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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

#581

Post by UnFleshedOne »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #242
valeness wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(speaking generally here at those I've seen share the same rage, not accusing you directly) I just cannot wrap my head around being so upset that a public official lied you're willing to sever friendships, familial ties, and sacrifice your career because you refuse to follow sane and frankly manageable guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It's not even that the messaging is currently or has been conflicting…

I agree with you pretty much 100%. My anger is that, by not being truthful, I feel like health authorities played right into the hands of the conspiracy theorists and everyone trying to sow doubt that this is some big power grab.

To be fair, with policies like mandating masking outside, or banning outdoor activities long after it was known there virtually no outdoor transmission, or forcing vaccinations on people who had covid already, or deafening silence on any health improving measures people can take (did we really need studies showing exercise improves covid outcomes? well we have them now, after 2 years passed), or no mitigation of aerosol transmission (we have dentists installing HEPA filters, and nothing in hospitals), it is really easy to play right into the hands of conspiracy theorists...

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#582

Post by perryizgr8 »

timr wrote: post #343
notahacker wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

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

Brilliantly parodied in this music video: https://youtu.be/eXWhbUUE4ko

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#583

Post by dmingod666 »

menacingly wrote: post #184

Well-meaning manipulation of the public is common, and nearly always a terrible idea, because even the relatively uneducated are still pretty good at applying their intuition and seeing that a narrrative doesn't make sense. Once they've damaged that trust, you end up with these 2 equally stupid polarized positions: A: "I will do the opposite of whatever the established authorities say" B: "It's, like, sad that, like,…

Succinctly captures both the views.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#584

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

crznp wrote: post #312
tchalla wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But instead of just saying that, the message from the vast majority of public health officials (and media types like Sanjay Gupta) was that "masks don't work for the public". The CDC never really said that "masks don't work for public" [0]. Some other health officials and media did. Now, if you relied on the CDC for information everything would be more or less fine. The two things that make this situation worse is…

The Surgeon General tweeted [0]: > Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus The CDC's main page had much more nuanced advice (as of late March 2020) [1]: > Wear a facemask if you are sick... If you are NOT sick: You do not need to wear a facemask unless you are caring for someone who is sick (and they are not able to wear a facemask). Facemask…

Even the nuanced CDC advice was very bad at the time. In Feb 2020/early March 2020 countries with strong tracing programs were already reporting presymptomatic spread and large outbreaks via the air (following airflow) in enclosed restaurants and workplaces. In such a context "wear a mask if you are sick or caring for someone sick" is really not good enough.

And in hindsight, we now know that Covid is most contagious just as symptoms first appear.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#585

Post by Natsu »

autoexec wrote: post #574
throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/

Interestingly, that subreddit has convinced some people to get vaccinated. Otherwise it's basically https://old.reddit.com/r/leopardsatemyface (covid edition) with a lot of venting frustration at folks who willfully spread the virus and the misinformation that keeps it spreading.

The success cases I've seen were people talking to their family members, which is a reasonable approach.

The subreddit itself with some of the hateful "these people deserve to die" kind of comments is actively harmful.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#586

Post by greedo »

spookthesunset wrote: post #449
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who would be for interment of a minority they distrust If the government announced tomorrow that they would be putting all unvaccinated people in internment camps for everyone's safety, how many people do you think would be in favor? I've certainly seen plenty of comments on the internet that would suggest it's not zero.

> If the government announced tomorrow that they would be putting all unvaccinated people in internment camps for everyone's safety, how many people do you think would be in favor? If messaged properly (eg: getting “the experts” to hint at it, getting NYT to push for it, etc) I bet a shockingly high amount of people in blue regions would cheer it on. I’m convinced that all that kept this from escalating to violence i…

I think Tucker Carlson saying that if you see a child with a mask, the parents should be arrested for child abuse, and that you should go up and rip the mask off is along the lines of the media giving permission for violence over masks... but to a different side than you're thinking.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#587

Post by nielsbot »

croutonwagon wrote: post #329
nielsbot wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be rational. Vaccines mandates are already common for school children, nurses, (and maybe teachers, but I'm not sure about that one) The rage over masks (and things like "CRT") is being intentionally stoked to win elections. The plan is to make it an us vs them issue. Again, it's intentional and cynical. If you stoke rage about mask wearing (and vaccines) you can position yourself as also being a v…

>It doesn't have to be rational. Vaccines mandates are already common for school children, nurses, (and maybe teachers, but I'm not sure about that one) Even this argument ignores nuance. The vaccines in these schedules are mandated for 2 reasons 1. The diseases they treat directly impact their population in a major way in large numbers 2. Immunization not only prevents the negatives impacts of 1, but also prevent th…

Is your argument that COVID-19 does not impact the population directly in large numbers?

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#588

Post by mthoms »

VortexDream wrote: post #568
rfreiberger wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father works in Taiwan and he was aware something bad was coming down well before it hit US news. This was late January 2020, and by then most all of the masks at the stores were sold out, followed shortly by the cleaning supplies. I would say the majority of buyers were shipping these back to family in Asia or they were prepairing for the peak that hit a few weeks later.

I bought a bunch of N95 masks the day after I heard China was locking down Wuhan. There were still plenty of masks at regular prices at the time.

I bought them right around the time officials started admitting they were helpful.

$120 for a box of ten N95 masks.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#589

Post by redis_mlc »

JasonFruit wrote: post #74
outime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s more interesting is that most of these people will survive this episode (given the known mortality data) and thus will “win” the debate (from their point of view) and will never ever trust the government (or health authorities) again. That’s the biggest downside in reality, and regaining the trust is going to be extremely complicated.

I'm not trying to be flippant when I say that it's good that they will not trust government again, as long as that leads to greater public vigilance against government's creeping excesses and self-serving propaganda. If it prevents the next Iraq war and the next Japanese internment, I'm all for it.

> If it prevents the next Iraq war and the next Japanese internment, I'm all for it.

Both were 100% justified.

Hussein had the 4th largest army in the world, and threatened to takeover the entire Middle East. KSA and Kuwait paid the US to force Hussein out of Kuwait.

Japanese sympathizers helped an IJN pilot takeover a city on Kauai.

The lack of history and geopolitical knowledge on HN is pathetic, and results in ill-informed nonsense like the OP.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#590

Post by titzer »

waterhouse wrote: post #579
titzer wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO it was just a stupid call, because in the face of conflicting data, it would have been a better default option to recommend masks. That's easier to walk back than "oops, we were lying because we don't trust you rubes enough not to hoard, even when explicitly instructed not to hoard." In the beginning of the pandemic I, with effectively zero sewing skills, made a cloth mask out of spare clothing. They could have…

> They could have had an infomercial showing people the most effective cloth mask designs they could sew at home. In fact, eventually they did something like this. The Surgeon General of the United States produced a video showing how one could make a quick-and-dirty mask with a t-shirt and rubber bands... dated April 4 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI1GxNjAjlw

Exposure matters. I don't think the SG has that many Twitter followers. :)

I feel like there was a real missed opportunity for the President to do, well, Presidential things. Like if whoever was President had done a series of prime-time infomercials that had this kind of information. The kind of TV event where literally every major network would carry it live.

In my wildest dreams I imagine Carl Sagan as President. Or Mister Rogers. Can you imagine how different the response could have been if a careful communicator and good educator had taken the biggest stage, gave us the straight dope, talked to us like adults and children alike, and made us feel like we were in it together. Instead we had the biggest stooge desperately trying protect his only accomplishment, the record stock market and historically low unemployment from cratering because he was only worried about himself.

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