Lootman wrote:Mike4 wrote:One of the things our nice Mr Hemming here says is (if I understood him correctly) the stats show if you get your lockdown right and have a small wave, the next wave you get will be correspondingly bigger. If he is right I very much doubt this will ever penetrate the consciousness of the politicians who make the decisions about lockdowns.
No comment!
Lootman wrote:I think he is correct in that lockdowns really just slow the infection rate and delay the time when people catch it.
But, but... we have always known this, from the start! Haven't we?
Lootman wrote:XFool wrote:What it certainly is not "all just about", in cases like this, is politics.
It is though about discrimination. In these matters not all the "science" out there, on the web, is equal. IMO one needs to be discriminating.
Unfortunately (that word again) these days, so called(!) "scepticism" is all the rage. Genuine scepticism may be a hallmark of genuine science, but there is, in my experience, another kind of "scepticism". It is usually practised by those keen to self-describe as "sceptical".
I don't really include Covid deniers in the"reasonableness" spectrum. They are just an easy target for the lockdown lovers to pick on to deflect.
No, no, no, no, no! Now that really IS a strawman.
I am not commenting in these threads on full-blown, hard, COVID-19 denier nutters. Apart from initially on the original thread (look it up!), that has not been an issue here. Of course, they are all over the Internet. But there is something else - soft COVID-19 deniers? - which is found both on social media and in the mainstream media.
I speak of self-styled "sceptics". They are always "sceptical" of the seriousness of COVID ('just a bad cold'). They are always "sceptical" of the figures ('exaggerated', 'mistaken'). They are always "sceptical" of the science ('incompetent', 'should listen to somebody else', 'wrong kind of science'). They are always "sceptical" of the pandemic ('is it really a pandemic?', 'it's all over now', 'there will be no second wave'). They were, of course, "sceptical" of the tactics adopted to tackle the crisis. i.e. lockdowns (I give you Lockdown Sceptics - Exhibit 1). They always know better than 'mainstream opinion', the 'establishment view', the 'conventional consensus' - at least that's what they tell us!
These "soft sceptics" could also be called 'minimisers', 'contrarians', 'anti-establishment', 'libertarians' - but now we risk straying into the TLF forbidden 'p-zone'!
For many such, if asked the question, what are you "sceptical" about? The answer could well be: "What have you got?"
This is what I mean when I speak of "deniers". I reckon you either recognise this "denier" phenomenon, or you don't. (Global Warming 'debate', anyone?)