161–170 of 312 posts
For the mathematically-minded, it is worth noting that the Asian flu had an R naught of 1.7 while Covid had an R naught of a bit more than 2. Keeping in mind these are fat-tailed distributions. So an R naught of 2 is a estimate of a true R naught, and because using sample averages to estimate means (true R naught is a mean) is unstable (the fatter the tail, the less moments of the distribution there are), once the re…
AIER seems to be a Conservative/Libertarian think tank that's anti-climate science, among other stances, including anti-lockdown (what this article is about). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_for_Economi...
Are you implying that we should only be reading articles by Liberal/Progressive think tanks?
It's not a liberal vs conservative thing per se. There are plenty of liberals and progressives who get basic science wrong. Liberals are more likely to reject nuclear power or GMO food for reasons that are not scientifically justifiable, for example [1]. Liberals have historically also been more likely to believe in medical nonsense like healing crystals and homeopathy and anti-vaccination.
The things liberals are more anti-science on though are also less likely to be the kind of things that require national or international solutions and so attract fewer think tanks.
Hence there is a better correlation between libertarian/conservative think tanks and scientifically unsound positions than there is between liberal/progressive think tanks and such positions.
[1] There is a decent argument against GMO food in places where food is abundant and cheap so avoiding GMO doesn't mean famine, but it has nothing to do with the science of GMO itself. It is that GMO gives food companies much more ability to customize and tweak foods in ways that are great for business but bad for public health. We already know when it comes to money vs health they go for money, which is a big contributor to rising obesity. They can still accomplish many of the same things without GMO that they would use GMO for but it is slower and more expensive which reduces the amount of harm they can do and gives more time to get regulations to catch up.
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Well if they lie so readily and deeply, debunk their arguments themselves. It shouldn't be difficult. It's tiresome to see constant dismissals of points of views based on an obsession with bias. Bias is inherent to most organizations and people, so weight of argument and its evidence is what should count. Going on about the GOP doesn't help either, it shuts down debate dishonestly and ignores the simple fact that man…
That sorta makes them shitty.
I think the lockdown concept as implemented in 2020 was a great illustration of the problem of scale. It's trivially true that if you as an individual avoid all contact with others during a flu season, you won't catch the flu. You can probably extend that to your family, maybe a bit further, but at a certain scale it just becomes impossible (and undesirable) because of individual variations in occupation, lifestyle,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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No, but an infectious disease is also limiting on people's freedoms, so it's equally not obvious that those rights override the rights of people to be protected from infectious diseases.
Stay awash in american conservative drivel, HN.
The world in 1957 was such a different place than in 2020 I find it hard to compare the two.
> Whereas lockdowns in the Covid-19 case might have contributed to a lengthening of the crisis by delaying herd immunity The point of the lockdown was not to entirely stop the spread- that was obviously not happening. It was to slow the spread to avoid overwhelming hospitals. It allowed us to reduce the lethality of COVID-19 by having more resources per sick person.
Except the hospitals really couldn't do anything to help these people anyway and in some cases actually sped up their death with use of ventilators. Even more frustrating, they could have been giving things like monoclonal antibodies right away but they didn't. Additionally, hospitals had years to figure out a better way of expanding their ICU's for emergency use. They also tend to operate on lowest required beds to…
The ventilator argument is brought up a lot so I wanted to share an article going over the related evidence:
"Based on the evidence at hand, we can reasonably say that there probably wasn’t a large impact either way from early intubation treatment paradigms."[1]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, but an infectious disease is also limiting on people's freedoms, so it's equally not obvious that those rights override the rights of people to be protected from infectious diseases.
What right to be protected from infectious diseases? If it exists then it's been violated my entire life.