This should not be the face of Public Health or Government in tackling the pandemic.
The moment when many conservatives lost faith in the CDC was when they failed to refute a letter signed by 1,200 CDC employees demanding that racism be declared a public health emergency, at a time when America, with the exception of the universal condemnation of the George Floyd killing, was completely divided over the issue of policing, and whether racism amounted to the actions of a tiny number of racist police officers, or was part of a systemic issue of violence against African Americans. To be fair, the conservative media bubble was guilty of focusing in on the issue without providing a broader context, both both sides of the media ecosystem are just as guilty on that particular charge- what matters was how it looked to grass roots conservatives, populists and independents.
At the same time, simultaneously declaring that BLM protests were perfectly safe whilst all other public open air gatherings were not, had a catastrophic impact on the institutional trust of those on the Right, especially given that support for Police Officers amongst conservatives is just as much a shibboleth as their admiration for those who serve in the military.
The above paragraphs contains a substantial factual correction. I have to admit to getting somewhat more caught up in trying to convey the mood and perception of conservatives, and failed in my due diligence of research. I often write from memory and only tend to link when providing evidence for the matter at hand, which is this case was medical and scientific evidence.
A fairer assessment of the more just grievances presented by BLM protests would correctly place the blame for American injustices with bad laws instituted by Congress, which removed discretion from judges and placed it firmly in the hands of prosecutors, and a media ecosystem only concerned by ratings in the ‘if-it-bleeds-it-leads’ era of journalism, and not at the feet of police officers. It is worth noting that almost every over OECD country implemented exactly the same pioneering proactive policies innovated in New York, leading to massive falls in crime throughout the Western world and beyond, yet no other country experienced anything like the levels of American incarceration evident. Many paired proactive policing approach with a reform-orientated approach, which although being broadly less successful than hoped, were highly successful in youth reform.
Public Health, or any other institutions credibility for that matter, only remains effective when it stands above the realm of politics or partisanship- for even if one is only concerned about the optics of institutional objectivity and impartiality, there is also the deeply disturbing possibility that one may actually lose both.
Plus, it is worth noting that almost without exception in the West, vaccine uptake amongst adults has been highest amongst those countries which have been most reluctant to deploy government force and coercion and lowest amongst those that tried to force people into compliance with State Control. Much as many would like to force people to take their medicine like wilfully disobedient children, it should never be even contemplated, because it doesn’t bloody work!
Lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing and all the other measures arbitrarily enforced by governments have contributed to positive uptake where deployed by seeking the consent of the governed, and accrued as a population level resistance to vaccination in areas where the heavy hand of government has been felt most, at a national level, or through localised examples. On a positive note, this should have an incredibly positive impetus for policy makers in the future, in terms of deploying behavioural economics units to search for positive ways to seek voluntary consent, provided the right lessons are learned.
The role of international organisations should also be examined. Of course, national public health institutions should speak with one voice in times of crisis, as should national governments, but given the political considerations placed upon supranational organisations such as the WHO, the EU or others, it might be better in future to relegate their role to the provision of advice to governments or national agencies, rather than speaking publicly on such matters. Politics and international diplomacy have been shown to be polluting factors in terms of issuing accurate and up to date advice, designing effective strategies and implementing rapid responses.
The other thing to consider is the Game Theory relating to dissenters. As above, Public Health should speak with one voice, but media should not allow itself to fall into the trap of partisan activism tailored to its audience. Periods of crisis should be above mercenary or vain considerations. Instead, the role of media be to host robust debate amongst the scientific community. Apart from anything else, this more responsible form of journalism is guaranteed to draw in audiences, because, if anything, the pandemic has shown that people are hungry for new information on the crisis, far removed from the monotone repetition of government and media sources, and instead seek out all manner of fringe and discreditable sources, if denied access to more informed dissent.
The better approach would have been to invite in the moderate and reasonable dissenters, and where possible refute them. Apart from making for better science, it reassures people that their institutions are not lying to them. The best example of this for the IDW and America in general would have to be the case of Brett Weinstein. Many of his earlier observations proved highly accurate and predictive. Had he been given access to world leading experts and dissenters like Professor Sunetra Gupta or Professor Carl Heneghan it may well have been the case that he never would have made controversial and, with hindsight, irresponsible errors in judgement in the interests of hosting free and open scientific debate.
It may be the case that in the attention economy, creating open debate, in which dissenting scientists are free to speak out, actually crowds out more harmful elements which use disingenuous or poorly understood maths to make their case. Plus, public trust seems to thrive in an environment in which the sources available are more intellectually diverse and robust. Most of all, if we consider the proven data on voluntary versus compulsory means of tackling vaccine hesitancy, it would appear that people will only trust their government when their government trusts them.
We should also face facts. There are rising concerns that the current vaccines will never deliver herd immunity, regardless of vaccine uptake levels, and given that the health benefits to most healthy children appear to be net negative in terms of their personal health outcomes, there are serious bioethical concerns being raised about the advisability of vaccinating 12 to 15 year olds.
94% of English adults now possess COVID antibodies of one form or another, yet case numbers remain persistent at roughly two-third of their former peak. This may not be as bleak as many might fear. Although case numbers are persistent, hospitalisations and deaths have fallen to a tiny fraction of their former numbers. Crucially, both hospitalisations and deaths are concentrated in older age groups, so it may well be time to implement the Great Barrington Declaration amongst the elderly and vulnerable.
We need to abandon the notion that COVID-19 will ever be anything other than endemic, and begin to welcome the voices of more reputable dissenters back into the fold. By encouraging them back in, we encourage the voices of other privately dissenting scientists and experts to speak out. Because we really need off-the-wall thinking now. Any and every approach to Public Health and Public Policy needs to be considered, investigated and rejected if necessary, studied further if at all plausible. Above all, we need a universal information network in which anyone with a credible idea can bring it to the attention of an expert for further scientific or policy debate.
It might behove us to remember that whilst many celebrate Edward Jenner for his role in tackling small pox, few know the name of John Fewster, and fewer still the name Benjamin Jesty. On a broader note, it may well be the case that the only way to tackle the vaccine hesitancy of sceptics is to give them full and unfettered access to more informed and expert dissenters who might go some way towards reclaiming their trust.
You seem to think that everyone - to some lower age limit you are uncertain about, but acknowledge the need for - should be vaccinated and that "vaccine hesitancy" is a bad thing.
You acknowledge "rising concerns" that even 100% (again, down to what age limit?) vaccination will not lead to herd immunity but this understates the certainty of the situation. On 2021-08-10 the Director of the Oxford Vaccine group (transcript link below) stated unequivocally that the vaccines cannot achieve herd immunity, because they are at best only marginally effective at reducing transmission. So it is reasonable to regard this as a settled fact - even though most people are not aware of this and are still operating according to the assumption that herd immunity can be achieved.
Pathologising those who choose not to accept a poorly tested invasive medical procedure as "vaccine hesitant" is just adding to the crapification of the world.
We absolutely do need free-wheeling, well-informed and well-intentioned debate about alternatives to the current "vaccines and nothing more until you need oxygen in hospital" approach.
In the next few days I may make an expanded version of this for second Substack article, following on from the first which was also a response to a Quillette article. This contains a transcript of Professor Sir Andrew Pollard's evidence to the UK Parliament’s All-Party Group on Coronavirus:
Yes, indeed. Voluntary interactions are always better than forced ones except when responding to force with force. Nobody likes to be told what to do, but lots of people love to tell others how to behave, love "do as I say not as I do," and many love to submit to authority (it starts with parents, then moves on to teachers and other adults, law enforcement, churches, politicians).
The Quillette bit was childish because it stubbornly never even entertained the notion that some who do not want this novel vaccine is because they, like 99% of all Covid-positive people, got well with their immune response, and if you weren't in the high risk categories (old, poor immune function, obese), the rate is more like 99.9%. That sort of dishonesty in other people's views breeds mistrust as it's wise to distrust dishonesty.
It's like people who think the non-vaccinated must protect the vaccinated rather than the vaccine doing that. Or that you only want to be around other vaccinated people despite the fact that the vaccinated spread the virus all the same.
It's the continued faith in masks and lockdowns despite the CDC claiming a 1-3% improvement from them, the CDC and WHO NEVER recommending these as solutions to pandemics before, as we can all see how people don't actually do these well and few talk about N-95 masks instead and adding air filtering and outside air ventilation.
The forcing of people to return from around the world, stay home, get no exercise, get less quality food, lose their schools and free lunch programs, lose their social life, watch their elderly die alone, miss out on most other medical services, add massive stress/anxiety for losing jobs or their small businesses and not being able to pay your family's daily living, and forcing the sick elderly from hospitals back to nursing homes were the biggest factors that ensured the pandemic's spread and bad outcomes. Of course, the broken CDC test kit didn't help, nor their errors in understanding it spread through the air.
They reject the notions of flattened curves and reasonably short timelines originally presented. They care not about the myriad side harms to nearly all people over a bad health outcome for a small segment of the already unhealthy.
If you get rid of the use of force, we'd have actual discussions. But once you add force, you reject discussions and instead divide people and create more anxiety and hatred.
We're told many are just conspiracy thinking, yet marijuana remains a Schedule 1 Drug in the US, meaning is has no known medical use, while nearly all states allow medical marijuana and the FDA already approved marijuana based medicines. It does seem that propping up a big pharma vaccine rollout paid for by central planners using other people's money and then touting it as "free," while at the same time rejecting that recovery due to your natural immune response has any similar value.
I agree on the fact that Western governments made mistakes in managing the pandemic.
Still, the public's lack of trust comes from the combination of several factors that, as far I understand it, are unrelated to and pre-existing governement action and policies.
One factor is the collapse of scientific general culture among Western populations.
Another is the unbelievable power of social media regarding the spread of fake news, "alternative" truths, and rubbish in general, made even worse by algorythms reinforcing people's bogus beliefs.
These form the perfect cocktail for fear, charlatanism, and anti-science.
Add to that the mistake made by the media, which for months broadcast debates on covid between scientists, doctors, researchers who disagreed with each other while not knowing enough on the desease.
The process of scientific research, which inludes contradictory debates, doubt, long term analyses etc, should have remained within research labs and not exposed to the public as it was.
With all the controversies, heated debates fed by the media's pursuit of buzz, people got the impression that they could not trust science and scientists, and that is probably the worst tragedy of all.
If you're going to begin the article like that, not sure how you can not link to the "CDC" statement in question, especially since to my knowledge one doesn't exist. There was a letter signed by a broad spectrum of "public health" professionals, but I don't remember it including anyone from the CDC and if it had it would've probably been "organizational affiliation for informational purposes only".
Good stuff. It is worth noting though, many on the left are tired of the double standard asked of them to be the 'side' asked to rise above in debating ideological positions. Climate change denial was tolerated due to both-sidesism for a damagingly long time. Difficult to get one side to listen to the rational positions of the other when said side is going off the deep end - Q-anon, Texas, the California recall - there are so many extreme manifestations of right wing thinking right now. This, to me, dwarfs the threats of the 'woke left ' - hypocrisy, cancelations, language policing. Both sides are bad, but one side is actively trying to game democracy. and I see no self-critique in conservative circles, anywhere. like, please point me towards some, because I have looked for them. and trust me, I am experiencing a lot of pushback against woke orthodoxy as I return to work in person and again traveling in progressive circles. one side is more extreme right now by a significant margin.
Hi Geary,
You seem to think that everyone - to some lower age limit you are uncertain about, but acknowledge the need for - should be vaccinated and that "vaccine hesitancy" is a bad thing.
You acknowledge "rising concerns" that even 100% (again, down to what age limit?) vaccination will not lead to herd immunity but this understates the certainty of the situation. On 2021-08-10 the Director of the Oxford Vaccine group (transcript link below) stated unequivocally that the vaccines cannot achieve herd immunity, because they are at best only marginally effective at reducing transmission. So it is reasonable to regard this as a settled fact - even though most people are not aware of this and are still operating according to the assumption that herd immunity can be achieved.
Pathologising those who choose not to accept a poorly tested invasive medical procedure as "vaccine hesitant" is just adding to the crapification of the world.
We absolutely do need free-wheeling, well-informed and well-intentioned debate about alternatives to the current "vaccines and nothing more until you need oxygen in hospital" approach.
I wrote a comment on this horrible new Quillette article which you can see on the main article page: https://quillette.com/2021/09/15/understanding-the-motivated-reasoning-of-anti-vax-refuseniks/
In the next few days I may make an expanded version of this for second Substack article, following on from the first which was also a response to a Quillette article. This contains a transcript of Professor Sir Andrew Pollard's evidence to the UK Parliament’s All-Party Group on Coronavirus:
https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/vitamin-d-and-early-treatment-vs
Yes, indeed. Voluntary interactions are always better than forced ones except when responding to force with force. Nobody likes to be told what to do, but lots of people love to tell others how to behave, love "do as I say not as I do," and many love to submit to authority (it starts with parents, then moves on to teachers and other adults, law enforcement, churches, politicians).
The Quillette bit was childish because it stubbornly never even entertained the notion that some who do not want this novel vaccine is because they, like 99% of all Covid-positive people, got well with their immune response, and if you weren't in the high risk categories (old, poor immune function, obese), the rate is more like 99.9%. That sort of dishonesty in other people's views breeds mistrust as it's wise to distrust dishonesty.
It's like people who think the non-vaccinated must protect the vaccinated rather than the vaccine doing that. Or that you only want to be around other vaccinated people despite the fact that the vaccinated spread the virus all the same.
It's the continued faith in masks and lockdowns despite the CDC claiming a 1-3% improvement from them, the CDC and WHO NEVER recommending these as solutions to pandemics before, as we can all see how people don't actually do these well and few talk about N-95 masks instead and adding air filtering and outside air ventilation.
The forcing of people to return from around the world, stay home, get no exercise, get less quality food, lose their schools and free lunch programs, lose their social life, watch their elderly die alone, miss out on most other medical services, add massive stress/anxiety for losing jobs or their small businesses and not being able to pay your family's daily living, and forcing the sick elderly from hospitals back to nursing homes were the biggest factors that ensured the pandemic's spread and bad outcomes. Of course, the broken CDC test kit didn't help, nor their errors in understanding it spread through the air.
They reject the notions of flattened curves and reasonably short timelines originally presented. They care not about the myriad side harms to nearly all people over a bad health outcome for a small segment of the already unhealthy.
If you get rid of the use of force, we'd have actual discussions. But once you add force, you reject discussions and instead divide people and create more anxiety and hatred.
We're told many are just conspiracy thinking, yet marijuana remains a Schedule 1 Drug in the US, meaning is has no known medical use, while nearly all states allow medical marijuana and the FDA already approved marijuana based medicines. It does seem that propping up a big pharma vaccine rollout paid for by central planners using other people's money and then touting it as "free," while at the same time rejecting that recovery due to your natural immune response has any similar value.
I agree on the fact that Western governments made mistakes in managing the pandemic.
Still, the public's lack of trust comes from the combination of several factors that, as far I understand it, are unrelated to and pre-existing governement action and policies.
One factor is the collapse of scientific general culture among Western populations.
Another is the unbelievable power of social media regarding the spread of fake news, "alternative" truths, and rubbish in general, made even worse by algorythms reinforcing people's bogus beliefs.
These form the perfect cocktail for fear, charlatanism, and anti-science.
Add to that the mistake made by the media, which for months broadcast debates on covid between scientists, doctors, researchers who disagreed with each other while not knowing enough on the desease.
The process of scientific research, which inludes contradictory debates, doubt, long term analyses etc, should have remained within research labs and not exposed to the public as it was.
With all the controversies, heated debates fed by the media's pursuit of buzz, people got the impression that they could not trust science and scientists, and that is probably the worst tragedy of all.
If you're going to begin the article like that, not sure how you can not link to the "CDC" statement in question, especially since to my knowledge one doesn't exist. There was a letter signed by a broad spectrum of "public health" professionals, but I don't remember it including anyone from the CDC and if it had it would've probably been "organizational affiliation for informational purposes only".
Good stuff. It is worth noting though, many on the left are tired of the double standard asked of them to be the 'side' asked to rise above in debating ideological positions. Climate change denial was tolerated due to both-sidesism for a damagingly long time. Difficult to get one side to listen to the rational positions of the other when said side is going off the deep end - Q-anon, Texas, the California recall - there are so many extreme manifestations of right wing thinking right now. This, to me, dwarfs the threats of the 'woke left ' - hypocrisy, cancelations, language policing. Both sides are bad, but one side is actively trying to game democracy. and I see no self-critique in conservative circles, anywhere. like, please point me towards some, because I have looked for them. and trust me, I am experiencing a lot of pushback against woke orthodoxy as I return to work in person and again traveling in progressive circles. one side is more extreme right now by a significant margin.