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Gary F.S.'s avatar

Oh, how I miss the halcyon days of the sciencey-sounding "flatten the curve" mantra regurgitated hourly by a host of 3rd rate local elected officials. I enjoyed the lovely colored line graphs that adorned virtually every media outlet for weeks on end describing in banal detail how different slopes of flatness correlated with "saving lives" while spikey-ness = death. Not that any of the real-time graphs ever showed "flatness"; but a bunch of mostly lawyers, pundits and reporters thought they sounded smart talking about "curves" and "slopes."

What I missed the most was screaming things like "flatten this curve Bitch!" while pointing to my gonads at the only other two of my co-workers who were forced to still show-up at the government office I work at during the great lock-down last year. Oh the jocularity!

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Cold Turkey Off MSM's avatar

The public health community helped hype the message. They fudged on "science-based" Proposed interventions can't be science-based when most of the data is provisional. In the midst of a pandemic doing nothing while you wait for the all the data to come in is an option, a really bad one. Somebody decided that the American public couldn't deal with "interventions based on best, provisional data available" and "subject to change as more data becomes available." Most of us would surely crump into a heap if confronted with uncertainty. Better to project certainty and worry later when the lies come back to bite your ass.

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Rfhirsch's avatar

This is a key point. Most pronouncements from the White House, CDC, FDA, ...., were based on very provisional data, not actual information. Data are the raw numbers, information is based on an analysis of those numbers to determine what they mean, if anything. Your phrases in quotes represent the proper way to issue statements for the public.

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DC Lovell's avatar

and their partners

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

What if when this first came to light, the people who created it were also in positions of authority to spin the narrative. This is beyond, "never let a (crisis/tragedy/emergency/whatever go to waste." This is, someone like Frankenfauci has control of the message, because the responsible old guard media doesn't exist anymore. What is to become of us.

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Cold Turkey Off MSM's avatar

Am I alone in thinking that the word "crisis" has lost its punch through excessive use? Once every issue becomes a "crisis", we have no word for describing a real crisis. I suggest that "crisis" be used for any situation that is in any way unpleasant as is now the case. With that done, we'll need a new word to describe a real crisis. "Armageddon" is too biblical and ethnocentric but otherwise has the end-of-days flavor we seek.

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DC Lovell's avatar

Since Moderna was working on a vaccine long before Cov-2 came into existence, the first light must be tied to that time period. This is obviously a psy-op with the intention of disrupting the trend at the time...Trump and his path.

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Mrs. McFarland's avatar

Except, the lies never seem to bite anyone in the ass…

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Cold Turkey Off MSM's avatar

Point taken. It only applies if the goal is to implement effective public health policy that entails voluntary cooperation. Once creditability is lost it won't come back and then you'll need to rely on coercive tactics. Sound familiar?

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Trollificus's avatar

That's why I'm especially appreciative of the charts with unlabeled X and Y axes they sometimes show. (though they will sometimes helpfully put numbers along them). They help me know if I should cower in place (line going up, left-to-right) or if Fauci and Biden have saved us (line going down, left-to-right).

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Cold Turkey Off MSM's avatar

No need to properly label a graph as long as you pick a good color scheme- the red hue under the curve does look ominous. A "case" is a positive test. In a condition where most cases are without or with minimal signs and symptoms, the rate of cases will be remarkably dependent on the rate of testing. Simple enough! The MSM has ignored this because: a. They're stupid? or b. it doesn't make good copy?

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baker charlie's avatar

The local laundrymat still has its 'flatten the curve' posters out in the front window 2 years later. I cannot tell if is sincere or ironic.

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Kateinhi's avatar

Whadda hoot

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