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> That's just as true of our actual responses to COVID. Please expand on that point to clarify. The second order negative outcomes of a botched vaccine rollout

> That's just as true of our actual responses to COVID. Please expand on that point to clarify. The second order negative outcomes of a botched vaccine rollout would be enormous, both for this particular pandemic and longer term. > I explicitly said in my post that not all Americans would choose to take the vaccine. You are attacking a straw man. I was simply giving the highest possible upper bound to the expected number of deaths from vaccination. This is a key point that you cannot elide though. If 30% of the population takes the rushed vaccine but 70% takes the tested slowly rolled out vaccine, the difference in the herd immunity outcome is large. > Yes, and why is that? Because despite all of our "respected" institutions saying that the vaccine is safe, many people don't believe them. Why not? Because they know that those same institutions lied to them, repeatedly--and not just in general, specifically during the whole COVID crisis. So why should people believe those institutions now? > In other words, we have a problem with the status quo. The FDA never lied during the pandemic, that I know of. Broadly speaking people do trust them, and the tests and approval has a positive effect on vaccine acceptance. Also note that this isn't a binary choice "status quo"/"not status quo", you have to offer a realistic alternative to the status quo that we can measure the status quo against. Rushing the vaccine has more negatives than positives, in my opinion (both in hindsight and even more so with the information we had at the time). > Who would be reporting and exaggerating the side effects in a way that everyone would hear about? The mainstream media. No, mostly social media. But even if the mainstream media is responsible (whatever that term means, it encompasses local stations, cable news, NPR and newspapers like the NYT/WaPo, each of which have different propensities to exaggerate), you're not offering a solid alternative.

pdonis 6y ago
> Please expand on that point to clarify. Our actual response to COVID has had huge second order negative effects, like killing the economy, for no real benefit. You need to include that in your analysis. > The FDA never lied during the pandemic I didn't say "the FDA", I said "institutions" in general. That includes both government organizations like the CDC and the WHO and the mainstream media. The FDA isn't the government organization that generally does direct public communication in a pandemic, so they didn't lie because they didn't really say anything at all. They did, however, botch development of tests and kept state and local health authorities from developing their own tests. > mostly social media You obviously have been living on a different planet from me for the past year. > you're not offering a solid alternative Oh, you want me to reinvent society from scratch? You're right that I don't have a working alternative society in my back pocket, but our current society is clearly not working. The first thing to do if you're in a hole is to stop digging.
- potatoz2 6y ago
  > Our actual response to COVID has had huge second order negative effects, like killing the economy, for no real benefit. You need to include that in your analysis. There's strong evidence that the economy suffers whether or not governments institute lockdowns, mostly because people choose not to go out on their own. For example, take a look at the Swedish unemployment rate over the past year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/527418/sweden-monthly-unemployment-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/527418/sweden-monthly-un... > I didn't say "the FDA", I said "institutions" in general. That includes both government organizations like the CDC and the WHO and the mainstream media. The CDC didn't lie either, AFAIK. The WHO is irrelevant in this case because they're not in charge of approving vaccines in the US. > Oh, you want me to reinvent society from scratch? > You're right that I don't have a working alternative society in my back pocket, but our current society is clearly not working. The first thing to do if you're in a hole is to stop digging. There's no need to reinvent society from scratch, but if you criticize a situation harshly it's best to have your desired alternative in mind: what, exactly, do you want people to start or stop doing?
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > the economy suffers whether or not governments institute lockdowns, mostly because people choose not to go out on their own Yes, in a free country many people will choose to curtail activities. But that's still a lot better than governments shutting down businesses without any real data or science to back up their decisions, including many businesses that (a) aren't linked by any real data to COVID transmission, (b) are taking precautions to protect their customers, and (c) still have plenty of customers who would like to go there. Not to mention (d) allowing "essential" businesses to stay open, but "essential" often means "has political connections" rather than really being essential, and (e) politicians notoriously violating the very lockdown rules they impose on everyone else. Which causes further secondary damage by further eroding people's trust in institutions. > The CDC didn't lie either, AFAIK. To be fair, the CDC hasn't done a lot of public communication either--most of that has been Fauci, who works for NIH, not CDC. But the NIH is a government institution too. And the things he said were trumpeted by the media, who I also included in "institutions": Masks are bad--no wait, masks are good! Lockdowns are bad--no wait, lockdowns are essential! The herd immunity threshold is 60%--no wait, 65% to 70%--no wait, 70% to 80%, or is it 70% to 80% to 85%? Fauci admitted to the New York Times that he was just making up those numbers based on no actual science, just on what he thought would manipulate people into doing what he thought was a good idea. > The WHO is irrelevant in this case because they're not in charge of approving vaccines in the US. We're talking about second order effects. The WHO refused to even admit there was a pandemic until March 11, by which time Europe was already weeks into exponential growth and the US was not far behind. No wonder people in January and February 2020 weren't thinking in terms of a vaccine (or, for that matter, of shutting down international travel to stop the spread, which the WHO advised against).

pdonis 6y ago

> Please expand on that point to clarify. Our actual response to COVID has had huge second order negative effects, like killing the economy, for no real benefit. You need to include that in your analysis. > The FDA never lied during the pandemic I didn't say "the FDA", I said "institutions" in general. That includes both government organizations like the CDC and the WHO and the mainstream media. The FDA isn't the government organization that generally does direct public communication in a pandemic, so they didn't lie because they didn't really say anything at all. They did, however, botch development of tests and kept state and local health authorities from developing their own tests. > mostly social media You obviously have been living on a different planet from me for the past year. > you're not offering a solid alternative Oh, you want me to reinvent society from scratch? You're right that I don't have a working alternative society in my back pocket, but our current society is clearly not working. The first thing to do if you're in a hole is to stop digging.

potatoz2 6y ago
> Our actual response to COVID has had huge second order negative effects, like killing the economy, for no real benefit. You need to include that in your analysis. There's strong evidence that the economy suffers whether or not governments institute lockdowns, mostly because people choose not to go out on their own. For example, take a look at the Swedish unemployment rate over the past year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/527418/sweden-monthly-unemployment-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/527418/sweden-monthly-un... > I didn't say "the FDA", I said "institutions" in general. That includes both government organizations like the CDC and the WHO and the mainstream media. The CDC didn't lie either, AFAIK. The WHO is irrelevant in this case because they're not in charge of approving vaccines in the US. > Oh, you want me to reinvent society from scratch? > You're right that I don't have a working alternative society in my back pocket, but our current society is clearly not working. The first thing to do if you're in a hole is to stop digging. There's no need to reinvent society from scratch, but if you criticize a situation harshly it's best to have your desired alternative in mind: what, exactly, do you want people to start or stop doing?
- pdonis 6y ago
  > the economy suffers whether or not governments institute lockdowns, mostly because people choose not to go out on their own Yes, in a free country many people will choose to curtail activities. But that's still a lot better than governments shutting down businesses without any real data or science to back up their decisions, including many businesses that (a) aren't linked by any real data to COVID transmission, (b) are taking precautions to protect their customers, and (c) still have plenty of customers who would like to go there. Not to mention (d) allowing "essential" businesses to stay open, but "essential" often means "has political connections" rather than really being essential, and (e) politicians notoriously violating the very lockdown rules they impose on everyone else. Which causes further secondary damage by further eroding people's trust in institutions. > The CDC didn't lie either, AFAIK. To be fair, the CDC hasn't done a lot of public communication either--most of that has been Fauci, who works for NIH, not CDC. But the NIH is a government institution too. And the things he said were trumpeted by the media, who I also included in "institutions": Masks are bad--no wait, masks are good! Lockdowns are bad--no wait, lockdowns are essential! The herd immunity threshold is 60%--no wait, 65% to 70%--no wait, 70% to 80%, or is it 70% to 80% to 85%? Fauci admitted to the New York Times that he was just making up those numbers based on no actual science, just on what he thought would manipulate people into doing what he thought was a good idea. > The WHO is irrelevant in this case because they're not in charge of approving vaccines in the US. We're talking about second order effects. The WHO refused to even admit there was a pandemic until March 11, by which time Europe was already weeks into exponential growth and the US was not far behind. No wonder people in January and February 2020 weren't thinking in terms of a vaccine (or, for that matter, of shutting down international travel to stop the spread, which the WHO advised against).