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Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

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Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#101

Post by allturtles »

adamrezich wrote: post #99
runako wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skepticism is often warranted, but frequently the vaccine skeptics pair skepticism with denial of accepted facts. So for example in this case, the skeptic asserts that the virus is not much worse than the flu. This, despite evidence that basically everyone on earth has seen that this is not the case. (Many people personally know someone who has died of Covid in the last year, despite not ever having known anyone who…

I'm not commenting on your third paragraph because calling Trump a "covid denialist" is too ridiculous and unrelated to what is being discussed to even begin to explore. in your second paragraph, you use anecdotes as a means of persuasion, despite referring to "accepted facts" two sentences prior. none of this addresses my point which is that well-reasoned skepticism is usually met with seemingly dogmatic opposition.…

When you seem to be arguing that hospitals around the world all independently cooked the books to inflate COVID deaths because of nefarious profit motives, yes, that sounds like the definition of a conspiracy theory.

If you don't believe the reported COVID death numbers, you can look at excess deaths over prior years, which largely track with or exceeds the reported numbers for COVID deaths.

Ultimately, for most people it's pretty obvious at this point that COVID is a catastrophe of the likes we haven't seen in many decades. Trying to persuade people at this point is tiresome, it would be like living in 1943 and trying to persuade skeptics that, yes World War II is a big deal.

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#102

Post by adamrezich »

allturtles wrote: post #101
adamrezich wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not commenting on your third paragraph because calling Trump a "covid denialist" is too ridiculous and unrelated to what is being discussed to even begin to explore. in your second paragraph, you use anecdotes as a means of persuasion, despite referring to "accepted facts" two sentences prior. none of this addresses my point which is that well-reasoned skepticism is usually met with seemingly dogmatic opposition.…

When you seem to be arguing that hospitals around the world all independently cooked the books to inflate COVID deaths because of nefarious profit motives, yes, that sounds like the definition of a conspiracy theory. If you don't believe the reported COVID death numbers, you can look at excess deaths over prior years, which largely track with or exceeds the reported numbers for COVID deaths. Ultimately, for most peop…

> When you seem to be arguing that hospitals around the world all independently cooked the books to inflate COVID deaths because of nefarious profit motives, yes, that sounds like the definition of a conspiracy theory.

except for the lack of conspiracy? when did the definition of "conspiracy" change to encompass the actions of individuals not explicitly working in concert with each other?

why is it so difficult to entertain a possible world wherein sars-cov-2 was hyped to be this massively devastating pandemic, and it was indeed pretty bad in terms of confirmed cases... but then when the number of deaths, while definitely nonzero, wasn't reaching the numbers it was "supposed to" on a per-hospital basis, many individual hospitals fudged some numbers here and there in order to get covid money since there was so much of it flying around into everyone else's pockets? this seems like a completely pragmatic, if unethical, course of action to take. there's a lot of hospitals in the US. do you find it likely that nothing along these lines happened at all, and that, again, with billions of dollars getting moved around here and there, and basically zero chance of getting caught, everyone in positions of decision-making unilaterally chose to act 100% as honestly and altruistically as possible?

again, I'm not asking you to accept this possible world as unconditionally Proven Fact or anything like that—I'm merely asking you to entertain the possibility, without breaking the glass and pulling the "Conspiracy Theory" lever. why is this sort of thinking seemingly beyond many peoples' abilities?

where does one acquire this massively optimistic outlook on human nature, especially with regard to those in positions of power, and in the presence of gargantuan amounts of money?

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#103

Post by vokep »

adamrezich wrote: post #97
vokep wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This perspective would seem more reasonable if it weren't based on headlines alone. The sort of headlines it's based on, when you dig into how they conclude to those headlines, often are fairly detached. There are cases of wild stories, but nothing consistent. We don't go in a panic over this sort of possibility with flu strains, when the same possibility does exist. Don't compare COVID to HIV, there isn't a good rea…

your posts here hit the nail on the head with regards to something I've been trying to articulate about this situation, plus many others in the past few years: why does everyone assume—when obviously, demonstrably massive profit incentives are on the line—that everyone in key positions of power will act 100% honestly and altruistically? I'm not even advocating that everyone be a complete vaccine-denier or whatever, I…

>why does everyone assume—when obviously, demonstrably massive profit incentives are on the line—that everyone in key positions of power will act 100% honestly and altruistically?

If I hit the nail on the head, you hammered it all the way in putting it that way. Thank you. It's really bewildering, I never expected to see something like this happen, I mean, to see a massive government/corporate push of something, sure, but to see so many just go along with it with seemingly little to no questioning of legitimacy...and when the ability to do further research with hard factual numbers you can think up your own conclusions from...its just bewildering.

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#104

Post by standardUser »

Grim-444 wrote: post #80
standardUser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The risk for me is, in fact..." In fact, the risk for you is that you infect someone you care about and they end up hospitalized or dead. That is a very real risk that has played out countless times during this pandemic and has cost thousands and thousands of lives.

Those vulnerable people are free to vaccinate themselves and be protected.

Protection isn't 100%, so the best way to protect the most vulnerable among us for everyone to get vaccinated. There are also a small number of people who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, and having as many people as possible vaccinated helps protect those people too.

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#105

Post by allturtles »

adamrezich wrote: post #102
allturtles wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you seem to be arguing that hospitals around the world all independently cooked the books to inflate COVID deaths because of nefarious profit motives, yes, that sounds like the definition of a conspiracy theory. If you don't believe the reported COVID death numbers, you can look at excess deaths over prior years, which largely track with or exceeds the reported numbers for COVID deaths. Ultimately, for most peop…

> When you seem to be arguing that hospitals around the world all independently cooked the books to inflate COVID deaths because of nefarious profit motives, yes, that sounds like the definition of a conspiracy theory. except for the lack of conspiracy? when did the definition of "conspiracy" change to encompass the actions of individuals not explicitly working in concert with each other? why is it so difficult to en…

> do you find it likely that nothing along these lines happened at all, and that, again, with billions of dollars getting moved around here and there, and basically zero chance of getting caught, everyone in positions of decision-making unilaterally chose to act 100% as honestly and altruistically as possible

You seem to be excluding a large middle. You seem to be saying that either COVID is a fraud perpetrated on us by hospitals, or else I must be arguing there is no such thing as corruption.

Your theory is not impossible but it would require a large amount of evidence to believe or even seriously consider. It's similar to the argument that Trump was actually elected president, but large amounts of independent local fraud threw enough votes to Biden to flip the result.

There's also the problem of independent lines of evidence that also point to major Covid death (e.g. excess deaths), and the fact that the Covid pandemic is a global problem - does every country have Covid money incentives that explain inflated deaths?

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#106

Post by adamrezich »

allturtles wrote: post #105
adamrezich wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you seem to be arguing that hospitals around the world all independently cooked the books to inflate COVID deaths because of nefarious profit motives, yes, that sounds like the definition of a conspiracy theory. except for the lack of conspiracy? when did the definition of "conspiracy" change to encompass the actions of individuals not explicitly working in concert with each other? why is it so difficult to en…

> do you find it likely that nothing along these lines happened at all, and that, again, with billions of dollars getting moved around here and there, and basically zero chance of getting caught, everyone in positions of decision-making unilaterally chose to act 100% as honestly and altruistically as possible You seem to be excluding a large middle. You seem to be saying that either COVID is a fraud perpetrated on us…

> You seem to be excluding a large middle. You seem to be saying that either COVID is a fraud perpetrated on us by hospitals, or else I must be arguing there is no such thing as corruption.

I didn't leave the middle out at all... in fact, I was claiming that it was you who was leaving out the middle by asserting that a non-zero amount of corruption by multiple separate hospitals would be a "conspiracy theory."

my goal in the posts in this thread is not any specific worldview that I may or may not subscribe to, but instead to point out that skepticism is healthy and shouldn't be shouted down with cries of "conspiracy theory." especially for a situation fraught with other such discrepancies, if one is willing to look for them, and, again, not assume honesty and altruism for 100% of humans in positions of power who are involved.

your comparison example is a poor analogy, because the voter fraud theory is that there was a conspiracy of multiple state/local actors acting in concert to obtain a desired electoral result. this specific aspect of the larger "covid situation" requires no such conspiracy, only human greed and corruption on the individual scale.

you state that you still require evidence to "believe or even seriously consider" my hypothetical scenario. why is that the case? again, do you think it's more likely that everyone at every hospital in the US acted 100% honestly & altruistically in this regard? when it comes to the individual, it's "innocent until proven guilty," of course. but when looking at large numbers of unconnected individuals making discrete decisions, from positions of power, with billions of dollars on the line... why do you assume "uncorrupt until proven corrupt?"

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#107

Post by fallingfrog »

greesil wrote: post #3

Why does the data change so much on the boundaries of states? I would expect the data to be locally correlated, and there wouldn't be discrepancies between neighboring rural counties that are in different states.

Yep, came here to say the same thing. Perhaps, there is some difference in the way the states are conducting vaccination campaigns?

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#108

Post by fallingfrog »

nojito wrote: post #17
greesil wrote: post #3

Why does the data change so much on the boundaries of states? I would expect the data to be locally correlated, and there wouldn't be discrepancies between neighboring rural counties that are in different states.

Because they use state level data first. Methodology here. https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vaccine-Hesitancy-for-COVID-1...

Ah ok. So we are looking at pretty large inaccuracies then. Typically you only want to draw in the county boundaries if you have reliable county level data. I’d call that a flaw.

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#109

Post by allturtles »

adamrezich wrote: post #106
allturtles wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you find it likely that nothing along these lines happened at all, and that, again, with billions of dollars getting moved around here and there, and basically zero chance of getting caught, everyone in positions of decision-making unilaterally chose to act 100% as honestly and altruistically as possible You seem to be excluding a large middle. You seem to be saying that either COVID is a fraud perpetrated on us…

> You seem to be excluding a large middle. You seem to be saying that either COVID is a fraud perpetrated on us by hospitals, or else I must be arguing there is no such thing as corruption. I didn't leave the middle out at all... in fact, I was claiming that it was you who was leaving out the middle by asserting that a non-zero amount of corruption by multiple separate hospitals would be a "conspiracy theory." my goa…

> you state that you still require evidence to "believe or even seriously consider" my hypothetical scenario. why is that the case? again, do you think it's more likely that everyone at every hospital in the US acted 100% honestly & altruistically in this regard? when it comes to the individual, it's "innocent until proven guilty," of course. but when looking at large numbers of unconnected individuals making discrete decisions, from positions of power, with billions of dollars on the line... why do you assume "uncorrupt until proven corrupt?"

Again, I never claimed that there has been zero corruption, that is your strawman. What requires evidence is that corruption is the reason for large numbers of reported covid deaths, in the face of the obvious alternative explanation, which is that it's substantially more contagious and more deadly than the flu.

If I started from the assumption that if someone has a motive to do something nefarious then they probably did it, and then had to work to disprove it, that would be corrosive to all human relations. How could you even function in society under that worldview?

Re: Vaccine Hesitancy for Covid-19: State, County, and Local Estimates

#110

Post by adamrezich »

allturtles wrote: post #109
adamrezich wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to be excluding a large middle. You seem to be saying that either COVID is a fraud perpetrated on us by hospitals, or else I must be arguing there is no such thing as corruption. I didn't leave the middle out at all... in fact, I was claiming that it was you who was leaving out the middle by asserting that a non-zero amount of corruption by multiple separate hospitals would be a "conspiracy theory." my goa…

> you state that you still require evidence to "believe or even seriously consider" my hypothetical scenario. why is that the case? again, do you think it's more likely that everyone at every hospital in the US acted 100% honestly & altruistically in this regard? when it comes to the individual, it's "innocent until proven guilty," of course. but when looking at large numbers of unconnected individuals making discret…

> If I started from the assumption that if someone has a motive to do something nefarious then they probably did it, and then had to work to disprove it, that would be corrosive to all human relations. How could you even function in society under that worldview?

again, for most individuals, you're right. when it comes to those in power, incentivized by large sums of money, with basically zero means of being caught, it's only pragmatic to assume that it happened. to what extent is up for debate to be sure, but only a few posts up, you instinctively deemed any amount of this hypothetical corruption a "conspiracy theory." why is that the reflexive term you reach for when presented with the scenario I outlined? why do you assume that those in power are uncorrupt until proven otherwise? where does this inherent, implicit complete trust in authority come from?

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