[continued from previous message]   
      
   >> government (2011) had all expressed ambivalence or caution about the   
   >> kind of quarantine measures that were soon taken.   
   >>   
   >> “We take a look at the state of the evidence as it was in early 2020,”   
   >> Lee said. “It was clear at the time that the evidence was quite   
   >> unsettled around all of this, and if policymakers had been more honest   
   >> with the public about these uncertainties, I think they would have   
   >> maintained public trust better.”   
   >>   
   >> They wanted there to be an answer – that if we do X and Y, we can   
   >> prevent this disaster. And so they’re kind of grasping at straws   
   >> The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted a wargaming exercise   
   >> in October 2019, shortly before the pandemic began, to simulate a deadly   
   >> coronavirus pandemic; the findings explicitly urged that “[t]ravel and   
   >> trade … be maintained even in the face of a pandemic”. Similarly, a WHO   
   >> paper in 2019 said that some measures – such as border closures and   
   >> contact tracing – were “not recommended in any circumstances”.   
   >>   
   >> “And yet we did all of that in short order,” Macedo said, “and without   
   >> people referring back to these plans.”   
   >>   
   >> He and Lee also believe there was a strong element of class bias, with a   
   >> left-leaning “laptop class” that could easily work from home touting   
   >> anti-Covid measures that were much easier for some Americans to adopt   
   >> than others. Many relatively affluent Americans became even wealthier   
   >> during the pandemic, in part due to rising housing values.   
   >>   
   >> At the same time, the laptop class was only able to socially isolate at   
   >> home in part because other people risked exposure to provide groceries.   
   >> Stay-at-home measures were partly intended to protect “essential   
   >> workers”, but policymakers living in crisis-stricken major metropolitan   
   >> areas such as New York or Washington DC did not reckon with why social   
   >> distancing and other measures might be less important in rural parts of   
   >> the country where Covid rates were lower.   
   >>   
   >> Lockdowns were intended to slow Covid’s spread, yet previous pandemic   
   >> recommendations had suggested they only be used very early in an   
   >> outbreak and even then do not buy much time, Macedo said.   
   >>   
   >> two people stand next to each other smiling   
   >> View image in fullscreen   
   >> Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee. Photograph: Courtesy of Stephen Macedo   
   >> Policymakers and experts often embraced stringent measures for reasons   
   >> that are more political than medical, Macedo and Lee argue; in a   
   >> pandemic, authorities are keen to assure anxious publics that they are   
   >> “in charge” and “doing something”.   
   >>   
   >> In strange contrast, policymakers and journalists in the US and   
   >> elsewhere seemed to take China as a model, the book argues, despite the   
   >> fact that China is an authoritarian state and had concealed the scale of   
   >> the outbreak during the crucial early days of the pandemic. Its regime   
   >> had obvious incentives to mislead foreign observers, and used draconian   
   >> quarantine measures such as physically welding people into their homes.   
   >>   
   >> When the WHO organized a joint China field mission with the Chinese   
   >> government, in February 2020, non-Chinese researchers found it difficult   
   >> to converse with their Chinese counterparts away from government   
   >> handlers. Yet the WHO’s report was “effusive in its praise” of   
   China’s   
   >> approach, the book notes.   
   >>   
   >> “My view is that there was just a great deal of wishful thinking on the   
   >> part of technocrats of all kinds,” Lee said. “They wanted there to be an   
   >> answer – that if we do X and Y, we can prevent this disaster. And so   
   >> they’re kind of grasping at straws. The Chinese example gave them hope.”   
   >> She noted that Covid policymakers might have been better served if there   
   >> had been people assigned to act as devil’s advocates in internal   
   >> deliberations.   
   >>   
   >> Lee and Macedo are not natural scientists or public health   
   >> professionals, they emphasize, and their book is about failures in   
   >> public deliberation over Covid-19, rather than a prescription for   
   >> managing pandemics.   
   >>   
   >> But they do wade into the debate about Covid-19’s origin, arguing that   
   >> the “lab leak” hypothesis – that Covid-19 accidentally leaked from the   
   >> Wuhan Institute of Virology, rather than spontaneously leaping from   
   >> animals to humans – was unfairly dismissed.   
   >>   
   >> The Wuhan Institute studied coronaviruses similar to the one responsible   
   >> for Covid-19, had a documented history of safety breaches, was located   
   >> near the outbreak, and is known to have experimented on viruses using   
   >> controversial “gain-of-function” methods funded by the US, which involve   
   >> mutating pathogens to see what they might look like in a more advanced   
   >> or dangerous form.   
   >>   
   >> If policymakers had been more honest with the public about these   
   >> uncertainties, I think they would have maintained public trust better   
   >> Perhaps because Trump had fanned racial paranoia by calling Covid-19 the   
   >> “China virus” and rightwing influencers were spreading the notion that   
   >> it had been deliberately engineered and unleashed on the world by China,   
   >> many scientists, public health experts and journalists reacted by   
   >> framing the idea of a lab leak – even an accidental one – as an   
   >> offensive conspiracy theory. Dr Anthony Fauci and other top public   
   >> health figures were evasive or in some cases dishonest about the   
   >> possibility of a lab leak, Macedo and Lee say, as well as the fact that   
   >> a US non-profit funded by the National Institutes of Health allegedly   
   >> funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute.   
   >>   
   >> Since then, though, the CIA and other US intelligence agencies have   
   >> cautiously endorsed the lab leak theory, and the discourse around Covid   
   >> has softened somewhat. The economist Emily Oster sparked immense   
   >> backlash by arguing against school closures in 2020. Now publications   
   >> such as New York Magazine and the New York Times have acknowledged the   
   >> plausibility of the lab leak hypothesis, for example, and there is   
   >> growing consensus that school closures hurt many children.   
   >>   
   >> The reception to In Covid’s Wake has been more positive than Macedo and   
   >> Lee expected – perhaps a sign that some of their arguments have   
   >> penetrated the mainstream, if not that we’ve gotten better as a society   
   >> at talking about difficult things. “The reception of the book has been   
   >> much less controversial [and] contentious than we expected,” Macedo said.   
   >>   
   >> cashiers putting groceries in shopping bags   
   >> Disposable: what Covid-19 did to those who couldn’t afford to fight the   
   >> virus   
   >> Read more   
   >> Yet the wounds fester and debates continue. Some readers of the New York   
   >> Times were furious when The Daily, the newspaper’s flagship podcast,   
   >> recently interviewed them, with subscribers arguing that the episode was   
   >> not sufficiently critical of their stance. And some coverage of the book   
   >> has criticized it for underplaying the danger of the disease.   
   >>   
   >> Macedo and Lee said that a few of their colleagues have expressed   
   >> concern that their critique could fuel political attacks on science – a   
   >> worry that crossed their minds too. “Our response is that the best way   
   >> to refute criticisms that science and universities have been politicized   
      
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   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)