Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#261

Post by hurflmurfl » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:56 PM UTC

tenuousemphasis wrote: post #233

traceroute66 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I wouldn't widely blame workers for coming to work sick. Often they're either instructed to do so or have no paid sick leave and desperately need the money.

I'd say this is only a part of the story. I remember when I was growing up I'd go to school if I'm having "just a cough/sneeze/running nose". I.e. if it's not impacting my functioning (like a fever or pain from a sore throat would), I'd be ready to dismiss it as "not serious enough". Now, this was in Russia, so my argument isn't about the culture in Europe, but rather about the presence of cultural differences.

Nowadays, working a remote job, I can work if it's just a cough, and it won't affect my co-workers. Never thought about this benefit of remote work!

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#262

Post by makeitdouble » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:59 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #251

makeitdouble wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking for France, we had a lot of flat out lies throughout the pandemic. 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 pai…

Masks in general provide very little protection. I recommend you listen to the explanations by infectious disease experts Dr. Monica Gandhi and Dr. Michael Osterholm. Only properly fitted N95 (or equivalent) masks provide significant protection. Throughout the pandemic most people weren't wearing those, and those who did mostly wore them incorrectly. https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/ https://open.spotify.com/epis…

> Only properly fitted N95 (or equivalent) masks provide significant protection.

This! This is the bulshit we got fed for almost 6 months. Paired with "people don't know how to properly fit N95 anyway", "you touch four face 20 times in an hour on average, you'd be touching your mask the same" etc.

All of it with that specific condecending tone of "you plebes are not as informed as we policy makers are, we know best".

This slowly turned around when heavy mask wearing countries were clearly doing leaps and bounds better, and they started backpedaling, explaining that there was not enough masks anyway. People also progressively stopped freaking out about having to cover their face (in France in particular it was a thorny subject due to past religious controversies) so they didn't need weird purist "if it's not perfect why bother ?" excuses anymore.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#263

Post by Bancakes » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #183

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…

I think the governments did a great job at keeping the populace calm and ignorant of a virus with single digit death rates. Every hour spent researching the virus was better spent researching a good diet and fitness.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#264

Post by Clubber » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

scoopertrooper wrote: post #217

traceroute66 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

That’s not actually lying though. Expressing an opinion is not lying.

Michael Jordan was a shitty basketball player. That's an opinion, am I lying?

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#265

Post by programmarchy » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

tenuousemphasis wrote: post #240

programmarchy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Facts are carefully constructed human artifacts, not ideal platonic forms. Is that a fact, or opinion?

I’ll take the opportunity to expand. Say you observe an event directly, with your own eyes. We’ll exclude optical illusions, hallucinations, or the possibility of a demon manipulating your brain in a vat. Is your direct observation a fact?

It’s an important observation, so you must communicate it to others. You perform a speech act to tell a few colleagues, with utterances and gesticulations to describe your observation as closely as possible. Is your oral exposition a fact?

You must communicate the observation widely for the good of society. You write a Tweet thread, and publish a scientific paper to the journals. Are these written productions also facts?

It’s retweeted, and a summary of the preprint is published to nature.com. Facts?

Colloquially, most people would refer to all of these things as facts. And each one is a carefully constructed human artifact, whether it’s sensory data imported and stored in your brain, a speech utterance, a Tweet, or a scientific article.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#266

Post by silverlake » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

gilleain wrote: post #242

traceroute66 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Completely agree that Japan has done better. Putting some numbers on it: UK 21,461,556 cases, 313,247 cases/1M, 2,468 deaths/1M, 68,513,217 Pop Japan 6,832,377 cases, 54,313 cases/1M, 226 deaths/1M, 125,795,510 Pop So its the deaths per million that is 1/10th (2,000+ vs 200+), while the cases per million are more like 1/6. (data from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ )

This statistic is more striking considering the population over age 65 is 18% in UK, 28% in Japan.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#267

Post by JetAlone » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #70

JetAlone wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberalism is about liberty. Those people haven't been acting as liberals. They've been acting as militant technocrats. That said, I'm willing to forgive anyone who's been living that way and realizes it's not gonna make for a particularly joyous human life. We're human, we get scared, we make mistakes.

> Liberalism is about liberty. Only in the rest of the world. In the US that word was redefined to mean "people I do not like" and they use "libertarian" instead for the original meaning.

I thought about this a little more. The relationship of these "people I do not like" (though some of them are not so bad) to freedom exists - it's not liberal, it's libertine. You are free to play almost any way you want. You want to play all day with little children's toys well into your 40s? Go right ahead, you do you. Watch a show aimed at the opposite sex, while stuffing your face full of custom made toothpaste-flavoured corn chips? Nothing wrong with that. Got an absolutely bonkers kink, like uh, transforming people into cakes and sitting on them? Any judgment or concern about it is met with harsh reproach.

The only sort of play that is obviously not tolerated is culture-jamming against the libertines. It's stupid, immature, in poor taste, morally reprehensible, selfish, deplorable, hypocritical, bigoted, alarmist, disingenuous, and sinful against the only commandment: "Do as thou wilt". This is our dungeon, in our fort, in what used to be your country. Go play somewhere else, and make sure we can't hear you.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#268

Post by justin66 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

optymizer wrote: post #33

I was the first in our office to go permanently WFH in February of 2020, three weeks before our offices closed, because I recognized that SARS-Cov-2 would be a huge problem, when pretty much everyone was in the 'just a flu/cold' mode. Here's the news that did not pass my bullshit detector: 1. Virus is not airborne (as initially claimed). I thought the water droplets claims were true for a while until I saw how fast i…

> CDC (I believe) was claiming that N95 masks won't help as much as other masks.

I would wager that is something no one from the CDC ever said, wrote, or implied.

They told people they would not benefit from using N95 masks, which was damaging enough.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#269

Post by gedy » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

tenuousemphasis wrote: post #233

traceroute66 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I wouldn't widely blame workers for coming to work sick. Often they're either instructed to do so or have no paid sick leave and desperately need the money.

Maybe, but working around tech people in the US it seems to be cultural. Pre COVID it was so common to see "Oh I'm not contagious", etc while hacking at their desk.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#270

Post by orra » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

sampo wrote: post #222

traceroute66 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which governments specifically? Erm, the US and UK ? Their handling has been dire. We all remember Boris Johnson going on TV and when asked about the images coming out of Italy said "Well, its nothing to worry about, you'll have to just take it on the chin". Every man and his dog could see the slow car-crash coming. First China, then Asia, then Western Europe... the statistics and TV coverage was all there for ever…

> We all remember Boris Johnson going on TV and when asked about the images coming out of Italy said "Well, its nothing to worry about, you'll have to just take it on the chin". In defense of Boris, UK scientific advisors Patrick Vallance and Roy M. Anderson advised to go for the "herd immunity" strategy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Vallance#COVID-19_pand... https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article…

I wouldn’t give PM Boris Johnson too much credit here. He regularly skipped crucial meetings at the start of the pandemic, and as PM he is ultimately accountable for his choice of advisors.

Moreover, a year later his government had the gall to pretend that herd immunity through infection had never been the strategy. It's a post-truth government.