Fauci has COVID....

An interview with Biden's Covid Czar, Ashish Jha, about the challenges in communicating during a pandemic. He makes the point, scientists should communicate more even when all the answers are not yet in. He frequently goes on Newsmax to counter misinformation from the right, with the overall goal to disseminate common health practices and encourage vaccination. As of today, 80% of adults have received at least one shot and the broad acceptance of the safety and efficacy of the vaccines have broken through much of the false information.

Fauci, who spent his entire professional life on public health and epidemiology, was demonized on Fox and Newsmax, not because he changed his opinions based on data, but because he threatened Trump's authoritarianism.

“We Have to Get Out of This Phase”: Ashish Jha on the Future of the Pandemic


[QUOTE
You’ve been one of the most prolific communicators during the pandemic. At one point, you were doing ten or twelve TV interviews a day and putting out dozens of Twitter threads a week. Why?

A lot of people think of communication as the icing on the cake. You have your policy, you have your recommendations, you get the science right, and the communication is kind of a nice-to-have. In a pandemic, that’s completely wrong. You need to engage the public, helping people understand, “Hey, the infection numbers are growing, and that means these are the three behavior changes you should make.”

Has Twitter been a net good or net bad for the covid discourse?

Net good. Twitter has been phenomenal at bringing scientists together to share ideas and collaborate. But net good is not the same as all good. A lot of people have used it as a way of either minimizing covid or spreading fear about it. Social media has made it easier for people to communicate. We can share these moving pictures and videos of tragedies and create a sense of shared experience. At the same time, people can exploit it to further their agenda.

As doctors and scientists, we often think we can fight misinformation with data. But sometimes I wonder if that’s true. People believe what they believe for all sorts of complex social and psychological reasons. How can we improve the chances that science, which is messy and nuanced, wins out?

Misinformation thrives in information vacuums, and those who show up first often get to define the terrain. This puts scientists at a disadvantage. By the time they show up with the right answer, the discourse has often moved on, and people have settled on strong views about what they think. Scientists can’t wait for certainty. You should lead with what you already know, even if you haven’t nailed everything down to the fifth decimal point. Just let everybody know it’s your first draft. Sometimes, it turns out that with more evidence and data, you learn that your initial assessment wasn’t quite right. That’s O.K.
][/QUOTE]

 

Agree.

A large swath of the public couldn't even grasp basic facts about covid. How they gonna handle nuance and more complicated ideas that require thinking about nuance, right?

 

Most people are really stupid.. Except of course for the lefty posters on this board who were endowed with a superior brain structure.

 

If there is a left/right angle to this stupidity, it's demonstrated in science illiteracy, and in the dumbest of politically animated hatred for a man who brought science to bear with best in the world.

 

I think Jah overlooks a bit in how misinformation (and disinformation) has thrived outside of any such vacuum. It's good that he goes on various con media, and it's overall a good thing that scientists engage publicly. Same time, covid has demonstrated the power of others to use social media to "flood the zone with shit" and of how ideological conditioning and biases have primed many to gravitate toward the charlatans & snake oil salesman doing the flooding and away from those who doing science.

 

You do agree with what i posted?

 

The deniers on this board continue to display their monumental ignorance regarding vaccines. But I'm not surprised when you get all your information from little tucker, insHannity, etc. ad nauseum. But back to the subject of Dr. Fauci, you're denigrating and defaming a man who did his best during a global crisis that alone killed over 1 million people in the US. And yes, there were mistakes made due to the fact that he was dealing with an unknown, extremely virulent and deadly virus. But to call him evil and incompetent is shameful and disgraceful. But again, I wouldn't expect anything less from the usual suspects on this board. Pathetic.

 

It would be much more accurate to say a significant percentage of righties live inside a bubble and are predisposed to believe false narratives and reject the analysis of commentators with actual scientific credentials because it goes counter to what they have been conditioned to believe.
I wouldn't say that these people are really stupid but rather that they apparently lost the ability to think critically and it had catastrophic consequences for them.
Famous Anti-Vaxxers Who Have Died From COVID-19
By the way it's not just righties who are victims of anti-vax dogma, Robert Kennedy, Jr. a lefty who comes to mind is also an anti-vaxxer although they are disproportionately represented.

 

I tried to give fauci the benefit of the doubt early on. As time went it was clear he was just not good at his job. Then it became clear the man is evil imo. He knows he purposely ignored science.

 

Everyone i know, right or left, has been vaccinated, so if you are coming up with projecting fringe opinions onto the general population i think you are making a big mistake.
I haven no problem with Fauci on a personal level, however I do believe that people 70 or over, including Trump, Fauci, Biden, should not be in these kinds of positions.
Looking at Fauci, he wasn't involved in developing the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. The company scientists and researchers did that work. He never told us early on that the Wuhan lab was working on bat corona viruses AND they were doing the type of research that might have altered the virus. If he didn't know, in his position considering the information released about the NIH grants, he should have known at least basic information about that ( this goes back to my over 70 comments). Basically he was the spokesperson to the public, and you can argue whether he was effective or not, however i don't hold him personally accountable for that. I do think he blundered by not considering immunity from previous infection as substantial.
The changing guidance on masks, social distancing, methods of transmission was very confusing, but i'm sure he was just repeating what the policy was on that.

 

You obviously don't know what true evil is...

 

Great come back...it's suits your style...cartoonish.

 

I have to dumb it down for some so they'll understand

 

Probably not until Fox News and the right-wing media are no longer financially viable.

 

You're correct on the brain structure. "The left brain is more verbal, analytical, and orderly than the right brain."

Left Brain vs. Right Brain: What’s the Difference?.

 

I still can’t believe that was said. Out of all the dumb things, that was #1 for me out of that administration. I am sure something dumber was said, so not trying to start a fight.

 

Lol, not as long as we humans like you, very gullible

 

I liked Trump's statement in a speech that the Continental Army "took over the airports" from the British during the Revolutionary War.

 

Well that is just factually correct, not stupid (don’t have the sarcasm emoji anymore).

That is why I didn’t want to start a one up me war. What is more stupid? Dumping bleach into your rectum, exposing it to sunlight or not knowing when the Wright Brother’s first flight was.