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America is giving up on the pandemic?

theatlantic.com

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Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#891

Post by cm2187 »

acqq wrote: post #883
cm2187 wrote: post #870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rate quoted by the parent, I believe, is the number of deaths divided by the number of people estimated to be infected, by prorating an antibody test sampling to the wider population. So that doesn’t assume everyone got exposed to the virus, and assumes the sampling is a representative sample (but in NY it was sampled in grocery stores, which tells you nothing about infection rate in nursing homes that made up 40…

> the number of deaths divided by the number of people estimated to be infected, by prorating an antibody test sampling to the wider population. So that doesn’t assume everyone got exposed to the virus To get the rate one can indeed calculate it with smaller representative sample, but that just doesn't imply that the vulnerable people would somehow never become infected if the epidemic continues, so the deaths of the…

But that sample may not be representative of the demographics of the people who got infected. It is possible that a lot more people in care homes have been infected than the grocery store sample, because of the policy of sending covid patients there (and the fact that the staff must have physical contact with each of the patients every day and therefore it will spread within a care home may very quickly).

If it is the case, you don't expect the same death rate to scale up as the wider population continues to get infected (if it is still happening, the virus is rather showing signs of going away).

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#892

Post by hef19898 »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #580
tootie wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't weasel speak at all. They're pretty clear that it's risky. They're just saying that they won't condemn protestors as taking frivolous risks the way anti-lockdown protestors or fun-seekers are. Police brutality, systemic racism, income inequality are all major public health risks in their own right.

I don't understand -- are keeping people out of work and isolated at home not public health risks? If non-Covid related factors are being considered in weighing against the risks of exposure they should all be considered, not only some of them, selectively.

I didn't hear any virologist claiming that isolation isn't a health risk.But it seems to take more time to have serious effects, COVID-19 on the other hand has the short term effect of overwhelming a health care system an causing thousands of deaths. And the lock-downs have never been planned to be permanent, were they?

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#893

Post by mrb »

cm2187 wrote: post #870
acqq wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both the UK and NY State had a policy of sending recovering (but potentially contagious) older covid patients back to nursing homes and it would have exacerbated the mortality rate vs regions that did a better job at protecting the elderly. Isn't the death rate the percentage of population that dies when all are infected? Then nothing can be "exacerbated" by that alone? It then just reflects the death rate which re…

The rate quoted by the parent, I believe, is the number of deaths divided by the number of people estimated to be infected, by prorating an antibody test sampling to the wider population. So that doesn’t assume everyone got exposed to the virus, and assumes the sampling is a representative sample (but in NY it was sampled in grocery stores, which tells you nothing about infection rate in nursing homes that made up 40…

Only 21% of Covid19 deaths in New York State occurred in nursing homes. Recent source (few days old): https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/state-data-and-...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#894

Post by roenxi »

shwoopdiwoop wrote: post #564
cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's intellectually honest to compare countries with very, very low rates of firearms access to a country where firearms are available to anyone who wants one? You're comparing the USA, which has about 100k shootings per year, 36k deaths involving guns of which 33% (~12k) are homicides, to the UK which has 50-60 cases of homicide involving a gun per year. The fact is that the US police are far, far, far…

Sounds like severely limiting access to guns in the US would be great place to start then.

Actual looting has been occurring in New York [0] as we discover that the police either lack the willpower or resources to actually protect American businesses. And who knows what is happening for ordinary law-and-order problems.

If someone manages to carry a "disarm and leave it to the police" argument with that evidence in recent memory it will go down in the history books as one of the great political accomplishments of the 21st century. Anyone who ever argued in favour guns in self defence was talking at least in part about moments in history like these.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/nyregion/nyc-looting-prot...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#895

Post by bkor »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #880
rayiner wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget public health officials outright lied and said masks don’t help reduce the spread of the disease, putatively to help conserve masks for medical personnel: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-... > When news of a mysterious viral pneumonia linked to a market in Wuhan, China, reached the outside world in early January, one of my first reactions was to order a modest supply of masks.…

Who says it's lying? Modern Western world has never had a pandemic in the current globally connected world. Recommendations try to take everything in to account. It's easy now to say: just wear masks. But then, there was even a global shortage of masks for health professionals.

The UK did a study a few years ago on the most important threat. The #1 spot (on importance) was a pandemic and would have way more impact than the #2 threat. The report suggested various things, including e.g. masks, etc. The report was ignored.

In US there's been many warnings to subsidize a strategic PPE supply and production. This was ignored. Early on (COVID-19) a US mask producer asked officials to provide money to expand production. This was ignored.

It wasn't just easy to predict, it was predicted various times.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#896

Post by roenxi »

orange8 wrote: post #890
roenxi wrote: post #884

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should we now also imagine/project the homicide death rates if all civilians were peaceful and happy and compare it with that of the real deaths caused by the police? Almost. We'd need to compare actual homicides to an imaginary world where everyone cooperated with the police while being arrested. The police killing someone is, on the face of it, a significant problem. But some percentage of police-caused deaths ar…

> Almost. What do you mean by almost? Just do it already. Then post all the imaginary/alternative stats here below.

How? It is impossible. The stats are too unreliable.

And that is why an oranges to oranges comparison can't actually be done.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#897

Post by orange8 »

roenxi wrote: post #896
orange8 wrote: post #890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost. What do you mean by almost? Just do it already. Then post all the imaginary/alternative stats here below.

How? It is impossible. The stats are too unreliable. And that is why an oranges to oranges comparison can't actually be done.

> Almost. We'd need to compare actual homicides to an imaginary world where...

What do you mean how? Aren't you the one who came up with the suggestion in the first place? You go ahead and almost do it.

> And that is why an oranges to oranges comparison can't actually be done.

Classic straw-man argument. You just set up your own imaginary cooperative world of full of alternative stats, then shot it down immediately.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#898

Post by gizmo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #743
01100011 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Amy Cooper/Christian Cooper incident from a few weeks ago was the most important 'teachable moment' that we've had in years. I am somewhat disappointed that it was overshadowed by protests against police brutality, because I thought it was a very 'teachable moment' that illustrated the type of racism that still exists behind a facade of tolerance. Police abuse is sort of a separate issue relating to train…

> structural racism I think "structural racism" is one of the biggest branding failures of the whole movement. To begin with, it uses the word "racism" to refer to something unintentional, when it normally implies intentionality. That needlessly makes people defensive. So then they want to deny that it's happening rather than admit there is a problem, which is the first step to solving it. Before even step one you've…

"Structural racism" is not a branding failure, it's an academic term that has been used for a long time and it only takes a minute or so to explain to anybody willing to listen. People don't become defensive because of the word "racism", people become defensive when they're told that behavior that used to be okay is no longer okay, and that they have to change. People don't like being told they're wrong no matter which words you use.

Your poverty example strikes me as disingenuous because poverty for black people is considerably worse than poverty for white people, even when you control for the big confounders, precisely because of racism. Which means that anti-poverty measures can be a great thing but they will not by themselves be sufficient to level the playing field.

It's funny how it's always --other-- people who are getting defensive, who will refuse to listen, who are lost before the arguments have even been expressed. You're fighting on behalf of a demographic that doesn't exist: people who aren't racist but are unwilling to listen for 2 minutes to an explanation of systemic racism. I bet you just dislike the concept of systemic racism yourself and you're using hypothetical alienation of ignorant poor white people as a cover.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#899

Post by WildParser »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #856
blub wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your source that airborne transmission is rare is the WHO, then all you have is a worthless source. Recently I've read an interview with Drosten (the German virologist which came up with one of the Coronavirus tests) say that they're starting to see airborne transmission as an important transmission factor, maybe not a strong as droplets but comparable. This is especially the case in poorly ventilated spaces.

I don't suppose you have links to any pre-prints or papers (hell even blog posts I guess) around this?

I don't have much, but maybe this contains a hint on the effects of mask usage on the German death growthrate. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157238440973015 (Masks about 25.4 - the effect should be visible around the middle of May)

After looking closely I found a small move into the wrong direction (maybe caused by something else?!??)

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#900

Post by FerretFred »

It's interesting (to me) that centuries ago, plagues could last for decades and the rapidly-declining populations had to put up with this. Obviously they didn't have the scientific knowledge that we have now.

However, although we have more knowledge now, we don't yet have a vaccine, nor a political system that puts people first instead of profits, so might we find ourselves in the same situation as our ancestors? Sure, we also have the ability to complain to more people, more quickly, but that's about it.

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