment per se (I thought).
But now Trump is gone, there’s no ‘anti-Science’ black-hat-wearer that the media needs/wants to beat up on, and yet, they’re still doing it. Minor study —> CDC RECOMMENDS TWO MASKS NOW. This spin is the media’s spin, because (apparently) they are *motivated* to spin that way.
Anyway, that’s all just disturbing. It says nothing good about either the CDC or the media. And suggests weird political/psychological dynamics have created a self-perpetuating ‘more-restriction machine’ that few individuals involved would actually choose or want as such.
