The Problem

An underlying problem driving a lot of our political difficulties is a standard tactic of The Daddy State to manufacture a general distrust of expertise. And it's been going on for a very long time.

At least 30 years ago, my brother-in-law - a decent, smart, and funny guy who was eventually afflicted with the kind of aggressive brain rot that's come to characterize MAGA - started to love shit-talkin' people who knew stuff.

"Y'know what an expert is, dontcha, Mike? The word is a combination of Ex and Spurt - a has-been drip under pressure."

Propagating suspicion about intellectuals is a hallmark of authoritarianism, because the guys who know stuff will contradict a lot of what the authoritarian needs us to believe. In order to manipulate a political culture, the autocrat has to exert some control over what and how we think.

Trump totally fucked up the pandemic response, and needed ways not only to deflect criticism, but to turn the whole thing to his advantage. So:

• Fauci's a tool of Big Pharma
• Fauci's lying so he can duck his responsibility for COVID
• The eggheads at CDC are power-mad bureaucrats in cahoots with radical socialistic unions out to destroy the schools, the economy, and America's way of life
• Masks are a distraction - unnecessary - bad for you and your kids
• Vaccines cause autism - they're a way to put ID tags and tracking devices in your arms - they modify your DNA to make you obedient - it's a population control scheme and when the time is right, the 5G network will activate a neurotoxin that kills millions and blah blah blah
• Buy more ivermectin

And of course, there's a slew of others:

• Climate Change is a hoax; big government controls the weather
• Wildfires are started by space-based lasers directed by a global cabal of Jewish bankers
• The Rapture
• China is about to launch a massive EMP attack
• Don't go to a doctor for your cancer - he'll keep you sick so he can sell you more chemotherapy - just stay home and eat lots of blue-green algae
• and on and on and on

It's all pointed at getting us to cede our personal agency to the authoritarians, and giving us a nice ego massage so we can feel better about our C-minus GPA, and the fact that we really don't know jack shit about nuthin', and that's how it should be anyway because why would I listen to a buncha radical lefties who just wanna keep me ignorant?

And that ain't the half of it, but here endeth the rant.

Opinion

The Checkup With Dr. Wen: In defense of the 6-foot social distancing rule

Anthony Fauci didn’t deserve the abuse he received about the COVID pandemic guideline.

Pandemic-era social distancing guidelines have taken a beating this week. Critics have argued passionately that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation to remain six feet apart was arbitrary, wrong and should never have been implemented.

I disagree. The guidance, like other public health recommendations, wasn’t perfect. But it did help to reduce transmission and was an important point of reference at a time when people needed simple, easy-to-follow guidelines.

Anthony S. Fauci, who during the pandemic was the nation’s top infectious-diseases expert, endured the brunt of the criticism during a bruising congressional hearing on Monday. Questions zeroed in on testimony he gave during a closed-door session in January that the six-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.” At times, the exchange devolved into personal attacks, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) repeatedly refusing to address Fauci as “Dr. Fauci,” saying his medical license “should be revoked” and that he belongs in prison.

Recall that, at the start of the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 was a novel coronavirus. Health officials knew little about it and assumed it behaved like other common respiratory viruses. Influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are among the viruses that are transmitted predominantly via small droplets expelled when someone coughs, sneezes and breathes. These particles can land on someone’s nose, mouth or eyes, or they can be inhaled by those in proximity. They can also land on surfaces and infect people who touch them.

Over time, scientists learned that the COVID-19 virus — and especially new variants of the pathogen — was highly contagious. Studies demonstrated that it not only spread via droplets, but also by much smaller aerosol particles. Whereas droplets are heavier and quickly fall to the ground, aerosols can linger and be carried over longer distances.

Public health guidance eventually pivoted toward improving ventilation as an infection control measure, as aerosol experts had long advocated. Today, the science is pretty well settled that COVID-19 can be transmitted via both droplets and aerosols.

Critics of the six-foot rule are right in some ways. With aerosol transmission, someone could become infected even if they are further than six feet away. And, as Fauci suggested in his testimony, there have been no randomized-controlled trials looking at six feet of distancing vs., for instance, the World Health Organization’s more lenient recommendation of one meter, which is just over three feet.

But here’s what the six-foot rule got right: Droplet transmission remains one of two dominant routes of spread. A rule that reduces droplet transmission won’t curb all spread, but it can help protect people from the virus.

Moreover, I think Americans understood there wasn’t something magical about the exact distance. Did anyone really believe that being five feet away from others was dangerous while seven feet was safe? Rather, this guidance was based on a common-sense understanding that being in close contact with an infected person is risky.

This understanding is still correct. A large contact-tracing study published last year in Nature found that household contacts accounted for 6 percent of exposures to the COVID-19, but 40 percent of transmissions. Most positive cases occurred after at least an hour of exposure, suggesting that prolonged close contact is of highest risk.

Another interesting study examined a cluster of COVID cases on a 10-hour commercial flight with 217 passengers and crew. Of the 16 people who ended up testing positive, 12 were seated near the infected person. Seating proximity increased infection risk more than sevenfold.

As readers of the Checkup newsletter know, I often discussed the six-foot rule alongside two other ways to reduce transmission: being outdoors and masking. If the goal is to avoid COVID, someone in an indoor crowded area should wear a high-quality mask, but it’s not necessary if they are outdoors or well-spaced from others. The six-foot rule provided a helpful starting point to help people decide what precautions they needed to take.

Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s crucial for lawmakers to discuss whether workplaces and schools needed to impose six-foot separation rules And I would love to have more research on how much mitigation measures such as social distancing and masking reduced transmission. We also need data on their very real harms. Such information is necessary to guide policy decisions moving forward.

But none of this means people were misguided in keeping their distance from potentially infected people. It also does not mean that we should disregard social distancing as a mitigation measure against other contagious diseases. If, for example, the avian flu outbreak progresses to human-to-human transmission, we might need to bring back distancing to reduce droplet exposure.

And it definitely does not mean that Fauci somehow misled the public. Those viewing Monday’s congressional testimony should ignore the partisan noise and focus on the calm responses from the physician-scientist who guided the country through a once-in-a-generation health crisis and continues to serve as the very model of a dedicated public servant.