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0 pointsgroby_b2y ago0 comments

Emotionally, it was horrible. Societally, it was depressing to see that we'll never be able to tackle any true large problems, we can't even agree on wearing a piece of paper to protect fellow humans.

But scientifically? Yeah, I'll go with "exciting". The field seemed to move at a tremendous speed, or at least that's how it looked to me as an outsider.

Sequencing within less than a week, extremely rapid movement on the mRNA front (and really, the whole vaccination field - 200 candidates in 9 months), revamped understanding of aerosol transmission, leaps in rapid modelling, tremendous progress in terms of test development, growth in international collaboration, progress in the (public) understanding of chronic diseases, scaling up of wastewater monitoring, ...

Definitely exciting.

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itsoktocry2y ago

>But scientifically? Yeah, I'll go with "exciting". The field seemed to move at a tremendous speed, or at least that's how it looked to me as an outsider.

The practical science may have been exciting. Unfortunately "The Science" has been forever tainted thanks to secrets, tight-lips, mis-direction and "just trust us".

I think Covid was a net-negative for science.

groby_bOP2y ago

You're referring to politics. The science was pretty clear the entire time.

jacquesm2y ago

Science served us well enough that we're all still commenting here. It's the prevention paradox all over again, if science had not done its work you'd be in a much better position to appreciate the difference that it - and healthcare - made but then you might not have made it at all... science definitely did not let us down.

Who did let us down: the people that were making things worse from day #1 by stirring the pot against science.

ifyoubuildit2y ago

> Who did let us down: the people that were making things worse from day #1 by stirring the pot against science.

What is the solution to this?

The framing seems way too simplistic to ever be useful. It makes it seem as though there was just the Good side that had all the answers all along, and the Bad side who just needed to do what the Good side said.

In reality, it all came down to "who do you trust to both have your best interests at heart and to also be competent enough to achieve those best interests".

Turns out those aren't easy questions, and that people are naturally going to arrive at different answers for all sorts of reasons, and I think very few of them look like "boo science".

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