Take Our Word For It

Chasing the Experts and Fact Checkers Into the Abyss

This past week I read so many news stories about various efforts and restrictions aimed at people who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19, and I became so frustrated and frankly, frightened by what I was reading, that I intended to write a long and detailed piece about why this way of thinking is misguided and dangerous. But then I woke up this morning and saw this on the side bar on Twitter:

Experts say masks are effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19? Interesting. I guess there were some new randomized controlled trials, or perhaps a meta analysis was just released that supported this conclusion. I mean, why else would we have such a conclusive sounding statement that was apparently made by “Experts?” And why today, if there isn’t something new that all of us should be made aware of? So I did what so few people actually do, and I started chasing through the links to find out just who these experts are and what new, scientific information they were bringing to the public’s attention.

Clicking that sidebar link, what you will see is this:

OK, so, we get an expansion of the sidebar text. Apparently, the CDC is telling unvaccinated people to wear masks (nothing new here) and telling vaccinated people to wear masks indoors (the CDC has been wishy washy about this of late). And there at the bottom, we see the “experts” are mentioned again. There is no hyperlink, but if you scroll down, you’ll see that Twitter has some bullet points for you:

OK, so apparently this new, trending sidebar link was spurred on by some updated CDC guidance. We see that health “experts and authorities” as well as “fact-checkers” are getting referenced again in a very vague way. No links, no data, no citations, just “trust us, this is what smart people think.” If you scroll down a bit, you will see that the CDC’s Twitter profile is at the top of the heap beneath this “What you need to know” section, and the highlighted tweet says this:

Holy shit! A hyperlink! Let’s click it! It is sure to lead to the experts and fact checkers! For those who want to join in on this adventure, this is that link.

OK, so where did we end up when the Twitter tornado set our farmhouse down? We get a page that offers us this:

We are greeted by a push to get vaccinated, so no surprise there. Where is the big new evidence for the efficacy of masks? Where are the experts and fact-checkers?

Let’s stop for a minute and put a critical eye to what we’re looking at. I am not trying to be a horse’s ass. I’m not trying to push an agenda. What I am trying to do is view this situation as an ordinary person would view it, who maybe has heard some back and forth about masks and who isn’t quite sure what to believe, so they decide, “You know what? I am going to click this Twitter link to learn more so I can make educated choices.” After all, isn’t that what we want from people? We don’t want them blindly believing everything they see on Twitter, we want them seeking information from the scientists and researchers who do the experiments that form the basis for reasonable conclusions.

If I am this hypothetical person, I have now found my way to the CDC website, seeking expert opinion on how masks prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and have immediately found myself at a busy intersection of options. Do I click the “Guidance for People Fully Vaccinated” link? Do I click the “Guidance” or “Science Updates” links, (that are not even presented as links)? My point is: This shouldn’t be difficult! Why is the work of the “experts” and “fact checkers” hidden in a funhouse maze of confusing options? For the past year and a half, the most COVID cautious have yelled about “following the science,” yet for any regular Tom, Dick, or Harry who tries to do just that, the CDC has made an indirect and demoralizing quest a la Barley Lightfoot in Disney’s Onward.

So let’s grab our walking sticks and flashlights, and start hiking around through some of the options we have before us. My first guess was the “Science Updates” link might hold the information that I seek, so join me fellow adventurer in clicking this link.

And…if only I could take a larger screenshot because that link leads to this:

There is actually a bunch more beneath this, including links under a “Data and Surveillance” heading, as well as many links to “Recent CDC Articles.” Remember, we are regular Schmoes from Twitter. We are escaping work for ten minutes to take a poop, and we were only planning to look at what bathing suit Kim Kardashin was wearing this weekend or maybe what hilarious thing UFC fighter Derrick Lewis had to say after Saturday’s bout. But, we saw that Twitter Inc. wanted us to know that the “experts” had evidence of mask efficacy, and we thought, “you know what, it’s time to take a minute as a responsible member of society to see what this is all about,” and after now clicking three links, each time leading us to a page with more and more forks in the road, we have found nothing obvious to back up the statement about masks. We haven’t even seen the word “Masks.” We just keep being given more options for hyperlink teleportation to internet parts unknown, and frankly, we’re getting bored. We’re starting to imagine Kim’s delicious brown ass, and this whole mask thing is losing its grip on our frontal lobe.

Is that the point? The more skeptical among us are going to begin to wonder if the cascade of choices, the Plinko game of “maybe I go this way, or is it this way?” that sends those who we’re curious enough to drop what they were doing and to seek out the “expert” opinion to begin with, is all designed to be a giant bore, that the meandering is the point. The more skeptical and cynical among us are going to think, “I bet the reason it’s so hard to find the data is because they don’t want us to find it, because it either is very flimsy, or because it doesn’t exist at all.”

For the record, on the “Science and Research” page, I then clicked the “Current Updates” link. That is a logical choice, I feel, for someone traversing the wastes of this government website on the hunt for whatever supposed new information the “experts” have found. If you are still following this Choose Your Own Adventure story with me, click here.

You will find yourself on a page with a lot of links to studies about various facets of the COVID-19 pandemic, and if you scroll down a good way, you will find what seems to be the treasure we have been hunting, studies on “Prevention, Mitigation and Intervention Strategies.” All right! Finally! The Phoenix Gem!

Or not. Nothing on masks.

Maybe there is some new study, but even I am losing interest. How much time does a regular, everyday Joe Scratch-and-win have to walk the halls of the CDC website like it’s the goddamn Library of Congress? This site should be like the Bellagio instead, and put the big pay out slot machines right up front. If you want your nation to be up to date on the latest science, you don’t run them through a labyrinth of options until they decide it’s not worth looking any more. You put a big, bold face link on the front fucking page, or even better, on every fucking page, so we can’t possibly miss it! We can only pretend to be taking a dump for so long before our bosses are going to know that we’re just playing around on our phones.

At least the CDC offered this option when I clicked for “Current Updates”

Now I know what I’m doing on my next bathroom break.