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Comment by thenerdhead | Hacker News Reader

Did anyone expect a different result here?

I think what people are more interested in is whether people who are dutiful with covid pre-cautions actually work(kids are a tough cohort). I think we know the answer there too.

For example, a systematic review of professionals in a workplace with mask policies versus those without.

Or systematic reviews on other helpful topics like ventilation, filtration, and testing from different cohort perspectives like kids and adults.

The current consensus we all have today is just "don't get infected" which does humanity very little good. There are evidence-based approaches that need to inform public policy makers and for those policy makers to be very clear with the public on what the risk each person entails without pre-cautions.

https://johnsnowproject.org/

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Is that really the consensus where you are?

In my experience, it’s at best and mild aversion, but usually tempered with a pragmatic indifference to being infected. Virtually no one here (UK) takes visible actions anymore. Only a few seem to care.

Get closer to healthcare settings, and things change a little, but not a lot. A few more people take preventative measures, but not many, and interestingly not healthcare staff themselves.

The UK has a covid inquiry going on right now and I believe the former PM expressed their regret for how much they downplayed it alongside explaining their rationale of using the limited tools they had at their disposal. Very uncharacteristic for what their actions were during it.

You also have countries like Germany who are starting to realize the actual burden of infecting the general population and necessity to follow what current evidence we have to tackle the long-tail issues:

https://twitter.com/zurnull/status/1731941221503812060

True enough. But that was the consensus back in March 2020.

The consensus now is quite different.

Maybe you were referring to March 2020, in which case I agree that it did humanity very little good, at least in regard of its application to children.

No, I am saying that the consensus has largely not changed(i.e. "Don't get infected") although we are ~4 years wiser and have ~400k research publications knowing how this single pathogen affects humanity.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/

I'm not arguing for or against preventative measures. I am arguing that our health officials could do a better job discussing what we know about it now to help individuals make choices.

Hmm. That’s interesting, and it seems to come down to how consensus is defined.

You highlight the quantity of publications. You’re right. The narrative is already set. The volume is so large.

But what is happening in practice, even in healthcare (at least in the UK), is that little of the theatre is performed anymore. Doctors are mostly unmasked, no one does distancing, and the mandates were unwound long ago. Not sure about testing, but the odd hacking cough here and there draws no petrified stare. So I guess that’s where I disagree: the consensus in practice is running far ahead of the average tone in published science.

I wonder how much that will percolate down. Perhaps we’ll just learn to live with a published scientific position that is grossly at odds with day to day behaviour — how odd! It will give the behavioural scientists something new to work on.

But your basic thesis (that “don’t get infected” is unhelpful advice) is right. It’s simply not actionable.

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