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In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

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Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#81

Post by Yoric »

elcritch wrote: post #77
w______roy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a barber, more haircuts = more money. Trying to imagine what kind of relationship you think epidemiologists have with money? It's not like they get a nickel for every person they save from getting sick.

Not everything is purely about money. People are highly motivated by a sense of power or prominence, by a sense of belonging in the "correct group", and by a sense of being useful or productive at their profession. A barber as much as money will believe their haircut will make you look good.

As a thought exercise, I wonder to which group an epidemiologist would need to belong to have a sense of power? The group that says that there is a dangerous disease or the group that says that it's not particularly dangerous?

PS: For people who wonder, the H factor-style ranking mechanisms for researchers means that your rank is higher (which tends to translate to more interesting work and/or more money) if you're heavily quoted by other researchers.

Of course, the easiest way to be heavily quoted, unless you're already a highly established scientist, is by being contrarian/provocative, so that other people feel like they need to debunk your writings.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#82

Post by mrguyorama »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #6
CobaltFire wrote: post #2

AIER seems to be a Conservative/Libertarian think tank that's anti-climate science, among other stances, including anti-lockdown (what this article is about). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_for_Economi...

Does the fact that somebody opposes something mean that, prima facie, that position must be wrong?

No, but a rejection of Climate Science is good evidence that they do not put the facts first.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#83

Post by Thoeu388 »

RansomStark wrote: post #73
somewhat_drunk wrote: post #17

This article immediately claims that the Asian Flu in question was far deadlier than COVID. This is categorically false. In fact, it's not even close. The article claims 116k US deaths attributable to the Asian flu. Meanwhile, there were 10x that number of excess US deaths during the COVID pandemic. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid As others have pointed out, the AIER is a conservative think-tank. I…

You are comparing those numbers directly, but that's not how you compare those numbers. First the population size, as per the article, was half what it is now. So you can either double the asian flu deaths or half the covid deaths to account for this. That still leaves a huge gap, but this is where demographic analysis comes in. Usually you see this as age adjusted deaths. In this case, the population of the US has b…

[flagged]

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#84

Post by shapenamer »

Tagbert wrote: post #19
mcpackieh wrote: post #7

Besides the economic harm and potential developmental harm induced by closing schools for kids, I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. It gave huge swaths of the population a grudge against the system, a chip on their shoulder that won't go away anytime soon. It burned up goodwill and trust for experts and politicians (who generally didn't have much to spare in the first place.) And coupling this…

There already was a chip on the shoulder of a large number of American and that has been fed and grown by certain media and social channels specifically to undermine trust in institutions and checks on power. The lockdown (that wasn't locked down) was just more fuel on that well-feed fire.

Always blows my mind when people suggest the only reason someone wouldn't trust the US government is because they've fallen for some misinformation. The US government does a great job of destroying trust all by itself.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#85

Post by Manuel_D »

orwin wrote: post #80
Manuel_D wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Ebola virus is not as deadly as COVID because fewer people have died from it? "Deadlier" can mean a whole host of things: infection fatality rate of a disease can be far higher even if the total deatg toll is lower, if fewer people contract the disease.

> So Ebola virus is not as deadly as COVID because fewer people have died from it? Yes? That's the definition, no? Cows are deadlier than sharks, cars are deadlier than planes, even though you're more likely to survive a cow attack or a car crash?

Which is deadlier, being shot in the head with a .50 cal, or catching the flu?

The former is much deadlier - it's basically guaranteed death - but the latter is so much more frequent that it claims more lives even though the vast majority of people survive it. Usually "deadlier" refers to the chances a given event will kill you if it happens, not normalized for the frequency of those events.

The flu most certainly claims more lives, but I doubt most people would agree with the sentence, "being shot in the head is less deadly than the flu."

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#87

Post by mensetmanusman »

codeulike wrote: post #54
mensetmanusman wrote: post #15

Did Sweden end up worse off with no lockdown? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/opinion/sweden-pandemic-c...

I think when you talk about Sweden, you've got to remember that they do have things like legally enforced sick pay (if you're ill, you stay at home and your employer has to pay you some proportion of your salary) and high quality government funded healthcare. They have a low-ish population density and social norms that give people a _lot_ of personal space when in public. So the experience that Sweden had with no loc…

Personal space ended up not mattering as much in doors with aerosol spread.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#88

Post by simonster »

RansomStark wrote: post #73
somewhat_drunk wrote: post #17

This article immediately claims that the Asian Flu in question was far deadlier than COVID. This is categorically false. In fact, it's not even close. The article claims 116k US deaths attributable to the Asian flu. Meanwhile, there were 10x that number of excess US deaths during the COVID pandemic. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid As others have pointed out, the AIER is a conservative think-tank. I…

You are comparing those numbers directly, but that's not how you compare those numbers. First the population size, as per the article, was half what it is now. So you can either double the asian flu deaths or half the covid deaths to account for this. That still leaves a huge gap, but this is where demographic analysis comes in. Usually you see this as age adjusted deaths. In this case, the population of the US has b…

Yes, there are more obese and elderly people now than there were in 1957. No, we can't "adjust" death numbers to place less weight on the deaths of those obese and elderly people in this context. Perhaps it would make some sense to do so if our goal was to measure virulence of the virus, but policy decisions have to take into account the composition of the population as it is today.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#89

Post by theironhammer »

mcpackieh wrote: post #27
vkou wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I started shilling for the Marxist-Leninist Institute of Vkou that promoted cake for everyone, equality, unity and prosperity, self-determination and social wellbeing, would you be concerned about any of those things separately, together, or would you just dismiss me out of hand, because you think you know where that road leads? I think I know where the road of 'personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights,…

Marxist-Leninists often have fair and valid critique of society. Hearing them out is valuable even if you (like myself) find yourself opposed to many of their values and proposals.

People forget Marx wrote a good critique of Capitalism. In the 19th Century working/living conditions for workers was bleak.

Just because his offered solution wasn't great doesn't mean his critique was wrong.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#90

Post by shapenamer »

shapenamer wrote: post #79
esotericimpl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint, there were no lockdowns. There was like the initial 6 weeks to stop the spread. I still went to the grocery store, not locked down, i still went to the park, not locked down. What lockdowns? please be specific. When people say lockdown, they mean: "I was forced to wear a mask when i went to the grocery store and i felt like a loser" Thats the whole issue.

half my friends lost their jobs because of the not-a-lockdown. The fact that we could still buy FOOD doesn't mean we weren't locked down. What a terrible take. Well guys, we weren't physically barred in our homes and starved so we weren't locked down. Brilliant.

No replies with the downvotes, as impressive as usual.

Looking back at this thread it seems every post disagreeing with the ridiculous statement that there were no lockdowns has been downvoted. Amazing.

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