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Government Response To The Coronavirus (9 Viewers)

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fatguyinalittlecoat said:
It feels like we’re going to reach a point in not too long where red states are going to be having trouble getting people to get vaccines while people in blue states who desperately want vaccines can’t get them.

Can anyone think of a way that the federal government can start sending more vaccines to blue states without being accused of partisanship?
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You could request waiting lists by state and distribute by volume.  Or by inventory on hand.

either works and is logical 

 
parasaurolophus said:
@IvanKaramazov curious to hear your thoughts on the suspensions of giving out the astrazeneca vaccines in Europe. Italy even going so far as to seize all of the vaccines. 
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I know the EU has been snakebitten when it comes to vaccines, but I haven't followed the situation there anywhere near closely enough to have an opinion about why or what they're doing wrong.  Sorry.

 
parasaurolophus said:
@IvanKaramazov curious to hear your thoughts on the suspensions of giving out the astrazeneca vaccines in Europe. Italy even going so far as to seize all of the vaccines. 
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Okay, just based on what limited data I've seen -- and to be clear, these are data being posted by people who have the same general orientation toward this sort of thing that I do, so there may be a bit of a bubble thing going on -- it looks like European regulators are stepping in to send a bunch of people to their deaths because somebody failed STAT 101.

One of the problems with with any medical treatment is that it's always subject to the post hoc fallacy: X happened and then Y happened afterward, so therefore X must have caused Y.  For example, we know that if you inject 10 million people with saline, some of them will develop terminal brain cancer within the following calendar year.  That happens not because saline causes brain cancer -- that's obviously stupid -- but because any population of 10 million randos will have a somewhat-predictable-but-statistically-noisy number of people diagnosed with brain cancer just due to coincidence.  

This is where statistical significance comes into play.  It allows you answer questions like "How likely is it that this incidence of brain cancer was just caused by random chance?"  A commonly accepted threshold in most fields -- I don't know if this widely accepted in drug trials or not -- is to use 5% as a threshold.  If random noise would generate this kind of result only 5% of the time or less, we tentatively accept that it's a real association and not just chance.  If randomness would cause this result more than 5% of the time, we tentatively figure that it's just random.  (There's room for nuance here and I am oversimplifying a bit, but not by much).

The problem is that it's more than just brain cancer.  We also have to look at incidences of liver cancer, stomach cancer, lung cancer, bone cancer, pancreatic cancer, skin cancer, heart disease, blood clots, strokes, seizures, ulcers, various neurological conditions, geriatric profanity disorder, COPD, ulcers, and a whole bunch of other things.  By pure luck, some of those will occur at levels beyond the 5% threshold if you test for enough different associations.  In theory, you have a 1-in-20 chance of finding such a correlation where none actually exists, so you'd expect to find a few of these if you look hard enough.    

Any bright undergraduate who has taken a good introductory statistics course knows all of this perfectly well.  Nothing I said in the last three paragraphs is even remotely controversial.  This is literally textbook applied statistics.   

The data I'm seeing make it look as if there is a modest increase in a specific type of blood clot among people who received the AZ vaccine.  That increase may or may not be statistically significant; I haven't seen any p-values so I can't say and I'm too lazy to do it myself.  It definitely doesn't appear worrisome.  Even if the AZ vaccine causes this specific blood clot -- and to be clear, it probably doesn't -- you are orders of magnitude more likely to die of covid than you are to develop a blood clot.  Opting against vaccination because of this one particular association is like driving cross-country without wearing your seatbelt because you're afraid of a catastrophic plane crash.

And once regulators yank a vaccine off the market while yelling loudly about how it's unsafe, they're never going to get good vaccine acceptance going forward.  This is wildly irresponsible behavior.

Or maybe EU regulators have access to better data and everybody in my circle is wrong.      

 
IvanKaramazov said:
Okay, just based on what limited data I've seen -- and to be clear, these are data being posted by people who have the same general orientation toward this sort of thing that I do, so there may be a bit of a bubble thing going on -- it looks like European regulators are stepping in to send a bunch of people to their deaths because somebody failed STAT 101.

One of the problems with with any medical treatment is that it's always subject to the post hoc fallacy: X happened and then Y happened afterward, so therefore X must have caused Y.  For example, we know that if you inject 10 million people with saline, some of them will develop terminal brain cancer within the following calendar year.  That happens not because saline causes brain cancer -- that's obviously stupid -- but because any population of 10 million randos will have a somewhat-predictable-but-statistically-noisy number of people diagnosed with brain cancer just due to coincidence.  

This is where statistical significance comes into play.  It allows you answer questions like "How likely is it that this incidence of brain cancer was just caused by random chance?"  A commonly accepted threshold in most fields -- I don't know if this widely accepted in drug trials or not -- is to use 5% as a threshold.  If random noise would generate this kind of result only 5% of the time or less, we tentatively accept that it's a real association and not just chance.  If randomness would cause this result more than 5% of the time, we tentatively figure that it's just random.  (There's room for nuance here and I am oversimplifying a bit, but not by much).

The problem is that it's more than just brain cancer.  We also have to look at incidences of liver cancer, stomach cancer, lung cancer, bone cancer, pancreatic cancer, skin cancer, heart disease, blood clots, strokes, seizures, ulcers, various neurological conditions, geriatric profanity disorder, COPD, ulcers, and a whole bunch of other things.  By pure luck, some of those will occur at levels beyond the 5% threshold if you test for enough different associations.  In theory, you have a 1-in-20 chance of finding such a correlation where none actually exists, so you'd expect to find a few of these if you look hard enough.    

Any bright undergraduate who has taken a good introductory statistics course knows all of this perfectly well.  Nothing I said in the last three paragraphs is even remotely controversial.  This is literally textbook applied statistics.   

The data I'm seeing make it look as if there is a modest increase in a specific type of blood clot among people who received the AZ vaccine.  That increase may or may not be statistically significant; I haven't seen any p-values so I can't say and I'm too lazy to do it myself.  It definitely doesn't appear worrisome.  Even if the AZ vaccine causes this specific blood clot -- and to be clear, it probably doesn't -- you are orders of magnitude more likely to die of covid than you are to develop a blood clot.  Opting against vaccination because of this one particular association is like driving cross-country without wearing your seatbelt because you're afraid of a catastrophic plane crash.

And once regulators yank a vaccine off the market while yelling loudly about how it's unsafe, they're never going to get good vaccine acceptance going forward.  This is wildly irresponsible behavior.

Or maybe EU regulators have access to better data and everybody in my circle is wrong.      
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Not necessarily true. If there is true concerns in the public about safety and the regulators do nothing, the public may be concerned that other safety concerns are being overlooked with the other vaccines. More damage could be done to vaccine confidence if the concerns are legitimate and regulators did nothing.

 
Biff84 said:
Not necessarily true. If there is true concerns in the public about safety and the regulators do nothing, the public may be concerned that other safety concerns are being overlooked with the other vaccines. More damage could be done to vaccine confidence if the concerns are legitimate and regulators did nothing.
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Yup. Big time damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.  Once a drug or vax has "the taint" of danger, it's hard to correct that in public perception. 

 
parasaurolophus said:
Doug B said:
It's OK and expected for information and guidance to change frequently in the early going -- which, in a sense, we're still in with COVID-19. Why did people think best-evidence guidance from, say, March 2020 needed to be the absolute correct final word on the matter, and any subsequent changes means that "they're all full of bull all the time, changing guidance like that!" That's what's supposed to happen in response to a novel health threat.
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Lol @ the bold. 
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Go back and look at what Stealthy was talking about, though -- the fomite fear, specifically.

...

Now, pivoting back to the change in mask guidance last March:

The only intentional misleading I'm aware of was the effort to make sure the general public didn't cause a run on medical masks and keep medical workers from being able to get them. While I'll certainly say that was ham-handed and likely misguided in retrospect ... the urge to white-lie to the American people was understandable. It's not like we wonder "Why'd they tell people not to buy masks?" -- we know why. Whether or not we excuse the lie is an exercise left to the reader.

 
Doug B said:
Go back and look at what Stealthy was talking about, though -- the fomite fear, specifically.

...

Now, pivoting back to the change in mask guidance last March:

The only intentional misleading I'm aware of was the effort to make sure the general public didn't cause a run on medical masks and keep medical workers from being able to get them. While I'll certainly say that was ham-handed and likely misguided in retrospect ... the urge to white-lie to the American people was understandable. It's not like we wonder "Why'd they tell people not to buy masks?" -- we know why. Whether or not we excuse the lie is an exercise left to the reader.
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There was no evidence that fomites were an issue. That's why I find it funny. In fact for most respiratory viruses the fomite evidence is seriously lacking. So it was a guess. Just purely a WAG. 

I highly reco following Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston on twitter. He is interesting for a couple reasons...He is canadian, so he gives some good north of the border perspective. But what makes him most interesting is he is constantly starting good threads about studies and articles published in medical journals. Sometimes going back like 100 years. He also has access to archives that I cant even find online and I am not even sure they exist outside of hard copies from libraries. He posts old snippets, scanned pages, etc. 

The evidence for much of what was assumed early on and for other viruses, isnt very strong, and for some things is completely non existent.

For example there is no evidence showing that masks are likely to be fomite carriers(for respiratory viruses). So touching the mask and touching other things or your eyes or mouth was basically just fabricated. And one study he posted actually showed how poorly masks transferred things in lab tests, so it wasn't just that "real world" evidence was lacking.

I dont agree with him on everything (we differ quite a bit on schools for example) but I find his stuff very educational.  

Eta: added respiratory viruses in () above since obviously for some bacterial and blood born pathogen diseases there is obvious risk when splattered, etc

 
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Doug B said:
...

Now, pivoting back to the change in mask guidance last March:

The only intentional misleading I'm aware of was the effort to make sure the general public didn't cause a run on medical masks and keep medical workers from being able to get them. While I'll certainly say that was ham-handed and likely misguided in retrospect ... the urge to white-lie to the American people was understandable. It's not like we wonder "Why'd they tell people not to buy masks?" -- we know why. Whether or not we excuse the lie is an exercise left to the reader.
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Exactly.  We know why.  We’ve known why for a long time now.  Yet it still gets brought up as if it is some mystery.

 
Biff84 said:
Not necessarily true. If there is true concerns in the public about safety and the regulators do nothing, the public may be concerned that other safety concerns are being overlooked with the other vaccines. More damage could be done to vaccine confidence if the concerns are legitimate and regulators did nothing.
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Sure.  You don't want regulators underreacting to real, legitimate public health risks.  And you also don't want them overreacting to imaginary risks.  It certainly appears that EU regulators are doing the latter in this case.

On the other hand, there's a good heuristic here that's worth keeping in mind: when a bunch of experts are all making what appears to be a clear and obvious error, there's a high likelihood that you're actually the one who's misunderstanding something important.  Maybe that's what's happening with the AZ vaccine and all of us laypeople are just missing some crucial piece of data that justifies a regulatory action that seems wild and reckless on the surface.  What I know about this vaccine is stuff that I read yesterday -- if I run across something that clears things up, I'll make a point to pass it along.

 
On cue, here's a good Washington Post story on the AZ vaccine.  Just posting this so people can see that this isn't just me beating a dead horse:

AstraZeneca and blood clots: Without causality, experts say reports shouldn’t rule out a vaccine

A nurse fills a syringe with the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine in northwestern Spain on March 13. (Miguel Riopa/AFP/Getty Images)

By 

Allyson Chiu

March 15, 2021 at 7:38 p.m. CDT

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Amid growing concerns about reports of blood clots among AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine recipients, health experts are urging the public not to jump to conclusions about any vaccine’s safety based solely on reports of adverse events and in the absence of further research.

“A vaccine is designed to prevent a certain kind of thing — prevent an infection or prevent disease,” said Susan Ellenberg, a professor of biostatistics, medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “It’s not going to prevent every bad thing that could possibly happen to anybody, so when a vaccine is widely used, all the other kinds of bad things that could happen to people are still going to happen.

“And when they happen in close proximity to getting a vaccine, one can understand why people think, ‘Oh, that must have been caused by the vaccine’ or at least be suspicious that it might have been caused by the vaccine,” Ellenberg continued.

‘Absolutely normal’: Covid vaccine side effects are no reason to avoid the shots, doctors say

Ellenberg and other experts emphasized that health conditions arising after a new vaccine or drug is distributed to the general population are often coincidental.

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“Things that just happen by coincidence will, because it’s health-related, be assumed to be caused by the vaccine, but that is, in most instances, not the case,” said Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Here’s what scientists say you need to know about data on adverse effects after vaccination and why they, along with prominent health agencies and regulators, are continuing to support the use of authorized coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic.

Germany, France, Italy and Spain suspend AstraZeneca vaccinations; safety agency says blood clot incidence is low

Understand the numbers with context

There are two main ways researchers determine whether an adverse effect is related to a vaccine, Ellenberg said. “One is understanding the biology and how the vaccine might potentially cause this, and the other is understanding whether this is happening more frequently than might be expected in the general population.”

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Although there isn’t exact epidemiological data on the prevalence of coagulation disorders, incidence estimates in 2017 ranged from about 300 per 100,000 people per year to about 650 per 100,000 people per year, according to a draft report requested by the European Medicines Agency that included data from several countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and Denmark.

In the case of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, the drugmaker said in a statement Sunday that out of more than 17 million people who were inoculated with the shots, there have been 15 events of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and 22 events of pulmonary embolism reported as of early March. These reports have led to a number of countries, including Germany, France and Italy, to pause use of the vaccine, despite European regulators and the World Health Organization still recommending AstraZeneca’s vaccine to prevent severe covid-19 disease. (The vaccine has yet to be authorized in the United States.)

“Around 17 million people in the EU and UK have now received our vaccine, and the number of cases of blood clots reported in this group is lower than the hundreds of cases that would be expected among the general population,” Ann Taylor, AstraZeneca’s chief medical officer, said in the statement.

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On Monday, the European Medicines Agency released a statement saying that while it is still investigating, “many thousands of people develop blood clots annually in the EU for different reasons. The number of thromboembolic events overall in vaccinated people seems not to be higher than that seen in the general population.”

Meanwhile, the WHO said its advisory panel is also looking into the reports but noted that “there is no evidence that the incidents are caused by the vaccine,” according to Reuters.

Evans, who has reviewed AstraZeneca’s data, added that the shots do not appear to have a “notably higher rate for any of the coagulation disorders” compared with the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which has also been authorized for use in the European Union.

“That to me says that it almost undoubtedly isn’t the vaccine,” he said. “I can’t be sure and I’m ready to change my mind on new data, but all the data I’ve seen says this isn’t a real problem.”

Correlation does not equal causation

Though the “temporal association is just too much for some people to ignore,” Ellenberg said it’s important to remember that there are a number of reasons people may develop adverse health conditions post-vaccination, particularly those as common as blood clots.

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“It seems like an incredible coincidence,” she said. “But when you’ve got millions and millions of people receiving the vaccine, you know, coincidences happen.”

Can I choose my covid vaccine? Strong opinions on Oxford vs. Pfizer emerge in U.K.

The challenge for scientists is trying to figure out “whether it’s a real signal or whether it’s just noise,” said Andrew Stolbach, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins University and an expert on drug reactions.

“The public should be reassured that there are people that follow all these events that are checking to see if they’re related,” Stolbach said. “If you’re in the public, you should remember that things that make the news are always going to be the worst things and the most shocking things and the most scary things and the most exciting things, but that doesn’t mean there’s a relationship.”

In general, older people may have a greater chance of being at risk of developing blood clots, as well as those who are taking certain medications, such as oral contraceptives, Evans said. To determine a causal link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots, experts said, an epidemiological study would be needed.

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“You will almost never base a judgment only on reports, whether it’s to the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] or the U.K. agency or to other agencies around the world, because the reporting of things can depend on fashion, depend on anxiety, level of scare, other issues around the vaccine,” Evans said.

Stay informed

Evans said he is confident that the necessary epidemiological research can be conducted “quite rapidly” in the U.K. In the meantime, he urged people who are in areas where there are high rates of transmission to take the AstraZeneca vaccine if it is offered to them.

Evans, who is 77, said he has received two doses of the vaccine and did not experience any serious adverse effects.

The current concerns surrounding the vaccine are an example of “anecdotes being turned into data, which is not what epidemiologists deal with,” he said.

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Stolbach recommended staying up-to-date on the latest science and looking to regulatory agencies and public health authorities for guidance. People, he said, should “keep an eye on the big picture instead of getting worried about all the individual scary cases that they hear about.”

“The thing that we’re trying to prevent, covid, is harmful itself,” he said, “so when we’re weighing the potential risk of a vaccine, we have to weigh it against the risk of not being vaccinated.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clot/2021/03/15/d0d5f1ee-85b0-11eb-82bc-e58213caa38e_story.html

 
parasaurolophus said:
There was no evidence that fomites were an issue. That's why I find it funny. In fact for most respiratory viruses the fomite evidence is seriously lacking. So it was a guess. Just purely a WAG. 
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Perhaps. But this time a year ago, fomite spread for, say, influenza and the common cold was something "we've known forever" and it's hard for me to say that COVID researchers at the time should've known better and modified their guidance to the public.

For example there is no evidence showing that masks are likely to be fomite carriers(for respiratory viruses). So touching the mask and touching other things or your eyes or mouth was basically just fabricated. And one study he posted actually showed how poorly masks transferred things in lab tests, so it wasn't just that "real world" evidence was lacking.
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I do agree with you 100% about "the dangers of mask touching!!!" That was obvious BS from jump, and was a terrible reason to suggest that the general public shouldn't wear masks.

Thankfully, all of that largely went by the wayside before spring 2020 was over.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
“A vaccine is designed to prevent a certain kind of thing — prevent an infection or prevent disease,” said Susan Ellenberg, a professor of biostatistics, medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “It’s not going to prevent every bad thing that could possibly happen to anybody, so when a vaccine is widely used, all the other kinds of bad things that could happen to people are still going to happen.
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Glad to finally read someone not speak of this equivocally -- "No, those 30-something blood clots were for sure 100% NOT caused by the AZ vaccine. Yes, we know with certainty. Yes, we do. We really do."

 
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Doug B said:
Perhaps. But this time a year ago, fomite spread for, say, influenza and the common cold was something "we've known forever" and it's hard for me to say that COVID researchers at the time should've known better and modified their guidance to the public.
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Why not? Why should they have adopted flu and common cold dogma instead of using SARS1? 

I mean its in the damn name. 

And as far as what was "known" for the common cold, it was known that the common cold spreads via the air. 

This study is my favorite for the obviousness of that. The descriptions are disgusting. But I have zero idea how somebody could read that and be convinced that, yep, wash your hands, is the best way to go.

 
I don't speak German so I can't comment on the report, but this thread provides some explanation from Germany as to why they hit the pause button on vaccination.  It sounds like they kind of know that this is a bad call, but their hands are tied by statute.  (Again, I can't confirm that since the report is in German).  

 
parasaurolophus said:
Why not? Why should they have adopted flu and common cold dogma instead of using SARS1? 

I mean its in the damn name. 

And as far as what was "known" for the common cold, it was known that the common cold spreads via the air. 

This study is my favorite for the obviousness of that. The descriptions are disgusting. But I have zero idea how somebody could read that and be convinced that, yep, wash your hands, is the best way to go.
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I guess it's a philosophical disagreement -- I'm willing to give the early researchers a pass on the fomites thing, and you aren't. Nowhere really to go with a debate about that. What matters to me is that a consensus of researchers have since collected better data, came around, and changed the fomite guidance.

I did like reading the "poker game" research from the mid-1990s. Sometimes things can move slowly in the scientific world, especially deeply entrenched truths. I do hope that institutional HVAC standards go through a sea change now in response to the COVID pandemic -- that air purification becomes as primary a goal as temperature and humidity control.

 
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IvanKaramazov said:
On cue, here's a good Washington Post story on the AZ vaccine.  Just posting this so people can see that this isn't just me beating a dead horse:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clot/2021/03/15/d0d5f1ee-85b0-11eb-82bc-e58213caa38e_story.html
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Just another research paper waiting to be written on the effect of stopping AZ vaccines in undervaccinated populations and how that affects the spread and ultimate toll of the virus vs. the potential damage of clots due to the vaccine.

 
The General said:
I’m saying that without isolation that explosion would have been much, much worse. 
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I know you think that - but its not fact. Its a guess

What we DO know, is that WITH isolation (mandates, closures etc) covid numbers continued up and up ... I mean we shut the nation down for 45,000 deaths .... and now we're at 530,000 and in between, we have all the closures and masks etc

Doesn't that seem odd to you? All those precautions and yet massive covid numbers were the result?

That's all i'm saying, the numbers don't support that all the precautions helped.

 
Doug B said:
No, not at all?
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so you understood that by shutting everything down - the trillions of dollars it cost, the millions who lost jobs, the tens of thousands of businesses that failed .... all that happened and you understood that the numbers would spike from 45,000 dead to 530,000 dead and 1 million cases to 22 million cases 

and that's a success ? 

 
Stealthycat said:
I know you think that - but its not fact. Its a guess

What we DO know, is that WITH isolation (mandates, closures etc) covid numbers continued up and up ... I mean we shut the nation down for 45,000 deaths .... and now we're at 530,000 and in between, we have all the closures and masks etc

Doesn't that seem odd to you? All those precautions and yet massive covid numbers were the result?

That's all i'm saying, the numbers don't support that all the precautions helped.
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A work of art.

 
Apple Jack said:
A work of art.
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same question to you - all that was done and you expected another 500,000 dead and another 20 million cases attributed? 

that was a success for all that was done, right? 

because me ...... I think its a massive failure to be hones, I can look at graphs and I can see the numbers soaring when all that was done was done. Almost like ... it didn't even matter

 
whoknew said:
If you have the NY Times, pretty good summary here of why things are a mess in Europe.
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It's no surprise that the EU was overly focused on the bureaucratic mechanisms over speed.   It was 100% the wrong call.

The outlier on that chart is Spain though.  They haven't given more doses than their fellow EU members, but the case rates have declined significantly in 1 month.  Why?  Perhaps there's less causality in the vaccine rates to case rates than we think.

 
Stealthycat said:
I know you think that - but its not fact. Its a guess

What we DO know, is that WITH isolation (mandates, closures etc) covid numbers continued up and up ... I mean we shut the nation down for 45,000 deaths .... and now we're at 530,000 and in between, we have all the closures and masks etc

Doesn't that seem odd to you? All those precautions and yet massive covid numbers were the result?

That's all i'm saying, the numbers don't support that all the precautions helped.
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People were still going to stores, going to family to things, traveling. Life was still going on. Many people not wearing masks, some thinking this is a hoax as well.

More people out and about (like nothing being done) would have resulted in more cases. This does not seem odd.

 
The General said:
People were still going to stores, going to family to things, traveling. Life was still going on. Many people not wearing masks, some thinking this is a hoax as well.

More people out and about (like nothing being done) would have resulted in more cases. This does not seem odd.
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ok so with that, you'd think that most of those covid positive were the ones doing all the above right ?

but fact is ... many people got covid while being super super safe - can you explain that ?

I remember march and april last year - I'm considered essential employee and I was out and about and few people were there with me. Covid number soared during those weeks and following months

 
KarmaPolice said:
lol.  is SC trying to claim that:

1.  everything was "shut down"?:

2.  mask mandates and precautions actually caused the increase in cases? 
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no

I'm saying 

1. everything was shut down

2. it didn't matter

that's what the facts show

now you can believe it'd have been worse - but that's a guess and a guess only

 
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Apple Jack said:
A work of art.
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I'm old enough to remember when a good many people were latching onto the "1M-2M will die if we do nothing" study in their rush to defend their guy's "actions" to show even the little bit that we did made a HUGE difference.  Now?  Seems like that study/prediction is an afterthought.  Oh how the times have changed :lol:  

 
Stealthycat said:
I remember march and april last year - I'm considered essential employee and I was out and about and few people were there with me. Covid number soared during those weeks and following months
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Also, I notice that it tends to rain a lot when people carry umbrellas around.  Obviously we would have more sunshine if folks would just leave their rain gear at home.

 
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The General said:
People were still going to stores, going to family to things, traveling. Life was still going on. Many people not wearing masks, some thinking this is a hoax as well.

More people out and about (like nothing being done) would have resulted in more cases. This does not seem odd.
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This is not true in NY. We were pretty locked down until around May/June. There was nothing open except grocery stores, pharmacies, and Home Depot. Even parks and school yards were locked up. People were also fearful of visiting family in the early months due to the unexpected. 

 
jobarules said:
This is not true in NY. We were pretty locked down until around May/June. There was nothing open except grocery stores, pharmacies, and Home Depot. Even parks and school yards were locked up. People were also fearful of visiting family in the early months due to the unexpected. 
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Werent restaurants open for carry out?

 
Stealthycat said:
no

I'm saying 

1. everything was shut down

2. it didn't matter

that's what the facts show

now you can believe it'd have been worse - but that's a guess and a guess only
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I think your missing the timing. Things in NY were locked down starting mid-March. I think mask mandates started even later (sometime in late March here). The spike happened in early April and then started decreasing rapidly. Meaning people were getting sick and spreading this thing in late Feb-early March BEFORE anything was locked down.

 
jobarules said:
I think your missing the timing. Things in NY were locked down starting mid-March. I think mask mandates started even later (sometime in late March here). The spike happened in early April and then started decreasing rapidly. Meaning people were getting sick and spreading this thing in late Feb-early March BEFORE anything was locked down.
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Exactly right.  You can look at a case count in NY and see how low it got in the Summer to show those lock-downs worked.  Also, realize the case count in March/April is way below real numbers as they didn't have testing up to identify cases and in NY you were under instructions to not go out and get tested at that time since they didn't have capacity to test people.  They just said if you are sick assume it is COVID and stay home unless you have trouble breathing then go to Hosipital.  

To say lock-downs did nothing is to ignore reality.  Also, no place in this country had lockdowns like NY, NJ and CT did in March/April and no place has done so since.  Also, not suggesting we should now but if we had been a lot more cautious in this country in the last year we would not have 500k dead Americans.  Our response to this has been down right awful.  

 
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Stealthycat said:
ok so with that, you'd think that most of those covid positive were the ones doing all the above right ?

but fact is ... many people got covid while being super super safe - can you explain that ?

I remember march and april last year - I'm considered essential employee and I was out and about and few people were there with me. Covid number soared during those weeks and following months
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I don’t know about any of the assumptions you made. Many people were having to work still and just being exposed to a people no matter how safe you are increases chances, one slip up is all it takes at the wrong time.

If people were able to stay isolated 90% of the time there chances of getting this were decreased immensely. Don’t see how this is some contentious point.

More people put and and about would equal more cases. That was the whole point of isolating as much as possible.

 
we really managed to thread the needle, exerting big pain on the economy with minimum to show for it.  It absolutely was a massive failure.

If we had effective mitigation efforts and actual proper lockdowns, we would have had far fewer deaths (but bigger economic impact).  If we did nothing, we would have had more deaths but less impact on the economy. 

I do think it might be interesting to examine results of various responses, in terms of GDP growth in 2020 and deaths per million.

What countries would be extreme examples of high and low mitigation efforts?  Ideally, we should consider as large countries as possible (i.e. population > 100M), and data we can trust (i.e. not China)  Japan and USA are probably the best counter examples.

JAPAN: 68 deaths per million citizens, GDP shrank by 4.8%.

USA: 1649 deaths per million citizens, GDP shrank by 3.5%.

so compared to Japan, our half-assed mitigation efforts led to the deaths of 1581 people per million (or 521k) while improving our GDP by 1.3%.

worth it?

 
jobarules said:
This is not true in NY. We were pretty locked down until around May/June. There was nothing open except grocery stores, pharmacies, and Home Depot. Even parks and school yards were locked up. People were also fearful of visiting family in the early months due to the unexpected. 
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Once the toothpaste was out of the tube the disease was go to do what it does.

More people out and about would have meant more cases.

 
moleculo said:
we really managed to thread the needle, exerting big pain on the economy with minimum to show for it.  It absolutely was a massive failure.

If we had effective mitigation efforts and actual proper lockdowns, we would have had far fewer deaths (but bigger economic impact).  If we did nothing, we would have had more deaths but less impact on the economy. 

I do think it might be interesting to examine results of various responses, in terms of GDP growth in 2020 and deaths per million.

What countries would be extreme examples of high and low mitigation efforts?  Ideally, we should consider as large countries as possible (i.e. population > 100M), and data we can trust (i.e. not China)  Japan and USA are probably the best counter examples.

JAPAN: 68 deaths per million citizens, GDP shrank by 4.8%.

USA: 1649 deaths per million citizens, GDP shrank by 3.5%.

so compared to Japan, our half-assed mitigation efforts led to the deaths of 1581 people per million (or 521k) while improving our GDP by 1.3%.

worth it?
Click to expand...
Complete disaster of an effort.  We got the econonomic pain and the loss of life.  Not sure this could have been explained better.  I personaly would have taken a little more economic pain to save lives.  

 
IvanKaramazov said:
Also, I notice that it tends to rain a lot when people carry umbrellas around.  Obviously we would have more sunshine if folks would just leave their rain gear at home.
Click to expand...
but do you claim that it would have rained LESS if you'd not worn your coat ?

no - it was going to rain the same regardless wasn't it ? 

 
the moops said:
People weren't being as safe as they thought they were. Also, it's highly contagious
Click to expand...
that's your guess - and on one hand, many many were "saved" by the mandates etc seems to be a common feel and yes, the 500,000 dead and 20 million more infected were in the same breaths probably not as safe as they though ?

 
Stealthycat said:
but do you claim that it would have rained LESS if you'd not worn your coat ?

no - it was going to rain the same regardless wasn't it ? 
Click to expand...
I originally thought that my coat would keep me dry, but I still got a little rain on my shirt collar.  Clearly I should have just gone without my jacket.

 
moleculo said:
we really managed to thread the needle, exerting big pain on the economy with minimum to show for it.  It absolutely was a massive failure.

If we had effective mitigation efforts and actual proper lockdowns, we would have had far fewer deaths (but bigger economic impact).  If we did nothing, we would have had more deaths but less impact on the economy. 

I do think it might be interesting to examine results of various responses, in terms of GDP growth in 2020 and deaths per million.

What countries would be extreme examples of high and low mitigation efforts?  Ideally, we should consider as large countries as possible (i.e. population > 100M), and data we can trust (i.e. not China)  Japan and USA are probably the best counter examples.

JAPAN: 68 deaths per million citizens, GDP shrank by 4.8%.

USA: 1649 deaths per million citizens, GDP shrank by 3.5%.

so compared to Japan, our half-assed mitigation efforts led to the deaths of 1581 people per million (or 521k) while improving our GDP by 1.3%.

worth it?
Click to expand...
You aren't making the comparison you think you are. Japan did less than we did.

They shut down less than we did. They tested less than we did. They don't even have a center for disease control.

 
jobarules said:
I think your missing the timing. Things in NY were locked down starting mid-March. I think mask mandates started even later (sometime in late March here). The spike happened in early April and then started decreasing rapidly. Meaning people were getting sick and spreading this thing in late Feb-early March BEFORE anything was locked down.
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https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/01/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s

New York is still a "red" state for covid

https://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+graph+on+covid+deaths&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS935US935&oq=new+york+graph+on+covid+deaths&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i59j0i271l3j69i65l3.4501j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

its true, there were spikes in April and continuing in May and that might have been Cuomo killing the elderly with his "put the sick back in the nursing home" rule

but

as the months went on, the deaths and cases still rose and continued ........ and yes, people were getting sick before and ... they've been getting sick since as well

we can guess a lot of things - I mean one factor is that covid killing elderly early on spiked the numbers, those susceptible died early on in the pandemic right? that alone impacts the numbers 

 
Stealthycat said:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/01/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s

New York is still a "red" state for covid

https://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+graph+on+covid+deaths&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS935US935&oq=new+york+graph+on+covid+deaths&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i59j0i271l3j69i65l3.4501j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

its true, there were spikes in April and continuing in May and that might have been Cuomo killing the elderly with his "put the sick back in the nursing home" rule

but

as the months went on, the deaths and cases still rose and continued ........ and yes, people were getting sick before and ... they've been getting sick since as well

we can guess a lot of things - I mean one factor is that covid killing elderly early on spiked the numbers, those susceptible died early on in the pandemic right? that alone impacts the numbers 
Click to expand...
Yeah because things opened up in the summer in NY. This is not rocket science dude. Lockdowns and masks clearly help stop the spread.

 
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