191 ms·

Covid debunks all your claims. I’ve taken all my covid jabs and boosters so I’m not coming at this as some alt right antivaxxer, but the systemic and systematic

Covid debunks all your claims. I’ve taken all my covid jabs and boosters so I’m not coming at this as some alt right antivaxxer, but the systemic and systematic shut down of any dissent against mainstream science and scientific organisations was/is disgusting.

rusk 3y ago
In my jurisdiction at least it was hijacked for business purposes. I believe that all the lockdown stuff was necessary but after a while certain actors started to take advantage of it, for instance supermarkets selling a broad range of stuff while all regular stores had to stay shut. Hurdur supply chain. Then there was the stockpiling of PPE, hand sanitizer. The dismissal of masks unless they were “very good” (totally ignoring collective benefit vs individual) and self testing (again ignoring aggregate benefit vs individual). As soon as particular commercial interests got their positions covered these things all of a sudden became “okay”. Again, like I say the Covid outbreak was real. We did need to do what we could not least to safeguard medical services. But boy did the schemers go to town once they figured out a way to get rich from it. Still waiting for that windfall tax on the supermarkets.
chrisan 3y ago
> Covid debunks all your claims. No it doesn't. Maybe something on social media but not a single one of my wife's colleagues at the hospital nor any other scientist would have turned down ivermectin (as an example, there were many other theories besides that one drug) if it had shown any sign of doing good for their patients. There were routine talking about alternate therapies among the scientists/doctors/researchers about these topics. You can search for the UCSF Covid Grand Rounds on youtube and watch the history of their open discussions as research was routinely presented from all over the globe on the various items. I code for a living and have no idea about this stuff, but my wife's goal is to make patients better and she would watch the grand rounds (or similar) every time and I'd listen from another room. Not a single alternate treatment wasn't discussed and evaluated.
- felipeerias 3y ago
  I’ll give you an example. Until 2020, healthcare authorities in the Western world were were certain that viruses could never remain airborne for extended periods of time. People who thought otherwise (i.e. Asia) were routinely dismissed as unscientific dunces following some weird cultural habit. Eventually it turned out that the Western scientists didn’t really have any hard evidence for that belief. It was just an old idea that happened to match with their priors, so they kept parroting it to one another and to the public until the dead started piling in.
  - melagonster 3y ago
    >It was just an old idea but it is from the experience of another Corona virus outbreak last time. Asia just know wearing mask is helpful anyway.
    - felipeerias 3y ago
      But the health authorities in the West did not update their knowledge in view of that evidence. I am familiar with the case of Spain: when the COVID-19 pandemic started, the public healthcare guidelines in Spain still classified coronaviruses as mild viruses, not more severe than the flu.
  - chrisan 3y ago
    Source of western healthcare authorities telling the public this? edit: also the airborness of it was also a repeated topic in the cited grand rounds
    - felipeerias 3y ago
      The WHO only declared COVID-19 to be airborne in December 2021. There were many articles at the time describing this failure. It’s interesting how quickly it has faded from memory. I’m on my phone, so this is just an example from a quick search. Again, there are many like this: “Public health organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO) initially declared the virus to be transmitted in large droplets that fell to the ground close to the infected person, as well as by touching contaminated surfaces. The WHO emphatically declared on March 28, 2020, that SARS-CoV-2 was not airborne (except in the case of very specific “aerosol-generating medical procedures”) and that it was “misinformation” to say otherwise. […] “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States followed a parallel path […] “The very slow and haphazard acceptance of the evidence of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by major public health organizations contributed to a suboptimal control of the pandemic, whereas the benefits of protection measures against aerosol transmission are becoming well established.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070
lol768 3y ago
I think this is a tricky one. Certainly I wasn't particularly impressed with how the science was communicated in a few areas: - The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, and the risk/benefit analysis, particular in younger adult demographics - The WHO's position on airborne transmission of Covid-19, and the way in which understanding in this area was misrepresented to the public I took part in a vaccine clinical trial myself, and there was a much more in-depth discussion as to what was known about the candidate vaccination, its side effect profile - and, more importantly, the limits of our knowledge given the small population it had been tested in when I volunteered. We didn't see much of that nuance during the height of the pandemic. At the same time though, some may argue that trying to combat misinformation requires over-simplifying some things, such that they can be effectively communicated to the public. Ref: https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7
- kuhewa 3y ago
  > The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, and the risk/benefit analysis, particular in younger adult demographics This is more of a matter of public health than science though. It would be nice if they were the same thing but it's like asking for people to be perfectly rational and well-informed actors like in those economics models
RandomLensman 3y ago
Not sure the claim is true in the strong form, but that aside: was the approach wrong as far as policies and social outcome are concerned? Would a more nuanced approach have worked better and by what metric? Just being unhappy about what happened isn't enough for things social.

rusk 3y ago

In my jurisdiction at least it was hijacked for business purposes. I believe that all the lockdown stuff was necessary but after a while certain actors started to take advantage of it, for instance supermarkets selling a broad range of stuff while all regular stores had to stay shut. Hurdur supply chain. Then there was the stockpiling of PPE, hand sanitizer. The dismissal of masks unless they were “very good” (totally ignoring collective benefit vs individual) and self testing (again ignoring aggregate benefit vs individual). As soon as particular commercial interests got their positions covered these things all of a sudden became “okay”. Again, like I say the Covid outbreak was real. We did need to do what we could not least to safeguard medical services. But boy did the schemers go to town once they figured out a way to get rich from it. Still waiting for that windfall tax on the supermarkets.

chrisan 3y ago

> Covid debunks all your claims. No it doesn't. Maybe something on social media but not a single one of my wife's colleagues at the hospital nor any other scientist would have turned down ivermectin (as an example, there were many other theories besides that one drug) if it had shown any sign of doing good for their patients. There were routine talking about alternate therapies among the scientists/doctors/researchers about these topics. You can search for the UCSF Covid Grand Rounds on youtube and watch the history of their open discussions as research was routinely presented from all over the globe on the various items. I code for a living and have no idea about this stuff, but my wife's goal is to make patients better and she would watch the grand rounds (or similar) every time and I'd listen from another room. Not a single alternate treatment wasn't discussed and evaluated.

felipeerias 3y ago
I’ll give you an example. Until 2020, healthcare authorities in the Western world were were certain that viruses could never remain airborne for extended periods of time. People who thought otherwise (i.e. Asia) were routinely dismissed as unscientific dunces following some weird cultural habit. Eventually it turned out that the Western scientists didn’t really have any hard evidence for that belief. It was just an old idea that happened to match with their priors, so they kept parroting it to one another and to the public until the dead started piling in.
- melagonster 3y ago
  >It was just an old idea but it is from the experience of another Corona virus outbreak last time. Asia just know wearing mask is helpful anyway.
  - felipeerias 3y ago
    But the health authorities in the West did not update their knowledge in view of that evidence. I am familiar with the case of Spain: when the COVID-19 pandemic started, the public healthcare guidelines in Spain still classified coronaviruses as mild viruses, not more severe than the flu.
- chrisan 3y ago
  Source of western healthcare authorities telling the public this? edit: also the airborness of it was also a repeated topic in the cited grand rounds
  - felipeerias 3y ago
    The WHO only declared COVID-19 to be airborne in December 2021. There were many articles at the time describing this failure. It’s interesting how quickly it has faded from memory. I’m on my phone, so this is just an example from a quick search. Again, there are many like this: “Public health organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO) initially declared the virus to be transmitted in large droplets that fell to the ground close to the infected person, as well as by touching contaminated surfaces. The WHO emphatically declared on March 28, 2020, that SARS-CoV-2 was not airborne (except in the case of very specific “aerosol-generating medical procedures”) and that it was “misinformation” to say otherwise. […] “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States followed a parallel path […] “The very slow and haphazard acceptance of the evidence of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by major public health organizations contributed to a suboptimal control of the pandemic, whereas the benefits of protection measures against aerosol transmission are becoming well established.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070

lol768 3y ago

I think this is a tricky one. Certainly I wasn't particularly impressed with how the science was communicated in a few areas: - The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, and the risk/benefit analysis, particular in younger adult demographics - The WHO's position on airborne transmission of Covid-19, and the way in which understanding in this area was misrepresented to the public I took part in a vaccine clinical trial myself, and there was a much more in-depth discussion as to what was known about the candidate vaccination, its side effect profile - and, more importantly, the limits of our knowledge given the small population it had been tested in when I volunteered. We didn't see much of that nuance during the height of the pandemic. At the same time though, some may argue that trying to combat misinformation requires over-simplifying some things, such that they can be effectively communicated to the public. Ref: https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7

kuhewa 3y ago
> The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, and the risk/benefit analysis, particular in younger adult demographics This is more of a matter of public health than science though. It would be nice if they were the same thing but it's like asking for people to be perfectly rational and well-informed actors like in those economics models

RandomLensman 3y ago

Not sure the claim is true in the strong form, but that aside: was the approach wrong as far as policies and social outcome are concerned? Would a more nuanced approach have worked better and by what metric? Just being unhappy about what happened isn't enough for things social.