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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

#481

Post by autoexec »

speedybird wrote: post #324
GloriousKoji wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were open and upfront about limited masks and reserving N95 and other PPE for healthcare workers there was a possibility of a social stigma of individuals buying up and using N95 and PPE. Like how scalpers get the stink eye and angry stares when they take all the toilet paper, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. Sure the masks might not have all gone to the right place but I imagine it would have been bett…

Toilet paper scalpers... Last year I scoffed at the people buying two or three packages of toilet paper. I thought that was selfish, and refused to participate in that hysteria. Then a few weeks later, I was wiping my ass with paper towels for a month because I ran out of toilet paper and couldn't buy more. It got me thinking that I should buy a bidet. It also got me thinking that if I had been "part of the problem"…

It convinced me to keep a reasonable amount in reserve at least. I don't expect another run on it like before, but toilet paper isn't likely to go bad sitting on a shelf. I can keep a few extra packs around 'just in case' and I can't see the price of toilet paper doing anything but going up in the future, so getting a little extra now makes sense.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#482

Post by whimsicalism »

sjwalter wrote: post #444
whimsicalism wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The goal of the government is not to minimize the number of deaths at any cost. Maybe not at any cost , but yeah I think there should be a pretty strong presumption towards improving people's welfare and not killing them.

There's a difference between "not killing them" and "protecting them". Especially during this pandemic when so much low-hanging fruit has been intentionally left on the table--for instance, if "protecting people" was ever a goal, why has there been literally zero focus on vitamin D deficiency in the general population? This is simple, cheap, efficient, and a potent inhibitor of sars-cov-2, and yet the ruling class ha…

I've looked at the evidence regarding vitamin D, it is not nearly as clear cut as you suggest.

To me, it's pretty clear that the driving force for these changes has been 700k people dying, not pharma profit.

I'm not going to continue replying, just an FYI.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#483

Post by renewiltord »

ska wrote: post #80
zarkov99 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to understate the damage. The loss of national cohesion, the exacerbated division caused by the "choose your own reality" consequences of no longer having trustworthy institutions. And maybe worse of all, the self-fulfilling nature of distrust. When you do not trust someone, and they know it, they have no incentive to behave in a trust-worthy manner. It will take a long time to dig the country's self-image…

> The loss of national cohesion, It may be you have the causality backwards here.

An interesting hypothesis, somewhat damaged by the fact that trust in the CDC was uniformly high across political affiliations pre-pandemic: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/04/09/public-holds...

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#484

Post by res0nat0r »

evandwight wrote: post #246
valeness wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty privileged viewpoint imo. This one small thing lost the public's trust? Not the fact that cops used to pull me over for no reason because I lived in a poor neighborhood? Not the fact that my family member's lives were ruined because of tiny drug-related infractions? Not the fact that we went on a pointless 20+ year war for no reason (just the one within my lifetime)? Really. Wearing a mask is the bre…

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.

Most of the folks that lost faith during COVID are the ones consuming online rightwing disinformation and also mostly listen to a cable news network and political party that is lying to them for their own political gain.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#485

Post by 18pfsmt »

spookthesunset wrote: post #435
saiya-jin wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emotions can, and often do guide people to do stupidest decisions of their lives that will effectively ruin it, or even kill them. You can't reason with such a person. And getting through the firewall of those emotions, for somebody often on the opposite side of the argument is practically impossible. I suspect IQ level plays a role too (critical thinking not only towards the world but also oneself). The more you pus…

The wonderful thing about your statement is it is unclear just what “side” is correct. You say “ The more you push, the more resistance there is. Doesn't matter how right you are and how wrong they are.” That applies a ton to a bunch of ”pro mitigation” people out there who absolutely refuse to look at the data and science. Both strongly show that covid “badness” is very strongly correlated with age to the extent tha…

One only need look at Sweden and their results. They took minimal action, allowed the youngest to remain in school w/o masks, and only canceled large events. We are now starting to see the all-cause mortality stats and they are proving Sweden's approach minimized the most harm.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#486

Post by hackingforfun »

pandaman wrote: post #452
hackingforfun wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I do understand that. I just hope people would put things in perspective and be a bit more rational. I think racism, bias and all that comes from people taking hard line stances on things, possibly things they inherited from their upbringing, political party, etc. If we take a hard line stance on this as well, I don't see what value we are adding. The way I look at the mask guideline was that it was a mistake but…

Trust is irrational by definition: you are trusting somebody is being truthful without any proof. However, refusing trust after it has been broken even once is rational: not only you still don't have any proof but now you have the evidence that that person/entity can lie to you. You might have heard this saying "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" what do you think it's about?

What you are saying makes sense in a limited context, however, applying it to changing mask guidelines does not make sense to me.

I think rationality is also figuring in all the factors, like an evolving pandemic and supply chain issues, but that's just my opinion.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#487

Post by musicale »

yCombLinks wrote: post #362
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the belittling and censoring of voices that were skeptical of the narratives, which engendered even more distrust What are examples of this? Most of the U.S. was quite loose about lockdowns and mask requirements until their specific geography got hit. (For example, I summered in the Smoky Mountains June of 2020. Compared to New York, it was as if nothing had happened. The tone changed by December, after the South h…

An example that jumps to mind is all of the media and academics that opposed the theory that the virus was a lab leak in china, primarily because Trump espoused the view. As much as Trump deserved ridicule, that was a perfectly valid theory.

Pretty much.

https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-medias-lab-leak-fiasco

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-...

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#488

Post by AareyBaba »

speedybird wrote: post #324
GloriousKoji wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were open and upfront about limited masks and reserving N95 and other PPE for healthcare workers there was a possibility of a social stigma of individuals buying up and using N95 and PPE. Like how scalpers get the stink eye and angry stares when they take all the toilet paper, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. Sure the masks might not have all gone to the right place but I imagine it would have been bett…

Toilet paper scalpers... Last year I scoffed at the people buying two or three packages of toilet paper. I thought that was selfish, and refused to participate in that hysteria. Then a few weeks later, I was wiping my ass with paper towels for a month because I ran out of toilet paper and couldn't buy more. It got me thinking that I should buy a bidet. It also got me thinking that if I had been "part of the problem"…

$35 Non-Electric Bidet Toilet Attachment https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075MMHQX7

Takes a few minutes to install. I recommend it if you don't want to spend $$$ on an electric Toto.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#489

Post by autoexec »

kelnos wrote: post #275
bigodbiel wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is like that from foundation! Distrust in the government is in this nation’s DNA! Right now Gov. Abbott is taking a major stand against Biden’s vaccine mandates.

I hear this a lot, but there's no reason why this has to be the case. The government has a lot to say in how much the people trust it. If they make the first move (and probably the second, and third, and fourth) in being trustworthy and trusting people with information, they can change this perception. It would take decades at minimum, probably longer than our lifetimes, but this doesn't need to be a foregone conclus…

One of the most frustrating things about this for me, is that this pandemic has highlighted just how important it is that the public have trust and faith in science, doctors, medicine, and in government agencies like the CDC. For far too long we've allowed private companies put their profits over human lives and it's hurt that trust. We have seen scientists taking money from corporations to publish bullshit studies for harmful products, doctors accepting bribes to give dangerous drugs to people who don't need them, regulatory capture weaken regulatory agencies and oversight, and time after time there are no meaningful consequences when it happens. It's hard to blame people for their skepticism. Yet even now I haven't seen a whole lot being done to change any of those issues. Instead it's immunity for the sackler family, dishonesty from the CDC, a doctor makes headlines all around the world for telling patients that their illness is caused by daemon sperm and alien DNA, but still has her medical license, etc.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#490

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #253
ssully wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for clarifying. This is why I don't know what the right answer is on the messaging. The US government, and nearly every government, has a history of lying to people. The other side of the coin though is that during those early months, and well into lock down, everything was up in the air about the virus, how it transmitted, and how to fight it. If I was in the position of how to convey that information to p…

I've disagreed with the general global response at essentially every step. I think any reasonable person would have done better, and get the feeling that there are likely ulterior motives and disgraceful politicised actions to explain how bad the response was. In particular, in the beginning there were very clear indications given by Taiwan and China that there was a dangerous virus spreading among the people. Yet si…

My understanding is that US outbreaks weren’t even usually sourced by Chinese travelers. Wasn’t the early NY outbreak actually found to have been through Europe? And that was pretty early. I doubt any restrictions from only certain countries would’ve slowed anything down. We would’ve had to do shit Australia did, total closed borders even to our own citizens abroad…
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