5 ms·

> Everyone in the medical and public health field was trying to prevent mass casualties and complete collapse of the healthcare system to the best of their abil

> Everyone in the medical and public health field was trying to prevent mass casualties and complete collapse of the healthcare system to the best of their ability using the knowledge they had Um, no. Wrong. The Great Barrington Declaration was not put out by a bunch of "random morons." Yet Francis Collins said it needed a quick and devastating takedown. Someone with scientific integrity would have said your first quote, not that.

__loam 3y ago
When I say "Everyone" what I mean is, the vast majority of the scientific community in both those fields. Fringe ideas like this idea that we could have reached herd immunity in 3 months would have killed literally millions of people that didn't have to die. Especially true considering how quickly we were able to develop a vaccine.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  Ah, "the vast majority" other than the ones at the top? And by the "fringe idea" you mean the one that the virus was a lab leak? That fringe idea?
  - freshpots 3y ago
    You sidestepped their point: "Fringe ideas like this idea that we could have reached herd immunity in 3 months would have killed literally millions of people that didn't have to die. Especially true considering how quickly we were able to develop a vaccine." Also, many prominent and credible scientists did support the lab leak hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      No, they sidestepped the main point about integrity. You don't get to tar your opposition with the actions of a few nutcases. The "many prominent and credible scientists [who] did support the lab leak hypothesis" faced merciless censoring & blacklisting for it.
      - freshpots 3y ago
        The fringe ideas about herd immunity and the Great Barrington Declaration go hand in hand. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/521159-dozens-of-public-health-groups-experts-blast-herd-immunity-strategy-backed/ https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/521159-dozens-of-publi... The Great Barrington Declaration was indeed the actions of a few nutcases and was not supported by science. Furthermore, many signatories were venturing way out of their lane/expertise along with, likely, a majority that were not even real/certainly not remotely close to being an expert: "While the authors' website claims that over 14,000 scientists, 40,000 medical practitioners, and more than 800,000 members of the public signed the declaration, this list—which anyone could sign online and which required merely clicking a checkbox to claim the status of "scientist"—contains some evidently-fake names, including: "Mr Banana Rama", "Harold Shipman", and "Prof Cominic Dummings". More than 100 psychotherapists, numerous homeopaths, physiotherapists, massage therapists, and other non-relevant people were found to be signatories, including a performer of Khoomei—a Mongolian style of overtone singing—described as a "therapeutic sound practitioner". An article in The Independent reported that the false signatures put claims about the breadth of support in doubt. Bhattacharya responded by saying that the authors "did not have the resources to audit each signature," and that people had "abused our trust" by adding fake names." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration#Signatories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration#S...
        AlbertCory 3y ago
        uh-huh. All those deplorables. "not supported by science" -- i.e. the Establishment didn't like them. Instead of looking at the fake names, how about we look at the non-fake ones? Like Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff. Are they nutcases, too? And your fake name issue actually IS addressed in here: https://gbdeclaration.org/why-was-the-declaration-written/ https://gbdeclaration.org/why-was-the-declaration-written/
        __loam 3y ago
        The fact that you're using the word "deplorables" kind of gives away your views here. There's room for debate but going for herd immunity would have been utter insanity to be frank. We know how bad uncontrolled Covid would get from places like Italy early in the pandemic and it wasn't pretty. You're basically saying you'd be willing to accept millions more people in the United States dying of this disease so we can maybe get back to a functional economy in 3 months. And the deaths would increase as we ran out of things like ventilators and asthma medication that we're actually shown to be effective treatments. Your view is incredibly callous.
- spookthesunset 3y ago
  It only seemed like “the vast majority” because to go against the grain, no matter how right you are, would instantly label you an alt-right grandma killing asshole. You’d probably destroy your reputation and career standing up for what you think is right. I mean hell, there are people right in this post calling dudes horrible grandma killers for stating rational, logical opinions against “everyone”.
  - __loam 3y ago
    I mean how right were they? There's hundreds if not thousands of cases of people "going against the grain" and then dying of Covid. People did die because someone wanted to spread some ignorant ideas about what they thought of the pandemic.

__loam 3y ago

When I say "Everyone" what I mean is, the vast majority of the scientific community in both those fields. Fringe ideas like this idea that we could have reached herd immunity in 3 months would have killed literally millions of people that didn't have to die. Especially true considering how quickly we were able to develop a vaccine.

AlbertCory 3y ago
Ah, "the vast majority" other than the ones at the top? And by the "fringe idea" you mean the one that the virus was a lab leak? That fringe idea?
- freshpots 3y ago
  You sidestepped their point: "Fringe ideas like this idea that we could have reached herd immunity in 3 months would have killed literally millions of people that didn't have to die. Especially true considering how quickly we were able to develop a vaccine." Also, many prominent and credible scientists did support the lab leak hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    No, they sidestepped the main point about integrity. You don't get to tar your opposition with the actions of a few nutcases. The "many prominent and credible scientists [who] did support the lab leak hypothesis" faced merciless censoring & blacklisting for it.
    - freshpots 3y ago
      The fringe ideas about herd immunity and the Great Barrington Declaration go hand in hand. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/521159-dozens-of-public-health-groups-experts-blast-herd-immunity-strategy-backed/ https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/521159-dozens-of-publi... The Great Barrington Declaration was indeed the actions of a few nutcases and was not supported by science. Furthermore, many signatories were venturing way out of their lane/expertise along with, likely, a majority that were not even real/certainly not remotely close to being an expert: "While the authors' website claims that over 14,000 scientists, 40,000 medical practitioners, and more than 800,000 members of the public signed the declaration, this list—which anyone could sign online and which required merely clicking a checkbox to claim the status of "scientist"—contains some evidently-fake names, including: "Mr Banana Rama", "Harold Shipman", and "Prof Cominic Dummings". More than 100 psychotherapists, numerous homeopaths, physiotherapists, massage therapists, and other non-relevant people were found to be signatories, including a performer of Khoomei—a Mongolian style of overtone singing—described as a "therapeutic sound practitioner". An article in The Independent reported that the false signatures put claims about the breadth of support in doubt. Bhattacharya responded by saying that the authors "did not have the resources to audit each signature," and that people had "abused our trust" by adding fake names." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration#Signatories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration#S...
      - AlbertCory 3y ago
        uh-huh. All those deplorables. "not supported by science" -- i.e. the Establishment didn't like them. Instead of looking at the fake names, how about we look at the non-fake ones? Like Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff. Are they nutcases, too? And your fake name issue actually IS addressed in here: https://gbdeclaration.org/why-was-the-declaration-written/ https://gbdeclaration.org/why-was-the-declaration-written/
        __loam 3y ago
        The fact that you're using the word "deplorables" kind of gives away your views here. There's room for debate but going for herd immunity would have been utter insanity to be frank. We know how bad uncontrolled Covid would get from places like Italy early in the pandemic and it wasn't pretty. You're basically saying you'd be willing to accept millions more people in the United States dying of this disease so we can maybe get back to a functional economy in 3 months. And the deaths would increase as we ran out of things like ventilators and asthma medication that we're actually shown to be effective treatments. Your view is incredibly callous.
spookthesunset 3y ago
It only seemed like “the vast majority” because to go against the grain, no matter how right you are, would instantly label you an alt-right grandma killing asshole. You’d probably destroy your reputation and career standing up for what you think is right. I mean hell, there are people right in this post calling dudes horrible grandma killers for stating rational, logical opinions against “everyone”.
- __loam 3y ago
  I mean how right were they? There's hundreds if not thousands of cases of people "going against the grain" and then dying of Covid. People did die because someone wanted to spread some ignorant ideas about what they thought of the pandemic.