A big part of the problem is things moving so fast that a lot of stuff doesn't have a long run. Covid and its vaccines being an example. In the end the reason to trust them was a mix of "if not this, then what?" and "it doesn't seem to be killing people".
It has been unfortunately necessary to downplay cases of debilitation and, even, death apparently traceable to vaccination. If vaccination saves the lives of a hundred times as many people as it harms, in the "trolley" sense, that should be good enough, but in popular imagination it is not.
Rational treatment might enable identifying individuals particularly at risk and not vaccinating those, but that option is closed to us. Instead, a random, suspicious fraction of the population pays particular attention to negative outcomes and avoids vaccination, to its detriment, and most of those at risk for problems get vaccinated anyway.
> It has been unfortunately necessary to downplay cases of debilitation
I don't think it was necessary at all, and instead is very counterproductive. Many people know they're not being dealt with honestly by the government and media, resulting in more distrust and resistance to vaccination, than there otherwise would be.
The number of deaths would objectively be larger if people had access to accurate numbers, because even more would avoid vaccination and then die of the infection vaccinated against.
It is a tragic calculus. "Trolley Problems" are very far from theoretical in public health management. We are forced by distrust to sub-optimal choices that themselves promote distrust. Managing risk of a better population would be easier, but you battle pandemic in the population you have, not the population you want.
You state confidently that deaths would be higher, but you gave no evidence for that. I believe you are wrong. The lies confirm to all that we should not trust you. Assuming you have any ability to recommend things that will actually save lives, in the long term proving yourself a liar will only lead to fewer people believing you and taking your advice.
So tell the truth, build trust, and let people decide for themselves. That will save lives in the long run.
What you mean is, tell the truth and be blasted for lying anyway.
I have plenty of complaints about how public health measures are prioritized in the US. I am not worried about official dishonesty. Public officials are just as good at fooling themselves as everybody else, so they can be wrong without lying, and will be at times. Expecting somebody, anybody to be right all the time is a recipe for disappointment.
Downplaying isn't lying, and categorizing people into those that tell the truth and those that don't tell the truth is a stupid way of assessing anything important.
Lying about the risks is lying, regardless of what ends you think will justify the means.
But even if you disagree, let’s talk about your claim that categorizing into two groups is stupid. Think from the citizen’s perspective of the CDC. The question is, “Do I trust them enough to take health advice from them?” If they have lied to you too many times about things that are important enough, the answer is no way. I never implied all that this lying group said was lies. Obviously one lie wipes out thousands of truths. Trust is gone. Listening stops.
You’re going to listen to somebody! When the public institutions become untrustworthy, and this lose their authority, who knows what authority figure you will turn to? It could be anybody. It could be Q.
> You can look into major issues without needing authority figures.
No you can’t. Not unless you are doing the study yourself. And even then, almost all studies rely on other authorities. Things like death certificates and cause of death, hospital reports, etc. all depend on authorities and you have to decide whether you trust them for this thing.
I never said it was binary. I said trust can and is lost through lies. If you can’t acknowledge that, I’m not sure what else to say.
> I never said it was binary. I said trust can and is lost through lies. If you can’t acknowledge that, I’m not sure what else to say.
"Obviously one lie wipes out thousands of truths. Trust is gone. Listening stops."
I would call this binary. I don't really care what we call it, though. Especially if downplaying counts as lying, then this policy is completely infeasible. It means nobody will ever be listened to. Trust is wiped out in all circumstances.
It's a really stupid way of handling a biased source. And all sources are biased, so it's a really stupid way of handling sources.
If you want to say that one lie adds skepticism to a thousand truths, that would be a massive improvement, because A) it works well to be somewhat skeptical of all sources, and B) you can still learn from many sources you're skeptical of.
Demanding perfect authority is itself a pathology. Claiming perfect authority is a favorite tactic of liars and demagogues.
The best we can hope for is people doing their best with what they have to work with. Very many do.
The worst make shit up, routinely. They hone their message to attract dupes, and always succeed. Many of them believe whatever pulls; most don't care what is true or isn't.
Is there no place in your world for authorities at all? For trust at all? For trusted flawed authorities to become untrusted liar non-authorities in people’s minds?
I have no idea why you are talking about perfect authority.
People can become "untrusted liar non-authorities" in people's minds independent of any actions of their own. The best they can do is their best, and hope not to attract the attention of demagogues.
Of course they can become untrusted regardless of what they do. But the whole question is whether you acknowledge that people also have a major impact through their actions of what people think of them.
What exactly is “doing their best”? Is it lying, trusting the end to justify the means?
Have you found any evidence of anyone lying about risks?
There are always an expected number of deaths in any period of weeks after (or without) a vaccination, subject to big random fluctuations. It should be obvious that (a) numbers cannot be interpreted correctly without education, and (b) people without such education finding numbers will insist on interpreting them anyway, some ignorantly, some with active malice.
What and how much to publish about numbers reported are hard choices I am glad I don't need to make.
Even publishing nothing, there will be spurious reports claiming to know official numbers, and spurious interpretations of spurious numbers. Your fragile trust is broken regardless, among people so inclined.
This is exactly why a large portion of the population is not wrong to doubt the official narrative.
Science shouldn't even be engaged in trying to save as many lives as possible. Science should only be concerned with discovering and disseminating the truth as it is.
Ok, so they're too busy to understand this basic difference between public health (their own field) and science, something that you're telling some random person on the internet about. Nice
Excuse me, where did I lie? I have no role in collecting or reporting on adverse reactions. I don't even know for sure that adverse reaction numbers are as large as I suspect.
I do empathize with the people trying to minimize deaths from a raging pandemic in an atmosphere of politically-motivated disinformation that is actively contemptuous toward public safety. People with your attitude make their work that much harder, and cost more unnecessary deaths.
Sorry. You spoke in the first person plural “we” so I just addressed my comment back to a generic “you.” I never meant to say anyone in particular (let alone you) was a liar.
However, you were advocating for not giving people accurate numbers. Whoever is in charge of that decision should not lie. They should give accurate numbers.
What they should do if the goal is to minimize public mortality is not obvious.
What they should do as a matter of abstract merit, or of public perception of benignity, are two wholly different, generally easier and less vexing questions.
Perhaps public health officials need to pay more attention to the iterated trolley problem. Difficult, for sure, when dealing with the pandemic in front of you, and not the next one that comes, but our encroachment on animal viral reservoirs and insistence on conducting hazardous gain-of-function research all but guarantees the next one will come sooner or later.
Gain-of-function research, conducted carefully enough, might expose risks ahead of time that could be vaccinated against. You would generally prefer that it be in pathogens not already adapted to humans, or in places those are handled.
We are guaranteed pandemics regardless, just by how much international travel we do. What matters is the response. We are lucky monkeypox (actually a rodent illness) is rarely fatal.
Could someone in this thread please cite the alluded to cases of disability or death caused by one of the COVID vaccines? It would be helpful if people can be specific. I'd like to understand (1) whether this really happened or is a myth (2) which vaccine and (3) what's the biological mechanism of damage.
I can’t do as you ask, except to say that vaccine skeptics will point to any and every health problem in a vaccine recipient they know as having been caused by the vaccine. (I’ve found that) it’s very difficult to counter that anecdata.
Anytime you inject biochemically active stuff into billions of people, there will necessarily be some actual bad reactions mixed into a large number of events that would have happened regardless, or that anyway had nothing to do with the stuff injected.
And, some people will get in car accidents on the way home from the clinic, that would not have happened if they didn't go. People who get in line are exposed to random pathogens others in line are distributing, and to any pathogens injected via insect bites in that place.
People who do not get vaccinated are subject to similar risks, but are not counted.
Playing up these numbers does nobody honest any good.
