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Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

nature.com

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Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#231

The article is discussing the media and government being intentionally vague or even misinformative because they don't trust the public, but it backfires and causes more distrust. The flip side that wasn't discussed is the belittling and censoring of voices that were skeptical of the narratives, which engendered even more distrust. Their strategy of information control backfired, and they doubled down. Now we've got…

How can there be informed consent with censorship?

[deleted]

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She did say that, just after saying that she would be the first in line if public health professionals recommended it.

This clip reminds me of Colbert because different people map their mental model onto her communication to parse one thing or the opposite thing.

It doesn't to me. What she said it is:

- I won't take it if trump alone tells me to take it

- I will be first to take it if experts give their thumbs up

Some people take the whole thing at face value, some take only the first part and ignore the rest.

In 70s Ford used political pressure to speed up swine flu vaccine development and that had negative consequences.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My post had nothing to do with any party affiliation. I was simply pointing out the data regarding where trust in our institutions is. Please ratchet the "they"/"other" stuff back a bit. I don't think it is helping us trust each other.

And my post is about the reality of our politics today. People distrust masks but trust ivermectin. Why? Because certain leaders in certain political thoughts are pushing anti-mask and pro-ivermectin messages. Its that simple. There's no need to mince words. People trust their leaders. If it helps, its the same reason why some liberals are all "Screw the rich", because they trust Bernie Sanders. No one likes __Congre…

> People distrust masks but trust ivermectin.

source? It may also be useful to disambiguate anti-vaxers from anti-vax-mandate-ers. I think they have fundamentally different arguments.

>but everyone likes their particular Senator/House rep.

everyone?

> That's how its supposed to work:

I doubt that the founders intended to build a system only 12% of people supported but maybe...

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#234

The author is completely right in that the government at least in the US attempting to downplay, mislead or 'avoid panic' absolutely destroyed any credibility and is still suffering from it. Most people are not stupid, if provided with all available information as well as clear statements regarding the reliability of that information and just a clear message saying "hey this is new and we have no idea, we are making…

> Most people are not stupid, if provided with all available information as well as clear statements regarding the reliability of that information and just a clear message saying "hey this is new and we have no idea, we are making our best guess" people will make decent choices Citation needed

Apart from anything else, this is pretty much what most health authorities did on most theories about COVID. Lots of people chose to listen to other high profile figures who claimed certainty instead...

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kamala Harris is on record(last summer) saying she wouldn’t take the vaccine if Trump told her to take it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0

Yes, there's a difference between a raging narcissist who can't even seem to tell the truth even if there's nothing to gain from lying and listening to a doctor. But yeah, keep going with the whole "democrats are just as bad as republicans" thing. Seems to be working.

Really setting the bar high. Group A Being every so slightly better than really shitty Group B thing does not make Group A look very good, just ever so slightly less shitty.

"I beat my kids and my spouse" "You're evil, I only beat my kids"

Not a great argument.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#236
post #88

The lede is buried here, the reason the US is not cohesive is entirely due to the former president who continues to this day to support and spur the anti-vax movement.

I've seen lots of "right wing" people saying that Trump is betraying them by recommending the vaccine constantly. I don't think he's anti-vax.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#237
The evidence says that during disasters ppl come together and help each other during disaster while state and business institution act in an at best obstructionist and at worst predatory way. So why do ppl in power believe the exact opposite? The simple explanations are that it's a delusion they actually hold, or a lie they project and either way it serves as a justification for the systems they benefit from.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#238

March 2020: Masks are useless. Lied Mid-pandemic: Covid lab leak is a conspiracy theory. Lied Today: Previous covid infection natural immunity is same as unvax'ed. Still lying.

I think you are confusing “statements and policy from available and changing information” with “lies”.

If that's consistent with reality, then what exactly does the CDC exist for if not to study if masks control disease?

SARS-CoV2 isn't the world's first coronavirus by any stretch of the imagination. The fact that seemingly the whole country spent months debating whether masks can stop a virus tells us all we need to know, which is that organizations like the CDC fail. There's zero reason why we had to act like we were starting from scratch other than to trick people into not buying up masks.

In fact, it had nothing to do with changing information because the information straight from the horse's mouth tells the contrary:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm?s_cid=mm...

^^ See Table 1

That is at best around a 2% reduction in deaths associated with masks. For all intents and purposes, mask mandates can never stop the virus or even do much at all to reduce it. 2% would make me question whether there's even any meaningful causation.

We have this information, but we decided to literally double-down by hilariously telling people to double-mask. This isn't the scientific method in action.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#239

The article is discussing the media and government being intentionally vague or even misinformative because they don't trust the public, but it backfires and causes more distrust. The flip side that wasn't discussed is the belittling and censoring of voices that were skeptical of the narratives, which engendered even more distrust. Their strategy of information control backfired, and they doubled down. Now we've got…

> Now we've got a huge swath of US citizens that will never take the vaccine

I suspect it's more than just "the vaccine" (assuming "the" refers to the covid vaccines); it's an overall regression in the trust of health officials that will take decades to rebuild.

We had a pretty well built system of trust for health officials. Everything from a standard set of vaccines being a requirement at schools to CDC guidance being taken fairly seriously. There were folks who distrusted this system, but it was (at least I felt like it was) _fringe_.

The COVID response put all of these systems in the spotlight. It made a lot of people who previously trusted the system ask questions they never bothered to ask before. They may have asked these questions about how COVID was handled, but these are _general questions_ about the trustworthiness of the official health channels. The doubt that was sown isn't isolated to COVID. Regardless of where you personally stand on any of this, the way "official" channels handled the pandemic burned trust for a large portion of the population.

Fixing this is going to be a long road.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#240

Fauci (and the CDC) lying about masks out of fear it would cause a shortage for healthcare providers burnt a lot of trust quickly. It probably helped the US get into the polarized situation it's in now.

>Fauci (and the CDC) lying about masks out of fear it would cause a shortage for healthcare providers burnt a lot of trust quickly. It probably helped the US get into the polarized situation it's in now. This confuses me. If the claim that masks "don't work" caused folks to distrust public health authorities, then why are many of the folks who claim to distrust those PH authorities refusing to wear masks?

This thread is full of bizarre, depressing contradictions. I'm having trouble processing that this many people in this community think this way.
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