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I'm seeing a lot of mostly right-wing folks gearing up to attack the governmental COVID-19 response as unnecessary. They are concentrating on poking holes in the different models, especially "Murray's," which underpins this: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
I have some thoughts on this.
I have some thoughts on this.
First, having been around the climate discourse for a long time, one tell of intellectual dishonesty is overemphasizing the faults of a single model.
The principle: Cast doubt on the model and many people begin to doubt the idea of a strong response to either crisis.
The principle: Cast doubt on the model and many people begin to doubt the idea of a strong response to either crisis.
But that's BS. These models are just one piece of a much larger set of the considerations and knowledge bases, which lead to very similar conclusions. In climate, there are a bunch of fields that have converged on human GHGs as explaining what we see in the world.
With COVID-19, there's more uncertainty, but the basics are similar. Virologists, military planners, public health officials, hospital executives, etc are looking at this. Their evidence is not the specifics of a model, but their knowledge of a piece of the system.
If you want to get outside the American ultra-polarization of information, consider: is Hong Kong doing what it is doing because of a model that some people think is too dire? Is that model why CCP risked its legitimacy by restricting the movement of 700 million people?
Or consider Europe. Do the Italians wish that they had waited longer to do something about their problem? How about the people in Madrid? Did Taiwan have people doing temperature checks on airplanes on December 31st because of this model? No, of course not.
Or go back in time. Look at any pandemic preparedness plan from long before COVID-19. Everyone agreed: If a bunch of people are going to get sick because of a highly infectious disease, even if the fatality rate is quite low, you have to take steps to reduce its spread.
There's an indifference to life underneath a lot of the rhetoric about opening the economy back up that I just will not accept.
I'm not willing to sacrifice my parents and I'm not willing to sacrifice you or your parents or grandparents either.
I'm not willing to sacrifice my parents and I'm not willing to sacrifice you or your parents or grandparents either.
Earlier today, a neighbor arrived in tears. Her mother's best friend just died. I refuse to say to her: "Hey, the flu kills old people, too." or "Well, she had some underlying conditions."
And I cannot understand anyone who would.
And I cannot understand anyone who would.
And remember: the same people trying to discredit experts who've spent their whole lives thinking about these topics also told you not to worry a month ago ... and now 15,000 people are dead and there's no end in sight.
