My figure is the 'next big thing' will be the price those who refused to vaccinate will find they will pay - no travel to some countries, restricted from airplanes, no access to some activities (concerts, plays) etc.
The case for social responsibility will only get stronger. They may well face a backlash (on a scale, more than smokers, less than pedophiles) personally as well. The balance is tipping away from them as more and more of those reticent or fearful join the throng (thanks to information lile you offer) and buy in to vaccine protection.
It sure feels like there is cause for optimism. The graphs in Canadaland are going the right way for the most part. The one thing I really dont have a sense of is the break down of Covidiots vs doomsday addicts vs everyone else. Are these fringes really any significant number? Or are they simply the loudest ? However, if a poll of Canadians who say they intend to get a vaccine when its available to them is any indication, we are indeed in a relatively good place. Only 12% say they wont according to an Angus Reid poll in March.
Yeah, it's hard to know what to make of this. I understand that people who agree with a statement like ,"I think most people are trustworthy" used to break pretty evenly along party lines in the USA, and ever since 2016 the split has been getting greater and greater. Most Democrats endorse that statement while very few Republicans do. Well, it turns out that people who don't endorse that statement are much less likely to respond to polls. It is my understanding that this the single biggest reason why they've had such a hard time accurately predicting Trump votes. So if you are only getting a 14% poll response rate and if 97% of those people agree with the above line, the polls may be underestimating the number of vaccine defectors.
very much agree about the challenges of polling for a number of reasons, but at the end of the day, its still at worst not that big a window of error even on questions of strong valance like do you support something that everyone around you does not. I dont think many polls got the US election wrong by more than 10% no? So if 12% wont get a shot, and their sample was poorly drawn or an inappropriately small size, and say its out by something massively like 15%, its still not that bad a number.
To ignore the existence of Atlantic Canada as you talk about Get-to-zero being a "fantasy", and "impossible in a state like Canada", is frankly bizarre.
If the article had tossed in a single sentence, that "The Atlantic experience is only possible because they're hard to get to" would at least have addressed that issue (if not to my satisfaction), but Gerson pretended it didn't exist.
Also, Australia had a get to zero that worked, and they have quite a lot of tourism, including from China. They seem remote from here, but they're not remote from that side of the world. When they did a lockdown, they do a REAL lockdown. It's not like you can call Australians, of all people, a bunch of docile, hive-mind types with no sense of personal independence.
BC and Alberta are right beside each other. BC has the larger number of tourists, especially from Asia and America. Yet we've had more successful lockdowns, a far better pandemic. Jen is talking about people as if they were some fixed object, when clearly they respond to smart messaging and clear rules.
My prediction is the pandemic will be over well before the media tells us it's over. For too many it's been their bread and butter, especially after the end of the Trump era.
Both the anti-lockdown and COVID zero crowds struggle with risk assessment. The anti-lockdown crowd has regularly downplayed risk with inaccurate data or a lack of context for the risk. Even when they claim they accept the risk, you quickly realize that they’re really denying the risk. The COVID zero crowd wants the unobtainable goal of *no* risk whatsoever. They want governments to force everybody to engage in a maximalist position without considering any costs other than the potential risk to their own health. They agonize over even small risks related to vaccines because of that expectation of perfection. I’m not sure that scolding either crowd is going to be productive. Probably the best approach is to provide information for context: compare COVID and vaccine risks to everyday activities. Provide graphical explanations of how layers of mitigations combine to reduce risks.
Excellent take. I particularly liked the description of the two fringes: the anti-lockdown crowd and the preening, safety-obsessed, lockdown at any cost crowd. Both are problematic, and most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We realize that lockdowns are needed to a certain extent, but also know that they won't provide victory. Curiously, if we couldn't manufacture a vaccine, I wonder what we would do.
I read The Atlantic article and wasn't that impressed. A few activists have done activist things about keeping schools closed; a few people have said don't-go-out even if vaccinated; and a few re-openers have been criticized.
What HASN'T happened is crazy people getting violent when they see unmasked. No huge demonstrations demanding harder lockdowns, like the big ones of defiance-to-lockdowns. There are zero politicians ordering super-hard lockdowns in the face of no cases, just to be ideological, the way there are many politicians opening up in defiance of medical recommendations.
In short the one fringe is at least ten times the size of the other fringe, probably 20 or 40 times the size. And influence. And results.
To speak of two such different things as if they were about equal was both-sides-ism.
Even before you added in "preening", which I think is wholly unsupported by example. It's just an insult.
Good analysis Jen.
My figure is the 'next big thing' will be the price those who refused to vaccinate will find they will pay - no travel to some countries, restricted from airplanes, no access to some activities (concerts, plays) etc.
The case for social responsibility will only get stronger. They may well face a backlash (on a scale, more than smokers, less than pedophiles) personally as well. The balance is tipping away from them as more and more of those reticent or fearful join the throng (thanks to information lile you offer) and buy in to vaccine protection.
It sure feels like there is cause for optimism. The graphs in Canadaland are going the right way for the most part. The one thing I really dont have a sense of is the break down of Covidiots vs doomsday addicts vs everyone else. Are these fringes really any significant number? Or are they simply the loudest ? However, if a poll of Canadians who say they intend to get a vaccine when its available to them is any indication, we are indeed in a relatively good place. Only 12% say they wont according to an Angus Reid poll in March.
Yeah, it's hard to know what to make of this. I understand that people who agree with a statement like ,"I think most people are trustworthy" used to break pretty evenly along party lines in the USA, and ever since 2016 the split has been getting greater and greater. Most Democrats endorse that statement while very few Republicans do. Well, it turns out that people who don't endorse that statement are much less likely to respond to polls. It is my understanding that this the single biggest reason why they've had such a hard time accurately predicting Trump votes. So if you are only getting a 14% poll response rate and if 97% of those people agree with the above line, the polls may be underestimating the number of vaccine defectors.
very much agree about the challenges of polling for a number of reasons, but at the end of the day, its still at worst not that big a window of error even on questions of strong valance like do you support something that everyone around you does not. I dont think many polls got the US election wrong by more than 10% no? So if 12% wont get a shot, and their sample was poorly drawn or an inappropriately small size, and say its out by something massively like 15%, its still not that bad a number.
To ignore the existence of Atlantic Canada as you talk about Get-to-zero being a "fantasy", and "impossible in a state like Canada", is frankly bizarre.
If the article had tossed in a single sentence, that "The Atlantic experience is only possible because they're hard to get to" would at least have addressed that issue (if not to my satisfaction), but Gerson pretended it didn't exist.
Also, Australia had a get to zero that worked, and they have quite a lot of tourism, including from China. They seem remote from here, but they're not remote from that side of the world. When they did a lockdown, they do a REAL lockdown. It's not like you can call Australians, of all people, a bunch of docile, hive-mind types with no sense of personal independence.
BC and Alberta are right beside each other. BC has the larger number of tourists, especially from Asia and America. Yet we've had more successful lockdowns, a far better pandemic. Jen is talking about people as if they were some fixed object, when clearly they respond to smart messaging and clear rules.
My prediction is the pandemic will be over well before the media tells us it's over. For too many it's been their bread and butter, especially after the end of the Trump era.
Both the anti-lockdown and COVID zero crowds struggle with risk assessment. The anti-lockdown crowd has regularly downplayed risk with inaccurate data or a lack of context for the risk. Even when they claim they accept the risk, you quickly realize that they’re really denying the risk. The COVID zero crowd wants the unobtainable goal of *no* risk whatsoever. They want governments to force everybody to engage in a maximalist position without considering any costs other than the potential risk to their own health. They agonize over even small risks related to vaccines because of that expectation of perfection. I’m not sure that scolding either crowd is going to be productive. Probably the best approach is to provide information for context: compare COVID and vaccine risks to everyday activities. Provide graphical explanations of how layers of mitigations combine to reduce risks.
Excellent take. I particularly liked the description of the two fringes: the anti-lockdown crowd and the preening, safety-obsessed, lockdown at any cost crowd. Both are problematic, and most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We realize that lockdowns are needed to a certain extent, but also know that they won't provide victory. Curiously, if we couldn't manufacture a vaccine, I wonder what we would do.
I read The Atlantic article and wasn't that impressed. A few activists have done activist things about keeping schools closed; a few people have said don't-go-out even if vaccinated; and a few re-openers have been criticized.
What HASN'T happened is crazy people getting violent when they see unmasked. No huge demonstrations demanding harder lockdowns, like the big ones of defiance-to-lockdowns. There are zero politicians ordering super-hard lockdowns in the face of no cases, just to be ideological, the way there are many politicians opening up in defiance of medical recommendations.
In short the one fringe is at least ten times the size of the other fringe, probably 20 or 40 times the size. And influence. And results.
To speak of two such different things as if they were about equal was both-sides-ism.
Even before you added in "preening", which I think is wholly unsupported by example. It's just an insult.
I don't know, Jen, every time I read something optimistic in the press, new cases spike the next day. Now I wish I hadn't read it.