Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 432 posts

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#311

Post by freshpots »

blindmute wrote: post #283
bingohbangoh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, then when does this end? I'm all ears!

It doesn't end until you make it end. When I close my laptop, I am unaware there is even anything going on; I don't wear a mask, I am unvaccinated, and I am fortunate enough to live in a place where people largely behave in this same way. My life is 100% the same as it was 3 years ago. If you're restricting your own behavior, stop. If you're being restricted by third parties, seriously consider moving or outright dis…

You live in a place where people are largely unvaccinated? So, anti-scientific anti-citizens? What a 'shithole' country that you must live in, right?

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#312

Post by tamaharbor »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #300
c0balt wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yay, it got classified with an interesting name. No, another goddamn variant.

I know it’s from the Greek alphabet, but yeah, they shouldn’t have used “Nu” - homophones cause all kinds of confusion. ----- Patient: “Give it to me straight doc, what have I got?” Doctor: “you have a case of the Nu variant of Covid.” Patient: “yeah, but what is it? What’s it called?” Doctor: “the Nu variant” Patient: “yes, but WHAT IS IT NAMED?!” Doctor: “I’VE TOLD YOU ALREADY!”

Third base...

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#313

Post by GekkePrutser »

markdown wrote: post #178
timr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All current evidence is that masks have a minor effect, measured in tiny fractions of a percent. https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk ... To date, I'm aware of no study that has quantified a difference in infection, hospitalization or death that is attributable to travel bans.

> To date, I'm aware of no study that has quantified a difference in infection, hospitalization or death that is attributable to travel bans. Why would you need a study to tell you that if nobody with covid travels to a country, that country remains covid-free? Perhaps you are unaware, but there are countries on this planet that covid hasn't gotten to, and those countries have travel bans.

While true, it only provides protection during the duration of the travel ban. And at the same time gives the population zero exposure to the virus and no chance to build up antibodies. So when it does hit, it will be like day 1.

So it's perpetually locking you into travel bans to be effective, which is in itself very harmful to a country in today's world.

It only works if everyone did it and you succeed in killing the virus. Right now that is no longer possible because the animal kingdom will keep it alive.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#314

Post by ed_balls »

ricardobeat wrote: post #230
midasuni wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cases in Scotland with mask laws and Hugh adherence seem higher than in England which doesn’t have laws and has low adherence. Be interesting if anyone has done a proper comparison between say Glasgow and Manchester.

I think I’ve heard that before, but how is it higher? From the usual dashboards Scotland has 130 cases per million, while England is at 150/million. The number of cases right now is also stable while the UK overall is going up?

it's hard to compare cases without knowing how many tests were done and how they are administered.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#315

Post by kyrra »

ricardobeat wrote: post #106
timr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All current evidence is that masks have a minor effect, measured in tiny fractions of a percent. https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk ... To date, I'm aware of no study that has quantified a difference in infection, hospitalization or death that is attributable to travel bans.

The recent Bangladesh study with 350k people found a ~10% reduction in cases, from only 40% mask adoption. The two-cities trial early in 2020 in Germany saw a ~20% reduction. Those are in the number of infections - the number looks low but can make a massive difference in the actual transmission rate. In the German case, after a month infections dropped close to zero.

That study is flawed in many ways. And one thing to point out, if you do take the study at face value, cloth mask do virtually nothing, only surgical masks did something ( AKA the intervention group).

The study was not blind, so the intervention group (those that wore surgical masks and showed the large efficacy increase) we're paid money to be part of the group. The non-intervention groups (cloth and control) did not receive any monetary compensation.

Recording of masking was done via people observing mask wearing, which also could potentially mess with the data ( as this was not blind).

Reporting of covid symptoms was entirely based on the population manually reporting it, there was no random testing to see variances in covid.

Only around 30 to 40% of cases were actually verified via a test.

The education that came with the intervention group may have caused the older population to stop going out as much, which impacted the result.

My take is that the study proved you could pay people to mask, but it's efficacy result is dubious.

CATO has a meta analysis about mask studies that is interesting (pre print still): https://www.cato.org/working-paper/evidence-community-cloth-...

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#316

Post by blindmute »

ehsankia wrote: post #301
blindmute wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely not true. Every public figure left of center in the country commented viciously about the racist, stupid travel ban.

Source please. Find me a prominent politician that specifically called the China travel ban itself racist or xenophobic. If every politician did it, it must be easy to find a clip.

Oh, I did not read the thread closely enough. The muslim country travel ban, yes, there are many examples. China, not that I know of.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#317

Post by gfodor »

oliv__ wrote: post #54
gfodor wrote: post #3

> 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…

The standard for something "working" is very much up for debate though, even if it is carefully avoided. "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 li…

I don’t disagree that is why I used the term risk-adjusted

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#318

Post by angelzen »

cthalupa wrote: post #266
timr wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We cannot do the science, because such a randomized test would be deeply unethical. Thank you for perfectly illustrating the problem. I was actually sort of worried that people wouldn't take me seriously when I said that science has become so political that we actually can't do any . It sounds conspiratorial, doesn't it? But, alas: 1) I post results of RCTs showing that masks do little, if anything. 2) Someone repl…

It isn't a political issue to not do studies that require doing things that actively and intentionally put people at things we know are highly likely to put them at risk of physical harm. The world decided this was unethical long before the current political climate.

In masks + covid context it feels like "unethical" is used as a thought terminating cliche.

* The pandemic is affecting 8,000,000,000 people all around the world. A large size RCT enrolls X0,000 participants. For example, the Pfizer covid mRNA vaccine clinical trial had 21,728 placebo participants. For every RCT participant, the RCT results are going to inform the course of action for hundreds of thousands of people. This is to say that such RCTs are extremely valuable given the high infectiousness of the virus.

* The risk to the participants is at worst a moderate increase in the chance of being infected with covid. The covid fatality risk to a healthy adult is small. In the US there have been about 50,000 deaths with covid in all the placebo participants are going to be infected. Realistically, only a fraction of participants are going to actually be infected with covid, thus there is a good chance every single one of the RCT participants will continue their lives just fine, especially if the study designers are careful to not include people with serious comorbidities.

* Vaccines are available to reduce the death risk by another order of magnitude if deemed necessary. Alas, while the vaccines have strong effects in preventing serious covid, they only have a middling effect on preventing infections [edit: after a few months]. The mask/no mask infection effect remains measurable.

* Covid is endemic. Everyone is at risk to to be infected with covid sooner or later. Wearing a mask may decrease the daily risk by a moderate margin, unfortunately integrated over many days the infection probability approaches 1. The RCT is merely speeding the risk by a moderate margin for the placebo arm participants.

* There is a large pool of potential volunteers that don't (want to) wear masks anyways. Adults have the right to volunteer for risky activities, including activities that may result in death.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#319

Post by gouda-gouda »

blindmute wrote: post #283
bingohbangoh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, then when does this end? I'm all ears!

It doesn't end until you make it end. When I close my laptop, I am unaware there is even anything going on; I don't wear a mask, I am unvaccinated, and I am fortunate enough to live in a place where people largely behave in this same way. My life is 100% the same as it was 3 years ago. If you're restricting your own behavior, stop. If you're being restricted by third parties, seriously consider moving or outright dis…

I believe this has been more eloquently described as: “ignorance is bliss.”
Post reply on HN