It is amazing to see what a difference a year makes when it comes to expert opinions. Here are two examples of expert advice from a year ago:
Video from March 2, 2020 at 23:45, Dr. Orixis Barbot, New York City Commissioner of Public Health, explains that coronavirus is not easily spread by casual contact, and it is okay to continue normal life. The only important thing is more frequent hand washing. Three weeks later the city was in a total lockdown. WATCH LIVE: Gov. Cuomo and NYC Mayor de Blasio speak on New York coronavirus case – 3/2/2020 - YouTube
It’s weird how people don’t understand how not to treat scientists like politicians.
“Oh so back then you were saying THIS, and then all this new learning and data and info came about, and now you’re saying THIS. Which is it Poindexter?!”
It wasn’t new learning and data and info. That dog won’t hunt. They were comparing it to the flu and they knew it was respiratory from day 1. Those fundamentals apply to all respiratory transmitted diseases.
Generally I side with expertise. Are the infallible? No. But there is whole strain of “fake it til ya make it” that runs through the political right and we are just coming out of an administration that didn’t know how to do anything or how anything worked.
Now I’m not expert, but the odds of some random dude who yells at his TV finding a solution that somehow the worlds experts have overlooked seem pretty remote.
Yes, the actual science was practically non-existent a year ago, and most of the data was from China and highly suspect.
A virologist or medical professional may have some insight into the risks of the disease, but they are not the experts when it comes to weighing the economic damage and resulting health problems from lockdowns.
A lot of the initial response was shaped by a wildly pessimistic computer model that projected 2.2 million deaths by mid summer of last year:
You aren’t really characterizing that accurately. “Without mitigation “, first two words in Intercept link, the Imperial College of London’s report is quite clear as it is on your link.
What from that report “shaped a lot of our initial response”? The Fed did virtually nothing, so was this the states responses or…?
The science about infectiousness or lethality of COVID was very limited in March. The experts went from wildly underestimating the risks to severely overestimating them within a matter of a couple of weeks.
To my knowledge there has never been a good scientific study that accurately compares the effects of masks for COVID. The best that I can see is that a mask clearly reduces the amount of droplets spread by a sneeze or a cough by the person wearing the mask. The protection to healthy people from wearing a mask is probably very low.
But, the science of epidemiology is well known. Dr. Michael Savage talked about this for years, DrSavage earned his PhD in epidemiology and nutrition sciences from the Univ. of Cal. at Berkeley. He called out Mr. Faucci for what he is. hack hack hack cough cough cough…