Perhaps 2020 hindsight, even.

The 2020, in hindsight was largely correct. COVID was a highly infectious disease, it put a lot of people in the hospital, and a lot of people in the morgue. Social distancing and wearing masks slowed its spread, until an effective, safe vaccine was developed. Horse paste was not a cure for it, and after further investigation it turns out that it only had a positive effect on patients who, in addition to having COVID, also had worms. (To the surprise of absolutely everyone, it turned out that giving de-wormer to people with worms improved their health.)

For some reason, chronic contrarians always to point at a few details that were gotten wrong during the fog of war, and shout from the rooftops that if only they were in charge, we'd all be living in castles made of candy and shitting rainbows.

Joke's on us, though, those contrarians have since made a moron who doesn't believe in germs... The Secretary of Health.

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ryanjshaw 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> few details that were gotten wrong during the fog of war

It’s fine to have your opinion but don’t dismiss others’ experiences and values.

The extreme lockdowns caused irreparable, long-term harm to many people. You’re glossing over this as if it’s a minor error that anybody could’ve made, which is not correct.

It is essentially a trolley problem. You value “extreme intervention that is statistically better overall but unnecessarily devastating to some”, whereas many other people are happy to let nature run its course to some extent than have their government turn against them “for the needs of the many”.

That is a moral discussion, not a scientific one, and people are rightfully angry when it’s misrepresented as purely a scientific one.

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mlyle 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The SF Bay Area response was spot on ... in the beginning.

Then there were aspects that we had pretty quickly figured out made no sense (no hiking by yourself, no leaving to do solitary things). Worse, they were broadly ignored by most people-- I was worried I'd get busted in a parking lot with my telescope when I knew people who were having dinner parties.

Then the very strict orders continued well after the containment was ineffective and the rest of the country had, to some extent, eased up. A couple of weeks to flatten the curve became "wait until there's a vaccine" which is not what we'd all signed up for, and unnecessarily restrictive even for these purposes.

It would have been better to pick a "set point" for policy that could have been actually upheld, rather than setting a very strict policy that was often ignored and then enforced arbitrarily.

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raw_anon_1111 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Every time I give this opinion I’m labeled as an a to science/anti vaxxer. Hopefully this context will help: I have virus induced asthma where even a simple cold can have me gasping for breath. I took every precaution imaginable before the vaccines were available, stayed home, got groceries delivered, masked up when I did have to go somewhere, asked my wife to retire from working in the school system as a special needs bus driver, etc. I got in early when the J and J vaccine was available and I got an mRNA booster before it was recommended in the US when I saw other countries health departments recommended.

But let’s not pretend that many of the precautions and policies weren’t performative. Mask mandates were always dumb. Most people didn’t wear effective masks and many didn’t cover their noses. You had to wear a mask on airlines long after the vaccines were available and everyone took them off at the same time to eat or drink.

The US government down played that immunity wore off within six months and that the vaccine was much less effective than they publicized at first even when there were credible studies and evidence from other countries health departments and domestically.

Again, I have every recommended vaccine imaginable. I get a flu shot every year and Covid shots at the recommended times

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bsder 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> But let’s not pretend that many of the precautions and policies weren’t performative. Mask mandates were always dumb. Most people didn’t wear effective masks and many didn’t cover their noses.

We have specific evidence that not masking and not distancing caused superspreader events. Before there were too many cases, contact tracing backwards showed that specific parties, weddings, etc. were responsible for accelerating the early spread above baseline.

Thus, the burden of proof is on the "anti-mask, anti-distancing" people to prove that they aren't worse than the alternative--doubly so given the post hoc analyses available due to Norway and Sweden.

	▲	raw_anon_1111 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I didn’t say that properly worn N95 masks don’t work. I said it was stupid to have a mask mandate when most people wore ineffective cloth masks and even then didn’t cover their nose. I said it was equally dumb to require masks on airplanes and then everyone take them off at the same time while eating.