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

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#61

Post by smoe » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

I think the other hard truth that citizens don't get entrusted with, is that we don't really know how to deal with a pandemic in the modern globalized world.

Sure, some countries had plans and scenarios made before, but nonetheless got caught with their pants down. E.g Switzerland doing a nationwide epidemic simulation back in 2013, identifying serious flaws in preparedness, but not acting on it at all.

And even if, it would most likely not have panned out as neatly as predicted.

We haven't dealt with a situation like this before, so things are going to be messy. Opinions changing as more information comes in, not necessary the most effective measure being taken, coordination among countries not working, people fighting for attention etc. I reckon it's going to take a couple years of analysis to be able to look back and with more certainty say what would have been the optimal way to deal with it for different regions and what the right tradeoffs might have been.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#62

Post by saalweachter » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

sto_hristo wrote: post #28

outime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s more interesting is that most of these people will survive this episode (given the known mortality data) and thus will “win” the debate (from their point of view) and will never ever trust the government (or health authorities) again. That’s the biggest downside in reality, and regaining the trust is going to be extremely complicated.

Such pandemics don't start every other year. Last great one was 100 years ago. So i wouldn't worry at all for the "winners", there's plenty of time for generations to refresh. Worry about government's inability to learn and improve based on past mistakes, also complacency. It's not hard to imagine 100 years from now, popular presidential guy spearheading the next great pandemic, calming the subjects down with the gre…

I wonder, do we expect the rate of pandemics to increase or decrease over time?

On the one hand, you might assume the rate of pandemics is proportional to the size of the human population; more people, more hosts for mutating viruses, greater odds of one mutating to a pandemic-causing disease. There have been roughly 400 billion person-years lived since the last pandemic, but given the larger populations, we'd expect to accumulate another 400 billion person-years by around 2070.

On the other hand, you might assume the rate of pandemics is proportional to the size of the animal populations humans interact with. More animals to breed the viruses, more interactions to pass along the next candidate pandemic. In this case, we might expect more than a century for the next pandemic, since the next century isn't expected to be nearly as kind to animal populations.

(Obviously the situation is more complicated than an either-or, and has many contributing factors, and is stochastic in any case.)

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#63

Post by rudedogg » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

beebmam wrote: post #15

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #3

Edit: before you downvote this, read it? I'm not an anti-vax nutcase. They didn't trust the public with their actual thinking at any point during Covid. The guidance was initially "don't wear a mask, it will make it worse because you'll infect yourself with your hand" to "we'll just lock down for 3 weeks and then back to normal" to "we have to flatten the curve to avoid overwhelming hospitals" to the current policy o…

Surgical masks (and other cloth masks) make a small but significant difference in transmission. At the beginning of the pandemic, we didn't understand whether that difference was lost in the increased need to interact with one's face while wearing a mask (and we now know that SARS-CoV-2 becomes inactivated quite quickly on surfaces, like our hands). N95s and higher rated masks/filters have always been very good for v…

(Speaking to the information we got in the US)

This is wrong and way too charitable. They were worried that hospitals would run out of masks, and that was why the Surgeon General lied [0], and said masks weren't necessary. Fauci and everyone else did the same thing.

It's unfortunate that so much trust was wasted on this, but revising history that we all lived through isn't helping.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-fa...

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#64

Post by neogodless » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

WhisperingShiba wrote: post #12

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…

And thats a good thing too. Don't reward poor behavior with compliance.

It's trivially easy to understand that getting a vaccine that benefits you, as well as the people around you, is good for the people around you, much more so than it is good for someone you're protesting against.

And not getting the vaccine is potentially bad for you, and those around you, much more so than it is bad for anyone you're protesting against.

The vaccine helps your body fight the virus, and reduce the spread of the virus in your local community. That should be the key point in deciding if you get a vaccine.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#65

Post by jjwiseman » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

WhisperingShiba wrote: post #12

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…

And thats a good thing too. Don't reward poor behavior with compliance.

That's got real "I'm not taking the safe, free, incredibly effective vaccine to own the libs" energy.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#66

Post by Covzire » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #34

sto_hristo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such pandemics don't start every other year. Last great one was 100 years ago. So i wouldn't worry at all for the "winners", there's plenty of time for generations to refresh. Worry about government's inability to learn and improve based on past mistakes, also complacency. It's not hard to imagine 100 years from now, popular presidential guy spearheading the next great pandemic, calming the subjects down with the gre…

The vaccine hesitancy will impact vaccines for HPV, measles, HEP B, etc. etc. for generations.

Most people against the COVID EUA vaccines are not anti-vaxx, at all.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#67

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

nverno wrote: post #59

outime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s more interesting is that most of these people will survive this episode (given the known mortality data) and thus will “win” the debate (from their point of view) and will never ever trust the government (or health authorities) again. That’s the biggest downside in reality, and regaining the trust is going to be extremely complicated.

But the upside is that hopefully the govt/health authorities will learn a lesson and be better in the future. Id say in these situations any fallout is always the govt's fault since it is there to serve the people- a case of the customer is always right.

[deleted]

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#68

Post by betterunix2 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

sto_hristo wrote: post #28

outime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s more interesting is that most of these people will survive this episode (given the known mortality data) and thus will “win” the debate (from their point of view) and will never ever trust the government (or health authorities) again. That’s the biggest downside in reality, and regaining the trust is going to be extremely complicated.

Such pandemics don't start every other year. Last great one was 100 years ago. So i wouldn't worry at all for the "winners", there's plenty of time for generations to refresh. Worry about government's inability to learn and improve based on past mistakes, also complacency. It's not hard to imagine 100 years from now, popular presidential guy spearheading the next great pandemic, calming the subjects down with the gre…

...are you not counting HIV as a recent major pandemic? SARS? MERS?

It is also worth remembering that for decades we have been carefully monitoring the spread of infectious diseases to prevent major pandemics from forming. There was no political controversy surrounding those efforts prior to COVID19, not in the US or anywhere else.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#69

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:54 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…

> 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 had its wave.)

To the extent there was belittling, it was around the promotion of treatments, a set of claims that has always been tightly regulated. (Also, the early, intentional miscommunications around the efficacy of N95 masks, which was horrible.)

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#70

Post by tunesmith » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

One of the variant ideas I was stuck on was when the government and CDC decided (pre-Delta) to tell everyone that masks weren't required in stores if you were vaccinated.

Part of the justification was that they thought it would create incentive for the unvaccinated to get vaccinated, since the carrot was that they could stop wearing masks afterward.

Regardless of whether that had the desired effect or not, it seemed to be another example of being too clever by half, rather than just sticking with what the data itself suggested.