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This optimists in this article were routinely wrong in the past. Why trust their optimism now? > “I truly, truly think we are in the endgame,” said Monica Gand

by graeme 5y ago

This optimists in this article were routinely wrong in the past. Why trust their optimism now? > “I truly, truly think we are in the endgame,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious-disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. “The cases will start plummeting in mid-to-late September and by mid-October, we will be in a manageable place, where the virus is a concern for health professionals, but not really for the general public.” Monica Ghandi has been an eternal optimist and routinely wrong. Here she is in february arguing that india had herd immunity from prior infection and cross reactive immunity. Right before devastating delta wave: https://twitter.com/monicagandhi9/status/1361856248275079170?lang=en https://twitter.com/monicagandhi9/status/1361856248275079170... Here she is in may agreeing many us areas were at herd immunity. This also proved wrong: https://twitter.com/monicagandhi9/status/1389808375437824000 https://twitter.com/monicagandhi9/status/1389808375437824000 She admits in the article she was wrong, but about people, not the virus. But she was very wrong about the virus. Jay Bhattacharya was one of the three people behind the Great Barrington Declaration. Their ideas won, but it’s far from obvious they were right. Instead of elimination, they argued for living with the virus. This currently is causing oxygen shortages in Florida, and renewed restrictions as countries experience rising waves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration He writes: > that’s the endpoint of the epidemic because we really can’t do better than that Multiple countries have eliminated the virus. In fact, virtually every country that aimed at it succeeded at this goal. They had better economic outcomes and more normalcy. Bhattacharya wants to persuade that because this would be hard in the short term it is literally impossible. His barrington declaration also failed at its goals: countries that tried it had both worse economic outcomes and also worse health outcomes.

graeme 5y ago
Another Ghandi quote: > You yourself are completely protected against the delta variant, and you should go and enjoy your summer. It’s been a hard time, and people should have their summer. Delta variant, delta shmariant. From May. This proved completely false. Efficacy is a relative risk reduction, not an absolute. 95% efficacy against severe disease means 1/20 will still have severe results. “Completely protected” was patently false. The vaccines are great but that doesn’t warrant lying to boost them. https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/delta-variant-covid-vaccines-risk-monica-gandhi.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/delta-variant-covid-vac...
- bilal4hmed 5y ago
  This video of Monica should be saved https://twitter.com/ibrake4ants/status/1415701882178314248 https://twitter.com/ibrake4ants/status/1415701882178314248
  - graeme 5y ago
    Thanks. For anyone who’d rather not watch a video: it’s a short clip of Monica Ghandi at a June 15th mask/ribbon cutting ceremony, jumping with excitement as happy days are here again plays.
    - angelzen 5y ago
      The horror! Edit: Covid is a miserable disease, but it seems that some of us want to abandon the joy of living because, in the big scheme, slightly more people die than usual. The price of being alive is death, and it's well worth it.
      - graeme 5y ago
        The point is that they were wrong, not that they were happy. They reversed course and deleted the video. Masks have returned. The video was like Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” photo op in 2003 to declare the end of the Iraq war. He was happy too, but wrong.
        angelzen 5y ago
        The point it that they were hopeful. Piling on them, even if wrong, is distasteful.
        graeme 5y ago
        Hold it. Those aren’t just regular people being happy. They’re leaders in what is equivalent to a wartime situation. When they’re wrong, people die.
cavisne 5y ago
Which ones? South Korea, Vietnam, China and Australia all come to mind, they are all facing Delta waves now.
- graeme 5y ago
  South Korea never aimed at elimination, important distinction. They aimed to keep circulation low. Australia’s NSW also did not aim to eliminate. Other australian states do, and have their borders closed to NSW. Complicated story down there. Victoria China has beaten the delta wave, down to 26 cases a day from 100. I expect they’ll hit zero. New Zealand on the same track, as is Taiwan. The Atlantic region of Canada was another example. Vietname I’ll admit has now failed. Not sure if they changed policies or simply couldn’t do it now with Delta. Then there are some caribbean islands. And that’s about the full list of countries worldwide that did try for zero. Every other country aimed for mitigation.
  - makomk 5y ago
    I think you're reversing cause and effect there. The reason NSW and now Victoria in Australia are no longer aiming to eliminate Covid is because their efforts to do so simply did not work once the Delta variant hit and could not be made to work. Similarly, Vietnam couldn't do it either - they went so far as completely stopping people living in the most affected city from leaving their homes even to buy food, despite not being able to put in place any working way of delivering food to all 9 million people living there, because lesser measures hadn't worked, and that also didn't work.
  - kongin 5y ago
    >Australia’s NSW also did not aim to eliminate. Other australian states do, and have their borders closed to NSW. Complicated story down there. Victoria Victoria has had 6 or 7 waves of Covid (depends how you count it) and failed only at the last one. This came at the cost of human rights violations, police brutality, the largest non-wartime increase in government debt, a tripling of teen suicides, night time curfew and a cumulative 220 days of lockdown with no end in sight. At this point euthanising everyone over 70 could be a viable policy with less long term harm than continuing with the current policies.
angelzen 5y ago
> Multiple countries have eliminated the virus. In fact, virtually every country that aimed at it succeeded at this goal. Which countries have eliminated the virus? Aren't you playing out the exact same kind of baseless optimism you accuse Monica Gandhi of?
- graeme 5y ago
  I didn’t say it would be easy for many countries to eliminate. My point is it is possible, whereas the person I am criticizing says it is impossible to do better than a vaccine alone. That’s clearly false as there are living, breathing counterexamples. Hard does not equal impossible. New Zealand, Atlantic Canada, Taiwan, most of Australia (NSW doesn’t have elimination as a goal), some caribbean islands, China Many of those places have outbreaks, but they’re beaten them or have beaten them.
  - prawn 5y ago
    In Australia, NSW and Victoria are locked down. Other states, including my own, at the sign of sometimes a single case, lock down. And the status quo comes with minimal international movement (need approval and expensive quarantine) and restricted movement between states. Not sure how practical or palatable that would be in Europe, the Americas, etc.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      How much time have you sepnt locked down in total since the pademic started? Here in the UK it's been about 6 months, and I'm interested to compare the two strategies.
      - prawn 5y ago
        Probably less than a fortnight in total? I'm in South Australia. We had a six day lockdown in Nov 2020 that was lifted after 3-4 days. There was a week-long lockdown in July coming straight after school holidays, so it was like getting a bonus week. There have been many changes for things like wineries and restaurants, and limits on home gatherings at times, but I assume that's pretty standard worldwide. Currently with risk of delta arriving from interstate, I wear a mask entering a public space, but that's about it. We're comparably isolated though compared to the rest of the world, and have strict policies for international travel (quarantine on your return that costs thousands of dollars). There are strong restrictions back in early 2020, but I think we'd taken our kids out of school voluntarily, and I don't know if there was ever a full lockdown.
hm10 5y ago
Off topic, but it always amazes me how often I see Gandhi misspelled as Ghandi. I'm not American, so I am curious if they always teach this wrong spelling in schools? Check the other replies here. OP literally quoted the right spelling but still misspelled it later.
- graeme 5y ago
  I thought about it, and in my case I think it’s because the pronunciation is unintuitive. You often hear people saying “Gandhi” like “Band”, which is wrong I think. To write how you pronounce Gandhi you normally have words like “Khan” or “Ghana” etc. at least with the words I’m familiar with. So it makes a switch I have to constantly manually remember. Possible I have the pronunciation wrong of course.
- angelzen 5y ago
  'gh' is somewhat common in American English. ghost, ghetto, aghast. 'dh' is unheard of.
Clewza313 5y ago
The only countries that have consistently managed to keep COVID at bay are China, Taiwan and New Zealand. All the rest of the former COVID Zeros, including Australia, Vietnam and Singapore, have succumbed to Delta, and it's a matter of time until the three holdouts do so too.
wffurr 5y ago
Thanks for the perspective on the interviewees. Overall seems like a really terrible article trying to present a "balance" of perspectives and not once considering there's truth to be had.

by graeme 5y ago

graeme 5y ago

Another Ghandi quote: > You yourself are completely protected against the delta variant, and you should go and enjoy your summer. It’s been a hard time, and people should have their summer. Delta variant, delta shmariant. From May. This proved completely false. Efficacy is a relative risk reduction, not an absolute. 95% efficacy against severe disease means 1/20 will still have severe results. “Completely protected” was patently false. The vaccines are great but that doesn’t warrant lying to boost them. https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/delta-variant-covid-vaccines-risk-monica-gandhi.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/delta-variant-covid-vac...

bilal4hmed 5y ago
This video of Monica should be saved https://twitter.com/ibrake4ants/status/1415701882178314248 https://twitter.com/ibrake4ants/status/1415701882178314248
- graeme 5y ago
  Thanks. For anyone who’d rather not watch a video: it’s a short clip of Monica Ghandi at a June 15th mask/ribbon cutting ceremony, jumping with excitement as happy days are here again plays.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    The horror! Edit: Covid is a miserable disease, but it seems that some of us want to abandon the joy of living because, in the big scheme, slightly more people die than usual. The price of being alive is death, and it's well worth it.
    - graeme 5y ago
      The point is that they were wrong, not that they were happy. They reversed course and deleted the video. Masks have returned. The video was like Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” photo op in 2003 to declare the end of the Iraq war. He was happy too, but wrong.
      - angelzen 5y ago
        The point it that they were hopeful. Piling on them, even if wrong, is distasteful.
        graeme 5y ago
        Hold it. Those aren’t just regular people being happy. They’re leaders in what is equivalent to a wartime situation. When they’re wrong, people die.

cavisne 5y ago

Which ones? South Korea, Vietnam, China and Australia all come to mind, they are all facing Delta waves now.

graeme 5y ago
South Korea never aimed at elimination, important distinction. They aimed to keep circulation low. Australia’s NSW also did not aim to eliminate. Other australian states do, and have their borders closed to NSW. Complicated story down there. Victoria China has beaten the delta wave, down to 26 cases a day from 100. I expect they’ll hit zero. New Zealand on the same track, as is Taiwan. The Atlantic region of Canada was another example. Vietname I’ll admit has now failed. Not sure if they changed policies or simply couldn’t do it now with Delta. Then there are some caribbean islands. And that’s about the full list of countries worldwide that did try for zero. Every other country aimed for mitigation.
- makomk 5y ago
  I think you're reversing cause and effect there. The reason NSW and now Victoria in Australia are no longer aiming to eliminate Covid is because their efforts to do so simply did not work once the Delta variant hit and could not be made to work. Similarly, Vietnam couldn't do it either - they went so far as completely stopping people living in the most affected city from leaving their homes even to buy food, despite not being able to put in place any working way of delivering food to all 9 million people living there, because lesser measures hadn't worked, and that also didn't work.
- kongin 5y ago
  >Australia’s NSW also did not aim to eliminate. Other australian states do, and have their borders closed to NSW. Complicated story down there. Victoria Victoria has had 6 or 7 waves of Covid (depends how you count it) and failed only at the last one. This came at the cost of human rights violations, police brutality, the largest non-wartime increase in government debt, a tripling of teen suicides, night time curfew and a cumulative 220 days of lockdown with no end in sight. At this point euthanising everyone over 70 could be a viable policy with less long term harm than continuing with the current policies.

angelzen 5y ago

> Multiple countries have eliminated the virus. In fact, virtually every country that aimed at it succeeded at this goal. Which countries have eliminated the virus? Aren't you playing out the exact same kind of baseless optimism you accuse Monica Gandhi of?

graeme 5y ago
I didn’t say it would be easy for many countries to eliminate. My point is it is possible, whereas the person I am criticizing says it is impossible to do better than a vaccine alone. That’s clearly false as there are living, breathing counterexamples. Hard does not equal impossible. New Zealand, Atlantic Canada, Taiwan, most of Australia (NSW doesn’t have elimination as a goal), some caribbean islands, China Many of those places have outbreaks, but they’re beaten them or have beaten them.
- prawn 5y ago
  In Australia, NSW and Victoria are locked down. Other states, including my own, at the sign of sometimes a single case, lock down. And the status quo comes with minimal international movement (need approval and expensive quarantine) and restricted movement between states. Not sure how practical or palatable that would be in Europe, the Americas, etc.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    How much time have you sepnt locked down in total since the pademic started? Here in the UK it's been about 6 months, and I'm interested to compare the two strategies.
    - prawn 5y ago
      Probably less than a fortnight in total? I'm in South Australia. We had a six day lockdown in Nov 2020 that was lifted after 3-4 days. There was a week-long lockdown in July coming straight after school holidays, so it was like getting a bonus week. There have been many changes for things like wineries and restaurants, and limits on home gatherings at times, but I assume that's pretty standard worldwide. Currently with risk of delta arriving from interstate, I wear a mask entering a public space, but that's about it. We're comparably isolated though compared to the rest of the world, and have strict policies for international travel (quarantine on your return that costs thousands of dollars). There are strong restrictions back in early 2020, but I think we'd taken our kids out of school voluntarily, and I don't know if there was ever a full lockdown.

hm10 5y ago

Off topic, but it always amazes me how often I see Gandhi misspelled as Ghandi. I'm not American, so I am curious if they always teach this wrong spelling in schools? Check the other replies here. OP literally quoted the right spelling but still misspelled it later.

graeme 5y ago
I thought about it, and in my case I think it’s because the pronunciation is unintuitive. You often hear people saying “Gandhi” like “Band”, which is wrong I think. To write how you pronounce Gandhi you normally have words like “Khan” or “Ghana” etc. at least with the words I’m familiar with. So it makes a switch I have to constantly manually remember. Possible I have the pronunciation wrong of course.
angelzen 5y ago
'gh' is somewhat common in American English. ghost, ghetto, aghast. 'dh' is unheard of.

Clewza313 5y ago

The only countries that have consistently managed to keep COVID at bay are China, Taiwan and New Zealand. All the rest of the former COVID Zeros, including Australia, Vietnam and Singapore, have succumbed to Delta, and it's a matter of time until the three holdouts do so too.

wffurr 5y ago

Thanks for the perspective on the interviewees. Overall seems like a really terrible article trying to present a "balance" of perspectives and not once considering there's truth to be had.