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Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

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Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#251

Post by mod »

anoonmoose wrote: post #135
EricE wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Having lockdowns can get you back to the point where businesses can safely operate with community spread control measures (see e.g. Australia or Taiwan)." How do you explain Florida, not locked down, vs. California with some of the strictest lock downs in the country having similar rates of death/infection? It's even more of a puzzler for those pushing lockdowns since Florida has a population tilted way more in the…

If one football team got beat 8-0, and another football team got beat 9-1, should we really be spending time arguing about which team is better when they're both pretty obviously not very good?

No, we shouldn't argue about which one is better.

If we're coaching the team that lost 0-8, we shouldn't try to run the playbook of the team that lost 1-9 in the next game. Especially when that playbook cripples our players in other ways--perhaps academically (to expand your analogy).

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#252

Post by mod »

JohnBooty wrote: post #155
EricE wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Having lockdowns can get you back to the point where businesses can safely operate with community spread control measures (see e.g. Australia or Taiwan)." How do you explain Florida, not locked down, vs. California with some of the strictest lock downs in the country having similar rates of death/infection? It's even more of a puzzler for those pushing lockdowns since Florida has a population tilted way more in the…

What this seems to hint at is that doing the absolute laziest possible, mostly-voluntary "lockdown" (ala the "lockdowns" we've seen in America) does not accomplish very much. It's like claiming a brand of toothpaste isn't very effective because you brushed your teeth once a week and still experienced the same level of tooth decay as somebody who never brushed at all. Is it the toothpaste's fault, or your fault becaus…

Perhaps, but meanwhile we're forcibly closing certain businesses and hurting those. I would know, I own one that has been greatly affected (a bar).

For reference, my customers starting hanging out at the strip club instead, which didn't have the restrictions imposed (it was based on liquor licenses, which they don't have in my state).

So, the lockdown was ineffective at controlling the population or spread, but it still managed to smack my business around.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#253

Post by [deleted] »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #220
arkwin wrote: post #199

I was thinking the same thing, but a more conservative estimate using people who have had at least 1 dose of the vaccine or those who have recovered to calculate herd immunity. https://github.com/Arkwin/US-COVID-Herd-Immunity-Tracker/ I update the data from the CDC website every day.

Looks like we're currently hovering around 21.39% and were at 15.26% on 2021-01-31. 6% in ~22 days At what level are we considered herd immune? When 50.1% of the population is immune/recovered?

[deleted]

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#254

Post by aww_dang »

user-the-name wrote: post #202
dragonwriter wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguing against someone's position by simply stating (truthfully or not) that they are not an expert is textbook ad hominem .

This is a good example of why "ad hominem" is one of the worst arguments you can try to use against something. In actual human discussion, pointing out that someone is making claims about something they don't know anything about is the very basis of common sense. Trying to make this out to be a logical fallacy only shows how useless that label is.

The problem becomes how you quantify your opponent's knowledge from a subjective position.

How can you prove that they don't know what they are talking about without disputing the points they have made?

You must attack the argument, not the person.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#255

Post by danaliv »

aww_dang wrote: post #172
dragonwriter wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguing against someone's position by simply stating (truthfully or not) that they are not an expert is textbook ad hominem .

Perhaps it more closely resembles an appeal to authority or appeal to accomplishment.

This isn't an appeal to authority though. That would be saying, "I'm right because I'm the expert." This is saying, "I don't trust you because you're not an expert." That's not a logical fallacy.

Even experts in adjacent or overlapping fields are suspect. I'm a flight instructor. I teach in airplanes. Would you believe what I have to say about helicopters? You shouldn't. I don't know jack about them.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#256

Post by cwhiz »

pessimizer wrote: post #152
cwhiz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns were never going to work, and any strategy that relied on them was doomed to fail. A strategy that involves convincing every country, and every little province, to destroy their local economies, all at the same time. I can’t believe it didn’t work! Maybe if we just keep trying.

Nothing is going to work any better than lockdowns, though. The reason the strategy wasn't ever going to work is because the fear level wasn't high enough. Bump up the death rate so people who can't see past their own nose see some death, and it'll work. Sadly, coronaviruses definitely have the potential to deliver on that. Now that so many people have become infected because lockdowns weren't taken seriously, and be…

>Nothing is going to work any better than lockdowns, though.

They haven't worked, and they can't work. There are many third world countries that don't have internet access or the equivalent to the CDC. Global cooperation is just absolutely not going to happen. We can't even agree city to city in the US, much less state to state.

The way out of a global pandemic is the same it always has been. Vaccination. Attempting to control individual behavior on a global scale is a fools errand.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#257

Post by yyyk »

logicchains wrote: post #40
tsimionescu wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again this idiotic discourse that doesn't understand that letting a pandemic spread unchecked across the world has huge risks even beyond the obvious death toll. Covid19, even with the current measures, has killed more people than TB worldwide in 2020. Those deaths are often in addition to those killed by TB, overdose, and most other diseases you care to pick. It has let countless other people with chronic symptoms o…

>It has let countless other people with chronic symptoms of varying severity, possibly for the rest of their lives. This is complete FUD with as-of-yet no scientific support. The lifetime effects of poverty and depression, in contrast, are quite well-studied and there's strong evidence that even a single year of unemployment can have a significant negative impact on lifetime health outcomes. >Covid19, even with the c…

>poverty and depression

So you support NZ's style "zero covid" policy? Because that beats the economic consequences of letting COVID run loose.

>"death's door" => an average of 16 years of life.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#258

Post by aww_dang »

danaliv wrote: post #255
aww_dang wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it more closely resembles an appeal to authority or appeal to accomplishment.

This isn't an appeal to authority though. That would be saying, "I'm right because I'm the expert." This is saying, "I don't trust you because you're not an expert." That's not a logical fallacy. Even experts in adjacent or overlapping fields are suspect. I'm a flight instructor. I teach in airplanes. Would you believe what I have to say about helicopters? You shouldn't. I don't know jack about them.

If you told me I had low tire pressure I wouldn't ask if you're a mechanic. I would look at the tire myself. If I was unable to use a pressure gauge due to a lack of my own expertise, I still wouldn't be in a position to question your observation about the tire based upon your credentials alone. The best counter argument I could mount would be, "It looks full to me" or "I checked the pressure this morning". Dismissing your observation because you are a flight instructor, not a mechanic is exactly what an appeal to authority is.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#259

Post by sparrish »

acdha wrote: post #214
maxerickson wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flu, if you grant that different strains count.

Influenza? The one which kills thousands of people every year despite widespread vaccination?

Except for 2020 where it's not even going to reach 100.

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#260

Post by tom_mellior »

chasd00 wrote: post #117
tom_mellior wrote: post #64

> But the consistent and rapid decline in daily cases since Jan. 8 can be explained only by natural immunity. Why would "natural immunity" kick in this suddenly and effectively? > Behavior didn’t suddenly improve over the holidays; Americans traveled more over Christmas than they had since March. Yes, and then after the holidays they stayed home, so one or two weeks after the traveling seasons there were much fewer i…

yes, "Covid will be mostly gone by April" would mean the beginning April. However, if it's not gone, you can assume the response will be "oh i meant by the end of April".

Thanks. And yeah, "mostly gone" also offers a lot of wiggle room.
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