7 ms·

My friend works in the covid ICU here in Michigan and told me yesterday that she's seeing a dramatic increase in patients who are getting angry at her and still

My friend works in the covid ICU here in Michigan and told me yesterday that she's seeing a dramatic increase in patients who are getting angry at her and still believing that covid is not real. When she asks where they may have caught it, they sometimes say at a wedding with 100 people where no one was wearing masks. I can't imagine how emotionally taxing it was to be a healthcare worker attending to people with covid in the beginning, but at least then they received a lot of gratitude from their patients. I cannot fathom how these healthcare workers must feel after 8 months of this and then getting yelled at by patients who don't think this is real. I almost don't even want to imagine how much pain they might be feeling.

nappy-doo 6y ago
I work on the mobile contact tracing effort (FAANG), and I am exhausted thinking about it as well, and I don't even risk my life everyday. Part of me wants to say, "fuck these idiots that don't wear masks, just die," but know that they will just get others sick on the way, and use up scarce resources.
- Diederich 6y ago
  This is a harsh thing to say, but I understand where you're coming from. We....all of us, all human beings...need to be very patient and merciful with each other. My wife and I know good, honest and smart people who are fully convinced that Covid19 isn't that dangerous, that it's a hoax, etc. I'm not saying "smart" lightly. All humans...even the best of us...are at our core deeply irrational most of the time. Different groups of us are irrational about different things. Saying all of this, I do not mean to minimize the focused, concerted actions of a relative few who have taken advantage of not just human weakness but also the new communication technologies available to them. We should reserve our ire for those who pull the strings of manipulation to the detriment of many.
  - dkural 6y ago
    Why do you think they're good and smart, why do they think Covid19 is a hoax? Surely a good person would try to do the safe thing even if they had doubts.
    - anonfornoreason 6y ago
      Not the original poster, but I would imagine it echos what I have seen (and believe myself) in that it’s not a hoax as is normally defined, but a mass hysteria fueled by a media that needs clicks to survive. The risks are real for certain demographics, we need to take precautions to help vulnerable people, etc. however the unintended consequences of drastic policies are economic hardship, creating a new generation of homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, and deaths of despair. I have been called a denier, and have had my beliefs references as “believing COVID is a hoax”, which is far from the truth. From what I can tell a huge portion of the United States is engaged in a mass delusion, and is actively handing over all the prosperity for the next decade to large corporations who benefit from COVID, while risking the future of kids with mostly worthless remote learning. Focus the effort required to create lockdowns / restrictions on providing relief for elderly, unhealthy, immunocompromised people, etc. If some misguided old people in the Midwest want to pretend they are not at risk, it’s their life and their body to do that with. Sucks for the healthcare workers tasked with dealing with that, but you can’t legislate away life, risk, etc.
      - NathanKP 6y ago
        > the unintended consequences of drastic policies are economic hardship, creating a new generation of homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, and deaths of despair. None of these things are inevitable. For example China arguably implemented some extremely drastic policies and they are doing just fine now. New Zealand did the same. In the United States we are just doing an incredibly bad job at this. Too many people talk about controlling the virus and protecting the economy as if they are polar opposites but the aren't. A month or two of drastic lockdowns early on would have saved the years of slow bleeding we are currently facing.
        6y ago
  - agentdrtran 6y ago
    > My wife and I know good, honest and smart people who are fully convinced that Covid19 isn't that dangerous, that it's a hoax, etc. I'm not saying "smart" lightly. If they have a Ph.D in theoretical physics but think COVID is a hoax they're still dumb, sorry.
    - rusk 6y ago
      Pretty much this.
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      PhD involves years of thinking very specifically about an extremely narrow set of problems, not building a robust set of reliable heuristics about how the world outside of that field works. I know plenty of brilliant PhDs and Physicians who couldn't real-world their way out of a paper bag. They're dumb as a rock when it comes to anything outside of their field, because their field has vacuumed up all of their mental energy over the decades. By comparison, I'm pretty mediocre at what I do because I read widely, follow the news, and have elaborate political discussions for fun. By their standard, I'm dumb as a rock because I'm up late reading about the Soviets in Afghanistan, instead of yet another journal article. Time is finite, and it's all a big compromise.
    - kjs3 6y ago
      I wouldn't say that. There are different kinds of "smart", and then there is "poor analytical skills". There are "smart" people, for many values of "smart", that still have such poor analytical skills that they think Covid is fake, the earth is flat, bigfoot is real, Elvis is alive, etc. Just calling them 'dumb' doesn't get to root cause.
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    Thank you for your comment. I would describe what is happening as rationality 'blind spots' -- everyone has them about different subjects. It's not a matter of smart vs stupid. That framing of the world is too simplistic to be valuable.
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    I appreciate this. It says to me that we humans are very emotional beings, whether we want to admit it or not. I think many cultures have a tendency to forget that emotions drive our behaviors, or are afraid to admit—feeling about feelings :-) I wish we would spend more time talking about what people were feeling more so than what they were believing. Like you, I know many people whom I admire for their intelligence who seem to have fallen into a deep distrust of many institutions and individuals in society. How we feel can really distort how we think and what we believe.
    - Diederich 6y ago
      Thank you for the kind words. > How we feel can really distort how we think and what we believe. Have you seen this book? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave Not only do our feelings distort how we think and what we believe, they (along with our personal background, evolutionary history, etc) also pretty much transparently and automatically create the foundational reality upon which we stand, moment by moment.
      - jimkleiber 6y ago
        > Not only do our feelings distort how we think and what we believe, they (along with our personal background, evolutionary history, etc) also pretty much transparently and automatically create the foundational reality upon which we stand, moment by moment. Yes. So much yes. No, I hadn't heard of the book, but I'm excited to check it out more. I'll add it to the queue! Hopefully I start reading from the queue soon lol. Thank you for recommending it.
enumjorge 6y ago
I don’t know how these healthcare workers do it. Why would I put my physical and mental health in danger to save people who are that selfish? I suspect many of them need the job. But those who do it out of a sense of duty are better people than I am I guess.
- imoverclocked 6y ago
  I have an aunt who was forced to come into work at her hospital before stay-at-home orders were in effect in Florida. Not complying meant professional consequences.
- wil421 6y ago
  I’m shocked that people who’s job it is to save sick people actually have to save sick people. These people took an oath to help people. You can’t pick and choose who you help based on intelligence or even mental illness. It’s also shocking firefighters have to run into fires. /s
  - rusk 6y ago
    Actually - nurse in OP has quit. That’s one less person.
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    I think it's the number of people they have to save in such a short time. Using the firefighter example, it would be like all of a sudden, the whole city caught on fire. And then once the city is out, the next city catches on fire and because there aren't enough firefighters there, you go to help. And then once that city is out, the next, etc. Added on top of the fact they are worried they'll catch the virus and maybe even spread it to their loved ones. In the US at least, I imagine most nurses thought they would work with less or non-infectious diseases, like cardiovascular diseases, not an outbreak that could lead them to infecting and killing people they loved. Again, I think there are just some variables that make this situation different than what they thought they were signing up for.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
newguy1234 6y ago
I'm familiar with right wing politics. On the right-wing side of things, conspiracy theories are easier to buy into thanks to how prevalent social media has become. COVID-19 is viewed as a hoax because the belief is that the left-wing or china developed the virus to essentially break down America and push in a socialist/communist regime. These theories are similar with stuff like global warming as well. So expect to see a lot of push back from the right wing in these areas. As a society, we have made a very big mistake by turning this issue into political one. For example, by criticizing Trump on his COVID-19 plan, you are basically encouraging his base to resist whatever needs to be done (wear masks). We are better off not criticizing and instead focus on educating instead. Unfortunately, our society has become so divided on both ends of the spectrum that I don't see it ever happening. Also stuff like social media censorship is pushing people into "echo chamber" platforms where anyone with a dissenting view is banned. The people who are banned from left-wing social media or silenced simply leave to go to platforms that only allow right-wing narratives.
- evan_ 6y ago
  > For example, by criticizing Trump on his COVID-19 plan, you are basically encouraging his base to resist whatever needs to be done (wear masks). So if his plan was to drink bleach, we should say "yeah that sounds good" because we don't want to alienate his fans?
- hcknwscommenter 6y ago
  >we have made a very big mistake by turning this issue into political one. For example, by criticizing Trump on his COVID-19 plan Huh? "We" have made a very big mistake by turning this issue into a political one. However, the mistake was in failing to criticize Trump from the very beginning. Twitter should have canceled his account when he put out that tweet calling COVID a hoax (in March?). Corporate America should have stood up in a united fashion and put out a pro-mask/anti-Trump message. Every health care administer should have put out PR immediately debunking Trump's nonsense. The idea that we should have avoided criticizing the guy who stupidly made this thing political in the first place is just crazy to me.
- freewilly1040 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

nappy-doo 6y ago

I work on the mobile contact tracing effort (FAANG), and I am exhausted thinking about it as well, and I don't even risk my life everyday. Part of me wants to say, "fuck these idiots that don't wear masks, just die," but know that they will just get others sick on the way, and use up scarce resources.

Diederich 6y ago
This is a harsh thing to say, but I understand where you're coming from. We....all of us, all human beings...need to be very patient and merciful with each other. My wife and I know good, honest and smart people who are fully convinced that Covid19 isn't that dangerous, that it's a hoax, etc. I'm not saying "smart" lightly. All humans...even the best of us...are at our core deeply irrational most of the time. Different groups of us are irrational about different things. Saying all of this, I do not mean to minimize the focused, concerted actions of a relative few who have taken advantage of not just human weakness but also the new communication technologies available to them. We should reserve our ire for those who pull the strings of manipulation to the detriment of many.
- dkural 6y ago
  Why do you think they're good and smart, why do they think Covid19 is a hoax? Surely a good person would try to do the safe thing even if they had doubts.
  - anonfornoreason 6y ago
    Not the original poster, but I would imagine it echos what I have seen (and believe myself) in that it’s not a hoax as is normally defined, but a mass hysteria fueled by a media that needs clicks to survive. The risks are real for certain demographics, we need to take precautions to help vulnerable people, etc. however the unintended consequences of drastic policies are economic hardship, creating a new generation of homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, and deaths of despair. I have been called a denier, and have had my beliefs references as “believing COVID is a hoax”, which is far from the truth. From what I can tell a huge portion of the United States is engaged in a mass delusion, and is actively handing over all the prosperity for the next decade to large corporations who benefit from COVID, while risking the future of kids with mostly worthless remote learning. Focus the effort required to create lockdowns / restrictions on providing relief for elderly, unhealthy, immunocompromised people, etc. If some misguided old people in the Midwest want to pretend they are not at risk, it’s their life and their body to do that with. Sucks for the healthcare workers tasked with dealing with that, but you can’t legislate away life, risk, etc.
    - NathanKP 6y ago
      > the unintended consequences of drastic policies are economic hardship, creating a new generation of homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, and deaths of despair. None of these things are inevitable. For example China arguably implemented some extremely drastic policies and they are doing just fine now. New Zealand did the same. In the United States we are just doing an incredibly bad job at this. Too many people talk about controlling the virus and protecting the economy as if they are polar opposites but the aren't. A month or two of drastic lockdowns early on would have saved the years of slow bleeding we are currently facing.
      - 6y ago
- agentdrtran 6y ago
  > My wife and I know good, honest and smart people who are fully convinced that Covid19 isn't that dangerous, that it's a hoax, etc. I'm not saying "smart" lightly. If they have a Ph.D in theoretical physics but think COVID is a hoax they're still dumb, sorry.
  - rusk 6y ago
    Pretty much this.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    PhD involves years of thinking very specifically about an extremely narrow set of problems, not building a robust set of reliable heuristics about how the world outside of that field works. I know plenty of brilliant PhDs and Physicians who couldn't real-world their way out of a paper bag. They're dumb as a rock when it comes to anything outside of their field, because their field has vacuumed up all of their mental energy over the decades. By comparison, I'm pretty mediocre at what I do because I read widely, follow the news, and have elaborate political discussions for fun. By their standard, I'm dumb as a rock because I'm up late reading about the Soviets in Afghanistan, instead of yet another journal article. Time is finite, and it's all a big compromise.
  - kjs3 6y ago
    I wouldn't say that. There are different kinds of "smart", and then there is "poor analytical skills". There are "smart" people, for many values of "smart", that still have such poor analytical skills that they think Covid is fake, the earth is flat, bigfoot is real, Elvis is alive, etc. Just calling them 'dumb' doesn't get to root cause.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  Thank you for your comment. I would describe what is happening as rationality 'blind spots' -- everyone has them about different subjects. It's not a matter of smart vs stupid. That framing of the world is too simplistic to be valuable.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I appreciate this. It says to me that we humans are very emotional beings, whether we want to admit it or not. I think many cultures have a tendency to forget that emotions drive our behaviors, or are afraid to admit—feeling about feelings :-) I wish we would spend more time talking about what people were feeling more so than what they were believing. Like you, I know many people whom I admire for their intelligence who seem to have fallen into a deep distrust of many institutions and individuals in society. How we feel can really distort how we think and what we believe.
  - Diederich 6y ago
    Thank you for the kind words. > How we feel can really distort how we think and what we believe. Have you seen this book? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave Not only do our feelings distort how we think and what we believe, they (along with our personal background, evolutionary history, etc) also pretty much transparently and automatically create the foundational reality upon which we stand, moment by moment.
    - jimkleiber 6y ago
      > Not only do our feelings distort how we think and what we believe, they (along with our personal background, evolutionary history, etc) also pretty much transparently and automatically create the foundational reality upon which we stand, moment by moment. Yes. So much yes. No, I hadn't heard of the book, but I'm excited to check it out more. I'll add it to the queue! Hopefully I start reading from the queue soon lol. Thank you for recommending it.

enumjorge 6y ago

I don’t know how these healthcare workers do it. Why would I put my physical and mental health in danger to save people who are that selfish? I suspect many of them need the job. But those who do it out of a sense of duty are better people than I am I guess.

imoverclocked 6y ago
I have an aunt who was forced to come into work at her hospital before stay-at-home orders were in effect in Florida. Not complying meant professional consequences.
wil421 6y ago
I’m shocked that people who’s job it is to save sick people actually have to save sick people. These people took an oath to help people. You can’t pick and choose who you help based on intelligence or even mental illness. It’s also shocking firefighters have to run into fires. /s
- rusk 6y ago
  Actually - nurse in OP has quit. That’s one less person.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I think it's the number of people they have to save in such a short time. Using the firefighter example, it would be like all of a sudden, the whole city caught on fire. And then once the city is out, the next city catches on fire and because there aren't enough firefighters there, you go to help. And then once that city is out, the next, etc. Added on top of the fact they are worried they'll catch the virus and maybe even spread it to their loved ones. In the US at least, I imagine most nurses thought they would work with less or non-infectious diseases, like cardiovascular diseases, not an outbreak that could lead them to infecting and killing people they loved. Again, I think there are just some variables that make this situation different than what they thought they were signing up for.
phobosanomaly 6y ago

newguy1234 6y ago

I'm familiar with right wing politics. On the right-wing side of things, conspiracy theories are easier to buy into thanks to how prevalent social media has become. COVID-19 is viewed as a hoax because the belief is that the left-wing or china developed the virus to essentially break down America and push in a socialist/communist regime. These theories are similar with stuff like global warming as well. So expect to see a lot of push back from the right wing in these areas. As a society, we have made a very big mistake by turning this issue into political one. For example, by criticizing Trump on his COVID-19 plan, you are basically encouraging his base to resist whatever needs to be done (wear masks). We are better off not criticizing and instead focus on educating instead. Unfortunately, our society has become so divided on both ends of the spectrum that I don't see it ever happening. Also stuff like social media censorship is pushing people into "echo chamber" platforms where anyone with a dissenting view is banned. The people who are banned from left-wing social media or silenced simply leave to go to platforms that only allow right-wing narratives.

evan_ 6y ago
> For example, by criticizing Trump on his COVID-19 plan, you are basically encouraging his base to resist whatever needs to be done (wear masks). So if his plan was to drink bleach, we should say "yeah that sounds good" because we don't want to alienate his fans?
hcknwscommenter 6y ago
>we have made a very big mistake by turning this issue into political one. For example, by criticizing Trump on his COVID-19 plan Huh? "We" have made a very big mistake by turning this issue into a political one. However, the mistake was in failing to criticize Trump from the very beginning. Twitter should have canceled his account when he put out that tweet calling COVID a hoax (in March?). Corporate America should have stood up in a united fashion and put out a pro-mask/anti-Trump message. Every health care administer should have put out PR immediately debunking Trump's nonsense. The idea that we should have avoided criticizing the guy who stupidly made this thing political in the first place is just crazy to me.
freewilly1040 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]