Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

natesilver.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 341 posts

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

#331

Post by listenallyall »

MyelinatedT wrote: post #329
nradov wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support vaccination and recommend that people follow medical guidelines. But imposing medical procedures on anyone without their informed consent is absolutely immoral. Especially since the COVID-19 vaccines do little or nothing to prevent transmission.

It wasn’t just about preventing transmission - the vaccines dramatically reduced the rate of hospital admissions, which in theory should have allowed the health systems of the world to keep up with fewer infection control restrictions (like lockdowns, masking and social distancing). I agree that forcing vaccines on people was, at the very least, ethically questionable. OTOH, there was a tremendous amount of misinform…

Most "misinformation" was pro-vaccine -- that vaccinated people either could not get sick or could not transmit covid or that natural immunity was inferior to vaccines or altogether irrelevant.

"A vaccinated person gets exposed to the virus, the virus does not infect them, the virus cannot then use that person to go anywhere else, it cannot use a vaccinated person as a host to go get more people." -- Rachel Maddow

"When you get vaccinated, you not only protect your own health and that of the family but also you contribute to the community health ... in other words, you become a dead end to the virus." -- Fauci

"If you have had COVID-19 before, please still get vaccinated" -- Rochelle Walensky

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

#332

Post by orblivion »

listenallyall wrote: post #330
orblivion wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simultaneously I wish some of the people on your side (or the side you're advocating for here, anyway) didn't spend so much energy insulting those of us who wanted to put in a good faith effort not to exacerbate a community-level problem, and actively tried to provoke our anxiety and anger. Granted, that's probably difficult when you feel you're on the defensive. But I think that defensiveness goes both ways, which m…

Isn't this more of the same? Now, after the fact, claiming you wish all voices had gotten equal attention? It seems quite apparent that the government + media + corporations collaborated for 2+ years to push one singular narrative and to do as much as possible to reduce or silence anyone who questioned it or attempted to demonstrate that it wasn't entirely true.

To be clear I agree with your previous comment that anybody who now proclaims that they were wrong should either have been opposed to marginalizing your view in the moment, or they owe you a mea culpa. They should recognize that somebody's been out there who had the same conclusion this whole time. Depending on the specific point, I might stop short of saying they were "correct" this whole time because you can get to the same conclusion with different reasoning, and some of the reasoning I heard from your side still seems quite off to me.

As for myself though, you can see from an April 2020 comment that I'm a bit of an anomaly. Even though I felt more aligned with "the other side" I was maybe closer to the middle:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22929971

I'm pretty sure I've always, for instance, opposed tech censorship on the subject. Especially during the mid-year riots the way they demonized the anti-lockdown protests by comparison was insane and I recognized it as such then. I could pull up some old tweets if you want.

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

#333

Post by dghlsakjg »

VancouverMan wrote: post #271
dghlsakjg wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attributing what happened in Ontario to the whole of Canada is something that happens way too often. As a Western Canadian resident, I don't think it's fair or reasonable to extrapolate about all of Canada from a single tweet from a TO health authority, and an article with a disclaimer about it's own accuracy. There well may be problems, but please keep in mind that while 50% of Canadians live between Montreal and To…

The very questionable counting of deaths seems to have been going on in the other more-populated non-Ontario provinces, too. Alberta was using a dubious death-counting approach, as described in this April 2021 article: "According to Dr. Deena Hinshaw, any death that has been flagged where COVID-19 is a possible cause is included in the initial count, even if the official cause of death remains unknown." https://globa…

What is the standard way of “counting deaths” for a disease that can be co-morbid?

Does the method chosen differ from other countries and diseases?

Strictly speaking, no one does of HIV virus, they die of opportunistic infections made possible by AIDS.

For COVID, the disease can kill you, as well as make it easier for other things to kill you. If you die of a heart attack while COVID positive, on a ventilator, with super low blood O2 readings, did you die of a heart attack, or did you die of COVID? Is there any reason why your death must be limited to a single disease for statistical purposes?

You say that counting COVID deaths this way is dubious, but is it out of line with regular epidemiological practice?

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

#334

Post by GenerocUsername »

slv77 wrote: post #254
GenerocUsername wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

CONCLUSIONS Treatment with ivermectin did not result in a lower incidence of medical admission to a hospital due to progression of Covid-19 or of prolonged emergency department observation among outpatients with an early diagnosis of Covid-19. (Funded by FastGrants and the Rainwater Charitable Foundation; TOGETHER ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04727424. opens in new tab.) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2…

This study has flaws.

Namely, the ivermectin was only administered with patients after 7 days of symptomatic COVID infection.

Meanwhile Paxlovid, the patented ACE2 inhibitor is received as a proven treatment when administered early in infection.

7 days after symptoms appear is not early. The game is rigged my friend

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

#335

Post by garfieldnate »

Libcat99 wrote: post #284
slv77 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N-95 masks work to keep you from catching the virus and cloth or paper masks (somewhat) prevented you from spreading the virus. Ideally everyone would have worn N-95 masks but the US had four problems: 1) The US didn’t have enough N-95 masks. In Asia where masks in public were more common people used masks from their home supply. I think some segments of the population were resentful that the US didn’t have access to…

5) A not insignificant part of the population heard and understood that masks protect others and said "why should I suffer to protect them?" I observed this sentiment in particular about return to school, and not just about masks. A sizable portion of the population would seemingly do anything to avoid accidentally helping someone else.

Related: I wasn't in the US at the time, but I think a close 6) would have to be the intense polarization and ongoing "culture war," wherein one side was already being told that something else coming out of their mouth was literally killing people, and doubting the veracity of the statement. Wearing a mask is slightly panic-inducing anyway (ever try to muzzle a dog?), and coupled with the fact that one side of the political isle took up its championing, this allowed some members of one side to wear the mask sanctimoniously and some members of the other to avoid or disbelieve any rhetoric (scientific or otherwise) promoting their use. As long as the more general lack of cooperation carries on, the US is at risk of not being able to unify over important things like public health.

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

#336

Post by todd8 »

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #238
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…

The measures that seem like they should have worked, but people claim they didn't are: - masks: clearly they worked for the medical professionals that were treating patients during the first waves, as they were directly exposed and didn't get sick, why didn't they work for the population at large? Did we not wear them correctly, consistently? - schools: It seems obvious that schools could be a huge vector of transmis…

I personally don't know how best to interpret lots of research from the medical community. However, I do believe that the meta-analysis based Cochrane reviews[1] are the most reliable reviews of medical intervention for non-experts (and I consider even the vast majority of doctors as non-experts outside of their particular specialization). The Cochrane Collaboration isn't all knowing, but I don't know of a better alternative source of such information.

In a large meta-analysis[2] the Cochrane Collaboration did not find convincing evidence that masks work. Here is a single sentence taken from the author's conclusions:

"The pooled results of RCTs [Randomly Controlled Trials] did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks."

This gives me pause; I was one of the dedicated mask wearers during the pandemic, but now I realize that we don't know that they did any good. Please note that I am saying we don't know if the masks worked; I'm not saying that the masks didn't work, just that we don't know that they did.

I've included above just a single sentence from the the Cochrane review titled Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses?, the review is available online and is easy to read. I encourage those that think they know that masks either work or don't work to read the entire review for themselves.

[1] https://www.cochrane.org

[2] https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-s...

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

#337

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

tempestn wrote: post #326
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How odd. You must live in a different Canada than I do.

Each province set health guidelines and restrictions mostly independently, so it's very possible they do.

That's true, but they don't.

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

#338

Post by mcguire »

mcguire wrote: post #124

Ok, so now I want to see the details of his first claim, " Until vaccines became available, there was little difference in COVID death rates between blue states and red states. "

Note: not because I don't believe it; I just want to see the evidence.

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

#339

Post by slv77 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #296
slv77 wrote: 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…

> The most likely outcome of a medical system collapse would be martial law, mass graves, economic collapse and potential collapse of essential systems like food distribution. No it’s not. You are dramatically overestimating how many people need life-saving medical services. If we had no emergency healthcare system at all and everyone who needed to go to the hospital just died instead, yes it would suck and yes we wo…

Yes, civilization would have largely survived a partial and temporary collapse of the US healthcare system that was a potential outcome from covid.

There were multiple countries where the medical system came close to collapse. India in 2021 is a case study of a medical system pushed beyond its limits (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/world/asia/india-coronavi...) and civilization largely continued.

But there is a lot of latitude between normal and survived.

Let’s assume that US policymakers considered taking no-action and let the ICUs collapse. Could policymakers in that scenario reasonably expect that teachers would continue to teach? Would the school system function if 20% of school teachers decided to not risk death and opted out?

That answer was easy to get and the answer was that schools would be shutting down.

How many essential workers would opt-out? How many need to drop-out to care for children? How many because they are sick? For how long? How does that impact fuel and food distribution?

Can we expect crowds would gather at hospitals? How many in that case become violent? How do we control crowds? Do we call in the national guard?

I’m not sure I can see any scenario that a policymaker could consider where reducing spread wasn’t the only viable option.

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

#340

Post by RIMR »

lemmsjid wrote: post #186
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.

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 o…

>I don’t believe republicans or democrats are inherently better people

Then you aren't paying attention to what the Republican party stands for. Moral relativism has limits, and the Republican party now regularly acts with malice.

Post reply on HN