2 ms·

This is such a frustrating comment to read. There is plenty of debate in public health about what is and isn’t appropriate. A lot of effort is put into communic

This is such a frustrating comment to read. There is plenty of debate in public health about what is and isn’t appropriate. A lot of effort is put into communicating the often confusing and oblique conclusions of biology in such a way that people will understand and also be willing to take actions that will help themselves. Covid was, predictably, a massive defeat for public health. Also, you may have noticed that there are not really any restrictions despite covid still being around. There are limits on that power, although I imagine you think that those limits should be in a different place.

rayiner 4y ago
> This is such a frustrating comment to read. There is plenty of debate in public health about what is and isn’t appropriate. Ordinarily. My dad and most of his friends are in the field, and they’re all smart, thoughtful people who tackle incredibly complex things like how to get third world villagers to use maternal health services when all they’ve ever known is midwives with no formal medical training. But they all somehow turned their brains off when COVID happened and started acting like parrots. And now they’re paying the price for that in terms of public trust. The public trust of lay people in experts of all stripes rests on following established processes and norms. When experts deviate from those, such as by concededly lying to the public about mask effectiveness, public trust evaporates. There is never any excuse that justifies that. When judges and prosecutors and police cut corners on process “because lives are at stake” large swaths of the public rightfully come to distrust the system. The same is true for public health or any other field.
- ImaCake 4y ago
  Yeah I mostly agree with this. I hope we don’t repeat these mistakes but I suspect we will.
fidgewidge 4y ago
There are still restrictions. I named a big one in the comment already. Biden admin just extended the ban on foreign arrivals based on vaccine status for more months so gotta assume the ban will last until the Dems next lose the White House. That's a ban on a big fraction of the population of most countries. Other countries don't do that because it's pointless but still have some restrictions like mandatory masks in some contexts in Germany. During COVID I compared claims made by public health officials to the actual data their own agencies were publishing and so often they didn't match. Not just my perception. I have a friend, at the start of it all we often argued because I had already realized public health was corrupt, but he hadn't. I dropped the topic rather than try to convince him. Some months later we were drinking and he told me his views had changed, was now hard-core skeptical about it all. Changed because he did the same as me, watched a press conference by the government, got curious about something, went to the websites with that data and downloaded it. Found they didn't line up, that the government scientists and health minister were lying about what the numbers said. Then he admitted he'd been wrong to argue with me about it. Lots of people had experiences like that. Public health communication trying to make us "willing to take actions that will help ourselves" was always whatever would sound convincing in the moment, not what was true. So it's all worthless.

rayiner 4y ago

> This is such a frustrating comment to read. There is plenty of debate in public health about what is and isn’t appropriate. Ordinarily. My dad and most of his friends are in the field, and they’re all smart, thoughtful people who tackle incredibly complex things like how to get third world villagers to use maternal health services when all they’ve ever known is midwives with no formal medical training. But they all somehow turned their brains off when COVID happened and started acting like parrots. And now they’re paying the price for that in terms of public trust. The public trust of lay people in experts of all stripes rests on following established processes and norms. When experts deviate from those, such as by concededly lying to the public about mask effectiveness, public trust evaporates. There is never any excuse that justifies that. When judges and prosecutors and police cut corners on process “because lives are at stake” large swaths of the public rightfully come to distrust the system. The same is true for public health or any other field.

ImaCake 4y ago
Yeah I mostly agree with this. I hope we don’t repeat these mistakes but I suspect we will.

fidgewidge 4y ago

There are still restrictions. I named a big one in the comment already. Biden admin just extended the ban on foreign arrivals based on vaccine status for more months so gotta assume the ban will last until the Dems next lose the White House. That's a ban on a big fraction of the population of most countries. Other countries don't do that because it's pointless but still have some restrictions like mandatory masks in some contexts in Germany. During COVID I compared claims made by public health officials to the actual data their own agencies were publishing and so often they didn't match. Not just my perception. I have a friend, at the start of it all we often argued because I had already realized public health was corrupt, but he hadn't. I dropped the topic rather than try to convince him. Some months later we were drinking and he told me his views had changed, was now hard-core skeptical about it all. Changed because he did the same as me, watched a press conference by the government, got curious about something, went to the websites with that data and downloaded it. Found they didn't line up, that the government scientists and health minister were lying about what the numbers said. Then he admitted he'd been wrong to argue with me about it. Lots of people had experiences like that. Public health communication trying to make us "willing to take actions that will help ourselves" was always whatever would sound convincing in the moment, not what was true. So it's all worthless.