3 ms·

I doubt it. Pandemic preparedness, including for airborne diseases, was the same for decades until it was all thrown out the window to do something wildly diffe

I doubt it. Pandemic preparedness, including for airborne diseases, was the same for decades until it was all thrown out the window to do something wildly different that had never been done before. Which - evidently, as we're still having "lockdowns" and "resurgences" 1.5 years after that "two weeks to flatten the curve" experiment - didn't work.

dont__panic 5y ago
What was the old preparedness that we "threw out the window" in favor of lockdowns and masks? As far as I know, humanity has rarely bothered with any pandemic reaction beyond "stay away from the visibly ill" and "go out less".
- erhk 5y ago
  Iirc theres images of 1908 spanish flu protestors inciting others to wear masks. Also i believe there was a pandemic response force that trump admin threw out.
- argvargc 5y ago
  In pandemics, you isolate only the sick, treat them, and offer prophylaxis to vulnerable groups. In COVID, we isolated everyone, sick and healthy (utterly unprecedented), then flooded the most vulnerable with sick people (bizarre care home mismanagement), and refused to give treatment or prophylaxis to anyone until they couldn't breathe, at which point they were put on a ventilator. In some places, that's still the protocol. Others have learned from these mistakes and moved on. When everyone has, COVID will cease to be a problem. The original approach has worked for every other novel virus pandemic we've had - which happen regularly every few years. Even the very same people at Imperial College made similarly dire predictions for some of those pandemics at the time - and yet none registered more than a fraction of a flu season. That original protocol, used repeatedly for years, was abandoned and effectively reversed for COVID, with ongoing disastrous results as anyone can plainly see.
  - monkeyfacebag 5y ago
    I’m old enough to remember when we didn’t know who was infected and who wasn’t infected.

dont__panic 5y ago

What was the old preparedness that we "threw out the window" in favor of lockdowns and masks? As far as I know, humanity has rarely bothered with any pandemic reaction beyond "stay away from the visibly ill" and "go out less".

erhk 5y ago
Iirc theres images of 1908 spanish flu protestors inciting others to wear masks. Also i believe there was a pandemic response force that trump admin threw out.
argvargc 5y ago
In pandemics, you isolate only the sick, treat them, and offer prophylaxis to vulnerable groups. In COVID, we isolated everyone, sick and healthy (utterly unprecedented), then flooded the most vulnerable with sick people (bizarre care home mismanagement), and refused to give treatment or prophylaxis to anyone until they couldn't breathe, at which point they were put on a ventilator. In some places, that's still the protocol. Others have learned from these mistakes and moved on. When everyone has, COVID will cease to be a problem. The original approach has worked for every other novel virus pandemic we've had - which happen regularly every few years. Even the very same people at Imperial College made similarly dire predictions for some of those pandemics at the time - and yet none registered more than a fraction of a flu season. That original protocol, used repeatedly for years, was abandoned and effectively reversed for COVID, with ongoing disastrous results as anyone can plainly see.
- monkeyfacebag 5y ago
  I’m old enough to remember when we didn’t know who was infected and who wasn’t infected.