Sweden took a much more pragmatic approach and didn’t suffer for it. They’ve got a lesson we can learn.
Sweden took a much more pragmatic approach and didn’t suffer for it. They’ve got a lesson we can learn.
Enforcing public safety rules is hard. Knowing where to draw the line is hard for individual enforcement officers. That's what, in times of public crisis, it's important to overlook edge cases like these because they serve the larger purpose.
Not only that. If the line is way too far on one side or the other, everyone agrees that it is, and then it's shifted. If the line is approximately at the optimum, some agree it is, and those that disagree are about half convinced that it's too far this way, half it's too far that way.
So, having maximum disagreement is in itself arguably an indicator that you got it approximately right.
I played a small role in this that allowed me to see how these decisions were made. I think we should be honest at this point about how much of the policy was driven by vibes and politics. We had better data than people assume and it had almost no bearing on the decisions that were made.
Multiple governments had high-quality models that suggested a much lower IFR than what was widely reported, and in hindsight were proven correct. The news cycle was captured by people pushing doomsday scenarios and many people decided it was politically inconvenient to contradict that prevailing narrative. There weren't any complex motives, it was cowardice mixed with a bit of opportunism. I got to see this from the inside and I have no doubt that it would happen again, which gives me little confidence in the institutions.
There was an enormous amount of pressure to be seen to be doing something from the top in most countries, which led to a lot of the pointless theater that happened.
It is unfortunate but the poor reputation of public health officials due to COVID is well-deserved.
The more obvious stupidity was around face masks, first by denying they worked at all, and then by acting like coarse weave cloth was as good as N95 or FFP3.
iirc that was the prevailing theory until after the vaccines came out. I don't recall it ever being in the news when it was determined to be airborne. By that time, COVID wasn't even newsworthy.
I'm on team "ball was dropped badly re pandemic policy and communication", though I personally don't extend that to blind distrust in institutions in general. It was a tough (arguably unprecedented) situation in a media landscape primed for misinformation.
There were also scary studies coming out of China (though this was later) showing a single positive guy going for a run in a park infecting loads of people. The dynamics have only changed because people have partial immunity now, but it was like wildfire and it is still going up and down in terms of transmission.
To be honest, I think it's fine there was some over-reaction. Millions of people died. I think it's ok to be slightly uncomfortable for a little bit under such extreme circumstances. To be quite honest, there was an under-reaction. We had an opportunity to shut it down and decided not to follow the science like China did because of American exceptionalism. Now we are living with it forever until there is a better vaccine.
China protected their entire population until a vaccine was made available. This means their death rate was likely a third of ours. Their official statistics paint too rosy a picture (they claim only ~60k died), but a simple back of the napkin calculation 0.1% vaccinated die, 1% unvaccinated die, means they did 10x better than let-it-rip. We did something like 3x better than let-it-rip.
The real danger for most people wasn’t the virus, it was the hospitals being so overwhelmed by the virus that they would no longer be able to provide care for other stuff.
It was not overblown.
Covid was the #1 killer of cops for a while. It killed enough old people that it is mathematically possible that it caused Trump to lose the election.
Tons of people are permanently disabled.
China was welding doors shut to keep people from leaving their apartments.
At the level the epidemic reached in some area of China that may have been necessary to slow the flood, no different than rationing during famine.
I have some issues with China (corruption, nepotism, pervasive tracking), but this is not really one of them.
It happened more than once.
Uploaded 2022-01-06: Xi’an. Clearly a front door. https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/rxddgp/chin...
Uploaded 2022-05-03: Residents locked inside homes with wires and bolts due to Covid-19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpfKZVTSp3I
Uploaded 2022-05-06: Shanghai https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/ujoj33/in_...
Uploaded 2022-11-30: Unidentified city; worker shown welding a back entrance shut. https://www.reddit.com/r/CrazyFuckingVideos/comments/z8fpzy/...
People are responsible for themselves. Mindlessly doing the opposite of what the government says is as dogmatic as blindly following it.
People collectively are sufficiently manipulable that society only functions when certain manipulations are forbidden.
This is true even though, as you say, mindlessly doing the opposite of what the government says is as dogmatic as blindly following it (a lesson I learned as a toddler, from my sister doing the "yes no yes no yes no no yes oops" trick on me).
Public communications is hard at the best of times let alone during a novel pandemic with high uncertainty on correct actions, but it's what the government needs to be good at to function, so them messing communications up is… well, I was going to say "blame worthy", but then I remember that air travel got good by avoiding blame culture, so shall we say "a learning opportunity"?
If you want to have a good faith version of this conversation, I've seen many people have voiced rational concerns and be shouted down because people simply don't want to hear it.
Primary example - Many parents, including myself, made sure our kids got every single one of their vaccines...but we wanted to avoided giving more than 2 per month so we altered the schedule slightly.
Fully vaccinated, just took a simple precaution that put our minds at ease.
The number of people who will call you "antivax" for that, for simply questioning the dosing schedule and taking a minor precaution is shocking. And that's what really made all of this so much worse.
Nobody that I saw, prior to the Covid vax at least, questioned whether or not vaccines did what they said they do. People just question whether sometimes there can be side effects. The answer to that is obviously yes. There are vaccine courts and people have been awarded lots of money from them. So the next rational question that anyone would ask is..."If there can sometimes be side effects, in what circumstances are they likely? Are there any precautions that can be taken if we can identify what those circumstances may be?"
It's no different than if somebody is lactose intolerant, has a gluten allergy or a peanut allergy. Some people are predisposed not to respond well to conditions that many of us have no issue with.
That's not a rational basis for disagreeing on the efficacy of vaccines themselves. It is a rational basis to ask about the conditions that can create unintended side effects; we already know they are happening. Denying that is irrational on its own...so why not have the conversation?
Okay, but why does it matter what morons say? A doctor or immunologist would usually say "Eh, whatever" to this request. Did a doctor call you an anti-vaxxer?
>it's no different than if somebody is lactose intolerant, has a gluten allergy or a peanut allergy.
Guess what! A bunch of doctors 15 years ago were scared of peanut allergies and suggested without evidence "a simple precaution", of "don't give young kids peanuts", and now something like 8 million people have peanut allergies that could have been maybe prevented.
That's what this is all about. "Smart" humans don't exist. Tons of times what we expected is not what science finds. That 15 year advice that lead to millions of peanut allergies was overturned not by random people getting uncomfortable about not understanding things, but by doctors studying the actual question and coming to a conclusion that fit the data.
Is there any data any which way on your belief that a delayed vaccination schedule like that is "Safer"? Safer than what? Safer how? What theory is it done under? But your doctor didn't care. Tons of parents do that. Some researcher will pull those stats someday and say clearly "Eh, it doesn't do anything good or bad" or "it's clearly better/worse" and then we can make an educated decision.
Until then, it is unscientific by definition. Does that make you feel bad? It shouldn't, most of what humans do is unscientific. But that won't make it wrong.
There is zero "safe" things you can do to a human body. Giving someone a sandwich is not safe and in rigorous study would result in a "side effect" list a mile long, and maybe even a death. 1.7 out of 100k deaths are from choking.
>Nobody that I saw, prior to the Covid vax at least, questioned whether or not vaccines did what they said they do
There is tons of public information to the contrary. Jenny McCarthy for example was anti-vax two decades ago and shouting it from the rooftops.
>"If there can sometimes be side effects, in what circumstances are they likely? Are there any precautions that can be taken if we can identify what those circumstances may be?"
And we did that with the Covid vaccine and every vaccine ever made before it and it has always been clear that the vaccine is just as safe as any other. Anti-vaxxers are people who don't understand the statistics of that studying.
The conversation was had, anti-vaxxers don't like the outcome of the conversation.
The doctor did act like it was a hassle and their office now has a sign refusing service to any parents who wish to deviate from the official schedule.
> There is tons of public information to the contrary. Jenny McCarthy for example was anti-vax two decades ago and shouting it from the rooftops.
Did she ever challenge whether or not vaccines worked to prevent what they were supposed to prevent? Pretty sure she was just talking about total volume.
Why do you consider this a rational concern/precaution? What evidence lead you to believe the vaccination schedule, which is generally-accepted in the medical community, should be spread out?
I can give you a reason it's likely not rational: babies are protected by their mother's immunity for approximately 6 months after birth. The current vaccination schedule[1] is largely built with this in mind. Delaying vaccines for no other reason than "it's too many too fast" concerns does nothing but increase the chance your child ultimately gets infected with one of the pathogens vaccinated against.
1. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-schedules/child-easyread.ht...
Based on that people are left to speculate as to what influences appear to be probable on their own. One of the simplest correlations to make is of course, the sheer volume of vaccines on the schedule and whether the combined effect is creating any impact.
My wife and I went far beyond that and did speak to a retired OB who shared his own career observations with us. His explanation was that people naturally filter heavy metals, like aluminum, out of their systems but some people do it slower than others. Since aluminum is used in many vaccines, he recommended spreading them out to reduce the stress on the body to filter it out.
He went on to explain that he eventually started testing pregnant mothers and identified that when the high levels were often present in the mother, then many children ended up with the same issue. He started recommending a specific prenatal regiment to the expecting mothers to help correct it. Would even go as far as testing couples who were planning to try to have a baby before they were even pregnant.
Very kind man.
It's a small step from there to the people who chided -me- because I said I was no longer willing to discuss in good faith with people who argued about "post birth abortions" (that they knew to be a lie) or adrenachrome farming from babies in pizza parlor basements. That it was my fault for these views propagating for not being willing to "understand" their perspective.
Their perspectives are a lie They know they're a lie. They just don't. fucking. care.
And then they whine about people being "dismissive" of them.
> And in several Demoncrat [sic] states, abortion is legal up until one month post-delivery! That is evil!
What do these morons (the ones who might actually believe what they say) think that looks like? Have birth, go home with your child, a few weeks later you're just not feeling it, and you go back to the hospital and hand over your infant and say "I'd like my post-birth abortion, please?"?!?
Notably, Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary) was never convinced either. This didn't make her less dangerous. The big difference is the average lethality. If we were talking about Polio, people's paranoia is a lot less important.
I don't blame anyone for not trusting the government. Anyone who's read (or lived) history and with a rational mind would scrutinize every single thing coming from them, particularly if their health is involved.
Another thing that doesn't help, but this is almost exclusively a memerican problem, is that people enjoy polarizing these issues to their absolute extremes. Things are either vantablack or HDR-white. And if you happen to be on the other end "you should die or go to prison".
Chill. It's OK to question things.