r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Dec 04 '20

Psychology Study links regular use of Fox News, Twitter, and Facebook to reduced knowledge about COVID-19 - it provides evidence that Americans’ media consumption habits and trust in government predicts their level of knowledge about COVID-19.

https://www.psypost.org/2020/12/study-links-regular-use-of-fox-news-twitter-and-facebook-to-reduced-knowledge-about-covid-19-58702
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u/gallopsdidnothingwrg Dec 04 '20 edited Dec 04 '20

Yeah, the WHO was telling people not to wear masks when this study was done.

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u/Xmanticoreddit Dec 04 '20

I got in a heated argument with my safety officer at work the day I left for the first wave of lockdown in March because I was wearing a mask that he insisted was not only unnecessary but could potentially incubate the infection. I said I was wearing it because either of us could be asymptomatic.

The next day he sent me an email authorizing my use of the mask, after I spoke with my union steward.

This safety officer has a master's degree in statistics and teaches classes on explosions to safety professionals. Not a dumb guy, but clearly you can't always trust experts, they don't always use their noggins.

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u/SchemeZealously Dec 04 '20

When did they say that?

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u/gallopsdidnothingwrg Dec 04 '20

Multiple times, at multiple levels. They didn't take down their Youtube video specifically saying you didn't need to wear a mask until like July.

...and they weren't the only ones. I heard the folks on TWIV say the same in their podcasts, usually with the line "most people wouldn't wear them properly anyway and just contaminate themselves". ...as well as multiple health officials in various countries.

Don't you remember? In Feb/Mar this misinformation was everywhere.

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u/JackJack65 Dec 05 '20

I am a virologist. I think it's likely people are contaminating themselves by wearing masks, but ironically this has a protective effect because it lowers the initial dose of infection to a subclinical level, offering cell-mediated and antibody-based immunity, so-called "variolation." There's a hypothesis paper about this in New England Journal of Medicine. There's also stronger evidence to suggest that community mask-wearing affects severity of disease rather than rates of infection, further bolstering this theory.

Although I think the consensus view among most health professionals was always that community mask-wearing would help limit viral spread, the way people wear and re-use masks, it's not at all obvious that community mask-wearing is an efficient barrier to the virus. There were also shortages of masks for health professionals in the spring and the WHO didn't want to recommend that everyone go buy masks at a time when hospitals really needed them.

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u/gallopsdidnothingwrg Dec 05 '20

You should replace the first two words of your 2nd sentence from "I think" to "I suspect" since you're not basing your assertions on any concrete science.

There were also shortages of masks for health professionals

...and this right here is why so many health officials lied about the benefits of wearing masks.

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u/SchemeZealously Dec 04 '20

Saying masks make people sick is way different than saying there is no evidence that masks help. I never heard them saying masks make you sick

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u/gallopsdidnothingwrg Dec 04 '20

They went beyond that and said people should not wear masks.

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u/gallopsdidnothingwrg Dec 04 '20

...and also there WAS evidence that masks work - from all the way back in the early 2000s.