SIO293: Did The CDC Screw Up?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 293. I'm Thomas and with me as always is Dr. Lindsey Osterman. How are you doing, Lindsey?

0:00:38 Lindsey: Wonderful. Couldn't be better. 'Cuz I'm vaccinated.

0:00:41 Thomas: Excellent. Yeah, me too.

0:00:43 Lindsey: I went maskless so much today.

0:00:43 Thomas: Congrats. Yeah?

0:00:46 Lindsey: No.

0:00:47 Thomas: No? Oh.

0:00:50 Lindsey: Well, not, not in, you know, public indoor spaces. That's just me, though.

0:00:52 Thomas: I Well, we'll have to talk all about that because there's also a lot of stuff being written about like women don't want to give up their mask because of catcalling. And I'm like, yeah, fair enough. But that's not what we're talking about today. We've got to talk about the CDC's new guidelines because I really wanted to get Lindsay's take on the science behind this and what's going on, because I've seen people on the left arguing about this.

This is something that feels like a very hot button issue. And it's not just, OK, you got Trumpers and then you got people on the left. You know, it's that doesn't seem to be that, you know, it doesn't seems to be science deniers versus people who like science. It seems to me that there's good faith. Well, there's plenty of bad faith, but there always is. But there's a good faith arguments kind of on either side of the CDC announcement. And I really am interested to try to evaluate this in a fair minded way and see if we can come to any conclusions or at least talk through the arguments. So why don't you take us through it? What happened and why?

0:01:30 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:01:53 Lindsey: Okay. So I read their science brief document, which contained all the evidence and arguments and justification for this change in guidelines. And this is from the beginning of that document. So, I think it's worth reading this quote. So they say, "While some prevention measures will continue to be necessary regardless of vaccination status, fully vaccinated people without immunocompromising conditions that may, may reduce their response to vaccination, may be able to engage in some activities with low or reduced risk of acquiring or transmitting COVID-19. The benefits of avoiding disruptions such as unnecessary quarantine and social isolation may outweigh the residual risk of becoming ill with COVID-19 or transmiting the virus to others. The ability of vaccinated people to gradually resume some aspects of normal life will optimize well-being and may help improve vaccine acceptance. Acceptance.

0:02:46 Lindsey: So here's my read on where they are at with the evidence about the vaccines and how this is contributing to spread and why I think they made this decision. And then we can go through any of the evidence they presented a lot in this briefing document.

0:03:01 Thomas: Well, I wasn't sure if it was going to be in there, but just say explicitly, what is the updated guideline? Mean, it is vaccinated people don't have to wear, let's be specific about it, don't have to wearing masks just in case anyone's living on the moon. If you're on the Moon, still wear your helmet, I'm saying. Don't take that off, I think. Pretty sure I'm not a doctor because you might catch COVID if you take it off up there

0:03:05 Lindsey: Oh, sorry. Yes.

0:03:19 Lindsey: No, no, don't do that. Don't do it. It's very true. It is on the moon.

0:03:24 Thomas: Yeah. So yeah, what specifically, what are the guideline changes?

0:03:30 Lindsey: So the the specific update to the guidelines was that people who are vaccinated are no longer advised that they have to wear masks in basically any public space.

0:03:42 Thomas: For doctor's offices?

0:03:43 Lindsey: Yeah, right. And if they long care, that's right, air travel, if they work in like, I think they said like long-term care facilities and things like that, then it's still advised. But like going to the store, going out to restaurants, all that kind of stuff is sort of open. And they, you know, they put in some language about this being at the discretion of local vendors and things like that. But the CDC stance on it is that vaccinated people don't have to mask in those situations or socially distance or anything like that. I think, based on my reading of this information, I think that this change in recommendations is coming out of two places. One is that they feel comfortable saying that they've accumulated enough evidence at this point in terms of the effectiveness of the vaccines, as well as they have some more preliminary evidence about its effectiveness in reducing viral load and other things that are important in reducing spread to others.

0:03:44 Thomas: Uh, air travel I think yeah gotcha

0:04:39 Lindsey: And that because the evidence is at the place where it is with the vaccine, they want to make a strong, clear recommendation about this that communicates to people their confidence in the vaccines. And also, I think, provides an additional incentive for people to get vaccinated. Because, again, for our moon listeners, the United States, yeah, yeah.

0:05:01 Thomas: Big on the moon, lots of downloads, I checked yeah

0:05:03 Lindsey: I love the moon. It's

0:05:04 Thomas: To get wifi up there, but you know,

0:05:07 Lindsey: Tough. Yeah. Well, I mean, we can because we got our 5G hotspot thing going on. Yeah. But So for anybody who's on the moon, right, our vaccine acceptance in the U.S. has not been awesome. Them. And so I think that this is a strategy that they're applying to try to persuade people to get vaccinated.

0:05:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. You know, because a while back when the vaccine first came out and people were getting it, it did seem like there was a lot of really dire messaging and like, don't change anything. You're vaccinated. Your life doesn't change. Continue to do everything. And there was, I think, and again, this is the kind of stuff I'm not going to even, we're not, I don't think we're here to even really acknowledge or talk about the anti-science COVID denying side. So I'm not really talking about those people, but like good faith people are thinking, look, this vaccine is incredible. The numbers are better than what we even thought it could possibly be.

Why are we bumming people out by saying like nothing's even going to change at a time when we really need people to be excited about the vaccine and to to get it? So I I see that as a very valid endeavor, at least to say nothing of the of how of whether or not this will work. I at least very much understand the motivation to be like, hey, get excited about the fact that we have this miracle medicine that now anybody can get, 12 you and up, like it's available. We have enough that anybody who wants it can get it now and supply is not an issue.

0:05:35 Lindsey: That's right.

0:05:57 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:06:27 Lindsey: No, I totally get that. And I do think that that's a big part of the rationale. And hopefully that will work. And they actually cited some evidence that it might work. They had apparently, I don't know if they directly commissioned this, but KFF.org, which is the Kaiser Family Foundation, apparently no affiliation with Kaiser Permanente or anything, but they're a, yeah, that's what they say on their website anyway, but it's like a nonprofit that focuses on data collection and analysis on things related to public health, and they did a survey on vaccine hesitancy and enthusiasm as a function of demographics, as well as, and this was one of the key things that they cited here and making this change of the guidelines, they had self-reports among people who are not yet vaccinated on what would increase their willingness to get a vaccine.

And so here's a quote based on that KFF.org report. So they say, quote, leading reasons cited by U.S. adults for us adults for intending to be vaccinated include being able to return to more normal life, feeling safe around other people, and resuming activities like going to work or school. Although it remains unknown which of these incentives would achieve the greatest increases in vaccination, information about activities that fully vaccinated people can safely undertake must be communicated in a clear and unambiguous fashion.

0:06:47 Thomas: Oh, really? Oh, OK. I would have assumed it was the same. I didn't know that.

0:07:48 Lindsey: And so, yeah, my read on it is that they, again, they have enough confidence based on the evidence that's currently collected about the effectiveness of the vaccines to be able to justify the statement about vaccinated people being able to go maskless in public. And yeah, they think that this might be persuasive and upping our vaccination rates in the US.

0:08:08 Thomas: It's important to say and don't let me put words into your mouth, but let me know what you think. Think it seems important to say, setting everything aside for a minute, all the political and incentive reasons for this, the science says it is safe for vaccinated people to be maskless in these situations. And as far as your read, I know with the caveats that you are not Anthony Fauci, but your reads on the studies suggest that that is backed up by the science.

0:08:24 Lindsey: Yes, absolutely.

0:08:39 Thomas: Okay. Well, that's great. I'm excited about that.

0:08:40 Lindsey: Yeah. And they, yeah. And I, you know, I don't know how much you want to go into these details, but they, they cite evidence from a range of different study types. They've done studies on like these things called animal challenge studies. So these are just like tightly controlled lab experiments with animal models where they do that unethical study that we talked about with the COVID gas chamber, essentially.

0:09:02 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:09:03 Lindsey: Like, yeah, so they vaccinate some, give a placebo to others, and then they give them a COVID exposure. And so this is like, again, it's an animal model. These aren't human trials, but they're very tightly controlled studies that can give you a really good sense of what the effectiveness of the vaccines are, you know, when somebody's actually exposed, which is something you can't get from these human trials. So they've got strong evidence coming from there. They have strong evidence come from, you know, placebo-controlled randomized trials with humans. We talked about some of those last time. They have data from performance in real-world settings.

So these are not randomized placebo- controlled trials, but they're evaluations of COVID incidents in vaccinated versus unvaccinated individuals in sort of a more naturalistic way. They've done these studies in, you know, general populations and healthcare workers. So the point is, right, like they have actually amassed a pretty impressive amount of evidence using a variety of methodologies at this point. And yeah, I'm totally, I feel theoretically comfortable saying that if I went maskless in public at this point, I would not be putting myself at elevated risk, and I don't think I'd be putting others in elevated risk.

0:09:03 Thomas: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:10:12 Thomas: Well, that was the thing I was just going to ask, because my main worry, when I got vaccinated was, well, do I still need to be really worried that like, OK, I'm not going to get it or I'm likely not going to have symptoms even. But can I be an asymptomatic carrier as a vaccinated person? Have you gotten a sense of that evidence and how how worried or not worried we need to be about that.

0:10:27 Lindsey: Right. So this evidence is preliminary, and they made sure to qualify it that way. But they do have preliminary evidence from some trials that looks very promising, indicating that these vaccines are highly effective at reducing asymptomatic infection. And they also have preliminary evidenced indicating that viral load is lower, and they've got that from both those controlled animal studies and from from human data, so, like, yeah, the virus replication and, like, the the upper and and lower respiratory tracks seems to be significantly lower as a function of of getting the vaccine, and that's, they think, is is good preliminary evidence of, you know, one factor that should reduce transmissibility. Yeah.

0:11:16 Thomas: Okay. So all of that sounds awesome. I'm super excited about it, but I do want to try to give a good faith representation that I'm genuinely unsure about, you know, on the other side of this, which is this was too early to do this. What I have seen is when you're saying vaccinated people can go maskless, the reaction is going to be, OK, therefore, we're not going to since we don't have some like advanced vaccine passport system set up. We don't even have an app. We just have these stupid cards that are, you know, I get it. It was a pandemic. It was an emergency situation. They're not even wallet sized. Like it's a very bad, it's not a good, you know, it'S not great, but whatever.

0:11:57 Lindsey: They're Not even Laminated, sure.

0:12:01 Thomas: They're not limited. They're not wallet sized or not anything. I get it. It was an emergency. It was very short notice, but you know that's where we are. So therefore, what'S going to happen is businesses, states, localities, whatever whatever it is, they're going to say, well, honor system. And we all know there's a whole lot of people without honor to make that system work. And therefore, people will still be in danger. And furthermore, I want to make sure I'm trying to get all of this, because I think it's valid worries. You know, people under 12, I think my view, based on what I've read, is that children under 12 are largely safe, and especially very young children seem to be very safe. Safe, like, the numbers are pretty minuscule. Yes, obviously some hundreds of children have died.

I think I try to look at the numbers, the latest numbers, and at a certain age range it's like 600, you know, and and yeah, like, any any child death gets, is really scary to me as a parent, and you're like, oh my God, that means kids could die. But it's like, if you look at the numbers, kids can die of all kinds of things, and like, relatively speaking,

0:12:05 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

0:13:05 Thomas: They're very safe. You, but anyway, there's... there's that concern that, like, Okay, because we're going to do this honor system, what's going to happen is I've got my 10 year old, my 11 year old, whatever it may be. And I got to go to the store, and the store is going to say honor system. And that means there's going to be a whole lot of people not vaccinated, not wearing masks, breathing with their disgusting faces all over the store. And I think that's a, that, that seems to be the good faith critique. I hope I've done a good job of representing those arguments because I do want to deal with them in good faith. Apologies if I've left off any other concerns that people have. What do you make of that?

0:13:23 Lindsey: That Honestly That is my biggest concern, I... I think that that putting the the burden on businesses to enforce this or not, is a pretty big logistical problem. I mean, wearing a mask is visible, whether or not somebody's vaccinated isn't. And it, yeah, I mean that's, I guess, yeah. So my concern is that, like, the vast majority of people who have already gotten vaccinated are people who have been taking this seriously. I doubt that a huge, I think that this change in guidelines is is less likely to change their behavior than it is to change the behavior of people who haven't been taking this seriously, have already been giving, you know, trouble about masks and things like that, right? I have a feeling that, like, they're going to be the ones to take advantage of the system. And I do think it's possible that that creates a problem with more spread. So, yeah, I mean, okay.

0:13:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:38 Thomas: Okay. Well, then here's where I've been, because I've been going back and forth over this in my mind to really try to figure out how I feel about it. So I suppose if you share that concern, maybe I'll try to respond to that, because in defense of the CDC, they did not say anything about that. They said vaccinated people can go maskless. It's no part of their guidelines or their authority or anything that says, therefore, do an honor system. I think it's I think, a legitimate criticism to say this is a logical consequence of that. But when I was doing the numbers, I mean, yes, states have relaxed their mask mandates.

27 states never even had any mask mandates of any kind. 27. So I guess that gives you an indication, yeah, of like how much the CDC matters exactly, like in terms of these bad actors. Maybe it didn't really even matter. If 27 states had no mask mandate. Now, it may have mattered to businesses. We've seen stuff about certain businesses are relaxing their mandates and are going going to use an honor system thing. And I do, I do think that's a problem. Here's where I come back to and why I, I think I'm like, you know, 60, 40 on this decision. Like I really am kind of going either way. I think I'm 60,40 in favor of the CDC right now.

And I'll tell you why, because I think with all those concerns, which are very legitimate, the CDC might be thinking, you know in addition to the balancing the the harms and the goods of, you maybe getting more people to be vaccinated. The CDC might be thinking, look, vital that we have the public's trust on the science.

0:15:06 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, that's astounding. That's good point.

0:16:21 Thomas: And in a close case, why not just say what the science is? It would be weird. It Might be more harmful to be like, "Nope, still got to wear your mask," and then have a bunch of people who will be rightly... Imagine if this had gone the other way and a bunch of people rightly said, "What are you talking about? Look at all these studies.

I don't have to wear a mask if I'm vaccinated, this is ridiculous, like this is why I got vaccinated, like I don't, you know, etc, etc," and then you would have the CDC in the kind of unscientific position of having to say like, "Yeah, but you know, these other concerns." I, I think that it's close, it's very close.

Like I like I said, I might be 60 40 but I think in a close case, erring on the side of saying we are saying that the science says this thing, that the scientist says not wearing a mask when you're vaccinated is safe. And then saying like, we're not telling you to reduce these, to get rid of these mask mandates. They've explicitly said, we have told nobody to do that. So that's kind of where I see, like, I, if you run the thought experiment of what if they just kept this position and, in the face of all these good faith people saying like what, you know, the science is, this is safe and had to be defending that, that that might ultimately definitely be more harmful in the long run to the CDC's reputation. So I don't know. That's kind of where I sit with it. What do you think?

0:16:27 Lindsey: Yeah? Yeah.

0:17:38 Lindsey: I agree. I think that this, I get that point, right? I think that this does send a very clear message about their position on the current state of the science. And because the CDC has been so conservative in terms of rolling out these sort of, you know, more relaxed recommendations, I think it says a lot that they're there. And so yeah, if the effect of this is is to increase confidence in the vaccines and more people do end up getting vaccinated because of that, either because of the incentive or because they are getting this clear message that the science really is there and these really are effective, then great. I hope this does have that effect.

0:17:52 Thomas: Hmm.

0:18:20 Lindsey: Maybe you're right. Maybe it's true that these logistical concerns should be addressed elsewhere and that this isn't the thing that should go into CDC guidelines. But I don't know, oh, it's public health recommendation. I don't know.

0:18:26 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the best pushback is like it's not just about, you know, quote unquote, what the science says about the disease. It's also about public health. I think that's the best counter argument, I guess, what I would root for, and maybe we'll still see, or maybe we have seen on some on local levels, I don't know, is I would, I would love Biden to say, like, look, we still recommend that, like because of the public health concerns here, that businesses and states don't drop their mask mandates and don't rely on an honor system because we don't have enough people vaccinated yet. We're around, what, 40% have had both doses in two weeks, I think.

0:19:12 Thomas: And higher percentages at least one dose. And by the way, as part of the studies, what I've seen is that one dose is like, I don't know, of some of these is like 80, 87, in the 80 range I've seen. So one dose matters quite a bit. But anyway, I would love that. Some recommendation recommendation that like, don't rely on the honors. Here's what I'd love to see just on a business to business level is if you have the resources, the, the staff to be checking vaccine cards or whatever, then do that. And people who are vaccinated don't have to wear a mask. That's a, that would be a cool incentive that you would see at a, at a local level. You'd like, I go to the store, you know, I'm able to just flash my little card and then I don't have to wear a mask. That would be like

0:19:11 Lindsey: That sounds right. Yeah, it

0:19:59 Thomas: A cool perk that I think would motivate people to get vaccinated if you don't. But I get that like businesses, you know, that's a lot, that's a lot stress to put on businesses. So I'd say if you can't do that, then have a mask policy. You know, like if you can't ensure that somebody you got a bouncer or whatever, if you can't, you know, ensure any kind of actual confirmation, then just stick with the safe option, which is a mask. Worst case scenario is you got to wear a piece of cloth on your face. It's not that hard. And I would be all for that. Like as a vaccinated person, I'd like, oh, cool. I can show my thing. Probably still would wear my mask anyway, because I whatever I don't, you know, it's it strikes me is not that difficult and it might help and it could prevent the flu as well, you know. Like all these

0:20:07 Lindsey: Is. Yeah.

0:20:42 Lindsey: Yeah?

0:20:42 Thomas: Other things. So I might still do it. But, you know, maybe I wouldn't want to in a given, you know, if it's in California, it 110 degrees, you know, maybe I would want to like, all right, I have the chance to take it off in this situation. Might be nice. That's kind of what I would like to see. Like, don't, it's somebody high up saying, this is absolutely true that you're safe if you're, if you are vaccinated, but we can't rely on the honor system because there are too many people are unvaccinated and it will put too many, you know, people who can't get vaccinated at risk. That's what I want to see,

0:20:54 Lindsey: Yeah. I Like that. Yeah, my only worry would be about how many places wouldn't be able to do that. But you're right. If they can't, and they just maintain a mask policy, then we're in kind of the same position we were before, so I don't know

0:21:23 Thomas: Yeah. And I want to note that like even California, you know, blue state was scheduled. They already had scheduled to get rid of the mask mandate June 15th anyway. So it's it's hard. I don't, you know, I don't know if you're trying to give like a very objective account of what effect the CDC policy has, because they should know I don't think that the CDC policy, they're not like the, don't, I don't think they can even make a state do anything. I think it's just guidelines.

0:21:25 Lindsey: Oh Wow. Yeah.

0:21:54 Thomas: And I think that's as evidenced by the fact that 27 states never even had a mask policy. So it's not as though this is ironclad. Now, that's not to say that it doesn't affect decisions. And I'm sure that this led to mask mandates being lifted ahead of schedule, possibly. It would be interesting to try to evaluate, like, what effect that would have had. It would be difficult, but, you know, but I think that a lot of this was going to happen anyway, so perhaps the cost isn't as dire as maybe people are making it out to be. I don't know. It's hard to say.

0:21:55 Lindsey: Yep. Yeah.

0:22:27 Lindsey: No, I mean, I, I genuinely hadn't considered it from that perspective, so my percentage is moving, but

0:22:35 Thomas: I don't know. It's it's it's tough.

0:22:38 Lindsey: You know, there was one detail here, this is like a very small part of it, but there was one detail in this that that I was a little bit curious about, and it was the, the asymmetry in in the travel guidance. So they were saying that travelers who are leaving from the US don't need to get vaccinated, or don't, sorry, don't need to get tested if they've been vaccinated before they get on a flight, essentially. But people who are coming into the US from abroad are required to have a negative test regardless of whether they've vaccinated.

0:23:10 Lindsey: And I, yeah, I thought that was kind of a strange asymmetry. I wasn't sure. They don't elaborate on why they make different recommendations for people coming in versus leaving

0:23:10 Thomas: That's weird. Is Yeah. I mean, who knows with bureaucracies, like what's going on there? If somebody else gets to make that decision, you know, like if some other agency is in charge of the incoming people. And so therefore, yeah. Who knows with vast bureaucracys? Or is it as simple as we don't have the same vaccine cards like we don't you know, is it is it something like that? Like how do you verify every country's different vaccine card that they might have? I don't know. I'm just speculating. I'm not sure. But you know, one thing I did want to say too is I saw some, some kind of hyperbolic stuff online that I just think is so funny that we always do this, know, I've, because I am in support of a vaccine passport thing. And I think, I think we need to

0:23:20 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:23:33 Lindsey: That may be, yeah, it could be big time Yeah.

0:24:04 Thomas: Do that. And I think that you would have to have exemptions for medical purposes. Like I don't if somebody medically can't get a vaccine, I don't obviously don't want them to be restricted from doing all kinds of things. But like people, you know, and people chirp at me like, oh, it's like papers, please. You Know, like it's some sort of, you. And it's it's funny that we have to be that hyperbolic. Like no, it's either you have to put a piece of cloth on your face or not. Like, we require IDs to get into all kinds of places.

That's not Nazi Germany because you require an ID to get somewhere like this. It's it's amazing that we always have to go there if it's like kind of like a thing, then therefore we're Nazis. It's so stupid. Like, it's a very important public health, health concern, like a vitally important one. So worst case scenario is you can't get vaccinated, or you forget your card or whatever. Like, OK, then you have to wear a mask. That's not that bad of a worst case scenario. It's it's staggering that we can't do something like that. I really wish we could.

0:24:23 Lindsey: Yeah. Right. Yeah. So that, that particular criticism, is that mostly coming from from people who are, you know, sort of aligned on on other progressive issues?

0:25:15 Thomas: I don't I don't know. I'm not sure what to make of this concern. I think I'm seeing a lot of people on the left who are very mad at the CDC about this. And I don't know, you know, I'm not sure what's going on there. It could just be differences in terms of how people have felt about danger during this, how they've perceived it. I think there could be, I'm not trying to poison the well, I think there could be a certain amount of, you know, Trump was identified with vaccine know, COVID denial and doing the wrong things.

And so therefore, identity, political identity might have gotten tied to that in some cases, you know, where it's like people want to identify as anti-Trump and as left by being extra cautious about the pandemic, which is totally fine in my book. Like there's not really, especially personally, like what blows my mind is all the IDW types trying to make a big deal about people still wearing masks. That is the biggest, biggest fucking garbage waste of time I've ever seen. How much are these people struggling for victimhood if their server wearing a mask in a restaurant is like a thing they write? This is real. Like that guy

0:25:45 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Oh

0:26:26 Thomas: Wrote a article about his trying to like argue his server into not wearing a mask anymore at a restaurant. Like, are you kidding me? Like, that's what you're concerned about, that you're somebody who has to work in a place that's public facing where they're going see all kinds of people, and maybe they aren't even vaccinated themselves. I don't know. Like you're going to argue that person like, take off your mask. It's amazing. I think they are grasping for victimhood and trying to find it wherever. And this whole mask thing has been a place where some people, you know, on the IDW or in the right are like, there was such a great tweet when Biden finally, after this announcement, he came to the podium without a mask and they're like the long Republican nightmare is over.

It's like, yeah, that's your, that's your Republican nightmare, is you saw someone wearing a mask. It's nothing. Anyway, I know that was a tangent, but I, I just, there's a lot of dumb stuff around this, but, I think, there's a lot of very legitimate concern, and I don't mean to downplay that people are worried, like, I don't want my kids to, you know, if I'm taking them to the grocery store, whatever it is, I don't, or, or if I'm immunocompromised, I don't want them to be exposed. And I think that perhaps, you know, keeping masks on them will help. I've also seen that the CDC is recommending masks in schools still.

Like, they haven't dropped that recommendation. So, I, I think I get it. I think I'm still about 60-40 in favor of CDC, but, but that's a significant 40. Like that's, I maybe this was mishandled. Maybe it could have been, you know, perhaps on a messaging level, could have done better, could have coordinated better. I think that's definitely legitimate criticism.

0:26:26 Lindsey: Yeah. Yep. Right.

0:27:10 Lindsey: Jesus. Yeah, right.

0:28:07 Lindsey: Yeah, I think some acknowledgement of the logistical problems here could have been a good idea, or as you said, like, making some kind of recommendation that, that you know, could, could be relevant or helpful to business owners as they're trying to fight with customers about this, right? I mean, I read a bunch, bunch of like local news stories where they were interviewing like restaurant owners and things like that who seemed to have, like, some, some pretty serious concerns because they were getting pushback even during mask mandates, and and that they were, you know, leaning heavily on these CDC guidelines and things to, to sort of argue back with people, right? And that, with those gone, that it may, it may make those, those kinds of conversations even more difficult, um, so I don't know, I get that

0:28:13 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, sure. Yeah? No,

0:28:51 Lindsey: Sure

0:28:52 Thomas: I hear you. I think that it's still there's absolutely nothing that is telling a business they can't still have a mask mandate. In fact, the CDC has said that explicitly. I get that it Yeah, it does make it harder to argue. This is what I guess my like plan of action thing would be. Try to appeal like if you're very concerned about this, which, you know, again, I think is legitimate. Try to appeal to that local level states or even cities or whatever it is at that that level. You can still have mask mandates. There's nothing in the CDC guideline that restricts that unless Unless you live in a state like Texas where they're like banning them because Republicans are fucking terrible. Like

0:28:59 Lindsey: Sure. Yep, very true. Yep. Are you

0:29:33 Thomas: They're actually. Oh, Texas Governor Greg Abbott banned mask mandates in public schools and local governments. It's banned it so decided not you can't even do your own thing, which is a very Republican thing. Yeah, the state has to tell everybody, even schools and businesses and and towns, you know, like small towns, sorry, we're telling you you can't even do this, like it's not just, it's up to you, it's nope, you're not even allowed to have a mask mandate, which is absolutely stupid, but

0:29:33 Lindsey: Kidding? Cool.

0:30:04 Lindsey: Yeah, that's nuts.

0:30:05 Thomas: That was happening regardless. Maybe this made that a little bit worse, but like I said, 27 states already didn't have mask mandates. So I think the really shitty Republican-led states, and when I say shitty, I'm talking about the Republican leaders of these states, not the actual fine people who live in these states. With anti-science, anti-life Republican governors and such who want to get people killed from COVID. I think that was priced in like that was going to happen regardless and was already happening regardless. So I don't know. Yeah, I'm sort of still unsure where I land.

I think I stick to that 60 40 ratio with some healthy criticism for how this was undertaken and how it was done. But I just think I still think the converse would have been tough, you know, where they had to be arguing, like, against the science, saying, no, vaccinated people definitely still wear masks. I think that over time, you know, maybe not tomorrow, maybe next week, but like over time that would have really started to wear on people and and have gotten even good science minded people to distrust the CDC. So, yeah, that's kind of where I where I stand on it.

0:30:23 Lindsey: Right? Yeah. Yeah.

0:31:19 Lindsey: Like I said, you're winning me over. I think the first thing that jumped out at me about the change to the guidance was the logistical issue. But yeah, yeah, I think maybe that was an uninspected concern in some ways.

And also, I don't, I don't believe this, but one thing that occurred to me when I was trying to generate like some potential positive effects beyond the obvious ones, is that like, I wonder if there's some subset of people who are super mad about the sort of top-down approach to the mandates that might, like, and I know that the CDC doesn't issue these directly or whatever, but I wondered if that, if the fact that the CDC is issuing these guidelines, and so any guidance that does come, or any any mandates that do come, are like coming from the bottom up, from local businesses, um, I just, I wondered if that might change some of the psychological reactants that some people were displaying, and like, maybe not, um, but I know that a lot of people at least said that they were super mad about this because, you know, the government or whatever was telling them what to do and they didn't want to be told what to do. I don't don't think I believe that that's actually going to be a change we see, but it seemed possible.

0:32:24 Thomas: Just think for the record, everybody should do, every state needs to do what Ohio did and just do cash lottery prizes for vaccination like honestly, and like do more of them. You know, I don't know what the budget looks like. I, I know that California has an incredible budget surplus right now, that's big news in California, like billions and billions in budget surplus. Plus, I don't know what your budgets are, other states, but like do a hundred thousand dollar prizes, do more, you know, twenty hundred thousand dollar prizes as opposed to two million dollar. You know, like that's serious money that will incentivize people to get vaccinated. I really think it's like one of those behavioral science things where it's, if you add up the money it would cost to use those incentives for the reward, like how many people you'll actually get, I bet you it's better than almost anything else that governments are going to spend stupid money on, like going forward. Yeah.

0:32:31 Lindsey: Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:33:17 Lindsey: I totally agree with it. I'll get, I'll Get another vaccine if they start doing that. Do you get, do you get extra entries if you get more vaccines?

0:33:21 Thomas: Yeah I want, yeah, who's, I want to break the record for most vaccine, does it could it, does it hurt you, like, you're already, I don't know, maybe I should, no, nobody should get extra vaccines, but like, doesn't hurt you, I don't, yeah yeah

0:33:29 Lindsey: I don't know. We should follow. Well, we should volunteer for some early trials about like how what the tolerance is for for extra vaccines. That would be fun.

0:33:44 Thomas: Well I think we've left ourselves enough time to talk about the Wuhan lab leak thingy. I alerted you to this because I saw Brett Weinstein doing numerous victory laps. Was that safe to describe it that way? Numerous victory laps and like, okay, I want to, again, in the principle of charity, in the spirit of charity, there was a, well, why don't you tell us what happened with this letter, or this whatever it was, this article that kind of went out about the lab leak theory

0:34:17 Lindsey: So, yes, there was an open letter published in Science magazine. And that's, you know, one of the top respected, like cross disciplinary scientific journals. And it was an open letter signed on to, I think, 16 scientists that called for more investigation into the origins of COVID-19, and suggested that not enough evidence had yet been collected to definitively rule out the lab leak hypothesis or to overwhelmingly support the natural zoological spillover hypotheses. There's actually several of those. And so Brett saw this, and as you said, from looking at his tweets about this, you would think that what the letter said was was that they had some sort of like positive evidence for this or, you know, that something new had come out that completely vindicated his position all along that this was a –

0:35:03 Thomas: Yeah yeah he went into not just like, oh, look at this mode, he went into like, it's time to collect the names of the people who said it wasn't a lab leak and like I'm not even joking, like that's how we determine who's been like giving accurate information, blah blah blah, because he's so far into the victory lap mode of this, when really it seems like the letter said, what, essentially, I think, I want to give you credit, when I asked you about the lab leak hypothesis, I believe your words were, there isn't evidence of that, you know it wasn't, I don't know if you said that there were markers that were absent, and I don't want to touch on what you said and clarify, right

0:35:21 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes. I would like to add to that because – so what I was actually referencing was the WHO report or was a summary of the WHO rapport. And that's specifically the investigation that this letter in Science was critiquing. And so I think it's actually worth talking about this a little bit. So it appears to me, and boy, I tried to read as much of the original report on the WHO investigation as I could, but boy, that is, I am out of my depth with this. But I read, there's a section at the end where they're sort of summarizing, like, the evidence for each of these different hypotheses about where the pandemic could have started. They do seem to give a lot less space to the lab leak hypothesis, hypothesis, and what the letter said was that based on the evidence provided in this report, we don't think that, like, we have enough information to actually evaluate their conclusion that the lab leak hypothesis is very unlikely.

0:35:59 Thomas: Okay sure okay

0:36:58 Lindsey: So they were essentially saying like you made they made this very strong conclusion we're not seeing the evidence there that actually supports courtship. And reading between the lines a little bit in this letter, I think that some of the concern stems from perceptions of like possible conflicts of interest, because the WHO collaborated with, you know, this group of Chinese scientists. And I think this, again, I'm, I're reading into this a little bit, but I, there's a there's statement in the letter that says something about like, we need a full investigation that's transparent, and that like takes measures to prevent conflicts of interest and things like that, and so, yeah, so that's that's my read on this, but here's here's what they weren't saying, they were not saying that they saw any positive evidence for the lab escape hypothesis, and they aren't even clearly advocating for it, like their their statement again is that they found the investigation insufficient to evaluate this conclusion.

0:37:15 Thomas: Sure right yeah Yeah. Very different than saying, oh, we found a genetic marker that India has. Actually, if you zoom in, it has Fauci's face on it because he authorized the, you know, the gain of function research. And he's like, ah, gotcha. I give a zoom all the way into the DNA. Yeah, it's not that.

0:38:10 Lindsey: Yeah. No, it's not that. But reading this, I mean, it did kind of make me question what I thought I knew about this discussion. And so I tried to go back and get a better sense of what the back and forth has been about these hypotheses. And from what I can gather, this is how the conversation has progressed about this. So nearer to the beginning of the pandemic, scientists were weighing incomplete evidence that could bear on the the origins of the virus, but wouldn't necessarily be definitive in and of themselves.

And it seemed like a lot of these scientists seemed to think, based on that preliminary evidence, that the evidence was more consistent with the virus being naturally occurring, as opposed to being from a lab, right? And from the things I was reading, I was not seeing a lot strong statements like, we should stop investigating the origins right now, because I already know I'm right, even though I don't have all the data. Like, I wasn't seeing a whole lot of that. It sounded like scientists, scientists were making probability judgments based on admittedly incomplete evidence, right? And most of them seem to fall on the side of the virus being naturally occurring, right. And then there was a few who thought that the lab leak hypothesis had more credibility, and people were publishing papers about this.

So then, I think it was in February of this year that the WHO report came out, and they had done this like much larger, more extensive investigation into the virus's origins, and these, these scientists read it and saw that it contained this very strong statement that didn't seem to be reported, and so then they published this letter calling for more investigation that

0:38:19 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm.

0:39:41 Lindsey: Could justify a statement that was that strong, right? And so, like, I think that Brett sees this as like this group of rebels that are like courageously standing up for, for truth against this like tide of ideological anti-science activists, but like I don't, I don't see that happening here, right? I

0:39:59 Thomas: Yeah, I think they are seeing, you What might be happening to give them the most credit is maybe the Twitter personalities or the journalists or whoever it is, the journalists online who have bashed the lab leak hypothesis as total crackpot, nuttery, whatever. I suppose it's valid to say not so fast on that. However, that is miles different from saying you have any evidence that this is true. Yeah.

0:40:26 Lindsey: That's True, and I also think it's, it's fair to say that a lot of people who were advocating for this were not doing so for particularly good reasons.

0:40:39 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, that's the thing, it's like that's the frustrating part about this game, you know, which is they make, they get to make statements like Dr. Fauci is, might be responsible for the entire pandemic, you know, which, which is not based on anything. And then when the evidence says we haven't, we have no evidence of it, but we haven't totally ruled out the lab leak hypothesis, they do a victory. Like, as though that's at all justified. Like, no, you've been really saying and talking about Brett Weinstein on that episode we broke down, like, really, really shitty, harsh things about Fauci because of this theory that is not proven, disproven. And so you don't get to do a victory lap because it hasn't yet been disproved, slightly, you know, like, you could do a victor lap when you find some fucking evidence for your hypothesis, fine, go ahead.

0:40:42 Lindsey: Right.

0:40:56 Lindsey: Well well Yes, I guess, except that even then, right, this is, he's, he's presenting all of this in the context of this narrative about scientific consensus being like this top-down thing and there being all this pressure for ideological reasons that's shaping the consensus, right? But like this, the fact that this letter is published, right, I feel like it flies in the face of all that, right?

0:41:35 Thomas: Yeah Yeah. True.

0:41:57 Lindsey: This is evidence of that's

0:41:57 Thomas: No. It's a good point, it would still be them presenting a very harmful, dangerous theory with no evidence the whole time, and then maybe getting lucky that there was as evidence or something. It wouldn't be evidence of good faith science done by Weinstein.

0:42:08 Lindsey: How I feel about it No, it's not, I do not, I actually, I watched their appearance on Bill Maher before we recorded the, just to see what they were saying, and like, at least it didn't sound to me like the, the reasons that they were putting forward for their very strong suspicions. Like, Brett in that interview said that he thought it was like 90% likely that it originated in a lab, right?

0:42:16 Thomas: Oh, God. Oh, 90%. Wow. I wonder how he crafted that percentage.

0:42:33 Lindsey: Yeah. Right. And the reasons there, they did not sound legitimate to me. They're not, they don't, they doesn't seem to be following the same line of reasoning that I'm seeing from other people that have been evaluating this evidence from the beginning and looking at, you know, the characteristics of the different virus strains to sort of figure out like, you know, what emerged from what, right? I'm not gonna, I don't know enough about this to talk too much about this, but like all of that said or whatever, if it turns out that COVID leaked from a lab and scientists' positions on this question changes on the basis of evidence, great.

0:42:56 Thomas: Well, yeah.

0:43:09 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:09 Lindsey: That's how science works.

0:43:09 Thomas: I would instantly update my views about this. That's what I was about to say.

0:43:13 Lindsey: 100%. No.

0:43:13 Thomas: Like, there's nothing, you know, it's one thing when we're talking about a debate over like, do spirits exist or like the God of of the Bible. This isn't something that I, you know, there's no scientific reason to be like, abso-fucking-lutely not, this wasn't a lab leak. You know, like just apart from all the, just forget on, I'm talking about like your default position apart, absent any evidence. When it's like psychics or the moon landing being faked, your default position can be like no, that's probably bullshit. Like 99% sure that's bullshit because of all these other things. With this, it's like, yeah, I mean, we covered on the previous episodes like lab leaks do happen.

0:43:35 Lindsey: Yes. Yeah. Yep.

0:43:52 Thomas: It is a scientific possibility. There's nothing paranormal. There's nothing super tinfoil hat about the idea that it could have been a leak. Um, I don't know, there's also every, all kinds of evidence that pandemics are entirely possible through natural means, you know, like just whatever. So like, it's, it sort of like, yeah, Apart from any evidence, your priors should be like, all right, it could be. And then there's no evidence that it is a lab leak, so you can't do a 90 certain that it's a lab leak thing yet. Like, you can't do that. I don't see how that's valid. Hmm.

0:43:55 Lindsey: Yep, yeah. We've got centuries of evidence of that. Yeah, no, no. I felt the same. I mean, the first time that I heard the lab leak hypothesis, I was like, oh, wow. You know, like it was a science versus or something that was, they were trying to sort through the then incomplete evidence about whether this was was viable hypothesis. And going into that episode, I was like, shit, did it leak from a lab? Like I had no stake in what the outcome of that discussion was, but at the time, and it was incomplete evidence that everybody is, you know, being upfront about that. The people who were evaluating the evidence about the virus seemed to think it was more likely that it was natural and origin and that's all my position was based on. Yeah.

0:44:38 Thomas: Yeah right and There's, you know, the fact that like conspiracies are incredibly hard to pull off in real life and like, like nobody, nobody from whatever this lab is, was able to like get out a tweet to be like, oh my God, look what happened or anything like, you know, I'm not saying that's a hundred percent ironclad proof. I'm like, these are things that might lead us toward thinking without any evidence, again, without any firm evidence that it was or wasn't being like, well, I find it a little less likely that it Was a lab leak, you Know, just cause it's cause of these factors.

Like, you know, it's not as though China can totally destroy all information. You like we saw those doctors that like came out early on. We're like, oh, my God, look what's happening this pandemic. And they weren't able to quash all that. So, you who knows? Anyway, the point is, I really would love to know the truth on this. Like, I hope that we because like if that were true, that's going to be the most unbelievable news. News like that is going to rock the entire world. Think about like the international legal claims against China that would happen after

0:45:11 Lindsey: Yeah me too yep oh

0:46:08 Thomas: This like that. We have every interest in trying to know this. And furthermore, like just that in itself, like wouldn't you think a lot of countries would be wanting to prove that were true for liability purposes and be like, hey, can you pay us a lot of reparations and get us a bunch of vaccines if you cause this? Like, I feel like there's a lot lot of good reason for governments, other experts to be trying to see if this is true. And we don't have any evidence of that now. So perhaps that tells you it might not be true, but again, not saying for certain.

0:46:12 Lindsey: Yeah yep yeah but Yeah, we don't know. And I, but I, I think that that this letter, and you know, I think this speaks to exactly what you're saying, right? We have a pretty big interest in knowing what the origins are. And I also want to say that, like, I think the implied concern in the letter about there potentially being conflicts of interest here also makes sense for exactly the same reasons.

0:47:01 Thomas: Sure. Yeah.

0:47:03 Lindsey: So I have no problem with any of that.

0:47:05 Thomas: Well, there you go. Premature victory lap, I think. If you want to check out Weinstein's Twitter to see what a very premature, very committed victory lap looks looks like, not like, oh, it looks like that could have been right. It's like, I want names of those who denied the lab leak. It is like, all right, buddy. Cool. Yeah, sure.

0:47:06 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, but to draw a line under this, I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself, he never gets to do a victory lap because I don't think that he was making these claims for good reasons.

0:47:30 Thomas: I agree. Nope.

0:47:34 Lindsey: And so even if it turns out that his conclusion is right, he still got there poorly. So no victory for you, Brett. Sorry.

0:47:38 Thomas: Yep. And He's very wrong about a bunch of other stuff because of this flawed methodology he's using. Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. Well, shoot. Anything else to yell about the lab leak? I mean, it is interesting. Like, that is news that this letter was published and, and, you know, I think it's, I think it, it's, it's worth saying that I don't think we're on solid footing by saying you're totally nuts if you think it's a lab leak. Like, you know, like, I think we should step back, step that back a little bit and say, you know there's still no evidence saying so if if you're out there actively saying you're 90% certain it is like that's not valid. But, you know, if you have a friend or somebody who's like, yeah, what if it was a lab leak? Don't be like, you're a fucking idiot. Sounds like that's not justified.

0:48:08 Lindsey: No, that's problem. No, no.

0:48:28 Thomas: So there you go. All right. Well, I feel good about this. Any final covered everything we came out to cover for once. Don't have to do a part two yet on this exact episode.

0:48:28 Lindsey: I don't think so. Me too. Yeah, not yet. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happened on Brett's Twitter next week. I don't know.

0:48:42 Thomas: That's true. That is true. Well. I know there may be a lot of disagreement or what on the CDC stuff. I just want to say that I do split on that. So I, I, uh, I do recognize the concerns going both ways. So that's a tough one. And, you know, I think Lindsay was maybe on the other side of that. So, so I hope they, I hope you feel like your concerns were well represented. If you were on the anti-CDC side on this one and feel free to, uh. Comment on our, on our Patreon where that's where we'll see it on that monthly thread or send us an email. I'll also see that. Although Although my inbox is very backed up and I don't get to all those for mental health reasons. Sorry. So, you know, let me know if there's some concerns that we didn't get to there because I do want to represent that fairly. But from all of us here at SIO, thanks so much for listening. Thanks, Lindsay, for the breakdown as always.

0:48:43 Lindsey: Yeah, Yeah. Yes. Yep.

0:49:40 Lindsey: Thank you, you.

0:49:40 Thomas: We'll see everybody next time.

0:49:40 Lindsey: Cool.

0:49:50 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do, is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, follow me on Twitter at Serious Pod. If would like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.