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

natesilver.net

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

#221

Post by slv77 »

loeg wrote: post #199
Blackthorn wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My impression was that a segment of the population felt that the lockdowns and other constraints imposed by policymaker were primarily fear based. This may have been due a perceived difference between religious versus secular acceptance of death (a continuation versus end). My point isn’t that policymakers can’t make nuanced decisions about the value of a human life (since it is done on a regular basis) but instead that from a policymakers perspective it was irrelevant. The bigger concern was the collapse of the health care system which is a non-negotiable.

The assumption that friends and family will calmly watch a family member’s untended death from covid when ICUs are over capacity and that essential workers will continue to show up for work knowing there is no hope for care if they fall ill is unrealistic in my opinion.

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

#222

Post by ezekiel68 »

I was a good US citizen and used what little influence I had among my social circle to encourage others to follow the COVID protection measures. And I adore Nate Silver. So, pardon me if I confess that all I read in this article was:

Blah blah blah 'I mostly agree with ... an October 2020 anti-lockdown statement signed by a large number of scientists and medical professionals. “Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal”' blah blah.

I don't have any regrets about the position I took, since it seemed to be based on all the verified information we had at the time. YET, I hope our society will embrace the fact that we were largely wrong to prolong the lockdown measures. Humility doesn't hurt the Left either.

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

#223

Post by n8henrie »

slv77 wrote: post #216
gpt5 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prolong…

ICU capacity was a bottleneck that never got resolved. In the US there was never a nationwide effort to mobilize ICU resources to target hot spots other than an initial aborted attempt to gather respirators for the surge in NYC and send a military floating hospital. Regional programs were put into place to shift patients during a local surge and to mobilize hallways and other non-traditional capacity. In California o…

I am still struggling to find transfer facilities with available ICU beds.

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

#224

Post by fwungy »

sarchertech wrote: post #130
fwungy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corrupt government officials get a commission on big contracts. It happens all the time. Why do you think people spend so much campaigning for low paying political offices? They can be quite lucrative investments. There are NDAs and other threats to shutdown whistleblowers.

Think about how many people were involved in the approvals across the entire globe? Most of the approvals processes were conducted in public by career scientists and doctors. There were tens of thousands of people involved that would have to look the other way. Any company that’s capable of pulling off a global operation like that with absolutely zero exposure, is already running the world and doesn’t need to bother…

You don't become a career scientist or doctor by rocking the boat. A medical degree is a huge investment. Doctors have student loans and families. Anyone who sticks their neck out is at risk of losing their license or research grants.

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

#225

Post by fwungy »

sarchertech wrote: post #134
Izkata wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the order/process elsewhere, by the time they were up for the approval process in the US there really wasn't another option simply because of the outcry after so many people had taken it, if it wasn't approved.

As a counterpoint to that, 20 million people took the Johnson and Johnson vaccine under the emergency authorization, but the FDA didn’t approve it. Also buying the emergency approval process in the first place would have required an epically massive conspiracy.

Not really. They do it all the time.

Legislator votes for the right bills and her niece gets a cushy job somewhere in exchange. You can't prove anything wrong happened.

It's a big club, and you ain't in it. - George Carlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso

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

#226

Post by PheonixPharts »

scubbo wrote: post #73
PheonixPharts wrote: post #57

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…

> If Long Covid isn't real

I'm not arguing that long covid isn't real (in fact I explicitly state "To be clear, I'm not doubting that long-covid exists"), just that I'm not convinced that we are "we are so, so fucked" (to quote parent).

Your anecdata is appreciated since I share your lost faith in data about public health.

> prevalence of fatigue and impaired cognition from some other source

I personally think anxiety and unspoken stress regarding climate collapse and other forms of society degradation we're experiencing and seeing accelerate are responsible for a good deal of this. Everyone I know certainly seems more tired, more stressed out, and with fuzzier thinking, but I don't think that is a byproduct of long covid. People can't even openly talk about this seriously, even though nearly everyone is clearly feeling it. There are also plenty of people in aggressive denial about this which makes it even harder to discuss.

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

#227

Post by onthecanposting »

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 key investors and patent holders in mRNA technology, which had been until recently waz a significant sunk cost, had made some manner of cost-benefit analysis and were satisfied with the results.

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

#228

Post by pwarner »

ezekiel68 wrote: post #222

I was a good US citizen and used what little influence I had among my social circle to encourage others to follow the COVID protection measures. And I adore Nate Silver. So, pardon me if I confess that all I read in this article was: Blah blah blah 'I mostly agree with ... an October 2020 anti-lockdown statement signed by a large number of scientists and medical professionals. “Those who are not vulnerable should imm…

Almost everyone was pretty wrong about COVID, at least at some points in time. But it's very rare for anyone to admit it. I'll admit I was wrong, between sanitizing my hands when it was really in the air, to assuming the vaccines would end it. Lots of mistakes on my end!

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

#230

Post by firesteelrain »

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 still not as clear cut as patient in and gets bed. There was some tweaking that had to be done to triage patients better then determine who most likely needed a bed. At UF Hospitals, they used discrete event simulation to figure out how to streamline this process. Not sure how many others went through the same thing. Point is, hospitals share some of the blame too
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