But was it medical science when the CDC advised people, very strongly, to not wear masks or that the virus coming out of Wuhan was of no concern to everyday Americans? How are people supposed to believe in capital 'S' science when our scientific institutions make claims based on their guts instead of just admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with reproducible experiments).

[EDIT]My point is, is the self-inflicted loss of trustworthiness not well earned by the CDC? When the CDC said repeatedly that masks would only make you catch the virus or that Americans shouldn't prepare or panic about the new virus, when that turned out to be either lies or decisions based on nothing approaching the rigor or science, why should people believe things have changed? How does the layperson understand that now the CDC is basing recommendations on 'S'cience?

Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time?

You say

> admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with reproducible experiments).

But what kind of response is that really, when there's an infectious disease and the center for disease control tells the public "We have no clue what the appropriate response is, we're going to tell you in a couple months after we've done some reproducible experiments"?

On the contrary, the ONLY ethical way for the CDC to act in the face of an emerging (potential) crisis is recommendations based on the current beliefs of the organization (which may be incorrect as they are, as you say, "based on their guts") and updating them the moment more evidence comes available (Which they did. Repeatedly.)

So in fact, I would not say I've had a loss of trust but a gain of trust by an institution acting in a very rational manner throughout the pandemic.

>Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time?

To properly calibrate how we treat their recommendations.

I'm most sympathetic to the CDC, because everyone spreading their message are con men. In the most classic of senses, literal con men. They tell me they have the must-be-believed scoop, up until they're found out. Then they have an excuse for why I was wrong for coming away from our interaction with the perception that their preliminary statements should be taken as seriously as I did. But now, this time, today, the have the real must-be-believed scoop that I can trust.

They knew that masks worked from the get go and openly admitted that their statements about masks being ineffective were driven by fears of shortages, not lack of data. This is why their statements were effectively "masks don't work unless you are a healthcare worker". Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements; they should be stating the truth to the best of their ability. It's ok to put some spin on information to achieve results, but issuing knowingly false statements immediately shreds your credibility.

> Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements

How is this political or economic? It was purely public health.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought we could trace and contain anybody with covid, thus ELIMINATING the virus. In this view, only healthcare workers need masks! If healthcare workers go without masks because every ordinary joe stocked up on masks and toilet paper, that means that healthcare workers get infected and become the spreaders, which is the opposite of "containing".

The original PR was something like "masks don't work unless it's an N95 mask and you wear it in a very specific way, and healthcare workers need those anyways so don't buy 'em". Yeah, I can agree it feels misleading now.

But in a world where we're trying to literally ELIMINATE the virus, it makes sense: Wearing a cloth mask near someone with the virus COULD get you infected, so you're better off not being in that situation in the first place.

Once it became clear that we couldn't just have everybody stay at home until the virus is gone, the CDC changed their recommendation to wearing cloth masks. This was about 2 weeks into "lockdowns", at the very very beginning of april.

I fail to see whats so bad about the CDC's recommendations. From the point of view of public health (again, that's what the CDC is. A public health agency), these recommendations make sense in context.

> At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought we could trace and contain anybody with covid, thus ELIMINATING the virus. In this view, only healthcare workers need masks! If healthcare workers go without masks because every ordinary joe stocked up on masks and toilet paper, that means that healthcare workers get infected and become the spreaders, which is the opposite of "containing".

Healthcare workers aren't getting masks through the same supply chains as regular people; they are getting them through hospitals. If it truly was the case that hospitals were being outbid for supplies by private entities, that is a commerce regulatory problem arguably out of scope of the CDC. The government should have bitten the bullet and passed a law to forcibly route material to hospitals and / or eminent domained existing stockpiles for sale by companies or individuals and given them to hospitals. It is not the CDC's job to handle supply chain management in these contexts. If the CDC would like to get involved, it should be encouraging people to give masks to health care workers because they work and because health care workers should take priority. This preserves their credibility and shifts the responsibility to act onto the entities that should be bearing it: the president and congress.

If covid-19 were containable, then average people don't need masks. This isn't new territory: we've contained infectious diseases before, like SARS and ebola, and average Joe didn't need a mask then, either.

The CDC (and frankly every major government in the world) believed that covid-19 could be contained, and that no major outbreak would happen inside their country. This was incorrect. But if you hold this assumption, the CDC made the correct recommendation: N95 masks, properly worn, are the masks that protect against covid-19, and average people don't need them.

If covid-19 were contained why would there be a mask shortage? Transmission in the general population seems necessary to cause a nationwide shortage in first place.

>The CDC (and frankly every major government in the world) believed that covid-19 could be contained

There's plenty of photos from asian countries where mask use was immediate, wide spread, and effective.

We are now inching towards the political reality of the situation, but that is essentially what the CDC and various hospitals tried to do.

New York went to the federal government to get masks and was told to pound sand. They then ordered them from Canada and were once again impeded by the federal government[1]. So now you are in a situation where your the hospital supply chain is now gone, and you are forced to buy masks for medical workers in the marketplace, and you are now facing the real possibility that the general public may buy up all the masks before they can contain and eliminate the virus.

The CDC may have been acting in it's own best interest in the face of a federal branch who refused to believe that the virus was a big issue. If the CDC truly believed they had time to contain and eliminate the virus, I can see how telling people to not stock up on masks may have been a good idea at the time.

[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-fbi-redirects...

> They knew that masks worked from the get go

Can you point to the studies that they would have used to confirm this belief?

If you insist I'm happy to go hunting for studies, but let's remember that the CDC from the start was advocating that people reserve masks for healthcare workers. If they didn't believe that masks worked, why would they do that?

I do insist. You're making the claim that WHO / CDC knew that masks work. So, let's see the evidence that you think they had.

> If they didn't believe that masks worked, why would they do that?

Because a healthcare professional stuck in a room with symptomatic people is a different situation to a member of the public walking around.

Especially because HCPs are trained to use masks, they use them in combination with other PPE and routine handwashing; their PPE is made to standards and tested to make sure it complies with those standards; HCPs are audited on their use of handwashing and PPE.

> On the contrary, the ONLY ethical way for the CDC to act in the face of an emerging (potential) crisis is recommendations based on the current beliefs of the organization

This is debatable, but in any case, is it excusable for the CDC to hold beliefs that are so badly wrong in the first place? Especially in the face of evidence from the rest of the world?

It probably wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't considered the profits of science and instead just experts that might have the wrong idea.

I think this, again, stems from a general misunderstanding of what science is. Science is a method of drawing conclusions about data. Sometimes, those initial conclusions can be misguided by incomplete data. The world discovered this virus less than a year ago. It takes some time to determine the different transmission vectors and risk factors associated with each. The CDC did not make a claim based on their "guts". The initial stance on masks was determined for a few reasons:

1) People often don't use masks properly. They often touch their masks and their faces. The initial thinking was that the virus spread largely through touching contaminated surfaces.

2) Mask mandates are difficult (as we are seeing now) and significant portions of the population refusing to use masks undercuts their efficacy.

3) There was a shortage of PPE when the pandemic started. The CDC and NHS didn't want to find themselves in a situation where hospitals had a hard time procuring masks because scared citizens hoarded the supply.

The anti-science issue in the US appears to have a few prongs to it. There has been a growing distrust of science for quite some time with the anti-vax and flat earth movements. I'm not sure what caused it, but it sadly appears to be a growing trend. Also, as we are seeing with the Coronavirus response, a lot of people seem to misunderstand that scientific consensus can change as new data is collected.

1) sounds like an argument looked for after the fact. Masks were recommended initially especially because they stop you from touching your face and would train you not to do so.

2) doesn't make sense to me: because masks aren't perfect and some people refusing to wear masks makes them less efficient they'd advise to not wear masks at all?

3) is a political stance, not a scientific one.

Would people have reacted differently to masks if they weren't intentionally mislead on so many levels about Covid-19 in general (the WHO losing a lot of credibility) and the efficacy of masks? When you have people who are skeptical of the government, and the government lies to them and gets caught, won't that make them even more skeptical of whatever the government says next?

I don't think there ever was a scientific consensus that masks aren't effective against airborne diseases. There was a political decision, and that can change any time, but it has nothing to do with data collection or the scientific method.

1) No, quite the opposite. It was one of the reasons cited by the CDC as to why they originally did not support widespread face mask use.

2) This ties into the fact that PPE supplies were low when the pandemic started. They did not want to declare a mask ordinance while hospitals were still having a difficult time sourcing PPE themselves. The fact that many people would either be unable to purchase masks or be unwilling to participate made it so that they would just be working against themselves at a time when supply management was critical.

3) Is sociology not a science? It is a matter of public policy. Ensuring that healthcare professionals have access to PPE is the prudent course of action when dealing with a pandemic.

>> I don't think there ever was a scientific consensus that masks aren't effective against airborne diseases. There was a political decision, and that can change any time, but it has nothing to do with data collection or the scientific method.

What are you even talking about? Mask use continues to be studied widely[1]

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...

CDC and healthcare in general are not scientific institutions.

There's two items at issue: science as a set of methodologies for understanding nature, and "Science" as a cultural totem.

As a set of methodologies, science is inherently skepticism, test, verify, etc. Nothing wrong with being wrong, it just means you gather more data and learn.

As a cultural totem, annoying liberals will say "science says" when they're clearly innumerate, and dumb conservatives will say "I don't trust them experts" when they clearly don't know better. The CDC making a mistake is a political misstep, rather than a step on the way to better understanding.

> When the CDC said repeatedly that masks would only make you catch the virus or that Americans shouldn't prepare or panic about the new virus...

Could you cite where and when the CDC said that?

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24729209.

It's about the social tissue. [0]

Western world is built upon modern science and technique, but the people are users, not thinkers.

Very few people understand science, even in tech. You have to play with physics first hand to consider how far we are and are far behind most humans are.

[0] research is funded by companies producing comfort devices or hidden infrastructure to sell to ignorant people. You cannot sell a physical principle or an engineering tool. So the society spreads itself from people with knowledge fueling the lives of a large mass of less knowledgeable.

The battle/alliance between science and religion swaps from one to the other regularly. We remember the alliance ending and the battles starting around people like Darwin and Galileo. I suspect this is more to do with religion, and science also, being used by people who want power. Any time you here someone talking about believing the science or proving something with a holy book, ignore them. Real science needs no belief, and real faith needs no proof.

Sorry you got downvoted, you highlight a real and critical discussion and your voice should be heard but I think framing it a little different may actually elicit discussion rather than downvotes. The reality is, there are soft sciences out there that we should really have the debate as to whether or not they truly qualify as a science. That does not mean that they are not worth pursuing and trying to find truth in, alchemy lead to chemistry, astrology led to astronomy. But along the way, we have had a lot of "science" that in their day where believed to be truths based on a less than scientific rigor. Phenology comes to mind as a shining example, and genetics bore out eugenics. There is a critical issue with mascaraing soft sciences, that have thin veils of rigor as scientific fact when the reality is that they are better relegated to philosophy. Many great philosophies have changed society so it's not like they are not valuable, but what is not valuable is mascaraing what amounts to a philosophy as scientific truth, because what happens is those that do not understand science and rigor throw the baby out with the bath water and assume that there are untruths in all sciences by seeing the examples of these soft sciences claim truths.

For note, I am not implying that gender identification is not an important subject to understand in our current society. Rather lets not pretend that it's research has the rigor of physics as it does damage to the hard sciences to do so. I personally am fine if we redefine gender to a contemporary term that was not traditionally used in the past and I am fine with deciding how we deal with it as a society based on it's identifying it more in the lineage of philosophy. My sole issue, is that calling these items science is leading to the effect we are now seeing.

People are downvoting you but you bring up a point that I see in some fringes. Basically the assertion is that “Science is a sign of white privilege”.

I mean I guess if from a certain perspective you see things and ignore the science going on in Japan, China and other places you might somehow twist interpretation to say that, but that assertion is very problematic when at the SAME TIME we want to get more women and minorities into STEM. This view does this goal a disservice.

I think the common lingo is that gender is what you identify as, and sex is what you biologically are (subject to change through sex-change operations).

Exect that "Gender" in relationship to any animal or conversation is used interchangeably with sex. While Gender-identity is the new age belief that your "Gender-identity" or gender for short, is a preference you can change (With or without sex change operations depending on your political view). The obfuscation of the word itself is a problem in discussions. I find it distastefull how people can 'identify as' male/female black/white. they are immutable characteristics that no one chose for. If you believe that humans can be tribal and racist but should rise above superficial judgement and look at the content of their character then wether or not you personally identify as certain characteristics should be a moot point.

> then wether or not you personally identify as certain characteristics should be a moot point

I quite agree, but the it's indisputable that these characteristics are enshrined in our culture and power structures every step of the way.

Gendered bathrooms, gendered application forms, gendered names, gendered clothing, and so on. If you "personally identify as certain characteristics" it's literally impossible for that to be a "moot point" because of how society is structured.

Which bathroom do you walk into? Will you be fired for wearing a dress when your boss sees you as a man? If you change your name to a feminine one, will people ignore it and continue to call you a masculine name? If get a new job and try to hide that you were "once a man", can you actually or will they force you to put your biological sex on the application form? If you are forced to put your biological sex on the application form, what if your new workplace outs you as "a man" to your coworkers despite you having a feminine name, a feminine appearance, and using the women's bathroom? When coworkers find out you are biologically a man but using the women's bathroom, will they ostracize you, call the police, or exact violence on you because you don't fit in their worldview of acceptable behavior?

These are real questions that matter to real people and you can't wave it away as "a moot point". Answering these questions, and more, is the entry point to gender studies.

>these characteristics are enshrined in our culture and power structures every step of the way. In a way, yes. Because sex is the largest difference between human beings. Its importance is highlighted by doctors needing to know for better treatment, for social circles not being comfortable around people further away from your group. Bathrooms being a painpoint as it has deep roots in culture and history. Though the interesting thing about which bathroom to go to, it becomes irrelivant the moment you enter someone's home; there is only one or two to choose from and they are "Gender neutral" by design.

>Will you be fired for wearing a dress when your boss sees you as a man? This is exactly my point, discrimination based on immutable characteristics is wrong. if your boss fires you because you're a man or sees you as a man, or makes judgements because you're a woman pretending to be a man is wrong by design because it is still based on immutable characterstics. Though dress code violation is such a grey area as it is not directly based on strong legal precedent.

>If you are forced to put your biological sex on the application form, what if your new workplace outs you as "a man" "IF" you are forced to do so. I've never seen it be mandatory. unless you talk about exeptions to the rule. Like how some women's shelters only hire women. or gynecologists.

>will they ostracize you, call the police, or exact violence on you because you don't fit in their worldview of acceptable behavior? Nonetheless, anti-discrimination laws aren't there to stop discrimination or stop people from breaking the law. They are there to put them on trial. Lots of people fall out of a certain worldview and have lost jobs and friends because of that. talk to any clean heroin addict and they'll tell you. These things certainly matter and should be discussed as you are so kind to do.

I guess my approach is more conservative when it comes to enacting change in how people are treating each other. I consider no solution better than a bad solution. as no solution at least lets people have the freedom to treat eachother with the respect that they might deserve.

I can buy toy car or lego technic for my daughter, both of which is me mismatching sex and gender. Sex is that she does not have penis. Gender is that lego technic and toy car are boy toys.

In contrast, my dog is getting dog toys as opposed to pink she-dog balls and black he-dog toys.

Gender studies is a very new thing, so I doubt you'd be hard pressed to find many who claimed it's been figured out. Though, I think what most gender researchers will agree on is there are more than two genders, and more variation in sex than a simplistic view of biology would make one think.

I struggle with the concept of gender because it appears to be akin to a ‘racialised theory of sex‘.

I’m male. My appearance, sense of dress, interests and attractions are my unique personality - I don’t think they come from a biologically inherent gender, nor do I think it’s socially progressive to promote the idea that they do or should.

Edit: Are you sure you didn’t downvote for ‘heretical opinion’ rather than actual content? Please explain, if not.

I think many gender studies point to how inherently difficult it is to separate biology, physiology and culture. And much of the issues come when those three things don't seem to line up. So much of the vitriol from all sides of the cultural debate seem to extend from, not necessarily the science of it, but how that should affect our policies and interactions with each other.

“Culture isn’t determined biologically (that’s a racist belief), nor does biology determine someone’s gender (and that’s a sexist one) - and any specific culture shouldn’t require individuals to conform to gendered roles in its service (that’s a human rights violation regarding basic individual freedom)” would be my response.

Sure, these things are hard to separate - the mistake is to think that means they’re mutually determined.

> you'd be hard pressed to find many who claimed it's been figured out.

Here's a small list to begin with: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...

I am confused as to what you are suggesting with that link and its contents.

Perhaps one of the biggest risks to science is that it ceases to actually be "science" i.e the scientific method and way of thinking and body knowledge and instead becomes a political tool or excuse for various forms of social control or a dressed up pretense of science a person can get degrees in, possibly even calling itself a science, but isn't actually science at all in the traditional sense of the word.

Yes it disappointing to see so many Americans panicking over the disease when medical science tells us the infection fatality rate is likely under 0.35%.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-...

Our current pandemic response is mostly a faith-based policy based on irrational fears rather than a science-based policy based on objective reality.

Faith based, other than the dead people.

And the NYE party I host is also made up of billionaires on average if Bezos shows up.

Also, 0.35% means that if everyone in the US contracts it that's a million dead people. And that's only from the disease.

Millions more will die because of the medical resources tied up with taking care of the sick and those who don't die. Arguably, more people will die because of the one person who takes up 20 days of ER resources and survives COVID than the person who shows up and dies of COVID on the first day.

Which is exactly what happened in the hotspots which were hit first and hard in Europe and North America.

An infection fatality rate of 0.35% means 500,000 deaths if half of Americans are infected. Not the end of civilization, but certainly something to take seriously.

The single worst aspect to America's Covid response was that what should have been a medical or scientific debate became politicized.

Yes that would be terrible, but the death rate is trending down in most areas (even those with minimal pandemic control measures) so I predict the final death toll will be under 500,000. For comparison purposes we lose about 600,000 per year to each of cancer and heart disease. The pandemic is bad and needs to be taken seriously but it's certainly not the end of our civilization.

The politicization of anything to do with public health is inevitable. Science can provide useful inputs, but ultimately the decisions have to be made by elected politicians. We live in a republic, not a technocracy.

Why do people obsess over the fatality rate to dismiss the pandemic, but ignore the long term impairment of many of those who survive?

Second, why not learn from the Far East and adopt a mask wearing, social distancing culture and prepare and lockdown?

Because there's going to be long-term harmful effects of the lockdowns too, that will be worse the longer they go on for. The real question is, why do people ignore that while making such a big deal of the long-term effects of the virus on survivors?

One is easier to grasp. Someone coughing the rest of their life is easier to visually see than someone fresh out of college who is now getting a job as a delivery driver and may never recover economically.

How many is many? What does the science tell us about the percentage of recovered patients who suffer long-term impairment?

Pandemic control measures such as mask wearing and social distancing can be helpful to "flatten the curve" on a temporary basis but are obviously not sustainable and won't be sufficient to eradicate the virus. SARS-CoV-2 is now endemic and will be with us essentially forever, even after a vaccine is developed. People need to think about what can work over longer time frames while objectively weighing both costs and benefits.

The link you cite is a very rough estimate of CFR as described in the paper. CFR varies tremendously based on the underlying demographics of the population and the treatment available - it's unclear why you focus on this metric. COVID-19 in the United States and other countries as well will be (if it isn't already) the 3rd leading cause of death. This is something that many people will change their behavior around, whether that is "panicking" or not is unclear from your original post.

However, if folks are willing to wear seat belts (although in the vast majority of trips they are useless) for a less likely cause of death, many will put on masks, avoided crowded indoor spaces and practice better hygiene for the 3rd leading cause of death. This will occur whether legally mandated or not.

Did you actually read the link? It provides estimated ranges for both CFR and IFR.

It's not disappointing to see humans caring for others. There's a difference between "panicking over the disease" and wanting our elder people (for which the IFR is way over 0.35%) to be safe. Notwithstanding the fact that this 0.35% cannot possibly be achieved if the health system collapses.

If "we" wanted our elder people to be safe we would take steps to actively protect them. So far that isn't happening, which is very disappointing. Look how New York governor Cuomo sent COVID-19 patients to nursing homes even though he knew it was risky. That caused the worst cluster of deaths in the US so far.

I think you can do some basic math yourself and calculate yourself how many deaths that will be in the US if say 70% of the population gets it. And then we haven’t even taken into account that the fatality rate would be much higher without proper hospital care for all that need it because all the hospitals are overwhelmed and there ain’t any ICU left.

Imagine being so callous to think that the preventable deaths of 1,148,700 of your fellow Americans is okay.

Imagine trying to derail the discussion with unscientific appeals to emotion. Obviously no one is okay with extra deaths, so you're arguing against a strawman.

So far there have been about 218,000 American deaths. There is no scientific basis for your 1,148,700 number. The only way we could have prevented all of the American deaths would have been by completely sealing our borders back in December, but at the time no one realized how serious it was. We now know there was already widespread community transmission by January and at that point a high death toll became inevitable.

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/when-did-covid-hit-earliest-dea...

You quote a 0.35% death rate. Google says there are 328.2 million Americans. Do the math.

It's amusing for someone arguing "science" to be unable to multiple two fucking numbers.

You are saying 1,148,700 deaths is okay, that people are "panicking" for no reason. A 40% increase in death rate (the CDC says there were 2,813,503 deaths in 2019) seems like a pretty reasonable reason to "panic".

Trying to save a sixth of a Holocaust seems like decent public policy.

I didn't quote a 0.35% death rate. That represents a possible upper bound on IFR based on data so far. Even in a worst case scenario it is impossible for 100% of Americans to be infected. Your simplistic estimate is missing critical variables.

I never claimed that any number of deaths is "okay" so stop arguing in bad faith and putting words in my mouth. Panicking is irrational and never helpful. We need rational, science-based policies now more than ever.

Certainly we should save as many lives as possible, but we can't get tunnel vision and focus on COVID-19 to the exclusion of all else. The lockdowns also kill people. They die slowly from lack of medical care, depression, substance abuse, and suicide but in the end they're dead all the same. It's like trying to run a business by focusing entirely on revenue and ignoring costs.

Under 0.35% which is several times greater than the next comparable (the flu), and greater for more than 30% of the population due to age and pre-existing condition. Very few people dont have a personal stake in keeping the people they love alive (parents, spouses, children, siblings, friends, lovers, etc.)

The panic makes more sense if you consider the overwhelming majority of people are looking not just at their own age and pre existing condition but also realizing the people who enrich their lives are also at risk.

The "panic" framing is manipulative itself. It is an attempt to stigmatize people who consider the disease to be serious issue as emotional and scared as opposed to arguing with them.

Not sure about the United States but in my parts of the world (Eastern Europe) it has also transformed into a social- and political-differentiating issue, i.e. people of a certain social status and of certain political views tend to over-emphasise the seriousness of the virus and to paint the other side in all sorts of unflattering colours because, supposedly, this latter side doesn't take the virus as serious as they do.

I happen to share the social- and political-views of the first part of people I talked about, but I've started to very largely diverge when it came to how the virus should be handled. In late January - early February this year I certainly thought that the fatality rate would be around 3-4% (especially after the first images coming out of Wuhan), but as the disaster in Northern Italy and then Spain was unfolding and we were starting to learn more about it I started to think that that number would be more close to 1-2%.

Most of the summer I thought that the fatality rate would be 1%, and then in early August I saw a recent study carried out in Sweden bringing that number down to 0.4%-0.6%. In the last couple of weeks I've started seeing even lower numbers (between 0.3% - 0.4%), which, if I'm not mistaken, would make this virus 3 or 4 times more deadly compared to the normal flu (which afaik has a 0.1% death rate) which is not great, but which is also not catastrophic.

Now, I've tried having this exact conversation with a couple of my friends just yesterday and it did not go well at all, they were accusing me of being anti-mask and of not taking the virus seriously enough. Apparently the bare numbers don't work even on educated people.

It sounds like me that you are taking exception to the abundance of caution displayed by public health officials which resulted in this agonizing economic downturn.

However, in the face of incomplete information, isn't erring on the side of caution the right way to proceed? If they had underplayed this, and had the mortality rate really been 3-4%, then you would have both millions dead AND economic devastation.

The scientific consensus is by definition a dynamic thing, ever changing in the face of increasing evidence. And thankfully so.

There may be some facts we don't know yet. The economist has done some research that suggests that the number of deaths have been significantly under-reported.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking...

Personally, I am refraining from adopting a position as it make take years to have a better idea of what the fatality rate is.

The panic was never over the case or infection fatality rates. The panic is because of asymptomatic spreaders.

If a strain of influenza suddenly spiked to higher fatality rates, less drastic measures could contain it because it's usually obvious when you are contagious with influenza.

Also, as someone who had SARS-COV-2 and didn't die, it was fucking awful and I fully blame the complete failure of US leadership for the current fiasco.

That is not scientifically accurate. A significant fraction of influenza cases are also asymptomatic, and they are capable of spreading the disease to others.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4586318/

You could have already killed someone without even knowing it by transmitting the flu to them. There's no way to know for sure.

US federal and state handling of the pandemic has been mostly terrible. But even if we had competent, honest leaders I doubt the long-term death toll would be much different. Community transmission was already widespread by the time anyone realized there was a serious problem, and by that point it was too late to contain the pandemic.

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/when-did-covid-hit-earliest-dea...

Funny how places like Taiwan reacted far earlier and have near zero fatalities then.

I sometime forget to not bother commenting on overly politicized things on HN. Your own links show 20% potential asymptomatic influenza infections, which is only a tiny bit different from the estimated 80-95% on SARS-COV-2.

Downvote away though.

That is not scientifically accurate. During the USS Theodore Roosevelt outbreak only 19% of cases were asymptomatic. Those sailors were generally younger and healthier than the general population so if anything we would expect the overall rate of asymptomatic cases to be lower.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7315794/

So where are you coming up with that 80-95% number?