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On January 21 2021 00:22 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2021 17:18 BlackJack wrote:no need to talk about it anymore. the election is over lol Also fortunately in some places it should get better over the winter. North Dakota was probably worst in the country in deaths per million a couple months ago and now they didn't seem to get any sort of Holiday surge from Thanksgiving/Christmas. Pretty much everyone there got it already. California is probably the worst now over the last 60 days and I suspect that we are close to peaking or may have already peaked in California and will now see a downtrend in cases/deaths over the coming months. If we can ride that downtrend into vaccine immunity maybe we can be back to some semblance of a normal life by Summer. Covid is not political, the problem is that too many people think it is. Your second paragraph is pure fantasy, there is still tons of people who have not got it yet. It is strange to me that you just think things and then post them like facts. The only reason California is not climbing is their harsh measures, they also have new variant that is more infectious so even with them it is dropping as fast as it would have before, and for all we know it might climb. At current pace more people will die this year than last even with the vaccine. It would be really helpful if you posted something other than just your assumptions, an article, some stats anything.
It's unfortunate that you don't realize this post you just made also contains assumptions without any articles or stats to back them up. Pot, meet kettle.
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On January 21 2021 03:48 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2021 03:37 Slydie wrote:Covid is not political, the problem is that too many people think it is. How can do say that? Every part of dealing with Covid is political, and a healthy political discussion is very important. Politicians need to be held accountable for both doing too little, too much and the wrong things. Medical experts are generally not calling the shots, and they often strongly disagree amongst themselves. How we deal with Covid is political, the virus is not it exists whether Trump or Biden is charge. Saying to stop talking about horrible it is going in the US because there is a change at the top is ignorant and that was what I was responding too.
Just to be clear, nobody here said that.
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I can see how my post about the election is vague so let me clarify by saying that I was being facetious which is why I ended the statement with "lol." A lot of people were using the pandemic as a political tool to help get the orange guy out. Now that he is out there is "no need" for those people to keep talking about it hence why they aren't talking about it as much. That's not to say that it shouldn't be talked about.
It is possible for COVID cases to subside without it burning through the entire population. If it weren't possible we wouldn't be getting these "waves" of cases. There would be only 1 wave which would have kept growing until it killed everyone it was going to and then it would be over. That would have happened last spring.
https://www.kcra.com/article/california-covid-19-update-jan-19/35254716
California is "starting to see the decline" in new cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations have stabilized and are "declining somewhat," the state's top health official said on Tuesday.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said during a video conference that the current number of hospitalizations, 20, 263, is down 8.5% over the past two weeks. Admissions at hospital intensive care units are down 2.8% over the past week, he said.
COVID-19 test positivity rates, another key indicator tracked by health officials, have come down to 11.6% for the past two weeks from 12.7% earlier in January.
So my assumption that California is cresting the surge and will be on the downtrend is based on the fact that basically every single metric on COVID is currently trending down whereas your assumption that we haven't crested and it will keep getting worse is based on not much more than the fact that California has a lot of people living there.
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On January 21 2021 06:45 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2021 06:31 BlackJack wrote:I can see how my post about the election is vague so let me clarify by saying that I was being facetious which is why I ended the statement with "lol." A lot of people were using the pandemic as a political tool to help get the orange guy out. Now that he is out there is "no need" for those people to keep talking about it hence why they aren't talking about it as much. That's not to say that it shouldn't be talked about. It is possible for COVID cases to subside without it burning through the entire population. If it weren't possible we wouldn't be getting these "waves" of cases. There would be only 1 wave which would have kept growing until it killed everyone it was going to and then it would be over. That would have happened last spring. https://www.kcra.com/article/california-covid-19-update-jan-19/35254716California is "starting to see the decline" in new cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations have stabilized and are "declining somewhat," the state's top health official said on Tuesday.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said during a video conference that the current number of hospitalizations, 20, 263, is down 8.5% over the past two weeks. Admissions at hospital intensive care units are down 2.8% over the past week, he said.
COVID-19 test positivity rates, another key indicator tracked by health officials, have come down to 11.6% for the past two weeks from 12.7% earlier in January. So my assumption that California is cresting the surge and will be on the downtrend is based on the fact that basically every single metric on COVID is currently trending down whereas your assumption that we haven't crested and it will keep getting worse is based on not much more than the fact that California has a lot of people living there. You seem to be ignoring what caused each wave to subside, which is measures. You can't just ignore all those. You can track it by no measures cases go up, measures if low will slow and then harsh measures will bring it down. https://covid19.ca.gov/Herd immunity is still a long way away, that is why the vaccine and rollout is so important.
Who is ignoring it? Some of the harshest measures of the whole pandemic are in place right now in California. Indoor dining, outdoor dining, gyms, theaters, arcades, salons, etc. have all been shut down for weeks. If that leads to downtrends then you're just contributing to my argument so thanks for that.
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On January 20 2021 13:08 JimmiC wrote:
And it us likely to get worse over the winter, 100k deaths in just 5 weeks when it took almost all of 2020 to get to 300k.
Merely a day after your prediction that it is going to get worse over the winter and then criticizing my prediction that things would get better over the winter as "pure fantasy" the experts have weighed in:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/21/958870301/the-current-deadly-u-s-coronavirus-surge-has-peaked-researchers-say
Current, Deadly U.S. Coronavirus Surge Has Peaked, Researchers Say
"Yes, we have peaked in terms of cases," says Ali Mokdad, who has been tracking the pandemic at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. "We are coming down, slowly. This is very good news — very good news."
"Based on current trends, the worst appears to be over," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "We are headed to a better place."
Mokdad estimates actual infections peaked around Jan. 16 based on his team's estimates, which include people who were likely infected but didn't get tested.
It seems like the experts agree with my take
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Cases have peaked, deaths lags by about few weeks, so we'll see high numbers of deaths continue well into February, even if USA literally stopped getting infected tomorrow.
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It's really pathetic to watch you try to shift the goal posts everytime you are proven wrong. You said the winter was going to get worse. Full stop. Now that the experts say the opposite you want to add some stipulations that didn't exist when you made the statement.
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
I would assume the worst is only over there if we keep going vaguely how we are going. Perhaps even longer than would be strictly necessary.
At least over here every relaxation precipitates another spike reasonably shortly thereafter. Then another lockdown and relaxation cycle and we’ve been through quite a few already.
What’s interesting is there’s usually blame assigned to some factor or another, I’ve seen no concrete data around what activities or relaxation/rigidity of rules has a causal link to infection rates.
I’m sure it exists somewhere in the ether, would be interesting to see. I’m really no fan of intrusive surveillance measures, a lot of guesswork and approximations and unnecessary arbitrary restrictions could be alleviated if whatever the next pandemic is harnesses even our current smart phones more intrusively.
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On January 22 2021 10:36 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2021 10:12 WombaT wrote:
I would assume the worst is only over there if we keep going vaguely how we are going. Perhaps even longer than would be strictly necessary.
At least over here every relaxation precipitates another spike reasonably shortly thereafter. Then another lockdown and relaxation cycle and we’ve been through quite a few already.
What’s interesting is there’s usually blame assigned to some factor or another, I’ve seen no concrete data around what activities or relaxation/rigidity of rules has a causal link to infection rates.
I’m sure it exists somewhere in the ether, would be interesting to see. I’m really no fan of intrusive surveillance measures, a lot of guesswork and approximations and unnecessary arbitrary restrictions could be alleviated if whatever the next pandemic is harnesses even our current smart phones more intrusively. What do you want to see? Basically every place has had the cases go up and up until measures are in place and then they go down after then the process repeats, this is the waves. Here is a quote from Blackjacks article. Show nested quote +Often what we see is a sort of cyclical pattern where things worsen and so people stay home more. They are more vigilant about wearing masks. They skip the restaurants or the get-togethers," Rivers says. "But as things improve people relax a little bit and incorporate some of those risky behaviors again and things can again accelerate."
Well basically what you say, just stick to the harsher measures for a longer period, this wax/wane thing isn’t exactly effective but I also feel it crushes morale and adherence the longer it goes on as well, which brings further problems in terms of spread.
Perhaps this wasn’t doable in the summer but now, with multiple vaccines being administered etc?
The bolded point is more in relation to the seemingly ad hoc basis, or weighted for other concerns method of restricting or lifting restrictions has been, with little in the way of pure empirical data to back it all up. It’s mostly supposition, oh the rates have spiked it must have been students partying and what have you.
Perhaps the mechanisms to arrive at definitive conclusions aren’t accessible (we probably could via a real invasive Covid app), but it feels like decisions in this domain don’t make a huge amount of sense, at least here if we’re talking about optimal policy.
If you don’t belong to a Church right now there are no other social avenues open outside of meeting outside (it’s fucking freezing) or going to visit friends’ dwellings. Which is against the rules outside of one anointed household, but of course people will go do that.
Likewise working in retail people are cramming in in groups to have some kind of social outing in their week, and with nothing else open there’s a lot of contact between lots of otherwise disconnected people.
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I don't know why people feel the need to make predictions and justify their predictions. Of course a total lockdown with full mask-wearing and social-distancing compliance (e.g. China) will bring infections down. Of course such measures work well in remote far-flung countries (e.g. NZ and Australia). Of course every country can do the same - but at what cost?
Some countries just can't afford to impose such extreme measures (even assuming that they are perfect) - such as developed countries with economies with complex supply chains, and developing countries struggling to survive.
Most people are just bringing out medical facts - which are well and good. But 'public health' is wider than 'medicine' - and encompasses socio-economic variables. That's why WHO has been rather hesitant with making travel restriction advisories (past practice has shown how they can be counterproductive due to poor execution and unintended consequences). Point is, there's no easy way out for many communities, rich or poor. Every community is different, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution.
I'm not happy with how my own government is dealing with the pandemic, and how politicised the whole matter has become. But I understand that there's no 'one right answer' either. So I can't say for sure myself what the government could have done better, given all the complexities at hand. Arguing in hindsight that the government, for instance, could've initiated lockdown 1-2 weeks earlier to save XXX lives is just... speculative and pointless.
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Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a typical fallacy that should certainly be avoided in both science and policy, at least when the data is insufficient to draw definitive conclusions. Outcome of policy A vs policy B, outcome of policy X vs no policy, etc. There's a lot of speculation because no control group exists for any single country or region. This is why I'm so fixated on undeniable data and I reject speculation when it comes to mandates.
It's undeniable that the proximity and volume of socialization is directly correlated to infection rates. Ergo it can be expected - given that social distancing is not already at 100% - that social distancing as well as any measure (like lockdowns and quarantines) that result in social distancing will reduce the infection rate. To what degree is unknown, and likely varies from one region to the next depending on various factors (ranging from geography all the way to diet), some of which may be unknown or speculative.
It's undeniable that each flu season increases the infection rate for covid-19. During that most dangerous timeframe the admission rates are expected to rise drastically, which in regards to covid-19 can result in a breakdown of the healthcare sector. Ergo to support that sector it's paramount to reduce active infections to ideally below the maximum tolerable level. The debate on this cannot be whether or not lockdowns work - because they undeniably do. If any debate makes sense it would be about if there are better alternatives to a nationwide lockdown - and those arguments should follow an equal or better standard on the side supporting alternatives, and not a worse one.
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EPT
