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Tribalism comes for pandemic science

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Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#51

Post by salmon30salmon »

luckylion wrote: post #25
salmon30salmon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. We need some humility in people. It is okay to admit that this is (thankfully!) not as bad as we thought, but it is still bad. It will still kill a lot of people. We need to take it seriously, but not as seriously as we feared. The doomers need to have the humility to admit that, and the hoaxers need to have the humility to admit that it is worse than the seasonal flu. Again, I fear people don't realize that…

> the hoaxers need to have the humility to admit that it is worse than the seasonal flu. I don't believe any significant number actually thinks that, it's their counter to "everybody will die, the science is settled". They will aim for something on the opposite extreme, that is a pretty common reaction. Imho: if you don't try to convince them that an asteroid is about to crash into earth, but instead tell them that l…

I mean the response is a disaster, not the epidemic itself. The fact that 40m are unemployed, that income tax receipts have nosedived, that business are shuttering leading to blight etc. Those are the long term disasters in the making.

Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#53

Post by ColanR »

ardy42 wrote: post #48
throwaway894345 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, the right has been pretty consistent about tailoring the response according to risk—i.e., those who are at risk should isolate and everyone else should resume work. They happened to be right in this regard. The left has also made exceptions in their “lockdown everything” policy, specifically with regard to their own protests (and the response of pandemic experts is a particularly interesting case study o…

> In fairness, the right has been pretty consistent about tailoring the response according to risk—i.e., those who are at risk should isolate and everyone else should resume work. I don't think that was being consistent about "tailoring the response according to risk [from the virus]," but rather being consistent about tailoring the response to pre-existing policy preferences . An ideal lock-down requires significant…

> tailoring the response to pre-existing policy preferences

Well, that's true of the left as well. A "bottom-up government economic intervention" fits nicely with existing left wing ideas.

Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#54

Post by lotu »

jamesrcole wrote: post #28
salmon30salmon wrote: post #2

This is so very disheartening. I will speak only for the United States, as I am not familiar enough with other countries to comment. Not only is this impacting nearly every single person in the country, it is ruining the financial situation of over 40m people, primarily concentrated within the most financially vulnerable. This is because leaders on the left and right have refused to respond to new data, and are worki…

> the left says "lockdown lockdown lockdown" of course that hasn’t really been the case over the last week or so.

This is about what we value most. People on the right then to value individualism, self-sufficiency, and self-determination more. While people on the left value equity, and community more. You can see these values reflected in what each side is willing to take risks for.

Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#55

Post by eirini1 »

guygurari wrote: post #50
matthewdgreen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I am on the “left”, and my view throughout this thing has been “do what the experts say we should, while maintaining a diversity of expert views.” This is also the vibe I get from most of my “left” friends. Moreover, Europe has largely followed its experts’ advice —- and with a few exceptions they’ve largely brought cases under control, so it’s not like the advice was bad. This “pox on both houses” post, in w…

> “do what the experts say we should, while maintaining a diversity of expert views.” I don’t think this is an actual strategy. If there is a diversity of views, which experts do you listen to? Also, experts in which field? Epidemiologists have generally recommended very strict shutdowns, but they are not economists and are not experts on the economic ramifications. Some economists agree with strict lockdowns, others…

obviously you listen to the epidemiologist, not the economist. The economist is an expert on the economy and not on pandemics, and therefore will always give advice that is aimed at keeping up the economy and not saving people and preventing the spread of the virus. Its baffling to me that you think an economist has any kind of valid input on this matter. At best an economist could advise you on how to keep the economy afloat under the restrictions the epidemiologists has advised.

Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#56

Post by mthoms »

salmon30salmon wrote: post #23
ColanR wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the root problem that needs to be addressed is that to a lot of people, scientists and the media appear to put politics before truth. The recent hydroxychloroquine is an obvious example [1]; The Lancet should never have published something with data so obviously questionable, and the media should not have picked it up so immediately as political ammunition. But the result is that the media appears to be…

This happened again today, with Washington Post publishing an article based on a study that was submitted to Nature on March 22, 2020. They used this old data (2 months ago is old in this case) to claim that the lockdown saved millions upon millions of lives. To be that disingenuous can't be accidental, I am afraid. And I am normally a fan of WaPo

The data is indeed old but China began its lockdown on January 24th and South Korea a month later. Those countries seem to be the central focus of the study with regards to evaluating the effectiveness of the shutdown(s).

I'm only a layperson but it doesn't seem too far-fetched that they could extrapolate from how those countries "flattened the curve" to come up with a ballpark estimate of global fatalities averted. After all, other countries mostly followed a similar "curve flattening" pattern (as far as I'm aware).

At the very least, I don't see anything inherently disingenuous.

Side note: FWIW, the study itself says the authors last "updated" it on May 13th (not the data itself though it appears).

Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#57

Post by matthewdgreen »

JPKab wrote: post #24

Question: Has anyone here changed their mind about COVID19 in a major way as the data has become more complete? Just wondering. I have sensed in myself tribalistic tendencies of not changing my mind when the data changes. I'm trying hard to look at myself and recognize it and experiment with different thoughts. I find myself bouncing between thinking we have overreacted to then thinking that my perception of an overr…

I don’t know what you mean by “change your mind”. I’ve come to understand that it is much less infectious outdoors, that it is more responsive to moderate social distancing than we though initially (possibly due to super spreading?) and that masks appear to work well. This has made me more relaxed about many activities.

I continue to believe that it’s an extremely infectious RNA virus that will spread exponentially in situations where people are in close proximity or indoors without social distancing and masks. I think New Orleans, NYC, Lombardy, Wuhan, and the ongoing situation in Brazil are more than enough evidence for that. I also think the success of Europe and China in using social distancing plus test/trace/isolate to tamp down their epidemics is pretty solid evidence that this was the right strategy, and I’m incredibly disappointed that America was incapable of executing on it.

The question I think you’re asking is: given that we failed to take the right advice, have I given up on trying to make us take it? And the answer is: basically yes. I think we’ll have to let nature take its course and protect ourselves now.

Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#58

Post by mdemare »

pjc50 wrote: post #17

The people who said that lockdown needed to be limited in length because people couldn't take it for long were right. Unfortunately, due to not understanding exponentials, many advocated for starting the lockdown later : hence the UK's delayed lockdown and therefore highest death toll in Europe. The people advocating for "herd immunity" never addressed the death rate; a death rate of even 0.5% in the UK would be thre…

If you trust the death rate, and the number of deaths reported are both accurate, the UK is at 40k/300k = 13%. A very long way from immunity, but not 0.5%.

Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#59

Post by lotu »

xiphias2 wrote: post #41

,,people should not be walking around with masks'' What Fauci was telling to people is not science. I was wearing my N100 masks when I had the chance, because I hadn't seen any evidence of masks making the coronavirus more infectious, but much evidence to the contrary. The whole anti-mask propaganda made it hard to me to trust scientific leaders, and even some papers at this point.

The anti-mask “propaganda” was obviously an only partially successful effort to preserve the supply of masks for first responders. If the CDC/WHO and came out and said everyone wear masks in the beginning of march the supply would have spiked harder and faster than it already did, likely resulting in more health care worker fatalities.

Re: Tribalism comes for pandemic science

#60

Post by luckylion »

salmon30salmon wrote: post #51
luckylion wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the hoaxers need to have the humility to admit that it is worse than the seasonal flu. I don't believe any significant number actually thinks that, it's their counter to "everybody will die, the science is settled". They will aim for something on the opposite extreme, that is a pretty common reaction. Imho: if you don't try to convince them that an asteroid is about to crash into earth, but instead tell them that l…

I mean the response is a disaster, not the epidemic itself. The fact that 40m are unemployed, that income tax receipts have nosedived, that business are shuttering leading to blight etc. Those are the long term disasters in the making.

Oh, my mistake, I misunderstood. Thanks for clearing that up!
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