71–80 of 837 posts
Fauci (and the CDC) lying about masks out of fear it would cause a shortage for healthcare providers burnt a lot of trust quickly. It probably helped the US get into the polarized situation it's in now.
I agree with the sentiment of this article, but I'm noticing that some folks can't determine fact from fiction even when presented with data that supports the facts or makes them irrefutable. No amount of logic, facts, or transparency will be enough for these folks, and while I can appreciate a skeptic, some of these people are beyond basic help and need professional guidance.
It feels like a game of political chicken to me. Like, "if you won't trust the voting public enough to give them the whole truth and instead treat them like blubbering fools, how can you--with a straight face--pretend that their ability to pick leaders or vote on actual issues is a correct way to run a country?" So instead of compliance, they'll bring the whole damn thing down in protest. I don't think the plurality…
By arguing that the other options are worse. Democracy and the separation of powers do not result in great decision making. But it also serves as a significant barrier against absolutely horrible decision making, placing it above the other choices.
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It feels like a game of political chicken to me. Like, "if you won't trust the voting public enough to give them the whole truth and instead treat them like blubbering fools, how can you--with a straight face--pretend that their ability to pick leaders or vote on actual issues is a correct way to run a country?" So instead of compliance, they'll bring the whole damn thing down in protest. I don't think the plurality…
the general public are not the one that decide who get a Phd or MD the expert are the one doing it. It make sense that the expert don't trust the general public with health decision. If you are not convinced just head over to https://www.youtube.com/c/ChubbyemuGames/videos
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…
Not just US, I would say there's a large number of very well educated people even in well off countries who have a large amount of hesitation toward this mainly due to information handling and lack of transparency. (Yes there is a very vocal anti-vax nut job crowd, but frankly that will always be there, and is always different to those who object to policy decisions on moral grounds of their failings and the deaths t…
People I know that choose to not get vaccinated yet are largely resistant to the 'do it for others' push because we've been told that the vaccine is so effective that the 'others' should be safe anyway, unless they've chosen not to get the vaccine too. That leaves these people with a risk assessment based solely on their own health, age, etc.
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…
I assume you've got a typo going on here?
You mean "were vaccinated"?
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.
This will be geographically--and, over time, economically--isolated.
Nearly 80% of American adults and over ¾ of eligible Americans have taken at least one dose of a Covid vaccine [1]. In the 65+ population, the figure is 95%. This simply isn't a big group of people, noisy as they may be. (Caveat: the group of people who are philosophically against vaccine mandates, but will get vaccinated anyway, is larger.)
[1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This is obviously false, they did know that it was better to wear a mask. Most of the population of the world was already wearing masks or being told to do so if possible. Doctors and other health professionals wear masks. National policy should not be made on the basis of 'some people kindof have this pet theory that you might infect yourself if you touch your ear'. I don't know of a single study that says you incre…
U.S. health officials say Americans shouldn’t wear face masks to prevent coronavirus https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-don...
> In fact the U.S. surgeon general recently urged the public to “STOP BUYING MASKS!” “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus...The CDC said last month it doesn’t recommend people use face masks...
> “The virus is not spreading in the general community,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a Jan. 30 briefing. “We don’t routinely recommend the use of face masks by the public to prevent respiratory illness. And we certainly are not recommending that at this time for this new virus.”
WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-r...
> “There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, said at a media briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday.
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…
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…
It may be you have the causality backwards here.