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Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

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Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#341

Post by takeda »

themaninthedark wrote: post #315
takeda wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The previous administration made this political, and the pandora's box already have been opened. People were swearing they won't take vaccine, before it was even available. Look at countries where pandemic is not political.

>(25 Feb 2020) U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a walking tour of San Francisco's Chinatown Monday to let the public know the neighborhood is safe and open for business. >Pelosi, a Democrat who represents the heavily Chinese American city, visited the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, whose owner Kevin Chan, says his business and others are down 70% since the outbreak of the new coronavirus. >"You should come t…

At that point no businesses US were closed because of covid, but Chinese businesses were unproportionally hurt because president called covid a "china virus".

You're trying to smear somebody that they are making it political while they are actually trying to unpoliticize it.

This was before emrgency was declared. And only 8 people were confirmed in California. Check the timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pande...

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#342

Post by Jensson »

hackingforfun wrote: post #288
evandwight wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are misinterpreting. They lost faith in medical experts. I don't think hes talking about the US system as a whole but instead trusting the advice that vaccines are safe, masks work, etc. Medical advice.

Just so I understand, the one thing about flip flopping on masks cost them to lose faith in all medical experts? Doesn't that seem a little unreasonable? I agree we shouldn't have flip flopped on masks, but I don't think making a whole narrative out of that makes sense.

> Just so I understand, the one thing about flip flopping on masks cost them to lose faith in all medical experts? Doesn't that seem a little unreasonable?

Have you never heard of racism, bias etc? Yes, when a representative for a group does something then that will affect peoples views of that entire group and not just that person. Humans are irrational like that.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#343

Post by timr »

notahacker wrote: post #215
timr wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much of what you describe as 'censoring' was focused on stopping the promotion of false cures eg Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, H2O2 nebulization etc. HCQ, while it has been bourne out that it doesn't work, was a perfect example of miscommunication and "protective censorship" breeding public mistrust: the initial papers that cast doubt on HCQ were based on fabricated data . Based on this initial bit of false data…

People were dying from self-administered HCQ as a supposed prophylactic because politicians seeking to downplay the severity of COVID were contradicting their health officials and insisting that it would work miracles and should be available outside hospitals long before that reprehensible fake "study" came out. And yes, they were ridiculed for it by certain sections of the media, and rightly so. That "study" certain…

> People were dying from self-administered HCQ as a supposed prophylactic

Yes, "people are dying" is the favored rallying cry for any number of poorly considered, knee-jerk reactions to unfortunate events.

It's a big country. People die from lots of things every day, including a staggering number of people who die from overdoses from innocuous medications. A surprising number of these people poison themselves with supplements in the name of "healthy living" (leading to thousands of ED visits a year), but we don't seem to be eager to leap to censorship and ridicule for that problem:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/harmful-effects-of-suppl...

We don't change the parameters of science because of a few cherry-picked examples, and we shouldn't engage in censorship of factual information because "people are dying".

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#344

Post by timr »

jdmichal wrote: post #339
timr wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much of what you describe as 'censoring' was focused on stopping the promotion of false cures eg Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, H2O2 nebulization etc. HCQ, while it has been bourne out that it doesn't work, was a perfect example of miscommunication and "protective censorship" breeding public mistrust: the initial papers that cast doubt on HCQ were based on fabricated data . Based on this initial bit of false data…

I feel like you're discounting the fact that these "prescriptions" didn't just manifest from the aether. Someone started the idea of these particular medications being effective. And not having a clinical trial means neither side has been proven correct. So where are people getting the idea from in the first place? That source is as much mis- or even dis-information as the subsequent attempts at damage control by the…

> Someone started the idea of these particular medications being effective.

The original claims of HCQ's effectiveness against Covid came from doctors in China, early in 2020. At least, these were the first reports I was aware of.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#345

Post by coryfklein »

Pxtl wrote: post #194
Gortal278 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Seriously, the run on toilet paper was a strong counter-argument.

No. It was exactly what the prisoner's dilemma dictates an intelligent actor would do when they don't have the ability to coordinate.

If you suspect there is going to be a run on toilet paper, the obvious choice is to stockpile toilet paper before it is all gone. If you buy just enough for the next couple weeks, and you risk running out because of shortages.

The optimal solution to this IMO is to embrace raising prices during crisis, because then the market ensures that those with the most need get access to goods, and it eliminates the whole point of hoarding 3 months worth of TP naturally.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#346

Post by tablespoon »

Jensson wrote: post #202
tablespoon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the upside is that hopefully the govt/health authorities will learn a lesson and be better in the future. But there's only so much they can do. Sowing distrust has proven to provide short-term self-benefit to many powerful interests (e.g. political factions, partisan media). Even if the health authorities have a perfect strategy, those interests will find an opening to subvert it (e.g. portraying initial confus…

In a multi party system sowing distrust in an opposing party doesn't help your party, it mostly helps parties adjacent to that party. So then the goal becomes to be as trustworthy as possible to the public rather than make the public hate the enemy. It really solves many of these issues.

> In a multi party system sowing distrust in an opposing party doesn't help your party, it mostly helps parties adjacent to that party. So then the goal becomes to be as trustworthy as possible to the public rather than make the public hate the enemy. It really solves many of these issues.

Does it through? I suppose what I had in mind wasn't so much narrowly-focused electioneering, but broader and somewhat sloppy gesticulations towards an ideological tendency. For instance, if there were two left-wing parties, a Rush Limbaugh could get both of them by encouraging his listeners to distrust the "left."

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#347

Post by hackingforfun »

speedybird wrote: post #294
hackingforfun wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so I understand, the one thing about flip flopping on masks cost them to lose faith in all medical experts? Doesn't that seem a little unreasonable? I agree we shouldn't have flip flopped on masks, but I don't think making a whole narrative out of that makes sense.

It's much easier to lose trust than it is to earn it. Lie just once and you can wipe out years of hard-won good will. Isn't it a bit unreasonable to lie but expect people to still trust you as they did before? This is not some new premise that the authorities got blindsided by; Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. They should have known better than to lie, no matter the motivation for a lie.

I saw the flip flopping on masks and thought it was silly for them to do that. However, I also was not going to not get the COVID shot over that, because, based on my own assessment, getting the shot made sense.

Anyway, I'm just surprised a whole narrative was built around something I would consider really not a huge deal. Folks could buy masks anyway, even without them being recommended (I did). It's not like masks were illegal to buy or something.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#349

Post by detaro »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #207
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the risks of not getting the vaccine are orders of magnitude higher than the risks of getting the vaccine. It's absolutely insane that were still having this conversation at this point.

But, see, people don't work that way. If you say that the risk of dying from Covid is 1%, and the risk from the vaccine is 0.001%, (at least some) people can look at those numbers and figure out what's reasonable to do. But if you say that the risk from Covid is 1% and the vaccine is "safe", then people think you mean the risk from the vaccine is 0, and they say, "You're lying; my cousin's co-worker's nephew got sick…

That's pretty much what most health authorities are saying though if you read more than 5 words of their statements? Starting with the AZ problems (which obviously weren't a thing in the US since it just stockpiled AZ, but a big topic in Europe) it's pretty much always has been "problems are rare, we continue to recommend it based on the benefit being way larger than the risk" (except in the countries that decided they don't evaluate it that way and restricted/stopped use). Same now with myocarditis. And promptly the complaints shift to "they are lying, the numbers are actually way worse than they say!".

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#350

Post by mensetmanusman »

gravity13 wrote: post #304
mensetmanusman wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most anti-vaxxers I know are far left, and most republicans I know have all the other historic vaccines for school and travel, but are more suspicious of the Covid ones due in part to the lack of discussion about natural immunity in the US context (most of them who already had covid don’t want to get the vaccine since they do t think it is worth their time).

Nobody wants to have a discussion about [enter argument of the month here] because it's all BS partisan politics motivated by the right's outright disdain for all things liberal in America. The problem isn't a lack of understanding or research for new vaccines, the problem is anti-intellectualism running rampant.

“Nobody wants to have a discussion about [enter argument of the month here] because it's all BS partisan politics motivated by the right's outright disdain for all things liberal in America.”

That is one view, and I have heard the opposite (switch the words right with liberal in this statement).

Unfortunately the truth is lost in the medium of dialog, e.g. see the recent surveys showing how those that watch the media most are also the most misinformed about the risk of covid hospitalizations (>50%??).

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