4 ms·

> Banned visiting beaches during the early phases - you had to crowd into indoor spaces. As sibling comment says, large indoor gatherings were also not allowed

• crackercrews 5y ago
  > large indoor gatherings were also not allowed. Indoor gatherings were banned. But going to the mall wearing a bandana was allowed. And it was much more likely to transmit COVID than sitting outside at the beach.
  • encryptluks2 5y ago
    Apparently wasn't banned for the governor though. Never forget these rules are put into place by some of the biggest hypocrites.
• timr 5y ago
  > This was back when we knew next to nothing about COVID. We didn't know yet what was safe or not. We didn't know if it was transmitted via the air or via touch. We didn't know what was safe, and what was not. No, that's post-hoc rationalization. SARS-CoV2 is a coronavirus. After all was said and done...it behaves pretty much like other coronaviruses. We know a lot about coronaviruses, and did back then, as well: they're seasonal; they transmit via the air; they don't transmit readily outside; they're sensitive to heat and light; they don't live long on surfaces; they induce long-lasting B- and T-cell immunity after infection. Moreover, certain things we knew about SARS-CoV2 from very early on, but completely ignored. The original data out of China, for example, showed that the virus posed miniscule threat to children: https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1485302410784432130?cxt=HHwWhICzrYqr7ZwpAAAA https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/14853024107844321...
  • clairity 5y ago
    yes, we knew in march 2020 what the outlines of this virus were going to be. the only uncertainty was how much it varied at the margins (like absolute transmissibility, reproduction rate, in vitro resilience, etc.), but we realized quickly that it didn't push those boundaries in any surprising ways. it was simply a novel coronavirus, which meant that deficient immune systems were going to be unprepared to fight it. we knew this already, and still proceeded to become hysterical over this one virus, rather than focusing on protecting the immune deficient specifically.
    • timr 5y ago
      > it was simply a novel coronavirus Unfortunately, the use of the word "novel" (which has a specific meaning in the scientific context: it was a new strain) was commonly twisted to interpretations like the GP comment. People heard "novel", assumed the colloquial usage ("totally new!") and leapt to the conclusion that we knew nothing about it. For example, for too long, people were speculating on HN and elsewhere that humans "might not have immunity" to this virus (even though "a virus that doesn't induce immunity" would be perhaps the most extraordinary development in the history of immunology). This was a claim easily debunked, but instead was repeated by some extremely high profile "experts" across the media. This was a case study in poor scientific communication to the general public, made worse by the fact that the authorities seemed to lean into it, instead of calming the panic. Certain "medical experts", when confronted with uncertainty and doubt, didn't emphasize the things we do know, and instead retreated back to their standard mode of equivocating about any direct question. Meanwhile, a less-ethical group, seeing an obvious opportunity to advance their flagging careers, wildly exaggerated their claims. It was a perfect storm, and to this day, the general public has a complete misunderstanding of the virus and the risks posed by it.