DustyBin
Established Member
I was going to post this in the restrictions thread but it’s now locked.... The discussion had probably wandered a bit OT in any case so I thought it best to start a new one.
I generally have the greatest respect for experts in any field, and I’ll happily admit to feeling reassured by the presence of Whitty, Valance, Van-Tam et al. when the virus first ‘arrived’. Remember, this was an indiscriminate killer, Ebola-like in its virulence. We all saw the footage of bodies in the streets of Wuhan (real?) and the overflowing hospital wards in Italy. I was, as I expect the majority of people were at the time, actually quite worried. We then saw huge numbers of deaths, many the result of misjudged policies (sending infected people back to care homes being the obvious example) and a genuine misunderstanding within the medical community as to how best to treat those infected (the use of ventilators being one example). The latter I can forgive as this is after all a novel virus. Since then things have settled down, we’ve got better at protecting the vulnerable, although a LOT more could be done, we have much more effective treatments and the virus may or may not have mutated into a less deadly strain (nobody seems to know). Meanwhile it continues to transmit, largely harmlessly, through the population which may or may not be building herd immunity (again nobody seems to know). Whilst this should be good news, according to the experts it isn’t. Whilst deaths remain relatively low in number and are overwhelmingly of those we know are vulnerable, the infection rate is rising as per the infamous ‘non-prediction’ graph and therefore further restrictions are required. Little is said about the massively increased testing capacity we now have, or the fact that educational establishments have reopened for example, just that infections are increasing and deaths will follow. It is therefore very difficult to overlook the possibility that the experts are following a narrative. Why is anybody’s guess, but on the face of it there are so many facts and so many variables simply being overlooked that people are beginning to question their expertise, or at the very least their honesty.
In defence of the experts, their role is to provide advice in their areas of expertise, and it is for the government to then make informed policy decisions based on this advice and that of experts from many other unrelated disciplines. Whitty openly stated this months ago. I don’t believe this is actually happening which is in part why we are seeing a ‘beat the virus at any cost’ policy. When the problems associated with such a policy are so glaringly obvious, it’s perfectly understandable why people are becoming at best frustrated, at worst mistrusting of those they see as driving policy decisions.
I generally have the greatest respect for experts in any field, and I’ll happily admit to feeling reassured by the presence of Whitty, Valance, Van-Tam et al. when the virus first ‘arrived’. Remember, this was an indiscriminate killer, Ebola-like in its virulence. We all saw the footage of bodies in the streets of Wuhan (real?) and the overflowing hospital wards in Italy. I was, as I expect the majority of people were at the time, actually quite worried. We then saw huge numbers of deaths, many the result of misjudged policies (sending infected people back to care homes being the obvious example) and a genuine misunderstanding within the medical community as to how best to treat those infected (the use of ventilators being one example). The latter I can forgive as this is after all a novel virus. Since then things have settled down, we’ve got better at protecting the vulnerable, although a LOT more could be done, we have much more effective treatments and the virus may or may not have mutated into a less deadly strain (nobody seems to know). Meanwhile it continues to transmit, largely harmlessly, through the population which may or may not be building herd immunity (again nobody seems to know). Whilst this should be good news, according to the experts it isn’t. Whilst deaths remain relatively low in number and are overwhelmingly of those we know are vulnerable, the infection rate is rising as per the infamous ‘non-prediction’ graph and therefore further restrictions are required. Little is said about the massively increased testing capacity we now have, or the fact that educational establishments have reopened for example, just that infections are increasing and deaths will follow. It is therefore very difficult to overlook the possibility that the experts are following a narrative. Why is anybody’s guess, but on the face of it there are so many facts and so many variables simply being overlooked that people are beginning to question their expertise, or at the very least their honesty.
In defence of the experts, their role is to provide advice in their areas of expertise, and it is for the government to then make informed policy decisions based on this advice and that of experts from many other unrelated disciplines. Whitty openly stated this months ago. I don’t believe this is actually happening which is in part why we are seeing a ‘beat the virus at any cost’ policy. When the problems associated with such a policy are so glaringly obvious, it’s perfectly understandable why people are becoming at best frustrated, at worst mistrusting of those they see as driving policy decisions.
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