I was thinking about this yesterday. Have we collectively lost the memory of SARS? I wonder if we could have better connected that at the beginning of the pandemic.
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Replying to @vlamers
Great point, but be careful throwing around "we", I was 5
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Replying to @VaccineJo @vlamers
I also think about how we were primed by the memories of 2009 H1N1, which generally had less of an impact than feared, and Ebola and Zika, which had limited impact in the global north.
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Replying to @VaccineJo @vlamers
Yeah this biased me too. I figured it would be like SARS where it might get some spread around the world but with low case numbers overall and good containment. And then everything went to shit
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Replying to @ENirenberg @vlamers
I also remember the bits of "good news" that were clung to at the beginning. "No evidence of human-to-human transmission!" (until there was), "No infections of HCWs!" (until there was), "no traveler cases!" (until there was), "no deaths" (until there was)
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Replying to @VaccineJo @vlamers
I think a lot about the communication blunders in the beginning. “No asymptomatic transmission” was a huge one. And the airborne thing could have been better explained to the public.
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This entire thing has been one example of mistaking “we don’t have solid evidence of X happening” with “X doesn’t happen” regardless of whether it makes sense. It’s been an abject failure of medicine’s fanatical empiricism
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Replying to @baym @ENirenberg and
I don’t disagree—a lot of “no evidence that” was “we don’t know, yet”—but the process by which airborne transmission kinda sorta finally got acknowledged also shows a strong tendency to *reject* empirical data as valid until it became overwhelming. It’s more selective empiricism.
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I don't think that's entirely fair. Showing airborne transmission is a dominant mode of spread (as opposed to droplet) is extremely difficult and the paradigmatic dichotomy we had in place didn't help things either.
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Replying to @ENirenberg @zeynep and
Though either way we botched it. Many of the same measures (filtration inc masks and circulation) work for both. Also saying despite logic that a mask that didn’t meet the tested N95 fit conditions was as good as no mask was an enormously costly mistake
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Yeah. Any mask is better than no mask (which started as a recommendation, given the dire shortage for health-care workers) somehow turned into “no difference between masks” the guidance seems to be unable to move from. It’s baffling. It’s 2022!
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Replying to @zeynep @ENirenberg and
Omg there are so many things where “It’s baffling. It’s 2022!” works
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