The COVID-19 pandemic

[jeffster]

Unfortunately being more educated makes people also better at making up rationalizations that aren't actually consistent with all the facts but instead cherry picking useful subsets of facts that lead to a desired conclusion (ie motivated reasoning, as jamincan was talking about upthread.) So education and critical thinking isn't a sure cure here.

I would argue that by definition being educated means understanding something about correct argumentation, logic, and evaluation of evidence. If a medical doctor, for example, is also a vaccine denialist, then it means they’re actually uneducated, although they managed to pass the exams which certify their medical training.

The problem with this is I’m not sure we can find a way of evaluating somebody’s actual level of education independent of looking at whether they believe in various conspiracy theories and other nonsense, which may end up being pretty circular.

It is also true that there are many different ways of being intelligent. For example, an astrologer may be a compassionate and empathetic listener. Doesn’t mean their astrological “knowledge” is anything other than utter nonsense, its theoretical basis having been thoroughly destroyed centuries ago, but there are other important skills besides understanding science.

The one issue with this covid-19 was the early messages from out 'top of the class' doctors.

To be honest, back in March I had argued with some people over the usage of masks, and making them mandatory. I was lucky enough to have some N95's that I let my mother use when going out, back in March. But through March, April, May and even into June, tops doctors were arguing the effectiveness of masks, and that the general public shouldn't use them, as they offered little protection.

And while standard masks offer little protection against the virus, they 100% do offer protection to others from you, if you're wearing one. Yet even as a region, it wasn't mandatory until July.

So even the most educated totally ignored best practices when it comes to PPE. It seems they all looked at it from a standpoint if it protected YOU from the virus. Perhaps an N95 does offers protection, but that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing how we can limit the spread. If the war against masks were to protect the N95 supply, fine. Say that. Encourage alternative facial coverings. Yet we didn't.

I believe had the message of proper PPE had been implemented back in February, we'd be in a very different spot right now. Of course we can argue that China fudged their death tolls. But their covid-19 numbers are LOW. Contrast to the USA, who's approach to PPE has been at a snails pace, we see the results, with them having one 25% of the worlds cases, while only have 4% of the worlds population.

I also believe the reason why we continue to see lower spread rates now is because of PPE. While I don't think we'll get down to zero until a vaccine is finalized, I think we can at least have a somewhat "new" normal until then.