I risked a lot to publish that mask oped weeks ago—against CDC and WHO guidance. Wished someone else would. Been called everything under the sun. But the scientific community is rallying around masks.
But please, please, give the CDC/WHO space to shift.
https://twitter.com/JGLeBozec/status/1244602907854540801 …
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See this screenshot of Taiwan's action on masks (link has list of all its actions). Taiwan had extensive ties/travel with China but it has a total of five COVID-19 deaths and only a few hundred cases. Its schools have been open for more than a month. https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/jama/0/jvp200035supp1_prod.pdf …pic.twitter.com/F1WKuUgumG
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(Apparently link broken so here it is again, a list of actions Taiwan took to contain the epidemic. https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/jama/0/jvp200035supp1_prod.pdf?Expires=2147483647&Signature=bIZCLS7ZLWTJd~U~H40JgiEGdFb3ggVUJpBvJ7KdANK7HgK1zaj4uWHvqweGym1nWfO~nXt9Y5i1vX79pF7zjjqfzmJAy3udTdpVVZQe07xnQIPcBMXLwZ5XjgTO8yKFXVIpxsXhrmOu8sGSpKiEmQ86ZCKfOTar7fMAGmUCtjiYVFwf31K3REWAA-r3hZyoZpqz3QKpVgpsRpF9fV9thQCq0~yvbvRKTH4PcoB~CZgmXH7rpVb6bILXQn5zBCphf6pyLAa4zIebUEKfCdCYdSdi9LeIEUsesqsYpNWgHJcr4K1LC0hFlst0RHQz-vZ7I-OvrX~5jel6zjjtuDQzjQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA … )
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Health care workers! Please consider signing this petition asking for CDC and the WHO to give clear, evidence-based guidance on masks. Every person who's not infected is one less patient you have to care for during this time. Folks, feel free to share. https://www.medwiser.org/sign-petition-international-physicians-and-health-care-workers-call-on-who-and-cdc-to-reserve-ppe-for-frontline-medical-teams-and-recommend-nonmedical-fabric-face-masks-be-worn-by-public/ …pic.twitter.com/iMPAGmUkOQ
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These articles aren’t even attempting to be coherent anymore. There is no known evidence of harm. It’s a lot of weird speculation—all of which flies in the face of all the overwhelming scientific evidence we have.https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1245793379834908672 …
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But the world is moving. Time for WHO and the CDC to catch up to making evidence-based recommendation for face masks. People need guidance on sanitization/reuse for cloth, and we need rationed distribution once we have surgical mask production catch up.https://twitter.com/nycmayor/status/1245855631241707522 …
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I had people tell me that my insistence on continuing to point out the overwhelming scientific evidence in favor of universal mask wearing was about my “anxiety”. In reality, I have the privilege of staying home. Many don’t. This was always about them.https://twitter.com/loisbeckett/status/1245907755057033216 …
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Yep. Totally okay for ordinary people to think CDC/WHO got this right. They normally do! But if you needed to separate the good science journalist from the one that parrots official advice without analytic thinking/deep digging themselves... Litmus moment!https://twitter.com/enscand/status/1246143381526302721 …
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Yes! Finally! One thing left: CDC should issue guidelines for best practices for home-made masks and their re-use and sanitization, and consider distributing/rationing a few surgical masks per person in hotspots with instructions for sanitization/reuse.https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1246149401246076934 …
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The WHO is also, finally, finally, finally shifting. WHO, like the CDC, should quickly issue guidelines for best practices and sanitization. Time for them to step up and do what they are supposed to do, and can do.https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1246152974809915393 …
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The WHO finally "encourages" the public to wear masks. What a tragic waste of time and a needless squandering of medical authority amidst a pandemic. By March, there was enough evidence of presymptomatic and asymptomatic transmission for me to write this. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1268927569065324547 …pic.twitter.com/2Me0Sj9OlD
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Also not only is there no evidence for this claim, there is emerging evidence for the opposite, and there is decades of evidence from other safety devices that this concern is not warranted, and if this was a thing, it would also apply to hand-washing.
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Here's a preprint of a paper (I'm a co-author) where we review the "false sense of security" claim and explain why it doesn't stand to evidence at all, and why, on the contrary, universal masks would be expected to lessen stigma and heighten solidarity. https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0203/v2 …pic.twitter.com/2tDzvYGNVr
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If some past person had told me I'd spend most of my energy in the first months of a pandemic arguing against CDC and WHO guidelines, that they would drag their feet despite mounting evidence, and that we'd rely on grassroots movements instead, I'd have dismissed them as nuts.
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I've been arguing for months that the most likely outcome of masks would be INCREASED adherence to distancing—because that's what social science suggests. That baseless "false sense of security" claim had no evidence for it. Now, experimental confirmation.https://twitter.com/Babak_Javid_Lab/status/1269312406120996864 …
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So Dr. Fauci has just said the public was told not to wear masks because they "were in very short supply." I just want to remind everyone what it was like in March—viral threads telling us not to wear masks. (Not picking on one person here—she was misled like everyone else).pic.twitter.com/SEYKHgmYtI
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How we got here: we were told that masks increased wearer's risk compared to no masks—and many experts and media parroted this uncritically despite absolute lack of evidence for this. And I could point to asymptomatic transmission in mid-March because there were already papers.pic.twitter.com/A4URiLQ8Qq
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Don't focus on any one person! This was practically the entire ecology in March with authorities telling us masks were a risk and unnecessary—instead of the truth: shortage—and "experts"/media parroting them uncritically instead of looking at actual research or Asian expertise.
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Of course! I wrote this, too, when people said "what about the shortages"? First, ramp up production then! Second, cloth masks are good for now. Third, each intubation requires tons of PPE! Every reduced case prevents deaths *and* helps the shortage. https://twitter.com/DinoStraciatela/status/1272520255659823107 …?
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Once again, Dr. Fauci says that they did not advise masks earlier because "there was a paucity of equipment that our healthcare workers required." But we were told masks were unnecessary, even harmful. They forgot "a pandemic is a communication emergency".https://twitter.com/i/status/1275522333428645890 …
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I don't live in the same universe as this CNN correspondent. Dr. Fauci admits they didn't recommend masks before—and even said they may harm, don't work—because of the shortage, and that's sign of a "best communicator? No, no, that's how you lose trust. https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1275491561405546498 …
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Could some *actual* reporters dig into that, and also this?https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1275792716941549568 …
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