https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11...usinesses-cant-afford-to-make-them-permanent/
San Jose spent big bucks on COVID parklets – but some businesses can’t afford to make them permanent

It’s a Thursday morning in San Jose’s SOFA neighborhood, and restaurant pop-up owner Brandon Salmon has served one of his very last COVID-era breakfast sandwiches.

The pop-up space is located in a parklet on South Second Street that was installed during the pandemic. But with San Jose — like most cities around the Bay Area — phasing out free parklet space for businesses, this one will soon be a relic of a time when masks and social distancing were part of our regular lexicon.

Things are really back to normal with IMO onerous requirements on small business for things that already exist and people have used for years.

The city is currently offering a $35,000 grant to help businesses make the transition.

For Academic Coffee’s owner Frank Nguyen, the grant isn’t enough. The costs to build a permanent parklet is around $50,000 — including the hiring of an architect, as the city’s application requires detailed drawings and a site plan.

 

We moved from the standard practice of quarantine of the sick to quarantine of the healthy with little or no understanding of the long term consequence because of fear, not science.
The CDC didn't demand these measures, those in authority did.

government, media and medical authorities were blasting "science science science..." propaganda. any questioning of the science or asking for data was flat out rejected and those who dared to ask questions were cancelled, fired, ridiculed, and "debunked"...

 

government, media and medical authorities were blasting "science science science..." propaganda. any questioning of the science or asking for data was flat out rejected and those who dared to ask questions were cancelled, fired, ridiculed, and "debunked"...

.
Amen Brother .........

People just flat-out can't deal with the very IDEA that they could have been made a fool of,
let alone consider the "possibility" that they may have been fooled at some point.
.
.
.

 

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Amen Brother .........

People just flat-out can't deal with the very IDEA that they could have been made a fool of,
let alone consider the "possibility" that they may have been fooled at some point.
.
.
.

And others are convinced that listening to the government is foolish, that they never tell the truth.

 

not everything is a lie but thinking that most of things stated by government are true is absurd

 

not everything is a lie but thinking that most of things stated by government are true is absurd

Here is a classic case of "noble lies".
https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html

In March 2020, as the pandemic began, Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president of the United States, explained in a 60 Minutes interview that he felt community use of masks was unnecessary. A few months later, he argued that his statements were not meant to imply that he felt the data to justify the use of cloth masks was insufficient. Rather, he said, had he endorsed mask wearing (of any kind), mass panic would ensue and lead to a surgical and N95 mask shortage among health care workers, who needed the masks more. Yet, emails from a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Fauci privately gave the same advice—against mask use—suggesting it was not merely his outward stance to the broader public.

Although some have claimed that the evidence changed substantively in the early weeks of March, our assessment of the literature does not concur. We believe the evidence at the time of Fauci’s 60 Minutes interview was largely similar to that in April 2020. Thus, there are two ways to consider Fauci’s statement. One possibility is, as he says, that his initial statement was dishonest but motivated to avoid a run on masks needed by health care workers. The other is that he believed his initial statements were accurate, and he subsequently decided to advocate for cloth masks to divert attention from surgical or N95 masks, or to provide a sense of hope and control to a fearful and anxious public.

Additional evidence suggests that the second interpretation may be more accurate. In a lengthy commentary from July 2020, COVID expert Michael Osterholm wrote in detail about the continued scientific uncertainty regarding masks—even as he expressed support for their widespread public use as one measure among many. But Fauci’s reversal, which came at a time of political polarization, contributed to the evolution of masks from a basic, precautionary mitigation strategy to a badge of political allegiance.

All of these medical experts realized that cloth masks (true respirators were effective) were mainly ineffective from the start.

Noble lies are a trap. We cannot predict the public’s behavior, and loss of trust is devastating. The general population is far too skeptical to blindly follow the advice of experts, and far too intelligent to be easily duped.

 

Here is a classic case of "noble lies".
https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html




All of these medical experts realized that cloth masks (true respirators were effective) were mainly ineffective from the start.

So, there is a third possibility which I tend to believe to be the case. Dr. Fauci, like all public health doctors, works in a world of actuarial probability. What he advocates will be based on the greatest good, a kind of consequentialism, not a deontological approach where “first say no falsehood” might apply.

For him and colleagues, these are not falsehoods because his statements are not about individuals rather they are about populations. So when he says “it’s best to not wear a mask” or “cloth masks are enough”, he isn’t talking about disease prevention for individuals he’s talking about the total effect on the population. Minimizing deaths overall, not for you or me.

Public health presents a problem. It is often the case that what is good for the population may be bad for any given individual. The rational behavior of an individual may be a threat to the population. It is very difficult because we cherish autonomy and believe we have a right to act rationally in our own interest—which is fine—until the line between “self preservation” and “tragedy of the commons” becomes fuzzy.

For example, for a few decades some childhood immunizations were not really necessary for everyone. As long as a certain percentage of the population was being immunized, the diseases those vaccines prevent were not a risk to anyone. But then things changed and travel from countries that hadn’t eradicated those diseases became much more prevalent while the reduced compliance with immunization schedules reduced.

A that point, the rational action moved so close to the line with the prescribed action that a rational and informed actor would begin to choose to immunize due to the risk. On the other hand, the uninformed dissenter was no different from those who complied without question. Each of them chose to do or not do something based on an appeal to authority.

In the compliant case this lead to increased individual risk with reduced popular risk. On the other hand the dissenter was in an odd position where previously they had a reduced individual risk with no real effect on the population—but now they had an elevated personal risk due to the prevalence of the disease that was once basically not present and they are causing increased popular risk.

So, I think Fauci was walking a line based on not clarifying why no masks was good “public health” and then what cloth masks were. No one knew to ask him to clarify so while he might have been sinning by omission there was no commission.

Anecdotally, when the pandemic began I immediately tracked down some top quality N95 masks before they were restricted to health care sales. I had quite a few excellent ones. I gave them to my family members, including my pregnant daughter-in-law who, of course, was attending a lot of doctor’s appointments.

She reported to me that when she showed up for one of the first appointments, the nurse (wearing a surgical fig leaf) said, “that‘s a nice mask, where did you get it?” which struck my DiL as odd, almost like an accusation. She said, “my father-in-law gave it to me”. The nurse did not seem happy with the answer but she didn’t pursue it further.

There was definitely a sense among health care professionals (and not without some cause) that the N95 and KN95 masks were rightfully theirs because of their elevated risk and because if they were infected the knock on effects of losing a health care worker would impact many more people than if you or I were infected.

This is a vexed issue, and it is very hard to come to a rational conclusion about it because it is so completely influenced by the assumptions made before the analysis, which are rarely if every articulated before the debates begin. This makes the debate effectively meaningless because it is a weak-as-water proxy for debates over the assumptions which is what should be going on—if anything.

 

Interesting but I see little evidence of this third possibility and plenty of noble lies. Look, I can easily accept he did and said what had to be done for the greater good at that moment. That doesn't change the fact it happened and did affect trust in future decisions and statements.

Tell people the full painful truth in a national emergency. We can handle it.

"credibility takes time to build and a moment to destroy"

 

A different slant .........
"" This is a vexed issue, and it is very hard to come to a rational conclusion about it because it is so completely influenced by the assumptions made before the analysis, which are rarely if every articulated before the debates begin. This makes the debate effectively meaningless because it is a weak-as-water proxy for debates over the assumptions which is what should be going on—if anything. ""
I agree 100% with this statement,
the "assumptions" ARE EVERYTHING !!!!!

What a person believes may easily obscure knowledge that may seem glaringly obvious to others.

The twist that gets thrown into the equation is that people tend to cling to their
"beliefs" or "assumptions" with viscous tenacity, virtually as if their very existence depended upon it.
This might be described as a sort of "subject-based" closed-mindedness,
while, concerning other subjects,
they may appear to be quite intelligent and "open-minded" on other subjects.

I pride myself in being very "open-minded" at all times,
( excepting in the case of dire emergencies, of course ).
Any subject that I recognize as being the least bit "important"
will motivate me to scrutinize it extensively,
and I will refuse to just accept the "well everybody knows that" generic answer,
just so that I run less risk of being ostracized by my peers.

"Go-along-to-get-along" is just not something that I will accept, EVER.

This is why most of my spare time is taken-up by
study on an astounding number of widely diverse subjects.

Now, here is the other viewpoint, that has been heavily thrashed by me using
at least ~30 extensively vetted sources, plus the application to the equation of
other various, proven, bits of knowledge gathered over my entire lifetime .........................

Fauci is a bogus, extremely well paid, "Political-Puppet",
who will say anything that he is instructed to say.

If anyone here thinks this is "impossible", and that I'm just
a Tin-Foil-Hat wearing "Conspiracy-Theorist",
sorry,
but I can't help You if You refuse to do your own research, "because You just Know that couldn't be true"
.
.
.

 

We are re-writing history again. It was very clear to me, at the time, that the initial instructions not to wear masks was to prevent a shortage affecting health care workers. I, being a good well-informed citizen, wore an N95 respirator I already owned for my woodworking. Anyone who did not understand this was getting their news from the wrong places.

 

I take the man at his word.
"There's no reason to be walking around with a mask"

Did he really believe that or was that a noble lie to prevent a possible shortage.
I'm a Fauci and CDC admirer. I think he was honest in that interview.

IMO both of his statements were accurate. We needed to prevent a possible shortage AND the general public not wearing cloth masks was scientifically justified.
The early mask messaging was science based and guess what, the actual science hasn't changed about the usefulness of the public wearing cloth masks. Later variants like omicron evolved to make all but the best respirators ineffective.

The noble lie IMO was the attempt to later alter his very clear statements about masking to conform to the orthodoxy of the public wearing just about any rag over the face later.

"Actually the circumstances have changed," he said. True but it wasn't the science or the virus that changed making a typical cloth mask effective.

https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-said...ctive-keeping-out-virus-email-reveals-1596703
Fauci Said Masks 'Not Really Effective in Keeping Out Virus,' Email Reveals

"The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you."

He added: "I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location."

This is a different question from whether mask mandates work. Mask mandates with requirements for effective (the latest variants narrowed the useful choices) respirators do work and did work during the pandemic.

 

https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/pp/51/3/article-p466.xml
Analysing the ‘follow the science’ rhetoric of government responses to COVID-19

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many leaders claimed that their public health policy decisions were ‘following the science’; however, the literature on evidence-based policy problematises the idea that this is a realistic or desirable form of governance. This article examines why leaders make such claims using Christopher Hood’s (2011) blame avoidance theory. Based on a qualitative content analysis of two national newspapers in each of Australia, Canada and the UK, we gathered and focused on unique moments when leaders claimed to ‘follow the science’ in the first six months of the pandemic. We applied Hood’s theory to identify the types of blame avoidance strategies used for issues such as mass event cancellation, border closures, face masks, and in-person learning. Politicians most commonly used ‘follow the science’ to deflect blame onto processes and people. When leaders’ claims to ‘follow the science’ confuse the public as to who chooses and who should be held accountable for those decisions, this slogan risks undermining trust in science, scientific advisors, and, at its most extreme, representative government. This article addresses a gap in the literature on blame avoidance and the relationship between scientific evidence and public policy by demonstrating how governments’ claims to ‘follow the science’ mitigated blame by abdicating responsibility, thus risking undermining the use of scientific advice in policymaking.

Conclusion
In a recent lecture, Christopher Hood argued that ‘much of the post-COVID blame games has yet to begin’, and expressed concerns that early efforts to write a history of the pandemic often assert that responsibility lies with the public health experts who got it wrong (Hood, 2022: 476). In this article, we have examined what it means when politicians claim to be ‘following the science’ in the context of governments’ early COVID-19 pandemic response efforts across three countries. We show that claims to be ‘following the science’ are a form of blame avoidance. Using blame theory (Hood, 2011), we identified a series of approaches that leaders used in the early months of the pandemic. Although leaders in all three countries initially used agency and policy-based approaches, those who found themselves on the receiving end of blame later incorporated presentational strategies to justify questionable or unpopular decisions. It is debatable whether such efforts were effective in the short term or whether they undermined broader government efforts to respond to the pandemic. In the medium- to long-term, ‘just following the science’ rhetoric risks destabilising the roles of CMOs and other science advisors to the government. To govern is to choose. When leaders’ claims to ‘follow the science’ confuse the public as to who chooses and should be held accountable for those choices, this slogan risks undermining trust in science, scientific advisors and, at its most extreme, representative government.

 

I am glad that I got all the vaccines recommended by expert doctors since I live in a large city with unvaccinated international refugees coming here every day to pass their viruses around, including very old deadly diseases that doctors thought are gone.

Maybe anti-vax farmers and other alone people survive without vaccines.























i

 

i am glad that people again can decide for themselves if getting treatment is something they consent to. anti-covid measures were too little too late, failing to contain it. and once the spread was large enough there was no stopping it. all the insane measures that came later were useless. masking, distancing, vax mandates - nothing worked. and never will. the hope is to develop good vaccine - one that actually makes the difference. until then...

 

"...since I live in a large city with unvaccinated international refugees coming here every day to pass their viruses around..."

Let it go or point it out to him?

 

"...since I live in a large city with unvaccinated international refugees coming here every day to pass their viruses around..."

Let it go or point it out to him?

Let it go. Don't think he's traveled or lived abroad very much.

 

"...since I live in a large city with unvaccinated international refugees coming here every day to pass their viruses around..."

Let it go or point it out to him?

My city also has some kids who travelled and now without having an old vaccination they have The Measles. Two other kids have The Measles but they did not travel, they got it from the unvaccinated community.

 

My city also has some kids who travelled and now without having an old vaccination they have The Measles. Two other kids have The Measles but they did not travel, they got it from the unvaccinated community.

Was there a point to all of this and you know this to be true? So two unvaccinated kids got the measles because they were unvaccinated and traveled somewhere and brought measles back and in turn infected two more kids. So we are up to four cases of measles. Can't speak for others but growing up the MMR Vaccine was not yet developed and most of us managed to survive. So four cases is what percentage of the juvenile population of your city? I thought you lived in Shangri La?

Ron

 

Because of the fairly old Measles vaccine, doctors say it is gone. But not everybody gets vaccinated anymore so Measles is circulating again.
Cholera is also back in the world.

I think Western school kids are (were?) ordered to be vaccinated against many of these old infections and viruses.

 

Yeah, things we thought were gone are back. When I was a kid if you didn't wash your hands you would get polio. Not surprising we are seeing a resurgence of this stuff. However four kids with measles is not about to strike panic or fear into me.

Ron