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Andre's avatar

Was the response driven by epidemiology, though? I'd argue it wasn't.

They threw out actual consensus science on pandemics, as well as the appropriate response to one. The 6' rule was reached by haggling. Masks aren't effective. The CDC knew early on this was airborne, yet everywhere the official message was mask-mask-mask instead of urging the vulnerable to absolutely isolate. The non-vulnerable - at least half the public - didn't need to isolate at all.

I think it's a mistake to say we focused only on science. We did no such thing.

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Eskild's avatar

I have not read Blindsight is 2020 so forgive me if I'm making points that have been already been addressed.

When it comes to the initial lock downs (March 2020), I believe we did the right thing in being a little over cautious. At that time, as far as I can tell, I think it's fair to say we didn't know much about the virus or what the worst case scenario might be. It seems prudent to err on the side of caution, given that if the worst case scenario is as bad as it theoretically can be for a highly transmissible influenza, we would be in deep trouble.

I am in full agreement that public debates and honest discussions should have been going during this time, allowing us to fully weigh the costs and benefits of continuing to extend lock down. That said, one of the initial reasons I recall for the lock downs in the first place was to "flatten the curve" to avoid overwhelming our healthcare system. As someone with dozens of friends and acquaintances working as doctors, nurses and in healthcare IT, it seems they had their hands full even with the lock downs in place. If the healthcare system collapses, we all lose.

I guess my questions for Gabrielle are, do you think it's fair that we weighed the opinions of public health officials more? And perhaps more broadly, when it comes to tackling problems at this scale, how do we decide which voices that should be amplified (if at all)? Lastly, I'd be interested to hear your take on if and how the information landscape made this whole problem worse?

Thank you!

Eskild

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