231–240 of 404 posts
It's unfortunate that they were loud with the misinformation and very quiet with the correction.
I don't think it's fair to call it "misinformation" since that implies an intention to spread false or unchecked information. To the best of their knowledge , at the time, that was what the evidence pointed to. Then, as more evidence surfaced they realized that those assumptions didn't hold (and that could change again in the future with new research).
Governments who "didn't want to create a panic" just flat-out lied. They broke the public trust and did incalculable, permanent damage to societies' ability to react to crises in the future. It was self-serving, short-sighted, and frankly, the worst possible outcome. They clearly did not avoid a panic, did not avoid massive consequences, but, in the long run, deliberately injected distrust, hatred, and fear, deepenin…
Which governments specifically? Also, you say that they failed to avoid panic but where have you seen some? From what I’ve seen some governments said a few incorrect or misleading things at a time where we had a lot of uncertainty and contradictory information. And then corrected once information became better. Overall western governments (I’m mostly familiar with Western Europe and the US) have been quite good at co…
The most obvious one was on masks and their lack of protection, hammered week after week by the gov spokesperson, until there was enough masks to be distributed. Then masks started to be pushed by the gov, people were encouraged to make their own, and we all know the story from there.
There was no lack of information or evidence, and they paid a lot to keep a full stock of emergency masks up until two years before the pandemic stroke (and then fucked up by giving up on emergency preparation). It was just plain criminal lying to avoid being confronted.
It is rather interesting to consider that many countries in Asia (China / Japan / Taiwan / Vietnam / Malaysia that I am aware of) happily ignored the WHO on masks and, with regards to Japan, actively promoted the airborne nature of COVID-19 early on. I remember seeing specials on NHK visualising the spread from a sneezing person in a room in March 2020. There were also a lot of helpful PSAs like the 3C model [0] and…
> Japan, actively promoted the airborne nature of COVID-19 early on Yes, but Japan is a leader in airborne disease prevention. I mean, if you visit Japan during a "normal" winter season you will observe two things: 1) Widespread mask-wearing in public spaces 2) Japanese not turning up to work to cough and splutter all over their colleagues Both the above never happened in the West. It was hard enough to get your aver…
"Taking full precautions against airborne transmission would require major changes at hospitals" Major changes such as, er, occasionally opening a window to let some fresh air in? That's a basic, obvious precaution that's been known since the dawn of time that wasn't done at all in the UK hospital ward where my mother caught and then died from Covid late last year. I know because I was there. The cluelessness re. vir…
> The cluelessness re. viral spread almost two years into the pandemic was just astounding and I'm still very, very angry about it. I agree. During the first months I would be willing to cut decision-makers some slack (on certain aspects, blatantly poor decision-making is different). 6–12 months in, I was becoming very frustrated at the distinct lack of learning going on. But as you say, two years in. There is ZERO e…
Governments who "didn't want to create a panic" just flat-out lied. They broke the public trust and did incalculable, permanent damage to societies' ability to react to crises in the future. It was self-serving, short-sighted, and frankly, the worst possible outcome. They clearly did not avoid a panic, did not avoid massive consequences, but, in the long run, deliberately injected distrust, hatred, and fear, deepenin…
> Governments who "didn't want to create a panic" Is that supposed to be a quote? It doesn't seem to be a quote from the article. Not creating a panic seems to be a sensible thing to do in most circumstances. You want people to react with appropriate concern to risks, but not behave irrationally.
We now have a sizable percentage of people who not only don’t care what the WHO has to say, but also want to outright cut funding to the organization. Great outcome. Panick avoided.
Can someone please clarify for me what is the implication if Covid is airborne? Does it mean that masks and social distancing were actually useful? Or the opposite?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We all remember Boris Johnson going on TV and saying "Well, you'll have to just take it on the chin". You remember wrongly. He said we considered taking it on the chin, but decided against it. I think Boris has done very badly in his handling of the pandemic; given how many bad decisions he made, it's strange that people seem fixated on this thing he didn't say.
> He said we considered taking it on the chin, but decided against it. Even if this is true, the very fact that it was even an option that came up in discussion in Cabinet says a lot. By the time Boris started appearing on TV, COVID was already on the UK doorstep having marched through China, Asia and Europe. By that time, even a five year old kid could have told you that "taking it on the chin" was not up for discus…
I think it's always worth examining your assumptions. Every time you consider a policy of government, you should consider what would happen if you didn't do it, even if only to compare against a baseline.
> By that time, even a five year old kid could have told you that "taking it on the chin" was not up for discussion.
It was not so obvious at the time. It seemed like a very bad idea to me, but lots of people, including on this forum, were vehement that it was the only option.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 2. CDC (I believe) was claiming that N95 masks won't help as much as other masks. Later it turned out they just didn't want to create scarcity for N95 masks because hospitals need them. This is the most probable explanation for governments around the world saying that masks are “Absolutely useless” (literal quote) until June 2020. It is lying-as-a-form-of-governance. It’s extremely detrimental to credibility: From…
> I’m surprised that individual governments didn’t even think about “Let’s not participate to a blatant lie, let’s tell people we don’t have masks and they should not buy one to let them available to hospitals, but tell them they should wear anything they have at home.” No government used the pedagogy method. They all opted for lie-as—a-policy, and-pretend-it’s-science. They probably thought about the decent method,…
If the government is competing for masks with regular citizens, they had already failed years before. And they did, spectacularly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which governments specifically? Also, you say that they failed to avoid panic but where have you seen some? From what I’ve seen some governments said a few incorrect or misleading things at a time where we had a lot of uncertainty and contradictory information. And then corrected once information became better. Overall western governments (I’m mostly familiar with Western Europe and the US) have been quite good at co…
Fauci, who can probably be seen as the US government, lies: https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-... > have been quite good at communicating in the middle of a global pandemics Have they? It's a horrible back and forth, not based on any evidence. New rules are announced and rescinded a week later (e.g. Germany not ending quarantine of infected after all this week). During lockdowns, people were…
I have made my peace with all of these bureaucratic failures. Maybe a certain amount of contradiction and chaos is part of living in a democracy.
The scary part is that at the same time there has been an authoritarian push to crack down on "disinformation", you know, like the lab leak theory, or the conspiracy theory that vaccination will become mandatory. That has sent my trust from low into negative territory.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, there are facts. Better to state “please stop politicizing uncomfortable facts”. Some facts are essentially absolute such as the speed of light in a medium. Some are statistical in nature and so can change as additional information appears (population response). And some are only inferences. The problem appears when people fail to differentiate these categories through ignorance or point of view. Remember that “n…
Facts are carefully constructed human artifacts, not ideal platonic forms. Since they are usually formed by a consensus, or at least the appearance of a consensus, they are inherently political. The scientific method will tend to produce facts which are "eventually consistent" with reality, but since humans are involved, it's not a guarantee, especially in the short term.
Is that a fact, or opinion?