5 ms·

Also it seems like once people had all this revealed to them, the anti-social behavior didn't revert. I share with some of those people a dramatic mistrust and

Also it seems like once people had all this revealed to them, the anti-social behavior didn't revert. I share with some of those people a dramatic mistrust and inherent irreverence, perhaps even blind hatred for authorities who are telling me to do anything. That makes me inclined to do the opposite I am told in any given situation. I wore a mask and limited contact for the same reason I signal before changing lanes, or place garbage in receptacles designed for it. I agree with the reasoning behind these rules and they simply seem polite. The politeness is what I think actually changes for people. They got stressed and decided to only consider their own needs drawing the circle of us/them tighter about them, and they haven't loosened it since. All that said, consensus from news sources biased left and right, from nations where masks and vaccines were championed by opposite political sides, seems to be that we did a whole generation a great disservice by making young child education virtual for any length of time at all. Many nations reopened bars before kindergarten because think of the children. When we could have all drank water and let our children and their teachers lay the foundation for our future in the best way possible.

logicchains 3y ago
Considering the lockdowns were completely ineffective at reducing mortality ( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737?ut... ), it was absolutely a bone-headed measure by authorities and they deserve the loss of trust. Especially given that lockdowns went against what was previously considered best-practices in epidemic management.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Lockdowns were never tried, at least in the USA. What the USA did was obviously going to be ineffective. "Stay At Home Suggestions" that were routinely ignored, business "closures" that were unenforced, mask "mandates" that you could ignore by simply being belligerent with a shopkeeper. There's no way to know whether actually staying at home and keeping distance from people would have worked, because nowhere was it tried.
  - snapcaster 3y ago
    It was tried in China to mixed success
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Huge cut in civil liberties, too.
Xcelerate 3y ago
> from nations where masks and vaccines were championed by opposite political sides I think it's so strange how political masks and vaccines became. I'm not sure many people remember, but there was a brief period (February or March 2020?) where wearing masks was frowned on in the Bay Area — if I recall correctly, I think it was initially widely claimed that masks were not helpful against Covid and that a run on masks would take away supply from medical workers who use them as part of their daily work. I already had a box of N99 masks that I bought for the wildfires, so I wore one out anyway and got dirty looks. A short while later, everyone in the Bay Area was wearing them, and I no longer got those looks. But then I moved to the southeast and got dirty looks again for wearing a mask, because the politics of that region were different.
- mwigdahl 3y ago
  This was due in part to the Surgeon General, who tweeted (forcefully) that masks didn't prevent the spread of COVID and anyway you shouldn't wear them to conserve them for the health workers who needed them to prevent the spread of COVID. The original tweet has been taken down (I wonder why?) but you can see it here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/surgeon-general-americans-stop-buying-face-masks.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/surgeon-general-...
  - galangalalgol 3y ago
    There was a good npr special on how the well meant deception that masks didn't work, and later that it wasn't a pandemic yet and we could still stop it, decreased trust in a way that ultimately backfired. I'd also add that they have been exaggerating the severity of most flu years (there have been some truly bad flu years) to get vaccinations up, which lead people to compare covid to those exaggerated numbers. Treating citizens like children that must be managed and given limited access to truth will lead to more and more truth management being necessary due to both mistrust and no practice at handling truth responsibly. But it wasn't just the mask statement. The whole narrative of minimizing the severity of the virus vs stop breathing and stay inside, swapped parties early on in the US. Almost like they said "nah I'm shirts this time and you are skins look at the polls". And much later fox news silently swapped again to support vaccines. It was said the latter was to have Murdoch's properties in the US and UK have a common story, but it could have been lobbying, or just management shifts. In the US antivax has either been right wing faith healing stuff or more commonly left leaning woo medicine stuff. In several countries it was the left against vaccines and masks the whole time. I think it may come down to which party is more individualistic and which is more cooperative in which countries. In the US the right has recently been more individual, but that wasn't always the case, and it isn't the case elsewhere.

logicchains 3y ago

Considering the lockdowns were completely ineffective at reducing mortality ( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737?ut... ), it was absolutely a bone-headed measure by authorities and they deserve the loss of trust. Especially given that lockdowns went against what was previously considered best-practices in epidemic management.

ryandrake 3y ago
Lockdowns were never tried, at least in the USA. What the USA did was obviously going to be ineffective. "Stay At Home Suggestions" that were routinely ignored, business "closures" that were unenforced, mask "mandates" that you could ignore by simply being belligerent with a shopkeeper. There's no way to know whether actually staying at home and keeping distance from people would have worked, because nowhere was it tried.
- snapcaster 3y ago
  It was tried in China to mixed success
actionfromafar 3y ago
Huge cut in civil liberties, too.

Xcelerate 3y ago

> from nations where masks and vaccines were championed by opposite political sides I think it's so strange how political masks and vaccines became. I'm not sure many people remember, but there was a brief period (February or March 2020?) where wearing masks was frowned on in the Bay Area — if I recall correctly, I think it was initially widely claimed that masks were not helpful against Covid and that a run on masks would take away supply from medical workers who use them as part of their daily work. I already had a box of N99 masks that I bought for the wildfires, so I wore one out anyway and got dirty looks. A short while later, everyone in the Bay Area was wearing them, and I no longer got those looks. But then I moved to the southeast and got dirty looks again for wearing a mask, because the politics of that region were different.

mwigdahl 3y ago
This was due in part to the Surgeon General, who tweeted (forcefully) that masks didn't prevent the spread of COVID and anyway you shouldn't wear them to conserve them for the health workers who needed them to prevent the spread of COVID. The original tweet has been taken down (I wonder why?) but you can see it here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/surgeon-general-americans-stop-buying-face-masks.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/surgeon-general-...
- galangalalgol 3y ago
  There was a good npr special on how the well meant deception that masks didn't work, and later that it wasn't a pandemic yet and we could still stop it, decreased trust in a way that ultimately backfired. I'd also add that they have been exaggerating the severity of most flu years (there have been some truly bad flu years) to get vaccinations up, which lead people to compare covid to those exaggerated numbers. Treating citizens like children that must be managed and given limited access to truth will lead to more and more truth management being necessary due to both mistrust and no practice at handling truth responsibly. But it wasn't just the mask statement. The whole narrative of minimizing the severity of the virus vs stop breathing and stay inside, swapped parties early on in the US. Almost like they said "nah I'm shirts this time and you are skins look at the polls". And much later fox news silently swapped again to support vaccines. It was said the latter was to have Murdoch's properties in the US and UK have a common story, but it could have been lobbying, or just management shifts. In the US antivax has either been right wing faith healing stuff or more commonly left leaning woo medicine stuff. In several countries it was the left against vaccines and masks the whole time. I think it may come down to which party is more individualistic and which is more cooperative in which countries. In the US the right has recently been more individual, but that wasn't always the case, and it isn't the case elsewhere.