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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)

#261

Post by mike_hearn »

aredox wrote: post #227
mike_hearn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is recommended not to ... compare values based on different models i.e. R0 numbers are worthless. You can't compare these values between pathogens, you can't even compare them between different academic groups studying the same pathogen or between outbreaks of the same pathogen as modeled by different versions of the same software. There's no agreed way to measure this value empirically. Instead they write a pro…

It's not useless. Do you think all contagious illnesses spread at the same rate? InB4 "clouds don't exist, nobody can tell exactly where they start and end"

It would be useful to be able to measure some sort of inherent infectiousness, but R0 as actually defined and computed today is useless. It looks scientific on the surface but everyone who calculates it gets a totally different result, and because there's no actual underlying theory involved (just playing with stats), there's no way to decide which estimate is correct.

To get meaningfully constant values for infectiousness you'd probably need a microbiological / genetic theory that let you derive it from RNA sequences.

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

#262

Post by s1artibartfast »

nicoburns wrote: post #242
s1artibartfast wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative rights not conflicting with each other is the main and perhaps only factor that distinguishes them from positive rights, so if you don't think that is true, of course you won't find a difference. When it comes to practical implementation, the tools used to maintain negative rights are the same as the tools used to maintain positive rights, so they appear very similar. If you're familiar with the concept, you…

Consider two possible rights: (1) The right to complete freedom of movement. (2) The right to private personal space free of other people On the face of things, neither of these require anybody to take actions. Nevertheless, one cannot fully exercise (1) without violating (2) and vice versa.

Interesting I think that is a great example of why and how the concept of personal property (bodily or material) is necessary to make negative rights consistent.

Also, the first right seems more like a positive right guaranteeing an entitlement to do or have access to something.

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

#263

Post by mike_hearn »

selimthegrim wrote: post #213
mike_hearn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to explain how they computed it to us? Because if R0 is a real thing then either the people estimating R0=1.something were wrong, or Nick was wrong, and so somewhere some methodologies need to change. I read a fair few modelling papers and R0 (under varying names) was always being used by the model as a free variable used to achieve fit to a historical dataset. It was never being established via lab work, as you…

https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.03268

So they did exactly what we're saying they do? The paper sets up some ad-hoc models unique to this academic group and then reversed them to find values of R0 that could fit. The problem is underdetermined so there are a huge array of values that could work. Key line:

> Overall, we report R0 values are likely be between 4.7 and 6.6 with a CI between 2.8 to 11.3

That's an extremely wide CI by any measure. It's a bit unclear how this is meant to be a contradiction. It looks like a good example of the issue. There is no universal theory or method for computing R0. Every single epidemiologist has their own unique approach which is then often discarded in time for the next paper, making the numbers incomparable.

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

#264

Post by landemva »

Timon3 wrote: post #259
landemva wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is absolutely perfect, and polio vaccine has great results.

But they don't prevent infection nor transmission. What is the word to describe a proposed medical treatment that does not work? Both the Covid vaccine and the vaccines you are saying had great results share this trait. You mentioned this negatively for the Covid vaccines. Why is it different for other ones?

I don't know anyone, in western countries, who got polio vaccines and suffered illness. I know people who took the covid shots and boosters and got sick with covid and variants. Some got it multiple times, so somehow the covid shots are interferring with sterilizing immunity.

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

#265

Post by Timon3 »

landemva wrote: post #264
Timon3 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they don't prevent infection nor transmission. What is the word to describe a proposed medical treatment that does not work? Both the Covid vaccine and the vaccines you are saying had great results share this trait. You mentioned this negatively for the Covid vaccines. Why is it different for other ones?

I don't know anyone, in western countries, who got polio vaccines and suffered illness. I know people who took the covid shots and boosters and got sick with covid and variants. Some got it multiple times, so somehow the covid shots are interferring with sterilizing immunity.

> Some got it multiple times, so somehow the covid shots are interferring with sterilizing immunity.

How do you get to this conclusion? People without vaccination seem to be more likely to be re-infected. If anything, Covid itself is interfering with sterilizing immunity, and the vaccines help!

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

#266

Post by fnordpiglet »

peteradio wrote: post #202
fnordpiglet wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8052930/

I'm not seeing that we knew anything. I'm seeing that a lot of work had been done to create a potential for success. Can you point out where this "knowing" is coming from in the linked paper?

In real life there is no certainty when faced with a new thing in nature. But there were many concurrent potentials for success - including traditional vaccines like coronavac. But it’s important to note that human trials for mRNA started in March, a mere two months after the genome was released. As we know now the antibody response to mRNA vaccines are rapid and robust. This information didn’t reach us immediately, but it reached public health decision makers world wide. Inactive vaccine trials started in April, a mere month later, and had good response if not as great as mRNA. Likewise monoclonal antibodies were approved in April as well, and pronation was proven and publicized in April, along with other treatments and techniques. So, as a decision maker, “flattening the curve” seems like a great strategy given you have rapid progress on multiple fronts. In 1959 absolutely zero of these were possible or probable. Monoclonal antibodies were perfected just 40 years ago, pronation wasn’t widely recognized as a possible treatment, and mRNA wasn’t even science fiction. The article proposes an absurd calculus from two completely different worlds as if they were somehow identical decision making criteria. It wasn’t, and while there was no “knowing” any one of the avenues would world, it was almost certain one would - especially with so much research behind the safety and efficacy of mRNA presented in my linked article and the remarkable and robust antibody response in the first humans in March.

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

#267

Post by giardini »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #232
mabbo wrote: post #111

> Whereas lockdowns in the Covid-19 case might have contributed to a lengthening of the crisis by delaying herd immunity The point of the lockdown was not to entirely stop the spread- that was obviously not happening. It was to slow the spread to avoid overwhelming hospitals. It allowed us to reduce the lethality of COVID-19 by having more resources per sick person.

>The point of the lockdown was not to entirely stop the spread... That claim is pretty inconsistent with the marketing slogans and messaging about the purpose of the lockdowns. Similarly, the vaccines turned out to be ineffective for inducing sterilizing immunity, but good for diminishing the severity of symptoms, which would also result in fewer sick people in hospitals. But again, the marketing and messaging around…

VoodooJuJu says "The biggest failure of Covid was the disingenuous communication."

"Disengenuous communication" is a vague term. I think rather that the biggest failure in the USA was for the government to intercede at all and to adopt protocols that delayed immediate treatment. By delay of treatment I mean that the protocol doctors were instructed (and later forced to use) was:

1. Tell the patient to stay at home (do NOT visit the doctors' offices) until (s)he can barely breathe and to then

2. Go to the hospital where they can hook you up to a ventilator and where you will die,

Rather than

3. immediately prescribe hydroxychloroquine (or ivermectin, or other...) and antibiotics (to prevent secondary infection, not the Covid virus) for home use, and go to the hospital only if it gets significantly worse.

Countries who jumped immediately to 3 had far fewer fatalities (indeed, far fewer hospitalizations) than the USA, who followed the steps 1-2 (and omitted 3 or did 3 in a hospital setting far too late to work), above. Consequently the USA suffered extremely high Covid deaths:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=usa+covid+deaths+more+than+other+c...

Even worse, it appears that the USA "powers that be" did that to justify established institutions and corporations who stood to make billions of dollars creating not-yet-existent (and later incompletely tested) vaccines instead of providing cheap and effective treatments that were readily available and that worked.

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

#268

Post by timcederman »

freedude wrote: post #240
empath-nirvana wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My general opinion of it is that lock downs at the beginning were essential for slowing the spread of the disease and allow the hospitals to prepare for it, but there was a point where the virus was endemic anyway that all the masking and isolation protocols were doing more harm than good.

Because of Covid science has proven masking is a waste of effort and resources. If you disagree you should really research the latest studies. Here is a great starting point from 2021. https://brownstone.org/articles/studies-and-articles-on-mask... They are a failure. Globally. https://www.amazon.com/Unmasked-Global-Failure-COVID-Mandate... One of the largest peer-reviewed European studies says... "These findings ind…

Are you suggesting N95 masks provide no protection against airborne viruses?

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

#269

Post by timcederman »

CalRobert wrote: post #127
mabbo wrote: post #111

> Whereas lockdowns in the Covid-19 case might have contributed to a lengthening of the crisis by delaying herd immunity The point of the lockdown was not to entirely stop the spread- that was obviously not happening. It was to slow the spread to avoid overwhelming hospitals. It allowed us to reduce the lethality of COVID-19 by having more resources per sick person.

It also was to increase the number of people who got covid after being vaccinated, instead of before. Edit - to elaborate, I just mean that it made sense to try to keep infections down and give companies time to develop a vaccine. Not sure why this struck a nerve.

Exactly. Look at New Zealand's low excess death rate by allowing almost the entire population to get vaccinated before infection.

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

#270

Post by ThrowAway1922A »

aakresearch wrote: post #103
ThrowAway1922A wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. I don't know about society, but this was the straw the broke the camels back for me. I have not been the same since, I don't think I ever will be. The first lockdown in my province was when things really started to go wrong for me mental health wise in a major way and it only got worse as they continued. What's really been maddening is that people get angry…

Am I looking in the mirror now? Can relate exactly to the T.

> Am I looking in the mirror now?

I hope for your sake you aren't. If you are though you have all of my sympathy, someone like me looking back is not a good thing.

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