did you consider checking the facts before buying into such hysterical claims?

this is LA department of health services hospital census. it's essentially identical to the levels from last year.

the media have had a severe tendency to overstate these issues. https://t.co/ktTPIbKcdQ

"much of the social history of the western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good"

-thomas sowell

"hold my beer and watch this"

-andrew cuomo

though i suppose none of us should be surprised.

we live in a time when epidemiologists said that mass protests during a pandemic were OK so long as they were for "social justice"

massively delaying vaccine rollouts for the same reason seems like the next obvious policy.

how about this?

"anyone who needs to go protest racism, sexism, the patriarchy, or the police gets vaccine priority"

i hope i am joking.

i fear i may not be.

I know some people who seem (to me) more concerned with receiving VALIDATION for their mental health issues than solving them.

They seem to care most about other people BELIEVING their problems are real.

I'm curious about this.

Like, it's more important to them that people know how debilitating their anxiety is, than to overcome the anxiety.

Or it's important to them that others believe that they're actually depressed, not "just sad."

Or they want people buy into the narrative that they've been traumatized, and might be something like offended if someone minimizes that.

What do we make of this?

1. One possibility is that if solving the problems seems hopeless or even just really hard, you need external support to be able to cope.

If no one cuts you slack because of your mental health stuff, maybe you're in a really bad place, so you need people to believe you.

I think that, in the face of an ongoing global health emergency and a pressing need to reopen safely, some form of health pass is a reasonable option to consider. But debate is a good thing, so here are some brief thoughts on various concerns I've heard about them... [thread]

"A health pass discriminates against people who have refused the vaccine." No. A health pass should also support proof of test result for people who haven't been vaccinated, and exemptions for people who cannot be vaccinated (get vaccinated if you can though, for heaven's sake).

"A health pass is an invasion of privacy." No. A health pass should be privacy preserving, allowing you to prove your status to third parties without giving away personal data or letting them track you without your permission.

"A health pass is unfair to people without smartphones." No. A health pass should accommodate people without a smartphone, e.g. with a printable option as a fall-back (though for most of us, carrying a digital pass on our phone will be much more convenient).

"A health pass will become obsolete as the virus mutates." No. A health pass should actually give us more insight and flexibility to adjust our response as our knowledge of the virus, and the ways we test / treat / vaccinate for it, increases.