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YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

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Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#661

Post by robotresearcher »

syshum wrote: post #538
robotresearcher wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is how to get the fraction of people vaccinated high enough, so that costly mask+behavior mandates are obviated. Mask wearing and behavior changes last year were massively effective against flu, by accident. Flu is usually much less deadly than COVID. That factor matters in how we treat it. (edit: added data) The 2017-2018 flu season was an historically bad one in the US, resulting in an estimated 30,453…

>>Mask wearing and behavior changes last year were massively effective against flu, by accident. This is assuming facts not in evidence. there are other factors at play 1. Many people avoided seeking medical treatment that normally would have for the flu this year due to covid, this do not mean they were not infected just it was not recorded 2. There are indications that some people testing positive for COVID could h…

Going back to find the references, I see I got both key numbers wrong. Thanks for challenging me on it.

2017-2018 saw an estimated 710,000 hospitalizations, the worst year on record.

CDC Flu: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.ht...

The COVID numbers I cited are weekly reported cases, not hospitalizations. I added a retraction message above.

The total US deaths reported by CDC today are 616,459 over an 18 month period, which is more than 100 times the fatality-rate of flu in both the years you cite.

CDC COVID: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrends...

The vaccine uptake means we should not see the awful rates of early 2021 again. We should focus on getting more vaccine uptake rather than mask debates.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#662

Post by robotresearcher »

robotresearcher wrote: post #519
syshum wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for admitting that you are treating this like Polio, and not like the Flu... Treating COVID like polio is foolish, and naive. All indications are COVID will be an annual thing like the flu, chances are mutations will be more transmissible but less deadly (and the data is bearing this out) Chances are we will need annual "booster" or other vaccine just like the flu... We do not mandate people get the annual flu…

The question is how to get the fraction of people vaccinated high enough, so that costly mask+behavior mandates are obviated. Mask wearing and behavior changes last year were massively effective against flu, by accident. Flu is usually much less deadly than COVID. That factor matters in how we treat it. (edit: added data) The 2017-2018 flu season was an historically bad one in the US, resulting in an estimated 30,453…

> The 7 day moving average for new COVID hospital admissions is 89,977 today, and peaked at about 260K in a single week in January.

Self-reply: these are both wrong. I read the data badly.

On Flu

2017-2018 saw an estimated 710,000 hospitalizations, the worst year on record.

On COVID, these are the CDC numbers for new cases, not hospitalizations.

I dunno how I got this wrong. I give the citations below, along with additional data on the relative death rates of flu and COVID.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#663

Post by gwright »

patmcc wrote: post #608
gwright wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's fine. YouTube doesn't want to host it, because in their view it's harmful. What's the problem? It is perfectly rationale to say that YouTube has the freedom to make editorial choices while also pointing out that they are making bad choices. You aren't countering any criticism by stating that YouTube has the freedom to make those choices -- you're just changing the topic and ignoring the nature of the critici…

Because the criticism is bollocks. "I want to hear particular views on a particular website" isn't an argument.

Yeah, except that isn't actually the argument.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#664

Post by gwright »

krapp wrote: post #590
gwright wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are no arbitrator of truth or facts, leave that to the courts Not sure this is a good approach either. Discerning truth and separating fact from fiction isn't a skill that some people have and other's don't. It is a process that requires one to embrace free speech rather than assigning the role of truthsayer to any particular person, group, or institution. Here is John Stuart Mills rationale for free speech: .…

>if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error. Except that doesn't happen. As the saying goes, a lie can travel around the world before the truth laces up its boots. Where is the "clearer perception and livelier impression of truth" being produced by all of the disinformation being spread? Surely, since disinformat…

And so what do you conclude? You seem to be saying that instead of unfettered speech you prefer that some authority step in and pick and choose what speech is to be allowed?

And who gets to be in that privileged position of determining what discourse is permitted by everyone else?

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#665

Post by babesh »

babesh wrote: post #660
babesh wrote: post #253

I wonder how many people agree with these statements and which ones: - The Delta variant is more virulent but less lethal than the previous variants - There will be additional variants (lambda is already here) - Certain masks are reasonably effective (N95, KN95, multiple layers) - Certain masks are much less effective (garter) - Masks are sometimes worn incorrectly or intentionally ineffectively - Many children under…

People rather believe their side than reality. Just a little while later (same day). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28151372 Delta seems very contagious amongst the Astra Zeneca vaccinated. Those viral loads seem pretty darn high for vaccinated people. Vaccine entry mandates don't seem to make as much sense as masks for everyone who hasn't gotten it yet, vaccines for those who want them, and COVID cards for tho…

Prediction. Tech companies are going to delay openings again or workers will remain masked for months. Former is more likely.

My reasoning. They will realize that either those people are going to be masked all day or they are going to have mass Delta outbreaks amongst the vaccinated.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#666

Post by kgarten »

timr wrote: post #604
srinivgp wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty conclusive. It's been conclusive for years and years, before COVID-19. There's no question at all that masks reduce infectiousness through the extremely obvious method of preventing some virus particles from going from one person to another, and also no question at all that probability of infection depends on number of virus particles around, and that viruses in general produce worse symptoms when the ini…

> You will find literally zero papers credibly claiming otherwise. Of the papers cited in the WHO meta-analysis of face masks and infection [1], all of the (three!) papers from a non-health-care setting had a confidence interval overlapping 1.0 (i.e. "no benefit"). Of those in a health-care setting, about half had confidence intervals overlapping 1.0 (i.e. "no benefit"): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/arti…

Anecdotal, how do you explain the non existing flue season (last autumn ) and the low incidences in Japan? We got higher rates during the Olympic.

I live in Tokyo, Japan and visit US/Europe often. The only significant difference I see is the willingness to wear masks. And there's way less space here (packed subways etc.)

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#667

Post by timr »

kgarten wrote: post #666
timr wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will find literally zero papers credibly claiming otherwise. Of the papers cited in the WHO meta-analysis of face masks and infection [1], all of the (three!) papers from a non-health-care setting had a confidence interval overlapping 1.0 (i.e. "no benefit"). Of those in a health-care setting, about half had confidence intervals overlapping 1.0 (i.e. "no benefit"): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/arti…

Anecdotal, how do you explain the non existing flue season (last autumn ) and the low incidences in Japan? We got higher rates during the Olympic. I live in Tokyo, Japan and visit US/Europe often. The only significant difference I see is the willingness to wear masks. And there's way less space here (packed subways etc.)

Well, any rational conversation about Japan has to start with the observation that cases are at an all-time high right now:

https://www.asahi.com/topics/word/%E3%82%B3%E3%83%AD%E3%83%8...

I don't think changing rates of masking can explain that change.

> Anecdotal, how do you explain the non existing flue season (last autumn ) and the low incidences in Japan? We got higher rates during the Olympic.

I haven't seen any data on flu during the olympics, so I can't comment on that. Covid cases, of course, were shooting up long before the first athletes even arrived in Japan (see above).

To answer your question, nobody knows why flu "disappeared" during the last year. My hypothesis is a combination of two things:

1) it didn't disappear, it just spread less due to to the dramatic reduction in international travel (plus maybe closure of schools).

2) we stopped testing for flu at rates necessary to detect it. Our prior surveillance system for influenza was pretty limited, and most of it switched to Covid in 2020.

In general, I think people fixate on masks far too much, because they're visible. Even in Japan, what qualifies as a mask would make Americans in the "mask compliant" cities laugh out loud. I routinely see people wearing these on Instagram and on television:

https://www.superdelivery.com/product_image/812/8/8128738_10...

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#668

Post by raxxorrax »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #229
corndoge wrote: post #3

> YouTube indicated that examples of the offending content in the video included the line: “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.” > It also included the quote: “Trying to shape human behavior isn’t the same as following the actual science which tells us that cloth masks don’t work.” Regardless of what you think about YouTube's misinformation policy, I don't think this i…

It is misinformation. Masks (cloth or otherwise) were meant to reduce infectiousness, not completely prevent the possibility of infection. Masks (cloth or otherwise) do in fact reduce infectiousness. The misinformation is the implication that masks are pointless because you can still get infected. The point of masks is to get the probability of spreading it down by some multiple, not to be a personal not-my-problem-a…

Even if true, that is still no reason to remove any information stating otherwise.

I think promoting cloth masks is misinformation if you don't suffer from an acute respiratory disease. And in that case you should be the one to wear one.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#669

Post by andybak »

leereeves wrote: post #294
andybak wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather think "let's go for herd immunity" is something we need to collectively decide. It's a huge decision and impacts everyone. Like many decisions with collective impact, we rightly restrict the rights of individuals to go their own way on it.

Obviously there isn't collective agreement for a mandate. Are you saying the government should impose a mandate without collectively deciding, or even debating?

That points to a tricky, general problem in political theory and one we've struggled with for millenia. I don't have an answer but I do think there's a middle ground between "authoritarian diktat" and "everyone does what the hell they want".
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