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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

#201

Post by gpt5 »

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…

Initial constraints like ICU bed shortages and gear scarcity definitely had a basis. But those measure lasted long after the bottlenecks got resolved and the risk assessment became clearer. For example, public schools stayed remote while virtually every private school switched to in-person (even California's governor opted for private in-person schooling for their kids).

The public's frustration is that these prolonged, seemingly arbitrary measures outlasted their initial justification.

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

#202

Post by MisterBastahrd »

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #84
KerrAvon wrote: 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…

> 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. SARS-CoV-2 is certainly with us to stay, so in that sense it's not over. But beyond that, I don't see how "we are so, so fucked" as you say. Covid is no doubt taking a small nibble out of life expectency, and yes there is some long Co…

Each time you catch COVID, you risk the chance of getting long COVID.

You pretend that it's not a big deal, but those numbers are going to pile up into a giant ball of health issues for a lot of people as the years progress. And for many of them, those issues are happening far outside "old age." Go get something that fucks you up for life in your 30s and then get back to us about how it's no big deal.

THAT's the point.

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

#203

Post by sixstringtheory »

blueskies89 wrote: post #158
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. SARS-CoV-2 is certainly with us to stay, so in that sense it's not over. But beyond that, I don't see how "we are so, so fucked" as you say. Covid is no doubt taking a small nibble out of life expectency, and yes there is some long Co…

This isn't how the math works. The reason why life expectancy is going down is because middle age people are dying. People dying in their 80s has almost no impact on life expectancy calculations

Isn’t life expectancy an average? If so, then reducing any input values (people dying earlier than they otherwise would) would reduce the average. Doesn’t matter in which n-tile the reductions occur.

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

#204

Post by felipeerias »

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…

Some governments became drunk with power and ended up implementing authoritarian measures which were pretty obviously useless at actually stopping the virus. Stopping people from wandering the beach alone or sharing a car with their partner, for example.

I am familiar with the case of Spain, but I’m sure in other countries the situation was similar.

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

#205

Post by isthispermanent »

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…

Sweden

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

#206

Post by panarky »

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.

>>> What about ten lives? One thousand? Ten thousand?

Are 200,000 lives meaningful enough?

Silver's regression model shows that for each 1% increase in the vote share for the blue candidate, the covid death rate in that state (statistically) would fall by 15.5 per million population.

In areas where the blue candidate received 20% of the vote, and the red candidate received 80%, the model predicts 1,793 deaths per million.

And in areas where blue got 80% and red got 20%, the model predicts 864 deaths per million.

A 300% greater death rate [1] is a startlingly high penalty to pay for an ideology. This is at least 200,000 deaths [2] attributed to political ideology. Not to mention the tremendous excess suffering that did not result in death.

And, no, it's not because red areas are older than blue areas. It's because red ideologues got the vaccine in far lower numbers.

[1] Coefficients show that blue at 0% would have a death rate of 2,103 per million, and blue at 100% would have a death rate of 554 per million.

[2] 2,103 - 554 = 1,549 excess deaths per million for red, multiplied by 45% of the US population is roughly 230,000.

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

#207

Post by Aeolun »

blueskies89 wrote: post #158
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. SARS-CoV-2 is certainly with us to stay, so in that sense it's not over. But beyond that, I don't see how "we are so, so fucked" as you say. Covid is no doubt taking a small nibble out of life expectency, and yes there is some long Co…

This isn't how the math works. The reason why life expectancy is going down is because middle age people are dying. People dying in their 80s has almost no impact on life expectancy calculations

Numbers/source please. 1 middle age or young person dying drops the life expectancy but is obviously just a drop in a bucket.

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

#208

Post by justin66 »

phkahler wrote: post #56

>> 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.

> Making something like vaccination a political issue does everyone a disservice.

You can pin a lot on nate silver, but vaccination as a political issue is a thing he's studying, not a thing he caused.

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

#209

Post by School-Cotton »

loeg wrote: post #192
School-Cotton wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Fair enough.

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

#210

Post by jfengel »

Aeolun wrote: post #200
jfengel wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nobody is immune to this. But he really did fail to do an easy test. Someone with his level of experience should have been able to make a challenge that wasn't trivial to refute, and being insulting in the process.

Especially since he happens to be in the thick of a position that is easily accused of being anti science. One would think that makes it doubly incumbent not to make such trivial errors.

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