4 ms·

I've read several of your responses here, and thanks for the info, but I have to say, your tone comes off as "I know better and would have been more sensible if

I've read several of your responses here, and thanks for the info, but I have to say, your tone comes off as "I know better and would have been more sensible if I were in charge." When you're in the heart of an epidemic that's going to kill millions, you err on the side of caution. Quarantining you at home, for example, makes sense when you're dealing with a deadly disease and you don't know enough to know you're not contagious. Again, thanks for the info, but "lessons learned" should generally be left to the people who will have to deal with the next pandemic, especially since (I'm betting) they won't express their lessons learned as confidently as you are.

mike_hearn 3y ago
> Quarantining you at home, for example, makes sense when you're dealing with a deadly disease Intuitively yes, in reality no. It was known by March 2020 that quarantines had no effect because of the outcome of trying it on the Diamond Princess, a sealed environment where quarantine could be perfectly enforced. That didn't stop SARS-CoV-2 spreading between cabins and causing COVID apparently at random, i.e. it'd propagated everywhere but not everyone was susceptible. This knowledge was never incorporated into health policy. The same thing had been found during the SARS-1 outbreak in Hong Kong, where it was able to move between apartment blocks separated by a garden on air currents. The quarantine within the origin apartment block didn't work due to airborne transmission, something the WHO denied was possible. It was even known before 2020. Public health planning before this time said clearly not to use mass testing and mass quarantines because they don't work. This was torn up once COVID started. > your tone comes off as "I know better and would have been more sensible if I were in charge." Frustrated, yes, I know how it sounds. The COVID response was deeply flawed from the start, and in ways that were obvious even to outsiders. I was writing about the impossible claims being made for PCR tests and the history of failed epidemic models in Spring 2020, but I don't think I'd have done better if I ran the WHO. That's because the incentives and structures such people operate under are terrible, and apparently overwhelmingly strong. Consider this article from 2010 [1]. Der Spiegel investigated the Swine Flu "mass hysteria" and stated that the world clearly overreacted. Reporting on the WHO, "At any rate, efforts to downplay the risks were unwelcome, and the WHO made it clear that it preferred to base its decisions on a worst-case scenario. "We wanted to overestimate rather than underestimate the situation," says Fukuda." Given everything that happened since I'm really convinced that the right way to handle a pandemic is just to let individuals and their doctors get on with it. Academics and NGOs can make recommendations if they want, but giving these people power is a bad idea. Central health planners are incentivized to maximally over-react, every single time. No lessons are ever learned, and why would any be? They have absolute immunity from accountability and consider interventions to be cost free. That is corrupting. What happened with COVID will happen again. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/reconstruction-of-a-mass-hysteria-the-swine-flu-panic-of-2009-a-682613.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/reconstruction-of...
- michael1999 3y ago
  The Diamond Princess was sealed, but impossible to effectively quarantine since the cabins have shared air circulation. That was back when people were still hoping it wasn't airport.
- gcanyon 3y ago
  Again, there are people who get paid to spend all their time determining whether, for example, overestimation is worse or underestimation is. It is an absolute certainty that the response to covid was suboptimal. Apart from how complex the situation and the response was, just given that responses varied widely from region to region guarantees that most were not perfect. But while it's certainly possible to nitpick some aspect or another of the response, to jump from that to therefore you (or I) know better than the people being paid to do nothing but study the situation and learn from the outcomes, is as conceited as looking at the Challenger explosion and saying, "Clearly there was a problem with the O-rings, therefore I know better how NASA should be run." I didn't mean to attack you with my comment -- I just wanted to inform you of how your tone seemed in case you were unaware. It seems that you're not only aware, you think your tone is justified. So good for you, enjoy your confidence.
  - mike_hearn 3y ago
    You make the same argument in another post, will reply once. Your examples of experts you trust are all engineers, not public health scientists. Air disasters, power outages and rocket explosions are immediate, visible and concrete failures. You can't consensus your way out of a plane crash. If a plane goes down ordinary people demand serious answers and because plane travel is run by the private sector the operators are all very incentivized to cooperate with a real investigation, in order to reassure the public it won't happen again. The investigations into these failures are very deep, very real, root cause what went wrong and generate concrete changes. Scientists aren't operating in the same environment. Many people use as a test of scientific competence "do you agree with other scientists" and nothing else, which is circular reasoning. When scientists fail there's a tendency for them to argue that oh well the situation was complex, lots of unknowns, did the best we could, consensus of experts etc. People are trained to never argue with scientists so they can do this. Engineers don't get the same privilege. Saying "the experts decided it" is worth nothing to governments, the media or the public if your oil drilling ship just sank.
spookthesunset 3y ago
Everybody gets a say in “lessons learned”. Not just a bunch of cherry picked doomsday epidemiologists. The “experts” were phenomenally myopic in their focus and would be in “lessons learned” as well. There is far more to life than the prevention of exactly one very specific respiratory illness. If you leave it to only the “experts” the only lessons you’ll get will be so narrowly focused as to be completely useless. “Experts” never should have been allowed to directly drive public policy. Public policy is a holistic exercise focusing on the big picture, not just one very tiny myopic thing. An entire generation of kids will grow up forever scarred thanks to the myopic, hysterical actions of these “experts”.
- gcanyon 3y ago
  "experts" keep your plane in the air, your water safe to drink, your electricity supply consistent and steady, and on and on. Putting scare quotes around the word "experts" says more about you than the experts.
  - spookthesunset 3y ago
    I'll use scare quotes all day long to describe the "experts" who pushed all that nonsense covid public policy. I didn't vote for them. They did nothing to earn my respect. I was just told I had to shut off my brain and follow their divine edicts no matter what nonsense they spouted. And if I didn't agree with what they said, I was labeled an alt-right wacko grandma killer. These covid "experts" lied, manipulated the narrative, hid data, played politics, ignored data, and coerced media and big tech to play along. They silenced and attempted to discredit any colleague who went against their narrative--no matter how qualified or expert that colleague was. I trust all kinds of experts from lawyers to water quality folks. Experts are always needed. But once you start lying and bending the truth the way the covid "experts" did... you lose the right to be considered an expert. Nobody gets to tell me or anybody who gets to be an actual expert. That title is earned, not pushed by some authority figure and a bunch of hysterical people on social media. I find it depressing how many people still buy into the narrative these "experts" pushed. It has nothing to do with tribalism or politics--these "experts" fucked up big time and caused incalculable damage to society that will haunt us all for decades to come. In short, Covid "experts" can rot in hell. And mark my words, what I just wrote will become the mainstream opinion soon enough.

mike_hearn 3y ago

> Quarantining you at home, for example, makes sense when you're dealing with a deadly disease Intuitively yes, in reality no. It was known by March 2020 that quarantines had no effect because of the outcome of trying it on the Diamond Princess, a sealed environment where quarantine could be perfectly enforced. That didn't stop SARS-CoV-2 spreading between cabins and causing COVID apparently at random, i.e. it'd propagated everywhere but not everyone was susceptible. This knowledge was never incorporated into health policy. The same thing had been found during the SARS-1 outbreak in Hong Kong, where it was able to move between apartment blocks separated by a garden on air currents. The quarantine within the origin apartment block didn't work due to airborne transmission, something the WHO denied was possible. It was even known before 2020. Public health planning before this time said clearly not to use mass testing and mass quarantines because they don't work. This was torn up once COVID started. > your tone comes off as "I know better and would have been more sensible if I were in charge." Frustrated, yes, I know how it sounds. The COVID response was deeply flawed from the start, and in ways that were obvious even to outsiders. I was writing about the impossible claims being made for PCR tests and the history of failed epidemic models in Spring 2020, but I don't think I'd have done better if I ran the WHO. That's because the incentives and structures such people operate under are terrible, and apparently overwhelmingly strong. Consider this article from 2010 [1]. Der Spiegel investigated the Swine Flu "mass hysteria" and stated that the world clearly overreacted. Reporting on the WHO, "At any rate, efforts to downplay the risks were unwelcome, and the WHO made it clear that it preferred to base its decisions on a worst-case scenario. "We wanted to overestimate rather than underestimate the situation," says Fukuda." Given everything that happened since I'm really convinced that the right way to handle a pandemic is just to let individuals and their doctors get on with it. Academics and NGOs can make recommendations if they want, but giving these people power is a bad idea. Central health planners are incentivized to maximally over-react, every single time. No lessons are ever learned, and why would any be? They have absolute immunity from accountability and consider interventions to be cost free. That is corrupting. What happened with COVID will happen again. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/reconstruction-of-a-mass-hysteria-the-swine-flu-panic-of-2009-a-682613.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/reconstruction-of...

michael1999 3y ago
The Diamond Princess was sealed, but impossible to effectively quarantine since the cabins have shared air circulation. That was back when people were still hoping it wasn't airport.
gcanyon 3y ago
Again, there are people who get paid to spend all their time determining whether, for example, overestimation is worse or underestimation is. It is an absolute certainty that the response to covid was suboptimal. Apart from how complex the situation and the response was, just given that responses varied widely from region to region guarantees that most were not perfect. But while it's certainly possible to nitpick some aspect or another of the response, to jump from that to therefore you (or I) know better than the people being paid to do nothing but study the situation and learn from the outcomes, is as conceited as looking at the Challenger explosion and saying, "Clearly there was a problem with the O-rings, therefore I know better how NASA should be run." I didn't mean to attack you with my comment -- I just wanted to inform you of how your tone seemed in case you were unaware. It seems that you're not only aware, you think your tone is justified. So good for you, enjoy your confidence.
- mike_hearn 3y ago
  You make the same argument in another post, will reply once. Your examples of experts you trust are all engineers, not public health scientists. Air disasters, power outages and rocket explosions are immediate, visible and concrete failures. You can't consensus your way out of a plane crash. If a plane goes down ordinary people demand serious answers and because plane travel is run by the private sector the operators are all very incentivized to cooperate with a real investigation, in order to reassure the public it won't happen again. The investigations into these failures are very deep, very real, root cause what went wrong and generate concrete changes. Scientists aren't operating in the same environment. Many people use as a test of scientific competence "do you agree with other scientists" and nothing else, which is circular reasoning. When scientists fail there's a tendency for them to argue that oh well the situation was complex, lots of unknowns, did the best we could, consensus of experts etc. People are trained to never argue with scientists so they can do this. Engineers don't get the same privilege. Saying "the experts decided it" is worth nothing to governments, the media or the public if your oil drilling ship just sank.

spookthesunset 3y ago

Everybody gets a say in “lessons learned”. Not just a bunch of cherry picked doomsday epidemiologists. The “experts” were phenomenally myopic in their focus and would be in “lessons learned” as well. There is far more to life than the prevention of exactly one very specific respiratory illness. If you leave it to only the “experts” the only lessons you’ll get will be so narrowly focused as to be completely useless. “Experts” never should have been allowed to directly drive public policy. Public policy is a holistic exercise focusing on the big picture, not just one very tiny myopic thing. An entire generation of kids will grow up forever scarred thanks to the myopic, hysterical actions of these “experts”.

gcanyon 3y ago
"experts" keep your plane in the air, your water safe to drink, your electricity supply consistent and steady, and on and on. Putting scare quotes around the word "experts" says more about you than the experts.
- spookthesunset 3y ago
  I'll use scare quotes all day long to describe the "experts" who pushed all that nonsense covid public policy. I didn't vote for them. They did nothing to earn my respect. I was just told I had to shut off my brain and follow their divine edicts no matter what nonsense they spouted. And if I didn't agree with what they said, I was labeled an alt-right wacko grandma killer. These covid "experts" lied, manipulated the narrative, hid data, played politics, ignored data, and coerced media and big tech to play along. They silenced and attempted to discredit any colleague who went against their narrative--no matter how qualified or expert that colleague was. I trust all kinds of experts from lawyers to water quality folks. Experts are always needed. But once you start lying and bending the truth the way the covid "experts" did... you lose the right to be considered an expert. Nobody gets to tell me or anybody who gets to be an actual expert. That title is earned, not pushed by some authority figure and a bunch of hysterical people on social media. I find it depressing how many people still buy into the narrative these "experts" pushed. It has nothing to do with tribalism or politics--these "experts" fucked up big time and caused incalculable damage to society that will haunt us all for decades to come. In short, Covid "experts" can rot in hell. And mark my words, what I just wrote will become the mainstream opinion soon enough.