3 ms·

I'm not impressed by Gate's OpEd. Nothing about making the social changes necessary to keep functioning the way places like Korea have been able to. No mention

I'm not impressed by Gate's OpEd. Nothing about making the social changes necessary to keep functioning the way places like Korea have been able to. No mention of Facemasks. All he says is that we should shut everything down for months, test more, and make a vaccine. If you look at his suggestions from a month ago[1] they seemed to be mainly to help poor countries and fast track vaccines. Just a month ago he was completely blind to how much of a problem this would be for wealthy countries, and how weak their response to it was. [1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19 https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19

celticninja 7y ago
a shutdown will help with initial prevention of transmission, once that has been achieved you can end the shutdown but you will still need people to wear masks to prevent a secondary flare up. in places such as Korea, wearing a mask is common anyway so changing that behaviour is not necessary. you try getting America to adopt facemasks overnight and it will likely fail, it will take weeks before you see any fall in infections relying solely on the adoption of face masks.
- throwaway040120 7y ago
  Evidence suggest that masks will slow the spread right now, and every day we wait on this is another day we're not doing everything we can to stop the spread.
  - celticninja 7y ago
    I don't disagree I'm saying that getting people to wear masks is going to be hard. a shutdown removes the reason for leaving the house. if there was no shutdown people would still go out, some in masks and many without, this would mean transmission would continue and so would pressure on health care services. you would flatten the curve but A) at a higher point and B) extend the length of the plateau, instead of seeing the descent
    - throwaway040120 7y ago
      Sure, but the argument isn't that we should just tell people to wear masks and return everything else to normal. The argument is that we should be pushing for a more robust response, including mask wearing, that would lower the spread now and hopefully allow us to reopen things earlier than otherwise (not impossible if you look at countries that have successfully handled it). The lockdown buys us time, but we don't seem to be using that time effectively.
      - celticninja 7y ago
        again preaching to the choir. I agree.
cowpig 7y ago
That's funny, I just read the article you linked from a month. It mostly says that it'll take a ton of investment and immediate action because COVID-19 will become a pandemic. That all seems correct in hindsight. And why do you think Bill Gates should be talking about facemasks?
- throwaway040120 7y ago
  > It mostly says that it'll take a ton of investment and immediate action because COVID-19 will become a pandemic. That all seems correct in hindsight. None of what Gates' recommended in his article from a month ago would have made an impact on things now. He didn't criticize the way governments in the West were handling the outbreaks in their countries, or suggest that we start locking things down. More investment in vaccines is great, but that's something that wont have an impact anytime soon. Gates' newest piece says that the U.S. missed the opportunity to get ahead of the virus, but he didn't suggest a different course when things were actually unfolding. As for masks, there's a lot of evidence that they might be vital to the effort to slow the spread of this[1], and our inability to act on this is yet another example of our poor response. [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4pt4oFDBhsC_jpblXpNtQ/preview# https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p...

celticninja 7y ago

a shutdown will help with initial prevention of transmission, once that has been achieved you can end the shutdown but you will still need people to wear masks to prevent a secondary flare up. in places such as Korea, wearing a mask is common anyway so changing that behaviour is not necessary. you try getting America to adopt facemasks overnight and it will likely fail, it will take weeks before you see any fall in infections relying solely on the adoption of face masks.

throwaway040120 7y ago
Evidence suggest that masks will slow the spread right now, and every day we wait on this is another day we're not doing everything we can to stop the spread.
- celticninja 7y ago
  I don't disagree I'm saying that getting people to wear masks is going to be hard. a shutdown removes the reason for leaving the house. if there was no shutdown people would still go out, some in masks and many without, this would mean transmission would continue and so would pressure on health care services. you would flatten the curve but A) at a higher point and B) extend the length of the plateau, instead of seeing the descent
  - throwaway040120 7y ago
    Sure, but the argument isn't that we should just tell people to wear masks and return everything else to normal. The argument is that we should be pushing for a more robust response, including mask wearing, that would lower the spread now and hopefully allow us to reopen things earlier than otherwise (not impossible if you look at countries that have successfully handled it). The lockdown buys us time, but we don't seem to be using that time effectively.
    - celticninja 7y ago
      again preaching to the choir. I agree.

cowpig 7y ago

That's funny, I just read the article you linked from a month. It mostly says that it'll take a ton of investment and immediate action because COVID-19 will become a pandemic. That all seems correct in hindsight. And why do you think Bill Gates should be talking about facemasks?

throwaway040120 7y ago
> It mostly says that it'll take a ton of investment and immediate action because COVID-19 will become a pandemic. That all seems correct in hindsight. None of what Gates' recommended in his article from a month ago would have made an impact on things now. He didn't criticize the way governments in the West were handling the outbreaks in their countries, or suggest that we start locking things down. More investment in vaccines is great, but that's something that wont have an impact anytime soon. Gates' newest piece says that the U.S. missed the opportunity to get ahead of the virus, but he didn't suggest a different course when things were actually unfolding. As for masks, there's a lot of evidence that they might be vital to the effort to slow the spread of this[1], and our inability to act on this is yet another example of our poor response. [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4pt4oFDBhsC_jpblXpNtQ/preview# https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p...