"Follow the Science"?

Well-put article in the NY Times about how "follow the science" doesn't really mean much in day-to-day life.

Put down that burger

The C.D.C. describes medium-rare hamburgers as “undercooked” and dangerous. The agency also directs Americans to avoid raw cookie dough and not to eat more than a teaspoon or so of salt every day. And the C.D.C. tells sexually active women of childbearing age not to drink alcohol unless they are on birth control.
If you happen to be somebody who engages in any of these risky activities, I have some bad news for you this morning: You apparently do not believe in following the science.

The misery of the Covid-19 pandemic — with its death, illness, isolation and frustration — has left many Americans desperate for clear guidance on how to live safely. People want to protect themselves, their family and their communities, especially the most medically vulnerable members of it. This instinct is both understandable and profoundly decent.
But it has led to a widespread misunderstanding. Many people have come to believe that expert opinion is a unitary, omniscient force. That’s the assumption behind the phrases “follow the science” and “what the science says.” It imagines science almost as a god — Science — who could solve our dilemmas if we only listened.

When Donald Trump was president and making false statements to downplay Covid, “follow the science” began to gain popularity. Now, it also serves as a response to the many incorrect statements that vaccine opponents make. President Biden likes to promise that he will follow the science, to signal his difference from Trump and deference to the C.D.C.
The phrase does have its uses. It’s a rejection of myth and a recognition that some aspects of the pandemic are unambiguous: Covid is more deadly for the unvaccinated than almost any virus in decades, and the vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious illness.

Many other Covid questions, however, are complicated. What does the science say about them? It says many things. Above all, science makes clear that public health, like the rest of life, usually involves trade-offs.
Hard choices

If you want to minimize your risk of getting sick from food, you probably need to eat less tasty food than you now do. If you want to minimize your chance of dying today, you should not get inside a vehicle. If you want to minimize your children’s chance of going to an emergency room, don’t allow them to ride a bike or play sports.
Unfortunately, none of these statements provide answers about what to do. People have to weigh the risks and benefits. They let their kids play sports, but maybe not violent ones. They don’t drive in a snowstorm. They ignore the C.D.C.’s advice about medium-rare burgers and heed its warnings about medium-rare chicken.

The current stage of the pandemic presents its own set of hard choices and trade-offs. If you wade into the angry, polarized Covid debates on social media and cable television, you will find people who try to wish away these trade-offs. They pretend that science offers an unambiguous answer, and it happens to be the answer they favor.
Proponents of an immediate return to normalcy claim, implausibly, that masks and social distancing do nothing to reduce the spread of Covid and that anyone who says otherwise doesn’t care about schoolchildren. Proponents of rigorous Covid mitigation claim, just as implausibly, that isolation and masking have no real downsides and that anyone who says otherwise doesn’t care about the immunocompromised.

The truth is that Covid restrictions — mask mandates, extended quarantines, restrictions on gatherings, school closures during outbreaks — can both slow the virus’s spread and have harmful side effects. These restrictions can reduce serious Covid illness and death among the immunocompromised, elderly and unvaccinated. They can also lead to mental-health problems, lost learning for children, child-care hardships for lower-income families, and isolation and frustration that have fueled suicides, drug overdoses and violent crime.

Balancing the two is unavoidably vexing. “We need to be better at quantifying risk, and not discussing it in a binary way,” Dr. Aaron Carroll, the chief health officer at Indiana University, told me. (This essay by Carroll made me aware of the C.D.C.’s advice on cookie dough and salt, and I also recommend this Times essay of his.)


As you think about your own Covid views, I encourage you to remember that C.D.C. officials and other scientists cannot make these dilemmas go away. They can provide deep expertise and vital perspective. They are also fallible and have their own biases.
C.D.C. officials tend to react slowly to changing conditions and to view questions narrowly rather than holistically. They often urge caution in the service of reducing a specific risk — be it food-borne illness, fetal alcohol syndrome or the Covid virus — and sometimes miss the big picture. The C.D.C. was initially too slow to urge mask use — and then too slow to admit that outdoor masking has little benefit.

As Matt Glassman, a political scientist at Georgetown University, wrote this week, “Don’t trust substantive experts to make policy decisions that balance competing values or stakeholder interests.”

emphasis added

@sh76 said
If you want to minimize your risk of getting sick from food, you probably need to eat less tasty food than you now do. If you want to minimize your chance of dying today, you should not get inside a vehicle. If you want to minimize your children’s chance of going to an emergency room, don’t allow them to ride a bike or play sports.

What a dumb statement.

The whole tone of this article is to mock Covid restrictions as laughably overprotective.

Keep in mind these restrictions were never meant to be permanent, they were meant to address a specific problem within a certain time frame.

One of the biggest reasons we're still in pandemic mode, is right-wingers spreading misinformation and making Covid about politics rather than everyone's safety. So instead of being more like Norway, who has already eased their restrictions, the U.S. still has the highest Covid deaths in the world.

I agree that we can't keep this up. Since America is a land of stunning stupidity, this article is correct that Covid mandates aren't the answer; but not for the "overprotective parent" image it was trying to project.

@vivify said
What a dumb statement.

The whole tone of this article to mock Covid restrictions as laughably overprotective.

Keep in mind these restrictions were never meant to be permanent, they were meant to address a specific problem within certain time frame.

One of the biggest reasons we're still in pandemic mode is right-wingers spreading misinformation and making Covid a ...[text shortened]... mandates aren't the answer; but not for the "overprotective parent" image it was trying to project.

===The whole tone of this article to mock Covid restrictions as laughably overprotective.===

And don't forget mostly useless.

@sh76 said
Well-put article in the NY Times about how "follow the science" doesn't really mean much in day-to-day life.

Put down that burger

The C.D.C. describes medium-rare hamburgers as “undercooked” and dangerous. The agency also directs Americans to avoid raw cookie dough and not to eat more than a teaspoon or so of salt every day. And the C.D.C. tells sexually active wome ...[text shortened]... decisions that balance competing values or stakeholder interests.”

emphasis added

democrats used mandates for political power, Trump wanted to keep the economy going.
You are experiencing first hand with the inflation, higher prices on EVERYTHING, and going to get worse what wrecking the economy caused. What good is life if you are confined to a small area with no way to feed yourself or keep warm.

Now we have another catastrophe
as to the harm caused to our children .

The trade off simply isnt/wasnt worth it.

@sh76 said
And don't forget mostly useless.

When your country is infected with misinformation-prone right-wingers, yes.

@vivify said
When your country is infected with misinformation-prone right-wingers, yes.

misinformation?
Tell me what has changed (science or otherwise), what has changed to cause democrats to shift on mask mandates?

@mott-the-hoople said
misinformation?
Tell me what has changed (science or otherwise), what has changed to cause democrats to shift on mask mandates?

In New York, Covid reports have been dropping. But also, we can't keep up mandates that conservatives, who make up about 1/3 of the country, won't abide by.

It's time to move on. Nearly 1 million deaths in 2 years later, conservatives have won.

@vivify said
In New York, Covid reports have been dropping. But also, we can't keep up mandates that conservatives, who make up about 1/3 of the country, won't abide by.

It's time to move on. Nearly 1 million deaths in 2 years later, conservatives have won.

Its not just NY, disingenuous of you. Everyone in these democrat cities were forced to wear masks or were arrested. So no, your statement about the 1/3 is not true.
You libs keep posting the amount of deaths asw conservatives fault when in fact the majority of deaths were bin democrat controlle cities and states.

How many covid deaths do you think we would have if fauci and dems hadnt joined up with communist chinas military to CREATE this virus?

@mott-the-hoople said
Its not just NY, disingenuous of you. Everyone in these democrat cities were forced to wear masks or were arrested. So no, your statement about the 1/3 is not true.

Are you claiming right-wingers haven't been openly defying Covid mandates? If so, you're wrong.

@mott-the-hoople said
Its not just NY, disingenuous of you. Everyone in these democrat cities were forced to wear masks or were arrested. So no, your statement about the 1/3 is not true.
You libs keep posting the amount of deaths asw conservatives fault when in fact the majority of deaths were bin democrat controlle cities and states.

How many covid deaths do you think we would have if fauci and dems hadnt joined up with communist chinas military to CREATE this virus?

Nobody got arrested for not wearing a mask in the US.

@sh76 said
Well-put article in the NY Times about how "follow the science" doesn't really mean much in day-to-day life.

Put down that burger

The C.D.C. describes medium-rare hamburgers as “undercooked” and dangerous. The agency also directs Americans to avoid raw cookie dough and not to eat more than a teaspoon or so of salt every day. And the C.D.C. tells sexually active wome ...[text shortened]... decisions that balance competing values or stakeholder interests.”

emphasis added

3362 more COVID deaths in the US reported yesterday but your COVID minimization efforts continue.

Have you no shame?

@mott-the-hoople said
democrats used mandates for political power, Trump wanted to keep the economy going.
You are experiencing first hand with the inflation, higher prices on EVERYTHING, and going to get worse what wrecking the economy caused. What good is life if you are confined to a small area with no way to feed yourself or keep warm.

Now we have another catastrophe
as to the harm caused to our children .

The trade off simply isnt/wasnt worth it.

The entire planet is experiencing inflation.
Had y'all gotten vaxxed, masked up and followed
the science, this COVID crap, would be over.

@no1marauder said
3362 more COVID deaths in the US reported yesterday but your COVID minimization efforts continue.

Have you no shame?

He posts an article comparing eating salt to Covid deaths. He clearly doesn't.

@vivify said
He posts an article comparing eating salt to Covid deaths. He clearly doesn't.

Think he voted for TRUMP?
TWICE........?
https://republicanssuck.org/trump-biggest-liar-in-history/

@no1marauder said
Nobody got arrested for not wearing a mask in the US.

just plain ignorant or willfully lying

https://www.wifr.com/2021/03/17/woman-arrested-after-refusing-to-wear-a-mask-in-a-texas-bank/

https://www.kwwl.com/news/tx-watch-woman-arrested-for-not-wearing-a-mask/article_d2930b0e-dc63-5c15-b3bd-ff07bf3ea345.html

https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2021/08/14/boise-police-arrested-a-man-for-not-wearing-mask-in-costco-now-he-wants-45-million/

https://turnto10.com/news/local/its-not-the-law-parent-arrested-for-refusing-to-wear-mask-at-school-committee-meeting

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-anti-mask-activist-arrest-bagels-20210115-iybbbywtkjh4rnkguq4wasrgue-story.html