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> However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don

by smsm42 6y ago

> However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing. Because that's what they spent last several months - and in fact, many years before - trying to convince people there's no way they can be treated as adults and just given the information and left to manage the risks by themselves. Just in this case, our betters had decided the COVID risk is less important than protesting - so it's OK for us. But only in cases which are approved by our betters. If you want to protest something else - it's still risky as heck and there they can fully condemn.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
It really just makes it undeniable how political the official advice and accompanying commentary is. The slew of new rules put in place for BLM protests are incredibly dubious, from both a legal and safety perspective. It’s not up to the government to decide what speech or cause for assembly is important, and health officials should not have their risk assessments swayed by political considerations.
- xphilter 6y ago
  What new rules specifically? And what rules were not in place for the armed all-white protests in Michigan, for instance?
  - drusepth 6y ago
    For example, countries permitting residents to "gather in groups of 12", or "protest in groups of up to 100". For example, https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2020/0602-Businesses-Reopening.php https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2020/0602-Businesses-Reo... Why create specialized rules for protests that allow an order of magnitude more people to gather than those allowed in a "close cohort" gathering?
    - ta17711771 6y ago
      Maybe they're hoping the protestors become ill.
    - mpweiher 6y ago
      All such advice/regulations is weighing the benefit of imposing the restriction vs. the cost of imposing such restriction. And, importantly, all this is not in the context of individual risk, but population risk. The distinction is tricky but important, and one that trips most people up. For any single individual, the personal risk from COVID19 tends to be small, often seemingly vanishingly small. However, since we don't have immunity, it will affect everyone and even a small individual risk multiplied by (almost) everyone is a large impact on the population in terms of overall deaths. Anyway, how many political protests have you attended in the last 10 years? How many social gatherings? For me, it is easily 1:100, if not more. Thus, the aggregate transmission risk from protests is much smaller, therefore we can be more permissive of them. And it is the aggregate risk that policymakers care about. On the other hand, political protest is considered a very, very fundamental right of our democracies, restricting it something to be done only with the greatest reluctance.
      - metrokoi 6y ago
        The freedom to practice religion is also a very fundamental right of our democracies, yet it is still illegal in many places due to the lockdown such as California. Yes, the frequency that people attend protests is on average much less, but the number of other people that one is exposed to is much greater hence why "larger gathering venues at a pace consistent with public health and safety, such as nightclubs, concert venues, and live audience sports" (which are often outdoors as well) are in the very final phase of California's reopening plan. If policy makers agree that protests have a low aggregate risk, why would they place things like concerts or sports events which happen mostly on the weekends in the final phase when there are now protests happening every day? I do agree that political protest is a very fundamental right and rarely ever be restricted, but many who share your opinion were against the anti-lockdown protests which is contradictory if one believes BLM protests should not be restricted because they are political protest. People protesting the lockdown is also democracy in action, even if one believes the reason for protest is not as important. The democratic right to protest is not dependant on how important the issue is seen to be.
- smsm42 6y ago
  The lockdown policies inevitable have political component, because they are made by politicians and will be evaluated in a political framework. And for a politician it is always practical to err on the CYA side - one extra day of lockdown costs the politician very little, as the costs of it are not born by them personally and are largely very hard to quantify, they are distributed among the population and spread among many consequences, small and large. However, if the politician raises the lockdown prematurely, the blame - in a very quantifiable and ready-for-election-ad form of raising case numbers - would be directed personally at the politician. If the political power of those who suffer from the lockdown is not large enough and organized enough to exert significant pressure, the smart politician would extend the lockdown until there's no conceivable risk to be blamed if anything happens. Virus research, vaccine research, etc., is science, but decisions on what to do with it is always political. And thus those who want to influence it obviously make a political action. With the current protest, the political situation changes. Opposing these protests is a political suicide. If you can't oppose them, the only way is to have some contrived argument where you are for lockdowns (because see above) but also for protests. > health officials should not have their risk assessments swayed by political considerations. You can publish raw information about risk - which is complex and uncertain, and step back, but then you will have little influence on political decisions that follow it. Or you can recommend a policy - and by that inevitably contaminate the scientific assessment with political stance and become invested in certain policy. I'd much like the former, but vast majority of the policy in the US lately completely rejects the idea that the population can be trusted with full information and making its own decisions about it. The ruling paradigm is that the government should limit people's choices for their own good, and push them into actions that it thinks are beneficial for them. And most people expect that from politicians and blame those politicians which didn't limit their choices enough and allowed them to make choices which ultimately brought bad consequences. So, the politicians and people that want the political action to happen play the game that the public wants to be played.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    > The lockdown policies inevitable have political component, because they are made by politicians and will be evaluated in a political framework This is true for the policies, but absolutely not true for advice from public health officials. Globally the policies made in response to this pandemic have been justified almost entirely by appeals to the authority of health officials. The supposed basis of these policies was that those officials were providing expert and politically neutral advice on risk management. Having the expert health and safety advice show a readily apparent political motivation undermines all of it.
eanzenberg 6y ago
Actually, this is weasel speak: “it is obviously risky”. Anytime someone goes outside, it is a risk. Anytime you decide to drive, it is a risk. Covid is about as risky as driving a car. If covid were as deadly as claimed, as we’ve been told for months, you would think it was a death sentence for you and your grandma to partake in the protests we’ve been seeing.
- ta17711771 6y ago
  Ask me how I know you haven't known anyone that's died of COVID.
  - eanzenberg 6y ago
    Actually I do, why?
    - ta17711771 6y ago
      Imagine if everyone in the whole country was told to stay home and not drive their cars, and the same amount of people still died in car accidents as they normally would. That's the impact COVID is having. WITH the draconian lockdowns. You literally cannot calculate what would have happened without.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
rayiner 6y ago
Don’t forget public health officials outright lied and said masks don’t help reduce the spread of the disease, putatively to help conserve masks for medical personnel: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-... > When news of a mysterious viral pneumonia linked to a market in Wuhan, China, reached the outside world in early January, one of my first reactions was to order a modest supply of masks. Just a few weeks later, there wasn’t a mask to be bought in stores, or online for a reasonable price — just widespread price gouging. Many health experts, no doubt motivated by the sensible and urgent aim of preserving the remaining masks for health care workers, started telling people that they didn’t need masks or that they wouldn’t know how to wear them.
- gentryb 6y ago
  When I first started doing volunteer health assessments and triage at our local homeless shelter, I inquired if facial hair was an issue with PPE. The organization's initial response was no. I sent them a link to the CDC guidance[1] that includes this picture regarding facial hair styles that are ok[2]. I don't think the notice at the top of said article is helpful whatsoever saying that this isn't advice for covid-19. A proper fit and seal is important. The picture could also be considered somewhat offensive to some. [1]: https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2017/11/02/noshave/ https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2017/11/02/noshave/ [2]: https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/files/2017/11/FacialHairWmaskSmall.jpg https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/files/2017/11/Facia...
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    What would someone find offensive about the picture?
    - infinite8s 6y ago
      Possibly the labels under each facial style.
      - 6y ago
thisiszilff 6y ago
> That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Another excerpt from the article state: > "We created the letter in response to emerging narratives that seemed to malign demonstrations as risky for the public health because of Covid-19," according to the letter writers, many of whom are part of the University of Washington's Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "Instead, we wanted to present a narrative that prioritizes opposition to racism as vital to the public health, including the epidemic response. We believe that the way forward is not to suppress protests in the name of public health but to respond to protesters demands in the name of public health, thereby addressing multiple public health crises." They are not thinking about it in terms of supporting/opposing the protests. Rather the protests are a fact and you need to deal with them somehow. You can do that by either suppressing them or addressing their concerns. They do not want their concerns of COVID-19 to justify suppressing the protests, especially if addressing the protestor's concerns is a viable option. > They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing. This seems almost exactly the sentiment they are addressing in the letter. COVID-19 is a public health concern, so is racial disparities that result in racial disparities in medical outcomes. Their concerns over COVID-19 transmission should not be taken as justification for suppressing the protests. From the article, > "Staying at home, social distancing, and public masking are effective at minimizing the spread of COVID-19. To the extent possible, we support the application of these public health best practices during demonstrations that call attention to the pervasive lethal force of white supremacy," the letter says. They are still giving the same advice they've been giving. The letter also states protest-specific COVID-19 harm mitigation strategies for protestors & police. > Just in this case, our betters had decided the COVID risk is less important than protesting - so it's OK for us. But only in cases which are approved by our betters. A more charitable interpretation is that some medical professionals do not believe that the risk of COVID-19 spread is a compelling reason for suppressing protests against racial inequality, especially when the risk of COVID-19 spread can be addressed by responding to the protestors concerns & therefore advancing public health by both mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and addressing the role racism plays in medical outcomes.
tootie 6y ago
This isn't weasel speak at all. They're pretty clear that it's risky. They're just saying that they won't condemn protestors as taking frivolous risks the way anti-lockdown protestors or fun-seekers are. Police brutality, systemic racism, income inequality are all major public health risks in their own right.
- bmmayer1 6y ago
  I don't understand -- are keeping people out of work and isolated at home not public health risks? If non-Covid related factors are being considered in weighing against the risks of exposure they should all be considered, not only some of them, selectively.
  - tootie 6y ago
    Don't be obtuse. Of course all factors were considered. Keeping people out of offices and shops is not a public health risk. People becoming impoverished and losing health insurance is. That's why the federal government spent $2T protecting people's financial health to offset the damage. The bigger question is why health care access is tied to employment, but there's no way the current regime would consider dealing with that issue. Also, you're comparing government policy with an academic opinion.
    - fennecfoxen 6y ago
      No. Unemployment is generally regarded as a public health risk, beyond the immediate insurance consequences. There will moreover be people who suffer long-term impacts that these short-term payments can only partially mitigate.
      - baddox 6y ago
        That seems like a good argument to expand unemployment benefits during a global pandemic, and I suspect most public health officials would agree.
humaniania 6y ago
The CDC revised their risk estimates towards the end of last month. "The fifth scenario is the CDC's "current best estimate about viral transmission and disease severity in the United States." In that scenario, the agency described its estimate that 0.4% of people who feel sick with Covid-19 will die. For people age 65 and older, the CDC puts that number at 1.3%. For people 49 and under, the agency estimated that 0.05% of symptomatic people will die." https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/health/cdc-coronavirus-estimates-symptoms-deaths/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/health/cdc-coronavirus-estima...
- gridspy 6y ago
  Even if you do not die, you might have a very unpleasant experience with lasting consequences. Perhaps a better way to frame it would be - 2% (?) of patients have serious life-changing consequences. Those under 49 tend to survive them.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    > serious life-changing consequences This is a much more interesting data point. Death tends to have very few ongoing life-altering consequences, and in and of itself has a very low R0.
  - GiorgioG 6y ago
    The problem for me is we don't have any way at this time of knowing at an individual level what the consequences are likely to be. I might have no symptoms if I get sick but I may transmit it my son (type 1 diabetic) who might die. Or maybe he'd be fine and I might die, etc. There's just no way to gauge what one's reaction might be to getting the coronavirus. A local, healthy 8 year old girl started having symptoms last week Thursday and died the following Tuesday. I don't expect my family's lockdown to end before well into next year at the earliest. The odds are against dying or long term complications for younger people, but is going out to dinner, a bar, sporting or music event worth the risk? Not for me. Stay safe folks.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
poulsbohemian 6y ago
> That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Perhaps it’s not so much weasel words as a carefully coded “caveat emptor”
- marcusverus 6y ago
  A weasel in a cravat is still a weasel.
  - poulsbohemian 6y ago
    Observation: “weasel words” gets used a lot in HN comments as a cop out. I wish that phrase could be banned from this site because it is intellectually lazy. Commenters love to discredit articles and other commenters using that phrase rather than engaging in the actual effort to retort with facts. It’s the kind of broken culture that’s been turning HN into the same kind of cesspool that happened with slashdot.
    - metrokoi 6y ago
      The commenter seemed to have explained why they see the phrasing as "weasel words": >They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing. Is there anything about that explanation which is unsatisfactory? It's not as if they simply condemned the statement to be weasel words without any explanation as to why they see it as such.
alkibiades 6y ago
i’m 25 and this whole covid debacle and seeing how public health officials handle it has soured me on all “experts” for the rest of my life. no wonder people don’t believe in global warming, these “experts” prioritize politics over everything
- shibeouya 6y ago
  Wholeheartedly agree. I'm in my 30's with scientific education, but I will never take an "expert" opinion seriously after this. Very sad to see science shoot itself in the foot in the name of dubious politics.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    I’m too familiar with university advancement policies to not be skeptical of the actual expertise of the “experts”.
- natalyarostova 6y ago
  Just learn to think for yourself by reading the classics and fundamentals. Read Karl Popper, study stats, read blogs like Andrew Gelman’s.
- chasd00 6y ago
  I got very skeptical reading the reaction to the antibody studies here. Also, the total hate for Sweden really depressed me. I've always held this place in high regard but I suppose it's still just more of the same.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    The prevalence is too low for the antibody tests to be reliable. Every public health expert has reported that but people refuse to listen. Sweden has admitted their strategy is not working.
    - alkibiades 6y ago
baddox 6y ago
To me, that seems like fairly precise language. They’re saying they do not believe the risk level is sufficiently high to condemn the gatherings. It doesn’t seem much different than saying grocery store visits are not condemned as risky, while music store visits are condemned as risky. The virus doesn’t care about what you’re shopping for either, it’s just that shopping for food is more important (by their estimation) than shopping for some vinyl.
- coffeefirst 6y ago
  That, and it's a healthy dose of pragmatism. If nobody is going to comply with your advice, you're doing more harm than good. You can realistically tell people to shop for vinyl from the comfort of their couch, and they might do that. Given the level of outrage, there were going to be large groups of protests across the country either way, but they were successfully convinced to wear masks, use hand sanitizer and spread out where they can. At least here, every time the mayor talks she urges people who went to protests to get tested. Persuasion is still everything.
- blub 6y ago
  "They’re saying they do not believe the risk level is sufficiently high to condemn the gatherings." But that's obviously nonsense, given that not all of the participants wear masks, distance cannot be kept, they stay at the same location for a longer time and some are chanting/yelling.
  - CathedralBorrow 6y ago
    It it nonsense though? If that's true it sounds like there was no need for anyone to weigh in at all; it was evidently obvious that these protests must be condemned. Do you believe that's the case?
danielam 6y ago
In other words, the number of black lives that may be lost during these protests from the virus alone is worth sacrificing because #blacklivesmatter. Meanwhile, anti-lockdown protests, which were much smaller, are nothing but a bunch of wreckless people protesting to be able to get haircuts. Nothing to do with all the other losses and risks that myopic, upper middle class "experts" can't seem to comprehend. Unemployed black people also don't matter, I guess. I mean, really. How can people not see the writing on the wall? All of this is political finagling. Black protestors are merely convenient instruments. The political opportunists pushing this bland disingenuous crap don't care about George Floyd in the least.

by smsm42 6y ago

AmericanChopper 6y ago

It really just makes it undeniable how political the official advice and accompanying commentary is. The slew of new rules put in place for BLM protests are incredibly dubious, from both a legal and safety perspective. It’s not up to the government to decide what speech or cause for assembly is important, and health officials should not have their risk assessments swayed by political considerations.

xphilter 6y ago
What new rules specifically? And what rules were not in place for the armed all-white protests in Michigan, for instance?
- drusepth 6y ago
  For example, countries permitting residents to "gather in groups of 12", or "protest in groups of up to 100". For example, https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2020/0602-Businesses-Reopening.php https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2020/0602-Businesses-Reo... Why create specialized rules for protests that allow an order of magnitude more people to gather than those allowed in a "close cohort" gathering?
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    Maybe they're hoping the protestors become ill.
  - mpweiher 6y ago
    All such advice/regulations is weighing the benefit of imposing the restriction vs. the cost of imposing such restriction. And, importantly, all this is not in the context of individual risk, but population risk. The distinction is tricky but important, and one that trips most people up. For any single individual, the personal risk from COVID19 tends to be small, often seemingly vanishingly small. However, since we don't have immunity, it will affect everyone and even a small individual risk multiplied by (almost) everyone is a large impact on the population in terms of overall deaths. Anyway, how many political protests have you attended in the last 10 years? How many social gatherings? For me, it is easily 1:100, if not more. Thus, the aggregate transmission risk from protests is much smaller, therefore we can be more permissive of them. And it is the aggregate risk that policymakers care about. On the other hand, political protest is considered a very, very fundamental right of our democracies, restricting it something to be done only with the greatest reluctance.
    - metrokoi 6y ago
      The freedom to practice religion is also a very fundamental right of our democracies, yet it is still illegal in many places due to the lockdown such as California. Yes, the frequency that people attend protests is on average much less, but the number of other people that one is exposed to is much greater hence why "larger gathering venues at a pace consistent with public health and safety, such as nightclubs, concert venues, and live audience sports" (which are often outdoors as well) are in the very final phase of California's reopening plan. If policy makers agree that protests have a low aggregate risk, why would they place things like concerts or sports events which happen mostly on the weekends in the final phase when there are now protests happening every day? I do agree that political protest is a very fundamental right and rarely ever be restricted, but many who share your opinion were against the anti-lockdown protests which is contradictory if one believes BLM protests should not be restricted because they are political protest. People protesting the lockdown is also democracy in action, even if one believes the reason for protest is not as important. The democratic right to protest is not dependant on how important the issue is seen to be.
smsm42 6y ago
The lockdown policies inevitable have political component, because they are made by politicians and will be evaluated in a political framework. And for a politician it is always practical to err on the CYA side - one extra day of lockdown costs the politician very little, as the costs of it are not born by them personally and are largely very hard to quantify, they are distributed among the population and spread among many consequences, small and large. However, if the politician raises the lockdown prematurely, the blame - in a very quantifiable and ready-for-election-ad form of raising case numbers - would be directed personally at the politician. If the political power of those who suffer from the lockdown is not large enough and organized enough to exert significant pressure, the smart politician would extend the lockdown until there's no conceivable risk to be blamed if anything happens. Virus research, vaccine research, etc., is science, but decisions on what to do with it is always political. And thus those who want to influence it obviously make a political action. With the current protest, the political situation changes. Opposing these protests is a political suicide. If you can't oppose them, the only way is to have some contrived argument where you are for lockdowns (because see above) but also for protests. > health officials should not have their risk assessments swayed by political considerations. You can publish raw information about risk - which is complex and uncertain, and step back, but then you will have little influence on political decisions that follow it. Or you can recommend a policy - and by that inevitably contaminate the scientific assessment with political stance and become invested in certain policy. I'd much like the former, but vast majority of the policy in the US lately completely rejects the idea that the population can be trusted with full information and making its own decisions about it. The ruling paradigm is that the government should limit people's choices for their own good, and push them into actions that it thinks are beneficial for them. And most people expect that from politicians and blame those politicians which didn't limit their choices enough and allowed them to make choices which ultimately brought bad consequences. So, the politicians and people that want the political action to happen play the game that the public wants to be played.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  > The lockdown policies inevitable have political component, because they are made by politicians and will be evaluated in a political framework This is true for the policies, but absolutely not true for advice from public health officials. Globally the policies made in response to this pandemic have been justified almost entirely by appeals to the authority of health officials. The supposed basis of these policies was that those officials were providing expert and politically neutral advice on risk management. Having the expert health and safety advice show a readily apparent political motivation undermines all of it.

eanzenberg 6y ago

Actually, this is weasel speak: “it is obviously risky”. Anytime someone goes outside, it is a risk. Anytime you decide to drive, it is a risk. Covid is about as risky as driving a car. If covid were as deadly as claimed, as we’ve been told for months, you would think it was a death sentence for you and your grandma to partake in the protests we’ve been seeing.

ta17711771 6y ago
Ask me how I know you haven't known anyone that's died of COVID.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  Actually I do, why?
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    Imagine if everyone in the whole country was told to stay home and not drive their cars, and the same amount of people still died in car accidents as they normally would. That's the impact COVID is having. WITH the draconian lockdowns. You literally cannot calculate what would have happened without.
- dang 6y ago
  Please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

rayiner 6y ago

Don’t forget public health officials outright lied and said masks don’t help reduce the spread of the disease, putatively to help conserve masks for medical personnel: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-... > When news of a mysterious viral pneumonia linked to a market in Wuhan, China, reached the outside world in early January, one of my first reactions was to order a modest supply of masks. Just a few weeks later, there wasn’t a mask to be bought in stores, or online for a reasonable price — just widespread price gouging. Many health experts, no doubt motivated by the sensible and urgent aim of preserving the remaining masks for health care workers, started telling people that they didn’t need masks or that they wouldn’t know how to wear them.

gentryb 6y ago
When I first started doing volunteer health assessments and triage at our local homeless shelter, I inquired if facial hair was an issue with PPE. The organization's initial response was no. I sent them a link to the CDC guidance[1] that includes this picture regarding facial hair styles that are ok[2]. I don't think the notice at the top of said article is helpful whatsoever saying that this isn't advice for covid-19. A proper fit and seal is important. The picture could also be considered somewhat offensive to some. [1]: https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2017/11/02/noshave/ https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2017/11/02/noshave/ [2]: https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/files/2017/11/FacialHairWmaskSmall.jpg https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/files/2017/11/Facia...
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  What would someone find offensive about the picture?
  - infinite8s 6y ago
    Possibly the labels under each facial style.
    - 6y ago

thisiszilff 6y ago

> That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Another excerpt from the article state: > "We created the letter in response to emerging narratives that seemed to malign demonstrations as risky for the public health because of Covid-19," according to the letter writers, many of whom are part of the University of Washington's Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "Instead, we wanted to present a narrative that prioritizes opposition to racism as vital to the public health, including the epidemic response. We believe that the way forward is not to suppress protests in the name of public health but to respond to protesters demands in the name of public health, thereby addressing multiple public health crises." They are not thinking about it in terms of supporting/opposing the protests. Rather the protests are a fact and you need to deal with them somehow. You can do that by either suppressing them or addressing their concerns. They do not want their concerns of COVID-19 to justify suppressing the protests, especially if addressing the protestor's concerns is a viable option. > They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing. This seems almost exactly the sentiment they are addressing in the letter. COVID-19 is a public health concern, so is racial disparities that result in racial disparities in medical outcomes. Their concerns over COVID-19 transmission should not be taken as justification for suppressing the protests. From the article, > "Staying at home, social distancing, and public masking are effective at minimizing the spread of COVID-19. To the extent possible, we support the application of these public health best practices during demonstrations that call attention to the pervasive lethal force of white supremacy," the letter says. They are still giving the same advice they've been giving. The letter also states protest-specific COVID-19 harm mitigation strategies for protestors & police. > Just in this case, our betters had decided the COVID risk is less important than protesting - so it's OK for us. But only in cases which are approved by our betters. A more charitable interpretation is that some medical professionals do not believe that the risk of COVID-19 spread is a compelling reason for suppressing protests against racial inequality, especially when the risk of COVID-19 spread can be addressed by responding to the protestors concerns & therefore advancing public health by both mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and addressing the role racism plays in medical outcomes.

tootie 6y ago

This isn't weasel speak at all. They're pretty clear that it's risky. They're just saying that they won't condemn protestors as taking frivolous risks the way anti-lockdown protestors or fun-seekers are. Police brutality, systemic racism, income inequality are all major public health risks in their own right.

bmmayer1 6y ago
I don't understand -- are keeping people out of work and isolated at home not public health risks? If non-Covid related factors are being considered in weighing against the risks of exposure they should all be considered, not only some of them, selectively.
- tootie 6y ago
  Don't be obtuse. Of course all factors were considered. Keeping people out of offices and shops is not a public health risk. People becoming impoverished and losing health insurance is. That's why the federal government spent $2T protecting people's financial health to offset the damage. The bigger question is why health care access is tied to employment, but there's no way the current regime would consider dealing with that issue. Also, you're comparing government policy with an academic opinion.
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    No. Unemployment is generally regarded as a public health risk, beyond the immediate insurance consequences. There will moreover be people who suffer long-term impacts that these short-term payments can only partially mitigate.
    - baddox 6y ago
      That seems like a good argument to expand unemployment benefits during a global pandemic, and I suspect most public health officials would agree.

humaniania 6y ago

The CDC revised their risk estimates towards the end of last month. "The fifth scenario is the CDC's "current best estimate about viral transmission and disease severity in the United States." In that scenario, the agency described its estimate that 0.4% of people who feel sick with Covid-19 will die. For people age 65 and older, the CDC puts that number at 1.3%. For people 49 and under, the agency estimated that 0.05% of symptomatic people will die." https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/health/cdc-coronavirus-estimates-symptoms-deaths/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/health/cdc-coronavirus-estima...

gridspy 6y ago
Even if you do not die, you might have a very unpleasant experience with lasting consequences. Perhaps a better way to frame it would be - 2% (?) of patients have serious life-changing consequences. Those under 49 tend to survive them.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  > serious life-changing consequences This is a much more interesting data point. Death tends to have very few ongoing life-altering consequences, and in and of itself has a very low R0.
- GiorgioG 6y ago
  The problem for me is we don't have any way at this time of knowing at an individual level what the consequences are likely to be. I might have no symptoms if I get sick but I may transmit it my son (type 1 diabetic) who might die. Or maybe he'd be fine and I might die, etc. There's just no way to gauge what one's reaction might be to getting the coronavirus. A local, healthy 8 year old girl started having symptoms last week Thursday and died the following Tuesday. I don't expect my family's lockdown to end before well into next year at the earliest. The odds are against dying or long term complications for younger people, but is going out to dinner, a bar, sporting or music event worth the risk? Not for me. Stay safe folks.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago

poulsbohemian 6y ago

marcusverus 6y ago
A weasel in a cravat is still a weasel.
- poulsbohemian 6y ago
  Observation: “weasel words” gets used a lot in HN comments as a cop out. I wish that phrase could be banned from this site because it is intellectually lazy. Commenters love to discredit articles and other commenters using that phrase rather than engaging in the actual effort to retort with facts. It’s the kind of broken culture that’s been turning HN into the same kind of cesspool that happened with slashdot.
  - metrokoi 6y ago
    The commenter seemed to have explained why they see the phrasing as "weasel words": >They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing. Is there anything about that explanation which is unsatisfactory? It's not as if they simply condemned the statement to be weasel words without any explanation as to why they see it as such.

alkibiades 6y ago

i’m 25 and this whole covid debacle and seeing how public health officials handle it has soured me on all “experts” for the rest of my life. no wonder people don’t believe in global warming, these “experts” prioritize politics over everything

shibeouya 6y ago
Wholeheartedly agree. I'm in my 30's with scientific education, but I will never take an "expert" opinion seriously after this. Very sad to see science shoot itself in the foot in the name of dubious politics.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  I’m too familiar with university advancement policies to not be skeptical of the actual expertise of the “experts”.
natalyarostova 6y ago
Just learn to think for yourself by reading the classics and fundamentals. Read Karl Popper, study stats, read blogs like Andrew Gelman’s.
chasd00 6y ago
I got very skeptical reading the reaction to the antibody studies here. Also, the total hate for Sweden really depressed me. I've always held this place in high regard but I suppose it's still just more of the same.
- sjg007 6y ago
  The prevalence is too low for the antibody tests to be reliable. Every public health expert has reported that but people refuse to listen. Sweden has admitted their strategy is not working.
  - alkibiades 6y ago

baddox 6y ago

To me, that seems like fairly precise language. They’re saying they do not believe the risk level is sufficiently high to condemn the gatherings. It doesn’t seem much different than saying grocery store visits are not condemned as risky, while music store visits are condemned as risky. The virus doesn’t care about what you’re shopping for either, it’s just that shopping for food is more important (by their estimation) than shopping for some vinyl.

coffeefirst 6y ago
That, and it's a healthy dose of pragmatism. If nobody is going to comply with your advice, you're doing more harm than good. You can realistically tell people to shop for vinyl from the comfort of their couch, and they might do that. Given the level of outrage, there were going to be large groups of protests across the country either way, but they were successfully convinced to wear masks, use hand sanitizer and spread out where they can. At least here, every time the mayor talks she urges people who went to protests to get tested. Persuasion is still everything.
blub 6y ago
"They’re saying they do not believe the risk level is sufficiently high to condemn the gatherings." But that's obviously nonsense, given that not all of the participants wear masks, distance cannot be kept, they stay at the same location for a longer time and some are chanting/yelling.
- CathedralBorrow 6y ago
  It it nonsense though? If that's true it sounds like there was no need for anyone to weigh in at all; it was evidently obvious that these protests must be condemned. Do you believe that's the case?

danielam 6y ago

In other words, the number of black lives that may be lost during these protests from the virus alone is worth sacrificing because #blacklivesmatter. Meanwhile, anti-lockdown protests, which were much smaller, are nothing but a bunch of wreckless people protesting to be able to get haircuts. Nothing to do with all the other losses and risks that myopic, upper middle class "experts" can't seem to comprehend. Unemployed black people also don't matter, I guess. I mean, really. How can people not see the writing on the wall? All of this is political finagling. Black protestors are merely convenient instruments. The political opportunists pushing this bland disingenuous crap don't care about George Floyd in the least.