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I think so much of the messaging would have been better if there were disclaimers about “we are still doing research” and “based on our knowledge at this time”…

I think so much of the messaging would have been better if there were disclaimers about “we are still doing research” and “based on our knowledge at this time”… or even timeboxing the advice so it’s updated every 12-48 hours even if unchanged. This specific messaging has been a rallying point for people who don’t even believe covid exists. At least that was the case in the US

AlchemistCamp 4y ago
I was in Taiwan (and also was for the first SARS), and I think the messaging here was much more competent but also more humble and less aggressive than much of the rest of the world’s. To be fair though, the VP was an epidemiologist, so there was an unfair advantage.
- code_runner 4y ago
  In America we were already in such a weird situation I doubt anything would’ve truly been 100% effective. It’s interesting to hear these different perspectives though
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    To be clear, I think that lockdowns are a gross affront to civil liberties and unjustified for anything under a 10 (and probably even) 20 percent lethality rate. My opinion at the time (when vaccines looked very distant) was that places like Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Korea could still control the pandemic via border quarantines and contact tracing (which happened) and that places like the US also could also achieve good results via mass testing (which didn’t happen). It would have taken about a billion tests per week, but the US certainly had the industrial capacity do it. The problem, IMO, was lack of state capacity. Even as the pandemic spread around the world, the FDA continued processing applications for PPE producers, vaccines and everything else at the same sluggish rate (of a 6+ months delay) that it had been. Tyler Cowen spoke at length about this on various economics and other podcasts.
    - ryanobjc 4y ago
      Which btw in the early days, think early march 2020, a 10% ifr was still on the table. Italy and wuhan (incomplete) data was … not encouraging. And remember that SARS-cov-1 had an ifr of 40%. And was spread by fomites. So in early 2020, with limited data - china really screwed is here - the initial lockdowns in places like SF Bay Area made sense. But the lockdown didn’t persist of course and realistically speaking people always had freedom of movement: the police were NOT and we’re directed to not aggressively ticket/arrest: all those contacts just increased the chance of infection anyways. Now as for the rest of the US I disavow what happened there.
jjeaff 4y ago
In most cases it was. But the 15 seconds that would get distilled down for the short cable news attention spans didn't usually include it.

AlchemistCamp 4y ago

I was in Taiwan (and also was for the first SARS), and I think the messaging here was much more competent but also more humble and less aggressive than much of the rest of the world’s. To be fair though, the VP was an epidemiologist, so there was an unfair advantage.

code_runner 4y ago
In America we were already in such a weird situation I doubt anything would’ve truly been 100% effective. It’s interesting to hear these different perspectives though
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  To be clear, I think that lockdowns are a gross affront to civil liberties and unjustified for anything under a 10 (and probably even) 20 percent lethality rate. My opinion at the time (when vaccines looked very distant) was that places like Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Korea could still control the pandemic via border quarantines and contact tracing (which happened) and that places like the US also could also achieve good results via mass testing (which didn’t happen). It would have taken about a billion tests per week, but the US certainly had the industrial capacity do it. The problem, IMO, was lack of state capacity. Even as the pandemic spread around the world, the FDA continued processing applications for PPE producers, vaccines and everything else at the same sluggish rate (of a 6+ months delay) that it had been. Tyler Cowen spoke at length about this on various economics and other podcasts.
  - ryanobjc 4y ago
    Which btw in the early days, think early march 2020, a 10% ifr was still on the table. Italy and wuhan (incomplete) data was … not encouraging. And remember that SARS-cov-1 had an ifr of 40%. And was spread by fomites. So in early 2020, with limited data - china really screwed is here - the initial lockdowns in places like SF Bay Area made sense. But the lockdown didn’t persist of course and realistically speaking people always had freedom of movement: the police were NOT and we’re directed to not aggressively ticket/arrest: all those contacts just increased the chance of infection anyways. Now as for the rest of the US I disavow what happened there.

jjeaff 4y ago

In most cases it was. But the 15 seconds that would get distilled down for the short cable news attention spans didn't usually include it.