Posted by:
Human
(
)
Date: May 18, 2020 10:06AM
There is a lot going on in your post that hits a nerve in me as well. Allow me to do as you did and launch off tangentially.
I’m far more tolerant of the growing divide of opinion on Covid-19. It’s inevitable, given the confusing, contradictory and in some cases laughable messaging from our leaders (of all parties and multiple professions). Also, I’ve long understood the growing distrust many people have towards ‘Science’, and also think it is sadly too often warranted. And just as finger-wagging vote-shaming doesn’t work in politics, finger-wagging intellect/moral-shaming doesn’t work in getting people to go along with scientific opinion, either.
I’ve seen a sharp increase in Covid scepticism in people around me, including from people I would have never suspected. A niece, in health care administration and part of the team tasked with creating the processes for hospitals to meet the anticipated but non-arriving spike in ICU needs, has become almost cynical. I’ll refrain from repeating her reasons, but they weren’t incoherent. Some of what she shared was rather troubling, actually.
We have to accept that the items the following Italian politician articulated publicly and on the record are thought and believed by millions and that it is increasing:
https://twitter.com/TheSharpEdge1/status/1261396443903885312?s=20Wagging our finger and calling people dumb or selfish or what you will will not suddenly dispel this point-of-view, if anything it emboldens. This can’t be hand-waved away with pejoratives.
So we delayed the virus’s spread, more or less. It’s temporary, but good.
Good or not, though, the health effects of the lock-down may prove worse than the virus. I have access to internal, unreported numbers (Police/health care) that point in that direction. This story isn’t being told, but it’s still a ‘fact on the ground’.
We might just find out that allowing naturally occurring herd immunity, in the end, is the only option, and that our precautions have largely been for nought, overall. We’ll see.
In the meantime, let me apologize on behalf of all us snotty-nosed runners dribbling drops of death 15 feet behind us. I understand why you believe the scientist who scared you with this idea, and I understand those who don’t believe this scientist. It’s fascinating observing the kinds of things we are sceptical about and not sceptical about. In the end, though, as always, there’s a place for good manners. I promise not to get my snot directly on you, should I be running past.
Human, constitutionally sceptical