In an interview, epidemiology professor Vinay Prasad says,
Another great failure is that we didn’t learn a lot. We did so many different interventions, but we didn’t actually study many of them. For example, there are still questions about how much to wear masks, and under what circumstances. We don’t know much more about that than when the pandemic began.
If I had been in charge, this would have been different. You will recall that I clamored for rigorous testing very early on. He also says,
Zoom allowed a lot of upper-middle-class white-collar people the ability to work and make money and not lose their jobs, and to exclude themselves from society. That fundamentally changed the pandemic. If you went back 15 years ago, and you didn’t have Zoom, you would be facing unprecedented layoffs of wealthy, upper-middle-class people. I think a lot of businesses would have had staggered schedules and improved ventilation. Schools would have pushed to reopen. Amazon Prime and Zoom and all these things in our lives allowed a certain class of people to be spared the pains of COVID-19, taking them out of the game, and making them silent on many of the issues that affected other communities.
Epidemiologist are a different breed from public health officials, but there is this comment on NPR’s Morning Edition on 4 May 2021:
“ING: A question we often ask doctors – and they say it is very hard to pin down an answer, but let’s try it with you.
KHAN: (Laughter).
KING: With the rate of vaccinations as it is, do you think we’re going to get to herd immunity?
KHAN: Oh, please, Noel, herd immunity – so…
(LAUGHTER)
KING: I said I was going to try.
KHAN: …You know, 1918 was called the great pandemic; I’m going to call this the pandemic of false gods. So let me give you some context. So countries of diverse size, geography, social and political structures like China, Australia, Rwanda, they have zero-to-no cases, no vaccine, and the only god they worshipped was the public health god to protect everyone.
When this outbreak started in the U.S., we decided on – to use the evil and quite disastrous false god of herd immunity, which was to infect everyone. Well, fortunately, we abandoned that after about half-a-million deaths in the U.S. And then we pivoted to this new herd immunity, which is the routine herd immunity, which we think of vaccines. But that’s really more for polio or measles than it is for something like COVID-19 because, you know, we have multiple public health measures. The heart is isolation quarantine and add in masks to that, social distancing, targeted lockdowns of places where people gather, and then add vaccines on to that. So I don’t go around talking…”
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/04/993384834/vaccine-hesitancy-slows-pace-for-the-goal-of-herd-immunity
Public Health Officials are gods eh? It’s “Patria or Muerte” (Homeland or death).
–“When this outbreak started in the U.S., we decided on – to use the evil and quite disastrous false god of herd immunity, which was to infect everyone.”–
I wonder if anyone is gaslit enough to believe this. I’m old enough to remember 2020. We shutdown the economy from March to May (varying bit by state) in an effort to protect people, and had mask mandates and social distancing rules of various forms (quite a bit of it enforced by the private sector) throughout the land. Not exactly a ‘lol, let’s infect everyone’ approach.
Seriously… he talks as though we did nothing until 500,000+ deaths, then locked everything down. According to the CDC we didn’t hit 500,000 deaths until Feb 2021. If only we had done nothing in 2020 and trusted to herd immunity.
If I am being as charitable as possible, Khan is a twit. That is being really charitable, however, as you have to believe he is pretty remarkably stupid to honestly believe what he is saying. So stupid you have to wonder how he became a doctor.
I wonder if there would be have been such a panic had the pandemic occurred fifteen years ago. The average survival rate for healthy people under 55 is something close to 99.8%. Given that, I can imagine that during a 2005 COVID-04 pandemic, the economy would have been left open, and the quarterly GDP hit for the initial outbreak would be something like -5% or -10% rather than -30%.
There wouldn’t have been, just like there wasn’t for the 1957 or 1968 asian flu, which were incidentally far more virulent, and also went global…..
Life would’ve gone on as normal, in a society which didn’t have siloed groups of people that never let a crisis go to waste.
Given everything in the article, you would think that the authors would endorse the approach in Florida (which matches all their recommendations and which they acknowledge had good results), but the author also makes explicit that he disagrees with that approach.
When the next pandemic comes, could these people at least consider supporting a Republican in real time when it can actually impact policy. I know it’s a big ask. We don’t really get a lot out of people after the fact stating that now that its all over they think their side was kind of dumb but they still wouldn’t have taken the one action necessary to get better outcomes.
Coincidentally, Abbott (not too behind from DeSantis in lifting the restrictions and for taking reasonable a reasonable approach under the uncertainties) is being challenged as being way too slow from the right.
Part of the fun of living in a red state? I’ll split the difference, which is more in line with my thinking vs. the silly blue states. But, the hard right is absolutely needed for the appropriate push back in situations like these.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2021/07/10/challenger-don-huffines-blasts-incumbent-texas-gov-greg-abbotts-record-at-dallas-cpac-convention/
Kling: “You will recall that I clamored for rigorous testing very early on.”
I assume this refers to masks in the above quote. Ten randomly controlled trials on the effectiveness of masks, some comparing cloth and surgical masks were analyzed in a meta study that concluded: “In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks.” This is why Fauci said masks that people buy at stores aren’t effective, and he repeated this in at least one email in March 2020.
If Kling means he was clamoring for rigorous testing for Covid-19 early on, it would have made no difference in the spread of the virus for any country apart from possibly island nations that also closed their borders early.
I meant rigorously testing whether people could get it from touching a doorknob, instead of getting everyone worried about that and washing their groceries when they came home. That sort of rigorous testing. Testing hypotheses.
People got over the door knob transmission hypothesis many many months ago. Can we move along to the bigger ticket items now? Where was Arnold on these?
Actually they didn’t. Here in Hawaii still plexiglass coverings on everything, all food items, buffets, etc still individual wrapped, businesses still mandated to require hand sanitizer, wipe surfaces every hour, and after every reported positive be shutdown and do deep disinfectant
cleanings, and everyone still scared to shake hands. And the state department of health supports those measures and continues to make PSA’s about it.
So no, we haven’t gotten over yet the government still putting out and mandating false information.
Just another crazy blue state doing what they do?
My parents just got back from the big island. Had to take a virus test prior to the flight despite having been fully vaccinated.
There were no such silly requirements when my family visited Florida.
Should we be generalizing off of a state that is among the least populated in the union?
Please say hello to Mazie and the rest of your crazy blue team.
We’ve also got transmission and death data at a state level on lockdowns/masks vs. none. However imperfect it might be, it doesn’t look too compelling for the lockdown/mask crowd. Not even close.
Here is Kling on 2/10/21:
“You can’t die now–it’s the Super Bowl! Total COVID deaths for February 7-8 were under 3000, the lowest two-day total this year. Doctors do have a lot of discretion to keep someone alive for a day or two longer if that is more convenient for the family. I’m expecting a bounceback today”
Wrong (to state it charitably)?
And, Kling from 2/20/21 on Makary vs. Alexander:
“I bet that the number of undetected cases in the last two months is less than double the total number of detected cases over that period. If so, then his claim that we will have herd immunity by April is probably unsound.”
I tried to bet Kling at the time, but no response.
I’m sensing a strong case of confirmation bias in this post from 02/2021 and many others.
No, I was right. Go here and mouse over those days in February. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR2naOXH9Knefea04lT_DpC8q1asviPxPwpW1JFcpRhNtup1wG-wahDipzk Although the numbers differ from the under 3000 in my post, they do show a big jump on February 9, as I predicted. I was not predicting any permanent wave, just a one-day jump.
“I was not predicting any permanent wave, just a one-day jump.”
It would have been more useful if you had stated as such at the time.
Look, I don’t have the cranial ammunition to out smart you. And, I’m never going to pretend otherwise.
But seriously, looking at the forest, did you get it more wrong than right? Please provide an honest assessment. The virus was and is inconsequential for like 99% of the population.
Bonus question: should we get our 7 yo vaccinated when/if approved for her age group? From our perspective, it’s never going to happen without further trials. Thankfully the voters of Texas agree.
The lived experience of upper-middle-class white-collar people is the most important, most significant of all lived experiences, according to upper-middle-class white-collar people.
Or maybe it’s just objective reality. The statistics are wrong. If the statistics show a huge spike in crime, then upper-middle-class white-collar people can consult their own lived experience, now renamed objective reality, and go back to lecturing the victims of crime.
The victims of crime are not, after all, upper-middle-class white-collar people. The statistics are distorted by including people who are not upper-middle-class white-collar people.
Correct the statistics by giving more weight to the lived experience of upper-middle-class white-collar people. But don’t call it lived experience, or a bubble, or narrow-minded narcissism. Just call it science. Keep excluding everyone who isn’t upper-middle-class white-collar people until achieving science.
Our lived experience is at least a 25% increase in net worth during the virus and an inordinate increase in free time to add improvements to our home. Life was and is good.
However, I consistently spoke out against the work-from-home Zoom culture despite the significant upsides for us. It was mostly unnecessary b*llshit at the expense of the little guy and primarily the future taxpayer. Stay tuned for the reckoning?
Also, how many more Zoom calls need to be spent mourning the death of Saint Floyd?
I beg to differ that nothing was learned. Governors and presidents learned that using fear as the lever, public health is the mechanism by which to nullify constitutional protections, the courts, and the power of the legislative branch. We are now ruled by executive orders empowered by a permanent public health state of emergency.
Everybody should have learned that the federal and state systems of open-ended ’emergency’ executive powers, declarations, indefinite self-authorization of power-arrogating renewals without oversight, and so forth, is a legal and practical disaster fundamentally at odds with our constitutional system and in *dire* need of curtailment and reining in. Of all the things people see to be passionate about, however, this issue is nowhere near the top of the list.
By chance, do you have any polling on this?
I’m not seeing much opposition to the special pandemic powers that were willfully granted to the governors. (Excluding the red states).