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Here is what I don't understand. (I seriously don't, and would honestly appreciate some explanations or ideas. And keep in mind I am 100% on board with followin

Here is what I don't understand. (I seriously don't, and would honestly appreciate some explanations or ideas. And keep in mind I am 100% on board with following any and all recommendations of the CDC.) When we were all sent to sit at home back in March, the word was "flatten the curve." The idea was that containment was no longer an option, as declared by the CDC/WHO. Epidemiologists were predicting that somewhere between 40% and 70% of the world's population were going to catch COVID19, at one point or another. So the paramount need was to ensure that the health systems did not get overrun. We socially distance and stay at home until we're sure the health systems are in the clear, and then we return to some mixed approximation to 'normal,' with the understanding we'd probably have to return a few weeks at a time at some points in the future as case counts climbed again. But at some point, almost every one I know has switched to believing that the real goal is eradication, that we need to be extremely socially distanced until case counts are near zero, or until a vaccine arrives. People now seem terrified at the thought of catching it, despite having no risk factors. What I don't understand is why this switch occurred. I think we have been seeing a lot of sensationalized headlines and statements from scientists taken out of context somewhat, but I don't think that in and of itself is enough to explain the switch. Since about early March, we have known or strongly believed that the virus was mostly harmless to most people, with the extreme vast majority of serious cases occurring in people with high risks factors. So I have trouble understanding the extreme pushback against moderate reopening I am seeing out of a lot of people I know. People say "but we need to keep case counts low." Yes, I agree, but I don't know how in the world we get them to zero. Containment was broken. If we're going to be angry, let's be angry about the fact that nothing was done to attempt full containment until it was far too late, not the fact that places are ready to fulfill the statements they made in March. We can't even count on a vaccine to ever come, because there are issues with some coronavirus vaccines. For instance, the vaccine for SARS become not recommended after research showed that, while it prevented future infections from SARS, it made infections from other coronaviruses more damaging. The last thing we want to do is rush a vaccine through human trials that ends up causing more harm than good, but that's what's going to happen if we believe we're all trapped in our houses until one comes. Anyways, I'm just not sure where the switch happened. Why are so many people I know now frantically talking about how they need to stay home through September or later, after being told just a mere 2 months ago that the goal was curve-flattening? In most areas in the US, it seems the curve has been flattened. Where I live (a mid-sized city), the health system was never remotely close to being stressed. Yes, case counts will increase if you reopen a bit, but remember, 40%-70% of the pop is going to catch it at some point. Those people are going to catch it whether they catch it now, or six months from now. If you can't tell from my comment, I think (as is usually the case) the right approach sits directly in between the "open now" and "keep everything shut down" camps. The virus is an extremely serious event, a terrible tragedy, and one that we need to ensure we keep from overwhelming hospitals. But where hospitals are not in any danger of being overwhelmed, I just don't know what good having everyone indefinitely locked at home is doing. Taking what seem to be unreasonably conservative stances now does not fix the bullshit actions by our governments 3 months ago; that ship is gone.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
There is a Presidential election in six months. That means there is a major element of politics in everything that happens between now and then. The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate position. Some of the people you hear pushing this are the partisans themselves, but most of them are just the people who only listen to the media from one side and then repeat what they're told. Meanwhile if you listen to the President the economy is doing great and everything is fine and we'll all be back to normal in a month or two. The truth is, as always, complicated, and somewhere in the middle.
- vkou 6y ago
  > The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate position. This same debate is happening in every country in the world, including ones that don't have an election in six months. So, no, this is not just a bunch of political wankery that's aimed at making Orange Man look bad. It's a very clear consequence of what the two parties value.
  - makomk 6y ago
    All of the stupid, cynical partisan bullshit that America's press comes up with to try and kick Trump out of office is spilling over to other countries and screwing up our ideas about our coronavirus responses, though. For example, early on the CDC screwed up its coronavirus test, delaying the rollout of wider testing. The press saw blood and started blaming all the American deaths on the Trump administration failing to test for coronavirus. The trouble is, this was fixed some months ago, so in order to keep this narrative going publications like the New York Times took increasingly massive levels of testing that no country had managed, such as testing everyone with symptoms or testing 10% of the population a day, and made them sound like things all countries had achieved but the US had missed due to Trump. This worked on a massive scale - the narrative spread, and people in every Western country became convinced that their government is failing at coronavirus testing compared to the rest of the work due to not being able to manage those things, and that it was killing people. I even had a discussion with a couple of Germans on here the other day who were convinced their coronavirus testing was abysmal, despite them having one of the biggest programs out there and being the country that the US and UK media currently point to in order to convince us that our governments are failing on testing. To make matters even more stupid, the US actually passed mass testing success story South Korea - the country which supposedly proves all those deaths could be avoided if you just had proper coronavirus testing - quite some time ago, and people didn't realize because the media carefully avoided updating people's beliefs since this changed. I keep seeing people point to the US supposedly having less per-capita testing than South Korea in HN comments as proof they should be able to do better, even now. Astoundingly, when Trump debunked this widespread, false belief in a recent press conference, this is how the New York Times summed it up in a headline "Trump Misrepresents Testing Record". (The "misrepresentation" was that even though what he said was true it wasn't true two months ago, and also the US hadn't beaten every single country on the planet on coronavirus testing. Seriously.) Also, the sides certainly aren't the same in all countries when it comes to the legal legitimacy of lockdowns. For example, in the UK our right-wing party is currently in power, which means that arguments that their lockdown rules are illegitimate and exceed their powers mostly come from supporters of the other, left-wing party. The justifications for why they're exceeding their powers actually look similar in many ways to the ones in this lawsuit.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

There is a Presidential election in six months. That means there is a major element of politics in everything that happens between now and then. The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate position. Some of the people you hear pushing this are the partisans themselves, but most of them are just the people who only listen to the media from one side and then repeat what they're told. Meanwhile if you listen to the President the economy is doing great and everything is fine and we'll all be back to normal in a month or two. The truth is, as always, complicated, and somewhere in the middle.

vkou 6y ago
> The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate position. This same debate is happening in every country in the world, including ones that don't have an election in six months. So, no, this is not just a bunch of political wankery that's aimed at making Orange Man look bad. It's a very clear consequence of what the two parties value.
- makomk 6y ago
  All of the stupid, cynical partisan bullshit that America's press comes up with to try and kick Trump out of office is spilling over to other countries and screwing up our ideas about our coronavirus responses, though. For example, early on the CDC screwed up its coronavirus test, delaying the rollout of wider testing. The press saw blood and started blaming all the American deaths on the Trump administration failing to test for coronavirus. The trouble is, this was fixed some months ago, so in order to keep this narrative going publications like the New York Times took increasingly massive levels of testing that no country had managed, such as testing everyone with symptoms or testing 10% of the population a day, and made them sound like things all countries had achieved but the US had missed due to Trump. This worked on a massive scale - the narrative spread, and people in every Western country became convinced that their government is failing at coronavirus testing compared to the rest of the work due to not being able to manage those things, and that it was killing people. I even had a discussion with a couple of Germans on here the other day who were convinced their coronavirus testing was abysmal, despite them having one of the biggest programs out there and being the country that the US and UK media currently point to in order to convince us that our governments are failing on testing. To make matters even more stupid, the US actually passed mass testing success story South Korea - the country which supposedly proves all those deaths could be avoided if you just had proper coronavirus testing - quite some time ago, and people didn't realize because the media carefully avoided updating people's beliefs since this changed. I keep seeing people point to the US supposedly having less per-capita testing than South Korea in HN comments as proof they should be able to do better, even now. Astoundingly, when Trump debunked this widespread, false belief in a recent press conference, this is how the New York Times summed it up in a headline "Trump Misrepresents Testing Record". (The "misrepresentation" was that even though what he said was true it wasn't true two months ago, and also the US hadn't beaten every single country on the planet on coronavirus testing. Seriously.) Also, the sides certainly aren't the same in all countries when it comes to the legal legitimacy of lockdowns. For example, in the UK our right-wing party is currently in power, which means that arguments that their lockdown rules are illegitimate and exceed their powers mostly come from supporters of the other, left-wing party. The justifications for why they're exceeding their powers actually look similar in many ways to the ones in this lawsuit.