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Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

virologydownunder.com

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Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#271

Post by timbit42 »

jacquesm wrote: post #153
jpm_sd wrote: post #72

There is a lot of panicky misinformation out there, the WHO is calling it an "infodemic"! This Wikipedia article is doing a respectable job tracking some of the conspiracy theories and falsehoods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_related_to_the_... Wikipedia also has a good summary of the overall state of things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_ou...

The way outlets such as The New York Post deal with this is absolutely irresponsible. They keep on re-posting total garbage that has been debunked multiple times and Google isn't helping by linking to it. This is also worth keeping an eye on: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/locations-confirme...

Perhaps they should be sued.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#272

Post by SahAssar »

hedora wrote: post #199
SahAssar wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure you are kidding, but for the benefit of future readers: > Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

There’s an obvious corollary: > If you want to get away with it, make it indistinguishable from incompetence. Here’s a WWII field manual from “them” on the subject. It actually helped me unlearn some bad behaviors instilled by previous bad management. :-) http://www.simplesabotage.com/

But would you say, in a general sense, that it is better to assume malice rather than mistakes/incompetence/stupidity?

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#273

Post by catatattat »

Alex3917 wrote: post #198
nemild wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two observations: 1. There isn't a single media (often, when your tribe is against another, you view the opposition as monolithic rather than a spectrum composed of different viewpoints) 2. And they're not insane, editors and social media algorithms are rational and reacting to reader incentives (but it is "insane" to mistake media sources for a rational human, because most media is about covering extreme events[1])…

> There isn't a single media (often, when your tribe is against another, you view the opposition as monolithic rather than a spectrum composed of different viewpoints) The overwhelming majority of the media that people consume in the U.S. is created by the same handful of companies, which each have roughly the same rules about what kinds of stories you're allowed or not allowed to publish. Having worked at one, I can…

> Having worked at one, I can assure you that you're not just allowed to publish whatever you want as long as it conforms to basic journalistic standards or whatever.

Should this be surprising? A newspaper isn’t a blog for a bunch of journalists, it’s an organization that makes a collective effort to speak with a single authoritative voice.

That’s a far cry from all newspapers sharing an institutional perspective, though.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#274

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

dx87 wrote: post #150
thewebcount wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, that depends on the med. Your monthly allergy prescription? Sure! Your oxy Rx? No way. My spouse and I are on some meds (not oxy) that they absolutely would not refill for 3 months at a time. My other meds do come in 3 month prescriptions from a mail order pharmacy.

Yep, I'm on a medication that is commonly abused so they only allow 30 day prescriptions, and you can't pay with cash, it has to go through insurance.

There's a medication that's not available to people who don't have insurance? That sounds terrible.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#275

Post by droithomme »

hedora wrote: post #199
SahAssar wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure you are kidding, but for the benefit of future readers: > Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

There’s an obvious corollary: > If you want to get away with it, make it indistinguishable from incompetence. Here’s a WWII field manual from “them” on the subject. It actually helped me unlearn some bad behaviors instilled by previous bad management. :-) http://www.simplesabotage.com/

Related term of art for programmers is underhanded code. Always make your undermining of security and insertion of backdoors to appear to be a simple coding error: http://underhanded-c.org/

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#276

Post by pmoriarty »

dkarl wrote: post #140

The article becomes much less edgy if you know what the authorities are actually saying. For example, the American CDC, in USA Today[1]: "Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S. health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic." "'We’re not seeing community spread here in the United States, yet, but i…

"We’re not seeing community spread here in the United States"

The US is barely doing any testing, so if there was community spread of COVID-19 in the US right now, there's a good chance they wouldn't even know about it.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#277

Post by asciimike »

Fear-mongering aside, the article basically says "have some masks and be prepared for supply disruptions of critical things (medicine in particular)" which seems like generally a good idea? Maybe that's just the Boy Scout "be prepared" in me, but that feels like a low cost way to insulate yourself from the unexpected (pandemic or otherwise).

I really enjoy "Doomsday prepping for less crazy folk", where this is discussed: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/#4.7

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#278

Post by klipt »

drcode wrote: post #216
klipt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, sounds like there wasn't any "supply disruption", rather a "demand excess" from people who thought there might be one. Those are different things. Bill Gates could cause a potato shortage if he started buying up all the potatoes in America. But that wouldn't be a supply disruption if farmers are still growing potatoes at the usual rate.

We can argue about the exact definition of the word "supply", but the bottom line is that when the suppliers are no longer capable of providing goods to stores, it's kind of pedantic to say "it's not a supply disruption!".

Okay but if Bill Gates says "there's gonna be a potato shortage!" and then causes it by buying up all the potatoes, it's a bit backwards to say "wow that Bill Gates is so smart, however did he predict the future potato shortage while those stupid poor people couldn't?"

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#279

Post by [deleted] »

dkarl wrote: post #140

The article becomes much less edgy if you know what the authorities are actually saying. For example, the American CDC, in USA Today[1]: "Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S. health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic." "'We’re not seeing community spread here in the United States, yet, but i…

[deleted]

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#280

Post by catatattat »

gfodor wrote: post #187
nemild wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two observations: 1. There isn't a single media (often, when your tribe is against another, you view the opposition as monolithic rather than a spectrum composed of different viewpoints) 2. And they're not insane, editors and social media algorithms are rational and reacting to reader incentives (but it is "insane" to mistake media sources for a rational human, because most media is about covering extreme events[1])…

Would you argue the US has a diverse media? Today, the concept seems laughable.

You must be living in an alternate dystopic 2020 media landscape where the problem is something else besides radical fragmentation of markets, instantaneous elevation of social media anecdotes to national coverage, and widespread agreement to disagree about matters of fact.

The one thing we can’t criticize our media for is a lack of diversity.

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