COVID: looking back
Fauci’s been testifying that some of the social distancing recommendations for COVID were based on nothing much:
The idea was everyone staying six feet away from each other would slow the virus spread.
From that flowed the “need” to close businesses, shut schools, and generally immiserate average Americans.
Yet, per Fauci (in Wenstrup’s words), the 6′ guidelines “sort of just appeared” without meaningful scientific input and “likely not based on scientific data.”
Looking back, I found this old post of mine from quite early in the pandemic, mid-April of 2020. In it I wrote:
Personally, I’m all for the continuation of a certain amount – a milder amount – of social distancing. And in particular, since I’m in a high risk group because of age and a pre-existing condition, I plan to be fairly strict with myself. But that has nothing to do with what should happen in the larger society. I wouldn’t advocate a bunch of parades, of course. But I believe businesses need to reopen and people need to get back to something approximating regular commerce and regular life, and it needs to happen pretty soon in most places.
It is possible that there are huge costs in terms of illness, but it is virtually certain there are huge costs as well in keeping things closed. Those latter costs are not just economic, either. They can and probably will impact on physical and mental health as well, with people shut in and worried about their livelihoods, taking it out on each other in many instances, drinking, not exercising, overeating, becoming depressed, and not tending to other medical needs.
I remember when the whole 6 foot social distancing thing first entered the zeitgiest during the first days of the pandemic. I remember thinking that it seemed like nonsense based purely on my (admittedly layman’s) understanding of the way things like airborne pathogens spread and how generally any gas will eventually fill the volume of any enclosed space (I wonder if they still teach Thermodynamics in high school physics?). I remember applying this basic reasoning and realizing that things like how well ventilated a given indoor space is and how long an infected person has been in an area exhaling viral particles and such were far more important factors than any notion of some sort of minimal distance between people.
These conclusions seemed fairly straightforward to me, regardless of whatever any “expert” claimed. But evidently huge numbers of people were willing to believe what amounted to obvious nonsense over basic reasoning. And in many cases with a fervor that seemed aking to religious zealotry.
I remember the day I went to the supermarket and the line of people, desperate to stock up on everything, stretched 30 yards out of the building and into the parking lot. I couldn’t believe it had come to that.
I was angry at everything in those days.
And now it turns out to have been a lie and Fauci knew it. Damn his eyes.
I’m no fan of Dr. Fauci, but I think some guideline would have been useful and 6 feet is probably as good as any. The worst of humanity certainly came out during the pandemic; and much of Dr. Fauci’s guidance was marlarky couched in “science,” just as this guideline was. Why not just be honest, “First, if you don’t feel well or have recently been around someone who doesn’t feel well, stay home. Next, look, there’s no definitive study on this and we’re still researching how long this virus survives in air, and whether it is communicable via air or contact or both, but even it if it airborne and communicable that way, staying about 6 feet away from strangers when out in public should greatly reduce the risk of infection. Especially if infected people are quarantining.”
If the test was accurate, I have it now. It’s not pleasant — it’s like a bad flu — but I guess the very serious phase of the pandemic has passed.
Distancing, masking, vaccinations — the whole zeitgeist of the pandemic was suspect. And it is looking more and more like our suspicions were warranted. Bizarro world.
Hope I haven’t made this point before:
An anthropologist, maybe Boaz, said that pre-Abrahamic religions had nothing to do with morality, salvation, anything like that. They were all about getting help from one of the Big Guys in the sky about their worldly circumstances. Nothing else.
The guy in charge of rain wasn’t going to end this searing drought for no stringy chicken. That’s been tried. Didn’t work. So something more valuable. Nada. Eventually, you pitch somebody’s kid into the nearest volcano.
Works. Rains.
People live were it eventually rains. If it never rains, nobody lives there.
So, eventually, which means more and more valuable sacrifices as time without relief mounts up, it rains. Which proves it.
So. Human nature when a looming catastrophe, of mysterious characteristics, appears is to do stupid stuff. To demand to be made to do stupid stuff. To demand others be made to do stupid stuff.
The stupider the better. There were reasons to dismiss hydroxychloroquine, but one of them may have been that it was too simple. Too easy. Not stupid and without mysterious, impossible to understand, connections to the catastrophe.
Then throw in the surprising number of folks who are mad they didn’t get a gig on the HOA compliance board.
We have some friends who said folks in their subdivision took pictures of others not distancing and put them on facebook. Scolding.
Abraxas,
I hope you are better soon!
Richard Aubrey,
I wish your anthropologist friend were correct, but that explanation seems to be the opposite of human nature. If that’s how we were wired it would typically lead pretty quickly to beneficial behaviors. It’s the scientific method. Form a hypothesis and test it. Even if it coincidentally rains after throwing a child into a volcano it almost certainly won’t next time, since there is no correlation. So another hypothesis would be tested; and on and on until real causation is uncovered.
Unfortunately humans seem to be wired to appeal to emotional arguments and have to be taught the scientific method (which our schools have been woefully weak in, these past, several decades).
And to say pre-Abrahamic religions had nothing to do with morality is absurd. Morality is greatly affected by culture and societal pressures, but there is still morality. Honor and loyalty to one’s tribe/group/nation/people… are key components of any religion. Even ants and bees sacrifice for the good of the hive.
I came to my anti-lockdown stance from a different perspective. Even if it had worked, we can’t afford it.
I remember thinking that modern medicine is a luxury good for modern society. We can afford things like hospitals and physicians who train for a decade because our capitalist society produces excess profits that don’t need for food and shelter that we can spend on medical care. Locking down eliminates this productivity; once we got beyond those 2 weeks to flatten that curve we were in seed corn eating territory.
Now we are paying the price with inflation and social deterioration.
We still can’t afford it.
Abaxas:
Get well soon!
West TX Intermediate Crude,
Like so much our nation does*, I was against lockdowns because it punished the young for the sake of the old. Nothing wrong with the old, I suppose I’m a part of that demographic myself now, but when the sh*t really hits the f*n in a society it’s women and children first. Once we saw that children weren’t typically impacted by the virus, and the same for the young and middle-aged, we should have pretty much gone ahead; business as usual.
I think about the image of the school marm risking her life to travel to remote regions of the U.S. to educate children under hard scrabble living conditions. Young men going to Europe to war to keep the barbarians from the home front.
Yet, our nation sacrificed the education and livelihoods of our young for the safety of the old. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted the old and infirm to be safe, but we/they would have figured that out without needing to cripple the entire economic and educational system.
*Congress and the Treasury never hesitate to increase the debt owed by future generations for the benefit of the current voters; who mostly lean middle aged and older.
I agree with you West. I also rapidly came to the conclusion that the vast majority of the working age population were at very low risk of severe consequences from covid, hence any lockdown would ultimately be of very little benefit for a very high cost. I would have much preferred that our resources be utilised to pay for the sequestration of the vulnerable and additional sick leave payments so that those who were infected could afford not to go to work. A more targeted response would have provided much better bang for buck and probably similar if not better health outcomes.
I was against lockdowns because it punished the young for the sake of the old.
Rufus T.:
Triple ditto!
Rufus
“We” do not practice the scientific method. It’s rare, and requires ignoring what actually happens (by random) and is taken as gospel.
Among other things, my drought example doesn’t happen enough times in a person’s life or a culture’s memory to draw conclusions. Once would be enough, and a number of counter examples would be necessary.
(Reposted from the Vax post several days back.)
It is NOT possible to consider the question of this post WITHOUT pointing out the GROSS MALPRACTICE on the part of the powers that be WRT the disparagement of other (non-vax) treatments such as Ivermectin and HCQ+zinc/Z-Pak.
It is all part of a piece.
Part of a pattern.
Part of a grotesque conspiracy against the citizenry and against medical practitioners (and others) who smelled a rat and WANTED to fulfill their role as healers.
Who wanted to restore SANITY to the government power grab
Related:
“FDA Launches Fresh Bid To Toss Out High-Profile Ivermectin Case”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/fda-launches-fresh-bid-toss-out-high-profile-ivermectin-case
“Dissecting A Modern Vaccine Propaganda Piece”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/dissecting-modern-vaccine-propaganda-piece
…In which Peter Hotez once again rears his ugly head (and general ugliness).
– – – – – – – – –
As for Dr. “ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE” Fauci, the man’s a psychopath. Full Stop.
– – – – – – –
+ Bonus
After ALL the damage done, hey let’s take a step back, why don’t we…?
“Fauci’s former boss says COVID lab leak theory was not a conspiracy after calling it ‘distraction’ “;
“Dr. Collins agreed with Dr. Fauci’s concession that the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis is not a conspiracy…”
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/faucis-former-boss-says-covid-lab-leak-theory-was-not-conspiracy-after-calling
My view is that the entire response–the lockdowns, the mandated “social distancing,” the masks, the shots, really everything–was a terrible waste. That’s not hindsight; I’ve believed that since March 2020. Neo, I remember a post you made early on about the minimal response to a pandemic in the 60s, contrasting that to the Covid response. Anyone at higher risk could have isolated themselves, opted to take the shots if they wanted to, worn masks if they wanted to. Nothing should have been forced on anyone. There’s no evidence that all the measures forced on us had any net health benefit.
The damage, economic, psychological, and even medical, has proved to be long-term. I can forgive the panic in the first couple of weeks, but it was clear very early on that this was not a mortal threat to most people, and that none of the measures taken would stop the spread anyway. The most costly mistake was sending those sick elderly patients back to nursing homes. Second most costly was preventing people from taking available treatments. I continue to believe, based on the evidence and my own experience (I got Covid in January 2022, took Ivermectin, and improved dramatically within a day), that the ventilators killed more people than they saved, and that HCQ, Ivermectin, and Vitamin D were the most effective treatments.
Thanks, Rufus and neo. I should be better in a few days. I just want to sleep now.
I would argue that the “defense of the old” was trotted out as the cover story for the lockdowns, but the ulterior motives were to make a majority of the populace miserable (both emotionally and financially) before the election and ensure mail-in voting became the law of the land.