> First - even if my example is wrong (and I don't think it is) you're missing the point on what propaganda is and why it is used. COVID is just an anecdote.
No I’m not missing the point. I understand how propaganda works. Using something that is incorrect to make a point doesn’t make it not important that it was incorrect.
> Our medical staff have absolutely been wearing masks since day 1. Why? Because obviously we knew they helped in some manner.
Saying “trained personnel in a specific high risk environment do X, therefore X is helpful and appropriate in drastically different situations” is not good reasoning.
Race car drivers use 5 point harnesses and helmets. We know they help in those high speed crashes. But it wouldn’t being lying if the head of the National Highway Safety Administration said “There’s no reason to be going out and buying racing seats for your car. When you’re in the middle of the highway, wearing a harness might make people feel a little bit better and it might even protect better in a crash, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the straps and may wear them incorrectly.”.
> "Masks can possibly help, but not as much as you think, so wear one if you want, but don't believe that this will protect you to the point of taking other, risky behaviours" But he didn't say that. He literally said: "There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask".
You are literally cutting out everything he said that you just talked about being important and using a single sentence to try and completely twist the message. He said “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” His very next line acknowledges that it can provide some protection. That is not lying. That is not propaganda.
> Asian countries wear masks and have 'done well' very early in the game and have been begging us to mandate masks… We obviously would err on the side of caution and worn masks were it not for the shortage.
They have a culture of sick people or people that think they are sick wearing masks, which is how those masks provide protection. And they did better because of overall better management of the pandemic, of which mask wearing was a part. Lockdowns, quickly developing testing kits and aggressively testing, extensive tracing efforts, targeted quarantining, among other measures were how they did well. This report by the Center For Strategic & International Studies [1] written in April about the southeast Asian response doesn’t even list mask wear as one of the reasons for their early success.
< We knew masks could help, but we were more worried about shortages, that was the impetus for the public communications, as an example of 'propaganda'.
That is not what propaganda is. Propaganda is misleading people or outright lying to people to push an agenda. He never mislead people. He didn’t lie. He didn’t mislead. He never made false statements about how masks work. He never lied to hide that mask shortages were an issue. In what world is it wrong to say “we have a limited resource to deal with this problem. I advise people not to use this resource right now in a way that is largely ineffective so that we can use it in ways that are very effective”. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it is. That is the opposite of propaganda. That is the opposite of an “inexcusable mistake”. That is clearly laying out the situation and making a recommendation. How could it be clearer than.
1. We have a limited supply of masks
2. Masks are very effective at stopping the spread for healthcare workers
3. Masks are not very effective at stopping people from becoming infected out in the regular world
4. I advise people not use this resource in a wasteful and largely ineffective manner so we can have as much as possible to use in an effective manner.
5. We will continue to update this guidance as the situation changes. If mask levels increase, we may change the guidance. [2]
Propaganda is lying to the public to get a desired outcome. Guidance is advising the public what you believe is the best way to handle a situation based on all the evidence.
1) "“trained personnel in a specific high risk environment do X, therefore X is helpful and appropriate in drastically different situations” is not good reasoning."
The reasoning is fine - the point here is not to illustrate that medical usage is 'hard evidence' that others should use masks, rather, that we had some understanding of the situation.
2) "You are literally cutting out everything he said"
No, I 'literally' didn't and you're misrepresenting everything about this part of my comment.
First - I included that full quote in my OP.
Second - You're missing the theme of 'communications' here - Do you think that CNN's headline is going to make sure to contextualize every element of Dr. Fauci's exact phrasing? Possibly, but generally not, and words matter.
Words in propaganda, especially matter. In that statement, he was definitely advising against masks.
Third - it's all moot - he made similar statements during the same time. His exact and repeated statement on 60 minutes was "People should not be wearing masks." [1].
Fauci went on national TV and repeatedly asked Americans to not wear masks.
How much clearer can the man be?
There's no decontextualization here.
3) So the report from CSIS didn't mention mask wearing ...
... are you arguing that masks are 'not important' in combatting COVID?
So the people concerned about the shaming and forceful wearing of masks are not conspiracists?
This isn't helping your argument.
While you're right to point out 'there are a lot of factors in Asia' - the situation was fluid and ambiguous - and we know that they have a 'mask wearing culture' which clearly must be 'part of the overall solution', which would indicate that in the context of a pandemic that's about to kill masses of people - the mask wearing might be a good idea.
How could we possibly not err on the side of mask wearing?
Because: “We are concerned that the mass use of medical masks by the general population could exacerbate the shortage of these specialised masks for the people who need them most,” - WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Gheybresus
4) "use this resource right now in a way that is largely ineffective"
You're seriously contradicting yourself here.
Masking wearing is 'largely ineffective' during the explosion of a pandemic (?!?) while at this very moment Dr. Fauci literally wants to legally mandate mask wearing? [2]
If masks are 'effective now' then they would have been 'just as effective then'.
The science has not changed - what has changed is the availability and prioritization of masks.
5) Dr. Fauci and the WHO directly advised against masks full well knowing that there are material benefits, at the very same time they were publicly, acutely concerned about 'mask shortages'.
They were playing a very obvious game of 'wartime triage' in order to ensure the best possible outcome at the time, given priorities.
Their propagandistic communications strategy really quite obvious.
> Masking wearing is 'largely ineffective' during the explosion of a pandemic (?!?) while at this very moment Dr. Fauci literally wants to legally mandate mask wearing? [2] If masks are 'effective now' then they would have been 'just as effective then'.
This whole thing is actually a perfect example of the difficulty of scientific communication to a large audience. You need to communicate concise easy to understand guidance about complex topics. You asking “are masks effective” but that depends. The first is “effective at what task”, the second is “to what extent”, third is “in what situation”, fourth is “with what risks and tradeoffs”. I’ll be talking about the non-N95 masks unless specifically stated, to avoid any confusion.
Masks are not very effective at preventing an uninfected person from contracting Covid when in proximity to someone infected with Covid. The masks do not form a seal around the mouth and nose, allowing significant amounts of air around the mask when breathing in, as well as not being able to prevent being infected through the eyes. They do provide some protection, including possibly reducing the severity of the infection if contracted while wearing the mask, but that is not their primary benefit.
Mask are effective at preventing the spread from an infected person (either asymptomatic or symptomatic) to others. Breathing out directly into a mask allows the material to catch and trap the majority of the virus carrying condensation, and what gets out around or through the mask is slowed down significantly, allowing the droplets to be pulled down by gravity before traveling as significant distance (or fog up your glasses). Especially when combined with social distancing, this is very effective of prevent the spread of the virus. This is the masks primary benefit and is effective when there is large scale adoption, so that people that have the virus but do not know don’t unknowingly pass it. Its effectiveness comes as an aggregate effect similar to herd immunity, rather than an individual effect, since the vast majority of transmission comes from people unaware they are carriers.
Mask come with risks. People tend to touch their face more while wearing masks, and contracting the virus by touching your face is a primary infection mode. People tend to relax other more effective protection methods when wearing a mask, both unconsciously and due to a false belief in the protective capabilities of a mask.
So, in March we had a situation where we were running a shortage of masks. We had people wearing masks (either homemade or surgical) because they believed the mask provided good protection from contracting the virus, which is not true, and may cause people to engage in risky behavior that would put them and others at more risk. We also didn’t have enough masks to be used for their actual benefit of “herd immunity”. The assessment was that non sick people wearing masks was likely to put the individual at greater risk, and deplete the resource from places it was needed, without providing a medical benefit to the individual greater than the risks. In March, the average non sick person should not be wearing a mask.
Now, we have a situation where we do not have a shortage of masks. We have a situation where the public has been educated through awareness campaigns on how masks work, like the “My mask protects you. Your mask protects me.” campaign, so people are less likely to use the masks incorrectly and put themselves and others at greater risk. The assessment is that high compliance of mask wearing will have a greater positive effect through “herd immunity” to outweigh the risks and tradeoffs. But make no mistake, the risks are still there. Now the average non sick person should be wearing a mask.
If you don’t understand the underlying medical complexities of the situation, it seems like they can’t both be true. And when an expert organization is trying to provide a clear, short, easy to understand list of recommendations from analyzing and evaluating all those data, they can’t go into to a 45 min presentation every time. Dr. Fauci even tried to add context. He talked about how the masks don’t provide protection in the way people think they do, how it can cause people to put themselves at greater risk, both through a false sense of protection and other behaviors like face touching, and how masks protect you from infecting others, not the other way around. If you go back and look at his quotes at the time, he consistently tries to bring that additional context into it, but since it is a complex issue of competing risks and benefits, it’s hard to convey how masks can be good in some cases and bad in others.
> Dr. Fauci in March. “When we get in a situation where we have enough masks, I believe there will be some very serious consideration about more broadening this recommendation of using masks. We're not there yet, but I think we're close to coming to some determination. Because if, in fact, a person who may or may not be infected wants to prevent infecting someone else, one of the best ways to do that is with a mask, so perhaps that's the way to go.” [1]
> And of course his 60 Minutes interview. “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”
No I’m not missing the point. I understand how propaganda works. Using something that is incorrect to make a point doesn’t make it not important that it was incorrect.
> Our medical staff have absolutely been wearing masks since day 1. Why? Because obviously we knew they helped in some manner.
Saying “trained personnel in a specific high risk environment do X, therefore X is helpful and appropriate in drastically different situations” is not good reasoning.
Race car drivers use 5 point harnesses and helmets. We know they help in those high speed crashes. But it wouldn’t being lying if the head of the National Highway Safety Administration said “There’s no reason to be going out and buying racing seats for your car. When you’re in the middle of the highway, wearing a harness might make people feel a little bit better and it might even protect better in a crash, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the straps and may wear them incorrectly.”.
> "Masks can possibly help, but not as much as you think, so wear one if you want, but don't believe that this will protect you to the point of taking other, risky behaviours" But he didn't say that. He literally said: "There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask".
You are literally cutting out everything he said that you just talked about being important and using a single sentence to try and completely twist the message. He said “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” His very next line acknowledges that it can provide some protection. That is not lying. That is not propaganda.
> Asian countries wear masks and have 'done well' very early in the game and have been begging us to mandate masks… We obviously would err on the side of caution and worn masks were it not for the shortage.
They have a culture of sick people or people that think they are sick wearing masks, which is how those masks provide protection. And they did better because of overall better management of the pandemic, of which mask wearing was a part. Lockdowns, quickly developing testing kits and aggressively testing, extensive tracing efforts, targeted quarantining, among other measures were how they did well. This report by the Center For Strategic & International Studies [1] written in April about the southeast Asian response doesn’t even list mask wear as one of the reasons for their early success.
< We knew masks could help, but we were more worried about shortages, that was the impetus for the public communications, as an example of 'propaganda'.
That is not what propaganda is. Propaganda is misleading people or outright lying to people to push an agenda. He never mislead people. He didn’t lie. He didn’t mislead. He never made false statements about how masks work. He never lied to hide that mask shortages were an issue. In what world is it wrong to say “we have a limited resource to deal with this problem. I advise people not to use this resource right now in a way that is largely ineffective so that we can use it in ways that are very effective”. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it is. That is the opposite of propaganda. That is the opposite of an “inexcusable mistake”. That is clearly laying out the situation and making a recommendation. How could it be clearer than.
1. We have a limited supply of masks
2. Masks are very effective at stopping the spread for healthcare workers
3. Masks are not very effective at stopping people from becoming infected out in the regular world
4. I advise people not use this resource in a wasteful and largely ineffective manner so we can have as much as possible to use in an effective manner.
5. We will continue to update this guidance as the situation changes. If mask levels increase, we may change the guidance. [2]
Propaganda is lying to the public to get a desired outcome. Guidance is advising the public what you believe is the best way to handle a situation based on all the evidence.
[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/strengths-and-vulnerabilities-...
[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/31/fauci-mask-recommen...