I’d like to hear your opinion on this article, specifically the claim that the experts sincerely believed that masks were useless against covid (for a regular person), a year ago.
I find that hard to believe, because I remember that using a mask seemed like common sense. My thought process was like: “Asians already have an experience with this type of things, and they (the tourists who come here) wear masks all the time, so it is probably a good idea”. Simple, but… not wrong in hindsight.
Furthermore, covid is a type of coronavirus, which is a group of viruses containing also common cold. According to Wikipedia “common cold virus is typically transmitted via airborne droplets (aerosols), direct contact with infected nasal secretions, or fomites (contaminated objects)”. Just based on this information, suspecting that covid may be transmitted also by airborne droplets should obviously be your prior… it should require strong evidence to update to the contrary. Can anyone tell me what was this strong evidence that the experts supposedly had? Or if they didn’t have any, what made them update so strongly against a reasonable prior?
My mother-in-law is a doctor; when we asked her at the beginning of pandemic what were we supposed to do, she said something like “avoid people, cover your face, wash your hands”. When we asked what source did she get this information from, she just said it was obvious. Apparently she wasn’t alone with this opinion, because on March 15th masks became mandatory in public transport and shops, and on March 25th they became mandatory anywhere in public in Slovakia.
This Vietnamese video published on YouTube on February 23rd, recommends to “wash your hands, do not touch eyes—nose—mouth, limit visits to crowded places, constantly improve your health, clean your personal space, improve your social awareness”. And all the cartoon characters wear masks.
So… I find it difficult to believe that despite the usage of masks was (1) an obvious prior, and (2) an official policy in many unrelated countries, the “experts” concluded that—for what reason exactly? -- it was obviously useless.
I think that if you are attempting to model the physical world, the hypothesis ‘covering your face is not helpful unless you do it exactly right, and backfires often enough we shouldn’t tell people to do it’ simply does not make any sense, as your MIL correctly figured out. I don’t get how someone who knows how viruses spread could think this wasn’t true. In particular, the idea that masks were actively dangerous strikes me as completely absurd. And it’s not like we didn’t have the example of a billion Asian people in several countries wearing masks on a regular basis already.
I do think it’s reasonable to think surfaces are far more important than they are, or make several other mistakes, or to think the big lie was net positive at the time.
The alternative hypothesis is something like ‘these people are so twisted by Science(TM) and No Evidence and a general complete contempt for people’s ability to do anything or think anything’ that they are incapable of modeling the physical world at all. At which point, it’s a philosophy question whether this is a genuine mistake.
I’d like to hear your opinion on this article, specifically the claim that the experts sincerely believed that masks were useless against covid (for a regular person), a year ago.
I find that hard to believe, because I remember that using a mask seemed like common sense. My thought process was like: “Asians already have an experience with this type of things, and they (the tourists who come here) wear masks all the time, so it is probably a good idea”. Simple, but… not wrong in hindsight.
Furthermore, covid is a type of coronavirus, which is a group of viruses containing also common cold. According to Wikipedia “common cold virus is typically transmitted via airborne droplets (aerosols), direct contact with infected nasal secretions, or fomites (contaminated objects)”. Just based on this information, suspecting that covid may be transmitted also by airborne droplets should obviously be your prior… it should require strong evidence to update to the contrary. Can anyone tell me what was this strong evidence that the experts supposedly had? Or if they didn’t have any, what made them update so strongly against a reasonable prior?
My mother-in-law is a doctor; when we asked her at the beginning of pandemic what were we supposed to do, she said something like “avoid people, cover your face, wash your hands”. When we asked what source did she get this information from, she just said it was obvious. Apparently she wasn’t alone with this opinion, because on March 15th masks became mandatory in public transport and shops, and on March 25th they became mandatory anywhere in public in Slovakia.
This Vietnamese video published on YouTube on February 23rd, recommends to “wash your hands, do not touch eyes—nose—mouth, limit visits to crowded places, constantly improve your health, clean your personal space, improve your social awareness”. And all the cartoon characters wear masks.
So… I find it difficult to believe that despite the usage of masks was (1) an obvious prior, and (2) an official policy in many unrelated countries, the “experts” concluded that—for what reason exactly? -- it was obviously useless.
I think that if you are attempting to model the physical world, the hypothesis ‘covering your face is not helpful unless you do it exactly right, and backfires often enough we shouldn’t tell people to do it’ simply does not make any sense, as your MIL correctly figured out. I don’t get how someone who knows how viruses spread could think this wasn’t true. In particular, the idea that masks were actively dangerous strikes me as completely absurd. And it’s not like we didn’t have the example of a billion Asian people in several countries wearing masks on a regular basis already.
I do think it’s reasonable to think surfaces are far more important than they are, or make several other mistakes, or to think the big lie was net positive at the time.
The alternative hypothesis is something like ‘these people are so twisted by Science(TM) and No Evidence and a general complete contempt for people’s ability to do anything or think anything’ that they are incapable of modeling the physical world at all. At which point, it’s a philosophy question whether this is a genuine mistake.