At what point did you / will you take the coronavirus epidemic seriously?

[YOhio]

Lol.

Skeptical POV? Dude was nuts from early pandemic. It’s amazing that these people had audience with rational adults. The grift with him was obvious, he parlayed it into a show within days of the country shutting down.

Ha! You and your purity tests. Heaven forbid someone 90% agree with you.

[YOhio]

He is woefully ignorant about Mormons.

Nice try but SU still won't like him.

[fusnik]

Ha! You and your purity tests. Heaven forbid someone 90% agree with you.

Lol.

This isn’t a measure of purity, it’s a measure of soberly assessing the opinions/news we consume and formulating rational views.

To a point I understand it, early pandemic we were all searching for reasons to do things and people like Berenson gave us ‘compelling’ evidence to do so. But it was always a grift, sorry you didn’t recognize that.

[SeattleUte]

Lol.

This isn’t a measure of purity, it’s a measure of soberly assessing the opinions/news we consume and formulating rational views.

To a point I understand it, early pandemic we were all searching for reasons to do things and people like Berenson gave us ‘compelling’ evidence to do so. But it was always a grift, sorry you didn’t recognize that.

Berenson was a worthwhile source of information linked from other sources with devil's advocacy about lockdowns--for a few weeks right at the beginning. After all, it's still not clear whether lockdowns are worth it. See Australia, after all the suffering an endless lockdown and vaccine shunning, the whole scheme is collapsing. Historians will debate this.

It wasn't long before the attention went to Berenson's head and he became thoroughly reprehensible.

[SeattleUte]

I'm pro-vaxx but just don't feel as strongly about this as you. I do agree that Berenson has been a huge disappointment. In the beginning he provided a skeptical POV that was interesting. A few months into it he became unhinged and went crazy. Really pretty sad. He was a talented fiction writer.

What is more worthwhile feeling strongly about? With 1,500+ (almost entirely unvaccinated) people dying each day in the US, and anti-vaxxers pushing ICUs and our economy to the brink again.

[Uncle Ted]

What is more worthwhile feeling strongly about? With 1,500+ (almost entirely unvaccinated) people dying each day in the US, and anti-vaxxers pushing ICUs and our economy to the brink again.

And there are large numbers of unvaccinated people to the south of us spilling over the border every day... What is our good president doing about that problem? He is doing a good job keeping the vaccinated people in Canada out, however:

Covid Hypocrisy at the U.S. Border
Vaccinated Canadians are kept out while unvaccinated migrants flow in.

Can anyone justify the hypocrisy of extending the travel ban on Canadians, because they represent a Covid risk to Americans, yet allowing a flood of illegal immigrants to cross our southern border? (“Biden’s Canadian Covid Blockade,” Review & Outlook, July 23). In Canada 56% are fully vaccinated. Only 19% are fully vaccinated in Mexico, and infection rates at our southern detention centers are spiraling out of control, with over 30% of migrants there refusing vaccination. Tell me again, how does this protect Americans?
[...]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-hypocrisy-us-border-canada-mexico-11627508964

Something like 6000 immigrates are apprehended per day. Who knows how many are not apprehended on a daily basis. I wonder how the southern border mess that Biden created is compounded the ICU problem.

[fusnik]

Berenson was a worthwhile source of information linked from other sources with devil's advocacy about lockdowns--for a few weeks right at the beginning. After all, it's still not clear whether lockdowns are worth it. See Australia, after all the suffering an endless lockdown and vaccine shunning, the whole scheme is collapsing. Historians will debate this.

It wasn't long before the attention went to Berenson's head and he became thoroughly reprehensible.

Lol another smart person fooled by Berenson.

Lockdowns as a short term measure are a tool that could have been effective if deployed properly. 75% of the economy was considered essential and thus no real lock down occurred. People like Berenson and Trump gleefully shouted liberation while thousands of people silently were being infected by a deadly disease.

The path through this was masking, social distancing, hand washing, and occasional lockdowns of portions of the country based on infection rates. People like Berenson mocked masks openly from the beginning. They advocated killing grandma so they could go to a bar and now have seamlessly moved to an anti-vaxx stance that has contributed to the continuation of the current carnage we are experiencing.

As repulsed by anti vaxxers as you are Im repulsed by people who looked to Berenson, a fiction novelist, for health advice.

[Northwestcoug]

Berenson was a worthwhile source of information linked from other sources with devil's advocacy about lockdowns--for a few weeks right at the beginning. After all, it's still not clear whether lockdowns are worth it. See Australia, after all the suffering an endless lockdown and vaccine shunning, the whole scheme is collapsing. Historians will debate this.

It wasn't long before the attention went to Berenson's head and he became thoroughly reprehensible.

Ha no. He wasn't a worthwhile source of anything.

As to your hobby horse of lockdowns, here we are currently at ~60% of the country at least partially vaccinated, and a wave hit us resulting in 10's of thousands of more deaths. Just imagine had the country not locked down at first, with hordes of unvaccinated people congregating and quickly overwhelming the entire US health system. I'm going to go ahead and say that the initial lockdown was 'worth it'.

[fusnik]

Ha no. He wasn't a worthwhile source of anything.

As to your hobby horse of lockdowns, here we are currently at ~60% of the country at least partially vaccinated, and a wave hit us resulting in 10's of thousands of more deaths. Just imagine had the country not locked down at first, with hordes of unvaccinated people congregating and quickly overwhelming the entire US health system. I'm going to go ahead and say that the initial lockdown was 'worth it'.

I still don’t think people realize how close to absolute mayhem we were and for not 50% of America sitting in their houses for months we would have been in a wildly different place today. They don’t realize how close we are now to the healthcare system collapsing in certain states.

[YOhio]

What is more worthwhile feeling strongly about? With 1,500+ (almost entirely unvaccinated) people dying each day in the US, and anti-vaxxers pushing our economy to the brink again.

I'm a bit outrage fatigued. When I see these stats I'm depressed at how it's so avoidably tragic. It's awful that they're making a deliberate choice to put themselves in harms way, falling prey to both the virus and anti-vax propaganda. And ultimately their death is a selfish act where they put themselves and their ideology above community health and the loved ones they left behind. I feel the same way about an unvaccinated person dying as I do about someone dying in a single car crash while speeding in the rain and not wearing a seat belt. I mourn the loss of human life, but also acknowledge that it happened to a person who understood the risks to themselves and others and still proceeded.

[SeattleUte]

I still don’t think people realize how close to absolute mayhem we were and for not 50% of America sitting in their houses for months we would have been in a wildly different place today. They don’t realize how close we are now to the healthcare system collapsing in certain states.

Is this your field?

[fusnik]

Is this your field?

What does it matter?

[Northwestcoug]

I still don’t think people realize how close to absolute mayhem we were and for not 50% of America sitting in their houses for months we would have been in a wildly different place today. They don’t realize how close we are now to the healthcare system collapsing in certain states.

The treatment strategy for COVID has pretty much stayed the same this whole pandemic. It was understood early on that because of its infectiousness it could easily overwhelm health care workers, which would then cascade to devastating a whole host of patients not necessarily susceptible to the worst effects of COVID but still needing medical care. It wasn't just the elderly we were worried about.

This was the messaging the whole government should have been unified with from day one. These talking points should have been repeated every day. It wasn't just about your grandmother, it was about you if and when you needed hospital care.

[SeattleUte]

What does it matter?

I have been clear that only follow the medical consensus. If there is none developed, I wait for one. I have never stated a categorical opinion of my own about this as you do. I am only doing what Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford etc. say. Your opinions count for nothing if it's not your field. That is the problem with anti-vaxxers and the ivermectin cult.

[fusnik]

I have been clear that only follow the medical consensus. If there is none developed, I wait for one. I have never stated a categorical opinion of my own about this as you do. I am only doing what Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford etc. say. Your opinions count for nothing if it's not your field. That is the problem with anti-vaxxers and the ivermectin cult.

Signed,

The lawyer who thought Alex Berenson was a worthwhile source of health information.

While you were reading tweets from AB I’ve literally been talking to medical professionals from Columbia, UW, Stanford, PSU, and other institutions on the reg.