[alphabettsy]

I think you’re leaving out the part where, for political or other reasons, there are and were groups motivated to sell distrust in American institutions as well as their political rivals.

You cannot seriously have a debate about this mistrust without acknowledging the role of misinformation and motivated actors looking to sew mistrust.

Remember when 5G causing Covid was trending? Or memes about how hot water in a netipot would kill it? Or that if you had a strange cold anytime in 2019 you probably already had it?

Theories about microchips in the vaccine started spreading before the vaccine was announced. People becoming magnetic after the vaccine was trending.

[chopin]

Many institutions are handling Covid in the worst possible way. The clinic of the University of Heidelberg (a scientific institution tasked with educating physicians) for instance insists on the 3G rule for admittance (either vaccinated, recovered or tested for COVID). Either COVID is dangerous, then only testing helps, or it is not dangerous, than testing only a subgroup is irrational.

The entire health policy in Germany is in denial of the fact that the vaccination doesn't help against transmission. Refreshers are sold as helping against post- and long-COVID where there is only little scientific evidence for it.

I don't think that it is necessary for anybody to sow mistrust in institutions. Those handle that on their own pretty well.

The Rubikon was crossed with telling that masks don't help - against better knowledge. Only to avoid a run on masks and to reserve them for health workers. After that, I took everything being told with good chunk of salt.

[alphabettsy]

> Either COVID is dangerous, then only testing helps, or it is not dangerous, than testing only a subgroup is irrational.

You’d like it to be such a binary choice, but like most everything else in the world it’s not.

Regardless of the faults or mistakes I think it’s incumbent on our leaders to try to improve the situation not make it worse for political gain.

[slg]

>I think you’re leaving out the part where, for political reasons, there are and were groups motivated to sell distrust in American institutions as well as their political rivals.

The conversations on HN about the lab leak hypothesis always leave this out. They often imply the politicization of covid came from scientists trying to protect themselves rather than from politicians. Maybe the lab leak theory is true, but you can't dismiss the fact that it first rose to public prominence because politicians pushed it as a way to shift the blame for the pandemic. Therefore the anti-lab leak argument was heavily political specifically because it was responding to an already politicized argument that had little evidence to support it.

[TrispusAttucks]

Not true.

Lab leak hypothesis came up early from NIH's own people. We have the emails. Government officials had these emails before "We the people" did so would have been first to sound the alarm publicly.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/24/emails-reveal-suspected-covid-...

https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114270/documents/...

[slg]

I'm unclear what specifically in those links do you think contradicts what I said. The lab theory being discussed in scientific circles does not change the fact that politicians are the ones who pushed it into public discourse for their own gain and not because of any scientific pursuit of truth.

Also side note, an opinion piece from the New York Post isn't exactly the most trustworthy source.

[TrispusAttucks]

The theory is popular because it's logical and has tons of circumstantial evidence. Full stop.