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It’s important to remember the public demand for safety. My child’s school district went remote when I and thousands of other parents told teachers and adminis

It’s important to remember the public demand for safety. My child’s school district went remote when I and thousands of other parents told teachers and administrators at individual schools that we were pulling our kids out regardless of their policies. Same with work: I told my manager in the 3rd week of March I was working remotely starting the following week. So many others did the same thing that my employer closed the office and went remote. My wife’s company also voluntarily went remote the same week. This was all before state mandated closures and lockdowns, etc. People, in huge numbers, started trying to protect themselves and their families. We had NO IDEA how this virus was going to progress, and what we would learn the hard way. In retrospect, it’s beneficial to a certain point of view to reframe what happened as some sort of top-down authoritarian dystopia. But the reality at the time was bottom-up and we should not forget that.

allturtles 5y ago
This post provides a great visualization of this: https://www.vumc.org/health-policy/covid19-model-vanderbilt-mobility-economy-tennessee https://www.vumc.org/health-policy/covid19-model-vanderbilt-... The rapid decline in travel precedes the statewide order.
Supermancho 5y ago
> It’s important to remember the public demand for safety. Let's not pretend that the TSA makes travelers "safer"...admittedly, if you've seen the crap people try to take onboard you might disagree. Regardless, the "public demand for safety" is not that. There is a demand for disclosed risk. The world is not safe, but if A happens when B happens % of the time, people are able to feel like they are making informed choices (even if the choices are misinformed). When this cannot be established or remains largely in dispute, society in the USA starts to crumble. So what the US gets is lots of theater with less and less disclosure of actual numbers until it becomes a stream of random noise. This pandemic has highlighted the well-known quality about the US public. The US public demands a specific kind of answers, but the media and government continue to play sensationalism and politics, while everyone else scrambled. That's what I won't forget.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Absolutely right about TSA. I know a guy who forgot a prohibited item was in his carry on (and loaded). He realized it mid-flight. So much for the x-ray machine operator making people safer...
_red 5y ago
>But the reality at the time was bottom-up and we should not forget that. Its a good point, but that ignores that co-opting "useful tragedies" are how authoritarian fanatics grasp power. There is no reason why it can't be both: A bottom-up response that has morphed into a dystopian power grab.
- giantg2 5y ago
  The real issue is the populations are different. If the author is talking about at-risk students from low income families, is that the same population that has the option to work from home? It seems the people who participated in the bottom up approach had the means to do so (better jobs, savings, etc)
bruiseralmighty 5y ago
I would like to agree with this, but given the state of corporate media in the United States its difficult to determine whether even bottom-up movements are organic. I got a mask early and asked to stop travel as well, but that was from listening to media. Which would invert the pyramid back to top-down.
josephcsible 5y ago
Those sorts of measures made a lot of sense in March 2020, when there was a lot about the virus we didn't know. They made a lot less sense, e.g., in December 2020.
giantg2 5y ago
Do you think it was bottom-up for the at-risk students, or were the bottom-up actions associated with people who had the luxury of telling their boss that they are working from home and watching their kids. There are many jobs where working from home is not an options. So yeah, in some circles it was bottom-up, but there were also people harmed by "authoritarian" top-down measures. It's important to remember that not everyone's experiences and circumstances are the same as our own.
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  I know it was bottom-up for at-risk students too in my district because our school district did a good job of surveying families and communicating the results. For example the families of students on free lunch programs supported remote learning at slightly higher rates than those who did not receive food assistance. Support was similar across self-reported race/nationality categories as well. A lot of at-risk students live in multi-generational homes and it was obvious even early on that older people were at higher risk from COVID. Families did not want to risk their kids bringing home a case and killing grandma. Our district did a good job of prioritizing assistance for families who needed it, including meal pickup and delivery options, as well as remote schooling rooms before they began general reopening. But at least in my neighborhood, the loudest voices for re-opening schools were among the professional class who were struggling with managing remote schooling while working full-time at home. A lot of lower income families were working less than professionals because we have a big service sector around here which was largely idled. Financial support like UI and eviction moratoriums were bigger issues to them than remote schooling.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Is that urban or rural?
thu2111 5y ago
Yes, but you were doing that in response to news articles citing academics who - we now know - were assuming COVID was 10x deadlier than it actually was (reported IFRs fell from 1%-2% to 0.1%-0.2% in most places). Which is what the article is about: how did that happen and why did the media and research institutions do such a bad job?
oceanghost 5y ago
This. I took my child out of daycare a few weeks before the lock-down orders. We were getting sick every few weeks anyways from diseases being passed around the day care. It stood to reason we would get covid that way as well. At no time was I ever forced to stay home. It's just that everything was closed-- and a lot of things weren't closed but I wouldn't set foot in there (like the gym). Ironically, we already had had covid and didn't know it.
bitcurious 5y ago
It was absolutely rational to shut down schools and implement a form of lockdown and etc., in the spring of last year. However by fall of last year we had plenty of data about relative risk, and yet schools stayed shut down for another year. This retrospective is about the usurping of the initial uncertainty to maintain authoritarian and unscientific policies.

allturtles 5y ago

This post provides a great visualization of this: https://www.vumc.org/health-policy/covid19-model-vanderbilt-mobility-economy-tennessee https://www.vumc.org/health-policy/covid19-model-vanderbilt-... The rapid decline in travel precedes the statewide order.

Supermancho 5y ago

> It’s important to remember the public demand for safety. Let's not pretend that the TSA makes travelers "safer"...admittedly, if you've seen the crap people try to take onboard you might disagree. Regardless, the "public demand for safety" is not that. There is a demand for disclosed risk. The world is not safe, but if A happens when B happens % of the time, people are able to feel like they are making informed choices (even if the choices are misinformed). When this cannot be established or remains largely in dispute, society in the USA starts to crumble. So what the US gets is lots of theater with less and less disclosure of actual numbers until it becomes a stream of random noise. This pandemic has highlighted the well-known quality about the US public. The US public demands a specific kind of answers, but the media and government continue to play sensationalism and politics, while everyone else scrambled. That's what I won't forget.

giantg2 5y ago
Absolutely right about TSA. I know a guy who forgot a prohibited item was in his carry on (and loaded). He realized it mid-flight. So much for the x-ray machine operator making people safer...

_red 5y ago

>But the reality at the time was bottom-up and we should not forget that. Its a good point, but that ignores that co-opting "useful tragedies" are how authoritarian fanatics grasp power. There is no reason why it can't be both: A bottom-up response that has morphed into a dystopian power grab.

giantg2 5y ago
The real issue is the populations are different. If the author is talking about at-risk students from low income families, is that the same population that has the option to work from home? It seems the people who participated in the bottom up approach had the means to do so (better jobs, savings, etc)

bruiseralmighty 5y ago

I would like to agree with this, but given the state of corporate media in the United States its difficult to determine whether even bottom-up movements are organic. I got a mask early and asked to stop travel as well, but that was from listening to media. Which would invert the pyramid back to top-down.

josephcsible 5y ago

Those sorts of measures made a lot of sense in March 2020, when there was a lot about the virus we didn't know. They made a lot less sense, e.g., in December 2020.

giantg2 5y ago

Do you think it was bottom-up for the at-risk students, or were the bottom-up actions associated with people who had the luxury of telling their boss that they are working from home and watching their kids. There are many jobs where working from home is not an options. So yeah, in some circles it was bottom-up, but there were also people harmed by "authoritarian" top-down measures. It's important to remember that not everyone's experiences and circumstances are the same as our own.

snowwrestler 5y ago
I know it was bottom-up for at-risk students too in my district because our school district did a good job of surveying families and communicating the results. For example the families of students on free lunch programs supported remote learning at slightly higher rates than those who did not receive food assistance. Support was similar across self-reported race/nationality categories as well. A lot of at-risk students live in multi-generational homes and it was obvious even early on that older people were at higher risk from COVID. Families did not want to risk their kids bringing home a case and killing grandma. Our district did a good job of prioritizing assistance for families who needed it, including meal pickup and delivery options, as well as remote schooling rooms before they began general reopening. But at least in my neighborhood, the loudest voices for re-opening schools were among the professional class who were struggling with managing remote schooling while working full-time at home. A lot of lower income families were working less than professionals because we have a big service sector around here which was largely idled. Financial support like UI and eviction moratoriums were bigger issues to them than remote schooling.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Is that urban or rural?

thu2111 5y ago

Yes, but you were doing that in response to news articles citing academics who - we now know - were assuming COVID was 10x deadlier than it actually was (reported IFRs fell from 1%-2% to 0.1%-0.2% in most places). Which is what the article is about: how did that happen and why did the media and research institutions do such a bad job?

oceanghost 5y ago

This. I took my child out of daycare a few weeks before the lock-down orders. We were getting sick every few weeks anyways from diseases being passed around the day care. It stood to reason we would get covid that way as well. At no time was I ever forced to stay home. It's just that everything was closed-- and a lot of things weren't closed but I wouldn't set foot in there (like the gym). Ironically, we already had had covid and didn't know it.

bitcurious 5y ago

It was absolutely rational to shut down schools and implement a form of lockdown and etc., in the spring of last year. However by fall of last year we had plenty of data about relative risk, and yet schools stayed shut down for another year. This retrospective is about the usurping of the initial uncertainty to maintain authoritarian and unscientific policies.