To be clear, below is Dave's predictions:
http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/the-end-of-the-pandemic-td7595888.html#a7595894
I don't see how your claim that they've come to pass are anything but confirmation bias.
Every one of the predictions seems to have failed. The pandemic hasn't ended. There's no
*radical* shift in perception. Everyone I know (including the morons at the pub without
masks, with ~6 trips since our county went to phase 2) admits it's worse than the flu.
"Science" is only just now working out demographics and treatments. All the
signs point to *huge* changes in the way most of us behave.
On May 11, 2020; 7:42am, Prof David West wrote:
The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.
This assertion is premised on making a distinction between the biological and
the perceptual.
The virus is not going away, a vaccine may or may not be found and made widely
available, and treatments that reduce severity and death rate may or may not be
soon at hand. Hot spots will continue to flare. Model-based prognostications
will be confirmed. And none of this will matter.
A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero
chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic
(mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
"Science" will quickly confirm (justify / rationalize) this shift — after all, my
individual risk is 150,000 / 300,000,000 or "pretty damned small."
Politicians will quickly cave to this new perceptual reality and socio-economic
restrictions will collapse.
The percentage of the population that wear masks (just one example of a
behavioral phenomenon) will roughly equal the number that fastidiously fasten
their seat belts; but this and similar behaviors will mitigate the the
infection/death rate.
Covid will be PERCEIVED to be no worse than the flu, the death rate will become
"acceptable," and the current media "hysteria" will fade away.
There will be a segment of the populace — mostly the affluent elderly and individuals who
have acquired money/influence/notoriety the past few months — who will argue against
these changes but their objections will be quickly countered with, "why should I
suffer all kinds of consequences — ones you do not share — to cater to your fears or your
ego?"
None of the above should be interpreted as anything except a simple observation
/ prediction.
davew
On 6/11/20 12:56 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
Arizona and Texas are "spiking" as of today. We're surrounded.
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