Masks making a comeback

I know plenty more than the idiots we had leading public health. One of the great disasters. A lot of people should never be allowed to work in that profession again.

 

It was public health experts who established panic as healthcare policy, thereby killing multitudes.

My mobile mechanic would have done a better job.

 

Many if not most professions are captive. And public health is no exception. You must first buy into the model, never seriously questioning it, in order to participate in it …

 

so it’s like going to church but with a much shorter duration

 

Not at all. Completely different in fact. One is spiritual and following our Creator. The other is ignoring science and pushing a narrative in attempt to look morally superior.

 

I was willing to wear the mask and did so voluntarily. But I never called out anyone who didn't either.

Particularly at this point, my gut feeling is that they probably didn't make much of a difference if any at all. I'm not worked up about it though because it was a precautionary inconvenience for most of us adults at least. The closing of schools is a much more significant thing in my mind that I suspect will not be judged favorably in retrospect.

I do think the experts and officials could have been more straightforward about what they knew and what they didn't know. I think the American people might have appreciated a tone with a little more humility and a little less certainty. But messaging uncertainty can be difficult for several reasons.

 

Public health simply cannot own up to its mistakes. They are many and they are ponderous.

 

well, the science shows that masks made people dumber…so I guess this was to be expected. How long until people are required to get jabbed?

 

Whereas I know people who were arrested for not wearing masks, I don’t know anyone who was arrested for not taking the jab. But pressure to take the jab was IMMENSE. I quit my job when the company rolled out a vaccine mandate.

 

Come on man - have a little self awareness. There's a zero point zero percent chance that you know more about public health than the people who were leasing the covid response. You may disagree with their recommendations but they would absolutely annihilate you in a debate about public health or in a comparison of qualifications.

 

I think there has to be a happy medium between the suggestion that experts are infallible and the other extreme where everybody's opinion should be afforded equal weight. And it's not limited to public health either. As a weather enthusiast, it's fascinating to go back and watch videos of meteorologists saying things about tornadoes that we are sure today were simply not true, whether it was about opening certain windows or moving to a certain directional location in a building, etc. They used to recommend people going under overpasses but now warn against it. They were wrong then or wrong now, but I think they were trying their best.

Part of the beauty of science is that theories and opinions can be tested and refined. I maintain that humility is important in maintaining credibility long-term. James Spann talks about this all of the time in the context of how much we still have to learn about the weather. He's not perfect either, but definitely light years ahead of randos on FaceBook.

 

Oh I disagreed and time has shown who was right. Unfortunately a minority of idiots controlled the narrative and caused generational damage. To so many things.

 

Hard to provide humility to people who refused to acknowledge they were wrong.

We literally just in May started letting foreigners who chose to not take the shot into our country if they wanted to come legally.

 

I was saying that the experts/officials need to have and communicate humility from their end.

 

Got you. And I agree with you on that. I know I come across showing none. And a lot of that is because we did so many things so wrong. And time showed us that. Yet as you indicate. The people who pushed the policies they did refuse to just say things like…because of this I felt we really needed to shut schools down. That was the wrong decision as we see now. Or we tried the mask hoping it would work knowing there was no real evidence it would and at the end of the day it did nothing when it comes to spread.

 

If anyone feels contempt for you - and I hope no one does - it's not because of haughtiness. That's not what's contemptuous.

 

My general impression is that 2020ff has looked more like “Not their medication. My medication.” or “Damn them for making us lock down and wear masks! I don’t care how deadly the virus!” the civil rights angle.

My protestations are now rooted in my disbelief in the tenets of virology specifically. And I certainly didn’t “fall away” overnight.

Shortly after lockdowns commenced I was exposed to the no-virus camp. I initially resisted, I must admit, because I didn’t want to be thought crazy.

But over many months, I interacted with doctors, former doctors, a former virologist and an ordinary Joe who’s a monster compiler of the papers and studies that undergird virology.

Month after month, brick by brick I came to regard the notion of human beings as disease vectors as utterly absurd and alternative explanations for illness far more palatable.

 

Do you think your aversion to the notion that human beings are disease vectors has any connection to your religious beliefs? Like maybe we can’t be disease vectors if we are made in God’s image? But doesn’t the Bible speak of plagues?

 

I am an outlier in these parts.

 

I don’t think my religious beliefs have entered into it. Yes, the Bible does speak of plagues. But I don’t believe the documented plagues of history were viral in origin.