51–60 of 432 posts
E.g. some initial hyphothesis about Delta was that it is not so deadly, but it turn out to be twice more deadly than original strain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, we ought to be evidence-based about everything we have done: travel bans, masks, respirators, distancing, plexiglass, closing businesses, forcing healthy kids to wear masks in schools, forcing everyone to get vaccinated, rubber gloves in the grocery store. All of it. So far, our track record isn't that great. The two RCTs for masks and Covid showed minimal (if not zero) effect [1], and you can barely say the res…
That's incorrect. Here is a review of 19 RCTs showing that masks work: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/
Here's a review of every mask study ever performed:
https://www.cato.org/working-paper/evidence-community-cloth-...
Here's a summary written by the same author, in case you're too busy to read 30,000 words:
https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk...
> Travel bans are not evidence-based: It may seem like travel bans for individual countries are a necessary step, but I cannot stress enough that they do not work. This one point compromised the article for me. The standard for “working”, like all measures, is to slow down the spread. We all know travel bans got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them. But all countries imposed travel bans and we ought to be co…
>because you-know-who proposed them Have we really arrived at the point where we've become the parody of a society in a Harry Potter book?
> Travel bans are not evidence-based: It may seem like travel bans for individual countries are a necessary step, but I cannot stress enough that they do not work. This one point compromised the article for me. The standard for “working”, like all measures, is to slow down the spread. We all know travel bans got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them. But all countries imposed travel bans and we ought to be co…
"Slowing the spread" is not a good enough argument in my opinion. Everyone wants to slow the spread, the only question worth asking is: at what cost?
At what point do you deem something effective and worthy of sacrificing your freedoms for? 1% efficacy "slows the spread". Is that worth it? Where do you draw the line? 20%? 50%?
Life is risky, everything is a gamble, yet somehow with COVID, all nuance has disappeared, life is not worth living until we can be 100% sure that there is no risk at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So Sweden had proportionately 5 times more deaths for not locking down with a death / population ratio of 0.00145? I don't think it's ridiculous to consider not locking down with those stats. Locking down has tremendous costs whether mental or economic, you just can't compute and make a nice graph of it.
Are you going to tell those 12000 people: sorry, but you need to die for my exceptionally limited view of economy?
How many people die in car accidents each year?
Does anybody think these variants will ever stop? I hate, __hate__ this constant fear of a lockdown. Hell, a good part of europe is in lockdown right now. I get that the lockdown is being haphazardly enforce for those countries who've decided on it but I dislike these even being rules on the books. Leave me the hell alone! If we couldn't overcome it after a year of lockdowns, why is this gonna be the time it changes?…
It is still an exponential curve that will overflow all the hospitals the moment you stop paying attention, causing hundred thousands of additional deaths indirectly due to overworked med staff.
Object permanence is a thing.
> Travel bans are not evidence-based: It may seem like travel bans for individual countries are a necessary step, but I cannot stress enough that they do not work. This one point compromised the article for me. The standard for “working”, like all measures, is to slow down the spread. We all know travel bans got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them. But all countries imposed travel bans and we ought to be co…
Yeah, I think the article missed the point on this one - travel bans aren't a panacea, but they definitely slow the spread and can buy valuable time at the start of an outbreak. There's been too much binary thinking by the media and politicians - for example masks aren't 100% effective, but they do reduce the viral load by 30-50% which could be the difference between getting mildly sick and getting a fatal exposure.…
I think the effect is much larger than that, but yes, absolutely. This is an important point that is constantly lost in the public discourse. We realize there's a big difference in dosage with poisons and radiation, but it's the same with viral infections; viruses do take time to replicate, so having a low initial exposure can give the immune system to ramp up sooner, before the infection has become severe (and then the immune response will also be severe).
> Travel bans are not evidence-based: It may seem like travel bans for individual countries are a necessary step, but I cannot stress enough that they do not work. This one point compromised the article for me. The standard for “working”, like all measures, is to slow down the spread. We all know travel bans got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them. But all countries imposed travel bans and we ought to be co…
From the article: >A travel ban is not an evidence-based solution unless you stop all travel from every country. Okay, why not do that? China's done it. Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand require a week+ quarantine for international travelers. It obviously works: it stopped two Omicron carriers at the border in Hong Kong. Why not do that? If COVID-19 is such a serious threat that it requires shutting down all schools…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So Sweden had proportionately 5 times more deaths for not locking down with a death / population ratio of 0.00145? I don't think it's ridiculous to consider not locking down with those stats. Locking down has tremendous costs whether mental or economic, you just can't compute and make a nice graph of it.
Are you going to tell those 12000 people: sorry, but you need to die for my exceptionally limited view of economy?