For whom do the Covid “fact checkers” work?

Every time these kind of articles come up, either from people for or against the mandates or vaccines, I want to remind everyone that you judge veracity by considering the circumstances of the source, never the source itself. The exact same words coming from someone working for a cigarette company versus someone working for a renowned research institution cannot be construed in the same way, even if they are the exact same person at two points in time.<p>Even if they do work for a cigarette company or a research institution, they also have their own biases separate from the organization that they work for.<p>Their title is only a minor consideration.

Why is this on HN? Meh.

For the author: The solution is to ask for their sources - not to speculate that it’s all a sham (while conveniently also not providing any data to back up such a claim.)<p>Meanwhile a single search pulls <i>a possible source</i> for the 80% figure:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;coronavirus&#x2F;2019-ncov&#x2F;science&#x2F;science-briefs&#x2F;masking-science-sars-cov2.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;coronavirus&#x2F;2019-ncov&#x2F;science&#x2F;science-br...</a><p>But talking about that source is inconvenient to the author because it provides ample support over a range of real world and laboratory studies (with both types demonstrating the 80% figure)<p>But even without looking deeply into this - what motive would the CDC have for making everyone run around in little fabric masks versus the very well known disinformation efforts.<p>At this stage of the pandemic: the science is abundantly clear - masks work.

&gt; The data in support of this is massive, and quite certain.<p><i>Continues without providing data.</i>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mediabiasfactcheck.com&#x2F;brownstone-institute-bias&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mediabiasfactcheck.com&#x2F;brownstone-institute-bias&#x2F;</a>

I have no idea what to believe anymore.<p>Vaccine prevents covid (e.g. death and major injury). Somehow vaccinated people are scared of unvaccinated or vaccinated-but-unmasked people. Huh?<p>Then, all schools in US are open to kids who cannot even be vaccinated (this is since a few months back).<p>If you point that out, people will counter back with covid doesn&#x27;t impact kids. Well, okay?<p>We try too hard to use unvaccinated as a scapegoat of the bad crisis management.<p>Do you remember how Fauci undermined all masks in the beginning? I do.<p>Fauci still try to pin it on unvaccinated when schools are still open..

Yeah, after the 6th spelling mistake in the first three paragraphs and checking the writers credentials further than the nice looking bio at the bottom I would flag it if I could.