The covid mistakes

@spruce112358 said
The main thing I heard squelched scientifically was ivermectin - rightly so. That had virtually NO scientific rationale or evidence, and it was up to scientists to point it out, lest the public be mislead by crackpots. 😆

Squelched only in the sense that the claims being made about it lacked supportive evidence.

Snake oil salesman, a tale as old as time.

@sh76 said
I agree with your first 2.5 paragraphs.

But the people who did shut things down took their cue from Fauci's recommendations and his assertions as to what "The Science"® demanded.

To that extent, he shares the responsibility.

Scientifically, to stop a pandemic, you shut everything down - no exceptions. 😆

It absolutely works 100% of the time. That's been true since the Middle Ages when towns shut down under the plague and everybody headed to country houses and told stories (qv. Boccaccio's Decameron).

If people don't like facts, they should do something else but BEAR THE CONSEQUENCES.

Shouting at scientists for being scientists is like yelling at clouds. 😆

@wildgrass said
Squelched only in the sense that the claims being made about it lacked supportive evidence.

Snake oil salesman, a tale as old as time.

When a scientist says "I find a lack of support for this hypothesis" that needs interpretation for the General Public. 😆

Some of the General Public thinks the scientist said, "Well, could be. Give it a try."

What the scientist actually said was: "THE FUUKING IDIOT WHO SAID THIS SHOULD BE EXECUTED AT DAWN BEFORE HIS STUPIDITY LEAKS OUT AND TOUCHES SOMEONE!!!!" 😆

@spruce112358 said
Scientifically, to stop a pandemic, you shut everything down - no exceptions. 😆

It absolutely works 100% of the time. That's been true since the Middle Ages when towns shut down under the plague and everybody headed to country houses and told stories (qv. Boccaccio's Decameron).

If people don't like facts, they should do something else but BEAR THE CONSEQUENCES.

Shouting at scientists for being scientists is like yelling at clouds. 😆

Right. Except that if you literally shut everything down, billions of people will starve to death and society will collapse.

So there's that.

@sh76 said
Right. Except that if you literally shut everything down, billions of people will starve to death and society will collapse.

So there's that.

LOL. Funny. Not in 2 weeks. 😆

After that, per science, the infection is cleared. So you have the answer.

I know, I know. "You don't want to." Fine. Come up with your own answer.

But don't blame science. 😆

@spruce112358 said
LOL. Funny. Not in 2 weeks. 😆

After that, per science, the infection is cleared. So you have the answer.

I know, I know. "You don't want to." Fine. Come up with your own answer.

But don't blame science. 😆

Here's another well written retrospective with a better thesis for moving forward than "blame Fauci" (published recently in NY Magazine). I imagine more of these think pieces will be coming as we are at the 5 year anniversary.

What the federal government should be doing now — and tragically will be doing little of, thanks to Trump — is investing significantly in vaccine research.... new pandemics might arise, those that combine the transmissibility of COVID with a virus that has a higher fatality rate. The federal government should invest in new hospital capacity or at least have a working plan to immediately assist states with providing excess beds in the event hospitals rapidly fill up. Decades of consolidations and closures have left cities and rural areas alike bereft of functioning hospitals. In New York City, hospitals were immediately overwhelmed, and lives might have been saved if some of the old hospitals in the outer-boroughs that were shuttered decades ago were still able to receive COVID patients.

In the interim, public-health authorities should reckon with where their messaging went awry — and the policies they championed that proved counterproductive. Americans craved honesty and consistency in a terrifying time; they didn’t often get it. It’s hard to know how the nation would react if another pandemic appeared tomorrow. We can only hope it never does.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/americas-worst-avoidable-mistakes-on-covid-response.html