Vaccine

Grace T. said:
Somebody has been reading this forum....a summary of every argument ever raised by dad4, me and the rest of you (trolls included).....


All kidding aside, one of the best summations I've read.

thedispatch.com

Our Failed COVID Response

If, God forbid, we face another pandemic, we cannot use our COVID strategy as the baseline.
thedispatch.com thedispatch.com
Click to expand...
These things stood out to me.

This definitely rings true.

——

In May 2020, Scott Gottlieb appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation. “While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as we expected … We expected to see more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point and we’re just not seeing that.”
In May 2020, Scott Gottlieb appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation. “While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as we expected … We expected to see more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point and we’re just not seeing that.”

If an approach—untested, and extraordinarily disruptive and expensive—is not meeting expectations, is that not a good time to question the assumptions behind those expectations?

Nah.

——

This is specifically for @dad4

——

The faith in COVID policies was so entrenched, lack of compliance was the only conceivable explanation for our failure to crush the virus. A constant refrain on Twitter was, “The only reason X doesn’t work is because people won’t [thing they won’t do].”

That’s not true, as it happens, but even if it were, only two words in that sentence matter: “doesn’t work.” Those tweets might as well have said “X is the wrong intervention.” Why? Because people won’t do it. It really is that simple.

A basic principle of public health is that interventions must work in our world, as it is, with the peopled who live in it. If people are rotten and selfish, as many seem to believe, then the approach must be designed to work in our rotten and selfish world. No points for being “right” on paper (or Twitter, or cable news).

——

The biggest failures

——

To borrow from photography, public policy generally—and public health specifically—requires a wide-angle lens. Policymakers must weigh many competing societal needs, and public health officials must consider the broad spectrum of human wellness and flourishing.

…

Straightforward, honest, transparent communication is critical, because “honesty and accuracy build public trust, which is essential for the success of most public health efforts. … Being honest and accurate in communications with the public also demonstrates respect for the individuals and communities that public health serves.”

Blaming, shaming and point scoring are great for pushing political outrage buttons, but they’re alienating in public health practice, where you deal with real people, not caricatures on Twitter. Effective public health prioritizes “respect for the dignity and capability of individuals, not on strategies of stigmatization or on appeals to motivations of fear, disgust, and shame.”

As to the use of fear to motivate behavior, the APHA suggests communicating about risk “in a variety of ways (e.g., absolute vs. relative) to avoid overemphasizing or underemphasizing potential harm.”
 
kickingandscreaming said:
These things stood out to me.

This definitely rings true.

——

In May 2020, Scott Gottlieb appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation. “While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as we expected … We expected to see more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point and we’re just not seeing that.”
In May 2020, Scott Gottlieb appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation. “While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as we expected … We expected to see more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point and we’re just not seeing that.”

If an approach—untested, and extraordinarily disruptive and expensive—is not meeting expectations, is that not a good time to question the assumptions behind those expectations?

Nah.

——

This is specifically for @dad4

——

The faith in COVID policies was so entrenched, lack of compliance was the only conceivable explanation for our failure to crush the virus. A constant refrain on Twitter was, “The only reason X doesn’t work is because people won’t [thing they won’t do].”

That’s not true, as it happens, but even if it were, only two words in that sentence matter: “doesn’t work.” Those tweets might as well have said “X is the wrong intervention.” Why? Because people won’t do it. It really is that simple.

A basic principle of public health is that interventions must work in our world, as it is, with the peopled who live in it. If people are rotten and selfish, as many seem to believe, then the approach must be designed to work in our rotten and selfish world. No points for being “right” on paper (or Twitter, or cable news).

——

The biggest failures

——

To borrow from photography, public policy generally—and public health specifically—requires a wide-angle lens. Policymakers must weigh many competing societal needs, and public health officials must consider the broad spectrum of human wellness and flourishing.

…

Straightforward, honest, transparent communication is critical, because “honesty and accuracy build public trust, which is essential for the success of most public health efforts. … Being honest and accurate in communications with the public also demonstrates respect for the individuals and communities that public health serves.”

Blaming, shaming and point scoring are great for pushing political outrage buttons, but they’re alienating in public health practice, where you deal with real people, not caricatures on Twitter. Effective public health prioritizes “respect for the dignity and capability of individuals, not on strategies of stigmatization or on appeals to motivations of fear, disgust, and shame.”

As to the use of fear to motivate behavior, the APHA suggests communicating about risk “in a variety of ways (e.g., absolute vs. relative) to avoid overemphasizing or underemphasizing potential harm.”
Click to expand...
There is some truth to the point that an intervention which fails because of inaction, still fails.

It becomes cyclical when the person making the argument is one of the ones who refused to act in the first place. It’s kind of like saying “tooth brushes don’t work because I never took mine out of the box.”. It’s partly true, but it is mostly an abdication of personal responsibility.
 
dad4 said:
There is some truth to the point that an intervention which fails because of inaction, still fails.
Click to expand...
There is “some” truth? What else is there besides “truth”? If something “fails” it “fails”. That’s 100% truth.


dad4 said:
It becomes cyclical when the person making the argument is one of the ones who refused to act in the first place. It’s kind of like saying “tooth brushes don’t work because I never took mine out of the box.”. It’s partly true, but it is mostly an abdication of personal responsibility.
Click to expand...
According to Wikipedia, Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. What you are describing is a failed policy. You are blaming it on people for their (lack of) actions. This is why @Grace T. refers to you as a preacher.
 
kickingandscreaming said:
There is “some” truth? What else is there besides “truth”? If something “fails” it “fails”. That’s 100% truth.



According to Wikipedia, Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. What you are describing is a failed policy. You are blaming it on people for their (lack of) actions. This is why @Grace T. refers to you as a preacher.
Click to expand...

Any stubborn 5-year-old can say "That's not going to work because I'm not going to do it".

At some point, everyone grows up (usually).
 
CNN Covid 19 News Headline: Flu drops out of top 10 causes of death and can;t be found; Covid holds steady at #3 cause of death.

More than 415,000 people died from ((with)) Covid-19 in 2021, while about 605,000 people died from cancer and about 693,000 people died from heart disease, according to the CDC data. Influenza dropped out of the top 10 causes of death in 2021, while suicide rose to the tenth leading cause of death overall. Covid-19 death rates remained highest among those ages 85 ((go figure)) and older in 2021.
 
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dad4 said:
There is some truth to the point that an intervention which fails because of inaction, still fails.

It becomes cyclical when the person making the argument is one of the ones who refused to act in the first place. It’s kind of like saying “tooth brushes don’t work because I never took mine out of the box.”. It’s partly true, but it is mostly an abdication of personal responsibility.
Click to expand...

I maintain that discussing policy in this forum is simply equivalent to discussing politics, if that is what we can even call it anymore. But I agree there is a crucial issue in rational assessment of what worked and what didn't. Because the probability of eruptive pandemics in the coming decades is now higher than it was. This is not going to be a one off. So if you find a policy exegesis of interest, over the next several years there will be plenty of material. A lot of it (unlike what was posted earlier) will be worth at least a scan. An example is linked below. But I remain skeptical that it will matter much in the end unfortunately.

 
EvilGoalie 21 said:
I maintain that discussing policy in this forum is simply equivalent to discussing politics, if that is what we can even call it anymore. But I agree there is a crucial issue in rational assessment of what worked and what didn't. Because the probability of eruptive pandemics in the coming decades is now higher than it was. This is not going to be a one off. So if you find a policy exegesis of interest, over the next several years there will be plenty of material. A lot of it (unlike what was posted earlier) will be worth at least a scan. An example is linked below. But I remain skeptical that it will matter much in the end unfortunately.

Click to expand...
Like in the movie Don’t Look Up we will eventually dumb ourselves to death. Pandemic, global warming, plastics, junk food, man made carcinogens or an asteroid some choose to ignore.
 
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