What is "true" and what is "false" re. how to defend against the pandemic?
The jury is still out on these questions
The above question feeds global anxiety and makes our days ever more difficult to “process” without fear and loathing.
Since the beginning of the pestilence all of us “average people” have been the confused recipients of relentless information flowing out from a mind-boggling number of both official and “second-tier” sources—the latter especially laced with quacks, impostors, rumor mongers, religious maniacs, and social media propagandists.
The medical and scientific community itself also looks quite off tune trying to deal with the usual in-house quarrels and the evaluation of an avalanche of Covid vax research studies, many of which are of questionable quality, that keep coming at warp speed.
The following report comes from a conservative journal with a long verified history of appropriately dealing with facts.
It lays out a “brainy” account of what the author deems is true and what is false re. the daily deluge of Covid information, plus instructions, coming from governments and international health authorities.
The language is straightforward and its “tempo” reassuring. A good read for all of us non-specialists at this time of gnawing confusion and fear mongering.
Public Health’s Truth Problem
Throughout the pandemic, medical and scientific institutions have disseminated dubious advice, flawed studies, and even outright falsehoods.
Throughout the pandemic, public-health officials have omitted uncomfortable truths, made misleading statements, and advanced demonstrably false assertions. In the information era, where what one says is easily accessible and anyone may read primary literature, these falsehoods will be increasingly recognized and severely damage the field’s credibility. No doubt, officials and organizations promulgating them had a range of motivations—including honorable ones, such as wanting to encourage salutary choices. Yet the subsequent loss of institutional trust may result in harm that far outweighs any short-term policy objectives.
Consider some messages the field has promoted to the public over the last two years and their shaky relationship with the truth.
Any mask is better than no mask. Last week, CDC director Rochelle Walensky asserted that “any mask is better than no mask.” This statement was factually incorrect when she said it. The only published cluster randomized trial of community cloth masking during Covid-19—performed in rural Bangladesh—found that surgical masks reduced the spread of Covid-19 among villages assigned to wear them, while cloth masks were no better than no masks at all regarding the primary endpoint of blood-test-confirmed Covid-19. In an umbrella review of masking that I coauthored, we found no good evidence to support cloth masking. Two days after Walensky’s statement, the CDC conceded that cloth masking was inferior to other masks. Notably, however, this is still misleading because cloth masking is not just less effective—it is entirely ineffective.
You should wear an N95 mask. Now the CDC has endorsed the use of N95 or equivalent masks in community settings, which it presents as the superior choice. Here, too, the evidence is misleading. First, a masking policy involves more than just the filtration properties of the material; it should consider both filtration and human behavior. Will people wear the mask appropriately? Will there be gaps around the nose? Will they cheat to scratch or drink? Will it cause discomfort and lead to discontinuation? Will they feel invulnerable and seek out higher risk settings? Simply put, the CDC does not know that advising the public to wear N95 is good policy. It could have run a cluster randomized trial, as was done for cloth and surgical masks in Bangladesh; it did not. In fact, the agency has run no randomized trials of masking this entire pandemic.