Comment by AnthonBerg
1 day ago
The debacle of failing to convey the concrete reality of aerosol transmission and failing to convey the concrete reality of masks that gape at the sides (“surgical masks”) fundamentally and obviously not protecting against aerosol transmission while masks that don’t gape at the sides (N95/FFP2) fundamentally and obviously and provably do protect against aerosol transmission.
The thing with the masks is exactly the same as if public shopping efficiency authorities had consistently put out the large-scale message that “bags” work to carry groceries but conflating mesh bags with non-perforated bags; Yes, mesh bags do tend to get upwards of 30% of the objects you purchase to your home. There’s an underlying insult to common sense and people are actually not stupid.
British lawyer and commentator David Allen Green has things to say about certain patterns of speech, phrases such as "absolutely clear" are used only when one has not been at all clear: https://davidallengreen.com/2021/11/let-me-be-absolutely-cle...
Likewise, I would add "obviously": I have never seen "obvious" used to describe anything which is obvious, only things which are not.
The phrase "common sense" is even worse, as about half the time it points to claims that are in fact false.
So, in this case, surgical masks: you say it's "obvious" they're not good enough and compare them to a mesh bag. Perhaps they are that bad, but it's not obvious, and "common sense"* suggests to me that surgeons, who are necessarily working with unwell and often immunocompromised people, will desire something that doesn't let one of the surgical team put a random bacterial mix into someone's new kidney when they sneeze.
* I am aware of the irony; and yes, despite this I can also name a famous example where surgeons collectively were very wrong
Indeed!: The case with surgeons continuing to use masks which only serve the function of arresting kinetically emitted saliva droplets when they could be using masks which afford much greater protection against a categorically wider range of complication-inducing pathogens is part of the debacle.
I chose my words carefully. Those are actually the right words.
It is plainly obvious and indisputable that the academic record shows a swath of scientifically acquired data on aerosol transmission and masks-which-do-not-gape-at-the-sides. This basis would have informed a completely different approach and result to public health authorities’ education and emission of sensible information to raise common sense to an ethical standard, if public health authorities operated… non-debacularly, to choose a word.
If they had operated responsibly.