Thread by @enn_nafnlaus

Since comments were shut down on this thread... a reply thread.

1) The existence of a finite number of things that professionals have been wrong about in their field does not in any way imply the likelihood that a random person is likely to be more correct than professionals.

https://twitter.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1464655741709545473

E.g., if climatologists get some specific detail of climatology wrong in regards to *rapidly evolving news*, that doesn't mean that one should listen to John Doe over the IPCC.

2) When one posits "theoretical harms" of COVID restrictions up against the actual measured harms...

.... the real, demonstrable harms win. I used excess death figures to avoid the "died with COVID vs. died of COVID" red herring. And to be clear: yes, these excess deaths are mainly due to respiratory disease, & to a lesser extent cardiac - the way COVID kills people.

The only cause of death spike apart from COVID is heart disease - but again, SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with cardiac conditions, both acute and sequelae - and this was poorly recognized early in the pandemic.

3) Positing problems like "obesity" when US obesity data only goes up to the end of 2019 without evidence is not only meaningless against an actual, demonstrable threat, but illogical. In what world do reduced visits to restaurants and movie theatres increase obesity?

The argument seems to be against "lockdowns", but nobody *wants* lockdowns. Lockdowns are what happen when you *don't do enough to prevent spread* and let it overrun your hospital systems. The way to *prevent* this is vaccines, masks, ventilation, & superspreader event bans.

We've seen this exact same argument applied to all sorts of theoretical harms of policies to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. For example, suicide was supposed to increase. Except in reality, suicide rates actually decreased.

npr.org/2021/11/03/105…

4. You don't just get a choice to "move on". When you do too little, you outstrip hospital capacity, and then death of *all* causes will rise. Every single COVID patient taking up an ICU bed prevents ten major cancer or heart surgeries. You may want to move on. COVID disagrees.

Sometime life throws you fucking lemons. You don't get to wish them into apples.

Does it need to be pointed out that it's not you, young healthy people, who bear the brunt of your choices, but those around you? It doesn't revolve around you. If you're fine with Long COVID and...

post-infection sequelae for yourself, that's one thing, but that doesn't give you the right to harm your neighbors.

researchsquare.com/article/rs-106…

5) To point it out, we don't get to decide whether we have X years of a pandemic. We get to decide how severe they're going to be.

And that comes down to our actions.

* How much of our population do we vaccinate?
* ... and how well?
* What efforts do we need to achieve it?
* How much do we improve ventilation?
* How much do we prevent superspreader events?
* How much do we help suppress spread overseas?

But it also comes down to the virus, which we do not control - beyond suppressing its spread and thus mutation rate.

Again, though: you don't get to ignore a tidal wave. You can run through the streets shouting "fuck the tidal wave, I'm sick of tidal waves". It'll still hit.

6) If you think it's theatrical that you wear a mask to the table then take it off to eat, the part of that you should be questioning is the "sitting in a crowded, poorly ventilated room with no filter for your lungs" part, not the wearing a mask en route part.

7) I'll reiterate that nobody WANTS do to anything. Everyone's goddamn sick of this virus. But some of us are trying to STOP it from getting to the point where hospitals get overrun and there's no choice but lockdowns, while others are doing their best three-monkeys impression.

Have there been stupid actions in the name of prevention? Yes, a ton. But that doesn't mean "don't do non-stupid actions for prevention". Eg: shutting down a factory full of robots: dumb. Tesla implementing a workplace masking policy during a wave when few others were: smart.

And I think messaging has been a problem. Public figures should be open about how we're learning as we go along, rather than jumping from one magic solution / deadline to another. And to be honest about how important *time* is when it comes to solving problems.

One only needs to look to childhood vaccination schedules to see its utility. Time buys us production capacity. It buys us better treatments. It buys us hospital capacity. And so much more.

Time is unfortunately the one resource that nobody wants to give.

So just to stress... this is nothing personal.... I like and really appreciate you. But I had to push back against this thread.