Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths • Hacker News Board

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#551

Post by rc2634 » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #357

HideousKojima wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for young people

Yes, even for young people. Even when you look at the side-effects of the vaccine, they tend to be more common among people who get the virus. For example, myocarditis is several times more common among young people who get CoVID-19 than among young people who get vaccinated.[1] Given that everyone is eventually going to get infected or vaccinated, getting vaccinated probably significantly decreases the risk of myoca…

What about the over hundred million people who have already acquired natural immunity? Do you think they should also take the risk of vaccine side effects even though they already have immunity that is more robust than the vaccine can provide by itself?

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#552

Post by JamisonM » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

mulvya wrote: post #47

rob_c wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%+…

> there is a statement on record from politicians reacting to the suggestion with "this is not Asia, people would not stand for a lockdown" Fauci said that in Feb 2020. -------- 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 dow…

I mean, there was never an intervention in the USA comparable to the lockdown in China - right? Is there an instance where 50 million Americans couldn't travel to a neighbouring city without suffering criminal penalties?

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#553

Post by Natsu » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

clairity wrote: post #475

Natsu wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you meant to reply to someone else, because you're quoting words that I didn't write. If I was running things, I would tell people that they have no power to punish anyone whatsoever and design the Covid rules with that in mind, making them focused entirely on helping people instead of controlling them.

> "If I was running things, I would tell people that they have no power to punish anyone whatsoever and design the Covid rules with that in mind, making them focused entirely on helping people instead of controlling them." to be fair, i agree that we should avoid punishing people for making different risk calculations, and resultant choices, because as a population, it's advantageous to have a variety of strategies e…

Well, I agree that there are valid reasons to make different risk calculations, however, part of that calculation has to be the chance of catching and spreading Covid to people who have higher risk.

I personally have almost no risk from Covid. But if I don't take precautions I could easily kill grandma, who can't vaccinate, and others at the nursing home.

I agree that there's no one true risk calculation for everyone, and there are costs whatever we do, but a lot of this would be solved if we were trying to help each other instead of fighting.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#554

Post by jasonlaramburu » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 1:59 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #471

notahacker wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and we shouldn't engage in censorship of factual information because "people are dying". It's not 'censorship of factual information' for a private service to choose to put health warnings against or delete fact free claims of HCQ as a miracle cure. Indeed "healthy living" supplement hucksters are ridiculed and kicked off platforms on a regular basis, even when some of the claims they make about "healthy living" ha…

> It's not 'censorship of factual information' for a private service to choose to put health warnings against or delete fact free claims of HCQ as a miracle cure. I'm not going to get into the "it isn't censorship if it's a private company" debate. That's a facile argument. Silencing of speech is wrong. Full stop. I'm not debating semantics. If the only way you can rebut an argument is by silencing it, then you lose…

>Get better at defending your beliefs in the marketplace of ideas.

This is sort of the Joe Rogan argument: fight misinformation by talking louder and more convincingly. I am legitimately curious, in what way could the pro-vaccine community do a better job of defending their beliefs in the marketplace of ideas?

The data is clear that vaccines save lives, they have generally mild side effects and they reduce transmission of COVID. This data has been made freely available to the public in an unprecedented way. Politicians, celebrities, athletes and scientists have all spoken convincingly in favor of vaccinations. Despite these efforts, the country that first developed the vaccine now ranks 52nd globally in terms of number of eligible individuals vaccinated. What went wrong?

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#555

Post by post_from_work » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 2:00 AM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #518

michaelmrose wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just keeping a majority of an infected but not symptomatic persons spit from traveling around the room would seem like a win even if being in the presence of mask wearers being safer is harder to establish than the effecacy of mask wearing and it won't help if those most likely to spread the disease because they won't be careful aren't wearing them. Personally I've found n95 mask's with head straps more comfortable t…

Why not always wear a mask? Why have we decided this one specific illness deserves this level of “safety”?

>>>Why not always wear a mask?

Facemask usage has been common in Asia, I think largely due to SARS ( I didn't live here back when that kicked off). It's normal for customer service staff to wear masks even if they just have a mild sniffle/headcold.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shocked/2020...

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#556

Post by lborsato » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 2:00 AM UTC

Thank you all for one of the most calm, reasonable, and rational discussions I have seen in the past two years.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#557

Post by wolverine876 » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #313

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the biggest example of this was the poor mask guidance early on in the pandemic that was subsequently reversed. Zeynep Tufekci had a very good piece in the NYT on this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-... The real fear was that there would be a run on masks by the public, making them unavailable for hospital use. Also, at the time, there wasn't clear evidence of the effective…

This matches a lot of my own experience in trying to convince people to take reasonable precautions and get vaccinated. And I was one of the first in line for my age group in my state. You have to do things to build trust first, and you have to be willing to admit that some of the measures taken are farcical and have no basis in science. People will listen to a reasonable, nuanced discussion. They won't listen to som…

> People will listen to a reasonable, nuanced discussion. They won't listen to someone who hates them.

The victim argument is standard rhetoric, but they can choose to do what they want. For one thing, I haven't seen much hate at all. Could you give examples of it on a significant scale? Some leaders expressing hate? Mostly, I see resignation.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#558

Post by somewhereoutth » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 2:03 AM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #453

jobigoud wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really win the debate anyway: if everybody had followed strict isolation from the get go there wouldn't have been a pandemic and people would have said the restrictions were completely uncalled for.

And the minute the restrictions were lifted the virus would be back again. Sorry. The idea that if we did lockdowns “right” this would be over is a lie. And to date I’ve yet to hear any “expert” tell the public that a strict lockdown wouldn’t work… all the more reason to not trust them.

It's over in China - has been for a while. I guess they did do lockdowns right.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#559

Post by kcplate » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

hackingforfun wrote: post #288

evandwight wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just so I understand, the one thing about flip flopping on masks cost them to lose faith in all medical experts? Doesn't that seem a little unreasonable? I agree we shouldn't have flip flopped on masks, but I don't think making a whole narrative out of that makes sense.

Closing borders is racist. Two weeks to flatten the curve. Don’t mask. Mask. Stay Inside. Trump didn’t close the borders fast enough! Double mask. Protest crowds are not superspreaders. Trump Rallies are superspreaders. School is dangerous, distance learning is good. Go outside, inside is bad. Dems-don’t trust Trump Vaccines. Biden/Pelosi - we can’t mandate vaccination. Dems-you must trust our vaccines, they are effective. Biden/Pelosi- we are mandating vaccines. No mask if vaccinated. School is good, kids don’t get it. Still mask if vaccinated. School is bad, kids are getting it. Vaccine boosters because they are not as effective as we thought.

Did I miss anything?

Edit: added some punctuation for clarity

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#560

Post by rc2634 » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #261

potta_coffee wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen lots of "right wing" people saying that Trump is betraying them by recommending the vaccine constantly. I don't think he's anti-vax.

That he is promoting the vaccine now doesn't ignore the fact that his anti-vax, anti-mask stance while in office essentially drove that movement. There are numerous [1] points [2] where he could have changed [3] things and saved many many lives but decided it would help him politically to do the opposite. The anti-vax movement is a monster he created, fed and hoped would net him a re-election. That it's turning on hi…

You might have Trump derangement syndrome. The sources you decided to cite also points to that diagnosis.

Trump was never anti-vax. He was a shit president and is an awful human being but he wasn’t anti-vax. He actually wanted credit for his handling of vaccine development and distribution. He himself is vaccinated and encouraged others to get vaccinated.