Covid-19

I’m saying your logic reeks of “if just one child” logic. We can have discussions of benefits and downsides of public policy and health measures, but I think we can do them in a measured and sensible way. The CDC is getting a lot of questions about things like surface transmission and transmission from objects, and they don’t want to rule that out 100% to any degree, but I don’t think that’s a reason to say “wash your groceries”(and that advice on a mass scale can lead to a lot of people getting sick from ingesting soap).

A key point I want to make here is that public health experts already do this debate internally and we’re way way better at it than the public writ large, and yes I mean that even given all the shitty messaging that’s happened because in reality this is basically an impossible task. The entire discipline of public health is predicated on the “public” part - that is, what can we reasonably expect people to be able to do? We have communications experts and messaging experts and advertisers and a whole swath of science-backed professionals trying their damndest to figure this out.

This has been an overwhelming frustration of mine during this whole thing, because on top of idiots dismissing real science, I also have paranoiac friends going to unnecessary extremes, and this incites a circular panic. The extremely over-cautious reactionary types also make messaging difficult, doubly because smart science-loving liberally-minded people tend to think that just because they have access to Pubmed they can suddenly discuss something with the insight of someone who’s been doing this for their entire career.

Given the options, though, I will ignore the circular panic folks because while it adds unnecessary emotional burden, it also accomplishes the principle mission i.e. keeping people from dying (well, so long as they’re focusing more on the important things). That is also a reason why public health experts focus on a few key points, like handwashing and mask-wearing - we need to cut through all the noise to make sure that everyone is actually doing the effective things.

So if my friend who lives 5 minutes away is scrubbing all her groceries and making her husband sleep in the basement, but is also doing all the other things, I won’t bother telling her not to scrub the groceries because that anxious energy is being applied productively too, and it’s way too much work to convince smart people that they’re still being dumb about things. I ain’t got that kind of time or energy, none of us do.

The whole of public health is about those kinds of tradeoffs. We have to make them, because otherwise the circular paranoia rabbit hole tells you never to leave your house ever - which is true, and the only way to prevent all human-to-human disease transmission, but that would inherently cause societal collapse so obviously we can’t do that.

It’s a wild time to be in this field, tell you what.

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Oh hey, this is topical!

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3223

A good quick thread:

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Top comment: “Sure he isn’t just faking it?” :rofl:

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When everything in society is closed on Labor Day weekend except sports.

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F1 and Tennis have one thing in common today: the clear favorite and number one player/driver was given a proper penalty for a potentially dangerous mistake.

Hamilton was leading the Race, then entered the pit lane when it was closed, and was sent to the back of the race.

Djokovic hit a ball in anger, sent home without wins, points or pay.

Doesn’t matter if you’re the biggest name or the best or the most successful… you’re done.

Except Hamilton stayed in the race and earned himself points.

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Toxic cishets having kids they don’t want.

While obviously the above is a joke, parenting becomes WAY different when you suddenly are responsible for the stuff you were assuming Public school was going to talk care of. I.E schooling during the day while you work your normal job. Parenting can be a relentless responsibility when schools were in person it’s another level now.

The worst part currently is you are not getting the delight of teaching your kids new things but only the negative aspect of trying to keep them on task while trying to get your own work done. It’s no fun.

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Someone spots mobile command planes in the sky and predicts a covid 19 positive test for Trump an hour early.

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Not quite as scary as spotting E4s in the air instead, but close.

I hope Biden is ok; they were far from each other during the debate, but still.

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Coincidence? That plane was also in the area on the 28th and 29th.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae0414&lat=38.594&lon=-78.993&zoom=6.0&showTrace=2020-09-28

No idea. Did someone use it to predict a positive COVID test for Trump the two days before?

He’s fine.

EDIT: Another big Republican infection.