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Looking at the title, I am sad to see the discourse in research sink to this level over the last few years (well, I think so – perhaps it was already at this le

Looking at the title, I am sad to see the discourse in research sink to this level over the last few years (well, I think so – perhaps it was already at this level before?). Honestly, it's hard to blame the author(s) for using such a clickbait title when Governments across the world have done precisely the same thing by trivializing the effects of a largely unknown disease, banning public health measures, or declaring the lifting of public health restrictions as a "Freedom Day". I don't have a great solution for this – perhaps just that we should all tend towards discourse that is a bit more dry and phrased in terms of data; and steer it back to that phrasing when required.

EricE 5y ago
The experiences of countries that didn't lock down proves that the "restrictions" were ineffective at best and more and more it looks like they caused and are continuing to cause more harm. Lockdowns in cities was particularly dumb. Let's lock everyone indoor, in apartment buildings with shared air systems - yup, brilliant strategy for a highly contagious respiratory virus. If the weather is nice enough for people to be outside, the more that are outside the better! The selective enforcement driven by non-medial reasoning was even more egregious. For example, forcing small businesses to close while allowing big box stores to remain open - either the virus is deadly enough to warrant the prohibition of ALL public contact or it isn't. Same with the ridiculous posturing during the "summer of love" as if the virus was smart enough to avoid spreading at BLM protests, but deadly everywhere else outdoors. All the lockdowns did was foster the greatest transfer of wealth from the little guys to the big guys in all of human history :p Even the definition of "emergency" is now hopelessly devalued. The best analogy to demonstrate this that I have heard: If someone asks to borrow your car for two weeks and after two years they still haven't brought it back, they are no longer borrowing your car. How many people ended up in the hospital on a ventilator and potentially died needlessly while the government panned ivermectin and HCQ and the media/big tech demonized, banned and flat out declared war on anyone talking about anything other than complying with ridiculous mandates and vaccination as the only solution? Going on a ventilator was a 50/50 death sentence. ANYTHING that could have POSSIBLY prevented ANYONE from ever having to go into the hospital should have been thrown at anyone willing to try it. Ivermectin and HCQ are DECADES old, given to millions if not billions of people and even if they were 100% ineffective they certainly were not going to do harm to the VAST majority of people. But here we are. People still make fun of Ivermectin with the "horse dewormer" slur. It's very common for drugs to have human and animal uses and anyone who implies otherwise is either grossly ignorant or the most evil kind of person out there deliberately distorting actual science for political/tribal reasons. I could go on, but the parameters of the disease were well known by the March after the December the virus really broke on our consciousness. The real problem is politics and money took over. Big pharma had a risk free gravy train as long as the "restrictions" and vaccine mandates were underway. Politicians got to boss people around and make themselves even more important. The government, media and big tech blatantly collaborated in flogging the messaging in ways never before seen in human history. Trust in government, the media and big tech is at an all time low for very, very good reasons. What's going to be really tragic - there may be a future biological incident where there are legitimate reasons for dramatic and long term restrictions; good luck getting everyone to cooperate after the ridiculous way COVID was handled. The more evidence that keeps coming out that much of the response and overreaction to it was utterly unwarranted, the more trust is going to be eroded. The most egregious that I am just dumbfounded that here is ongoing controversy over: it's beyond criminal that ANY kids are being forced to still wear face masks. It's flat out child abuse mainly to pleasure the teacher unions. That you seem to be implying that governments didn't take COVID seriously enough when it's beyond obvious now that the opposite is true - the vast majority of governments dramatically overreacted and probably made things FAR worse with their policies shows just how big of a disconnect remains, unfortunately.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  The lockdowns were not ineffective. They were only less effective because of people who cried "muh freedumbs". Masks have repeatedly shown to be effective, especially the N95/KN95 variety. Vaccines were shown to be very effective, if not 100% preventative. Big Tech is not a publisher and expects you to be skeptical of things you read that don't come from mainstream sources. Mainstream sources, other than Fox, tend to have some bias, but almost always contain facts they are based on. Fox however regularly breaks that trust between media and viewers/readers and has been called out over and over. ---- There are tens of thousands of stories that go out every day without errors. Pulling 8 or 10 stories out of those thousands upon thousands of stories that go out on legit news sources being incorrect or slipping in way too much does not bring into question the other 99.99% legit stories. You aren't making much sense to me here. Almost a million people have died above and beyond what normally would not have died in the USA due to Covid-19. I don't know about you, but that makes me extremely sad with the knowledge that 70-80% of those deaths could have been prevented with vaccines, masking, and observing proper protocols. It breaks my fucking heart to be honest, and I didn't even lose anyone close to me personally.
  - aakresearch 5y ago
    Your response is the perfect example why I no longer try to discuss this topic with any covid-response-enthusiasts. You're, obviously, entitled to your beliefs, and must consider them well-backed by your knowledge, life experiences and values. Just as six-days creationists are entitled to theirs. I do not judge either. But this response is so typical that I'll use it to point most problematic issues. First, it contains a brisk, insulting, dismissive and unfalsifiable claim involving modern slur. This is in response to the GP post, where the author went to the pains of writing long-form in a very polite way. Second, it professes the trust to mainstream media, which seems infallible to the poster. All while crapping en passe on "others" that they do not like. Sometimes it also contains accolades to bureaucrats and/or scientists. Cherry-picked ones, of course. And concluded with another unfalsifiable claim that "70-80% of those deaths could have been prevented with vaccines, masking, and observing proper protocols.", again implying that all "measures" must have been followed precisely, and anyone disagreeing is nothing short of murderer. While all the available data increasingly pointing to the opposite, that all the "proper protocols" did bugger all and caused more harm then good. Heck, even the latest study from the beloved doom merchants of John Hopkins University declares that "lockdowns in Europe and the United States reduced only COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average." Note the order of magnitude. No, not completely ineffective, right? It is sad, sad state of things, and the fallout will be felt for decades, I think. I absolutely agree with GP post, that when the real challenge comes the society mobilization will be impossible, because the trust is completely broken. I know mine is.

EricE 5y ago

The experiences of countries that didn't lock down proves that the "restrictions" were ineffective at best and more and more it looks like they caused and are continuing to cause more harm. Lockdowns in cities was particularly dumb. Let's lock everyone indoor, in apartment buildings with shared air systems - yup, brilliant strategy for a highly contagious respiratory virus. If the weather is nice enough for people to be outside, the more that are outside the better! The selective enforcement driven by non-medial reasoning was even more egregious. For example, forcing small businesses to close while allowing big box stores to remain open - either the virus is deadly enough to warrant the prohibition of ALL public contact or it isn't. Same with the ridiculous posturing during the "summer of love" as if the virus was smart enough to avoid spreading at BLM protests, but deadly everywhere else outdoors. All the lockdowns did was foster the greatest transfer of wealth from the little guys to the big guys in all of human history :p Even the definition of "emergency" is now hopelessly devalued. The best analogy to demonstrate this that I have heard: If someone asks to borrow your car for two weeks and after two years they still haven't brought it back, they are no longer borrowing your car. How many people ended up in the hospital on a ventilator and potentially died needlessly while the government panned ivermectin and HCQ and the media/big tech demonized, banned and flat out declared war on anyone talking about anything other than complying with ridiculous mandates and vaccination as the only solution? Going on a ventilator was a 50/50 death sentence. ANYTHING that could have POSSIBLY prevented ANYONE from ever having to go into the hospital should have been thrown at anyone willing to try it. Ivermectin and HCQ are DECADES old, given to millions if not billions of people and even if they were 100% ineffective they certainly were not going to do harm to the VAST majority of people. But here we are. People still make fun of Ivermectin with the "horse dewormer" slur. It's very common for drugs to have human and animal uses and anyone who implies otherwise is either grossly ignorant or the most evil kind of person out there deliberately distorting actual science for political/tribal reasons. I could go on, but the parameters of the disease were well known by the March after the December the virus really broke on our consciousness. The real problem is politics and money took over. Big pharma had a risk free gravy train as long as the "restrictions" and vaccine mandates were underway. Politicians got to boss people around and make themselves even more important. The government, media and big tech blatantly collaborated in flogging the messaging in ways never before seen in human history. Trust in government, the media and big tech is at an all time low for very, very good reasons. What's going to be really tragic - there may be a future biological incident where there are legitimate reasons for dramatic and long term restrictions; good luck getting everyone to cooperate after the ridiculous way COVID was handled. The more evidence that keeps coming out that much of the response and overreaction to it was utterly unwarranted, the more trust is going to be eroded. The most egregious that I am just dumbfounded that here is ongoing controversy over: it's beyond criminal that ANY kids are being forced to still wear face masks. It's flat out child abuse mainly to pleasure the teacher unions. That you seem to be implying that governments didn't take COVID seriously enough when it's beyond obvious now that the opposite is true - the vast majority of governments dramatically overreacted and probably made things FAR worse with their policies shows just how big of a disconnect remains, unfortunately.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
The lockdowns were not ineffective. They were only less effective because of people who cried "muh freedumbs". Masks have repeatedly shown to be effective, especially the N95/KN95 variety. Vaccines were shown to be very effective, if not 100% preventative. Big Tech is not a publisher and expects you to be skeptical of things you read that don't come from mainstream sources. Mainstream sources, other than Fox, tend to have some bias, but almost always contain facts they are based on. Fox however regularly breaks that trust between media and viewers/readers and has been called out over and over. ---- There are tens of thousands of stories that go out every day without errors. Pulling 8 or 10 stories out of those thousands upon thousands of stories that go out on legit news sources being incorrect or slipping in way too much does not bring into question the other 99.99% legit stories. You aren't making much sense to me here. Almost a million people have died above and beyond what normally would not have died in the USA due to Covid-19. I don't know about you, but that makes me extremely sad with the knowledge that 70-80% of those deaths could have been prevented with vaccines, masking, and observing proper protocols. It breaks my fucking heart to be honest, and I didn't even lose anyone close to me personally.
- aakresearch 5y ago
  Your response is the perfect example why I no longer try to discuss this topic with any covid-response-enthusiasts. You're, obviously, entitled to your beliefs, and must consider them well-backed by your knowledge, life experiences and values. Just as six-days creationists are entitled to theirs. I do not judge either. But this response is so typical that I'll use it to point most problematic issues. First, it contains a brisk, insulting, dismissive and unfalsifiable claim involving modern slur. This is in response to the GP post, where the author went to the pains of writing long-form in a very polite way. Second, it professes the trust to mainstream media, which seems infallible to the poster. All while crapping en passe on "others" that they do not like. Sometimes it also contains accolades to bureaucrats and/or scientists. Cherry-picked ones, of course. And concluded with another unfalsifiable claim that "70-80% of those deaths could have been prevented with vaccines, masking, and observing proper protocols.", again implying that all "measures" must have been followed precisely, and anyone disagreeing is nothing short of murderer. While all the available data increasingly pointing to the opposite, that all the "proper protocols" did bugger all and caused more harm then good. Heck, even the latest study from the beloved doom merchants of John Hopkins University declares that "lockdowns in Europe and the United States reduced only COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average." Note the order of magnitude. No, not completely ineffective, right? It is sad, sad state of things, and the fallout will be felt for decades, I think. I absolutely agree with GP post, that when the real challenge comes the society mobilization will be impossible, because the trust is completely broken. I know mine is.