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Comment by GenerocUsername | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to the resistance... its not glamorous, but it is overwhelmingly obviously the right time to be a skeptic.

I've increasingly come to the idea that everyone is cosplaying outbreak, and somehow I didn't get the memo that this was fun.

Indeed. As a C

The skeptics have felt overwhelmingly in the right for the past 21 months, but throughout that time period, reality has not been particularly compliant to their wishes.

What reality has shown, time and again, is that medical systems across the entire world are incapable of dealing with COVID while providing the same standard of care that people generally expect. (For both non-COVID and COVID cases.)

I personally feel there are reasons to be optimistic over the next few months, but that its too early to say - and claiming otherwise is engaging in very speculative, very wishful magical thinking.

> What reality has shown, time and again, is that medical systems across the entire world are incapable of dealing with COVID while providing the same standard of care that people generally expect. (For both non-COVID and COVID cases.)

Speak for your country. Numerous countries did not blink an eye, and did not panic either.

I think people forget that it all started by "lets flatten the curve" before it turned into a pandemic of fear for absolutely no reason.

> Numerous countries did not blink an eye, and did not panic either.

'Panic' can mean anything you personally want it to, so of course there will be countries that match your criteria.

Is wearing masks at the theatre panic? If you hate masks, yes! If you don't, no? Is requiring that foreign travelers have a negative test before admission at the border panic? Depends on where you stand. Is discouraging travel before vaccines were available panic? Well, that depends on whether or not you own a hotel! Is requiring that employers provide COVID sick days panic? Depends on your political view on labour relations. Eviction moratorium? Depends on whether you are a landlord!

The population of skeptics might have changed during the last six months. You could be debating right now with someone who was strongly in favor of quarantine measures in 2020.

Exactly. The self-professed "skeptics" have only seemed to doubt one narrative (the mainstream one) but have seemed singularly credulous when it comes to alternative theories, treatments, etc. All in an effort to stand out, not to help. Many have even supported multiple mutually exclusive beliefs at different times, pointing to the few hits as evidence of their perspicacity, quietly hoping everyone will forget the misses.

The world would be better off with some real skepticism, not just Oppositional Defiant Disorder disguised as skepticism. Real skepticism notes the absence or weakness of evidence behind a claim, but can be overcome as the evidence becomes stronger. True skepticism also does not require assertion of an alternate or opposite theory as Absolute Truth with no more evidence than the theory one is being "skeptical" about. People should ask for - even demand - evidence, but not misportray disagreement (or disagreeableness) as skepticism.

They're using "argument in the alternative" [1], which is logically sound. The goal isn't to show that any particular alternative theory is true, just to show that the mainstream one is false.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_in_the_alternative

It's "logically sound" in the sense that it's sound by disjunctive introduction. For most people, that's not an interesting sense of "soundness" (you haven't told me anything interesting by saying "it's either cloudy or not cloudy" when I've asked you for the weather.)

No they're not.

> with the goal of showing that regardless of interpretation there is no reasonable conclusion other than the advocate's

For that part of the definition to apply, there must be some particular conclusion that the advocate supports. It's multiple arguments for a single conclusion, whereas what I was observing is multiple separate conclusions. That's pure contrarianism, neither skepticism nor argument in the alternative.

Isn't "the media and government have been intentionally exaggerating the danger of COVID, and most of the mitigation strategies being mandated shouldn't be" the conclusion?

Not really. The second part alone ("most of ... shouldn't be") might qualify as skepticism, particularly if the reason given is lack of sufficient evidence, but few stop there. Most go on to express one or more other reasons and/or conclusions, such as "intentionally exaggerating" which is its own claim requiring its own proof. Also, if that's the only reason given then it can't be argument in the alternative because there are no alternative routes given to the desired conclusion. Just one route to one conclusion, contrary to the original proposition but itself lacking proof.

Plenty of the COVID skeptic types I know, and myself included, have expressed exactly the sentiment the GP described. In a way, it's nice to be vindicated after all this. I don't think it really makes a difference whether that sentiment fits into the exact Wikipedia definition you're arguing about, but it's obvious to me it's been a common one for the entirety of the pandemic.

How are skeptics vindicated by the second part? I have always agreed with both of those skeptic things however I come from a different pov than most, most likely.

Only the first has been closer to being true. We don’t have a decently sized population that did very little if anything wrt mitigating like the rest of the world. Just because the mitigation mandates have been too much doesn’t make the average skeptics correct. Considering a large amount of skeptics want little if any mitigation efforts. It’s hard to say the world would be in a better place if the skeptics decided everything. I don’t see how it wouldn’t be a shit show if that was the case.

My real skepticism, having been vaccinated and boosted, is that institutions like the CDC, FDA, and Pfizer are just being lazy foot-draggers about bringing out vaccines updated for specific variants.

And whatever happened to the project of vaccines that provide full, sterilizing immunity? Last publication I can find is for a study in freaking mice[1]. Is there no imperative to actually provide sterilizing immunity at "warp speed", because society can just shove non-sterilizing vaccines into people and save on ICU beds?

[1] -- https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(21)01005-1

I too desperately want a sterilizing vaccine. Given the existence of influenza and the common cold (a bunch of rhino and corona viruses), this seems unlikely unfortunately.

If it seems unlikely, then someone should explain why it works in a mouse model but not in the real world. If the virus mutates too quickly for a full sterilizing vaccine, then nonetheless, any vaccine that reduces transmission is helpful. If the virus mutates too quickly period, all the more reason for variant-specific boosters, targeted to the strains circulating, just like the yearly flu shot.

> someone should explain why it works in a mouse model but not in the real world.

As the saying goes, 'mice lie and monkeys exaggerate'.

The current vaccines do, in fact, reduce transmission. This efficacy drops over time, but it definitely exists.

> is that medical systems across the entire world are incapable of dealing with COVID while providing the same standard of care that people generally expect. (For both non-COVID and COVID cases.)

That's despite billions in fundings and ever-growing budgets.

Time for a re-structuring and a culture change.

Restructuring to what? Socialized, privatized, mixed-market, none of them have had the ability to handle this pandemic in a business as usual world.

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