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Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by Jommi on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:05PM (#24212779)
Yes your last sentence is correct. It is very obvious what's happening, yet even people here on HN (who usually challenge this kind of populist stuff) don't seem to understand it. It's very intriguing.
Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by rootusrootus on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @06:13PM (#24217367)
> It is very obvious what's happening

I don't understand that comment. I keep up to date on the latest scientific papers on the coronavirus pandemic, and the one thing I wouldn't call it is obvious. We repeatedly see things happening that run contrary to what the consensus expectation was. Obviously some of this is due to improvements in our understanding over time, but we are still very much in the dark about how it is currently spreading, who is most likely to suffer fatal or severe consequences, how we best treat the disease, etc.

Charitably, it is neither as bad as we feared nor as innocuous as some hoped, but that was bound to be the case and easily predictable. I don't feel at all confident predicting what comes next, however.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by Jommi on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @06:55PM (#24217814)
I guess I should have been more explicit. It is very obvious that in early 2020 we barely knew anything about this specific Coronavirus.

The fact that we are still following the same guidelines as we did in February makes it pretty obvious that governments are not really working with the new data currently coming out, but instead still trying to scramble to put a cap on any possible downside COVID has.

To put it in other terms, most world governments (and majority of their people in some cases!) are thinking like this currently, in terms of "amount of danger"

potential, currently unknown, negative outcomes related to COVID > millions without jobs, tens of millions stuck inside getting cabin fever and whole industries collapsing.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by saalweachter on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @08:58PM (#24218754)
> The fact that we are still following the same guidelines as we did in February makes it pretty obvious that governments are not really working with the new data currently coming out, but instead still trying to scramble to put a cap on any possible downside COVID has.

Who is "we"? My state went from "no one go anywhere, disinfect surfaces" to "wear masks everywhere, avoid groups of people indoors". We've gone through a lot of phases as more information became available, and while things are very much not yet back to normal, many restrictions have been lifted once it was apparent they weren't needed.