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Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

natesilver.net

41–50 of 341 posts

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#41
post #2

This is all fine, but the focus on deaths is sort of missing the larger societal problem. The COVID devastation is also about long COVID, and even people who had COVID but either recovered “fully” or never displayed symptoms. None of this is over, and we are so, so fucked. edit: Which is to say: The Great Barrington Declaration was wrong directionally as well. We really needed to optimize to eliminate COVID as much a…

[flagged]

What has the Republican party done exactly to support OSHA protections or worker benefits? Nothing? Oh so perhaps it isn't about the party but about how our politicians are bought and sold by business interests.

Please stop trying to make something partisan that isn't.

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#42
post #28

[flagged]

> Republicans were frothing at the mouth over hydroxcloroquine or whatever that horse dewormer was.

No, they weren't. The foaming was from the other side of the aisle, in a similar vein to your post. Hydroxychloroquine was investigated quite a bit[0], found wanting, and dropped.

The horse dewormer story you're confusing it with; I think this was a Joe Rogan thing, where his doctor prescribed him the human form of Ivermectin, and he mentioned it, and the left-leaning media (even though, as usual, Joe Rogan is a left-leaning guy on almost every issue) sent the story round the world that he was taking horse dewormer, before the truth could get its boots on.

As for masks - who knows? The largest metastudy in existence on the subject seems rather less sure than you about them[1]. Maybe that metastudy is flawed, but it seems worth considering at least.

> My dark thoughts: hmm, let as many republicans die from COVID. Maybe we can do better with govt with them killing themselves.

I'm not sure what to say about this, except I hope you can stand down a little from your aggressive, hyper-partisan emotionalism. You cannot contribute anything if you're just regurgitating memorised emotional responses others have installed in you.

[0] e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RECOVERY_Trial

[1] https://www.cochrane.org/news/featured-review-physical-inter...

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#44
post #32
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the specifics of the GBD, but isn't some of the "it was clearly quackery" confounded by: 1. In 2020 especially, and even now, the specifics of long covid and other side effects, as compared to other downsides of lockdowns on mental health/delayed treatments are hard to predict? We don't have the counterfactual of what would have been the 3-5-10 year implications of a multi-year lockdown. 2. Does the ge…

The problem is, even lockdowns weren't lockdowns. There were endless people who had to work, just to keep water, power, food flowing. And those people needed transportation. And past 2 weeks, transportation means parts for vehicles, maintenance, gas, oil, and food means transportation and food processors and.... It was a good idea at the time, but doomed to fail.

Agreed. There's a lot of animals that can catch and spread covid [0]:

> many if not most mammalian ACE-2 receptors are susceptible

> the virus has gone from humans to the animals and back again to human

> found signs of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in significant percentages of six urban wildlife species

> found signs of the pathogen infecting 17 percent of New York City sewer rats tested

> Exposure could also occur following interactions with pets such as cats and dogs

Lockdowns were never going to be able to eliminate the virus.

[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/how-so-ma...

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#45
post #28

[flagged]

Did you read the article? Death rates diverged only after vaccines became available. Which implies that vaccines work, and (many) Republicans were wrong to reject them, but pretty much all non-vaccine-related pandemic restrictions (pushed mostly by Democrats) were useless, and Republicans were right to reject them. Neither tribe was 100% right or wrong!

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#46
post #3
post #2

This is all fine, but the focus on deaths is sort of missing the larger societal problem. The COVID devastation is also about long COVID, and even people who had COVID but either recovered “fully” or never displayed symptoms. None of this is over, and we are so, so fucked. edit: Which is to say: The Great Barrington Declaration was wrong directionally as well. We really needed to optimize to eliminate COVID as much a…

I haven't read the specifics of the GBD, but isn't some of the "it was clearly quackery" confounded by: 1. In 2020 especially, and even now, the specifics of long covid and other side effects, as compared to other downsides of lockdowns on mental health/delayed treatments are hard to predict? We don't have the counterfactual of what would have been the 3-5-10 year implications of a multi-year lockdown. 2. Does the ge…

The west did not go for a strategy of elimination through lockdown. Rather, the strategy was to delay the spread, initially only so that the health care system could keep up, and later in the hope that vaccines would arrive in time to curb the brunt of it - as they did.

The GBD is easy to find and a short read (https://gbdeclaration.org/), it does not refer to any elimination strategy - instead it discusses the costs of "Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available".

I don't see any quackery in the GBD. (Which is not to say that they were right.)

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#47
post #28

[flagged]

> Republicans were frothing at the mouth over hydroxcloroquine or whatever that horse dewormer was. No, they weren't. The foaming was from the other side of the aisle, in a similar vein to your post. Hydroxychloroquine was investigated quite a bit[0], found wanting, and dropped. The horse dewormer story you're confusing it with; I think this was a Joe Rogan thing, where his doctor prescribed him the human form of Ive…

There absolutely was an enormous amount of misinformation around Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. And as far as it was picked up politically, that was almost exclusively by Republicans.

And Hydroxychloroquine was certainly dropped much later than it should have. It was added to studies in the control branch because people were expecting it to be the standard of care. There never was justification for that, but it was unreasonably hyped from the start.

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#48
post #2

This is all fine, but the focus on deaths is sort of missing the larger societal problem. The COVID devastation is also about long COVID, and even people who had COVID but either recovered “fully” or never displayed symptoms. None of this is over, and we are so, so fucked. edit: Which is to say: The Great Barrington Declaration was wrong directionally as well. We really needed to optimize to eliminate COVID as much a…

> None of this is over, and we are so, so fucked.

In what sense? I'm in a deep red state, and I haven't noticed much "devastation" in my community due to COVID. Seems like you can work yourself up about anything. Doomscroll enough Type 2 diabetes articles and you'll convince yourself that COVID is the absolute least of USA's public health problems compared to the complications resulting from that.

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#49
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in what ways have we not already returned to normality?

I think it very much depends on where you live. Rural America returned to normal a long time ago. Many cities, like San Francisco and Atlanta, have not and are still feeling the effects to varying degrees.

Urban American returned to normal a few months later than Rural America, but we're talking like, April 2022. SF is still suffering from some dynamics that started during COVID but it's not like there are still lockdowns or compulsory masking or anything like that.

Re: Fine, I'll run a regression analysis but it won't make you happy

#50
post #2

This is all fine, but the focus on deaths is sort of missing the larger societal problem. The COVID devastation is also about long COVID, and even people who had COVID but either recovered “fully” or never displayed symptoms. None of this is over, and we are so, so fucked. edit: Which is to say: The Great Barrington Declaration was wrong directionally as well. We really needed to optimize to eliminate COVID as much a…

[flagged]

Yeah, we should vote for the other party to punish the--what? That's their platform? Oh.

Posts like this, which blame only the Democrats by name, are practically agitprop.

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