> Yet, two weeks to flatten the curve somehow turned into two years of flailing about aimlessly with ineffective measures.
1) Whenever someone mentions "flatten the curve" in that way, the implication always seems to be the CDC et. al should have had this novel disease figured out from day one, but that's an unreasonable expectation.
2) A big reason those measures were as not as effective as they could have been was that people were actively undermining them pretty much from day one.
> people were actively undermining them pretty much from day one.
As they should. I didn't sign up for two years of this nonsense. We didn't know any of it would work but we knew it could cause serious harm to society yet we choose to it anyway. I'm not some lab-rat who is forced into participating in an uncontrolled experiment performed by a few cherry picked "experts" and their political backers.
Most people are absolutely not at risk of serious covid issues. We knew this even in the first month or two of this adventure but it was taboo to discuss. You'd actively be shamed, mocked and humiliated if you ever discussed actual public data showing covid isn't the monster the media and self-appointed "experts" made it out to be.
It scares the crap out of me how many people willingly played along for two years. Do people not question anything?
> And we can thank those people for giving us one of the worse outcomes.
It takes a lot of hubris to suggest these mitigations did a damn thing. And it takes a lot of mental gymnastics and rationalization to completely ignore their very significant costs to society. We fucked kids, fucked small business owners, fucked hospitals, fucked the poor and working class, enriched the wealthy and old while stealing from the poor and young.
Life is too short to obey the orders of a handful of unelected, cherry-picked "experts". None of them could ever say the crap they had us do would work. We still can't say any of it worked in a meaningful way.
People flushed two years of their short fucking lives down the toilet to participate in an uncontrolled experiment... naw... I'll opt out, thanks.
It's no joke, I know people in their early-mid thirties ( they were somewhat late bloomers from career growth being stunted from the recession) who decided just to not have kids all together as a result of the lockdown/drama it's kind of sad
There is a pretty big difference between washing your hands and having the government shut down your means of earning a living, or not being able to take your kid to a playground for more than a year…
And I can label their actions as selfish too. Expecting society to shut down for years because they are afraid. I could also label people who kept kids out of school as incredibly cruel.
Also arrogant and naïve… thinking humans could somehow control or conquer a highly contagious respiratory virus outside of a vaccine. All these NPI’s are nothing more than modern rain dances. Humans tricking themselves into believing they can control Mother Nature… that they even have a right to try…
> And I can label their actions as selfish too. Expecting society to shut down for years because they are afraid
And if you base your labels on BS like your second sentence, people should probably put little stock in your judgement. You don't have any idea what you're talking about.
Oh really? Because that was what was expected by all these “experts”. We were told to focus on Covid spread to the exclusion of literally everything else. And yes, lots of people were afraid. The only reason to support these measures are fear and a blind trust in authority (and a very narrow and cheery picked band of authority, mind you). Every argument for lockdowns and restrictions are ultimately based on one or the other.
Dismiss my argument all you want. I’m arguing from good faith. It is very possible to see what happened in the last two years and disagree with every bit of it. The idea everybody was supposed to just fall in line and agree with “the narrative” is wishful thinking. People should disagree and you should listen to them…
> It scares the crap out of me how many people willingly played along for two years. Do people not question anything?
As one person that played along, my understanding was that by playing along, all of that would end earlier and we could go back to normal faster. This didn't happen, so I have learned my lesson for the next time.
> As one person that played along, my understanding was that by playing along, all of that would end earlier and we could go back to normal faster. This didn't happen, so I have learned my lesson for the next time.
If that's the lesson, it should be formulated: we can't have nice things because those will fuck it up, so I might as well join the assholes and let the fabric of society get a little more tattered.
That is indeed another way to see things. What would be your suggestion instead, keep being exploited by assholes all my life? Unfortunately I can't run solely on moral high ground, so this is not really possible for me.
I am not implying that. The expectation was that there would be a pandemic and that, unfortunately, a lot of people would die. The idea was to avoid preventable deaths stemming from an overwhelmed healthcare system. It then somehow turned into full blown moral panic, attempting to minimize deaths from infections at almost any cost - something that we never did, and still do not do, with any other disease.
> attempting to minimize deaths from infections at almost any cost - something that we never did, and still do not do, with any other disease.
So first off no, not "at almost any cost." The largest, most effective mitigations were never on the table: wind down the entire global economy into "safe mode" and focus only on life-making activities; send all workers home except the truly necessary. Instead we sent home office workers while labeling as essential the food, delivery, and retail workers we forced to continue to serve them.
Second, "we never did, and still do not do, with any other disease" well we fucking should. Every single preventable death is a tragedy of cosmic magnitude, and much disruption is justified in avoiding even one.
> Every single preventable death is a tragedy of cosmic magnitude, and much disruption is justified in avoiding even one.
Couldn’t disagree more. Death is inevitable, and most death is preventable. There is absolutely nothing cosmically tragic about death.
Government imposed disruption is only justified to a very measured extend. Think “seatbelt laws” and environmental and product safety regulations.
We are endowed by our creator with inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Most choices a human makes along that path will involve a measure of risk of shortened lifespan.
The purpose of life for most people is not to live as long as possible. Certainly a government has no right or moral authority dictating that to anyone.
And the most glaring point is that even if the goal is altruistic (i.e. extend lifespans) the implementation was a ineffective totalitarian shit show than could actually in net total cost more quality adjusted life-years than it saved.
> people were actively undermining them pretty much from day one.
This is what actually fucked the US and led to the million deaths there. I live in Ecuador and we had a bad go in the first few months of the pandemic, with near total lockdown and many deaths. Afterwards though, we went very hard with masks and reasonable restrictions on numbers of people in buildings at once and the cases/deaths have been very steady and controlled since then. Yes, masks really do work, if everyone actually wears them, our numbers have proven this. The biggest restriction has been that schools have shut or gone remote during the entire pandemic and only recently have in-person classes started back up. The US seems to have had it much much worse and it seems to be entirely self inflicted. I personally don't understand why the US didn't just give up after a few months once it was obvious that people wouldn't really do what it takes for success. It looks like the US has stayed on a path that everyone hates, but keeps getting no benefit from.
Ecuador had a much higher death rate than other countries which took less extreme measures. Sweden, for example, never shut down primary schools and never had much in the way of mask mandates yet they came through much better.
Pointing to EC as "the" way to handle this is not my point. The fact is, there were many paths available to the US that could have helped keep that million people from dying. We proved that masks work if people use them, that is a fact. Other strategies also can work. My point is, if the US could have gotten its people on the same page and actually done something rather than self sabotaging itself, it would be a completely different story. As it stands, it failed at this, and it has kept its ineffectual policies in place, to the detriment of social cohesion, but sadly not the virus.
Sweden had fewer per capita deaths than many other EU member states. You haven't provided any evidence that extensive pandemic control measures actually helped.
They didn't need to have it figured it out, just recognized that they didn't know what they're doing, were unable of being any help, and stayed quiet instead of blindly making things up.
> They didn't need to have it figured it out, just recognized that they didn't know what they're doing, were unable of being any help, and stayed quiet instead of blindly making things up.
You're basically advocating that they stop doing their jobs, and let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Think of it this way: Imagine you're a general in a war. It would be the most reckless kind of incompetence to refrain from giving any orders until you worked out a surefire plan to defeat the enemy, since that kind of inaction is literally a recipe for defeat. In the real world, to actually solve real problems, it's pretty much a requirement for responsible people to take action based on incomplete information and imperfect understanding.
That is not a useful analogy. Dealing with a public health crisis is not at all like fighting a war. Doing nothing is always an option, and is often a better option than acting on guesswork.
> Whenever someone mentions "flatten the curve" in that way, the implication always seems to be the CDC et. al should have had this novel disease figured out from day one, but that's an unreasonable expectation.
Then they shouldn't act like they have all the answers if they have no idea what is going on. This is exactly what all the "conspiracy theorists" expected, and it's exactly how it played out.
The CDC has seriously destroyed public faith in the government generally by pushing "two weeks to flatten the curve" and "100% effective vaccines" when, in reality, they did not have a handle on the situation.
Health authorities pretty much everywhere have been quite clear about data and conclusions constantly evolving, but people just don't read or process that far. Or only read the "CDC recommends XYZ" headline and then complain that nobody told them that this isn't 100% valid-forever fundamental laws. It's been staggering to see how many people will claim "but they never said this might change" while you can just go back and look at what actually was written at the time and see that it was of course said that things can and will be adjusted as the situation changes.
We all know the conclusions are constantly evolving. That's why all "health authorities" are useless. Being an authority in general doesn't help in a novel situation that they're unable to understand correctly.
> We all know the conclusions are constantly evolving. That's why all "health authorities" are useless.
That doesn't follow. Evolving conclusions are what you get and almost want (even better would be someone who guesses everything correctly beforehand, but ... that's not how it works) in a changing situation. That doesn't mean people drawing the conclusions are useless, nor do their conclusions have to be perfect to be useful - as long as they are better than the ones the people who'd have to draw them instead would. And at least around here, given the choice between politicians deciding with or without the health authorities involved, yeah, it's pretty obvious which one I want.
And besides, that wasn't even the point of the comment chain, but rather people claiming that conclusions are constantly evolving was somehow hidden.
> A big reason those measures were as not as effective as they could have been was that people were actively undermining them pretty much from day one.
Communism is a wonderful thing, if only everyone and their dog were on the same page, we'd all live enlightened lives with every need fulfilled. It truly is great, on paper. "Scientific communism" has proven it, being an academic discipline for decades.
A big reason it has not happened as it could was that some people were actively undermining them pretty much from day one. They didn't want to see the light. So the implementors were forced to isolate, expulse or exterminate those people. Just 0.1% of population. And then another 0.5%. And then a few. And then some more.
So in reality, we have to deal with "just a few more bad apples" forever, having Gulags and Holodomors, and the communism itself "just around the corner" permanently.
For me the parallels between that and covid measures are crystal-clear. If something only works with 100% uptake and participation - the in reality it doesn't work. And all the "unintended" negative outcomes are on the conscience of those who pushed for these measures.
1) Whenever someone mentions "flatten the curve" in that way, the implication always seems to be the CDC et. al should have had this novel disease figured out from day one, but that's an unreasonable expectation.
2) A big reason those measures were as not as effective as they could have been was that people were actively undermining them pretty much from day one.