‘Constitution and national health policies should have been the guiding philosophy for leaders and planners. But did we even read them?... The deadly combination of uneducated leaders, greedy corporates, ignorant public, and the contemptuous disregard for science has wreaked havoc. Our priorities are misaligned and actions ill-intentioned.’
Read here (Outlook India, Apr 25, 2021)
‘While experts throughout the U.S. are trying to tackle misinformation and persuade Americans to get their shots when they become eligible, these doctor-scientist moms believe they are uniquely positioned to make the case. Not only do they have the expertise to answer medical questions and clear up misperceptions, but they can relate to the people they encounter on social media as fellow parents who also want what’s best for their families and communities. They film video Q&As and explain how the safety standards were met in the development of currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines. They interview one another to reach a wider audience through Instagram and YouTube. They warn each other about strategies that trolls may use to drag them into arguments.’
Read here (Time magazine, Mar 24, 2021)
‘We know, without question, that politicians lie and hide their connections and that corporations routinely display utter contempt for moral norms – that corruption surrounds us. We know that revolving doors between the corporate and political spheres, the lobbying system, corrupt regulators, the media and judiciary mean that wrongdoing is practically never brought to any semblance of genuine justice. We know that the press makes noise about these matters occasionally but never pursues them with true
‘So exactly what is it that conspiracy deniers refuse to acknowledge with such fervour, righteousness and condescension? Why, against all the evidence, do they sneeringly and contemptuously defend the crumbling illusion that ‘the great and good’ are up there somewhere, have everything in hand, have only our best interests at heart, and are scrupulous, wise and sincere? That the press serves the people and truth rather than the crooks? That injustice after injustice result from mistakes and oversights, and never from that dread word: conspiracy?’
\Read here (OffGuardian, Mar 12, 2021)
‘One of the most notable things about the COVID-19 pandemic has been how fast two science denialist movements made common cause and, in essence, fused to become one movement. I’m referring, of course, to the antivaccine cranks/grifters and COVID-19 deniers/minimizers/antimaskers/cranks/grifters, who rapidly formed an unholy alliance that ultimately added QAnon conspiracy theorists to the mix to form one of the most toxic groups of conspiracy theorists ever seen.
‘Note that by “toxic,” I don’t just mean toxic personalities, but I also mean toxic to science, medicine, public health, and the politics of trying to respond to the pandemic, with antivaxxers frequently augmenting COVID-19 deniers at various rallies and events, all the while crying “censorship,” infusing the COVID-19 denialist movement with antivaccine pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, and even launching a pre-emptive disinformation war against COVID-19 vaccines.’
Read here (Genetic Literacy Project, Jan 7, 2021)
Warning signs of pseudoscientific claims:
Read here (Biologos, Jan 4, 2021)
‘When good science is suppressed by the medical-political complex, people die
‘Politicians and governments are suppressing science. They do so in the public interest, they say, to accelerate availability of diagnostics and treatments. They do so to support innovation, to bring products to market at unprecedented speed. Both of these reasons are partly plausible; the greatest deceptions are founded in a grain of truth. But the underlying behaviour is troubling.
‘Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.’
Read here (BMJ, Nov 13, 2020)
‘More people than ever are hospitalised with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this...
‘For many health-care workers, the toll of the pandemic goes beyond physical exhaustion. COVID-19 has eaten away at the emotional core of their work. “To be a nurse, you really have to care about people,” Neville said. But when an ICU is packed with COVID-19 patients, most of whom are likely to die, “to protect yourself, you just shut down. You get to the point when you realise that you’ve become a machine. There’s only so many bags you can zip.”...
‘As hard as the work fatigue is, the “societal fatigue” is harder, said Hatton, the Utah pulmonary specialist. He is tired of walking out of an ICU where COVID-19 has killed another patient, and walking into a grocery store where he hears people saying it doesn’t exist. Health-care workers and public-health officials have received threats and abusive messages accusing them of fearmongering. They’ve watched as friends have adopted Donald Trump’s lies about doctors juking the hospitalization numbers to get more money. They’ve pleaded with family members to wear masks and physically distance, lest they end up competing for ICU beds that no longer exist. “Nurses have been the most trusted profession for 18 years in a row, which is now bullshit because no one is listening to us,” Neville said.’
Read here (The Atlantic, Nov 13, 2020)
‘US voters went to the polls starkly divided on how they see President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. But in places where the virus is most rampant now, Trump enjoyed enormous support. An Associated Press analysis reveals that in 376 counties with the highest number of new cases per capita, the overwhelming majority — 93% of those counties — went for Trump, a rate above other less severely hit areas.
‘The US broke another record in the 7-day rolling average for daily new cases, hitting nearly 90,000. The tally for new cases Thursday was on track for another day above 100,000, with massive numbers reported all around the country, including a combined nearly 25,000 in Texas, Illinois and Florida. Iowa and Indiana each reported more than 4,000 cases as well.
‘Thirty-six percent of Trump voters described the pandemic as completely or mostly under control, and another 47% said it was somewhat under control, according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 110,000 voters conducted for the AP by NORC at the University of Chicago. Meanwhile, 82% of Biden voters said the pandemic is not at all under control.
‘The pandemic was considered at least somewhat under control by slim majorities of voters in many red states, including Alabama (60%), Missouri (54%), Mississippi (58%), Kentucky (55%), Texas (55%), Tennessee (56%) and South Carolina (56%).’
Read here (AP, Nov 6, 2020)
‘The Trump administration has announced its unconditional surrender to the Covid-19 pandemic. "We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas," White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" on Sunday. Donald Trump has surrendered without ever joining the battle. I have no doubt he will be remembered as the greatest presidential failure in American history...
‘Trump surrounded himself with fools and knaves who echoed his false belief that the choice was Covid versus the economy. This includes three types of advisers who led Trump to his likely imminent political demise and to our nation's mass suffering... The first group were the evangelical preachers who were more interested in packing their pews than in saving their parishioners who caught the disease in their megachurches... The second group was the Murdoch media empire with the "thought leadership" ― if one can call it that ― of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and the nihilism of Fox News... The third group was those who would stand up and oppose the overwhelming scientific consensus on NPI's, thereby bolstering Trump in his conviction to do nothing.’
Read here (CNN, Oct 26, 2020)
‘The [Great Barrington] declaration, which calls for an immediate resumption of “life as normal” for everyone except the “vulnerable”, is written by three science professors from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, giving it the sheen of academic respectability. But there is much to set alarm bells ringing. It makes claims about herd immunity – the idea that letting the virus rip among less vulnerable groups will allow a degree of population-level immunity to build up which will eventually protect the more vulnerable – that are unsupported by existing scientific evidence... And what are scientists doing fronting a campaign whose back office is run by a thinktank that flirts with climate change denial?’
Read here (The Guardian, Oct 11, 2020)
‘As he seeks re-election on 3 November, Trump’s actions in the face of COVID-19 are just one example of the damage he has inflicted on science and its institutions over the past four years, with repercussions for lives and livelihoods. The president and his appointees have also back-pedalled on efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, weakened rules limiting pollution and diminished the role of science at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Across many agencies, his administration has undermined scientific integrity by suppressing or distorting evidence to support political decisions, say policy experts. “I’ve never seen such an orchestrated war on the environment or science,” says Christine Todd Whitman, who headed the EPA under former Republican president George W. Bush.
‘Trump has also eroded America’s position on the global stage through isolationist policies and rhetoric. By closing the nation’s doors to many visitors and non-European immigrants, he has made the United States less inviting to foreign students and researchers. And by demonizing international associations such as the World Health Organization, Trump has weakened America’s ability to respond to global crises and isolated the country’s science.’
Read here (Nature magazine, Oct 7, 2020)
‘A Lowy Institute report reviewing such trends [the systematic dismantling of science, expertise and rule of law] concluded that “the concept of a rules-based international order has been stripped of meaning, while liberalism faces its greatest crisis in decades”. If these writers and many more are correct that Western “democracies” have trashed core components of democracy, it is only fair to ask what Western statesmen mean when they castigate others for failing to adopt democracy...’
Read here (South China Morning Post, Oct 4, 2020)
‘The pandemic has shown how a lack of solid statistics can be dangerous. But even with the firmest of evidence, we often end up ignoring the facts we don’t like...’ This is also shown in evidence from two other areas: (1) Coffee and breast cysts and (2) Climate change. They should inform our reaction to Covid-19 and other matters...
‘When it comes to interpreting the world around us, we need to realise that our feelings can trump our expertise. This explains why we buy things we don’t need, fall for the wrong kind of romantic partner, or vote for politicians who betray our trust. In particular, it explains why we so often buy into statistical claims that even a moment’s thought would tell us cannot be true. Sometimes, we want to be fooled. Psychologist Ziva Kunda found this effect in the lab, when she showed experimental subjects an article laying out the evidence that coffee or other sources of caffeine could increase the risk to women of developing breast cysts. Most people found the article pretty convincing. Women who drank a lot of coffee did not...
‘Scientific evidence is scientific evidence. Our beliefs around climate change shouldn’t skew left and right. But they do. This gap became wider the more education people had. Among those with no college education, 45% of Democrats and 23% of Republicans worried “a great deal” about climate change. Yet among those with a college education, the figures were 50% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans. A similar pattern holds if you measure scientific literacy: more scientifically literate Republicans and Democrats are further apart than those who know very little about science.’
Read here (The Guardian, Sept 10, 2020)