[Bnichs]

The problem is that when the government itself spreads verifiably false information, there are no reprocussions like there are for the individual who does it. Just like when an individual steals money they tend to face consequences, banks who do the same thing on a much more massive scale face nothing.

[sorcerer-mar]

You're suggesting the government shared information that was verifiably false at the time it was shared?

Can you give some examples?

[Bnichs]

Just to preface. Covid is the new Nazis, all arguments end up devolving into its discussion. Im tired of talking about covid but it's hard to get past how our country handled it, both the people and the government. To answer your question: https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/06/did-fauci-say...

>He said the 6-foot guideline “sort of just appeared” and wasn’t based on any data, and that such a study would be difficult to do. He also said he didn’t recall any studies about masking young children, but said the guideline was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision.

https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-dr-fauci...

Making up arbitrary rules and then enforcing them saying "trust the science" is not coming from a place of honesty. Especially when combined with the deletion of emails.

[sorcerer-mar]

Excellent example!

First the strong rebuttal: "Verifiably false information at time of sharing" in this case would mean you have evidence that Fauci knew distance played no role in infection rates, or that a distance other than 6 feet was better, and put out information suggesting 6 feet was correct anyway. You have no evidence of this, of course, because this is not what happened.

The more general rebuttal is that you are revealing exactly the type of "can't be trusted with details" that kneecapped public health communications throughout COVID.

The question is why Fauci selected 6 feet instead of 4, 5, 7, 8 or even 6.1, 6.148, or even 6.489598365983 feet.

The reality is that there's no real reason to select any of these over any other. There's a continuous curve of difficulty of adherence and a continuous curve of transmission reduction.

Any specific number would have been "arbitrary", but very obviously a clear guideline is better than a completely non-actionable "stay as far away as you reasonably can."

This is like hauling out the guy who set interstate speed limits at 60mph and not 59 or 59.5 or 59.84846898 and then blasting him for selecting the "arbitrary" 60 miles per hour.

Does that make sense to you?

[mike_hearn]

> you have evidence that Fauci knew distance played no role in infection rates, or that a distance other than 6 feet was better, and put out information suggesting 6 feet was correct anyway.

There are three options:

1. Fauci knew the correct answer to some degree of accuracy and picked a rounded off version.

2. He didn't know the correct answer but thought he did.

3. Fauci didn't know the correct answer, was aware he didn't know, and he made one up in order to sound knowledgeable.

You're arguing what happened is (1). What actually happened is (3), which we know because he admitted it.

Social distancing had no effect, and this was known early on. There is no known distance curve that correctly models SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the real world, largely because it spreads via aerosol clouds as well as droplets. The data for this was available nearly from the start because:

1. SARS-1 acted this way, as do other coronaviruses. Outbreaks of SARS-1 could be found spreading between apartment buildings on the wind.

2. The outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship showed cases appearing all over the vessel at random, even though everyone was confined to quarters. There was no physical contact in that case and it made no difference whatsoever.

Social distancing had no visible effect anywhere it was tried. What did work was high quality air cleaning equipment, as found on planes - places that remained remarkably infection free despite everyone being much closer than 6ft together.

[sorcerer-mar]

It never takes long to get from "I need to be trusted with the facts!" to demonstrating just gobsmacking levels of willful ignorance.

> Social distancing had no visible effect anywhere it was tried.

> Our search identified 172 observational studies across 16 countries and six continents, with no randomised controlled trials and 44 relevant comparative studies in health-care and non-health-care settings (n=25 697 patients). Transmission of viruses was lower with physical distancing of 1 m or more, compared with a distance of less than 1 m (n=10 736, pooled adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0·18, 95% CI 0·09 to 0·38; risk difference [RD] −10·2%, 95% CI −11·5 to −7·5; moderate certainty); protection was increased as distance was lengthened

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

---

Can you explain step by step how "SARS-1 could be found spreading between apartment buildings on the wind" and "the Diamond Princess cruise ship showed cases appearing all over the vessel at random" are evidence that standing close to someone is equal risk to standing further away from them?

This would be great evidence against the claim "if you are more than 6ft away, you will not get sick," and your airplane example would be great evidence against the claim "if you are fewer than 6ft away, you will get sick," but neither of these claims were ever made.

[mike_hearn]

Such papers aren't worth much. For example, that meta-review claims masks work. Some other scientists did a different meta-review (the A122 Cochrane Review) that concluded the opposite (strictly speaking, that there was no useful evidence masks worked). If you dig into the details of why they disagree, you'll find none of the studies claiming this stuff works are scientifically valid whilst the Cochrane meta-review is very careful. Real-world reliable evidence > models.

So what happened: activists went directly to the head of Cochrane and demanded the review be disowned, which it was, despite it having been signed off on by the org previously and there being no scientific problems identified with the study. That's how they manufacture consensus in the healthcare system: top down orders from corrupt leaders who suppress beliefs and evidence that makes them look bad. They do this because it works. After all, look at this thread. People say, look at all the evidence! Look at the consensus! They can't all be wrong!

Yet a system that concludes both yes and no simultaneously isn't worth anything. The institutions of science failed during COVID, and frankly are failing most of the time hence the replication crisis. It's not specific to masks or social distancing. We can play that game for any claim you want to make about COVID, or many other topics. Science is broken.

> explain ... evidence that standing close to someone is equal risk to standing further away from them?

There are two components to this:

1. There's a threshold value beyond which a non-immune person becomes infected and that viral load in the exposure over that doesn't matter much. Given that viruses replicate that's not surprising.

2. That a sick person can emit infectious aerosols that can hang around in the air for long periods and travel long distances e.g. via air ducts.

The intuition you're working from is that SARS-CoV-2 viruses are created in the body, that they travel only in large droplets that fall to the ground quickly due to gravity, and that risk of infection is linear in dose. Thus, being far away from an infected person should reduce the risk linearly. That's the idea the "professionals" used to justify their policies, but it's based on a model that's too far from reality to be useful. It might work for a hypothetical spherical-cow type person standing on a perfectly empty and flat 2D plane, with no air movements. It doesn't work for real world scenarios with complex layouts and complex movements of people, which is why when you look at the behavior of the virus in real settings like the Diamond Princess or jet liners the results are completely different to what the model would predict.

[Bnichs]

The number isn't the point, the messaging of "this number is science" is. If it were delivered clearly as "we done have all the information, but our best judgement based on a, b, c says the number is X" that would be far better and most of all honest than "it is 6ft and that's the science, follow the rules or don't enter public spaces"

Does that make sense to you?

[sorcerer-mar]

What?

There's not "a lack of information." The information is there's a continuous curve of transmission. You could have complete information and you would still need to pick an "arbitrary" point.

> it is 6ft and that's the science, follow the rules or don't enter public spaces

Link to which guidance you feel most closely stated this. I have never seen any guidance from CDC, NIH, FDA, or anywhere else that resembles this.

[Bnichs]

Again, I do not care about covid and have no interest in arguing with you about covid. This is a discussion about eroded trust in institutions. And denying that the government's handling of covid had a causal relationship with the current distrust of institutions is as insane as denying covid itself. If you think that during that time the government exemplified honesty which would build trust, I do not have any argument that will convince you beside saying to increase your media literacy. Good luck.