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The problem is that public health officials are completely misusing terminology and sending contradictory messages, and it is 100% not the fault of Americans mi
by bpodgursky 7y ago
The problem is that public health officials are completely misusing terminology and sending contradictory messages, and it is 100% not the fault of Americans misunderstanding it (this is from the same article!):
> Public health experts have said the near-term goal is to flatten the epidemic curve of new cases
vs
> “We let things get out of hand,” said Mina, who is also associate medical director of clinical microbiology at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “So now the place that we’re left in is we have to absolutely beat this down with a hammer and get to near zero cases.
Getting near zero cases is not flattening the curve -- that's suppression! Flattening the curve is an assumption that everyone will eventually get the disease, and trying to not overload the health system. THAT is what Americans have gotten onboard for, and what a 2-4 week lockdown would set us up to do (give us time to expand hospital capacity, etc)
But if on the other hand, past the propaganda, the public health plan is ACTUALLY to eliminate the disease entirely, that's a completely different plan, and it will take months or years. It's not the fault of Americans for not understanding the implications, when they are being actively lied to about what the plan IS.
- alexandercrohde 7y agoYeah. The more I learn, the more confident I am that nobody has a real plan, and it's just a fiesta of acronyms and agencies who are only pseudo-educated (e.g. couldn't recite essential statistics about mortality rate once one a ventilator off the top of their head) on the topic. It's hard to say though, how much of it is raw political ignorance versus hiding bad news.
- ardy42 7y ago> Yeah. The more I learn, the more confident I am that nobody has a real plan, and it's just a fiesta of acronyms and agencies who are only pseudo-educated I disagree. No one at the top has a real plan (probably including the political appointees at the agencies), but I'm pretty sure those agencies could put together a better one with leadership that would let them do it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/opinion/jared-kushner-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/opinion/jared-kushner-cor...
- catalogia 7y ago> (e.g. couldn't recite essential statistics about mortality rate once one a ventilator off the top of their head) Couldn't, or didn't want to?