4 ms·

Asia has been living in a masked world for at least two decades. It's not a major inconvenience, and it doesn't infringe on anyone's freedoms. Westerners real

Asia has been living in a masked world for at least two decades. It's not a major inconvenience, and it doesn't infringe on anyone's freedoms. Westerners really need to stop being such spoiled entitled children about this situation, and cowboy up and do what it takes to eradicate this pandemic.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
Well, see, this is the kind of attitude that gets people concerned. I'm not aware of any expert or health official who believes that eradicating the pandemic is possible. If you've gotten the impression that our public health response is about reaching some future point where Covid-19 is gone and nobody ever has to worry about it, you're being misled.
- dnzkw 5y ago
  It's a common lie like the lie that we just needed to vaccinate to go back to normal - now we are realising this is nothing but a perennial treadmill.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    I think it's important not to overcorrect here. The CDC issues all kinds of guidelines: wash your hands after petting a dog, always use a meat thermometer, definitely don't eat eggs with a runny yolk or raw cookie dough. (Less family friendly but more directly on point, they insist on dental dams for STD protection, which is probably even more widely ignored than the dog petting thing.) "Normal" doesn't mean the CDC will stop offering strict guidance on how to keep yourself healthy, it just means that most people feel okay slacking off on the parts that would be too annoying.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  > I'm not aware of any expert or health official who believes that eradicating the pandemic is possible. There are plenty of experts and health officials who believe that eradicating the pandemic is possible. Including some with experience eradicating other pandemics like Ebola and Zika [1], along with the editor-in-chief of the Lancet [2], among others. Eradicating a pandemic is not unprecedented, it can and has been done. > If you've gotten the impression that our public health response is about reaching some future point where Covid-19 is gone and nobody ever has to worry about it, you're being misled. Clearly our COVID19 response is not currently about that, or no one would have to advocate for it. [1]:https://necsi.edu/corona-virus-pandemic https://necsi.edu/corona-virus-pandemic. (Ebola: https://necsi.edu/ending-pandemics https://necsi.edu/ending-pandemics) [2]:https://www.endcoronavirus.org/ https://www.endcoronavirus.org/
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    First off, I think this is an instructive case of reputation laundering. These seem like two independent sources at first, but if you dig deeper, both of these sites are mouthpieces for one Yaneer Bar-Yam. I have to concede that he's not a crank, and appears to have meaningful pandemic expertise. I'm now aware of one expert who's confident eliminating Covid is possible. But this has to be evaluated in the context of the overwhelming consensus (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00396-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00396-2) that it's probably not, and these sites are structured as grand calls to action more than detailed arguments, so it's hard for me to figure out what the content of the disagreement is. What does Bar-Yam know that immunologists don't?
    - SkyMarshal 5y ago
      I’m not sure “reputation laundering” is the right term, since these folks don’t have any reputational problems. One site is their institute’s home page with news on all their research. The other is a website focused on COVID19 only, aggregating relevant info, with a more semantic URL and probably some SEO, and including team members outside of NECSI. They don’t hide their connection to NECSI, but the organization is more than just NECSI. As for the disagreement, it probably stems from the fact that with other outbreaks like Ebola, with known ~50% mortality rates, there’s unanimous consensus that they must be shut down early, and so they are. That common cause and singled-minded focus and coordination is a major factor in successfully eradicating the pandemic. And doing it early before it can become widespread is obviously more viable than shutting it down after it’s gone global. These folks are asserting that the methodologies used for shutting down other pandemics early can still be effectively scaled up to shut down a widespread pandemic like COVID19 that we failed to shut down early. And that’s where the disagreement is with the consensus you linked. The thing is, global pandemics aren’t over, they’re just beginning, and we could be hit by something worse later. It behooves all of society to use COVID19 as a not-too-deadly trial run for learning how to quickly shut down something worse in the future, rather than fatalistically accepting it.
      - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
packetlost 5y ago
This is definitely not true. People generally wear masks when they are sick, not all the time. There is a big difference.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  And also during past pandemics like SARS, swine flu, others. Because Asian culture already accepts mask wearing when sick as a kind of civil courtesy and responsibility, it wasn’t a big step up for widespread mask wearing during pandemics.
  - packetlost 5y ago
    Mask wearing when you know you're sick is something I would like to see more in the West (one of the few good things that might come out of the pandemic). Regardless, I imagine there are negative psychological effects of long-term society-wide mask wearing. Just speaking for myself, I found it very depressing not being able to see people's faces outside of a small familiar and social bubble for a year and I honestly dread going back to it.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

Well, see, this is the kind of attitude that gets people concerned. I'm not aware of any expert or health official who believes that eradicating the pandemic is possible. If you've gotten the impression that our public health response is about reaching some future point where Covid-19 is gone and nobody ever has to worry about it, you're being misled.

dnzkw 5y ago
It's a common lie like the lie that we just needed to vaccinate to go back to normal - now we are realising this is nothing but a perennial treadmill.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  I think it's important not to overcorrect here. The CDC issues all kinds of guidelines: wash your hands after petting a dog, always use a meat thermometer, definitely don't eat eggs with a runny yolk or raw cookie dough. (Less family friendly but more directly on point, they insist on dental dams for STD protection, which is probably even more widely ignored than the dog petting thing.) "Normal" doesn't mean the CDC will stop offering strict guidance on how to keep yourself healthy, it just means that most people feel okay slacking off on the parts that would be too annoying.
SkyMarshal 5y ago
> I'm not aware of any expert or health official who believes that eradicating the pandemic is possible. There are plenty of experts and health officials who believe that eradicating the pandemic is possible. Including some with experience eradicating other pandemics like Ebola and Zika [1], along with the editor-in-chief of the Lancet [2], among others. Eradicating a pandemic is not unprecedented, it can and has been done. > If you've gotten the impression that our public health response is about reaching some future point where Covid-19 is gone and nobody ever has to worry about it, you're being misled. Clearly our COVID19 response is not currently about that, or no one would have to advocate for it. [1]:https://necsi.edu/corona-virus-pandemic https://necsi.edu/corona-virus-pandemic. (Ebola: https://necsi.edu/ending-pandemics https://necsi.edu/ending-pandemics) [2]:https://www.endcoronavirus.org/ https://www.endcoronavirus.org/
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  First off, I think this is an instructive case of reputation laundering. These seem like two independent sources at first, but if you dig deeper, both of these sites are mouthpieces for one Yaneer Bar-Yam. I have to concede that he's not a crank, and appears to have meaningful pandemic expertise. I'm now aware of one expert who's confident eliminating Covid is possible. But this has to be evaluated in the context of the overwhelming consensus (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00396-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00396-2) that it's probably not, and these sites are structured as grand calls to action more than detailed arguments, so it's hard for me to figure out what the content of the disagreement is. What does Bar-Yam know that immunologists don't?
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    I’m not sure “reputation laundering” is the right term, since these folks don’t have any reputational problems. One site is their institute’s home page with news on all their research. The other is a website focused on COVID19 only, aggregating relevant info, with a more semantic URL and probably some SEO, and including team members outside of NECSI. They don’t hide their connection to NECSI, but the organization is more than just NECSI. As for the disagreement, it probably stems from the fact that with other outbreaks like Ebola, with known ~50% mortality rates, there’s unanimous consensus that they must be shut down early, and so they are. That common cause and singled-minded focus and coordination is a major factor in successfully eradicating the pandemic. And doing it early before it can become widespread is obviously more viable than shutting it down after it’s gone global. These folks are asserting that the methodologies used for shutting down other pandemics early can still be effectively scaled up to shut down a widespread pandemic like COVID19 that we failed to shut down early. And that’s where the disagreement is with the consensus you linked. The thing is, global pandemics aren’t over, they’re just beginning, and we could be hit by something worse later. It behooves all of society to use COVID19 as a not-too-deadly trial run for learning how to quickly shut down something worse in the future, rather than fatalistically accepting it.
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

packetlost 5y ago

This is definitely not true. People generally wear masks when they are sick, not all the time. There is a big difference.

SkyMarshal 5y ago
And also during past pandemics like SARS, swine flu, others. Because Asian culture already accepts mask wearing when sick as a kind of civil courtesy and responsibility, it wasn’t a big step up for widespread mask wearing during pandemics.
- packetlost 5y ago
  Mask wearing when you know you're sick is something I would like to see more in the West (one of the few good things that might come out of the pandemic). Regardless, I imagine there are negative psychological effects of long-term society-wide mask wearing. Just speaking for myself, I found it very depressing not being able to see people's faces outside of a small familiar and social bubble for a year and I honestly dread going back to it.