The elephant in the room of this article is the lack of any convincing evidence for the efficacy of facemasks and lockdowns. All measures above and beyond those taken by Sweden ( similar to the recommendations for this country until 23rd March 2020) have no basis in evidence based medicine.
The only superforecaster involved appears to have been President Xi of China.
ralph bell
2 years ago
Yes the other thing apart from masks and hand washing mis-information is obesity and poor general fitness making people more susceptible to the Covid-19 serious outcomes. Yet the government and health bodies have made no focus of this at all in their campaigns and actually discouraged people from going outside and doing sport/exercise for the majority of the lockdowns. Remember arresting people sitting in parks…
To be fair, exercise was encouraged from the start in the UK and the parks sensibly for the most part remained open (unlike France and Italy, among others) Sitting in parks, while I agree of extremely low risk, is hardly, getting exercise.
Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
Drahcir Nevarc
2 years ago
An enjoyable hobby of mine is laughing at solo masked car drivers..
I’d agree, except I was almost written off by a daft person driving an Audi at speed on black ice last winter. She was wearing a mask & alone in the car. By some miracle she missed me before ending up backwards in the hedge.
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
This wiping of seats is ludicrous. They are even doing it in South Africa. Pure theatre.
It is a disgusting theatre indeed, especially because this fallacy is perpetuated at the detriment to people’s health. What with those megatons of chemical substances (often of dubious origin) that are being forced onto us at every corner. Doubtlessly, inadvertent inhaling of the chemicals helps cannot be beneficial to human health, not to mention the horrible effect on skin. What about the cost being incurred by businesses forced ‘by law’ to purchase insane quantities of this stuff. Not a subscriber to conspiracy theories, I can’t help thinking that there are powerful lobby and interests behind this craze. Producers of poisonous ‘hygiene’ products appear to have been having a very ‘good covid’.
Excellent – I did – thank you for that nugget!
Having had first hand experience of both governments and larger organisations – I am inclined to agree with this assessment in most cases.
As Vietnam became a war of ‘The Military Industrial Complex’ covid became a war of ‘The Medical Industrial Complex’. and very well they did from it..
Zaph Mann
2 years ago
VArious comments here want to widen the discussion, but the article is focused on an indisputable issue. As a consequence absurd amounts of pesticides have been sprayed on streets in some countries while schools have blown their budgets on incessant cleaning (often causing caustic air) instead of upgrading their ventilation / filtration systems.
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
“Why were we so slow at learning from the science and from countries that reacted faster? “
What had that to teach us? That Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and the Region’s peoples die at 5 per Million wile Westerners die at over 2000 per million? Because that is all to be learned from their response that I have seen.
I do not understand this article. Is he for or against Herd Immunity? What should we have learned from the other, early, responders? Did Lockdown save us? Or not? Are masks (one thing we picked up from China) important? Did shutting schools for a year do anything?
I get he does not think handwashing matters much, but that was the LEAST issue pushed on the Western Lockdown Nations – so what could have mattered?
Dr Stephen Nightingale
2 years ago
It’s Noticeable that as hygiene exhaustion is setting in, old friends such as noro virus are popping back up. Frequent hand washing has always been a good idea, for all the ordinary evils that have never gone away.
Hugh Marcus
2 years ago
Early on in the debate around Covid there arose a narrative about how long the virus could survive on a stainless steel surface (in a lab) That stuck. In the spring of 2020, I argued (having run an asbestos business for 15yrs) that air movement or the lack of it were far more important than hand sanitation. Unless I’m being forced to, I never use sanitiser ( we know anyway that washing with soap & water is better).
Personal responsibility goes a long way & choosing not to do daft things.
As soon as compulsory mask wearing ends where I live, I’ll no longer wear one, I know from professional experience, the vast majority offer no protection anyhow.
The biggest problem in our society extracting ourselves from all this is that public officials are notoriously risk averse. They just can’t stop themselves making more rules as they feel better for it.
The elephant in the room of this article is the lack of any convincing evidence for the efficacy of facemasks and lockdowns. All measures above and beyond those taken by Sweden ( similar to the recommendations for this country until 23rd March 2020) have no basis in evidence based medicine.
The only superforecaster involved appears to have been President Xi of China.
Yes the other thing apart from masks and hand washing mis-information is obesity and poor general fitness making people more susceptible to the Covid-19 serious outcomes. Yet the government and health bodies have made no focus of this at all in their campaigns and actually discouraged people from going outside and doing sport/exercise for the majority of the lockdowns. Remember arresting people sitting in parks…
To be fair, exercise was encouraged from the start in the UK and the parks sensibly for the most part remained open (unlike France and Italy, among others) Sitting in parks, while I agree of extremely low risk, is hardly, getting exercise.
An enjoyable hobby of mine is laughing at solo masked car drivers..
I’d agree, except I was almost written off by a daft person driving an Audi at speed on black ice last winter. She was wearing a mask & alone in the car. By some miracle she missed me before ending up backwards in the hedge.
This wiping of seats is ludicrous. They are even doing it in South Africa. Pure theatre.
I know – ruins the flavour…
(sorry vulgar joke and not real of course, but highlights the ridiculous nature of it)
Beastly fellow. Have an upvote.
It is a disgusting theatre indeed, especially because this fallacy is perpetuated at the detriment to people’s health. What with those megatons of chemical substances (often of dubious origin) that are being forced onto us at every corner. Doubtlessly, inadvertent inhaling of the chemicals helps cannot be beneficial to human health, not to mention the horrible effect on skin. What about the cost being incurred by businesses forced ‘by law’ to purchase insane quantities of this stuff. Not a subscriber to conspiracy theories, I can’t help thinking that there are powerful lobby and interests behind this craze. Producers of poisonous ‘hygiene’ products appear to have been having a very ‘good covid’.
Google “Hanlon’s Razor”.
Excellent – I did – thank you for that nugget!
Having had first hand experience of both governments and larger organisations – I am inclined to agree with this assessment in most cases.
You’re most welcome.
Thank you for that reminder. I had heard of that but not under that name.
Je vous en prie.
As Vietnam became a war of ‘The Military Industrial Complex’ covid became a war of ‘The Medical Industrial Complex’. and very well they did from it..
VArious comments here want to widen the discussion, but the article is focused on an indisputable issue. As a consequence absurd amounts of pesticides have been sprayed on streets in some countries while schools have blown their budgets on incessant cleaning (often causing caustic air) instead of upgrading their ventilation / filtration systems.
“Why were we so slow at learning from the science and from countries that reacted faster? “
What had that to teach us? That Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and the Region’s peoples die at 5 per Million wile Westerners die at over 2000 per million? Because that is all to be learned from their response that I have seen.
I do not understand this article. Is he for or against Herd Immunity? What should we have learned from the other, early, responders? Did Lockdown save us? Or not? Are masks (one thing we picked up from China) important? Did shutting schools for a year do anything?
I get he does not think handwashing matters much, but that was the LEAST issue pushed on the Western Lockdown Nations – so what could have mattered?
It’s Noticeable that as hygiene exhaustion is setting in, old friends such as noro virus are popping back up. Frequent hand washing has always been a good idea, for all the ordinary evils that have never gone away.
Early on in the debate around Covid there arose a narrative about how long the virus could survive on a stainless steel surface (in a lab) That stuck. In the spring of 2020, I argued (having run an asbestos business for 15yrs) that air movement or the lack of it were far more important than hand sanitation. Unless I’m being forced to, I never use sanitiser ( we know anyway that washing with soap & water is better).
Personal responsibility goes a long way & choosing not to do daft things.
As soon as compulsory mask wearing ends where I live, I’ll no longer wear one, I know from professional experience, the vast majority offer no protection anyhow.
The biggest problem in our society extracting ourselves from all this is that public officials are notoriously risk averse. They just can’t stop themselves making more rules as they feel better for it.