Sunday, July 05, 2020

Day 156: Is it Airborne?

Not surprisingly, the New York Times takes the climate-science might-makes-right approach with an article aptly titled 239 Experts With 1 Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne:
Most of these experts [interviewed by the NYT] praised W.H.O. staff for holding daily briefings and tirelessly answering questions about the pandemic.

But the infection prevention and control committee in particular, experts said, is bound by a rigid and overly medicalized view of scientific evidence, is slow and risk-averse in updating its guidance and allows a few conservative voices to shout down dissent.
PlagueBlog interprets "overly medicalized" to mean "only concerned about actual routes of transmission and not the fantasies of physicists and people who want to move the goalposts on the word airborne".

Nevertheless, the article is useful for its swift digression from science-by-mob-rule into the "precautionary principle," which seems to be the main point of contention in most fights over coronavirus, from the most minor and silly inconveniences involving silverware in partly-open restaurants up to the most economy-destroying and famine-producing acts of government.

While the Fourth of July merely suffered from coronavirus restrictions, the next national holiday has been cancelled outright: 7-Eleven will not be holding Free Slurpee Day on July 11th as planned. Even though the PlagueBlog staff have never celebrated Free Slurpee Day, we assure you that their plans to donate free meals and issue free slurpee coupons through their app is in no way an adequate substitute for this vital national holiday.

Massachusetts cases are up an eighth of a percentage point today.

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