Infektioepidemiologian dosentti Jussi Sane kirjoitti Helsingin Sanomien mielipidekirjoituksessa 3.11.2022 otsikolla "Pandemian opeista puhutaan, mutta opimmeko mitään?" tinyurl.com/ncucttns Yksi opetus on, että akateemisen kansanterveystieteen (engl. public health) sisäiset koulukuntakiistat ovat siirtyneet osaksi julkista keskustelua ja yhteiskunnallista päätöksentekoa.

This Friday's #LakatosLecture discusses how scientists can love a theory so much that they decide that it cannot be refuted. Then they make up stuff to defend it. (Seriously!)

1/

#LakatosTwitter Lakatos (1976:177) writes: “[Scientists and philosophers of science like] Poincaré, Milhaud and Le Roy . . . . preferred to explain the continuing historical success of Newtonian mechanics by a methodological decision taken by scientists:
2/

An outbreak of a novel communicable disease is more likely to lead to a pandemic when relevant information about it does not flow freely early. Early free flow of relevant information is important as it enables a local response to quash the outbreak before it becomes non-local.

https://twitter.com/JamieMetzl/status/1593586473072066563

Ceteris paribus, political systems not amenable to free flow of information are more likely to produce communicable disease pandemics than are their competitors. (This is also another reason why political systems that restrict information flows are bad for humanity.) @JamieMetzl

Viikon näkyvin koronadebatoija lienee Helsingin yliopiston sosiaalipolitiikan professori Heikki Hiilamo [@hiilamo] , joka kehottaa Ylen mielipidekirjoituksessa yle.fi/uutiset/3-1259… koronadebatoinnin “suutareita pysymään lestissään.” 1/ @hiilamo Suutareilla Hiilamo viittaa koronadebattiin osallistuviin professoreihin ja tutkijoihin, joilla ei ole tartuntatautiepidemiologin koulutusta. Erityisen haitallisina suutareina Hiilamo pitää Eroon Koronasta -ryhmää*, johon kuului professoreja ja muita asiantuntijoita, 2/

YLE:n jutussa tulee hyvin esiin se, että suomalaisessa koronapolitiikassa vaikuttaa tällä hetkellä kaksi eri koulukuntaa: "STM-Varhilan koulukunta" ja "THL-Salmisen" koulukunta. Se, että media jäsentää koronaa koulukuntien avulla on tervetullutta. 1/ yle.fi/uutiset/3-1227… Kuten tieteellisilläkin koulukunnilla, koronakoulukunnilla on omat JA toisistaan poikkeavat teoriansa keskeisistä ilmiöstä (minkälainen sairaus korona on? minkälainen ilmiö koronapandemia on?) sekä metodeista. Ylen jutussa erilainen "teoria" ilmenee siinä...2/

Experts have been wrong about many things during this pandemic. It happens; it's normal; it's expected. But what happens after it it turns out that experts have been wrong? The standard model of #expertise suggests that experts change their opinion or become non-experts. 1/ However, evidence from this pandemic suggests that after experts have been found to be wrong about something (say, role of aerosols), they don't change their opinion overnight, if they change it at all. And they can get away with it, still remaining 'experts'. How? 2/

This NYT story (nyti.ms/33ao36j) offers by @apoorva_nyc offers a nice window into how leading (Western) public health experts view the the pandemic end game. Viewed thru the lens of my field, engineering management, it is an awfully pessimistic, fatalistic view 1/
🧵 The story outlines how the Western public health (WPH) consensus on the end game has evolved: FROM vaccine-based herd immunity killing the epidemic TO vaccine-based society-level protection that allows local outbreaks below the level of health care system overcapacity. 2/

BEGIN OF PARODY

Now that the vaccines are coming, the herd immunity propagandists have to hurry with their messaging. Luckily for them, op-eds by RT, the Russia's state controlled media outlet for Western audiences, provides ready-made talking points and soundbites (thread) 1/⬇️

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1338147706670346248

First, despite seeing the trucks roll out of the factories as we speak, vaccines take "too long to wait," however long that may be, so the best option is "to protect the most vulnerable people as best we can until enough of the rest of us have had it to achieve herd immunity." 2/

"[N]ew cases emerge in those returning from overseas — and the virus is detected under restricted conditions during mandatory hotel quarantine. Lockdowns have eased, restaurants and bars are open and last weekend the [@NRL] and [@AFL ]---finals played" 1/ tinyurl.com/yxs3tywb For those who have not followed news from Asia in the last 10 months, that is how you achieve a safe no-lockdown state: make the R go below 1 within the country AND control the border so that the virus does not come back. That's it. True story. 2/

So the Swedish approach was influenced by "viral coronavirus conspiracy videos" created by a dude referred to as a "virus truther" by the Bulwark and defended by Laura Ingraham when Youtube took his videos down?

https://twitter.com/killedbyproxy/status/1294399972721516544

Interestingly, Wittkowski's ideas, presumably via Sweden, were echoed by Finnish state epidemiologists, influencing the government's approach at least until March 16, when the government, apparently against the epidemiologists' advice, began to implement containment measures. 2/