Incompetence “R” Us
- This topic has 20 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Dora Maar Model in swimsuit 1936 I’ll try one more time, if only to show you that me heart’s in the right place. Yes, lockdowns work, an
[See the full post at: Incompetence “R” Us]I haven’t seen even one say, I’m sorry, I failed, I step down. Instead they all talk about doing more of what didn’t work.
Not all entirely. We’ve just seen a pollie resign in Australia:
At Victoria’s COVID-19 hotel quarantine inquiry, Daniel Andrews squarely pointed the finger of blame at Jenny MikakosMikakos was thrown under the proverbial bus, and the catastrophe continues.
There’s no doubt your heart’s in the right place, as your support of the soup kitchen and efforts in Greece, and tireless work here testifies.
But your brain isn’t in quite the right place on any of this – sorry.
You assert “lockdowns work” because your crude mechanistic first-principles assumption of how they spread is an almost perfect example of an unfalsifiable assertion.
Then you dismiss comprehensive studies correlating lockdown against outcome (and demonstrating the almost complete lack of correlation) without reason or evidence.
A – B pair studies of two countries are by definition useless, since it’s impossible to control for differences/variables between them. The only rational way to assess the value of lockdown is via the kinds of studies you dismiss.
It’s OK – you’re entitled to your opinions – irrational and unsubstantiated though they may be. The illustration of the power of denial is as valuable as anything you could write!What works
Shave facial hair to prevent leakage.
Use full face respirators with the proper filters.
When removing mask and changing filters assume they are contaminatedAs I said previously, I think lockdowns don’t really work in the long haul because Covid is so contagious that it’s very easy to lose whatever you gained by locking down once locking down has ended. Universal face-mask wearing (just as long as they are actual face-masks that were designed for that purpose, even cloth ones) are thought to have a lot to do with why Japan has been relatively successful in containing the virus.
I think that the reason the US has been so hard-hit is because economic neoliberalism has hollowed out our capacity for resiliency in the face of crises, and extreme wealth inequality has created a very large mass of people in very poor health. It also doesn’t help that as a society, we’re just not very good at all about taking care of ourselves in terms of health (both mental and physical).
@ Ilargi
Great summarizing essay. It should be reprinted world wide but there is no chance whatsoever of that happening, is there? Such a dissemination of rationally beneficial and honestly well intended communication world wide might even calm things down a bit or save few thousand lives. But we all also know that such a sane and beneficial rationale has no bearing whatsoever on what gets printed (or suppressed) about the pandemic pretty much anywhere, don’t we?
Why, it’s almost as if what governments, companies and institutions do or say about the pandemic has nothing to do with the actual welfare of people, and everything to do with a dizzying array of other agendas so numerous and complicated that its impossible to even sort them out (much less choose one to agree with.)
Nevertheless I salute and appreciate your resolve. Hang in there.This is the best summary so far. The coronavirus pandemic is now an argument about science, ideology, economy and religion.
In the West, the virus is endemic like HIV. Treatments will come available for people who can pay for it with their credit cards. Those who can’t will die if they are old or have a comorbidity. Cheap treatments will be passed around by word of mouth. Maybe there will even be a vaccine next year. It too will assist in the transfer of wealth from the working and middle classes to the 1% (50 trillion dollars, so far, since the 1980’s plutocratic takeover of the West).
Let’s be crystal clear. China controlled the virus. Its economy is growing. It is not in a pandemic depression like the USA. China is not alone. Asian and South Pacific nations and Cuba have controlled the virus. They all have in common working governments and functional public health systems. In addition, the USA is suffering from riots, loss of jobs, hurricanes, firestorms, and toxic air.
If government of the people by the people is restored, the USA with a national public health system could control the virus too. It is simple. Oligarchs do not want a working government that ends their exploitation of everyone else and the environment, raises their taxes, and regulates corporations. Donald Trump is part of the clan of nationalist oligarchs. He is quite willing to ignore science, pander to myths, and exploit human and natural resources to get richer. It is what he does. Joe Biden, on the other hand, is the best politician that Wall Street can buy.
The Western Empire has fallen; except, unlike ancient Rome, the USA is armed with 3,000 nuclear weapons and if it splinters apart, climate change cannot be addressed. Coastal States will be swamped and Western Forests burnt down.
Yep, We’re all on our own. That’s the message I got – loud and clear – from this crisis. Not as individuals, it’s up to us, as families/towns/tribes/[the Dunbar number] we have to stick together and muddle through.
Yeah @Illargi you’re probably right about the homemade masks. I do wear them, better than nothing at all perhaps.
Public service message – some clever chap back in March pointed out that the really good furnace filters (the MERV 14 or better) are made from the same material as N95 masks. In a pinch (for instance if your nation has next-to-no production capacity of basic medical necessities because it offshored its industry to the Far East because: reasons) you can fashion many serviceable if unfashionable N95-ish masks from one. I can’t find the link now but seems like a web search will bring up several how-tos and critiques of the method.
Nevertheless I salute and appreciate your resolve. Hang in there.
D Benton SmithI second D Benton Smith!
Lock downs properly done DO WORK!
I live in such a country; they locked down immediately and followed up with tracking and an excellent medical response. Asian’s tend towards masks even during “normal” times, so no stretch through these pandemic times.
Boogaloo, who lives in Korea, has voiced much of the same results.
Thailand (where I live) hasn’t had 60 deaths and under 4,000 confirmed cases.
Sadly, this has muchly been a really fucked up situation on the part of governments, largely due to, as you say, incompetence on an individual level as well as (and especially) on the governmental level.
I might also add, that never in my long life, have I seen such failure of responsibility on a personal level…This is the best summary so far. The coronavirus pandemic is now an argument about science, ideology, economy and religion.
VietnamVetKudos to you as well, nicely stated…
Yes, lockdowns work, and so do facemasks.
Obviously they didn’t and don’t. Asserting that at the beginning of your article makes the rest of your article irrelevant.
I am in agreement with restless94111. Lockdowns and facemasks are both clear failures in policy at this point.
IF facemasks worked at stopping a deadly virus from spreading then everybody would have been voluntarily wearing them and the epidemic would have been over in a matter of weeks. No need for a government mandate. It is just political theater now.
The initial lockdown made some sense because it was a new virus. But by the Easter holiday (mid April), it was clear that this corona virus was much closer to a normal flu than the bubonic plague of yore. It is everywhere now and unlike Ebola outbreaks, containment is not possible.
Competent or incompetent ? Doesn’t matter. Either way the virus outbreak will run its course. Yes, millions might die…but we also have competent doctors who are getting better at treating it too. Kudos to TheAutomaticEarth for acknowledging hydroxychloroquine, vitamin D and Zinc. I would add that health authorities should—if anything—also be advocating for immune system strengthening by encouraging full nights sleep, exercise and fresh outdoor air. Except for nursing homes and medical facilities, there is no reason for any government mandated restrictions anymore.
Sorry if I sound cavalier to some people but personally I have already survived a half year battle with cancer that could have killed me. I am comfortable with the idea of death. No more living in fear, especially an artificially hyped one by a hysterical press and opportunistic politicians.
Facts are that you will be exposed to coronavirus (possibly already have been), you might get sick (99% likely mild) and even in worst case scenario (death), well, that comes for us all anyways sooner or later.
Good luck & bon courage!
PS, If an important celebrity dies of corona virus (reality star, footballer, etc.) then all bets are off and I will be first to go all in on PANIC mode 24/7.
“The droplets that the virus hitchhikes on to get from one host to another are way too small to be stopped by granny getting creative with her bathroom curtains.”
Both kind of masks work. Homemade does not work as well, but it protects others far more than yourself. What you want is everyone to protect everyone else. When you do that, you are protected too. One should not just think about one’s own protection, but the protection of the community.
https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1249516137450176512/photo/1
And you covered Taleb’s The Masks Masquerade in the June 15 Debt Rattle.
A good way to put it is that Hillary Clinton’s partisans from the 2016 election would have us believe that Covid is some sort of civilization-leveling mini-apocalypse. Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, would have us believe the whole thing is a “nothing-burger” despite a million dead worldwide after less than a year, with no signs of the death-toll appreciably slowing in countries where the contagion isn’t contained. The truth is somewhere in between those two extremes. While Covid is on track to kill more people than the influenza pandemics of 1957 and 1967, we still shouldn’t conclude at this time that Covid is worse than those. The world is more populous now than it was than by a factor of several billion people, and that a lot of those people are poor means more opportunities for deadly influenza or coronavirus strains to cause suffering and take lives. We’ll just have to see what happens, it would appear.
A good point was made about face-masks that bears repeating: A good, non-expired N-95 mask will protect you and other people (yes, n-95 masks expire at a certain point), but the regular cloth or disposable masks worn properly (no “dick-nose”!) are very helpful in protecting other people. Remember, it’s very possible to be an asymptomatic carrier with Covid. And I support face-mask mandates on the state level, because common face-masks work best for pandemic control when everybody is wearing them.
Lockdowns are risky because they carry risks and harms of their own, are highly questionable in their effectiveness as a long-term strategy, and should only be used locally when the local hospitals and clinics are in danger of being overwhelmed. But feeling harmed or threatened by being compelled to wear a face-mask in a crowded indoor setting or on public transportation suggests a sheer level of right-wing snowflakery that would put the most adenoidal purple-haired social justice warrior to shame.
I would just like to add that I regard Chris Martenson’s coronavirus video-series to be my “go-to” source of information on what’s true about this virus and what’s not. And he presents his thinking on the matter with less ideology than probably anybody else on the Internet.
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” — John Kenneth Galbraith courtesy Chris Martenson
There’s an intellectual corrolary to this. People invested in a certain point of view will resist alternatives to that point of view. Their resistance will be roughly equal to their emotional/physical investment in their point of view.
It is important to know that in order for a N95 mask to be effective a person must wear the size that correctly fits that person. When I was working as a registered nurse for surgery and ICU, I went through the process that identified which N95 mask size property fit me such that I would be protected from airborne. There was a person responsible for running the procedures who first tried me with a mask that she thought would work for me. Next she used an aerosol to test the mask effectiveness for me and it was not effective as I was able to smell the nasty aerosol. She had to select another size and retest and retest before we found the size that worked for me. The mask selection procedure took a while perhaps 30 minutes because I had smelled the nasty aerosol.
My thoughts are that:
the general population will never be fitted for N95 mask size,
the general population should be left alone to live their life to its fullest extent prior to death
the response to COVID-19 has been a total failure in every way everywhereI am inspired by noticing that we will be securing vaccine doses a $20 a pop. Still, the price hardly compares to the HCQ gifted to us by India in the millions of doses; they sit in a warehouse expiring, and who will complain, certainly not 200K dead Americans? (are they dead if they still vote?) I think it might have been fitting to bury them with the dose of HCQ they were told was so dangerous it might kill them.
In case the image tag fails:
Stop calling it “Quarantine”. Quarantine is for the sick. This is house arrest.
Stop calling it “Social Distancing”. There is nothing social about forced isolation.
Stop say “Safer at Home”. Because for millions of Americans in abusive situations and with mental health struggles, their home is anything but safe.
Stop saying this for the “Greater Good”. No good can come form the government picking and choosing who is essential and who isn’t (think Nazi Germany) Every single person and every single business is essential.
And most of all, stop saying the “New Normal”. Because there is nothing normal about any of this.I really think its says so much about the moral bankruptcy of our political divisions that we can’t use HCQ to alleviate coronavirus suffering because “orange man bad”. Though I suppose it also doesn’t help that Big Pharma wants us all to use something more expensive and with a patent on it. Ain’t it fun living in an empire in decline? :-/
@ Kimo
” A document from 1377 states that before entering the city-state of Ragusa in Dalmatia (modern Dubrovnik in Croatia), newcomers had to spend 30 days (a trentine) in a restricted place (originally nearby islands) waiting to see whether the symptoms of Black Death would develop.[16] In 1448 the Venetian Senate prolonged the waiting period to 40 days, thus giving birth to the term “quarantine”.[1] ”
Quarantine as practiced since the term was first invented was about isolating the potentially contagious not the sick.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.