We disbelieved in miasma during Covid: yet Covid turned out to be transmitted by "bad air" . . . regardless of how strongly it was argued against at the beginning of 2020.

Even wrong theories can have a kernel of truth. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory

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vintermann 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

If we go by theories by their earliest incarnations, "germ theory" rejected that diseases could be caused by deficiency in micronutrients. "Terrain theory" arguably was the closest to the truth on those.

Also, by the standards of so-called "evidence based medicine" where we care less about the proposed mechanism a treatment works by, and more about whether it actually works, then miasma theory (or maybe it's more accurate to call it miasma practice, then?) doesn't look so bad. Florence Nightingale didn't bury horses because she believed in germ theory, she did it because they stank - and because she had developed statistical evidence that such hygiene interventions worked, whatever the mechanism. It took a long time for germ theory to get sophisticated enough that we can say it started saving more lives than sanitation (which was developed based on miasma theory).

The first incarnations of an ultimately correct theory often work worse in practice at the start.

Not that it excuses Kennedy.

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n4r9 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So what? Geocentricity can predict some observations but it's bonkers to believe in it today.

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Cthulhu_ 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I guess if we're doing mental gymnastics, an airborne virus is indeed "bad air", and opening a window helps get the bad air out and wearing a mask keeps the bad air in.

If "bad air" convinced people to take measures then I'll take it as a win.

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jibal 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There were no arguments against a virus causing respiratory disease being carried airborne. There was uncertainty as to whether the disease could be contracted from surfaces.

And viruses being airborne (carried on droplets) simply isn't what miasma theory is. Actual miasma theory is wrong and has no kernel of truth ... a fine example of how correlation is not causation.

And let's get back to the point:

> somehow the head doctor in our country believes in the miasma theory of disease

The man is an extraordinarily dangerous crank who is putting the health of Americans at grave risk ... he has already killed numerous children and it will soon get much worse. Any attempt to defend him in any way is vile.

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dboreham 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> no arguments against a virus causing respiratory disease being carried airborne

In the US this was not true. Authorities strongly asserted that the virus did not have "airborne" transmission properties, despite numerous people contracting it while locked in their cruise ship cabins.

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hollerith 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is my recollection, too. Doctors widely believed to be experts in covid would insist in interviews with the mainstream press that people needed to stay 6 feet from each other, but say nothing about the need to wear a good mask while sharing indoor air spaces with other people. (I cannot determine their motivation, but my guess is that they were probably trying to prevent a run on the N95 mask supply.)

I was successful in convincing an elderly friend that this advice was wrong and she needed to wear an N95 when inside grocery stores even if she sanitized her hands after every time she touched anything and even if she stayed 6 feet away from people. It took about 12 months for the mainstream narrative to start to say that vulnerable populations should wear N95 masks when indoors with the public.

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5 days ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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pstuart 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The mask debacle has interesting angles on why it happened: https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-...

My take is that they fucked up but in an understandable way (rather than some evil conspiracy).

I remain convinced that Trump was against masks because it would mess up his bronzer and ruin the illusion it's intended to convey.

	▲	jibal 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		The 6 foot distancing suggestions came in March. Recommendations for face coverings for the general public were recommended by the CDC on April 2, a few days after Trump suggested scarves. Claims that there was a 12 month gap between the distancing guidelines and recommendations for N95 or other masks is ludicrous. And if we're going to talk about Fauci's noble lies in the interests of public health, we ought to say something about the loon with a dead worm in his brain who sincerely believes, promotes, and enforces all sorts of nonsense that is going to result in a lot of illness and death.

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arcticfox 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was so confused by the "no airborne transmission" theory because it seems naive - like you'd need a lot of evidence to convince me that it wasn't the case given the fundamentals of viruses.

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5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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themaninthedark 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne

>Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7