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> The first was to spend billions of dollars hoping to find a cure while certain behaviors continued to spread the virus. And yet here we are, with governments

> The first was to spend billions of dollars hoping to find a cure while certain behaviors continued to spread the virus. And yet here we are, with governments spending billions of dollars to find a cure when we can stop the spread of COVID-19 by reducing certain behaviors. The difference in government response to the (ongoing, btw) AIDS crisis and COVID-19 has a hell of a lot to do with the fact that COVID-19 is not seen as a “gay” disease, and is not “othered.” Having sex is all it takes to get HIV. Once. I won’t sit here and listen to you claim it’s “selfish and destructive behavior” to have sex. Once. Take your thinly veiled homophobia and moralizing elsewhere please. It’s not a good look, and I don’t want to hear it in my professional community.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Understood. But Covid is of course a different disease, and different in many ways. No consent is required to obtain it from another person. No time spent in private naked. Just be near someone in line at the bus stop and a sneeze. So there's that.
- drewbug01 6y ago
  Of course it is. And really, one of the things that gets me fired up is that comparing HIV to the current pandemic is that it’s just so lazy, and inaccurate! And yet, here we are. It’s a tempting comparison for a lot of people because it’s the worst thing in recent memory. And that leads to the other thing that gets me fired up - people trivializing HIV as “not as bad” or even sometimes as an example of a “good” public health response. It’s just so different in almost every respect that it’s inevitably insulting. (Of course this is not directed at you, I’m vehemently agreeing with you I believe. :)
  - dorchadas 6y ago
    > Of course it is. And really, one of the things that gets me fired up is that comparing HIV to the current pandemic is that it’s just so lazy, and inaccurate! God, please tell this to my coworker. He's a biology teacher at a high school for God's sake, and he's going around saying that we should go back to school because we don't shut down for HIV, and that the novel Corona virus isn't any different. The kicker is he, of course, still wants his soccer team to practice and be able to play their games and such. And he's, sadly, likely going to get his wish. But, seriously, the man is a biology teacher arguing this. It's so damn frustrating, especially as the school won't do anything about it.
    - matz1 6y ago
      He is not worong, the coronavirus is not as scary as being reported. The death rate are very low.
    - drewbug01 6y ago
      I wouldn’t expect every biology teacher to be an expert on disease, of course... but wow. I would indeed expect a biology teacher to grasp the fundamentals of disease transmission.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I did not know that getting HIV required consent, or being naked.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    But you get the idea. You could opt out. People did. And it didn't take totally isolating yourself in a clean room. Unless you mean rape or something. But that's a violent crime, and a tiny, tiny fraction of the public health issue that is an infectious disease.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      I wasn't paying much attention when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. Probably I was reading Tom Clancy novels about Jack Ryan. White privilege, etc.
Scaevolus 6y ago
Transmission rates vary widely by sex act. 2/3 of transmissions in the US are between homosexual men. It's not homophobia to observe that some populations are at more risk from HIV.
- drewbug01 6y ago
  You’re right. But the homophobia isn’t in the statistics (which the commenter didn’t provide, anyways). The homophobia was in the comments about “destructive lifestyles” and stating that it was because of rampant sexual partners. As I stated, you only have to have sex once (and I don’t believe that statement is controversial) to contract HIV. Please examine your own biases, because if your takeaway from the comment that I was addressing was “what, it’s true that gay guys are more likely to get it” then it would seem that you take the comment to readily describe “gays” writ large, which is also pretty homophobic.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    There's no need for the SJW act. Everything said in the previous comments was reported in the press of the day, and you can find stats on those topics. I suppose one lesson from then was that telling people how to behave doesn't work, even if their life is at stake. Having said that, the question is, "What can we learn from the AIDS epidemic to apply to corona today?" Sure, Reagan was slow in tackling AIDS, but it turned out that developing drugs for AIDS was really hard, and I'd estimate it took a decade to get major progress. So either we get lucky with corona, and it takes 18 months for an approved drug, or we don't find one. It's hard to make policy when you have 2 opposite answers like that. Corona is an airborne disease, and AIDS wasn't. That's a big difference, and I suspect for the US, where corona testing and tracing is a failure, that herd immunity is the best we'll get for an airborne virus with 95-98% non-fatal results. People are reluctant to accept that though. Speaking of behavior, California just made an edict today that everybody has to wear a mask outside home at all times. AFAIK the US doesn't have enough supply of masks, so I guess we're all reusing them daily?
    - drewbug01 6y ago
etrabroline 6y ago
A small number of people can spread a disease far and wide, thereby greatly affecting people who themselves do not take so many unnecessary risks. Choosing to reduce your number of sexual partners is a form of social distancing, and like the lockdown protestors today, the AIDS protestors of the 1980's were upset by the need to social distance, although the gay jokes probably contributed.
- drewbug01 6y ago
  > and like the lockdown protestors today, the AIDS protestors of the 1980's were upset by the need to social distance, although the gay jokes probably contributed You have to be trolling. You can’t honestly believe that people protesting the lack of government action around HIV in the 80s were upset only that they had to “social distance?” They protested because they had next to no information about the disease, testing was inadequate (and slow), stigma was rampant, and at the end of the day the government was content to let them die rather than search for a cure. This is an incredibly reductive and insulting take. Don’t make rational arguments at the expense of normalizing what was an extremely cruel response by the Reagan admin.
  - fortran77 6y ago
    The stigma from the police was horrific. I attended many an ACT-UP protest in NYC in the 80s. And I was assaulted by people during peaceful protests while cops stood by and did nothing.
dolgo 6y ago
I have to say, you are really good at calling people names when you don’t agree with their views. You’ve made a terrific straw man out of the poster above. Obviously, they were referring to reckless, unprotected sex with many, many partners. Yet you chose to interpret it as a single sex act. You’ve gone all through this thread calling people out for having views that are different than yours. Maybe try practicing the tolerance you preach?
- drewbug01 6y ago
  > I have to say, you are really good at calling people names when you don’t agree with their views. You’ve made a terrific straw man out of the poster above. Obviously, they were referring to reckless, unprotected sex with many, many partners. Yet you chose to interpret it as a single sex act. You misread my comment. I'm well aware that the poster was referring to reckless, unprotected sex with many, many partners. What I'm yelling about is the assumption that all gay men do that, which was a statement they explicitly made. No reading into necessary. > Yet you chose to interpret it as a single sex act A strawman involves setting up an argument that wasn't made, and then knocking it down. Ironically, that's exactly what your statement does. I didn't interpret their statement as referring to a single sex act, I reminded them that HIV transmission is not only through rampant, unprotected sex. > You’ve gone all through this thread calling people out for having views that are different than yours. Maybe try practicing the tolerance you preach? I don't know if it's cliche to quote the paradox of tolerance yet, but I can't stand by while people make ugly comments about my community under the guise of rationality.
qubex 6y ago
Funnily enough, in Italy (where I grew up) there was next to no association in the public mind between HIV/AIDS and homosexuality. It was linked to drug use and sexual promiscuity, but it was drilled into us that any kind of unprotected sex (and for most people, that was automatically construed as heterosexual sex) was a risky behaviour. I was honestly very surprised when, towards the end of the nineties and early 2000s, it gradually dawned upon me that elsewhere there was a connotation of HIV/AIDS as having been somehow associated with homosexuality ‘abroad’. For us, in Italy, it was very much perceived as an activity-related risk, not an identity-related one. (As I dare say it should be, methinks.)
- smabie 6y ago
  Sure, but getting AIDS from "regular" sex is pretty rare and difficult. The chance of infection is very low.
  - qubex 6y ago
    My point is that the governmental message was deliberately tailored to address promiscuity and unprotected sex, rather than single out any specific demographic or minority.
  - foldr 6y ago
    It can't be that difficult. Look at Africa, for example.
    - pinkfoot 6y ago
      Google 'dry sex and AIDS' first. You might have to broaden your definition of normal.
      - foldr 6y ago
        My definition of 'normal' includes men fucking each other in the butt. I hope yours does too. Everyone who's at all serious about tackling AIDS in Africa (rather than making some kind of veiled political or moral point) is focused on reducing unprotected sex.
fortran77 6y ago
Exactly. One of the biggest risk factors for COVID-19 is obesity. (See https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa415/5818333 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... ) Is our government demanding that people whose lifetyle makes them obese or overweight pay for the cost of the coronavirus epidemic?

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Understood. But Covid is of course a different disease, and different in many ways. No consent is required to obtain it from another person. No time spent in private naked. Just be near someone in line at the bus stop and a sneeze. So there's that.

drewbug01 6y ago
Of course it is. And really, one of the things that gets me fired up is that comparing HIV to the current pandemic is that it’s just so lazy, and inaccurate! And yet, here we are. It’s a tempting comparison for a lot of people because it’s the worst thing in recent memory. And that leads to the other thing that gets me fired up - people trivializing HIV as “not as bad” or even sometimes as an example of a “good” public health response. It’s just so different in almost every respect that it’s inevitably insulting. (Of course this is not directed at you, I’m vehemently agreeing with you I believe. :)
- dorchadas 6y ago
  > Of course it is. And really, one of the things that gets me fired up is that comparing HIV to the current pandemic is that it’s just so lazy, and inaccurate! God, please tell this to my coworker. He's a biology teacher at a high school for God's sake, and he's going around saying that we should go back to school because we don't shut down for HIV, and that the novel Corona virus isn't any different. The kicker is he, of course, still wants his soccer team to practice and be able to play their games and such. And he's, sadly, likely going to get his wish. But, seriously, the man is a biology teacher arguing this. It's so damn frustrating, especially as the school won't do anything about it.
  - matz1 6y ago
    He is not worong, the coronavirus is not as scary as being reported. The death rate are very low.
  - drewbug01 6y ago
    I wouldn’t expect every biology teacher to be an expert on disease, of course... but wow. I would indeed expect a biology teacher to grasp the fundamentals of disease transmission.
perl4ever 6y ago
I did not know that getting HIV required consent, or being naked.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  But you get the idea. You could opt out. People did. And it didn't take totally isolating yourself in a clean room. Unless you mean rape or something. But that's a violent crime, and a tiny, tiny fraction of the public health issue that is an infectious disease.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    I wasn't paying much attention when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. Probably I was reading Tom Clancy novels about Jack Ryan. White privilege, etc.

Scaevolus 6y ago

Transmission rates vary widely by sex act. 2/3 of transmissions in the US are between homosexual men. It's not homophobia to observe that some populations are at more risk from HIV.

drewbug01 6y ago
You’re right. But the homophobia isn’t in the statistics (which the commenter didn’t provide, anyways). The homophobia was in the comments about “destructive lifestyles” and stating that it was because of rampant sexual partners. As I stated, you only have to have sex once (and I don’t believe that statement is controversial) to contract HIV. Please examine your own biases, because if your takeaway from the comment that I was addressing was “what, it’s true that gay guys are more likely to get it” then it would seem that you take the comment to readily describe “gays” writ large, which is also pretty homophobic.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  There's no need for the SJW act. Everything said in the previous comments was reported in the press of the day, and you can find stats on those topics. I suppose one lesson from then was that telling people how to behave doesn't work, even if their life is at stake. Having said that, the question is, "What can we learn from the AIDS epidemic to apply to corona today?" Sure, Reagan was slow in tackling AIDS, but it turned out that developing drugs for AIDS was really hard, and I'd estimate it took a decade to get major progress. So either we get lucky with corona, and it takes 18 months for an approved drug, or we don't find one. It's hard to make policy when you have 2 opposite answers like that. Corona is an airborne disease, and AIDS wasn't. That's a big difference, and I suspect for the US, where corona testing and tracing is a failure, that herd immunity is the best we'll get for an airborne virus with 95-98% non-fatal results. People are reluctant to accept that though. Speaking of behavior, California just made an edict today that everybody has to wear a mask outside home at all times. AFAIK the US doesn't have enough supply of masks, so I guess we're all reusing them daily?
  - drewbug01 6y ago

etrabroline 6y ago

A small number of people can spread a disease far and wide, thereby greatly affecting people who themselves do not take so many unnecessary risks. Choosing to reduce your number of sexual partners is a form of social distancing, and like the lockdown protestors today, the AIDS protestors of the 1980's were upset by the need to social distance, although the gay jokes probably contributed.

drewbug01 6y ago
> and like the lockdown protestors today, the AIDS protestors of the 1980's were upset by the need to social distance, although the gay jokes probably contributed You have to be trolling. You can’t honestly believe that people protesting the lack of government action around HIV in the 80s were upset only that they had to “social distance?” They protested because they had next to no information about the disease, testing was inadequate (and slow), stigma was rampant, and at the end of the day the government was content to let them die rather than search for a cure. This is an incredibly reductive and insulting take. Don’t make rational arguments at the expense of normalizing what was an extremely cruel response by the Reagan admin.
- fortran77 6y ago
  The stigma from the police was horrific. I attended many an ACT-UP protest in NYC in the 80s. And I was assaulted by people during peaceful protests while cops stood by and did nothing.

dolgo 6y ago

I have to say, you are really good at calling people names when you don’t agree with their views. You’ve made a terrific straw man out of the poster above. Obviously, they were referring to reckless, unprotected sex with many, many partners. Yet you chose to interpret it as a single sex act. You’ve gone all through this thread calling people out for having views that are different than yours. Maybe try practicing the tolerance you preach?

drewbug01 6y ago
> I have to say, you are really good at calling people names when you don’t agree with their views. You’ve made a terrific straw man out of the poster above. Obviously, they were referring to reckless, unprotected sex with many, many partners. Yet you chose to interpret it as a single sex act. You misread my comment. I'm well aware that the poster was referring to reckless, unprotected sex with many, many partners. What I'm yelling about is the assumption that all gay men do that, which was a statement they explicitly made. No reading into necessary. > Yet you chose to interpret it as a single sex act A strawman involves setting up an argument that wasn't made, and then knocking it down. Ironically, that's exactly what your statement does. I didn't interpret their statement as referring to a single sex act, I reminded them that HIV transmission is not only through rampant, unprotected sex. > You’ve gone all through this thread calling people out for having views that are different than yours. Maybe try practicing the tolerance you preach? I don't know if it's cliche to quote the paradox of tolerance yet, but I can't stand by while people make ugly comments about my community under the guise of rationality.

qubex 6y ago

Funnily enough, in Italy (where I grew up) there was next to no association in the public mind between HIV/AIDS and homosexuality. It was linked to drug use and sexual promiscuity, but it was drilled into us that any kind of unprotected sex (and for most people, that was automatically construed as heterosexual sex) was a risky behaviour. I was honestly very surprised when, towards the end of the nineties and early 2000s, it gradually dawned upon me that elsewhere there was a connotation of HIV/AIDS as having been somehow associated with homosexuality ‘abroad’. For us, in Italy, it was very much perceived as an activity-related risk, not an identity-related one. (As I dare say it should be, methinks.)

smabie 6y ago
Sure, but getting AIDS from "regular" sex is pretty rare and difficult. The chance of infection is very low.
- qubex 6y ago
  My point is that the governmental message was deliberately tailored to address promiscuity and unprotected sex, rather than single out any specific demographic or minority.
- foldr 6y ago
  It can't be that difficult. Look at Africa, for example.
  - pinkfoot 6y ago
    Google 'dry sex and AIDS' first. You might have to broaden your definition of normal.
    - foldr 6y ago
      My definition of 'normal' includes men fucking each other in the butt. I hope yours does too. Everyone who's at all serious about tackling AIDS in Africa (rather than making some kind of veiled political or moral point) is focused on reducing unprotected sex.

fortran77 6y ago

Exactly. One of the biggest risk factors for COVID-19 is obesity. (See https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa415/5818333 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... ) Is our government demanding that people whose lifetyle makes them obese or overweight pay for the cost of the coronavirus epidemic?