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>The pandemic has made this abundantly clear. In an ideal world, everyone in every country would have coordinated and stayed inside for a month while the virus

>The pandemic has made this abundantly clear. In an ideal world, everyone in every country would have coordinated and stayed inside for a month while the virus died out. Now, just because the ideal measure wasn't taken, folks pretend we're experiencing the worst possible outcome from COVID. This has been far from the worst possible outcome. Let's stop acting like our response to the pandemic was a complete failure when it simply wasn't.

jacquesm 5y ago
COVID isn't over by a long shot, we're smack in the middle of it - if we're lucky and this is the half way point -, if we're unlucky this is just the start. Of course we should do what we can. But if this is far from the worst possible outcome, imagine the relative complexity of scale between a virus jumping species and trying to undo 200 odd years of runaway emissions and the effect on our climate in the next couple of decades and gain some appreciation for the change in scale and intensity of cooperation required to achieve a meaningful difference. Optimism is a great thing to have, but let's not delude ourselves: humanity is in for a very rough ride, and there is absolutely no indication of how - or even if - we will weather this. HN is supposedly one of the smarter fora on the net, and yet, every day we are overrun by conspiracy nuts, people have been shouting down the ongoing pandemic since day one - and merrily continue to do so day by day. Forgive me if I'm not all that optimistic about how we are going to deal with something far harder.
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  I'm not looking at the number of comments from conspiracy nuts as a measure of success or failure, I'm looking at the confirmed case counts and death counts. Considering how pernicious this virus is, our prevention efforts have not been a complete failure. The death count could easily be an order of magnitude higher today. That's not blind optimism for the future, that's the reality of the present.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    You need to add one giant qualifier there: 'in the developed world'. So far what we've managed to achieve is to stave of the worst at the expense of ruining our economy and now having to deal with a whole pile of new and nastier variations. You can't really say anything about the outcome of a fire until the fire is under control, right now we may have the illusion of control but I don't believe that we are there just yet.
    - SantalBlush 5y ago
      That doesn't matter. I was replying to a comment about our response to the pandemic. That comment indicated our response was a failure based on what we know today, and I disagreed that it was a failure based on what we know today.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        It is a failure compared to what we already knew back then. If people had just been smart enough to listen to Mike Ryan instead of bashing the WHO we'd be in much better shape today. All this slow-walking cost us dearly. That it could have been worse is true. But it also could have been much better.

jacquesm 5y ago

COVID isn't over by a long shot, we're smack in the middle of it - if we're lucky and this is the half way point -, if we're unlucky this is just the start. Of course we should do what we can. But if this is far from the worst possible outcome, imagine the relative complexity of scale between a virus jumping species and trying to undo 200 odd years of runaway emissions and the effect on our climate in the next couple of decades and gain some appreciation for the change in scale and intensity of cooperation required to achieve a meaningful difference. Optimism is a great thing to have, but let's not delude ourselves: humanity is in for a very rough ride, and there is absolutely no indication of how - or even if - we will weather this. HN is supposedly one of the smarter fora on the net, and yet, every day we are overrun by conspiracy nuts, people have been shouting down the ongoing pandemic since day one - and merrily continue to do so day by day. Forgive me if I'm not all that optimistic about how we are going to deal with something far harder.

SantalBlush 5y ago
I'm not looking at the number of comments from conspiracy nuts as a measure of success or failure, I'm looking at the confirmed case counts and death counts. Considering how pernicious this virus is, our prevention efforts have not been a complete failure. The death count could easily be an order of magnitude higher today. That's not blind optimism for the future, that's the reality of the present.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  You need to add one giant qualifier there: 'in the developed world'. So far what we've managed to achieve is to stave of the worst at the expense of ruining our economy and now having to deal with a whole pile of new and nastier variations. You can't really say anything about the outcome of a fire until the fire is under control, right now we may have the illusion of control but I don't believe that we are there just yet.
  - SantalBlush 5y ago
    That doesn't matter. I was replying to a comment about our response to the pandemic. That comment indicated our response was a failure based on what we know today, and I disagreed that it was a failure based on what we know today.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      It is a failure compared to what we already knew back then. If people had just been smart enough to listen to Mike Ryan instead of bashing the WHO we'd be in much better shape today. All this slow-walking cost us dearly. That it could have been worse is true. But it also could have been much better.