America is giving up on the pandemic? • Hacker News Board

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#801

Post by nl » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 5:44 AM UTC

mythrwy wrote: post #526

01100011 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Amy Cooper/Christian Cooper incident from a few weeks ago was the most important 'teachable moment' that we've had in years. I am somewhat disappointed that it was overshadowed by protests against police brutality, because I thought it was a very 'teachable moment' that illustrated the type of racism that still exists behind a facade of tolerance. Police abuse is sort of a separate issue relating to train…

Maybe I'm not understanding the term "structural". To me the word indicates institutions officially set up to behave in a racial manner, i.e segregation. Obviously we don't have much or any of that anymore. But I agree racism and profiling (which I think of as a separate issue... note, I do think it's an "issue") exist. I just balk at the use of the term "structural". Structural is rounding up Muslims in Western Chin…

That's a different definition to what is commonly accepted.

Structural racism is often called systematic or institutional racism[0]. It doesn't have to be deliberate, but instead is something that perpetuates reduced status of a racial minority by the way laws or institutions are structured.

A commonly used example is the difference in laws and sentencing between crack and powered cocaine. The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act created a mandatory minimum sentence on 5 years for 5 grams of crack cocaine, but the same Act made the 5 year minimum sentence apply to 500g of powered cocaine[1].

This doesn't appear to have been deliberately racist, and instead it was mostly in response to media hype about crack. But it had the result of meaning blacks were much more likely to be sentenced to prison for minor drug offences.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism

[1] https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/crack-vrs-po...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#802

Post by grey-area » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 5:44 AM UTC

NateEag wrote: post #717

shwoopdiwoop wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like severely limiting access to guns in the US would be great place to start then.

Regardless of whether it's a good idea, it cannot be done. I believe the last number I saw said there were about 300 million guns in the US - one for each person. There's no way to just make those disappear into government hands.

Of course there is. There are legitimate reasons for owning a rifle in rural America (hunting), there are no legitimate reasons for owning an assault weapon, and guns can easily be made gradually less attractive. If you don't accept this even as a possibility you are part of the problem.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#803

Post by raverbashing » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 5:45 AM UTC

xelxebar wrote: post #761

alkibiades wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i’m 25 and this whole covid debacle and seeing how public health officials handle it has soured me on all “experts” for the rest of my life. no wonder people don’t believe in global warming, these “experts” prioritize politics over everything

> no wonder people don’t believe in global warming, these “experts” prioritize politics over everything I read this as a clear expression of your frustration. Completely reasonable given the situation. Are you familiar with the YouTube channel "Smarter Every Day"? There's this three-part series that might offer a new perspective on the distrust and disillusionment you seem to be feeling: [1]: https://www.youtube.com/…

> to undermine our trust in the social institutions we rely on.

Is it YTs fault that the WHO was the absolutely dead last institution to recommend face mask usage on the planet? That even some countries that are having a very poor response have already recommended (or made mandatory in some circumstances) the use of masks?

That the WHO is accepting all manners of political interference from China?

Is it YTs fault that Lancet and NEJM published a completely fabricated article about HCQ usage at the point where this has become a contentious point? Sure, in the same week we have had other serious studies about it, but that one was, most likely, a fraud, that was rubber stamped by journals.

That, at a critical moment, researchers from a prestigious epidemiology centre have pulled some models they had on the shelves without enough second-guessing it and predicting very catastrophic results (which granted, there might have been unknown at the time reasons for it)

So yeah, I don't think it's solely the fault of Youtube and Facebook.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#804

Post by dehrmann » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 5:47 AM UTC

LockAndLol wrote: post #25

So is Europe. Apparently fueled by the protests in the US there have been demonstrations in Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona and other cities. Not only are they protesting against racism but it seems like there are quite a few also protesting against the lockdown measures. Once the weather gets better again you can bet that all along the European coasts hoardes or people will be ignoring the laxer provisio…

> there are quite a few also protesting against the lockdown measures.

These protests are interesting and different because a lot of factors are playing into them:

- Obviously, black lives matter

- Pent-up anger over Trump

- Pent-up frustration over lockdowns

- Unemployed people with nothing to do

- People who are desperate (read: have nothing to lose)

- Media coverage focusing on very few issues

And these issues play into each other.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#805

Post by irq11 » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #719

chasd00 wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got very skeptical reading the reaction to the antibody studies here. Also, the total hate for Sweden really depressed me. I've always held this place in high regard but I suppose it's still just more of the same.

The prevalence is too low for the antibody tests to be reliable. Every public health expert has reported that but people refuse to listen. Sweden has admitted their strategy is not working.

They have done nothing of the sort. Tegnell was quoted as saying he would do some things differently, but was explicit that avoiding lockdowns was not something he would change.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-sweden-...

Sweden is mid-pack amongst european nations for death rate due to covid, and notably lower than the UK, Italy and France:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#806

Post by apatters » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

javagram wrote: post #664

rayiner wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget public health officials outright lied and said masks don’t help reduce the spread of the disease, putatively to help conserve masks for medical personnel: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-... > When news of a mysterious viral pneumonia linked to a market in Wuhan, China, reached the outside world in early January, one of my first reactions was to order a modest supply of masks.…

FWIW, I don’t think the majority of the officials intended to lie about this. It wasn’t anything that started this year or anything - they’ve had the same message about masks since as far back as the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t... > But the CDC has recommended against mask use. I hypothesized that the CDC was intentionally lying to us, trying to trick us into not b…

There was definitely no malice or intent to mislead by health authorities in this regard and the claim that there was has always struck me as a bizarre result of selective reporting.

You can go back a few months and the WHO went on record plenty of times regarding a couple of points

- Health workers really need good PPE and there is a shortage

- When infected people wear a mask, it reduces transmission

- The benefits of a non-infected person wearing a mask are not super well understood/studied and this topic doesn't really come up much because our main audience is healthcare professionals

So they said at one point, focus on getting the masks to health care workers, and then as mask supply increased they said the infected should wear them too, and now that cloth/paper masks are easy to obtain they say everyone should wear them.

It was always a question of supply and availability, there was no conspiracy.

If you looked beyond the headlines and looked at the context it was pretty clear.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#807

Post by apatters » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 6:02 AM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #720

deanCommie wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We indeed live in an era where all things are binary. But what is a thinking person supposed to think when the Surgeon General is saying don’t wear masks in a pandemic caused by airborne viri? In urban (educated) zones likely to be hotbeds for outbreaks, could the state not do a little nuance and say “hospitals need the N95s and you need a bandana” Everybody has got a bandana, but if I were to start walking into stor…

Hopefully this doesn't come across as pedantic but airborne transmission of COVID-19 is rare. Not ruled out completely but not the main way it is spread. In the initial Chinese study of 75K they said there was zero airborne transmission, I think they've found some exceptions since but it's not a common thing.

The WHO actually has a definition for this, when the droplets carrying the disease are It's still good to wear a mask, I've lost count of the number of times over the years that some excited extrovert straight up spit in my face because they were worked up about something. lol.

https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-t...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#808

Post by Rapzid » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 6:21 AM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #3

A thing I've noticed is that they stopped mentioning the daily numbers on the radio (NPR, more specifically Iowa Public Radio). It's sort of like the media has extracted all the juice they can from the pandemic and now we're just left with the pulpy mess that no one really wants to deal with.

The situation is no longer as urgent?

Number of new cases and new deaths have dropped off a bit and mostly flattened out. Health care capacity is handling current loads. Economy is opening back up..

There is still plenty of talk about COVID-19, but I'm not sure how much cynicism is required to explain why something that is no longer a critically urgent emergency is no longer being reported as a critically urgent emergency.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#809

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

entee wrote: post #758

javagram wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I don’t think the majority of the officials intended to lie about this. It wasn’t anything that started this year or anything - they’ve had the same message about masks since as far back as the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t... > But the CDC has recommended against mask use. I hypothesized that the CDC was intentionally lying to us, trying to trick us into not b…

I think you’re right. I don’t understand the general tendency of assuming malice when a combination of uncertainty about the virus, poor supply chains, and not-very-good underlying data would do just as well. It’s also unclear what “masks” meant in the initial phases. An N95 respirator? A surgical mask? A homemade cloth mask? Each of these has different uses and effects. I seriously doubt most people knew the differe…

I'd be much more OK with this explanation about how complicated it is and how hard it is to get it right if on any disagreement with the same experts one wouldn't get yelled at as "science denier" and accused in willing to murder millions of people by his stupidity. I mean I get it, there's a complex question whether masks help (depends on which mask, in which circumstance, how long is the contact, how skilled you are in wearing masks, etc.) But isn't that why we are paying the CDC guys - to have clear guidelines about such stuff?

OK, let's say CDC guys screwed up and got caught with their pants down (oh man did they...) and now we have no clear guidelines about it. Then come down from the ivory tower and tell us what you have and let us decide without politicians yelling at us and jerking it around - one day you are an idiot murderer because you're wearing mask, next day you're an idiot murderer because you don't. It just breeds contempt for the whole setup.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#810

Post by nl » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

scruple wrote: post #122

lostapathy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a lot of rose colored history about the civil rights movement. We're mostly taught one side of it in school - that good people protested and won out over bad people. We don't, in general, talk about the horrible things that were happening back then. Only unlike a lot of racial problems today, they happened in plain sight and were celebrated. I know Rand Paul got a lot of hate for his recent speech aga…

Most people don't even know who Fred Hampton was. Even people who lived through the civil rights movement don't recall his name. My own parents downplay the violence of the 70s in favor of the rhetoric du jour that they're fed from mainstream media, and they lived in DC from 1972 until late in 1980 (and, all things considered, they are leftists, not liberals, which makes it even more astonishing to me). It's quite as…

And it's worth noting that through one lens the Manson killings were an act of political violence. His stated motivations (to start a race war[1]) were certainly political.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helter_Skelter_(scenario)#Back...