I have to say that I’m concerned about unintended consequences due to the specific language in this bill.
The line that defines misinformation is as follows:
The “contemporary scientific consensus” on many issues (including some aspects of Covid- remember health officials early on saying not to mask?) is not always correct, and can change over time. But someone needs to be the first to point out when they think the consensus is wrong.
Deliberately spreading false and dangerous information for grift is one thing, but there needs to be a way for well-meaning, smart people to dissent from “the contemporary scientific consensus” from time to time.
In research, yes. In clinical practice? There is a pathway for “dissenting from contemporary scientific consensus” - start a clinical study. Don’t do research on patients without consent over a hunch.
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FFfffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuck:
A 471-day COVID-19 case reveals how the coronavirus mutates. Over ~15 months, at least three genetically distinct versions of the virus had rapidly evolved inside the patient (a person in their 60s with a history of cancer), the team’s analyses suggested.
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Would you have been ok with a doctor in February of 2020 getting disciplined for telling a patient “look, I know this is counter to what the CDC is saying, but based on what I know about this respiratory virus I still recommend wearing a mask if you’re in a crowded public setting.”?
But that’s not what physicians were advising patients. That’s what the CDC was doing to reserve PPE for healthcare workers. Physicians were advising patients to mask up - consistent with the scientific understanding of respiratory viruses. Especially immunocompromised patients. So you’re creating a phantom issue there. The CDC did what it did not for scientific reasons, but public health reasons. Individual physicians followed the science and made their recommendations based on what was best for their patients.
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In February of 2020 any physician giving that advice would have been directly opposed to what the US Surgeon General was saying. And he wasn’t just saying it was to conserve masks, he was explicitly saying it wouldn’t help. So maybe the Surgeon General was the one on the wrong side of the contemporary scientific consensus but someone would have been running afowl of that law.
The masks that people were buying/making back then weren’t very good at preventing transmission, and there were simply not enough N95s or their equivalents (such as KN95s) for even medical professionals at that point, so they weren’t available for the average person to get a hold of.
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That’s essentially what I wrote. There was no science behind that, just public policy.
I was there - guaranteed no one was getting into a hospital without a mask. You couldn’t even walk in the door without a mask and having your temperature taken.
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That is not what we were faced with. N95s were in critically short supply and we were counseling people to leave those for ICUs and EDs. Cloth masks are less effective. The guidelines had nothing to do with science, but with supply.
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So much this. We do a lot of diy stuff, so always have a box of n-95 masks in the workshop and they turned into gold, basically. The shelves at the local hardware stores were stripped empty of masks for months.
Thinking back to the empty shelves, there and at the grocery stores, I can kind of understand why people who aren’t paying much attention can think everything’s gotten back to “normal.” They don’t see the sick people, they see the restocked shelves.
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It is way too easy to forget how desperate the situation was back then (2 year ago in Covid years is roughly a generation, I am guessing.) We were issued 1 mask, told to make it last because we didn’t know when we could get more. Our whole office was allotted 9. Not 9 cases, not 9 boxes, but 9 masks. We stretched those for a month. I can tell you, they get truly groady and hard to breath through after a couple weeks. Manufacturing ramped up to meet demand and I now have a box on my desk and can change masks every day. What luxury!
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And those of us who were making masks quickly found that stores were running out of elastic. It was bonkers
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Possibly available by Monday, but I expect a week is more realistic. Counting down!
ETA: Fully expect right wing rage over “experimental vaccines” and “only tested in mice.” Fuck them.
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This was also February of 2020, which was pretty early stages of the pandemic. I distinctly recall that around this time there was still a lack of understanding around just how the virus spread with much of the focus being on fomites and direct contact as modes of transmission. Once it was widely understood to also be spread through aerosol droplets, the public health stance changed pretty quickly. (And that also began all the stupidity around politicizing masks and such.)
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My COVID update. It’s day 10 for me. I feel much better but I’m still not well.
I have a never ending deluge of snot and post-nasal drip. I can’t really smell anything but my sense of taste is more or less fine. (I’m guessing this is more a function of congestion than COVID – but we’ll see.) I’m not coughing as much as before, and when I do it’s sometimes productive. I’m still exhausted but my energy is better than before. (About a week ago I went outside to take out the trash and by the time I got back I was exhausted and out of breath.) I still feel like my IQ has been cut in half. My lungs still hurt and it can at times feel like someone’s sitting on my chest. In many ways, I feel like I did when I was recuperating from being sick for over a month with pneumonia – just on a much more compressed scale. The only OTC medication I’m taking right now is a nightly Robitussin (guaifenesin and dextromethorphan) before going to bed to help reduce the chances I’ll wake up at 3AM to have a coughing fit.
As of this morning, I’m still testing positive but it’s now just a ghost in the “T”, so I’m expecting when I take my next test this weekend it will be clear. It will be nice to not have to wear a mask around the house anymore.
I’ll definitely be getting the upcoming omicron booster as soon as I can. These past couple of weeks have fucking SUCKED and I want to avoid going through this again. (Hell, I would have gotten a second booster if I could, but I never met the eligibility requirements so the last vax dose I had was my “one and a half” booster doses in December.)
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I have a mammo in a few weeks. Takes two months at least to get an appt. Gonna have to wait 
Wish they had the little kid one ready. Though we recently got her boosted with the old one. Going to bug my spouse to get his asap.
@ficuswhisperer I hope your recovery speeds up
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Tangentially related - I haven’t gone for my annual check ups since this whole mess started. Finally called early last month to schedule one and the first opening is March 8.
Anyone who thinks things are “back to normal” is seriously not paying attention.
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Crikey, I better call my GP and get in line while I still have the good insurance.
That’s a crazy “how far out do you schedule for annuals” timeline.
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