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

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

#191

Post by comte7092 »

fhcuvuvuc wrote: post #135
Waterluvian wrote: post #131

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…

It doesn't matter. You can't have these conversations without being censored anymore. My works HR department got sick of having people use "logic" and "evidence" to argue against their policies. After kicking a few people out the door and generally saying you can't talk about this at work anymore, nobody talks about it.

People who use “logic” and “evidence” usually tend to do so in a manner so out of context and so obstinately, it tends to negative the validity of their points, at least that is my experience.

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

#192

Post by loeg »

School-Cotton wrote: post #80
loeg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> we're talking like, April 2022 Masks were mandated on the subway in New York until September 2022. I'd consider this to not be "normality".

Sure, my figure comes from the west coast — NYC a few months later. I don’t think that detracts from the overall sentiment.

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

#193

Post by somsak2 »

slv77 wrote: post #172
Waterluvian wrote: post #131

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…

It's not irrelevant, especially considering there were restrictions lasting far longer than "initial uncertainty." It's not like your only choice is to allow for a "collapse" -- as an extreme example, you could decide you're not going to treat covid at hospitals at all (by the way, we make such determinations for other conditions or diseases all the time).

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

#194

Post by Aeolun »

Waterluvian wrote: post #131

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…

I think it’s a fairly simple equation for most people. “Am I going to be (negatively) affected by this?” And this was obviously true for COVID even from the start.

The controversy occurred when people found out that they were definitely negatively affected by all the lockdown policies when they still hadn’t had COVID.

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

#195

Post by chaostheory »

Waterluvian wrote: post #131

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…

You’d have a better argument if you cited the age population bomb where retired seniors are starting outnumber working adults.

Today, most countries are not going to do lockdowns for Covid due to the data. That was temporary for a highly infectious airborne virus that we didn’t know much about at the time, which was overwhelming our hospitals.

Today, no one is closing anything since we know much more about the virus, and it’s becoming less lethal. All people are asking today is for everyone to either regularly vaccinate, wear good masks indoors (no need for this outdoors), or both. That isn’t going to result in either isolation or depression.

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

#196

Post by shepherdjerred »

Waterluvian wrote: post #131

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…

> There’s some subjective level where it starts to feel obvious to more and more of us, until a majority of us agree.

I had this same thought during COVID, but like you said, it's not something others want to talk about. COVID was serious, but the American reaction to it was so strange. The whole approach to masking at restaurants has to be one of the most bizzare moments of American history.

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

#197

Post by loeg »

sarchertech wrote: post #40
fwungy wrote: post #25

I really don't trust any of the numbers on covid. A vaccine for a dangerous illness that can affect billions of people is a very big payday. There's lots of money to spread around to politicians, corrupt scientists, and corrupt media. I'd like to see a real scientific debate with adversarial inquiry so we could know if numbers are being fudged and which ones they are. I trust science, but not greed driven capitalists…

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have been approved by the national health agencies of dozens of countries, and China has approved a very similar home grown mRNA Covid vaccine. No amount of money in the world could pay to do that and keep it secret.

I’m not a vaccine conspiracy theorist but just as a counterpoint, Pfizer and then J&J have been selling completely ineffective Sudafed PE for more than a decade.

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

#198

Post by somsak2 »

stefan_ wrote: post #150
rcbdev wrote: post #126

I don't know about other countries but in Austria nurses were highly incentivized to report deaths immediately following a vaccination or weeks after an infection has passed as a covid death in the sense of national statistics. I would not be surprised if this "nudging" of on the ground reports over the course of the pandemic has rendered the data around covid deaths unreliable.

So take excess mortality. Surprise, nothing changes. Did you read the article, the part where it mentions all the little things people try and bring up on the path to confirmation bias?

Nowhere in the article is excess mortality mentioned.

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

#199

Post by loeg »

Blackthorn wrote: post #189
loeg wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obviously rearward looking metrics were irrelevant and no one, including me, is suggesting otherwise. You can make policies with the goal of reducing deaths in advance of measurement, and policymakers did.

The argument I am criticizing never mentions rearward metrics as a problem.

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

#200

Post by Aeolun »

jfengel wrote: post #147
brianpan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bunch of people" doesn't seem like a good characterization considering he's at least partially responding to Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine and biostatistician at Harvard and a co-author of the GBD.

A biostatistician who told this professional stats guy to go consult a statistician after taking a guess at a confounding variable. He could have run those numbers himself, but apparently didn't bother, because Silver took him up on it and Kulldorff was completely wrong. It would be less egregious if it has been a bunch of random people. It was someone who really should have known better. Instead, it provides more ev…

> Instead, it provides more evidence that Kulldorff is seeking to confirm an ideological position and tossing his medical and biostatistical accomplishments aside to do it.

Nobody is immune to this. It’s just more frustrating when their ideological position is opposed to yours.

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