Thread: saw some complaining about me posting this meme because I supported the INITIAL lockdown.

I thought it made sense to "flatten the curve" based on what I read. The data looked bad. The projections looked bad. What was coming out of China & Italy was terrifying. https://twitter.com/SteveSkojec/status/1329126066015719426

The virus was not well understood. I started hearing from health care professionals assuring me this was a serious thing, and moved scary fast. China was obviously lying while implementing draconian measures and Italy's fatality rate was off the charts.

Decisions had to be made based on insufficient information. Understanding of how virus affected people changed frequently. Remember when you weren't supposed to take ibuprofen bc it had something to do with ACE-2 receptors? r0 factor/lethality was significantly higher than flu.

I spent countless hours reading and researching to try to understand. First, because we were primary caregivers of an 88-year old man. Second, bc I have comorbidities and support a large family. Third, bc I saw disinformation & propaganda spreading like wildfire.

I've always tried to follow the facts and the data. There was so much histrionic nonsense out there on both sides. I've also been willing to comply WITHIN REASON with public health measures. For ex.: I don't think masks help much, but there were some case studies that indicate...

...they helped SOME, at least in some cases. OK fine. If they stop big droplets from flying around, I'll put one on if you make me. I'm not going to make a scene, because not a hill worth dying on IMO.

But I never wear one if I have the option. I'm not a true believer.

And the truth is, the thing killed a bunch of people early. I still don't buy into the notion of tons of fabricated cases, for reasons I don't feel like re-hashing here. It killed a million people in about 6 months.

The worst flu season in recent history killed about 650K in one year (2018-19). And that was with an exponentially higher number of known infections. Meaning the lethality of COVID, at least on paper, is significantly higher.

But then things changed late this summer.

The new caseloads have been going up, some because of testing, some because of seasonality. We saw three waves with Spanish Flu, so no big surprise that this would do the same. But the number of severe cases in proportion to infections didn't track with first wave.

We're still early on in the second upswing, but so far, it looks like it's killing fewer people, hospitalizing fewer, etc. Treatments are more effective. More people have had it. It appears to have been relatively de-fanged.

And revisiting what we did that did/didn't work is the appropriate thing to do at this point. We DID flatten the curve the first time. I saw it happen a second time here in AZ because of a late 1st wave. But overall, the measures haven't prevented a 2nd wave. And worse....

....what they HAVE done is put a ton of people out of business, make life miserable for countless workers stuck in suffocating masks all day (with minimal benefit), create tons of psychological issues, make schools impossible, etc. etc.

Also screwed up an entire election.

The last part - the screwing of the election - was a perfect example of not letting a crisis go to waste.

I still think the crisis was real, but fizzled. I also think the a-holes who took advantage of it to foment greater power are real. It's not either/or. It's both.

So yes, the logical thing to do when the facts point to a change in the on-the-ground situation is to evaluate what happened and adjust. My position has ALWAYS been "look at the known facts and interpret as reasonably as possible." And the facts say: stop doing what isn't working