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

natesilver.net

181–190 of 341 posts

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

#181
post #172

It was a hard thing to broach at the time without people frothing at the mouth about how I must be anti vaccine or something: Has there been any attempt to calculate the cost-benefit of all the various measures and how extreme we should go with them? I’m guessing it’s hard to quantify and compare. A lot of things like general depression, isolation, kids missing half a year of school, etc. can’t really be evaluated ag…

The cost-benefit calculations in terms of excess deaths are irrelevant. It was clear even during the initial outbreak that policymakers primary constraints were the due to uncertainty about the virus and limits on availability of protective gear and ICU beds. Without protective gear there was no way to reduce transmission without isolation and once ICU beds are at capacity mortality rates double and people are dying…

Your argument is incoherent. You’re saying deaths is an irrelevant metric because actually the risk is the medical system collapses and you get … more deaths.

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

#182
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of this is over, and we are so, so fucked. I love doom more than the average person, by what I would say is a quite significant margin... but I don't see this at all. I've had covid at least twice, including some awful symptoms a month after recovery that had me convinced I had long covid as well... a few months later (now years) not so much. While I do know many people of who have lost loved ones from Covid,…

> I don't know anyone, or know anyone who knows anyone who has any serious "long-covid" symptoms. You are fortunate. I know several who have those symptoms (ranging in age from my own - mid-30's - to my parents' - early 60's), and have had several friends relate their own observations of loved-ones. If Long Covid isn't real, there's an astonishingly-coincidental prevalence of fatigue and impaired cognition from some…

I don't doubt the symptoms, but I think there's always been a percentage of the population that suffers from these types of symptoms. They get rediagnosed as the latest thing every so often, and the latest one is Long COVID. Even if COVID is a trigger (and really any illness could be), there's probably something else underlying all of these.

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

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are papers attempting that, such as this recent one, which looked at whether shelter in place policies reduced overall excess mortality: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737 . "Using an event study approach and data from 43 countries and all U.S. states, we measure changes in excess deaths following the implementation of COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) policies. We do not find that cou…

Almost nowhere on earth did "stay at home" actually happen. We all had these so-called mandates, but people (especially in more rural areas) pretty much did whatever the hell they wanted with no repercussions since there was almost zero enforcement. They were out and about, shopping for their khakis at "essential" businesses, eating at the restaurants who refused to closed (also with no consequence) and basically ign…

You clearly didn’t live where I did.

Fascinating how natural it comes to us: “my experience must be everyone’s experience.”

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

#184
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in what ways have we not already returned to normality?

I think we’ve returned to a new, more callous form of reality, where mass injury, illness, and death are normalized, and any real concern for public health or intervention, including that which was considered entirely rational before COVID, is now greeted as impossible or insanity.

Yea, this is one of the sad long term consequences I've taken away from COVID: I used to think that when a crisis happened, we would all pull together and rely on each other to do the right thing and collectively act to help.

Now, I know that when the next crisis happens, half of the country is going to whine and complain, deny, protest, defy, and belligerently do everything in their power to deliberately make it worse. I've totally lost faith in humanity.

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

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are papers attempting that, such as this recent one, which looked at whether shelter in place policies reduced overall excess mortality: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737 . "Using an event study approach and data from 43 countries and all U.S. states, we measure changes in excess deaths following the implementation of COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) policies. We do not find that cou…

Almost nowhere on earth did "stay at home" actually happen. We all had these so-called mandates, but people (especially in more rural areas) pretty much did whatever the hell they wanted with no repercussions since there was almost zero enforcement. They were out and about, shopping for their khakis at "essential" businesses, eating at the restaurants who refused to closed (also with no consequence) and basically ign…

The Spanish police dispatched a helicopter to stop one person from wandering the beach by himself.

https://videos.elmundo.es/v/0_djmhws8v-la-policia-baja-a-bus...

https://www.levante-emv.com/safor/2020/04/13/helicoptero-pol...

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

#186

>> This wasn’t intended as any sort of super-duper hot take, and I pared the post down to avoid having too much of an attack surface. It is intended to shame Republicans. What other possible reason is there to tie death rates to political party? So yes it was a hot take. You planted a lightning rod. Making something like vaccination a political issue does everyone a disservice.

While I’m a democrat, I don’t believe republicans or democrats are inherently better people, or that their overarching ideologies are inherently better. In fact I am a strong believer that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and neither republicans or democrats should win it all.

That said, certain Republicans should very much feel shame about the fear mongering behind the vaccine. It isn’t automatically a hot take or a lightning rod to use statistical analyses to suggest that systemic fear mongering against a vaccine that has a powerful effect would lead to excess death.

The vaccine long ago became a political issue, but the real world need for people to take it doesn’t go away because of that.

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

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that approach really resonated with me as well. A very straightforward concept: how much capacity do we have for higher risk behaviour? And in this case the cut-off for higher risk may be “yeah we’re not going to hockey games for a while.”

What data is there to suggest that going to hockey games was "high risk behaviour"?

I’m making up an example. But the gist is that we have an ordered list of things that apply stress to the healthcare system and we basically move the cut-off up or down that list depending on how our healthcare resourcing is working out.

Do we need to call in military hospital ships? Maybe we do stuff that reduces communication of disease, reduces driving to reduce road accidents, etc.

Where I live it was communicated more than once, “avoid doing riskier things this holiday season because the emergency services you expect to be available may not be.”

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

#188
post #102
post #11

I'm excited to find out in 20 years what the deal was with Covid once everybody has forgotten all their political opinions.

To me on an individual level, it feels like there isn't much unclear about covid if you know how to filter unlikely conspiracy theories and such. In what way do you see politics colouring the generally established information?

[deleted]

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

#189
post #181
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost-benefit calculations in terms of excess deaths are irrelevant. It was clear even during the initial outbreak that policymakers primary constraints were the due to uncertainty about the virus and limits on availability of protective gear and ICU beds. Without protective gear there was no way to reduce transmission without isolation and once ICU beds are at capacity mortality rates double and people are dying…

Your argument is incoherent. You’re saying deaths is an irrelevant metric because actually the risk is the medical system collapses and you get … more deaths.

No, they're saying that excess deaths is a rearward looking metric that nobody had the luxury of actually having at the present time when decisions were being made.

It's very easy to make decisions in retrospect when you have all the information that could be useful. It's very hard to make decisions in the present when that information doesn't exist yet.

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

#190

It was a hard thing to broach at the time without people frothing at the mouth about how I must be anti vaccine or something: Has there been any attempt to calculate the cost-benefit of all the various measures and how extreme we should go with them? I’m guessing it’s hard to quantify and compare. A lot of things like general depression, isolation, kids missing half a year of school, etc. can’t really be evaluated ag…

In the post truth era, the only rights answer is the one that serves one’s geopolitical goals. Don’t like China, look at what zéro Covid did to their economy. Don’t like America, look at all the people who died. Is it even possible to find an acceptable subjective answer when things are polarized?
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