The pictures of people spraying things with disinfectant, sitting far apart, etc., reminds me of my realization, sometime in the spring or summer of 2020, that "The Science" was not science. Early on, when I still believed that the 'rona was a real disease, I did my best to find information about mortality/morbidity, mode and likelihood of transmission, that sort of thing.
The first thing I noticed was that, from the standpoint of severity and ease of spread, the disease (as described by mainstream sources) was nowhere near bad enough to justify the response to it. I did some calculations based on edge cases (the Diamond Princess, the slums of Mumbai) and figured that if the disease were allowed to run its course with nothing to slow it down, we might see a slight increase in mortality for a few months, but probably nothing out of the ordinary range of year-to-year variability.
The second thing I noticed, as information became available about mechanism and likelihood of transmission became available, was that almost everything that was being done in response to the disease was objectively useless (according to mainstream sources). Why continue spraying everything down with disinfectant when we know that the disease isn't transmitted that way? Why wear masks and sit 2m apart when there is no conceivable way that either of those things could stop aerosol transmission? Why stay inside when the risk of contracting the disease from a passing stranger on the street is effectively zero?
That was when I started to realize that what I was seeing was not the response to a pandemic, but some entirely different phenomenon.
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branchandroot
Re: Covid photo museum
Date: 2025-05-07 02:24 am (UTC)The pictures of people spraying things with disinfectant, sitting far apart, etc., reminds me of my realization, sometime in the spring or summer of 2020, that "The Science" was not science. Early on, when I still believed that the 'rona was a real disease, I did my best to find information about mortality/morbidity, mode and likelihood of transmission, that sort of thing.
The first thing I noticed was that, from the standpoint of severity and ease of spread, the disease (as described by mainstream sources) was nowhere near bad enough to justify the response to it. I did some calculations based on edge cases (the Diamond Princess, the slums of Mumbai) and figured that if the disease were allowed to run its course with nothing to slow it down, we might see a slight increase in mortality for a few months, but probably nothing out of the ordinary range of year-to-year variability.
The second thing I noticed, as information became available about mechanism and likelihood of transmission became available, was that almost everything that was being done in response to the disease was objectively useless (according to mainstream sources). Why continue spraying everything down with disinfectant when we know that the disease isn't transmitted that way? Why wear masks and sit 2m apart when there is no conceivable way that either of those things could stop aerosol transmission? Why stay inside when the risk of contracting the disease from a passing stranger on the street is effectively zero?
That was when I started to realize that what I was seeing was not the response to a pandemic, but some entirely different phenomenon.