What's most shocking to me is how little interest there seems to be in educating the population. We're constantly bombarded with the latest COVID-19 case/death numbers, editorialized headlines designed to instill fear, and told to basically shut up, get our vaccine shots, and trust the "experts", and there's been no attempt to educate the population on the real numbers.
For example, how many people know the:
- Case fatality rate of COVID-19 (in the U.S, it's 1.6%)
- Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 (can only be estimated, but probably around 0.1-0.3%)
- Hospitalization utilization (not just now, but also before COVID-19 so one can compare to prior flu seasons and such. Personally I have not found this data)
- Demographics of those who died with COVID-19 (in the UK the median age of death is 84, above the life expectancy of 82. Most deaths are old people and/or those with co-morbidities)
Most people drastically overestimate the danger (eg. by at least 5x according to one survey) because they're bombarbed with news and government fear-mongering, forced to take vaccines and be subject to draconian restrictions, then told to shut up and "trust the experts" while being kept in the dark on the data. Even Big Tech was censoring those who questioned the mainstream narrative (eg. Chris Martenson briefly being banned on Youtube)
In any civilized democracy, the citizenry should be educated so they can make the most informed decisions. There obviously seems to be no interest in educating the people except when it serves the narratives of the elite - which right now is basically "get your shot" and do whatever it takes to reduce COVID-19 numbers regardless of any collateral damage (eg. businesses going bankrupt, people losing work/income, hospitals reducing capacity for other kinds of care, schools shutting down, mental health crisis, restriction of freedoms like movement, general fear).
I agree, it is a very sad state of affairs, in general, and particularly when it comes to reporting of statistics. If this pandemic is genuinely serious, why is there no standardized set of metrics for reporting on it, including things like explicit acknowledgements of where certain sources may not be an exact match for the metric, and all the other things that any serious data project has? And, why is there no meta-conversation about what metrics should be reported?
> What's most shocking to me is how little interest there seems to be in educating the population.
I think it's even stranger than it seems at first glance. There is no shortage of people calling for "moar critical thinking", as in "why don't those whose job it is to teach critical thinking do a better job"....but have you ever seen the conversation go beyond that?
To me, it is clear as day that overall humanity has a very serious problem with "critical thinking", and when I say that I'm casting an extremely wide net, one that would capture not just Trump supporters, conspiracy theorists, and over-enthusiastic progressives, but also 90% of the HN userbase (an arbitrary line can be drawn anywhere according to the drawers wishes, but it is not difficult at all to draw a line that captures ~everyone, according to an explicit standard/methodology). I truly believe that things are in a far worse state than anyone realizes, and my reasoning for that is that each individual overlooks one crucial detail: critical thinking is implemented by the human mind, and the human mind is an illusion machine....and, due to millions of years of evolution, it is so good at conjuring illusions (such as each of our respective entire conceptualizations of reality) that we are unable to realize when what we're seeing is an illusion....or worse: the possibility never even crosses our mind. And, if it does, we will ask our mind "Is this an illusion?", and the answer will come: "No, it is not, this is reality", which will be enthusiastically accepted as fact. And that I propose is "how it works", and how nobody realizes what is going on. (There's more strange stuff over and above that, like if you mention this particular idea to anyone, the majority of the time they will get ~angry and insist on changing the conversation, or, engage in non-logical rhetoric, character attacks, scolding, etc etc etc - but this is the essence of the problem imho.)
For example, how many people know the:
- Case fatality rate of COVID-19 (in the U.S, it's 1.6%) - Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 (can only be estimated, but probably around 0.1-0.3%) - Hospitalization utilization (not just now, but also before COVID-19 so one can compare to prior flu seasons and such. Personally I have not found this data) - Demographics of those who died with COVID-19 (in the UK the median age of death is 84, above the life expectancy of 82. Most deaths are old people and/or those with co-morbidities)
Most people drastically overestimate the danger (eg. by at least 5x according to one survey) because they're bombarbed with news and government fear-mongering, forced to take vaccines and be subject to draconian restrictions, then told to shut up and "trust the experts" while being kept in the dark on the data. Even Big Tech was censoring those who questioned the mainstream narrative (eg. Chris Martenson briefly being banned on Youtube)
In any civilized democracy, the citizenry should be educated so they can make the most informed decisions. There obviously seems to be no interest in educating the people except when it serves the narratives of the elite - which right now is basically "get your shot" and do whatever it takes to reduce COVID-19 numbers regardless of any collateral damage (eg. businesses going bankrupt, people losing work/income, hospitals reducing capacity for other kinds of care, schools shutting down, mental health crisis, restriction of freedoms like movement, general fear).