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This is the very best article I have read on the lockdown: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks

by babesh 6y ago

This is the very best article I have read on the lockdown: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leade... The positive is that Washington state acted early and the Bay Area followed quickly which resulted in lower hospitalization and deaths. Tech’s quick move to WFH probably helped slow the spread. This was driven by the Washington state health officials who worked with Microsoft. Bay Area tech companies quickly copied WFH. The negative is that health officials manipulated the public like they were children: “ Constantine told me, “Jeff recognized what he was asking for was impractical. He said if we advised social distancing right away there would be zero acceptance. And so the question was: What can we say today so that people will be ready to hear what we need to say tomorrow?” In e-mails and phone calls, the men began playing a game: What was the most extreme advice they could give that people wouldn’t scoff at? Considering what would likely be happening four days from then, what would they regret not having said?” Since the initial lockdown, it’s been more of the same. Slogans have changed: flatten the curve turns into prevent the health care system from being overrun which turns into driven by data. Lockdowns get extended: May 4 turns into June 1st and maybe beyond. Takeaways: 1. Health care officials were right to initially lock down. 2. Health care officials and government don’t respect the public. 3. This dynamic is coming home to roost. 4. Health care officials think this is going to last a long time.

zzleeper 6y ago
Had the US (at all govt levels) actually treated this seriously, as a health problem and not economic/political problem, we could be in a situation like Taiwan/NZ. The US is large, but mostly insulated, so this was feasible. But it would have required EVERYONE wearing masks, and no delays in locking things down (one day of delay in an exponential situation is like 4 more days of lockdown at the other end)
- rjzzleep 6y ago
  What's more is that since Taiwan published their email they sent to the WHO in December about the severeness of the threat and given the fact that the US is basically considered their only real ally, they almost certainly directly warned the US. Of course I doubt that they would ever say that in public given that they don't want to piss off their only big military ally with a vengeful president.
- babesh 6y ago
  Manipulation whether in good or bad faith is one is the biggest problems in the US. It’s is coming from both sides. Don’t vote for those who will manipulate you.
  - tiny_epoch 6y ago
    Unfortunately this means "not voting at all".
  - yndoendo 6y ago
    I would have to say that lack of Critical Thinking and latching to Group Think are the biggest problems in the US. These lead to the inability to criticize whom one voted for or people with-in their own groups. Saying something direct often will change the outcome and have the opposite of the wanted response. For example: Two men both buy flowers for women they like. The first man tells her the truth, "I bought them hoping it would increase my chance for sex". The other says, "I thought you might like these", while actually thinking I want to have sex. Which person was better at marketing themselves and have a higher probability of a better outcome? This is actually from "Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense", https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26210508-alchemy https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26210508-alchemy. Manipulation has no concept of bad or good but is required in our society to help prevent people from throwing away good ideas.
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
Do you actually disagree with what Constantine is quoted as saying? Do you believe that the "if [they] advised social distancing right away" that it would have been accepted?
- babesh 6y ago
  I disagree with the manipulation. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I don’t know if it would have been accepted.
koheripbal 6y ago
I think the most extreme version of your point #2 was when health officials and scientists made public statements that masks were ineffective - despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, in order to reserve mask supplies for healthcare works. Spreading misinformation in the name of good. The most clearcut evidence of this was a world renouned epidiamologist admitting exactly this on the podcast This Week In Virology a few weeks ago. I will add the source (also in my comment history) when I get home.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
I wouldn't be as critical when it comes to making only demands that will be accepted. That's not really manipulative IMO, and Swiss authorities were also very open about doing this. Announcing a short lockdown then extending it (when it was clear from the beginning) is more problematic - basically, giving people false hope because they know that telling people to lock down for 3+ months would lead to a large number of people either rioting or ignoring the rules. Conversely, I suspect that some of the reductions in lockdown strictness are there to reduce the risk of dissatisfaction/loss of compliance, not based on what is safe. The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). This may have helped alleviate the shortage, but at what cost? The next time authorities say "you don't need X", people will remember and depending on other evidence, fewer or more will take it as "I definitely need X". As a specific example, schools in Switzerland will reopen tomorrow, with the government claiming that this is safe because children don't spread it much. This may or may not be based on science (there are contradicting studies supporting either side), but because I know that I cannot trust the official statements, I am assuming that the motivation is letting more people get back to work, and expect a spike in cases. Thus, I'm restricting myself less now than I would be willing to if I could reasonably expect the situation in three weeks to be better, not worse, than the situation now, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  > The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). The issue of masks is/was more complicated than just an intentional lie. Medicine has a rather well-known history of really bad ideas that, at their time, were perfectly reasonable ideas within the knowledge and commonly accepted paradigms of their time. Bloodletting, arsenic, later high-dose Vitamin C (and after that, D), Resveratrol etc. It took until the middle of the 20th century for randomised trials to become the gold standard of medicine. And even today, "evidence-based medicine" is still distinct enough from just "medicine" to require that term. If you're not in medicine/biology you probably consider some logically sound idea based on your understanding of a system a useful tool (i. e. "people are interested in dogs, so I'll start a podcast on dogs and people will listen"). In medicine, this is crazy-talk! Unless you have meaningful statistical data, you do nothing except try to somehow get data! This instinct can, very rarely, go overboard. And that's possibly part of the answer here: there really wasn't any meaningful data on mask use for this sort of purpose. Therefore, the standard instinct kicked in, just as it would have for suggestions to eat lots of Garlic. Or, you know, Hydroxychloroquine. The second issue is that for N95 masks, it is actually true that laypeople are extremely unlikely to get them to fit correctly to be useful. In a healthcare setting, this involves a mandatory training/fitting that includes a special chamber with high concentrations of some odourant or fog to find leaks. Then, I'm not 100% sure if this idea of a lie intended to preserve masks for healthcare workers originated with the medical establishment, with politics, the media, or the public. But I'm almost certain that this narrative ("they are saying masks don't work to protect supplies...") was "out there" at the time. Even if somebody was trying to manipulate the public in such a way, somebody else along the route seems to have exposed this strategy at the same time. I wouldn't even be surprised if it turns out the same person/group was the source of both, basically telling us "masks don't work very well, one might even say not at all (wink wink), please let them go to those that can make the best use of them".
billjings 6y ago
I think the point "Health care officials and government don't respect the public" is worth some deeper consideration. As a thought exercise, I'd like to put myself in the shoes of that public health official and see what my responsibilities are. I'd know for a fact that, without extreme measures, there will be a huge death toll. And I'd have working experience to know for a fact that, if I come right out and advocate directly for those extreme measures, the public will revolt against them. So here's the question to answer under this thought exercise: how do I respect the public? It is my role to mitigate this public health disaster. How do I do it? There's a libertarian or anarchistic streak in US society that views anyone exercising the kinds of roles considered in that thought exercise as an illegitimate use of power over the individual. I have a hard time with that, because it seems to me like it precludes all the tools we use to answer crises like COVID, all of which require people to play those kinds of roles.
- babesh 6y ago
  That power is very, very dangerous and has been abused in the past. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be used. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization
wwweston 6y ago
The problem of getting a lay audience to understand policy based off of specialized knowledge is non-trivial (as any engineer knows very well). "What can we say today so that people will be ready to hear what we need to say tomorrow?" sounds less like manipulation and more like acknowledging that getting buy-in isn't merely a process of dumping factual knowledge, something that seems pretty well borne out by the public conversation that's played out over the last 2-3 months. Some people do seem to feel like accepting social authority of any kind is too parental, whether it's expertise or civil order. That may be more behaving like children than being treated like them, though.
- babesh 6y ago
  You have to try first and oftentimes if you can’t explain it clearly then your understanding of the subject isn’t keen enough.
- rapind 6y ago
  An obvious problem with the general populace understanding specialized knowledge is that we need a trustworthy source to explain it. Every major news outlet has become blatently partisan in recent years (many long before). NYT eliminated their ombudsman years ago (3 years ago I think), and television media has always been even worse. Is it really that surprising when people don't trust what they hear and gravitate towards conspiracies and bullshit? The public has become hyper allergic to expertise. The repurcussions of this is pretty scary.

by babesh 6y ago

zzleeper 6y ago

Had the US (at all govt levels) actually treated this seriously, as a health problem and not economic/political problem, we could be in a situation like Taiwan/NZ. The US is large, but mostly insulated, so this was feasible. But it would have required EVERYONE wearing masks, and no delays in locking things down (one day of delay in an exponential situation is like 4 more days of lockdown at the other end)

rjzzleep 6y ago
What's more is that since Taiwan published their email they sent to the WHO in December about the severeness of the threat and given the fact that the US is basically considered their only real ally, they almost certainly directly warned the US. Of course I doubt that they would ever say that in public given that they don't want to piss off their only big military ally with a vengeful president.
babesh 6y ago
Manipulation whether in good or bad faith is one is the biggest problems in the US. It’s is coming from both sides. Don’t vote for those who will manipulate you.
- tiny_epoch 6y ago
  Unfortunately this means "not voting at all".
- yndoendo 6y ago
  I would have to say that lack of Critical Thinking and latching to Group Think are the biggest problems in the US. These lead to the inability to criticize whom one voted for or people with-in their own groups. Saying something direct often will change the outcome and have the opposite of the wanted response. For example: Two men both buy flowers for women they like. The first man tells her the truth, "I bought them hoping it would increase my chance for sex". The other says, "I thought you might like these", while actually thinking I want to have sex. Which person was better at marketing themselves and have a higher probability of a better outcome? This is actually from "Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense", https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26210508-alchemy https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26210508-alchemy. Manipulation has no concept of bad or good but is required in our society to help prevent people from throwing away good ideas.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

Do you actually disagree with what Constantine is quoted as saying? Do you believe that the "if [they] advised social distancing right away" that it would have been accepted?

babesh 6y ago
I disagree with the manipulation. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I don’t know if it would have been accepted.

koheripbal 6y ago

I think the most extreme version of your point #2 was when health officials and scientists made public statements that masks were ineffective - despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, in order to reserve mask supplies for healthcare works. Spreading misinformation in the name of good. The most clearcut evidence of this was a world renouned epidiamologist admitting exactly this on the podcast This Week In Virology a few weeks ago. I will add the source (also in my comment history) when I get home.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago

I wouldn't be as critical when it comes to making only demands that will be accepted. That's not really manipulative IMO, and Swiss authorities were also very open about doing this. Announcing a short lockdown then extending it (when it was clear from the beginning) is more problematic - basically, giving people false hope because they know that telling people to lock down for 3+ months would lead to a large number of people either rioting or ignoring the rules. Conversely, I suspect that some of the reductions in lockdown strictness are there to reduce the risk of dissatisfaction/loss of compliance, not based on what is safe. The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). This may have helped alleviate the shortage, but at what cost? The next time authorities say "you don't need X", people will remember and depending on other evidence, fewer or more will take it as "I definitely need X". As a specific example, schools in Switzerland will reopen tomorrow, with the government claiming that this is safe because children don't spread it much. This may or may not be based on science (there are contradicting studies supporting either side), but because I know that I cannot trust the official statements, I am assuming that the motivation is letting more people get back to work, and expect a spike in cases. Thus, I'm restricting myself less now than I would be willing to if I could reasonably expect the situation in three weeks to be better, not worse, than the situation now, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
> The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). The issue of masks is/was more complicated than just an intentional lie. Medicine has a rather well-known history of really bad ideas that, at their time, were perfectly reasonable ideas within the knowledge and commonly accepted paradigms of their time. Bloodletting, arsenic, later high-dose Vitamin C (and after that, D), Resveratrol etc. It took until the middle of the 20th century for randomised trials to become the gold standard of medicine. And even today, "evidence-based medicine" is still distinct enough from just "medicine" to require that term. If you're not in medicine/biology you probably consider some logically sound idea based on your understanding of a system a useful tool (i. e. "people are interested in dogs, so I'll start a podcast on dogs and people will listen"). In medicine, this is crazy-talk! Unless you have meaningful statistical data, you do nothing except try to somehow get data! This instinct can, very rarely, go overboard. And that's possibly part of the answer here: there really wasn't any meaningful data on mask use for this sort of purpose. Therefore, the standard instinct kicked in, just as it would have for suggestions to eat lots of Garlic. Or, you know, Hydroxychloroquine. The second issue is that for N95 masks, it is actually true that laypeople are extremely unlikely to get them to fit correctly to be useful. In a healthcare setting, this involves a mandatory training/fitting that includes a special chamber with high concentrations of some odourant or fog to find leaks. Then, I'm not 100% sure if this idea of a lie intended to preserve masks for healthcare workers originated with the medical establishment, with politics, the media, or the public. But I'm almost certain that this narrative ("they are saying masks don't work to protect supplies...") was "out there" at the time. Even if somebody was trying to manipulate the public in such a way, somebody else along the route seems to have exposed this strategy at the same time. I wouldn't even be surprised if it turns out the same person/group was the source of both, basically telling us "masks don't work very well, one might even say not at all (wink wink), please let them go to those that can make the best use of them".

billjings 6y ago

I think the point "Health care officials and government don't respect the public" is worth some deeper consideration. As a thought exercise, I'd like to put myself in the shoes of that public health official and see what my responsibilities are. I'd know for a fact that, without extreme measures, there will be a huge death toll. And I'd have working experience to know for a fact that, if I come right out and advocate directly for those extreme measures, the public will revolt against them. So here's the question to answer under this thought exercise: how do I respect the public? It is my role to mitigate this public health disaster. How do I do it? There's a libertarian or anarchistic streak in US society that views anyone exercising the kinds of roles considered in that thought exercise as an illegitimate use of power over the individual. I have a hard time with that, because it seems to me like it precludes all the tools we use to answer crises like COVID, all of which require people to play those kinds of roles.

babesh 6y ago
That power is very, very dangerous and has been abused in the past. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be used. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

wwweston 6y ago

The problem of getting a lay audience to understand policy based off of specialized knowledge is non-trivial (as any engineer knows very well). "What can we say today so that people will be ready to hear what we need to say tomorrow?" sounds less like manipulation and more like acknowledging that getting buy-in isn't merely a process of dumping factual knowledge, something that seems pretty well borne out by the public conversation that's played out over the last 2-3 months. Some people do seem to feel like accepting social authority of any kind is too parental, whether it's expertise or civil order. That may be more behaving like children than being treated like them, though.

babesh 6y ago
You have to try first and oftentimes if you can’t explain it clearly then your understanding of the subject isn’t keen enough.
rapind 6y ago
An obvious problem with the general populace understanding specialized knowledge is that we need a trustworthy source to explain it. Every major news outlet has become blatently partisan in recent years (many long before). NYT eliminated their ombudsman years ago (3 years ago I think), and television media has always been even worse. Is it really that surprising when people don't trust what they hear and gravitate towards conspiracies and bullshit? The public has become hyper allergic to expertise. The repurcussions of this is pretty scary.