They’re pushing the line that even after both of you have an effective vaccine you still need to socially distance.
Fauci isn’t the leader of The Doom Patrol or even, arguably, a member of it. Yes, he might be ‘consequentially’ lying at SL2 instead of fully bullshitting at SL3, but that seems much less true of the typical members of The Doom Patrol.
You could have also, charitably, interpreted “even after both [?] of you have an effective vaccine” as ‘a vaccine is widely available and it’s been administered to enough people to create (strongly) effective immunity’. We already have several vaccines that seem to work. And, after you’ve received the vaccine, it certainly seems reasonable to infer that one’s own need to socially distance is significantly less than before.
Your explanation that Dr Fauci has lost track of whether or not vaccines actually prevent infection might be true—but it strikes me as weird and confusing, something you’d expect of a more visibly disordered person, and the kind of thing you’d need more evidence of than what he said in that little clip.
That makes sense given that you seem skeptical of signaling explanations in general. But it also seems like you’re arguing that no one operates at SLs beyond 2 without being a “visibly disordered person”, which doesn’t seem true in general.
My own view is that intelligence and expertise generally make it easier (and thus, all else equal, more likely) for someone to operate at higher SLs. Like rationalization, it often seems like smarter people are much better at this than others; not vice versa.
But again, for Fauci specifically, I agree – in this case – he’s probably at SL2. But the rest of The Doom Patrol seems pretty clearly and reasonably at SL3 most of the time.
We did take plenty of precautions, they were just wholly inadequate relative to the potential damage of a second wave. A lot of this was not understanding the asymmetric risk. Most of Europe had precautions that might work and testing and tracing systems that were catching some of the infected and various shifting rules about social distancing and it was at least unclear if they would be sufficient.
I think Zvi’s implicitly assuming that ‘we’ (his readers) mostly know that the precautions were not sufficient. As-of when this post was written, that certainly seems like a reasonable conclusion regardless of anyone’s previous thinking.
I don’t know if makes me and Tyler Cowen and most epidemiologists part of the ‘doom patrol’ if we say that you’ll need a longer interval of either voluntary behaviour change to avoid infection or a longer lockdown the more you wait.
You don’t seem like a member of The Doom Patrol, and Cowen definitely isn’t, but I’m ignorant of “most epidemiologists” – you and Cowen are open to discussing SL1, the object level!
I’m not sure why a lockdown would need to be longer “the more you wait”. Wouldn’t the strictest lockdown only need to last a little longer than the length of the virus’s ‘infection cycle’?
Assuming that the ‘strictest’ lockdown isn’t possible, which seems reasonable for most places, then I can see the logic of this claim and think it’s sensible.
At least in Europe, given the state of public behaviour and opinion about the virus, ‘giving up’ just means Sweden’s ‘voluntary suppression’ in practice.
This is a good point and the mistake you describe is one I’ve seen fairly frequently. But I don’t think Zvi disagrees.
But, just like a ‘government’ can give up but not its people, so too can some people give up, but not others. And ‘giving up’ isn’t really a binary decision, for governments or people.
I think your argument about this line is unfair:
Fauci isn’t the leader of The Doom Patrol or even, arguably, a member of it. Yes, he might be ‘consequentially’ lying at SL2 instead of fully bullshitting at SL3, but that seems much less true of the typical members of The Doom Patrol.
You could have also, charitably, interpreted “even after both [?] of you have an effective vaccine” as ‘a vaccine is widely available and it’s been administered to enough people to create (strongly) effective immunity’. We already have several vaccines that seem to work. And, after you’ve received the vaccine, it certainly seems reasonable to infer that one’s own need to socially distance is significantly less than before.
That makes sense given that you seem skeptical of signaling explanations in general. But it also seems like you’re arguing that no one operates at SLs beyond 2 without being a “visibly disordered person”, which doesn’t seem true in general.
My own view is that intelligence and expertise generally make it easier (and thus, all else equal, more likely) for someone to operate at higher SLs. Like rationalization, it often seems like smarter people are much better at this than others; not vice versa.
But again, for Fauci specifically, I agree – in this case – he’s probably at SL2. But the rest of The Doom Patrol seems pretty clearly and reasonably at SL3 most of the time.
I think Zvi’s implicitly assuming that ‘we’ (his readers) mostly know that the precautions were not sufficient. As-of when this post was written, that certainly seems like a reasonable conclusion regardless of anyone’s previous thinking.
You don’t seem like a member of The Doom Patrol, and Cowen definitely isn’t, but I’m ignorant of “most epidemiologists” – you and Cowen are open to discussing SL1, the object level!
I’m not sure why a lockdown would need to be longer “the more you wait”. Wouldn’t the strictest lockdown only need to last a little longer than the length of the virus’s ‘infection cycle’?
Assuming that the ‘strictest’ lockdown isn’t possible, which seems reasonable for most places, then I can see the logic of this claim and think it’s sensible.
This is a good point and the mistake you describe is one I’ve seen fairly frequently. But I don’t think Zvi disagrees.
But, just like a ‘government’ can give up but not its people, so too can some people give up, but not others. And ‘giving up’ isn’t really a binary decision, for governments or people.