7 ms·

I mean, coronaviruses are some of the most studied human pathogens on the planet, especially after SARS. The whole “we don’t know what we’re dealing with” shtic

I mean, coronaviruses are some of the most studied human pathogens on the planet, especially after SARS. The whole “we don’t know what we’re dealing with” shtick was hard to swallow. Health authorities should have been better prepared for a respiratory pandemic, period. We spend too much money on public health for the response we got.

fzeroracer 3y ago
By all means then, if you're an expert then why didn't you tell us about the disease when it got started? Think of all the lives you, personally, could've saved if you shared your expert knowledge. Knowledge that no one else in the entire world knew about apparently as the disease transitioned to a pandemic. I assume that at least one health authority on this planet would've been prepared and know exactly how to respond, according to your expertise.
- CPLX 3y ago
  I mean that goes back to the point this comment thread is attached to. Knowing things doesn't magically grant you power over the spread of the virus. The reality is that nobody had that power and no amount of expertise was going to fix that.
  - lazide 3y ago
    We did have power to reduce deaths early on, pre vaccine, and did okayish. The vaccine does reduce deaths dramatically in sensitive populations. Based on the European data and NYC data, that legitimately did save likely millions of lives in the US.
lazide 3y ago
SARS case fatality rate was 14-15% (roughly). [https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sars/estimates-sars-death-rates-revised-upward https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sars/estimates-sars-death-rates-r...] During the first year of the pandemic, figuring out much of anything except that bodies were piling up faster than they could be managed in all the cities was extremely difficult, and there was a lot of clear political manipulation of the numbers everywhere, so trust was... thin. To put it mildly. COVID was clearly not as bad as SARS, but it was also clearly not the Flu. So what was the correct policy exactly?
- Izkata 3y ago
  > So what was the correct policy exactly? Here's one easy one: Don't use medical jargon in news/media. For example, they shouldn't have called it a "novel coronavirus". It means something specific and totally different in a medical context as it does to the layperson, and I expect it was a huge part of the overreaction.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Novel coronavirus isn’t medical jargon though? Or at least not very much? It was indeed novel, and it was indeed a coronavirus. They could have called it a ‘SARS novel variant 2019’ if they wanted to really stir up shit right? Unless the CDC gave everyone talking points they had to stick to (and somehow enforced it, aka China) it’s also not in the gov’ts power to tell the press how they should present things. There were a lot of mistakes, but that we can see them instead of being shot for noticing them is a pretty big plus - and definitely better than how a lot of places handled it!
    - Izkata 3y ago
      "Novel coronavirus" in a medical context means "no one has immunity to this particular coronavirus". "Novel coronavirus" to the layperson means "this is a totally new virus and we don't know anything about how it's going to act", so all previous knowledge about coronaviruses was thrown out and relearned over the past three years.
      - dent9876543 3y ago
        Even after all this time, I didn’t realise the distinction. I thought it was based in the “China created it” vs. “came from bats” arguments, i.e., man made (and this novel; of at least partial descent that our immune system had never before encountered), versus natural. Wow. Learn something new each day.
    - dent9876543 3y ago
      > not in the gov’ts power to tell the press how they should present things. Is that really people’s understanding? Governments the world over made it their business to control what what put out — through the MSM, and many other channels. Many outlets were cautious of breaching the rules. In many cases, control was hands off — through peer pressure, if you will — but there were many well-publicised cases of direct intervention (for example, but it’s only one example, see the Twitter Files).
x86x87 3y ago
[flagged]

fzeroracer 3y ago

By all means then, if you're an expert then why didn't you tell us about the disease when it got started? Think of all the lives you, personally, could've saved if you shared your expert knowledge. Knowledge that no one else in the entire world knew about apparently as the disease transitioned to a pandemic. I assume that at least one health authority on this planet would've been prepared and know exactly how to respond, according to your expertise.

CPLX 3y ago
I mean that goes back to the point this comment thread is attached to. Knowing things doesn't magically grant you power over the spread of the virus. The reality is that nobody had that power and no amount of expertise was going to fix that.
- lazide 3y ago
  We did have power to reduce deaths early on, pre vaccine, and did okayish. The vaccine does reduce deaths dramatically in sensitive populations. Based on the European data and NYC data, that legitimately did save likely millions of lives in the US.

lazide 3y ago

SARS case fatality rate was 14-15% (roughly). [https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sars/estimates-sars-death-rates-revised-upward https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sars/estimates-sars-death-rates-r...] During the first year of the pandemic, figuring out much of anything except that bodies were piling up faster than they could be managed in all the cities was extremely difficult, and there was a lot of clear political manipulation of the numbers everywhere, so trust was... thin. To put it mildly. COVID was clearly not as bad as SARS, but it was also clearly not the Flu. So what was the correct policy exactly?

Izkata 3y ago
> So what was the correct policy exactly? Here's one easy one: Don't use medical jargon in news/media. For example, they shouldn't have called it a "novel coronavirus". It means something specific and totally different in a medical context as it does to the layperson, and I expect it was a huge part of the overreaction.
- lazide 3y ago
  Novel coronavirus isn’t medical jargon though? Or at least not very much? It was indeed novel, and it was indeed a coronavirus. They could have called it a ‘SARS novel variant 2019’ if they wanted to really stir up shit right? Unless the CDC gave everyone talking points they had to stick to (and somehow enforced it, aka China) it’s also not in the gov’ts power to tell the press how they should present things. There were a lot of mistakes, but that we can see them instead of being shot for noticing them is a pretty big plus - and definitely better than how a lot of places handled it!
  - Izkata 3y ago
    "Novel coronavirus" in a medical context means "no one has immunity to this particular coronavirus". "Novel coronavirus" to the layperson means "this is a totally new virus and we don't know anything about how it's going to act", so all previous knowledge about coronaviruses was thrown out and relearned over the past three years.
    - dent9876543 3y ago
      Even after all this time, I didn’t realise the distinction. I thought it was based in the “China created it” vs. “came from bats” arguments, i.e., man made (and this novel; of at least partial descent that our immune system had never before encountered), versus natural. Wow. Learn something new each day.
  - dent9876543 3y ago
    > not in the gov’ts power to tell the press how they should present things. Is that really people’s understanding? Governments the world over made it their business to control what what put out — through the MSM, and many other channels. Many outlets were cautious of breaching the rules. In many cases, control was hands off — through peer pressure, if you will — but there were many well-publicised cases of direct intervention (for example, but it’s only one example, see the Twitter Files).

x86x87 3y ago

[flagged]