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Well, nobody dies of COVID or cancer is a much stronger claim than I'm making, which is ultimately statistical. I think some people do die of COVID, same as th

Well, nobody dies of COVID or cancer is a much stronger claim than I'm making, which is ultimately statistical. I think some people do die of COVID, same as they can die of flu. It's just very rare and not equal to the reported death rate. Re: science and politics. I've linked you to a couple of meta-reviews, done by people who searched the literature. You appear to be working backwards from a desired conclusion: that is, you deem "same or lower than flu" as emotionally appealing and therefore inherently likely to be wrong. But how is that logical? The correctness of an argument isn't based on whether the outcomes are emotionally satisfying or not. At any rate, I do hope you go and perform your own literature review or research, to find out what's really happening. Because right now you seem to be one of the people covered by the poll, who were significantly over-estimating the true dangers. Re: N95 masks. You're still making incorrect claims. N95 masks are built from a form of meltblown fiber. The machines that can create this kind of material are very niche and hard to construct. Each one has a fixed production capacity and the sort of manufacturers that make them work on them one at a time, with most stuff done by hand. Demand isn't high enough for them to be mass produced. That places hard limits on how fast material manufacture can be scaled up. People did look at this in February and realised there was no physical way to scale up N95 mask production on any kind of short timescale. The machinery just isn't there. Rather, take it as a call to start doing the work now so we're prepared in the future. There is a sad story related to this. The US only really has one mask company. He didn't ramp up production even during the midst of COVID times because in the past he's learned the hard way that governments panic over mild diseases, order lots of masks, so they scale up and hire new workers - then by the time the mask production is scaled up the panic is over and governments stop buying, leaving them nearly bankrupt. So he just didn't do it again. Fundamentally, governments are too incompetent and panic prone to manage disease. It's been proven over and over. They even burn people who can make medical equipment, such that they don't want to help again. At any rate, N95 masks are inappropriate for the general population. You can get things like this: https://abcnews.go.com/US/driver-crash-passed-wearing-n95-mask-long-police/story?id=70346532 https://abcnews.go.com/US/driver-crash-passed-wearing-n95-ma... Ah, more offhanded FUD to justify inaction It's not FUD. Cloth masks can't stop viruses, they're far too small. They only stop liquid droplets, but they also saturate within hours and need to be thrown away. Most people aren't doing that, it's been studied. Again, go do your own research.

mindslight 6y ago
You keep citing the difficulties of imperfect first steps as reasons to avoid trying anything at all. Of course it looks like nothing can be done! I can only hope you come to your senses, regardless of whether the biological risk is exaggerated or not.
- thu2111 6y ago
  First steps are very hard, yes. I'm distinguishing in a way I think you aren't - to me, exactly because this stuff is so hard, and so many things have bad side effects, it shouldn't be done by governments. That doesn't mean nothing should be done by anyone. When things are done by non-governmental actors, the rest of us have the option of ignoring them if we think they're wrong (usually). When a government does something wrong, everyone is stuffed. And exactly because there's no feedback loop for the vast majority of government employees, except politicians, and even then only weakly, they tend to do things wrong a lot. One day I think you'll come to understand this perspective. But first you need to realise that doing nothing is not only an option but often, the best option. The assumption that "something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done" is a political cliché for a reason.

mindslight 6y ago

You keep citing the difficulties of imperfect first steps as reasons to avoid trying anything at all. Of course it looks like nothing can be done! I can only hope you come to your senses, regardless of whether the biological risk is exaggerated or not.

thu2111 6y ago
First steps are very hard, yes. I'm distinguishing in a way I think you aren't - to me, exactly because this stuff is so hard, and so many things have bad side effects, it shouldn't be done by governments. That doesn't mean nothing should be done by anyone. When things are done by non-governmental actors, the rest of us have the option of ignoring them if we think they're wrong (usually). When a government does something wrong, everyone is stuffed. And exactly because there's no feedback loop for the vast majority of government employees, except politicians, and even then only weakly, they tend to do things wrong a lot. One day I think you'll come to understand this perspective. But first you need to realise that doing nothing is not only an option but often, the best option. The assumption that "something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done" is a political cliché for a reason.