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I didn't know Collins has resigned until I read this. What problems do you have with Fauci and Collins? I am just curious and am reading more and not trying to

I didn't know Collins has resigned until I read this. What problems do you have with Fauci and Collins? I am just curious and am reading more and not trying to be aggressive about this. It seems to me like they were the sole rational voices during the Trump administration.

disambiguation 5y ago
As GP states, they engaged in "noble lies" in order to drive vaccine adoption. - flip flopping on mask policy - surface transmission - vaccine efficacy - herd immunity - natural immunity - gain of function I'm not going to argue whether or not this was best course of action, because there's no way to know what the alternate reality would look like. It is however an interesting revelation about the character of our leaders. In their mind, the ends justify the means, in so far as they unilaterally define both the ends and the means. Who knows what else they lie about for the "greater good".
- fivea 5y ago
  > As GP states, they engaged in "noble lies" in order to drive vaccine adoption. Can you point out what was in your opinion the best example of what you described as "noble lie"? I've seen people throwing baseless accusations by misrepresenting basic guidances, such as how avoiding scarcity of personal safety equipment like latex gloves and surgical masks in hospitals was distorted into "first they state masks don't work but now they flipflop into arguing they do". Thus, to avoid personal subjective takes and keep this discussion on the facts, what exactly do you see as the best example of this "noble lie"?
  - disambiguation 5y ago
    Natural immunity works. It's settled science, and has been for some time. Many countries acknowledge it as a valid alternative to the vaccine. But not the USA. There has been no change in policy. Not even a public acknowledgment, let alone an apology for getting it wrong. Is this out of ignorance? malice? Neither, it's simply pragmatic. Reliably testing for prior infections at population scale would be really slow, expensive, and faulty. Further there's no real downside to vaccinating someone with a prior infection (slightly higher incidence of side effects notwithstanding). Further, people will lose the urgency to get the vaccine if they think they have antibodies. Monolithic policy is cheaper than nuanced policy, and monolithic policy only works if its dead simple. So, better to have everyone believe the vaccine is the one and only solution than to actually concern themselves with the truth. There are also many examples of "verbatim" lies, such as these: https://www.businessinsider.com/who-says-no-evidence-coronavirus-vaccine-prevent-transmissions-2020-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/who-says-no-evidence-coronav... > Moderna's chief medical officer, Tal Zaks, said last month that he believed it was likely the vaccine would prevent transmission but warned that there was not yet "sufficient evidence" of it. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/health/coronavirus-vaccine-walensky.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/health/coronavirus-vaccin... > The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday walked back controversial comments made by its director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, suggesting that people who are vaccinated against the coronavirus never become infected or transmit the virus to others.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - fivea 5y ago
      > Natural immunity works. It's settled science, and has been for some time. What exactly do you mean by "works"? I mean, it's well established that those who contract COVID and didn't died from it will have a good immunity response for subsequent infections. But that is not the point of a vaccine, is it? The point of the vaccine is that it trains your immune system to fight an infection without undergoing the risk of a real infection. So that the odds you die from COVID are lower, if not residual. Consequently, we see the bulk of all deaths from COVID comprised of unvaccinated individuals. But other than all the dead, those who survive a COVID infection do end up with an immune system that is able to handle COVID. Is that what you mean by "Natural immunity works"? That if you ignore all those unvaccinated people who died then the ones that lived through a COVID infection didn't died? Because the whole point of a vaccine is that people don't have to die from a preventable disease, isn't it?
      - disambiguation 5y ago
        Case in point: communicating nuance is hard when no one wants to hear it! Let me make it easy: 1. majority of infections happened pre-vaccine rollout. 2. we created a system that locked people out based on vaccine status. 3. the system should have included those with natural immunity. /q
        fivea 5y ago
        > Case in point: communicating nuance is hard when no one wants to hear it! There is no nuance. The message couldn't be clearer: if you take the vaccine then the odds you'll die from COVID are way lower than if you do not. And reality does not lie: the bulk of COVID deaths come from unvaccinated people. https://www.factcheck.org/2022/04/scicheck-covid-19-data-comparing-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-continues-to-be-available-contrary-to-viral-posts/ https://www.factcheck.org/2022/04/scicheck-covid-19-data-com... Enough with all this misinformed or disinformed bullshit.
rayiner 5y ago
I’m not a right-wing Fauci hater, but I think he’s just not that good at his job. He found himself in a tough situation, having to tell inconvenient truths to a President that had every reason to downplay the virus because he had up to that point a very strong economy and was up for re-election in less than a year. Guess what—that’s a key part of the job for a high level government official. Politics always influences the theoretically neutral scientific agencies, and diplomatically handling such situations is essential. Trump wasn’t some singularity in this regard: he was more bombastic in his rhetoric, but the rush to normalize things in advance of an election wasn’t unique to him: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/04/ba2-omicron-variant-covid-surge/629474/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/04/ba2-omicr... In this context, a competent public official would (1) jealously guard his credibility; and (2) assure the public that he understands that controlling the pandemic isn’t the only thing people care about. Fauci has consistently failed to do either. He made assertions about masking, natural immunity, and schools that we’re ill-advised and turned out to be wrong. And he has shown no ability to convey to the public that he understands the balancing of competing social interests. With him, it’s always about the most cautious approach. Fauci is a good illustration of why it’s dangerous to put wonks in public-facing leadership positions. There’s an argument that someone in Fauci’s position should just focus on the most cautious possible approach and leave the balancing of competing policy interests to elected officials. But in a pandemic, the public will look to health officials for leadership and guidance. They’re not just in the back room crunching numbers for the political decision makers.
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  You argue Fauci is a wonk, but lots of what he said was obviously wrong at the time. I think Fauci is hyper political, he's just not optimizing for truth but for institutional staying power. And it worked! America suffered the consequences, but he held onto his job and half the U.S. worships him.
- LorenPechtel 5y ago
  He was trying to navigate an impossible course between telling the truth and not getting fired for telling the truth.

disambiguation 5y ago

As GP states, they engaged in "noble lies" in order to drive vaccine adoption. - flip flopping on mask policy - surface transmission - vaccine efficacy - herd immunity - natural immunity - gain of function I'm not going to argue whether or not this was best course of action, because there's no way to know what the alternate reality would look like. It is however an interesting revelation about the character of our leaders. In their mind, the ends justify the means, in so far as they unilaterally define both the ends and the means. Who knows what else they lie about for the "greater good".

fivea 5y ago
> As GP states, they engaged in "noble lies" in order to drive vaccine adoption. Can you point out what was in your opinion the best example of what you described as "noble lie"? I've seen people throwing baseless accusations by misrepresenting basic guidances, such as how avoiding scarcity of personal safety equipment like latex gloves and surgical masks in hospitals was distorted into "first they state masks don't work but now they flipflop into arguing they do". Thus, to avoid personal subjective takes and keep this discussion on the facts, what exactly do you see as the best example of this "noble lie"?
- disambiguation 5y ago
  Natural immunity works. It's settled science, and has been for some time. Many countries acknowledge it as a valid alternative to the vaccine. But not the USA. There has been no change in policy. Not even a public acknowledgment, let alone an apology for getting it wrong. Is this out of ignorance? malice? Neither, it's simply pragmatic. Reliably testing for prior infections at population scale would be really slow, expensive, and faulty. Further there's no real downside to vaccinating someone with a prior infection (slightly higher incidence of side effects notwithstanding). Further, people will lose the urgency to get the vaccine if they think they have antibodies. Monolithic policy is cheaper than nuanced policy, and monolithic policy only works if its dead simple. So, better to have everyone believe the vaccine is the one and only solution than to actually concern themselves with the truth. There are also many examples of "verbatim" lies, such as these: https://www.businessinsider.com/who-says-no-evidence-coronavirus-vaccine-prevent-transmissions-2020-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/who-says-no-evidence-coronav... > Moderna's chief medical officer, Tal Zaks, said last month that he believed it was likely the vaccine would prevent transmission but warned that there was not yet "sufficient evidence" of it. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/health/coronavirus-vaccine-walensky.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/health/coronavirus-vaccin... > The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday walked back controversial comments made by its director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, suggesting that people who are vaccinated against the coronavirus never become infected or transmit the virus to others.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - fivea 5y ago
    > Natural immunity works. It's settled science, and has been for some time. What exactly do you mean by "works"? I mean, it's well established that those who contract COVID and didn't died from it will have a good immunity response for subsequent infections. But that is not the point of a vaccine, is it? The point of the vaccine is that it trains your immune system to fight an infection without undergoing the risk of a real infection. So that the odds you die from COVID are lower, if not residual. Consequently, we see the bulk of all deaths from COVID comprised of unvaccinated individuals. But other than all the dead, those who survive a COVID infection do end up with an immune system that is able to handle COVID. Is that what you mean by "Natural immunity works"? That if you ignore all those unvaccinated people who died then the ones that lived through a COVID infection didn't died? Because the whole point of a vaccine is that people don't have to die from a preventable disease, isn't it?
    - disambiguation 5y ago
      Case in point: communicating nuance is hard when no one wants to hear it! Let me make it easy: 1. majority of infections happened pre-vaccine rollout. 2. we created a system that locked people out based on vaccine status. 3. the system should have included those with natural immunity. /q
      - fivea 5y ago
        > Case in point: communicating nuance is hard when no one wants to hear it! There is no nuance. The message couldn't be clearer: if you take the vaccine then the odds you'll die from COVID are way lower than if you do not. And reality does not lie: the bulk of COVID deaths come from unvaccinated people. https://www.factcheck.org/2022/04/scicheck-covid-19-data-comparing-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-continues-to-be-available-contrary-to-viral-posts/ https://www.factcheck.org/2022/04/scicheck-covid-19-data-com... Enough with all this misinformed or disinformed bullshit.

rayiner 5y ago

I’m not a right-wing Fauci hater, but I think he’s just not that good at his job. He found himself in a tough situation, having to tell inconvenient truths to a President that had every reason to downplay the virus because he had up to that point a very strong economy and was up for re-election in less than a year. Guess what—that’s a key part of the job for a high level government official. Politics always influences the theoretically neutral scientific agencies, and diplomatically handling such situations is essential. Trump wasn’t some singularity in this regard: he was more bombastic in his rhetoric, but the rush to normalize things in advance of an election wasn’t unique to him: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/04/ba2-omicron-variant-covid-surge/629474/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/04/ba2-omicr... In this context, a competent public official would (1) jealously guard his credibility; and (2) assure the public that he understands that controlling the pandemic isn’t the only thing people care about. Fauci has consistently failed to do either. He made assertions about masking, natural immunity, and schools that we’re ill-advised and turned out to be wrong. And he has shown no ability to convey to the public that he understands the balancing of competing social interests. With him, it’s always about the most cautious approach. Fauci is a good illustration of why it’s dangerous to put wonks in public-facing leadership positions. There’s an argument that someone in Fauci’s position should just focus on the most cautious possible approach and leave the balancing of competing policy interests to elected officials. But in a pandemic, the public will look to health officials for leadership and guidance. They’re not just in the back room crunching numbers for the political decision makers.

JamesBarney 5y ago
You argue Fauci is a wonk, but lots of what he said was obviously wrong at the time. I think Fauci is hyper political, he's just not optimizing for truth but for institutional staying power. And it worked! America suffered the consequences, but he held onto his job and half the U.S. worships him.
LorenPechtel 5y ago
He was trying to navigate an impossible course between telling the truth and not getting fired for telling the truth.