COVID-19 numbers

[DCHawk1]

This caught the entire world off guard.

It did, but should it have? Shouldn't we (as a world) have been more prepared than we were?

Here is an excerpt from the textbook I used this semester to teach my Pathogenic Microbiology course:

Research studies using animal coronaviruses have demonstrated that coronaviruses can undergo rapid genetic change with alterations in clinical disease and “trans-species” movement to new animal hosts. These laboratory observations were dramatically confirmed in nature during the spring and summer of 2003 with the recognition that a new human coronavirus was the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Within several months of its emergence in the Guangdong province of southeastern China, the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) demonstrated worldwide spread and the potential for high mortality with dramatic economic and societal consequences. The SARS epidemic raised important questions about coronaviruses and their biological potential to cause new diseases in humans and other animals. Where did SARS-CoV come from? Why was it able to cause such severe disease in humans? Why did it disappear, and will it reemerge to cause new outbreaks of disease? Recent studies of coronavirus genomics and evolution give important clues to the answers to those and other questions....

Genomic studies of “viromes” of other species have identified in many bat species a large number of coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV and more generally to all mammalian coronaviruses. Bat coronaviruses have not been cultured and do not appear to cause disease in bats, suggesting a long coevolution and possible reservoirs in bats for trans-species movement of SARS-like viruses to new hosts.

I mean, if the textbook I use in my class was able to predict, pretty accurately that this would happen, shouldn't the WHO, the CDC, the Presidential administration, etc. have been a little more prepared?

We shoulda seen this coming.

If only just 1 of our Presidents took the threat seriously enough to create a task force to handle a possible pandemic. Serious enough to have staff stationed in China to keep on eye on the area most likely to be the jump off point of a possible pandemic....

Look at you getting all nostalgic for GW Bush...

[PhDhawk]

I mean, if the textbook I use in my class was able to predict, pretty accurately that this would happen, shouldn't the WHO, the CDC, the Presidential administration, etc. have been a little more prepared?

We shoulda seen this coming.

I think the SARS and MERS countries, WHO, CDC definitely knew this was possible, even knew that SARS-COV-2 was capable.

But, like has been discussed, we don't fund things that might happen.

But even just reacting faster to the initial threat, which I think was the biggest failure.

[jfish26]

Good question. For Trump not to realize at least by mid-February that it was in his own best political interest to act to protect the US from the pandemic as vigorously and with every reasonable tool at his disposal as possible seems asinine, and makes no sense.

I don't tend to think there's much subsurface motivation or design.

I think (a) he genuinely lacks the capacity to have understood all of this shit early enough, (b) he views things primarily (only?) through the lens of what affects him personally in the short- and intermediate-term, and (c) he has so surrounded himself with sycophants and weasels that there was no overlap between the circles of "people who care about and understand this" and "people who can influence him".

This is, without question, the biggest part of it. No argument.

But there's also the question of how you deal with the problem once you know it's a problem. It's clear that they thought that the BIGGEST issue was going to be panic. And as a result, they thought their role was to be a calm, reassuring voice amidst a panicking crowd. They were wrong, obviously, but it's not hard to see why they came to that conclusion.

I am fascinated by rejection of expertise, and the psychology behind it. I (amateurly) suspect it is because expertise is democratizing, and human psychology (male psychology in particular) bends toward consolidating resources and power.

[DCHawk1]

I mean, if the textbook I use in my class was able to predict, pretty accurately that this would happen, shouldn't the WHO, the CDC, the Presidential administration, etc. have been a little more prepared?

We shoulda seen this coming.

I think the SARS and MERS countries, WHO, CDC definitely knew this was possible, even knew that SARS-COV-2 was capable.

But, like has been discussed, we don't fund things that might happen.

This is the issue.

OF COURSE we should have seen it coming. The probability score of a global respiratory pandemic was and is 1. The questions to be answered are when, how, and how best to treat/ameliorate. Answering those questions with any degree of accuracy would require careful, considered planning and resource deployment, which are A.) not suited to our political culture in general and B.) not suited to this president and his administration in particular.

[CrimsonNBlue]

I mean, if the textbook I use in my class was able to predict, pretty accurately that this would happen, shouldn't the WHO, the CDC, the Presidential administration, etc. have been a little more prepared?

We shoulda seen this coming.

I think the SARS and MERS countries, WHO, CDC definitely knew this was possible, even knew that SARS-COV-2 was capable.

But, like has been discussed, we don't fund things that might happen.

But even just reacting faster to the initial threat, which I think was the biggest failure.

I wonder if SARS (1) gave everyone a false sense of "it'll be fine."

[DCHawk1]

I am fascinated by rejection of expertise, and the psychology behind it. I (amateurly) suspect it is because expertise is democratizing, and human psychology (male psychology in particular) bends toward consolidating resources and power.

It's a complicated phenomenon with a long history and a large set of variables.

Before commenting further, though, I'm not sure what you mean when you say that "expertise is democratizing."

[PhDhawk]

I think the SARS and MERS countries, WHO, CDC definitely knew this was possible, even knew that SARS-COV-2 was capable.

But, like has been discussed, we don't fund things that might happen.

But even just reacting faster to the initial threat, which I think was the biggest failure.

I wonder if SARS (1) gave everyone a false sense of "it'll be fine."

I think it did. That plus MERS, H1N1, Ebola, Zika, etc.

[jfish26]

I am fascinated by rejection of expertise, and the psychology behind it. I (amateurly) suspect it is because expertise is democratizing, and human psychology (male psychology in particular) bends toward consolidating resources and power.

It's a complicated phenomenon with a long history and a large set of variables.

Before commenting further, though, I'm not sure what you mean when you say that "expertise is democratizing."

I guess what I'm getting at is that expertise draws - or should, logically, draw - influence away from power centers.

For example, imagine a society has a function whereby some really smart people dedicate all their time to and become experts in a specific field, to a degree that's simply not attainable by a generalist. Logically, on matters relating to this field, the generalist would put faith in the experts, rather than the generalist's own understanding.

[PhDhawk]

michhawk disagrees.




By the way remember when michhawk was celebrating that federal employees had to work while not getting paid during the shutdown?

I remember he thought it was a pretty fucking awesome thing.

Why the sudden change, he used to relish in other people's financial misfortune?

[jfish26]

Timely.

Trumpers are resistant to experts — even their own

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... n-doctors/

It has never been clear why right-wingers think that climate experts, trained for years in the hard sciences, are some left-wing cabal trying to pull a fast one on the industrial world — but the climate-change deniers no doubt will have some explanation. They likewise seem suspicious of epidemiologists, physicians, public health professionals and anyone who can speak from a position of authority on the pandemic. That’s a shame, given the dangerous consequences of pandemic denial and the plethora of sane advice coming even from current and past advisers to President Trump.

[...]

[Florida Governor Ron] DeSantis, like his political soul mate Trump, cannot be bothered with scientific warnings, no matter how dire. (“DeSantis and other Florida officials defended the reopening of beaches, saying Floridians use beaches like parks, for exercise,” The Post reports. “DeSantis said he doesn’t see the point in strict enforcement, especially as Floridians are cooped up with quarantine measures in place.”)

But then, this has been the story from the get-go: Trump minimizing, ignoring and contradicting expert advice as part of his magical thinking that refuses to grapple with reality, especially when reality reflects poorly on him. (“The president sought to obscure major problems by trying to recast them as triumphs,” The Post reports. “He repeatedly boasted, for instance, that the United States has conducted more tests than any other country, even though the total of 6.75 million is a fraction of the 2 million to 3 million tests per day that many experts say is needed to safely reopen.”)

Where Trump leads, his cult will follow. Trump can rely on his base’s anti-science bent, especially when he drowns out or ignores his own advisers. If he does not pay attention, why should his followers?

[CrimsonNBlue]

Why the sudden change, he used to relish in other people's financial misfortune?

2 weeks without golf, now he's a man for the people.

[Deleted User 62]

It did, but should it have? Shouldn't we (as a world) have been more prepared than we were?

Here is an excerpt from the textbook I used this semester to teach my Pathogenic Microbiology course:



I mean, if the textbook I use in my class was able to predict, pretty accurately that this would happen, shouldn't the WHO, the CDC, the Presidential administration, etc. have been a little more prepared?

We shoulda seen this coming.

If only just 1 of our Presidents took the threat seriously enough to create a task force to handle a possible pandemic. Serious enough to have staff stationed in China to keep on eye on the area most likely to be the jump off point of a possible pandemic....

Look at you getting all nostalgic for GW Bush...

I was telling my wife this morning that the only thing Trump has done positive is make folks yearn for the days when our President was just....dumb.

[DCHawk1]

I am fascinated by rejection of expertise, and the psychology behind it. I (amateurly) suspect it is because expertise is democratizing, and human psychology (male psychology in particular) bends toward consolidating resources and power.

It's a complicated phenomenon with a long history and a large set of variables.

Before commenting further, though, I'm not sure what you mean when you say that "expertise is democratizing."

I guess what I'm getting at is that expertise draws - or should, logically, draw - influence away from power centers.

For example, imagine a society has a function whereby some really smart people dedicate all their time to and become experts in a specific field, to a degree that's simply not attainable by a generalist. Logically, on matters relating to this field, the generalist would put faith in the experts, rather than the generalist's own understanding.

In all honesty, I'm not sure I follow. It seems to me that paragraph 2 directly contradicts the hope expressed in paragraph 1.

The need for expertise centralizes power and authority in the expert, almost by definition. And in practice, this has been shown to be wholly UNdemocratic. Whatever you call it -- the administrative state, public administration, the technocracy, whatever -- it is an attempt to manage the day-to-day operations of a modern society by taking the responsibility for doing so away from the people and handing it to the "experts." That this is UNdemocratic in theory as well as practice has largely been acknowledged for more than a century, even by those who practice and advocate for public administration. The trade-off, of course, is supposed to be that, in return for less democracy, you get better democracy. But that's a theoretical promise only.

The "rejection of expertise" as a societal ethos started almost immediately with the rise of the expert-class in the early part of the century and gained considerable steam with World War I. In this country, it mostly begins with Vietnam. David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest is just a devastating take-down of the "experts" who staffed the New Frontier. Vietnam proved that the experts were human in that they were fallible, while the space program showed that they were human in that they could be morally unfit as well.

Honestly, for me, the strangest post on this board in a long time, was Feral's post with some motivational thought on expertise from Wernher von Braun, a LITERAL Nazi. Of all the post-war covert operations conducted by our government -- many of which board regulars discuss and condemn on a rotating basis -- Operation Paperclip may have been the most morally egregious.

Obviously, there's a great deal more to it than this -- including the fact that budget-maximization turned into mandate-maximization which turned into universal-program-indispensability -- but the politicization of the bureaucratic apparatus, combined with the general moral and practical fallibility of the expert-class generally explains the broad outline of the resistance to "expertise."

[jfish26]

It's a complicated phenomenon with a long history and a large set of variables.

Before commenting further, though, I'm not sure what you mean when you say that "expertise is democratizing."

I guess what I'm getting at is that expertise draws - or should, logically, draw - influence away from power centers.

For example, imagine a society has a function whereby some really smart people dedicate all their time to and become experts in a specific field, to a degree that's simply not attainable by a generalist. Logically, on matters relating to this field, the generalist would put faith in the experts, rather than the generalist's own understanding.

In all honesty, I'm not sure I follow. It seems to me that paragraph 2 directly contradicts the hope expressed in paragraph 1.

The need for expertise centralizes power and authority in the expert, almost by definition. And in practice, this has been shown to be wholly UNdemocratic. Whatever you call it -- the administrative state, public administration, the technocracy, whatever -- it is an attempt to manage the day-to-day operations of a modern society by taking the responsibility for doing so away from the people and handing it to the "experts." That this is UNdemocratic in theory as well as practice has largely been acknowledged for more than a century, even by those who practice and advocate for public administration. The trade-off, of course, is supposed to be that, in return for less democracy, you get better democracy. But that's a theoretical promise only.

The "rejection of expertise" as a societal ethos started almost immediately with the rise of the expert-class in the early part of the century and gained considerable steam with World War I. In this country, it mostly begins with Vietnam. David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest is just a devastating take-down of the "experts" who staffed the New Frontier. Vietnam proved that the experts were human in that they were fallible, while the space program showed that they were human in that they could be morally unfit as well.

Honestly, for me, the strangest post on this board in a long time, was Feral's post with some motivational thought on expertise from Wernher von Braun, a LITERAL Nazi. Of all the post-war covert operations conducted by our government -- many of which board regulars discuss and condemn on a rotating basis -- Operation Paperclip may have been the most morally egregious.

Obviously, there's a great deal more to it than this -- including the fact that budget-maximization turned into mandate-maximization which turned into universal-program-indispensability -- but the politicization of the bureaucratic apparatus, combined with the general moral and practical fallibility of the expert-class generally explains the broad outline of the resistance to "expertise."

Responding only to the bolded text.

I regret using a term of art, because (as often happens) that has us sidetracked.

Put it this way - before a society achieves "expertise" in an area (which I acknowledge is quite vague!), then the power in that area belongs to the central power.

The achievement of expertise "democratizes" things, in my conception, because then the experts pull the authority (to a degree) away from the central power. The more areas in which a society achieves expertise, the fewer areas in which the central power is (or should be?) the leader.

[Sparko]

A difference in not enforcing laws and encouraging chaos by inserting politics above safety.

[seahawk]

I guess what I'm getting at is that expertise draws - or should, logically, draw - influence away from power centers.

For example, imagine a society has a function whereby some really smart people dedicate all their time to and become experts in a specific field, to a degree that's simply not attainable by a generalist. Logically, on matters relating to this field, the generalist would put faith in the experts, rather than the generalist's own understanding.

In all honesty, I'm not sure I follow. It seems to me that paragraph 2 directly contradicts the hope expressed in paragraph 1.

The need for expertise centralizes power and authority in the expert, almost by definition. And in practice, this has been shown to be wholly UNdemocratic. Whatever you call it -- the administrative state, public administration, the technocracy, whatever -- it is an attempt to manage the day-to-day operations of a modern society by taking the responsibility for doing so away from the people and handing it to the "experts." That this is UNdemocratic in theory as well as practice has largely been acknowledged for more than a century, even by those who practice and advocate for public administration. The trade-off, of course, is supposed to be that, in return for less democracy, you get better democracy. But that's a theoretical promise only.

The "rejection of expertise" as a societal ethos started almost immediately with the rise of the expert-class in the early part of the century and gained considerable steam with World War I. In this country, it mostly begins with Vietnam. David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest is just a devastating take-down of the "experts" who staffed the New Frontier. Vietnam proved that the experts were human in that they were fallible, while the space program showed that they were human in that they could be morally unfit as well.

Honestly, for me, the strangest post on this board in a long time, was Feral's post with some motivational thought on expertise from Wernher von Braun, a LITERAL Nazi. Of all the post-war covert operations conducted by our government -- many of which board regulars discuss and condemn on a rotating basis -- Operation Paperclip may have been the most morally egregious.

Obviously, there's a great deal more to it than this -- including the fact that budget-maximization turned into mandate-maximization which turned into universal-program-indispensability -- but the politicization of the bureaucratic apparatus, combined with the general moral and practical fallibility of the expert-class generally explains the broad outline of the resistance to "expertise."

Responding only to the bolded text.

I regret using a term of art, because (as often happens) that has us sidetracked.

Put it this way - before a society achieves "expertise" in an area (which I acknowledge is quite vague!), then the power in that area belongs to the central power.

The achievement of expertise "democratizes" things, in my conception, because then the experts pull the authority (to a degree) away from the central power. The more areas in which a society achieves expertise, the fewer areas in which the central power is (or should be?) the leader.

DC quotes from the Public Admin 105 lecture from time to time, about the administrative state and the early 20th Century "progressives." But, the societal changes that he talks about usually come in the U.S. as a result of war, not of some political movement. What war does is remove some of the populace from the dictatorships of religious leaders, the group which DC likes, and gives them a broader perspective as men leave their small, insular communities and have vastly different experiences in parts of the world where they'd never otherwise travel. War also changes women's status, as they take over some industrial occupations and maintain the homefront while the men are gone and have often to deal with a postwar husband or father with PTSD. While both males and females may not become some kind of movement progressives or some ultra liberal, it changes attitudes enough that they see the social progress that DC views as anathema as positives.

War also means that some benefits are handed out to those who fought. In the U.S. that long meant bounties given from public lands, from the earliest days of the nation. After WWII, it led to a socialistic national health service for veterans and the GI bill, along with VA loans for housing. DC can regard giving the lowest level former soldiers a better stake in their own lives as "undemocratic," but I don't think most would agree.

War also brings huge advances in medicine and changes in medical delivery systems, and greater respect for doctors and scientists rather than bankers and industrialists. In fact, the kind of giveaways and graft for friends, that we see currently with the Trumpists and COVID 19 PPE, becomes public and unacceptable. That actually leads to greater democratization, not less as DC posits.

Also, the societal changes that DC's Public Admin professors inaccurately ascribed to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, actually began during the Civil War.

[zsn]

But even just reacting faster to the initial threat, which I think was the biggest failure.

I wonder if SARS (1) gave everyone a false sense of "it'll be fine."

I think it did. That plus MERS, H1N1, Ebola, Zika, etc.

If it did then no one learned anything: https://cmr.asm.org/content/20/4/660/article-info

Click on the pdf and scroll to the "Should we be ready for the reemergence of SARS?" section. They clearly predicted, in 2007, that "the culture of eating exotic mammals........is a timebomb"

It's the same short-sightedness that compels people to disband the pandemic response teams

[Mjl]

Might be wrong thread, but it's number-related and COVID related...

Why is the stock market going up when the economy is dramatically contracting? Aren't PEs going to be, like, insanely high?

[jfish26]

Might be wrong thread, but it's number-related and COVID related...

Why is the stock market going up when the economy is dramatically contracting? Aren't PEs going to be, like, insanely high?

Because the stock market is not the economy. And much of what's taking the hardest hit is far, far too small to be of concern to the stock market.

[Mjl]

Might be wrong thread, but it's number-related and COVID related...

Why is the stock market going up when the economy is dramatically contracting? Aren't PEs going to be, like, insanely high?

Because the stock market is not the economy. And much of what's taking the hardest hit is far, far too small to be of concern to the stock market.

So far, sure. But the market usually looks ahead, and I would think all these unemployed people will not be spending money, which seems like it would hurt a lot of publicly traded companies.