Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

Post by ISL » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

Post by zarkov99 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #10

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…

Post by zarkov99 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

Gortal278 wrote: post #35

wonderwonder wrote: post #26

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

Post by mulvya » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

rob_c wrote: post #29

jerf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two aspects to this, I think. One is true protectionism. My objection to this is that if we perhaps had superhumans guiding us mere humans, they might be capable of modulating our information flow to protect us, but mere humans lack this power. Indeed, let's be honest, being a politician is if anything a counter -indicator in being the sort of person capable of dealing with the real issues that arise in a cri…

Broadly after seeing some of the material coming out of the UK "think tanks" in early 2020 this was really "govt, starched collar, upper class" thinking that the proles will start eating themselves if we even mention that there's a chance they could die. I think projected compliance with a lockdown in the UK was initially estimated and serious attempts were made to model it at 40% compliance. When govt got near 95%+…

    Q. How confident are you that the Chinese are doing what needs to be done?

    A. They're doing things that have completely broken the paradigm of how you respond. They have been, in a draconian way, shutting down everything. They have locked down 50 million people, including the entire 11 million-person city of Wuhan. They will not allow anyone into Beijing unless they have a 14-day quarantine. They're essentially locking people who test positive in their houses. I mean, they're doing things that are almost unheard of in the annals of public health.

    Q. Will it work?

    A. As unusual and extreme as it is, it might actually, ultimately, have an effect. There's this report that the number of new cases for the last couple of days in China has gone down. I don't put much strength in that unless I see it really start to come down and down and down. A few days of going down doesn't mean anything to me. But if it continues to go down, that might be a signal that they're having an effect of what otherwise would be extreme means.

    Q. That would never happen here, would it? Locking down 50 million people?

    A. No, not a chance. It would never happen.

Post by UncleOxidant » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #14

rob_c wrote: post #4

Thanks for posting. It's a terrible shame society has torn itself apart before we could learn the (to some) obvious lesson, but at least maybe this will inform policy in the future... That or governments are now more terrified of people losing their minds and so feel they should be even more controlling in their fear response as a knee jerk reaction.... Either way, in the UK we failed to save about 67% of those who c…

There's two aspects to this, I think. One is true protectionism. My objection to this is that if we perhaps had superhumans guiding us mere humans, they might be capable of modulating our information flow to protect us, but mere humans lack this power. Indeed, let's be honest, being a politician is if anything a counter -indicator in being the sort of person capable of dealing with the real issues that arise in a cri…