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We watched it live in 2020 and we failed so hard that this is probably the worst time for any new pandemic, especially one that can be described as being in any

We watched it live in 2020 and we failed so hard that this is probably the worst time for any new pandemic, especially one that can be described as being in any way "flu like". We've learned from experience that no matter how many people start dying, huge parts of the population will not take it seriously and that governments will only care about keeping the workers busy making money for their employers even while those employers refuse to provide them with PPE or sick time. Nobody trusts the CDC as it is, and that will only get worse with the coming administration. I'm just hoping that this isn't anything new, and that it doesn't spread very far.

123yawaworht456 2y ago
[flagged]
- cthalupa 2y ago
  > it is safe to say now that the events of 2020-2021 were a mass hysteria. Were they? > There have been reported 7,076,316[4] (updated 3 December 2024) confirmed COVID-induced deaths worldwide. As of January 2023, taking into account likely COVID induced deaths via excess deaths, the 95% confidence interval suggests the pandemic to have caused between 19.1 and 36 million deaths Hmm. I see. Definitely mass hysteria.
  - 123yawaworht456 2y ago
    1. how many of those deaths were among healthy people below the age of 50, who constitute 90% or whatever of the workforce? was there any point forcing children and teenagers into confinement for months? 2. did COVID get eradicated in mid-2022, when virtually all supposed countermeasures were abandoned?
    - tehjoker 2y ago
      You're right that we are in the zone of intense cognitive dissonance right now. COVID is everywhere but no one does anything. People that don't protect themselves by wearing respirators and cleaning the air will likely pay a price.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > COVID is everywhere but no one does anything The virus is weaker. We understand it better, which means better diagnosis and treatment. And we have vaccines, which reduce the burden on the hospitals.
        tehjoker 2y ago
        Look out for Long COVID for which there are no approved treatments and a high incidence of between 5-20% only slightly modified by vaccination.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > how many of those deaths were among healthy people below the age of 50 American 25 to 44 year olds experienced a surge in excess deaths peaking near 50% above baseline in 2020 [1]. > was there any point forcing children and teenagers into confinement for months? Weeks to months, probably yes. Months to years, almost certainly not. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm?s_cid=mm6942e2_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm?s_cid=mm...
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      1(a) - Why does this distinction matter? 1(b) - I don't know. 2 - The current medical consensus is that not only has it not been eradicated -- it likely never will be. Definitely mass hysteria. To a partial extent it was. But it defintely wasn't simply a matter of mass hysteria. Are you wiling to recognize that reality can sometimes have conflicting qualities -- e.g. there can be simultaneously "too much of a reaction" against a perceived threat; but also "some kind of serious response was needed; no one could possibly have known at the time what the optimal response would have been; sometimes it's better to err on the side of caution"? Especially in regard to things like once-per-century pandemics, which are obviously still poorly understood?
    - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
      1. How many would you consider an acceptable number of deaths? 2. No, Covid is still very much around, and people are still very much dying from it. It was the 10th most common cause of deaths in 2023, and a lot of people have lingering symptoms.
      - aakresearch 2y ago
        How many would you consider un-acceptable to the point of introducing 2020-level of insane restrictions?
        orf 2y ago
        Both of your answers are positive numbers, so at least you can both agree there is a line.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    The response can still be considered mass hysteria if it was disproportionate to 20-40 million deaths or unhelpful in mitigating them.
lispisok 2y ago
Cause the "experts" did such a good job last time. I learned from the last pandemic that the so called "experts" were in fact incompetent at best and power tripping political ideologues at worst. It was crazy watching the last 100 years of germ theory and infectious disease get thrown out and start over from scratch 1. The virus isnt real it's a conservative conspiracy 2. The virus is real but isnt spreading human to human (it obviously was at this point) Bonus: Thinking the virus came from a lab doing research on that exact virus in proximity to the first cases was a conservative conspiracy instead of an obvious first guess 3. The virus is spreading human to human but not through the air (it obviously was highly probable given respiratory symptoms) 4. Masks dont work 5. Masks do work 6. Masks do work and you should always wear outside your house but not needed at BLM protests 7. The social distancing rules had zero scientific backing
- bdangubic 2y ago
  this sounds exactly like the scientific discovery(ies) of something unknown. you are scrambling in this case to figure things out and you want to do it as fast as possible because you know - the government has decided to lock everyone up. so you go about trying to figure it out. but science is not dogma, if you first believed that masks do work and then get a proof that they don't after enough people start wearing them and you perhaps see that that shows otherwise, you pivot. this is exactly what you want, you don't want "experts" to sit and go "shit, we told everyone to wear masks, we now have this new data which shows limited utility but shit we can't say we were wrong, lets have everyone keep wearing masks... maybe even double-down and say you should wear masks alone in the shower cause virus might be in the water too..."
  - incrudible 2y ago
    We did not have new data on masks when the messaging on masks changed. The science said masks do not protect you and that is why experts initially said so. Then, they figured that this is not what people wanted to hear. People wanted to be told what to do to be safe and would not take “we do not know” as an answer. Politicians latched on this, the media latched on to this, and somehow it became a partisan issue. The path of least resistance was to just shut up, wear a mask and wait for the hysteria to subside.
NotSammyHagar 2y ago
I disagree about trusting the CDC, I have no reason not to trust them. They'll do their best job to understand threats, avoid making confusing statements. But if there is a threat and people are dying in hospitals in large numbers without much information, they'll do their best to make health safety precautions, but they will probably make some mistakes. This is pretty common in science too.
- autoexec 2y ago
  The CDC never had the trust of many people to start with, but their repeated failures at communication didn't do them any favors. They also repeatedly allowed themselves to be bullied and manipulated. For example, they changed the recommendation to stay home 5 days after testing positive, but that change wasn't based on any new evidence that would contradict their old recommendation.

123yawaworht456 2y ago

[flagged]

cthalupa 2y ago
> it is safe to say now that the events of 2020-2021 were a mass hysteria. Were they? > There have been reported 7,076,316[4] (updated 3 December 2024) confirmed COVID-induced deaths worldwide. As of January 2023, taking into account likely COVID induced deaths via excess deaths, the 95% confidence interval suggests the pandemic to have caused between 19.1 and 36 million deaths Hmm. I see. Definitely mass hysteria.
- 123yawaworht456 2y ago
  1. how many of those deaths were among healthy people below the age of 50, who constitute 90% or whatever of the workforce? was there any point forcing children and teenagers into confinement for months? 2. did COVID get eradicated in mid-2022, when virtually all supposed countermeasures were abandoned?
  - tehjoker 2y ago
    You're right that we are in the zone of intense cognitive dissonance right now. COVID is everywhere but no one does anything. People that don't protect themselves by wearing respirators and cleaning the air will likely pay a price.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > COVID is everywhere but no one does anything The virus is weaker. We understand it better, which means better diagnosis and treatment. And we have vaccines, which reduce the burden on the hospitals.
      - tehjoker 2y ago
        Look out for Long COVID for which there are no approved treatments and a high incidence of between 5-20% only slightly modified by vaccination.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > how many of those deaths were among healthy people below the age of 50 American 25 to 44 year olds experienced a surge in excess deaths peaking near 50% above baseline in 2020 [1]. > was there any point forcing children and teenagers into confinement for months? Weeks to months, probably yes. Months to years, almost certainly not. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm?s_cid=mm6942e2_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm?s_cid=mm...
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    1(a) - Why does this distinction matter? 1(b) - I don't know. 2 - The current medical consensus is that not only has it not been eradicated -- it likely never will be. Definitely mass hysteria. To a partial extent it was. But it defintely wasn't simply a matter of mass hysteria. Are you wiling to recognize that reality can sometimes have conflicting qualities -- e.g. there can be simultaneously "too much of a reaction" against a perceived threat; but also "some kind of serious response was needed; no one could possibly have known at the time what the optimal response would have been; sometimes it's better to err on the side of caution"? Especially in regard to things like once-per-century pandemics, which are obviously still poorly understood?
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    1. How many would you consider an acceptable number of deaths? 2. No, Covid is still very much around, and people are still very much dying from it. It was the 10th most common cause of deaths in 2023, and a lot of people have lingering symptoms.
    - aakresearch 2y ago
      How many would you consider un-acceptable to the point of introducing 2020-level of insane restrictions?
      - orf 2y ago
        Both of your answers are positive numbers, so at least you can both agree there is a line.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  The response can still be considered mass hysteria if it was disproportionate to 20-40 million deaths or unhelpful in mitigating them.

lispisok 2y ago

Cause the "experts" did such a good job last time. I learned from the last pandemic that the so called "experts" were in fact incompetent at best and power tripping political ideologues at worst. It was crazy watching the last 100 years of germ theory and infectious disease get thrown out and start over from scratch 1. The virus isnt real it's a conservative conspiracy 2. The virus is real but isnt spreading human to human (it obviously was at this point) Bonus: Thinking the virus came from a lab doing research on that exact virus in proximity to the first cases was a conservative conspiracy instead of an obvious first guess 3. The virus is spreading human to human but not through the air (it obviously was highly probable given respiratory symptoms) 4. Masks dont work 5. Masks do work 6. Masks do work and you should always wear outside your house but not needed at BLM protests 7. The social distancing rules had zero scientific backing

bdangubic 2y ago
this sounds exactly like the scientific discovery(ies) of something unknown. you are scrambling in this case to figure things out and you want to do it as fast as possible because you know - the government has decided to lock everyone up. so you go about trying to figure it out. but science is not dogma, if you first believed that masks do work and then get a proof that they don't after enough people start wearing them and you perhaps see that that shows otherwise, you pivot. this is exactly what you want, you don't want "experts" to sit and go "shit, we told everyone to wear masks, we now have this new data which shows limited utility but shit we can't say we were wrong, lets have everyone keep wearing masks... maybe even double-down and say you should wear masks alone in the shower cause virus might be in the water too..."
- incrudible 2y ago
  We did not have new data on masks when the messaging on masks changed. The science said masks do not protect you and that is why experts initially said so. Then, they figured that this is not what people wanted to hear. People wanted to be told what to do to be safe and would not take “we do not know” as an answer. Politicians latched on this, the media latched on to this, and somehow it became a partisan issue. The path of least resistance was to just shut up, wear a mask and wait for the hysteria to subside.

NotSammyHagar 2y ago

I disagree about trusting the CDC, I have no reason not to trust them. They'll do their best job to understand threats, avoid making confusing statements. But if there is a threat and people are dying in hospitals in large numbers without much information, they'll do their best to make health safety precautions, but they will probably make some mistakes. This is pretty common in science too.

autoexec 2y ago
The CDC never had the trust of many people to start with, but their repeated failures at communication didn't do them any favors. They also repeatedly allowed themselves to be bullied and manipulated. For example, they changed the recommendation to stay home 5 days after testing positive, but that change wasn't based on any new evidence that would contradict their old recommendation.