[Genuine Realist]

There are a couple of factors in play here that we have seen throughout history. When there are events that affect all of society adversely, a certain part of the population responds by going into denial. They simply can't face the fact that society has relatively little control over what is happening to it. Another part of the society looks for simple solutions. Many of the solutions they pick out are absurd, but they stick to them because there is nothing else, as they see it. Yet another part of the society looks for somebody to blame. There is a conspiracy going on that is responsible for the entire situation. This happens time after time thought history. Doesn't make any of this a good idea, but it is what happens.

Fortunately, few (if any) people on this board fall into any of the above categories. We do hear lots of people saying "follow the science", which is fine as far as it goes, but public policy is not science, it is politics. Therein lies the rub. I can make a pretty good argument that the science behind "the hammer and the dance" was correct, but our society simply failed to execute. That isn't sciences fault, but it can sure convince people that following the science is futile given the results. The SIP was supposed to allow us to control the disease. We didn't, for reasons that have nothing (or little at least) to do with science and everything to do with politics/government. Given that, people may fall into one of the three previously mentioned groups or into a state of dissonance, where they kind of accept the science but it doesn't really control their behavior. That is where I am afraid we are now. The vaccine better arrive soon is all I can say.

What comes to my mind when I read what seems to me to be an entirely anecdotal account by a single county health worker, is the 'Covid parties' furor of a few months ago, which had a brief credibility before it turned out to be almost completely urban rumor. A number of health officials had heard of them - no one had actually encountered one. I think pretty much the same thing is going to turn out to have happened here - maybe one ambulatory schizophrenic, maybe someone who wanted to create scandal, maybe no one at all, something  that one doctor repeated to another - just a chance remark misreported, maybe even a joke taken literally. Such an attitude expressed by a person on a ventilator - and by the way, how many are on ventilators these days? - is counterintuitive in the extreme. I didn't believe 'covid parties' for a lot of good reasons, and i don't believe this, for different good reasons.

I'm going to mount the soapbox here for a moment, and if I'm pompous in the process, I'll take the risk. The danger of fake news,which abounds, isn't the misinformation your party opponents fall for. It's the illusions you fall for yourself. I remember long ago some historian playfully describing the actual attitudes of the Founders' generation to freedom of religion - leave me free to practice what I believe and don't come round with hat superstitious nonsense of yours. Fake news is somewhat the same - leave off that foolishness of yours, but MY beliefs are built on solid rock. Well  . . . it's that sort of thing that leads to gritted teeth defenses of Trump - because fake news from the opposition began even before he was inaugurated and continues to this day.

It's our own illusions, and the tendency not to examine them too closely, that are the real challenge for most of us in living. The movie 'The Big Short' began with a marvellous quote from Mark Twain that I have never heard before, but which has become a staple:

It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. 

(BTW, the posters that could benefit most from this little sermon have already got me on ignore. Which figures.)

[Genuine Realist]

There are a couple of factors in play here that we have seen throughout history. When there are events that affect all of society adversely, a certain part of the population responds by going into denial. They simply can't face the fact that society has relatively little control over what is happening to it. Another part of the society looks for simple solutions. Many of the solutions they pick out are absurd, but they stick to them because there is nothing else, as they see it. Yet another part of the society looks for somebody to blame. There is a conspiracy going on that is responsible for the entire situation. This happens time after time thought history. Doesn't make any of this a good idea, but it is what happens.

Fortunately, few (if any) people on this board fall into any of the above categories. We do hear lots of people saying "follow the science", which is fine as far as it goes, but public policy is not science, it is politics. Therein lies the rub. I can make a pretty good argument that the science behind "the hammer and the dance" was correct, but our society simply failed to execute. That isn't sciences fault, but it can sure convince people that following the science is futile given the results. The SIP was supposed to allow us to control the disease. We didn't, for reasons that have nothing (or little at least) to do with science and everything to do with politics/government. Given that, people may fall into one of the three previously mentioned groups or into a state of dissonance, where they kind of accept the science but it doesn't really control their behavior. That is where I am afraid we are now. The vaccine better arrive soon is all I can say.

What comes to my mind when I read what seems to me to be an entirely anecdotal account by a single county health worker, is the 'Covid parties' furor of a few months ago, which had a brief credibility before it turned out to be almost completely urban rumor. A number of health officials had heard of them - no one had actually encountered one. I think pretty much the same thing is going to turn out to have happened here - maybe one ambulatory schizophrenic, maybe someone who wanted to create scandal, maybe no one at all, something  that one doctor repeated to another - just a chance remark misreported, maybe even a joke taken literally. Such an attitude expressed by a person on a ventilator - and by the way, how many are on ventilators these days? - is counterintuitive in the extreme. I didn't believe 'covid parties' for a lot of good reasons, and i don't believe this, for different good reasons.

I'm going to mount the soapbox here for a moment, and if I'm pompous in the process, I'll take the risk. The danger of fake news,which abounds, isn't the misinformation your party opponents fall for. It's the illusions you fall for yourself. I remember long ago some historian playfully describing the actual attitudes of the Founders' generation to freedom of religion - leave me free to practice what I believe and don't come round with hat superstitious nonsense of yours. Fake news is somewhat the same - leave off that foolishness of yours, but MY beliefs are built on solid rock. Well  . . . it's that sort of thing that leads to gritted teeth defenses of Trump - because fake news from the opposition began even before he was inaugurated and continues to this day.

It's our own illusions, and the tendency not to examine them too closely, that are the real challenge for most of us in living. The movie 'The Big Short' began with a marvellous quote from Mark Twain that I have never heard before, but which has become a staple:

It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. 

(BTW, the posters that could benefit most from this little sermon have already got me on ignore. Which figures.)