A bit of (probably) useless trivia that I noticed, because I used to work in feature film visual effects, is that the card reader read 13 punch cards per second, which is about the same speed as an arriscanner which scans reels of motion picture film. You get about 4-10 frames per second depending on the resolution.
If you want another piece of trivia related to film, both film projectors and the 1401's card punch use a Geneva drive. The idea of a Geneva drive is that a drive wheel with a pin quickly rotates a second wheel and then locks it into place, before repeating the cycle. It rapidly alternates between quick motion and stopping and holding steady.
In the card punch, this is used to advance the card one row and then hold it stationary while the holes are punched. The punch can punch 250 cards per minute (more than 4 per second), and each card has to be stopped 12 times to punch the rows, so it's quite a remarkable high-speed mechanism. In film projectors, the Geneva drive advances the film by one frame and then holds it steady without vibration while the frame is projected.
> Were people as excited about programming for punch cards as they are today writing javascript for the web? (For example)
My school didn't have a computer (in 1979) but the insurance company down the road did. So in our programming class we punched our cards and the teacher took them to the company. Next week, we would get a list of our compile errors - or occasionally - output an actual run. I can't now remember the language (I suspect some sort of basic) or the programs that I wrote. But I do remember being excited. This was the future!
That said when I started a programming course at University I was massively pleased that we had actual terminals (or 'new fangled glass teletypes' as they were sometimes referred to. We had actual teletypes (keyboard and a roll of paper, no screen) for APL programming as they were the only keyboards with the APL character set.
I didn’t ever work with punch cards, but my very first summer job in the early 90s with a big engineering company they were using several main frames. They were huge! Sort of like the WOPR in the film War Games, but less colourful flashing LEDs.
It was very corporate atmosphere, everyone wearing suits and ties, there wasn’t much of a sense of it being the future, just the way big engineering companies operated.
I never got to program on them, I just got a tour of the server room, so perhaps the atmosphere was different for the programmers.
I looked up teletyoes on Wikipedia. They look like an electronic type writer.
I can’t imagine the workflow for writing programs on such a device. I guess there was no vim/emacs yet. How did you go about writing a script to parse and process some data on such a device?
The workflow for programming in APL on a teletype was IIRC a bit like using a REPL-based system. APL is a concise language so the programmes we were writing as part of our assignments were only a few lines long. But the bulk of the programming (1980) was on Amdahl and DEC mainframes, in Pascal and sometimes FORTRAN on VT100-type green screen displays, with a bit of COBOL as well. Later C on Vax machines (1982), and in my case Prolog. These all allowed a basic workflow of think-edit-compile-run/debug. All at the command line, with vi for editing on the Vax. I don’t recall the names of the editors on the DEC and Amdahl.
What is difficult to appreciate today is the sparsity of the software environment and the lack of tooling beyond editors and compilers and OS utilities. Use of third party libraries was essentially unheard of, at least in the academic environment world I started out in.
Of course! A REPL style interface hadn’t occurred to me. That totally makes sense.
I recognise the names of all the machines you mentioned from the Steven Levy Hackers book. I suppose it must have been much slower progress with no internet to read tutorials, no code to read and learn from, I guess only books.
I had some time on Mini-computers back in the 80s, I think it was an Olivetti, but there wasn’t much you could do. There was wordperfect and some game were you walked around from room to room, but it was all text based.
I didn’t get really into computers until around 2002. It was the web when I got interested in computing, but I was always interested to learn about the scene in previous decades.
I think Brendan Eich has got to be one of my favourite people to hear anecdotes about early web history. He was around at some pivotal moments, was in with the business side of things but also super technical. He’s also just very good at talking, he never appears to talk himself into a corner, somehow always avoids getting into the weeds, there’s a lucidity to all his answers that’s somehow very impressive. I wonder how much preparation he puts into his interviews.
As for Lex, personally I really like his style. He operates at a different pace to many of the people he’s interviewing, but I find this often enables him to see interesting parallels and analysis. It’s not always perfect, and maybe there’s room for improvement, though it gives the whole show an authenticity that it might not otherwise have if it were too polished.
I feel like his style works very well with all the guests he has on. They all seem to get on very well, which has a massive positive effect on how the guest interacts. Sure he has some prepared questions, but he also goes off piste quite a bit, and when he gets back to the prepared questions, I generally find they are well researched and very relevant.
I’d also like to know how he gets so many great guests on the show.
I didn't prepare and to tell the truth, I was getting over a cold (which is why I was rubbing my nose so much). What helps me, beyond watching other good long-form speakers in similar interviews: reading and thinking at length, using the Socratic method in my own head.
There were no signs of your cold on the audio podcast version of the interview :)
One issue I’ve had with Greek philosophy is that although I know there’s interesting content within the stories, it all feels very distant, I can’t pronounce many of the names, a lot of the stories don’t feel super relevant, so there isn’t much that ‘sticks’ in my head.
It’s a bit like reading Shakespear, I rarely get into it, spending all my thought decrypting low level meaning/semantics, and I just never get to the interesting higher level story arcs, or when I do, my flow is too easily broken by some weird old English saying that I am unacquainted with. I guess it’s like any language, lots of practice necessary.
I’ll have to take another look at the Socratic method in more detail. If it’s a technique you are using, based on your interviews that I’ve listened to, then it’s clearly beneficial.
I’d really like to ‘get into’ the classics, but it’s like I need to onboard by reading a bunch of contemporary motorcycle style versions first, so I have some familiarity with the concepts.
That’s an interesting book to have on a computer science undergrad course. I guess many of the themes are very relevant, repairing, problem solving, the knowledge that different people approach technology in different ways, etc. Plus I can see it being a cool book to read at the same time as a other folks studying computers.
My high school AP credits let me waive a bunch of Freshman math and science so I took philosophy, theology, etc. courses at SCU. Pirsig was assigned in one of the philosophy classes.
I'm still gradually working on my undergrad. Most times when I'm out of work as a developer I return and complete some of my coursework. As time goes on, I'm finding a much stronger interest in the less-testable and more human oriented classes such as those you mention, but also History, language, and cultural geography. Meanwhile the CS courses are the ones that I'm struggling to be drawn towards; particularly as some of the former desirable compabies to work at face more and more human ethical dilemmas where the computer bit isn't the complicated bit. I suppose since it was my intense motivation to design and build websites that got me in various doors without a degree, as those things become more commodified, it would be expected to look elsewhere for that inspiration, but did you ever find that true for yourself?
As noted in the interview, I was a Physics major for the first three years. Also in the Honors Program, which helped get in some of the non-science classes.
I think he was referencing just happening to have read it while simultaneously being an undergrad, not that he was assigned it required reading. Could be wrong though.
It got me thinking though, about the value of having some philosophy in comp sci courses.
Back when I was doing my masters (2002-2003) it was a different era for the web, there wasn’t much thought to ethics or philosophy, but I think it could be very relevant these days. It strikes me that it could be a particularly good time to read the ZAMM book.
I don’t know much about comp sci courses these days, maybe they do have such modules included.
Ya, that seems like a good idea. As of the last few years, philosophy courses at my school were not required, but you'd do them as part of your electives. I don't know how you'd actually formulate a comp sci specific ethics course, but it's an interesting thought experiment
About the only non-computery course we had was a business / management / entrepreneur type course. I don’t remember if it was something we chose to do, but it wasn’t part of the core set of courses that made up the degree.
I feel like we may have had completely different undergrad structures from reading your other comments in this thread. I took my CS degree in the CS department of a liberal arts Uni, and so had a bunch of optional arts credits to fulfill along with some amount of science and then a bunch of specific CS courses.
Having had a glipse of a CS degree that's part of another school's engineering department, I believe their structure is more rigid, and specifically detailed for 4 years.
I'm a little ways in so far, and I think—maybe unless you're a certain type of person—it's a book that you hopefully get lucky with in terms of when in your life you read it. It's a slow read, but the first few chapters have been nice so far, while some others I know have just not clicked with it.
I've been reading it slowly for a little while, and quite like it. I think it's a book that really is not for everyone, or at least only for a certain time, but it's worthwhile.
I just want to say thank you for all your contributions to advancing web technologies.
Javascript is still the only meaningful "Full Stack" platform and responsible for Billions of dollars in online business and Trillions of dollars in business value.
What would handle the click on the client browser? How would you handle all the user events in the client browser? clicks, mouse overs, selections, etc.
The Javascript platform is used to capture user behavior in the most efficient manner. This is the fundamental basis for all the online business processes and resulting business value.
Before JS browsers handled clicks without any 3rd party code. They were much more predictable and easier to reason about as a user.
Those clicks usually translated to HTTP calls.
What is so fundamental about business processes that they can't do an extra page render and HTTP call? (I imagine there may be some, I just can't see how they are so fundamental and on the order of billions.)
Funny enough I hear Gmail's plain HTML version is preferable for some here on HN.
Regardless I don't see how JS is fundamental to any of those services, not even Maps. Instead I suspect HTML would have become more feature rich sooner than HTML5.
I also don't believe JS itself contributes significantly to the trillions of dollars involved in online business.
Granted. And PHP runs like 30% of public websites. I doubt it's the JS driving most of the value though. I suspect much of their success was/is still possible without requiring trusting novel, 3rd party code, to be run on demand.
Why introduce counterfactuals? Flash existed, it had a full JS-variant language. It was taking over restaurant and other sites due to the IE monopoly stagnating HTML/CSS/JS. We don't need to appeal to an imaginary Turing-incomplete no-JS world to argue that JS didn't contribute enough. Flash was clearly the answer! Right?
Even if you might be right, your combative style is very off-putting. You could choose not to reply at all, the comment wasn't directed at you and I personally would've liked to entertain the idea of a more server-side rendered present, but you're shutting down the discussion.
Anyway, my point is that none of the interactivity as delivered by JS / ActiveX / Flash are themselves reason for all the money in online business. Before graphical browsers there were probably billions in transactions happening on computer networks. And likely would have grown to similar highs without the ability to run untrusted, 3rd party code on demand.
Second reply, sorry — I meant to agree that Turing incomplete languages for things like bounded runtime / all-paths constant time algs are an underutilized toolset. They're coming back on Blockchain, also for browser compositor-thread scripting.
But the pressure on the Web to be interactive enough vs. fat or old clients, never mind plugins, pushed not only JS but Java into the Netscape browser in 1995. I don't see how that could have gone another way in time to avoid MS doing the same.
The idea of a general Web scripting language was to make a relief valve where developers ran up against the limits of existing markup and less expressive languages the browser processed. Then standards bodies were supposed to study the top JS libs and absorb their Turing-incomplete bits into new HTML and CSS. This happened eventually, but not for so long that we had to invent XUL at Mozilla, Adobe did Flex, etc.
Go prove it. Meanwhile, back in reality, Flash was taking over and it did have better JS-variant, better graphics, etc. before we in the HTML5 WHATWG group got browsers upgraded. No-JS happy talk about better Turing-incomplete HTML is idle talk. Go on if you must, but I'll stop here.
"I do not entertain hypotheticals. The world as it is is vexing enough." - Col. Stonehill, "True Grit"
I listened to it yesterday. I actually liked the episode.
There were a few bits where it got a tad uncomfortable, maybe even cringey (though I think that’s a stretch), sometimes because Lex was being a bit argumentative, or because some of his comments and questions were a bit lame, but there were also some bits where I felt Keller was being a bit prickley.
Overall though I learnt a lot, Keller has a very interesting angle on the tech sector because of where / how he’s been involved.
Even though there were a few places where they clashed a bit, there were also some fun shared humour parts and I felt it ended well. Sounded like they got on quite well despite their differences.
If I have some time (unlikely), I might watch the video version, it would be interesting to see if there’s a big difference in how the interviews come across when there is a video component.
[2020-12-26] Lex Friedman Podcast #80 - Vitalik Buterin - Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of Money - Fascinating and well paced conversation with the founder of Etherium covering a wide range of topics including Satoshi Nakamoto, blockchains, proof of work and identity, PKI and digital signatures, Bitcoin, money, the Etherium origin story, smart contracts, software engineering and project governance challenges, proof of stake and consensus algorithms, sharding of storage and computation, Etherium 2.0, games built using smart contracts, Uniswap, AI and crypto, and closes on Immortality
[2021-02-13] Lex Friedman Podcast #159 – Richard Craib: WallStreetBets, Numerai, and the Future of Stock Trading - Looks at the recent WalkStreetBets and Gamestop Saga that caused such a stir in the trading markets, then moves on to talk about hedge funds, shorting, new ways crypto and AI could change the world of finance, aswell as more esoteric topics like running a startup and the meaning of life
Bill Gates, Alan Kay and Steve Wozniak would fit perfectly in this format. Other missing guests (yet) - from the top of my mind - Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook and even Mark Zuckerberg.
I usually prefer to listen to slightly less famous people. The really big names usually are too used to public speaking and not saying anything wrong that they come across as too slick and guarded.
Yes, but if someone with a big name says something stupid, that is interesting because of who says it.
If some nobody says something stupid, it is just a podcast.
I don’t find it very inheriting when somebody trips over something. Must of our media already consists of trying to catch somebody saying something. We don’t need more of that.
All the people you listed would be great guests for sure.
My initial reaction was that, of the people you listed, Steve Wosniak would be the best fit. I attended a lecture he gave a number of years ago, it was very inspiring. He’s not very ‘corporate’ so I think he’d get on really well with Lex.
But I am perhaps showing my bias here, I’d also be very interested to see how versatile Lex’s interview style is with Gates, Bezos and Zuckerberg.
The party-lining here is from you, not me. I gave Fauci credit for giving long-standing advice against mass masking for the whole population in March, 2020. That matched advice over decades from WHO and CDC.
You are a star and a titan, and I hold incredible respect for what you've given to the world. Understand however that you casting aspersions upon a man leading the fight against this pandemic isn't a constructive thing to do. Back when he was iffy about masks in that 60minutes interview, it was because there was actual concern that frontline medical staff might not have enough for themselves. He revised his stance on what public policy should be in an evolving situation as he well should.
He's one of the people leading this battle now, and for this battle to be won the public has to have trust in him, the public has to listen to him when he says wear masks, get vaccinated, etc. For folks in NIH and sciences, he's long been known to be a man of integrity, no doubt his scientific output has been pristine, no doubt he's the man for this job, yes that whole bout with the masks was an unfortunate happening, and I think I even agree he did not handle that situation in the most ideal way, but you're smart enough to know what a mucky situation that was and he deserves a pass for that.
edit: I misread you. You're still arguing against mask-wearing as public policy. Come on man, what is going on here? This is not up for debate, there is strong consensus from just about all medical scientists and medical organizations that mask-wearing is very important and effective in fighting coronavirus.
Numerous prestigious peer-reviewed journals have confirmed this studies. There is no conspiracy here. Masks work. It is dangerous for you to say otherwise with the platform you command.
The problem is that truth is always nuanced and never as simple as it needs to be to get a clear message out. It's fluid and a lot of people don't understand it can and will change - or worse conditioned to think changing your opinion due to changing or additional facts is flip-flopping and therefore bad.
The problem is that to keep it simple you have to omit information and sometimes lie to get the needed outcome and sometime not correct incorrect but not harmful advice to keep it simple.
But I do think they screwed up with the early mask advice. With masks, they are not effective protection if it's just you wearing the mask - but there is some value when everyone does. They should have mandated wearing masks from the start like in Taiwan, Singapore, HK. Simple.
I agree that Taiwan has done an exceptional job, but we weren't required to wear masks anywhere outside mass transit and some privately owned establishments until very recently when there was a spike in infected nationals returning.
Now, we wear masks in most indoor commercial places, excluding dining areas. For the most part, all of last year was just life as usual. There have been large outdoor events, including a marathon in December with 28000 participants.
I'm in Brisbane, Australia and we only had mandatory mask wearing recently due to someone testing positive to the UK variant.
Been life as usual more or for six months, but that's the advantage of getting it under control early so the contact tracing isn't overwhelmed each time there's an outbreak.
I think Fauci fell a beat behind the narrative marching band in March when he said no to masks for the general population, and so had to make up a dumb story in June about how he nobly lied to save PPE for frontline workers in March. This is obviously false (HCWs wear fitted N95 or better masks, must maintain and keep both good fit and a working backup; these masks are not for gen-pop) and still bad for credibility (lying for the greater good is lying, and the greater good story of PPE conservation was itself a lie).
Fauci is a dishonest careerist who has harmed many people over decades and misspent huge budgets. Larry Kramer knew this. Kary Mullis agreed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtgUGxxzB_c.
Coronaviruses show strong latitude-dependent seasonality per Hope-Simpson's pioneering work on respiratory viruses. NPIs don't much affect disease progression. Correlation is not causation but anti-correlation is a big problem for those arguing masks help:
I'm old, and per the CDC's estimated age-cohort IFR (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... — see Scenario 5 column, note IFR figures there are per unum not percentages), therefore more at risk of death from Covid-19. I wear a mask in any bad, mixed, or unknown-quality indoor air environment. This is my risk analysis and my choice, not yours. I don't wear outdoors and no one should, all contact tracing studies I've read agree on this (so do the many hypocritical politicians who've gone maskless without fear). So I object to gray-area-legal mandates for all, especially for young people.
The policy reversal on masks last spring was not based on new science. It was in part a big rip-off (Newsom paid 4x and spent >$1B of the California taxpayers' money, this was obviously skimmed here before net-settled to China), and in large part a compliance exercise. That you jump into HN to police my dissenting stance is frankly worse in my view than Fauci being a corrupt careerist. I expect better from hackers and engineers.
> It was in part a big rip-off (Newsom paid 4x and spent >$1B of the California taxpayers' money
Are you really claiming that Fauci is making national statements because he is trying to provide cover for Newsom? You live in California so Newsom's policies are in the front of your mind, but people outside California don't give a rat's ass.
COVID-19 is a new virus and at the time Fauci made that statement there were a few hundred cases total in the US and research had barely begun. We've learned a lot more about the virus since then, and I'd be surprised if the advice hadn't changed over time, similar to the early aggressive use of ventilators.
I never said Fauci did something connected to Newsom. Read more carefully, stop jumping to conclusions. Also, Fauci was a beat behind in March by arguing against civilian masking, so how could he be helping Newsom? He didn't flip-flop until April, and no one said this had a thing to do with Newsom. It had to do with general narrative shift to push masks on the general population.
The Newsom-overpaying example was just one of many. Mask profits shot up due to mandates. This was front-run by sharpers.
Please educate yourself better before coming at me with such gaffes. COVID-19 is the disease, SARS-CoV-2 is the virus, and as its name suggests, it's not entirely novel. Masks were known not to help with respiratory viruses (Flu, CoV, etc.) and WHO + CDC policy advised against mass masking. Asian populations did start masking due to SARS1 and those habits endured, but there is simply no evidence this mattered across real populations. Cherry-picked two-week-long studies in Kansas to the contrary notwithstanding!
On ventilators: they were abused to control nosocomial spread to the point of causing lung injury. This was inexcusable, it was not just innocent "ignorance" of a "new virus". Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell blew the whistle in early April, but the NY medical staff who overused vents had no excuse in March. Sweden and other countries' medical professionals knew better.
> I never said Fauci did something connected to Newsom. Read more carefully, stop jumping to conclusions.
The comment I was referring to was this statement of yours:
> The policy reversal on masks last spring was not based on new science. It was in part a big rip-off (Newsom paid 4x and spent >$1B of the California taxpayers' money,
You talk about Fauci flopping his stance on masks, you talk about policy reversal on masks, you talk about Newsom's mask expenditures, you call Fauci a corrupt careerist in the comment I'm replying to and mostly in consecutive sentences.
No doubt my reading skills could be better, but perhaps you should stop and realize that while what you intend to say may be crystal clear in your head, you perhaps could have stated things more clearly.
> Please educate yourself better before coming at me with such gaffes. COVID-19 is the disease, SARS-CoV-2 is the virus,
Are you always this pedantic? And always so belittling?
The fact is Sweden lies in middle of the Eurozone pack. It had low excess mortality in recent years, which left many very old people likely to die of/with Covid if they were not protected. I'm not switching topics to defend Sweden's policy. My note was about pop. density.
If you want to go at it about Sweden vs. other countries in Scandinavia, we can take it to Twitter:
There are differences among these countries, but first, let's talk about reporting. Sweden says any death within a month of a Covid diagnosis (no PCR+ required, another can of worms) is due to Covid. Other Nordics are less sloppy. This makes Sweden count more deaths.
Finland is a hot mess on all health stats.
Norway has done better but also disavowed lockdowns.
I agree (modulo "top" vs. "bottom" when we're talking about worse being greater-than), but your "at the bottom of the Nordics" was not about excess mortality.
Quote: "It is somewhat suggestive that none of Sweden's direct neighbours show significant excess mortality in 2020..."
Also, I wonder what you mean by Norway disavowing lockdowns? Because they did institute fairly strict measures on March 12, eventually going so far as forbidding people to travel to their cabins to avoid putting strain on rural infrastructure.
Was there some sort of public disavowal after the fact?
The “bottom of the pack” was in reference to ourworldindata cumulative Covid deaths (counted differently in different countries). Could you please link me to the multi-country excess morality data?
As the graphs can be misleading due to the different scaling of the y-axis depending on the country, I also pulled the data and did my own analysis, eg comparing 'Sweden' against 'all Nordics' and 'all Nordics but Sweden'.
For Denmark, Finland and Norway combined, there were fewer deaths at the beginning of the year compared to the previous 5-year average, and a bit more deaths in April and May - basically a wash, ie 'no worse than the flu'.
The situation in Sweden is different, with significant excess mortality.
No, my own dive down the Covid rabbit hole has been fairly shallow so far (I used to keep track of local numbers, but eventually stopped; a couple of weeks ago, I looked at excess mortality in the Nordics because Sweden continued to pop up in online discussions).
In any case, Swedish doctors knew not to abuse ventilators, as did doctors in many other places. This point got lost in the usual assumptive attack on Sweden, but it's the only reason I mentioned that country. A friend in biotech talked to an ER doc in Stockholm who confirmed that they would never intubate + vent on a closed system, as NYC hospitals apparently did in an unethical attempt to control spread.
> as NYC hospitals apparently did in an unethical attempt to control spread.
I am curious where did you git this from? In the spring 2020 COVID patients in New York City ICUs were intubated not to control spread of the virus (there were many more actively shedding virus patients on regular hospital floor) but to sustain patients' life when their oxygen saturation drops dangerously low. Some patients were so bad that they were put on ECMO. Putting people on a ventilator was not an issue in itself, it is keeping them on ventilator for weeks on time that was problematic.
> Masks were known not to help with respiratory viruses (Flu, CoV, etc.)
The Cochrane Library 2010, Issue 1 - emphasis mine:
Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses
Although respiratory viruses usually only cause minor disease, they can cause epidemics. Approximately 10% to 15% of people worldwide contract influenza annually, with attack rates as high as 50% during major epidemics. Global pandemic viral infections have been devastating because of their wide spread. In 2003 the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic affected ~8000 people, killed 780, and caused an enormous social and economic crisis. In 2006 a new avian H5N1, and in 2009 a new H1N1 ’swine’ influenza pandemic threat, caused anxiety. Single measures (particularly the use of vaccines or antiviral drugs) may be insufficient to interruptthe spread. Therefore, we searched for evidence for the effectiveness of physical barriers (such as handwashing or wearing masks) in reducing the spread of respiratory viruses, including influenza viruses.
We found 60 studies including randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies with a mixed risk of bias.
Respiratory virus spread can be reduced by hygienic measures (such as handwashing), especially around younger children. Frequent handwashing can also reduce transmission from children to other household members. Implementing barriers to transmission, such as isolation, and hygienic measures (wearing masks, gloves and gowns) can be effective in containing respiratory virus epidemics or in hospital wards. The more expensive, irritating and uncomfortable N95 respirators might be superior to simple masks. It is unclear if adding virucidals or antiseptics to normal handwashing with soap is more effective. There is insufficient evidence to support screening at entry ports and social distancing as a method to reduce spread during epidemics.
Shorter form: N95s might be better and "barriers to transmission and hygienic measures (wearing masks, gloves and gowns) can be effective". This is mush.
The RCT papers on hospital mask users I've read either count only N95s, or confound them as the main mask type by including polypropylene masks too. The statistically significant results support N95s when fitted well.
Mask mandates for civilians are polyprop or even cloth. Not N95s, which are infeasible for general population members. WHO and CDC did not recommend masks for general populations in past respiratory virus outbreaks/pandemics. Are we done yet?
For reference, the paper I cited is available online [1], but it's different from the version I used. In particular, the section I quoted from now reads "We found no evidence that the more expensive, irritating and uncomfortable N95 respirators were superior to simple surgical masks".
A citation of interest might be [2].
> Are we done yet?
I probably am, but feel free to comment if you think there's still something of value to add.
I've read other studies that show N95s as superior, which you'd expect. They are fitted, they use an extra polyprop layer. But we can stop here, because this finding (like the many I read for N95 superiority among HCWs) did not cause WHO or CDC to advise mask mandates for all. That was novel last spring, and WHO later backed off for children.
I follow you on Twitter and think some of your ideas are great. That being said, a lot of the COVID graphs you retweet ignore population density and contend that COVID isn’t a pandemic. (Some suggesting it’s the same as a cold.)
Also, flatly saying that mask mandates don’t work is wrong. The evidence is (and has been) that they are effective if used properly. (Don’t touch them, wash hands, and single use or clean them.) Unfortunately, lots of people don’t use them properly and that lessens their effectiveness. You have retweeted things implying that masks don’t work.
I don't believe I've ever said "it's the same as a cold" or linked to anything saying that. Cite it if you can. I don't delete but I'll quote-tweet it to correct the record.
If you can't cite, as I suspect, what are you doing here?
Pop. density, latent immunity due to ancient CoVs (this seems to matter a lot in Asia), other particulars do not excuse the NYC and NY state record. Also you hear people claim Sweden has low density but that's not the case.
Your second paragraph shows you didn't read the comment from me to which you replied, in particular this part:
"NPIs don't much affect disease progression. Correlation is not causation but anti-correlation is a big problem for those arguing masks help:
What "The evidence is (and has been)" do you mean? Cite it. Use those famous hyperlinks we worked so hard to make useful back in the day at Netscape. Ignoring what I wrote and asserting your assumptions is not helpful.
Hopefully 0-10 help illuminate what I’m talking about.
I think 11 and 12 point to masks being a good idea. The graphs you linked ignore population density and seasonal increases in transmission of viruses. An increase after a mask mandate isn’t proof that the mandate had no impact.
0. https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1360069067017748480?s=21 — “Reminder: with flu and RSV down ~98% and replaced by COVID, which is far less dangerous to children, we are in literally the mildest respiratory illness season for children in recorded history.”
You wrote "(Some suggesting it’s the same as a cold.)" and I asked you to cite even one tweet saying "it's the same as a cold". None of the links you gave says any such thing. Were you lying?
You seem upset about tweets that I RTed or replied to, which I can and will defend, but you can't attack them on substance. In particular, your [0], from https://twitter.com/kerpen, is correct per CDC Flu and RSV monitoring. Those viruses are way down in 2020, no one knows exactly why, but given antibody studies, it seems SARS2 spread widely and preempted them, possibly in the human nose (not lungs). This needs more study but it is nothing like saying "it's just the cold".
Kerpen is right (again, CDC has IFR by age figures) that Flu and RSV are much deadlier than Covid for children.
So you don't like my opinions but you can't refute them, yet you can gather a bunch of tweet-links. What's the point? If we are not going to argue substance, all you've done is identify me as on Team Reality. But we knew that. What's up?
There are multiple replies and retweets that compare COVID-19 to flus/colds in a “COVID-19 is the same” context. Or suggesting that drastic measures are unwarranted or unreasonable.
The kerpen tweet thread is troubling because it suggests that the CDC is both providing accurate data and that they are only providing guidance for political reasons. So they aren’t lying, but they are? Then he compares COVID-19 to the flu and cold, ignoring that transmission by children can affect adults.
Here is another one (in addition to the one above about children):
That is ignoring that the fatality rate and transmission rate is significantly higher in COVID-19.
Maybe all of these things comparing the equivalence of the cold and COVID-19 mean nothing to you, but they seem significant to me. Perhaps you’ll defend these by saying, “in isolation this data is accurate.” That point falls flat when taken in context to our situation — they are marketing a perspective.
You asked me for some citations for my comments and then criticized that I provided citations for why I said what I said. Nobody said you’re on “Team Reality” but you.
(Oh, and also: I can’t go back further than 10/10 on your tweets but there were a number of retweets from EthicalSkeptic saying that the death count was a lie and suggesting that COVID-19 wasn’t a big deal.)
Obviously the point is that we had overwhelmed hospitals in 2017-2018 (almost every year, the Guardian runs an "NHS overwhelmed" story in the UK) but no lockdowns.
This was not to make light of that (bad) flu season, or to say "it's just the cold". Rather, the link pointed out that we didn't lock down over elevated mortality in bad flu years. That is relevant because WHO and CDC long-term policy guidance was and is against lockdowns:
“... the effectiveness of pandemic mitigation strategies will erode rapidly as the cumulative illness rate prior to implementation climbs above 1 percent of the population....”
What does the word “suggesting” mean to you (in the sentence as I used it)? I’m guessing “some leading the reader to believe that it is the same as a cold” would have been more clear.
No, "suggesting" doesn't help, you are still misreading. The argument was about no lockdown in 2017-2018 in spite of bad cold season. It was an argument against lockdowns, not a claim that Covid-19 is just the cold.
Perhaps you are assuming lockdowns are good policy and help. Or you think Covid mortality is much worse than the worst post-1918 flu pandemics. Neither is true.
The argument against lockdowns was based on it being comparable to a cold/flu season.
The number hospitalized so for COVID-19 in the US exceeds the 2017-2018 season. Additionally, the mortality rate is an order of magnitude higher (61k in 2017-2018 flus vs ~500k+ for COVID-19 so far, US). Dealing with dying patients is harder on hospital staff. Treating a new illness was challenging for hospitals. That result is with the extraordinary measures that we, as a society, have taken.
>Neither is true.
I’ll admit, it’s tough to say what the lockdowns did to/for us. I’m not prepared to assert the truth as willingly as you are. I’m going to have to defer to the only study I could find on this: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2404-8
“... the effectiveness of pandemic mitigation strategies will erode rapidly as the cumulative illness rate prior to implementation climbs above 1 percent of the population....”
The argument against lockdown as ineffective above 1% spread is based on models, see the references. Whether these are good models or not, that's what CDC policy guidance was.
Western lockdowns with many essential workers spreading the virus, especially nosocomially, are even less justifiable. Wrecking the economy, including health care sector employment and facilities, while leaving people worse off on all other health fronts (deferred checkups and treatments), plus the psychological toll culminating in elevated suicides, is not worth hard-to-measure reduction in spread. Lockdowns actually focus spread into shared housing, notably nursing homes. They also select adversely in the face of mutated variants.
Lockdown policy guidance was not based on cold vs. flu or severity of either. I have no idea why you thought this.
> A 1959 WHO consultation concluded, "In the Northern hemisphere at least, the opening of schools after the summer holidays seems to have played an important role in initiating the main epidemic phase" (13). Despite the propensity of influenza epidemics to be amplified in primary schools (14), data on the effectiveness of school closures are limited. Apparently no data or analyses exist for recommending illness thresholds or rates of change that should lead to considering closing or reopening schools.
> Apparently no controlled studies assess the efficacy of mask use in preventing transmission of influenza viruses.
> As noted above, influenza virus isolation rates decreased, but since multiple measures were implemented, the contribution of mask use, if any, is uncertain (20). In case-control studies conducted in Beijing and Hong Kong, wearing masks in public was independently associated with protection from SARS in a multivariate analysis.
These papers are from 2006. They are also very clear that the circumstances matter. Regarding international travel, it seems they suggest that restricting travel would be difficult, if not impossible. They suggest closing schools if a link is unknown or found between schools and transmission.
School closure efficacy has been well researched, you found the same links I did when I researched this years ago. We were talking about lockdowns, so why switch to school closures? No need to answer.
Viral family, Flu or CoV, is not material to the modeling work as far as I can tell. The models consider respiratory viruses and attack rate and other such parameters.
No authority that I know of has suggested lockdown in the past for anything similar in mortality to Covid-19. If it's severe enough... but it isn't. Please focus on this. The CDC IFR estimates show Covid-19 as worse for older cohorts, much less severe for younger, than Flu.
1. It's not that hard for the general population to wear an FFP2 mask properly. I'm reasonably sure that this also applies to N95 masks.
If you'll read the instructions that come with e.g. Dräger or Moldex masks, you'll see that the fitting procedure doesn't include anything as complicated as smell tests, but instructs the wearer to do a rather obvious leak test instead.
2. There are studies that indicate that surgical masks reduce risk even at population level. I've referenced them in a previous comment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25479729.
The conclusion of was "Any type of general mask use is likely to decrease viral exposure and infection risk on a population level, in spite of imperfect fit and imperfect adherence, personal respirators providing most protection. Masks worn by patients may not offer as great a degree of protection against aerosol transmission."
Finally, I'd like to address the RCT you've linked to from Denmark which I found interesting, but not particularly consequential. For me the biggest concerns are that:
* many things were self-reported.
* previous studies have found massive differences in wearer protection for surgical masks. Did they get a crap batch from China? It's not clear to me how they used masks. I can't reconcile 1.7 masks per weekday with the idea that such a mask should not be worn for more than a couple of hours or until it gets wet and the typical shift duration of 8h.
* didn't look at disease severity (or maybe I missed it?)
* didn't (couldn't) look at source control. For an individual it's important that they don't get sick (FFP2 preferred), for a government it's important that not too many people get sick (anything preferred, as long as it reduces transmission, even if it makes the wearer sick).
"as long as it reduces transmission, even if it makes the wearer sick"
So the only risk in life is Covid, there's no such thing as relative risk, masks could never be a net loss for anyone? No. Again, by all long-term studies, and with anti-correlation headwinds all over the place, mask mandates are not justified.
At least in Germany the potential social benefit was weighed against the personal discomfort and the latter was not considered significant enough. There are people that can't wear masks for various reasons and they can get a doctor's notice for that. In fairness, that's not working so great, since they're exposed to a lot of social pressure, especially since it was discovered that some doctors rubber-stamp these notices.
In the end, even a surgical mask will prevent e.g. the janitor from spitting on me for the 5m he comes by to check on things. If I'm wearing a FFP2, I'm also quite safe from aerosols, so it's a win, especially since maintaining distance is not something humans are reliably able to do.
Take this and multiply it by hundreds of situations and millions of people and you're bound to reduce contagion risk. I don't see why that's bad... especially since surgical masks are really cheap and not too inconvenient. Now if everyone were mandated to wear an FFP2 mask which is inconvenient maybe that would require more consideration.
Masks that don't seal tightly against skin vent (backwards as well as up and down). You feel "quite safe from aerosols" but the empirical studies don't back this up across real world large-N groups. So mandating an insufficient mask is worse than mandating one that might make a measurable difference, but in any event: mandates are not justified in my view, on also not advised by long-term WHO and CDC guidance, and they are in a legal "gray area" in the US.
Just going to preface with I don't agree that masks didn't help.
The clean fit to a face is pertinent to zero exposure. This is a common test in the military: dawn your mask, cover the vents, and suck in. If you don't feel immense pressure on your face, if you can't shake your head and do it again then you're metaphorically dead. Part of this fit is having a mask that fits your face and being clean shaven.
I don't know that COVID protection needs to hit this mark, since this is designed for nerve agents and nuclear fallout. It seems like trapping quantities of the virus is good enough, since it takes some threshold of exposure to get someone infected.
for surprising null or even slightly negative result of surgeons masking vs. surgery patient wound infections.
Assuming linear scaling or other naive-model benefits from masks runs into large-scale gen-pop experience, which has now been studied by enough RCTs to cast doubt on the assumption. Long-term WHO and CDC policy guidance was based on empirical science showing non-pharmaceutical interventions are not very effective against respiratory viruses.
I am not a large-N group though, so my main interest is whether a properly worn FFP2 mask can protect me. Everything indicates that it can. My only worry was FFP2 vs FFP3, since the former is not actually recommended to be used to protect against aerosols, but it seems that it's the default even for medical personnel - high aerosol inducing procedures aside.
The fact that others are wearing surgical or even FFP2 masks is a protective bonus for me, even if the former vent or it doesn't protect them in all cases. I believe this was the reasoning of the German original fabric mask mandate starting spring/summer 2020: mask + no mask = 0, but mask + mask = good protection against droplets. Whether that made any significant difference with the transmission in aggregate is probably impossible to tell now, but it probably did prevent at least some infections. More importantly it made masks more normal, compared to spring where you were looked at like a maniac for wearing one.
Regarding the graph, Germany was and still is in a lockdown, so numbers will be going down masks or not. Upgrading the mandate to surgical/FFP2 was done more out of fear of the new mutations and it wasn't FFP2 only because it's economically / socially not tenable.
I don't know why the US decreased, but the US is way ahead on vaccines and also had more infected, so I assume it will continue to do so.
> I think Fauci fell a beat behind the narrative marching band in March when he said no to masks for the general population, and so had to make up a dumb story in June about how he nobly lied to save PPE for frontline workers in March.
Consider this interview, done early March, in which Fauci argues against masks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI . You don't even have to read between the lines because he explains his reasoning bluntly: "Exactly, that's the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for people [(healthcare workers)] who really need it." He never at any point thought masks were ineffective. When he did say so in March as you see from this interview, he said it because he was concerned about shortages for medical staff. There doesn't exist evidence with which one can credibly accuse him of committing this sort of revisionism.
Bringing up Kramer betrays a lack of familiarity with Fauci's history. Kramer and Fauci eventually came to be very close friends, and Kramer is on record saying Fauci was LGBT community's best friend. Mullis lost his marbles later in his life, sounding fringe views on HIV, astrology and lots of other stuff. His contribution of PCR technique is undeniably one of the great discoveries in chemistry, but he's not an authority on much else.
I read reports of Kramer patching things up with Fauci. Excluding the ones from after Larry died that were sourced to Fauci alone, what do you know? Thanks for any links.
This video shows Fauci saying people should not wear masks, that they get a false sense of security, that there are unintended consequences: fiddling with masks, touching masks, dirtying masks/failing to clean, etc. At end "you should think of healthcare providers and people who are ill."
Also, that last point about conserving PPE doesn't apply to cloth, which health orders allow instead of polyprop. Surgical masks were plentiful in March.
Again, right there in this video, Fauci did not argue against civilian masking solely based on shortages. He really did say that most people should not be wearing. Right or wrong, he was giving advice consistent with the US Surgeon General, CDC at the time, and WHO (which has varied its advice in the last year).
> Fauci did not argue against civilian masking solely based on shortages.
No, he did. You linked the same clip I linked, except minus the 20 seconds where he reveals his reasoning. Please refer to slightly longer version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI
I agree it wasn't a great thing to play down masks to the extent he did, but as someone else pointed out, explaining the nuance of the situation to 350 million people is a tough task. Remember the toilet paper situation? Imagine if he'd sold masks as the solution, people would try to get their hands on one at all costs, they would not have faith in home-made cloth masks, they'd want what doctors are wearing because those are the ones that really work (is what they'd be saying)! Stories like these would be commonplace: https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/160-pieces-of-n95-surgical-masks-... I frankly don't know how else he could've handled this if at the time the information available to them indicated a possible shortage of masks. What would you have done in his place at that time in that situation? And coming back to my original point: doesn't Fauci deserve a pass on this one, considering how sticky the situation was?
Give me a few minutes to find a link on Kramer talking about Fauci
I saw the longer version, it ends with Fauci saying "that's the point." But he made several points, as did the Surgeon General. The policy guidance was not in favor of mandates for several reasons. I don't know how else to say this clearly.
It seems from a recent comment from somenone in Taiwan (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26139550) that masks were not mandated apart from trains and certain private settings until recently. There may be ancient inherited CoV partial immunity operating across much of Asia, people may be tidier and more careful, etc.
Masks are just one of several tools, with downside risks. From the Danish RCT and many others, they seem not significantly effective in general populations against respiratory viruses. Mandates, especially with such selective enforcement and hypocrisy in high places, plus overpaying and probably skimming a la Newsom, stink.
In saying "that's the point, it could lead to a shortage of masks for people who really need it" he's giving away his awareness of the need for masks, and the reason for why he at all suggested to avoid masks in the first place. That's to say he never had a change of mind about the effectiveness of masks.
There should be a quote of him saying something to the effect of "Fauci is LGBT community's best friend" dated around 2015 but I'm unable to find a source for this at the time, I'll continue my search though and link when I find it.
The downside risks to mask-wearing are marginal next to its benefits. I'm reviewing Danish RCT and other papers you linked now.
I'll say one other thing: I think it was poor form on my part to steer this thread off and bring to view here before everyone something you'd said that I perceived to be bad. Because I think that goes against the principle of giving everyone the benefit of doubt, it goes against the principle of charitable interpretation and really it's bad form to unnecessarily remind folks of past wrongs (because indeed when we just _expect_ better of people, they come through most of the times, so one really ought to just forget old wrongs and be more forward-looking). For your part in being one of the initial designers of Rust, you deserve some leeway anyway. Crucially though, I in a way made the error I accused you of committing in slandering Fauci. For this, I am sorry.
Regarding Danish study, here's what I found: the authors concluded that “the 95% confidence intervals are compatible with a possible 46% reduction to 23% increase in infections among mask wearers. These findings do offer evidence about the degree of protection mask wearers can anticipate in a setting where others are not wearing masks and where other public health measures, including social distancing, are in
effect. The findings, however, should not be used to conclude that a recommendations for everyone to wear masks in the community would not be effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections, because the trial did not test the role of masks in source control of SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
Although this was a well-designed study, it had several key limitations. During the study period, there was a low burden of community COVID-19 infections in Denmark, and the study intervention only lasted for 1 month. Cafés and restaurants were closed for the first half of the study. Mask adherence relied on retrospective self-reports. Participants in the mask group had more documented household COVID-19 infections (n= 52) than in the control group (n=39). The antibody test used for diagnosis of COVID-19 infection had a sensitivity of only 82.5%. Finally, there was a trend toward protection in the mask group, which could have been significant had more subjects been recruited to the study or if the community burden of COVID-19 had been higher.
There was absolutely a shortage of PPP among healthcare institutions in the areas that were hit by COVID.
If 350 million Americans in a giant panic, decided to make a run on PPE, then there would be serious supply chain problems and it could have adversely affected the medical system.
The strategy of prioritising Hospitals, in face of a pandemic (and they use all kinds of masks, not just N95) - was actually quite rational.
In the initial phase of the pandemic, masks should be allocated where they have a very obvious effect.
Then, once they can be produced in much greater quantities, then it makes sense for individuals to start wearing them whereby we can help a little bit with transmissibility in the general population.
'The Lie' was to downplay the effectiveness of masks early, and then embellish the effectiveness later on - but that is the communications strategy behind a rational plan.
In a war, it's probably more important that the soldiers have access to weapons, they are the most effective at leveraging them. Having weapons at the home front might be helpful, but much more marginally so.
There was a 'policy reversal' due to material facts on the ground with respect to PPE availability, but that's consistent with the overall strategy.
As far as 'mask wearing in public' - it's not just 'your decision' because of the fact that you're putting others at risk and that due to the high nature of transmissibility, it becomes a systematic problem.
It's not like wearing seatbelts where it affects mostly you.
It's like if you were in an accident and not wearing a seatbelt, and as a result, you hurt 10 other people.
Daigou shoppers did buy up all over-the-counter masks in January and February, for some strange reason :-/. Amazon N95 and hazmat stocks ran low in those months too:
Purell and water bottles ran short and gougers gouged.
By March when Fauci spoke against mask mandates, civilian-mandated mask supply chains had recovered. We bought a bunch then without trouble.
But early shortages and gouging for various products are all beside the point. Mandates on civilians that passed in March and April by county and state health orders were for people to wear polypropylene and cloth masks, not N95s or hazmat suits.
Cloth and polyprop are not used by HCWs, and Fauci was not saying "yes" to people wearing those mandated kinds of masks, while saying "no" to people buying N95s. He was saying no to masks, period, full stop:
So there are some things that are 'slightly off' in your statement, enough to cause some odd conclusions - especially in the context of public communications.
With respect to timing, there was no pandemic in January, we're not going to see 'public fear and pandemonium' until it hits home, which wasn't until March. It wasn't until this point could there have been a true run on anything at least in the US.
The delineation between HCW PPE and 'civilian' PPE is basically moot: both N95 and surgical masks are widely used by civilians and HC.
Given the above, if there were any real impetus by 'the nations top doctor' to buy masks there would have been a massive run on all kinds of masks.
The reason that 'you are able to buy something' is precisely because the policy was 'masks are not important'.
Understand that in 2020 (and arguably today), nobody knew the difference between the various kinds of masks. 'N95' was not in the public lexicon. Masks are Masks. If the 1/2 of Americans that seem to be concerned about COVID felt that they needed masks, they would have bought them.
It would be impossible for Dr. Fauci or anyone else to say: "Buy this kind of mask over here, but that other kind of mask, don't worry about that, you don't need it" - this is beyond the threshold of complexity of something you can effectively message to 350 Million people.
The amount of pricing pressure etc. would have made it clearly more difficult for HCW around the world to get access to much of the gear they needed - we know this because even without face masks doctrine, there were a lot of shortages.
Doctors in many facilities were resigned to having to re-use a lot of gear - including masks.
If there were a public stampede for those masks, they would have had critical shortages that would have materially affected outcomes.
It wasn't until summer 2020, when COVID numbers started to come under control, that 'resource sharing' started to become effective, and that supply chains truly started to be able to handle demand did things start to seem more reasonable.
Only in June/July did a lot of HC centres across the nation start to receive major shipments of PPE.
At that point 'we made it through Phase 1' - at which time, it started to make sense to make masks part of the public health strategy.
So then the communication shifts: they start telling us how great masks are, how they can help us, and that we should wear them.
Obviously, this feels disingenuous, but it's not.
Given the risk in the system, even in hindsight, it was a perfectly reasonable strategy.
Finally, it was not 'Dr. Fauci' - it was the same across the Western world. UK and Canada started mandating in July, France in August.
Stick to the topic: Fauci said no masks (of any kind), then flipped. He did so on no new science.
People knew in January and were ringing the bell. UW made their own test based on the viral genome finally released on or around the 12th of January. The Daigou shoppers were in the US stripping shelves, and I linked to a chart of Amazon sales in the first two months of the year.
What's slightly off is your rewriting of this history to make it sound like nobody new anything. Many knew, and took steps. I don't fault Fauci for what he said in March, because it was consistent with longstanding policy guidance. But his claim in June that he lied nobly for the greater good is b.s. and it doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.
Polypropylene (surgical) masks don't stop aerosol transfer of the virus. This was known for ages. They're for fungi, pollens ,and droplets, not microdroplets. Cloth masks are even less effective and quickly become moldy face-fomites.
If you want to defend mandating these for everyone, even small children, do it directly. But don't excuse Fauci on the noble-lie pretext as if his March "no masks" advice saved polyprop or cloth for HCWs who cannot use those masks on the job. The polyprop masks come in boxes with black letter language disclaiming their ability to prevent infection. The noble-lie excuse makes no sense.
(Edit: As per 'BrendanEich' - point below, I had misread his earlier statement with respect to his view that this was mostly about Dr. Fauci - he didn't indicate that it was specifically about Dr. Fauci directly. That said - statements are all directed at Dr. Fauci when these policies are fairly consistent around the West and even in the US, these policies decisions are made by the CDC, Fauci, others.)
It was Dr. Fauci, the CDC, the WHO and the entire Western World i.e. Canada, UK, Germany, France, Europe etc. (not so much Asia).
"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,"
Dr. Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO, March 30
The same policy in Canada, UK, France, Germany.
Here is UK's policy evolution over time [1] [2].
So why are you focused on Fauci, who is doing the same thing (in coordination) with everyone else?
2)"Dr. Fauci said no masks" --> This is a misrepresentation.
Here is the WHO policy in late March:
"Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the WHO: "We prioritize the use of masks for those who need it most, which would be frontline health care workers. In the community, we do not recommend the use of wearing masks unless you yourself are sick and as a measure to prevent onward spread from you if you are ill" [3]
Here is a public statement by Dr. Fauci, via CBC/60 Minutes, early March:
"In March, Dr. Fauci told 60 Minutes that masks should largely be reserved for healthcare providers. In April, the recommendations were broadened to include simple masks for the general public." [4]
Dr Fauci + CDC, Late March:
"The idea of getting a much more broad, community-wide use of masks outside of the health care setting is under very active discussion at the task force. The CDC group is looking at that very carefully, Fauci told CNN. The thing that has inhibited that a bit is to make sure that we don’t take away the supply of masks from the health care workers who need them," he continued. “But once 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.” [5]
The policy was always, and repeatedly: "Don't wear masks, because our healthcare workers need them" - and they do, HCW use both N95 and Surgical Masks.
There's tons of evidence available as to the material shortages of masks and other PPE well into summer.
3) "Polypropylene masks don't stop aerosol transfer of the virus." --> this is a misrepresentation.
Yes, it's public information Surgical Masks do not filter the virus directly - do you think that millions have been duped, that the 'World Powers' have tricked us, if only we could read the label?
Here is the Mayo Clinics statement:
"A cloth mask is intended to trap respiratory droplets that are released when the wearer talks, coughs or sneezes. It also acts as a barrier to protect the wearer from inhaling droplets released by others." [6]
Surgical Masks won't directly filter COVID, however, there is evidence to support the notion that COVID is spread often in water vapour and droplets, and that Surgical/Cloth masks can at least help to minimize the risk via these vectors.
See here for a litany of studies which provide some evidence as to the effictiveness of surgical masks in HCW environments [7]
3) "But don't excuse Fauci on the noble-lie pretext as if his March "no masks" advice saved polyprop or cloth for HCWs who cannot use those masks on the job. "
The objective was to prevent a run on N95s as much as Surgical Masks - and everything else.
It wasn't a 'lie' it was 'guidance' or what we call 'Public Communications' and it's what we do in Emergency Situations to try to get 350 Million people acting consistently within a short period of time.
4) "Don't re-write history" - the timeline is in full public display.
This is what happened, it happened in public, for everyone to see, and it was orchestrated by the WHO, CDC/Faci, and his equivalents in the rest of the modern world.
It's hard to tell how much of an effect the March 'save the masks for hospitals' policy had, however, it's very rational policy, even in hindsight.
When you reply to me seeming to quote my words, try using exactly what I wrote. I did not write "It was Dr. Fauci" anywhere in the parent at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138420, so your "This is not true" is refuting someone else or knocking down your own straw-man.
Also, kindly cut the "misrepresentation" nonsense. I wrote polyprop masks don't stop aerosol transfer and that's true as stated, and relevant. In returning to mask efficacy vs. droplets (which in no way refuted the problem of microdroplets smoking around polyprop mask margins) you also left out how masks can nebulize droplets, which all else equal makes things worse.
Fauci had no reason to lie in March to save polyprop or cloth masks as HCWs do not use either in Covid-isolated floors. As I wrote way above, by the time he said this, polyprop were in good supply — we bought many.
However many fancy link footnotes you add, you can't overcome the problem that his March no-mask advice was based on sound long-term policy, no new science arose to revise it, and mandates arriving in our county and state that same month allowed cloth(!) in addition to polyprop.
Let's talk about cloth masks. Anyone can make a cloth mask. If you contend Fauci was saving cloth for HCWs (obvious nonsense), please cite the hospital that allowed cloth masks, and show the evidence of nationwide cloth shortage.
If you think Fauci was lying about cloth, but that cloth masks (as allowed to satisfy the mandates) save lives, then how dare Fauci cost lives! Right?
On January 24, 2020, the Senate Committees on Health and Foreign Relations held a closed meeting with only Senators present to brief them about the COVID-19 outbreak and how it would affect the United States.
"In my state close to 50% of deaths were attributed to nursing homes. So either N95 wasn't available or healthcare professionals were careless. Either way it led to a lot of deaths."
So the problem with this statement is the implied assumption that 'masks are the thing'.
They are not 'the thing' just 'one of the things'.
LTC homes are very sensitive, we didn't have policies and procedures for protecting everyone. They are not Hospitals with highly paid professionals. They don't always have the best PPE. They know nothing about transmission, procedures etc. and generally have nobody to support them whereas Hospitals are full of smart, connected people.
My hunch is that many of them were totally caught off guard, had no idea as to N95 or Surgical, they don't have any special supply chain power, they didn't have testing.
They were in a chaos state and realized too late they had major outbreaks in their homes and then reacted - in some cases, too late.
Your "hunch" is wrong. Here's the letter sent by LTC worker organizations immediately upon learning of Cuomo's deadly order on 3/25 to discharge recovered elderly Covid cases to nursing homes:
Any fool by that point in March knew that the virus was highly transmissible. Nursing homes and LTCs did not have extra staff or isolation wards, sanitarium-level protection — but they could have. Funds wasted on the Mercy ship and Javits Center, which were barely used, should have been spent on isolation.
Civilian mask mandates have nothing to do with this, but even with N95s, nosocomial spread is a problem in hospitals, never mind nursing homes. NY intake was mixing known-infected with unknown-status/no-symptoms patients. This too was not a case of being "caught off guard". It was negligent or worse, and it relates to vent overuse.
I see masks as having two distinct purposes : 1. To protect me and my family members when we need to enter a "hot" area such as a virus-denier-owned business or other place with large numbers of people and poor ventilation. We use best available N95 type masks (KN95 for example are widely available now) for this purpose. 2. as a signal I can read from other people as to whether or not they take virus spread mitigation measures seriously. So if I see someone not wearing a mask in a store, I can reasonably assume that person is more likely to transmit the virus. Not because the mask they're not wearing is not effective, but because the lack of mask tells me that they probably mix with other people, frequent places with large numbers of other people, are friends with people who don't take quarantine seriously, and so on. So even if masks had zero effectiveness for virus transmission, they're still very useful to me in identifying people and places to avoid.
I agree with both of these as good personal policy in mixed indoor settings.
I reject "virus denier" as bait. Look at Newsom and the many other hypocrites caught in flagrante maskless. They were not denying the virus exists in their public words, but their nominally private deeds said something about their sense of relative risks that doesn't fit your cult-like "denier" language.
Ok, I admit there are "virus-lazy" people as well as virus deniers. I'm in Montana and here I believe it's a reasonable assumption that someone without a mark in a mask-required scenario is a denier, based on my f2f (outside!) discussions with people. Many deniers. Full blown FoxNews regurgitation.
Newsom may be lazy or not, but his mask-free dinner out didn’t show sloth, it showed corruption and lack of concern (probably in part based on him being young and fit enough to have low risk per the CDC age-grouped IFR table).
LTCs are like hotels with under-paid immigrants changing diapers.
Of course they knew 'there was a transmissable virus' - but what does that mean?
"Nursing homes and LTCs did not have extra staff or isolation wards, sanitarium-level protection"
How?
With what money?
Who is going to mandate it?
Who is going to 'hire a bunch of new, trained staff immediately'?
This would bankrupt Private LTCs and the Public one's had no access to funds.
How does the mid-level manager of an LTC have the knowledge or ability to come up with emergency protocols?
These hotels were not prepared, they responded with PPE, by isolating workers to floors and residents, they increased testing, closed of visitors - and possibly, as you say did something about the air ventilation.
.. and masks were one part of the policy ...
... and now it seems they have it mostly under control.
I've been through this line of argument before. First it was "no one knew" (just a hunch). When I produce evidence in the form of that letter from PALTC et al., the argument shifts to "nothing could have been done" — at the same time that tens of millions were misspent on underused or unused facilities.
Public spending went way up, including (Newsom's $1B rip off) on masks. Why are you so keen to feign helplessness and avoid accountability? Trump family taxpayer rip-offs get and deserve condemnation, but it's ok when Cuomo or Newsom does it? A pox on all of them.
I've spent the whole pandemic living in Taiwan (and I was here for SARS nearly two decades ago, too). So far it's been seven total Covid-19 deaths here, despite a population on par with that of Australia or Sri Lanka.
Some of Fauci's statements about masks and travel restrictions have looked absolutely mad from this vantage point. So have the WHO's statements and the US media coverage of the entire pandemic. It's been really disappointing to see decision after decision that lead people, rightfully, to lose trust in institutions. High trust in institutions is one of the main reasons it's gone so well here.
IMO, your comment is false, flamewar-inducing and completely off-topic. We didn't come to this thread wanting to talk about the pandemic and now it's a huge portion of the comments.
One of the most important things our adversarial system does is provide misstep feedback, when nobody else is willing to.
Fauci likely stated the mask trope with the best of intentions, but its also true that it was (in hindsight at the very least) a mistake for the current pandemic.
Most people who like what Fauci is doing would be too polite to call him out on it, but that’s a disservice in the long term. Not just to us but even to Fauci.
Don't you remember like 10 months ago when Fauci et al told everyone to not wear masks because masks don't work for COVID, but it was just a lie to prevent necessary mask supplies from getting hoarded?
If you’re on Twitter you will see 99.9% of tech people spend all day posting left wing political takes. Just a bit of counterbalance is not going to hurt you lol
I cited a twitter thread (et seq) relevant to our exchange. You then doxxed yourself in reply on HN. I don't care who you are or what your twitter handle is, honestly.
Given how central LinkedIn is to many people’s professional careers, I find it shocking that their support department is not contactable via email.
Do they even have a support department?
Everything is fine until you have an issue. If your issue isn’t answered by one of their pre-written articles, then there isn’t much you can do about it.
There are a surprising number of “big” tech companies that do the same.
- Reddit support for example, I only ever get automated responses. They just got a $6 billion valuation, yet they have no support email.
- Substack doesn’t list its support email on their website, I only found their support email by searching Twitter, found a random tweet that mentioned it, and amazingly it was the right address.
I currently think that the best option for a personal website / blog is a statically generated site. It’s just the most robust way to build things for the long haul. Minimal maintenance, and easy to move all your files to a new hosting provider. Having static html files is very robust.
I think for business websites it starts to make sense to use something like Wordpress. The fact that it’s open source is amazing, so you can always self host. But it’s more effort. But you get lots of neat plugins and templates. But it’s more complicated.
Both are great solutions, but my current thinking is ssg for personal, for business maybe Wordpress.
Hey, thanks :) The project's web application is currently not separated enough into backend/frontend to forge a CLI tool from that backend. There is an export function, but it's meant as a data export for all the pipes (to not hold data hostage), not per canvas, and to my knowledge no one so far has tried to work with the JSON representation the site exports.
However, you can fork pipes in the site UI and then edit them like that. And if a team would share an account to manage a set of Pipes together there is nothing that would prevent that.
The sort of thing I was thinking about was something similar to how post production workflows are setup in film vfx.
You have teams of artists working on 2d and 3d software packages locally. They then save their project, which produces a file that can be rendered on the render farm.
In this rss news equivalent, teams could mash together RSS feeds. Then send their local project export to a backend infrastructure, that would do something with the export, maybe generate a static site, or something more complex .
I mean, RSS fits well to prepare data to go somewhere. Just the offline part you probably do not need. Create your pipe, share the account, or let the other developer fork the pipe. The tool that in the end consumes the feed can just work with the online feed directly from Pipes - those tools expect an url anyway.
Location: Currently South East Asia (UTC+7), very flexible with working hours, can accommodate most timezones, experienced remote worker.
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Yes
Hi I’m Mark, a Web Developer, Consultant and Automation Engineer originally from the UK. I specialise in devops/system tools, workflow automation integrations, and NodeJS web development.
10+ years working in IT, experienced delivering large projects for Fortune 500 companies internationally, and working remotely.
Most recently I’ve been developing social media SaaS and statically generated (a.k.a Jamstack) websites, built using GitHub actions, deployed to Netlify.
SEEKING WORK, South East Asia (UTC+7), remote work OK, I am very flexible with working hours and can accommodate most time zones, experienced remote worker.
Willing to relocate: Yes
Hi I’m Mark, a Web Developer, Consultant and Automation Engineer originally from the UK. I specialise in devops/system tools, workflow automation integrations, and NodeJS web development.
10+ years working in IT, experienced delivering large projects for Fortune 500 companies internationally, and working remotely.
Most recently I’ve been developing social media SaaS and statically generated (a.k.a Jamstack) websites, built using GitHub Actions, deployed to Netlify.
A bit of (probably) useless trivia that I noticed, because I used to work in feature film visual effects, is that the card reader read 13 punch cards per second, which is about the same speed as an arriscanner which scans reels of motion picture film. You get about 4-10 frames per second depending on the resolution.