Trivia: Common Covid-19 related fallacies

[PTR 444]

We can say that we are definitely on the homeward stretch of the pandemic now with Operation Rampdown in the pipeline, so I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the good, the bad and the ugly. Seeing as we already have two active fallacy threads on this forum, I thought we made as well have another one for the topic which has probably generated the most fallacies in the past 20 months.

Postings on this can cover anything from the virus itself to vaccines, lockdowns, furlough and disruption to society. Here are some of the more common ones I have heard:

• “Being double jabbed guarantees that you won’t catch the virus”
• “We can afford to lockdown whenever there is a small surge in cases”
• “The government has an infinite pot of money for furlough”
• “Vaccine passports prevent Covid from spreading”
• “Public transport is a breeding ground for the virus”

 

[brad465]

Something along the lines of masks are some sort of metal shield that prevents spreading and that if we all wear them all the time covid will go away.

I saw on Twitter last week a tweet revealing someone who was fully vaccinated working as a surgeon unfortunately died with covid, or something related to it at least, and then telling people to please wear a mask. Now as tragic/sad as the death is, like any given death, this was worded as if to say masks do more good than vaccines, which is both a significant fallacy and worrying.

EDIT: Here it is

 

[duncanp]

• “Being double jabbed guarantees that you won’t catch the virus”
• “We can afford to lockdown whenever there is a small surge in cases”
• “The government has an infinite pot of money for furlough”
• “Vaccine passports prevent Covid from spreading”
• “Public transport is a breeding ground for the virus”

• Face coverings are effective in stopping the spread of the virus
• The local Tier system in place last autumn was a good idea
• The millions spent on building the Nightingale Hospitals was money well spent
• The billions spent on Track and Trace was money well spent
• There was a sound scientific basis for introducing a compulsory 10pm closing time in English pubs.
• There was a sound scientific basis for introducing the "substantial meal" rule in English pubs that were in Tier 2
• Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford introduced different COVID rules in Scotland and Wales because of scientific advice, and not for reasons of political point scoring.

 

[brad465]

• The billions spent on Track and Trace was money well spent

Apart from maybe Government ministers trying to defend themselves, I'm not anywhere of anybody trying to defend the cost of T&T, even though this is definitely a fallacy if being claimed by somebody.

 

[Cdd89]

Apart from maybe Government ministers trying to defend themselves, I'm not anywhere of anybody trying to defend the cost of T&T, even though this is definitely a fallacy if being claimed by somebody.

I often hear it claimed that the money wasted was only as a consequence of government corruption etc. While I am sympathetic to that, I am firmly of the view that the money (minus a few billion, for the sake of argument) would have been wasted anyway.

T&T without seriously determined multi-level depth of tracing and authoritarian isolation enforcement was a complete waste of time; our trends (in terms of outcomes) were no better than places that did almost no T&T.

 

[43096]

Masks are effective at preventing the spread of the virus.

 

[Ianno87]

Some belting ones from the early days:

-They should stop work on <insert project you happen to not like> because of Covid.
-Some people genuinely behaving like Covid and social distancing were going to become permanent (I get we may have had to live with them for a while, but forever?)
-The idea that stopping foreign travel somehow makes Covid evaporate
-Lockdowns have no negative consequences, and everybody can deal with them equally well
-Because a restriction doesn't affect you, it therefore doesn't affect anybody
-Public transport is "not safe"
-The stupid rule in Lockdown 1 when you weren't allowed to sit down outside
-The 1 hour exercise limit (which was only guidance, never actually law)
-It is safer to step into oncoming traffic to social distance than pass less than 2m from somebody on the pavement.
-One way systems are safest (not when they make you pass lots more people unnecessarily - got told off for walking out of an empty Sainsbury's entrance rather than walking all the way around the 1 way system past other people)

 

[Cowley]

I will say that this thread may well have a limited running time (probably right up until the arguments start).
I’m sure everyone will be respectful of each other’s opinions though right..?
Just preempting things here.

 

[Cdd89]

The main one for me is (was) the suggestion that we should ‘get cases as low as possible’ before unlocking. This one in particular robbed people of months of their lives, and unless you’re pursuing a zero covid policy makes no sense; but was widely accepted by many people. Would it really have made a significant difference if we’d gone straight into Step 2 once the immediate peak was over?

 

[Kite159]

Apart from maybe Government ministers trying to defend themselves, I'm not anywhere of anybody trying to defend the cost of T&T, even though this is definitely a fallacy if being claimed by somebody.

Normally it's "Billions given to Serco to trace people". Isn't the largest part of the cost of that system the testing element?

 

[Ianno87]

1) What you have read on social media is obviously correct, and those pesky trained epidemiologists with their models are obviously wrong.

2) That you can selectively pick a single epidemiologists report that suits your argument (when it should in fact be considered as part of a pool of scientific evidence, and not black-and-white fact in itself)

3) That imposition of Covid restrictions, and their release, is solely about the Covid rate, and is not in fact trying to balance many different competing factors (like mental health, the economy, impact on the NHS).

4) That you can blindly copy whatever New Zealand/Sweden/wherever are doing and apply it to your own country's specific circumstances at that present time, and expect it to be effective.

5) That RailUK Forums's Covid sub-forum was nothing other than a gigantic echo chamber.

 

[OuterDistant]

That because the vaccine doesn't 100% stop you from getting the virus, we still need locking down indefinitely. This appears to be my in laws' position.

 

[Ianno87]

The answer to Covid rules not reducing case rates enough is always MORE RULES.

 

[island]

That one death with COVID is one too many and open-ended damage to the economy is preferable.
That mental health doesn't matter.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Nov 2021 ==

Also, the logical fallacy often quoted around changes to rules always amused me. Usually went something along these lines:

• Some rule or another is made stricter
• 2-4 weeks later:
  • If cases have gone down – it's because of the rule change
  • If cases have gone up – it would have been worse if not for the rule change

This is the informal fallacy of "begging the question"*, namely making a logical argument where the truth of the conclusion depends on having assumed, to start with, that the conclusion is true. It is valid logic, but vacuous. To be fair, it's been invoked by both sides and in both directions (stricter and looser rules) during the pandemic.

*"Begging the question" does not, by the way, mean the same thing as "raising" or "suggesting" the question.

 

[Mag_seven]

An old forum favourite - "the imposition of restrictions will lead to civil unrest"

 

[Ianno87]

An old forum favourite - "the imposition of restrictions will lead to civil unrest"

Which ended up having a fantastically flexible definition. Started off as "there'll be riots" and ended up as "I saw a couple of people in ASDA without face masks and I had an overnight stay at my mate's house".

 

[greyman42]

During the lockdowns, households did not mix and people did not go to each others houses for drinking sessions.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Nov 2021 ==

An old forum favourite - "the imposition of restrictions will lead to civil unrest"

I believe that enforced lockdowns would have done so.

 

[Ted633]

If everyone just followed the 'rules', COVID would disappear.

 

[SouthEastBuses]

Covid-19 will be eradicated thanks to lockdowns.

 

[Watershed]

That people will change their views about Covid, lockdowns, vaccines, vaccine passports, masks etc. if you argue with them for long enough

 

[Cowley]

That people will change their views about Covid, lockdowns, vaccines, vaccine passports, masks etc. if you argue with them for long enough

Well that’s the one isn’t it.

 

[brad465]

When infections go down, there are people who claim they'd be going down faster if everyone behaved

 

[Ianno87]

Comparisons between Covid and World War Two are meaningful and valid.

 

[Busaholic]

Comparisons between Covid and World War Two are meaningful and valid.

Certainly comparisons between the behaviour of individuals in each country affected (pretty well all the world in both cases) is both valid and meaningful. The huge difference now is between how information is disseminated, which has gone from one extreme to another in much of the Western world though remains largely or totally in state control in China, Russia etc. Note I use the word information rather than facts.