Bullying = pointing out that data can be politicised and that it needs context and that people who don't like that are missing half the picture. Saying that what someone points out 'this is the only data that matters' this might not actually be the case and perhaps we should look at other data too rather than just taking the 'important data' at complete face value.
The stuff with Van Tam yesterday was like a magician misdirection trick in the sense that I'm inclined to go 'hmm yes, is that the full picture? Perhaps we should look at that as its concerning but maybe we should be looking for other clues too'. Whilst thats important data, which shouldn't be ignored we are getting into ever more complex stuff and I think thats where the problem lies.
After years on here I've worked out that people just don't like inconvient truths pointing out and the easiest way to shut people up is to accuse them of bullying, rather than to address the point that people are making, if its a difficult point.
I've spent years looking at data to do with childbirth and how thats manipulated and presented that is as important as the data itself. When the data becomes difficult, complicated and at time contridictory it sometimes involves putting people in a position which challenges the opinion they've already formed thats uncomfortable and produces anxiety. And really thats what its about. People want to feel safe rather than look at stuff that might be awkward and might alert them to the fact that actually risk is arising from doing 'the right thing' in terms of covid not just covid itself.
Its the whole, 'don't forget to look over your shoulder', type mentality. When other problems creep up behind you, it is unnerving.
Data is not supposed to make you feel purely safe and comfortable. If it is becoming that, you should always use it to question yourself about the extent to which you are using as a safety blanket to hide behind. If its making your feel safe and comfortable and the world outside your window doesn't look too clever in other respects, then its always worth doing a proper reassessment of whats going out there.
I get why people are doing it. Really I do. Its reassuring and it helps you process whats going on. The trouble is I don't feel I don't have the luxury of that in the same way. Not when its one your doorstep.
What annoys me most is when you are accused of all manner of things in sharing that frustration and anxiety. And instead it all about how people in other places are doing thing better / are somehow more morally superior / you should take even more pain that they aren't sharing in. Rather than thinking of it as structurial inequality, bad luck and incompetence thats driven the situation to a point beyond which it can easily be managed. Its this idea of shifting the blame and responsibility which is manifesting in little comments and digs... and after a while that grates and comes to an almightly head because people have failed to acknowledge those problems over a sustained period of time.
Its one lesson I've firmly learned over the last few years. Do not belittle and disregard lived experience. It may not be scientific or measurable nor may it say the things that people intrepret to mean - it still has a value that shouldn't be ignored and it points to all the things that haven't been picked up and measured in data. And thats where you should ask the questions about where data has failed.
Beyond that I do end up wondering if in all the modelling the behaviorial scientists added in government incompentence to the degree thats happening. And on a localised basis. It would be reassuring if they did. I have my doubts given the sheer inpredicatability and voliality of this government and for this reason I do fear we are more into unchartered waters and beyond the limits of predictions about a prolonged crisis than we realise.
We look to data to provide an understandable format about what is happening, to reassure us or to help us criticise. However the sheer magnitude of whats happening and the knock on effects - particularly when you fragment the country into blocks and create borders which don't match the lived lives of people - is exceeding the data purity of deaths and hospitalisation and these issues are growing ever more complex and difficult. The problems are growing and are multi faceted and no longer simply about covid itself.
Thats a difficult thing to confront and be willing / able to process.
Its rather like a data bomb going off in your head with about 6 different competing concerns going on and not having a clue how to unpick it. Of course its anxiety producing. That doesn't mean thats not the point at which this crisis has reached though. Nor does it mean that this is something which we should ignore, dismiss nor frame as people merely being over emotional etc etc.