Beer Virus V

[Phase2]

How is that a bias when they have been caught red-handed repeatedly?

That's what turned me. I was an early "believe the science" person in these threads. I've seen so much BS since then that I've concluded that the people of science (not the technique) deserve as much respect as so many other discredited institutions.

 

[BigRed]

How much worse can it really get? We are already on the down side of this.

Joe Biden said over 200,0000,0000 Americans have already been killed by Chinkflu. That only leaves another 130,000,0000 until all of us are dead.

 

[Phase2]

 

[drillsgt]

I think you're getting hung up on the nominal result, like it's the gospel... it's not. When they look at only the adherer's the nominal difference gets smaller between mask/non-mask but the confidence interval explodes even further open... indicating insufficient sample size:



The 50% reduction they were testing for is within the CI, so it cannot be ruled out... likewise a 0% reduction is within the CI so it cannot be ruled out either.

That's inconclusive either way because the size of the study was not large enough. Masking could have reduced infections by half (or more)... or it could have had no reduction (or even actually increased infections). We cannot tell from this study.

I'm getting hung up on the primary outcome of the study which is there was no difference between masks and no masks lol, sorry you don't like it. This study was adequately powered. If you think it's seriously flawed then I would fire off a letter to the Annals of Internal Medicine and get it pulled back lol.

 

[jamil]

This is a valid question and should be part of anyone's opinion-forming process IMO.

In my view, infectious disease outbreak is when a conflict of rights actually exists. People argue about other "rights" all the time like healthcare, or wear your seatbelt so you don't raise my insurance rates etc. But those are false. The connections made there are made by other institutions. We all have a right to decide our own personal risks and we don't have a right to expect others to take care of us .

The disease outbreak however, can mean one person is harming others by merely being present. And if you start arguing the person has a right to carry a deadly disease around and everyone else should stay home you are destroying any rational argument for allowing personal rights at all. One only need hypothesize something like the movie Contagion. The movie was fairly realistic except that you usually don't get a disease that is BOTH highly contagious and highly fatal. Covid19 isn't highly fatal in the traditional sense; it isn't killing 50% of those infected. But it's the presymptomatic spread and asymptomatic spread that makes it dangerous. It can really build in a society exponentially then you finally realize you have more sick people than you can care for.

But to go back to the question: take the presymptomatic spread of Covid, and add a 50% infection fatality rate, and are we still going to argue for everyone going about their business? If we then say "the scared stay home" we must expect with that, that almost every healthcare worker will simply quit. There will be no hospitals for sick people if hordes are walking in with a deadly disease, including some of the patients that come in for a broken leg.

Shutting things down harms people too. So where’s the line of equilibrium between safety and harm that the safety measures cause? Nowhere that justifies another shutdown, IMHO.

Here’s the reverse of the question. Give the worst imaginable infectious disease what violations of rights can’t be justified? Anything goes?

 

[JCSR]

I've had enough of the Covid crap.......

 

[jamil]

One other thing. I’m not advocating that there shouldn’t be any restrictions at all. Restrictions imposed should be justified, which includes proof that the measures work commensurate with the imposition. For example, I read that the bat **** crazy Australians banned exercising outdoors. Are they ****ing crazy? Yes. Yes they are. Lots of science out there saying that spreading the virus outdoors while maintaining social distance is extremely rare, especially when the sun is out. So in my way of thinking, they’d need some very solid science proving conclusively that such restrictions would achieve the reduction in cases they need before such restrictions could even make it past the authoritarian wet dream stage.

 

[foszoe]

One other thing. I’m not advocating that there shouldn’t be any restrictions at all. Restrictions imposed should be justified, which includes proof that the measures work commensurate with the imposition. .

Two things to your one other thing.

Many were willing to do what officials told them at first. The level of skepticism is so high now, whose research we to trust?

How long are we willing to wait for that research to rake place?

 

[jamil]

Two things to your one other thing.

Many were willing to do what officials told them at first. The level of skepticism is so high now, whose research we to trust?

How long are we willing to wait for that research to rake place?

Research isn’t always necessary. If government tells us we can’t leave our homes to be outside, including in our own yards, that’s crazy enough to tell them to **** all the way off. We can’t justify the sure harm just any old restriction will do on the whim that it might do something. Can’t exercise outside? It’s like people are just making up **** to put people through. No. Justify it. If they can’t. Then tell them to **** off!

 

[nonobaddog]

In Minnesota there have been 250,000 cases. 90,000 of those cases were people under 30 years old. Of those 90,000 cases the total number of deaths is SIX.
That is 0.0067%.

And I don't know if all six actually died from wuhu.

 

[nonobaddog]

Research isn’t always necessary. If government tells us we can’t leave our homes to be outside, including in our own yards, that’s crazy enough to tell them to **** all the way off. We can’t justify the sure harm just any old restriction will do on the whim that it might do something. Can’t exercise outside? It’s like people are just making up **** to put people through. No. Justify it. If they can’t. Then tell them to **** off!

Washington had a ban on all fishing and hunting. I don't think they ever even tried to justify that.

 

[jamil]

Washington had a ban on all fishing and hunting. I don't think they ever even tried to justify that.

That’s just nuts that people will just accept it. Pennsylvania is getting pretty ****ty too.

 

[foszoe]

Research isn’t always necessary. If government tells us we can’t leave our homes to be outside, including in our own yards, that’s crazy enough to tell them to **** all the way off. We can’t justify the sure harm just any old restriction will do on the whim that it might do something. Can’t exercise outside? It’s like people are just making up **** to put people through. No. Justify it. If they can’t. Then tell them to **** off!

I agree with your reply with the exception of being profanity laced, but with the tangential exception of the first sentence, it doesn't seem be a response to my post.

 

[Johnny C]

Govt " Let us help those poor people with socialism!"

 

[T.Lex]

I know how much INGO has missed my fun-with-numbers updates (sorry for the snark, CM).

But... something interesting will happen in the next few days.

So, when we think of epidemics/pandemics, the really bad stuff happens when there is exponential growth. That's a mathematical signal that things are out of control. One way to measure this is to figure how many days it takes for the numbers to double. The positive cases has been doing that, based partly on robust testing. My focus, the number of deaths, is a lagging indicator, but to me is more important. From mid-March to the end of March, the number of days for the number of deaths to double was going down. It was as low as 3 (almost 2) days for the total number of deaths to double. That indicates exponential growth in deaths at an accelerating rate.

Since March 29, though, the number of days for the number of deaths to double has been steadily increasing. In fact, it has never decreased since then. The current number of deaths is roughly double what the number of deaths was 145 days ago. Basically, the end of June. And, like I said, the number of days that it took to double has only increased since March 29. That's a good thing. (There has been an ebb and flow to the actual rate, but it has still been relatively linear.)

Based on the rolling averages and looking back to the numbers at the end of June, though, it looks like that number-of-days-to-double will drop to 144 in the next day or so. That, in and of itself, isn't a tragedy. It is just another indication that "control" of this is getting away from us.

I'm not going to try and predict what will happen. This may just be a statistical aberration for a day or so (which would be good). But, if the days-to-double continues to decrease, that will be a harbinger of more bad news.

 

[BugI02]

SDL, sorry and stay safe.

I think there is a misperception here because there are a handful of people who dominate this thread with their bias that the data is made up, and the various other versions of denial. Most of the sensible conversation just left because hearing the conspiracy theories and the "scandemic" just doesn't make for rational conversation

If you are interested, here is a twitter list of epidemiologists, virologists, critical care docs, and infectious disease specialists. Some of them tweet about politics more than I would like, but I ignore that. It's a decent place to get info as new research comes out.
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1248261818608431107

I also strongly recommend Michael Osterholm's weekly podcast "the Osterholm update". Osterholm has been correct on pretty much everything about the pandemic, and he agrees were in for a rough few weeks or months.

I know my friends who work in critical care are already suffering emotionally and I'm truly worried whether they can stay the course. Take care and hunker down if you can.

Respectfully, dusty, speaking for myself; if I have to accept as a starting point that this is super serious and there are dark times ahead in order to have that 'rational' conversation perhaps you can see where the bottleneck lies

Some of us have been in disagreement that this slightly more deadly, perhaps because of its novelty, respiratory disease is existential from the beginning. That the other side has gone from 'people are dying' to 'look at how cases are spiking' to 'people are dying' again - seemingly whatever can be played up the most at any given time - and has questioned studies that themselves have questioned the efficacy of masking, first as not specific enough and then as too specific, has just made the discussion seem like arguing with gun control advocates who know what they know and it can't be questioned. In order to have a 'rational' discussion, don't both parties positions have to be taken seriously and with an open mind? How willing are you to at least consider this is overblown?

Working from worldometers data, I can determine that my risk of serious case (total deaths/total cases) is 2.15/100, and my overall risk of catching it at all (total cases/total tests) is 6.88/100

My chances of both catching it and then having a serious case are the product of the two numbers, 14.8/10000 or less than 1 1/2 out of 1000, that's less than 1/20th my annual risk of developing cancer

 

[BugI02]

How is that a bias when they have been caught red-handed repeatedly?

Because if you disagree with one side's orthodoxy, then you're the one who's biased?

 

[BugI02]

Research isn’t always necessary. If government tells us we can’t leave our homes to be outside, including in our own yards, that’s crazy enough to tell them to **** all the way off. We can’t justify the sure harm just any old restriction will do on the whim that it might do something. Can’t exercise outside? It’s like people are just making up **** to put people through. No. Justify it. If they can’t. Then tell them to **** off!

I would also question the halo effect on restrictions. Restrictions get credit for any improvements they are adjacent to. There never seems to be any push to do the science to connect the two. If this pandemic were to follow the general shape of 1918, there would be two temporaly separated relatively short-lived spikes. If we impose a lockdown at the peak of the secondary spike, right as it begins to trend down, do you think studies will be made to determine whether lockdowns actually caused the tailing off of the spike or do you think lockdowns will just get the credit and remain in the toolkit whether they work or not?

 

[ditcherman]

SDL, sorry and stay safe.

I think there is a misperception here because there are a handful of people who dominate this thread with their bias that the data is made up, and the various other versions of denial. Most of the sensible conversation just left because hearing the conspiracy theories and the "scandemic" just doesn't make for rational conversation

If you are interested, here is a twitter list of epidemiologists, virologists, critical care docs, and infectious disease specialists. Some of them tweet about politics more than I would like, but I ignore that. It's a decent place to get info as new research comes out.
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1248261818608431107

I also strongly recommend Michael Osterholm's weekly podcast "the Osterholm update". Osterholm has been correct on pretty much everything about the pandemic, and he agrees were in for a rough few weeks or months.

I know my friends who work in critical care are already suffering emotionally and I'm truly worried whether they can stay the course. Take care and hunker down if you can.

Well said, as I wallow in my own bias.
I have certainly changed my mind in many ways from the early days of this.
It's not near as bad as we thought it might be early on. Yet. It might never get there, or it might.
I can definitely relate to your line "leaving the conversation...because a rational conversation can't be had". It can't be a scam if our critical care workers are breaking down, emotionally and physically, that just seems like some sort of proof. I know some that are worried if this goes on.
The cure for high prices is high prices, and the cure for this is for everyone to get it, that thinks that it is a hoax* or that they cannot possibly die from it, and then everyone that was worried about it will have their answer.
I know what the numbers say, that the death rate is nil. But something still doesn't seem right about letting it run it's course too fast.

*I used the word 'hoax' here reluctantly, as it seems to be CM's word of choice. This is not directed at you, CM, and is no way intended too raise your blood pressure at all. I'm not interested in swaying anyone at this point, and I don't think anyone here should reasonably expect anyone else to be swayed, at least in the short term. My opinion going from the early Smokingman's point of view some 20,000 posts ago moderated to what is is now has taken some time.
We are all allowed to change our minds, and we need to allow this to ourselves as well.
The truth is out there.
We are all more alike than we are different.
Blessings to all.

 

[HoughMade]

In 10 and 20 years when every medical and social science has studied this thing....there will be no consensus that a clear majority accepts about all the things we have been arguing about. There will be arguments about all of these controversial things long after we are all gone.

Whether objective facts are knowable that should​ lead to consensus is irrelevant.