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On March 04 2021 06:21 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2021 23:48 TheTenthDoc wrote:On March 03 2021 14:39 BlackJack wrote:The experts will get crucified if they recommend reopening too early and face zero consequence if they recommend reopening later than "safely" possible. Anyone can see how that can lead to bias. My home state is Florida. Experts warned against the crowded beaches last spring, they warned against the state reopening too early last May, they warned against the reopening of the schools, they warned against the reopening of the theme parks, they warned against the reopening of the bars/clubs, they warned against the superbowl parties. Meanwhile Florida did all of those things and never descended into chaos and now their schmuckface governor has one of the highest approval ratings. The reason they'll be crucified is because they'd be recommending taking 0 precautions with a baseline detected case load thousands of times higher than what states were seeing last March. It's bad public health based on all available evidence. Their goal isn't "stop us from descending into chaos" it's "prevent death and illness in the community." Like the hundreds of Floridians who died every day during the summer starting about eight weeks after the May reopening...funny how that works. All or none reopening is a terrible way to try to deal with COVID. "Our numbers are steady so let's reopen" is a terrible way to deal with COVID. Right. The goal of the public health experts is to prevent as much death and illness in the community as possible. Any amount of reopening is going to inherently lead to more death and illness. So it behooves any public health expert to take the position advising against reopening. My point is that the preferred goal should not be to prevent as much death and illness as possible but to open as much as possible without the hospitals being overrun.
If you’re legitimately suggesting that public health experts do not weigh material/economic/societal consequences when devising and implementing policy, you have no idea what you’re talking about whatsoever.
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On March 04 2021 06:21 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2021 23:48 TheTenthDoc wrote:On March 03 2021 14:39 BlackJack wrote:The experts will get crucified if they recommend reopening too early and face zero consequence if they recommend reopening later than "safely" possible. Anyone can see how that can lead to bias. My home state is Florida. Experts warned against the crowded beaches last spring, they warned against the state reopening too early last May, they warned against the reopening of the schools, they warned against the reopening of the theme parks, they warned against the reopening of the bars/clubs, they warned against the superbowl parties. Meanwhile Florida did all of those things and never descended into chaos and now their schmuckface governor has one of the highest approval ratings. The reason they'll be crucified is because they'd be recommending taking 0 precautions with a baseline detected case load thousands of times higher than what states were seeing last March. It's bad public health based on all available evidence. Their goal isn't "stop us from descending into chaos" it's "prevent death and illness in the community." Like the hundreds of Floridians who died every day during the summer starting about eight weeks after the May reopening...funny how that works. All or none reopening is a terrible way to try to deal with COVID. "Our numbers are steady so let's reopen" is a terrible way to deal with COVID. Right. The goal of the public health experts is to prevent as much death and illness in the community as possible. Any amount of reopening is going to inherently lead to more death and illness. So it behooves any public health expert to take the position advising against reopening. My point is that the preferred goal should not be to prevent as much death and illness as possible but to open as much as possible without the hospitals being overrun.
There are other serious health issues than covid-19, mind you, and some of them are being caused by the measures themselves, the most obvious being that less people are screened for cancer, but it is also very unhealthy to be unempolyed for example. On top of that, you can not expect HC-experts to argue much for other horrible side-effects of the measures, split families, crippled social life, entire industires in ruins etc.
There has to be a balance act of conflicting interrests, and there is no absolute truth. I feel we should try to stop tunnel-visioning on covid-19 numbers and rather put them into context. As many as covid-19 has killed so far, COPD killed even more in 2019 alone, and nobody rised an eyebrow.
Yes, not overloading the hospitals should be the main, if not the only concern IMO.
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On March 04 2021 06:39 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2021 06:21 BlackJack wrote:On March 03 2021 23:48 TheTenthDoc wrote:On March 03 2021 14:39 BlackJack wrote:The experts will get crucified if they recommend reopening too early and face zero consequence if they recommend reopening later than "safely" possible. Anyone can see how that can lead to bias. My home state is Florida. Experts warned against the crowded beaches last spring, they warned against the state reopening too early last May, they warned against the reopening of the schools, they warned against the reopening of the theme parks, they warned against the reopening of the bars/clubs, they warned against the superbowl parties. Meanwhile Florida did all of those things and never descended into chaos and now their schmuckface governor has one of the highest approval ratings. The reason they'll be crucified is because they'd be recommending taking 0 precautions with a baseline detected case load thousands of times higher than what states were seeing last March. It's bad public health based on all available evidence. Their goal isn't "stop us from descending into chaos" it's "prevent death and illness in the community." Like the hundreds of Floridians who died every day during the summer starting about eight weeks after the May reopening...funny how that works. All or none reopening is a terrible way to try to deal with COVID. "Our numbers are steady so let's reopen" is a terrible way to deal with COVID. Right. The goal of the public health experts is to prevent as much death and illness in the community as possible. Any amount of reopening is going to inherently lead to more death and illness. So it behooves any public health expert to take the position advising against reopening. My point is that the preferred goal should not be to prevent as much death and illness as possible but to open as much as possible without the hospitals being overrun. If you’re legitimately suggesting that public health experts do not weigh material/economic/societal consequences when devising and implementing policy, you have no idea what you’re talking about whatsoever.
As I alluded to previously, the issue is not that they don't also care about the economic consequences, it's that they have no skin in the game when it comes to the economy. They are always going to take the most conservative approach regarding reopening because their priority is health and safety and not making sure people can make a living.
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On March 04 2021 06:49 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2021 06:21 BlackJack wrote:On March 03 2021 23:48 TheTenthDoc wrote:On March 03 2021 14:39 BlackJack wrote:The experts will get crucified if they recommend reopening too early and face zero consequence if they recommend reopening later than "safely" possible. Anyone can see how that can lead to bias. My home state is Florida. Experts warned against the crowded beaches last spring, they warned against the state reopening too early last May, they warned against the reopening of the schools, they warned against the reopening of the theme parks, they warned against the reopening of the bars/clubs, they warned against the superbowl parties. Meanwhile Florida did all of those things and never descended into chaos and now their schmuckface governor has one of the highest approval ratings. The reason they'll be crucified is because they'd be recommending taking 0 precautions with a baseline detected case load thousands of times higher than what states were seeing last March. It's bad public health based on all available evidence. Their goal isn't "stop us from descending into chaos" it's "prevent death and illness in the community." Like the hundreds of Floridians who died every day during the summer starting about eight weeks after the May reopening...funny how that works. All or none reopening is a terrible way to try to deal with COVID. "Our numbers are steady so let's reopen" is a terrible way to deal with COVID. Right. The goal of the public health experts is to prevent as much death and illness in the community as possible. Any amount of reopening is going to inherently lead to more death and illness. So it behooves any public health expert to take the position advising against reopening. My point is that the preferred goal should not be to prevent as much death and illness as possible but to open as much as possible without the hospitals being overrun. There are other serious health issues than covid-19, mind you, and some of them are being caused by the measures themselves, the most obvious being that less people are screened for cancer, but it is also very unhealthy to be unempolyed for example. On top of that, you can not expect HC-experts to argue much for other horrible side-effects of the measures, split families, crippled social life, entire industires in ruins etc. There has to be a balance act of conflicting interrests, and there is no absolute truth. I feel we should try to stop tunnel-visioning on covid-19 numbers and rather put them into context. As many as covid-19 has killed so far, COPD killed even more in 2019 alone, and nobody rised an eyebrow. Yes, not overloading the hospitals should be the main, if not the only concern IMO.
Yes, it's a balance of conflicting interests. The idea is to do the most good for the greatest number of people. People rarely consider the excess mortality that comes from unemployment from the reasons you mentioned. The number is likely in the tens of thousands over the past year and I've seen estimates in the millions over the next 15-20 years since the economic downturn will likely continue. Minorities will be harder hit. Women will be harder hit. Working age adults will be harder hit. All things that are important to consider.
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Reopening isn't going to make the economy suddenly improve in Texas. The largest white collar employers there aren't going to undo their restrictions, because if they did they'd suddenly lose hundreds of employees. This measure is just going to harm the poor in the state who can't afford to refuse unsafe measures.
This is triply true for removal of the mask mandate, as it has almost no economic considerations really either way (masks are super cheap now and easy enough to make on your own).
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Why is our benchmark "overloaded hospitals?" What is the cosmic significance to that value, rather than "moderately or severely ill Americans?" When we had no vaccine, and virtually no treatment, we wanted to prevent that overload. But our goals in fighting an illness can actually change over time. It's like how if an AIDS vaccine came out, we would change our evaluation of ideal state-level AIDS policy from "providing support for needle exchanges, PREP, and costly treatment support" to additionally "effectively disseminating the vaccine."
Moreover, even if one believes public health officials will always advise against reopening (they won't, and many have signaled as such in the context of vaccine benchmarks they view as acceptable which Texas is ranking terribly in thanks to the mega storm), the solution is not to ignore public health experts in favor of your political gut. It's to incorporate the information they give into your decision-making alongside experts with contradictory priorities. Did Abbot even signal any econ advisors supporting him on this?
As Jimmi mentions, there's a reason Abbot talks a big talk about lifting the mask mandate. And it's not because it's going to have important economic effects. It's not as though anything changed in Texas triggering it to be okay to open; they haven't even started vaccinating front-line workers, the ones who are literally going to be breathed on the most.
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I honestely don't get that. I would rather open more stuff but keep masks in place as long and as often as possible.
Like for most leisure activities masks are really not a problem. Shopping? Wear a mask. Cinema? Mask
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On March 04 2021 18:41 Harris1st wrote:
I honestely don't get that. I would rather open more stuff but keep masks in place as long and as often as possible.
Like for most leisure activities masks are really not a problem. Shopping? Wear a mask. Cinema? Mask Because its not about logic.
Republicans are against masks, getting rid of masks is strictly to appeal to a specific demographic and has nothing to do with what is logical or correct.
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Exactly. Masks are a symbol here. It is the same thing with the Brexit, where for inexplicable reasons for sane people, fishers were incredibly important.
Getting rid of masks is a way how republicans can show that they are still winning, because they defeat the evil democrats for whom wearing masks is important. At no point is the question of whether a mask is a good idea or not ever come into the decision.
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Please remember that masks are a political symbol for the Democrats as well, and they should not be. That Texas is opening everything, which includes nightlife and packed mass events, but that he still focusses on masks is pretty telling, and frankly embarrassing.
That being said, Biden has actually been fairly reasonable with them, focussing on indoor activities and public transport where they can make the most difference, but I still miss focus on using them correctly.
Mask mandates are very far from a magic, cheap button you can press to get rid of large numbers of infections and compensate for lifting other measures, though. Look at Spain for proof...
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On March 04 2021 09:40 JimmiC wrote:
The big piece you continue to miss is it is not a one to one relationship with health vs economy. The two are completely intertwined.
Also, what makes the Texas decision obviously purely political is timing, that masks have nothing to do with economy (the getting rid of them is just virtue signaling at the cost of health and economy), and that they immediately went to 100% without any talk about the methodology because there was not any.
Of course it's political. They need to distract people from the fact that they couldn't keep the lights on. Also masks are at best helpful and at worst harmless. There's no chance they do more harm than good and a great chance they do more good than harm, so lifting the mask mandate is purely for political reasons and I'm sure many will die from it
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Obviously. But i think we can pretty exactly blame republicans for making masks political. If they didn't start with the silly anti-mask bullshit, we wouldn't even be talking about this. Sure masks are not magical, but they are a simple, low impact way of reducing some infections with barely any downsides. It is utterly absurd that this is a political thing, and if republicans didn't randomly decide that they hate them, we could deal with them in a sane way. But now instead of having discussions on when masks are useful and when not, and how to best use them, we need to fight the insane republican plan of:
1) Remove all regulations and mask mandates
2) ???
3) Corona is no longer a problem.
This is obviously a lot of time and effort which would be much better spend on figuring out how to best combat a pandemic. But sadly, republicans decided that a fight about the most basic anti-pandemic measures is what the country really needs.
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On March 04 2021 12:26 TheTenthDoc wrote:
Why is our benchmark "overloaded hospitals?" What is the cosmic significance to that value, rather than "moderately or severely ill Americans?" When we had no vaccine, and virtually no treatment, we wanted to prevent that overload. But our goals in fighting an illness can actually change over time. It's like how if an AIDS vaccine came out, we would change our evaluation of ideal state-level AIDS policy from "providing support for needle exchanges, PREP, and costly treatment support" to additionally "effectively disseminating the vaccine."
Moreover, even if one believes public health officials will always advise against reopening (they won't, and many have signaled as such in the context of vaccine benchmarks they view as acceptable which Texas is ranking terribly in thanks to the mega storm), the solution is not to ignore public health experts in favor of your political gut. It's to incorporate the information they give into your decision-making alongside experts with contradictory priorities. Did Abbot even signal any econ advisors supporting him on this?
As Jimmi mentions, there's a reason Abbot talks a big talk about lifting the mask mandate. And it's not because it's going to have important economic effects. It's not as though anything changed in Texas triggering it to be okay to open; they haven't even started vaccinating front-line workers, the ones who are literally going to be breathed on the most.
I think overloaded hospitals is a fantastic benchmark to use. The problem with overloaded hospitals is that exponentially more people can die if they can't access healthcare so it's obviously something that should be avoided.
Why not change the benchmark to prevent more sick/dying Americans as opposed to just making sure the hospitals aren't overloaded? Well if we wanted to do that we could have been doing that for decades and decades every year during flu season. We've had hardly any flu deaths this year. This season we've had only a single pediatric flu death and last season we had almost 200, about the same as all the pediatrics that have died from COVID in all of the last 12 months. We could potentially save tens of thousands of lives every year if we implemented some measures every winter such as banning large gatherings/concerts/sports/theaters, ban indoor dining, close businesses to 50% capacity, etc. Is this something you have advocated for in the past or plan to advocate for every flu season from now on?
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Its halarious that people say that its about hospitals not being over capacity with how much lead time we know about how long before surges manifest after lifting restrictions and how long they stay after you put them back.
Like I'd be happy to take the position that we need to see the timetable for states to open up of restrictions vs ammount of the state vaccinated. I think after old people and health workers are vaccinated things should definitely lossen.
Opening day for ballbase is coming April 1st. Would it be the perfect moment for "opening day of America"? Yes. But I don't think that we'll really be there yet.
I'm going to bet I'll go to a ballgame on June 1st or I'll be really pissed. At who we will see
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Zurich15361 Posts
Germany is surely developing from exemplary success story in handling the pandemic to cautionary tale.
As of today, Germany has essentially given up, and will now live with Covid and I suppose hope for the best and a warm Spring.
Starting this week Germany will be gradually opening up after a 4 month lockdown. This comes as infections number have been steadily climbing for the past 2 weeks, after a hard lockdown had brought them down from a high in December. Germany is opening up now on a level of infections that is still higher than the original outbreak in March 2020, and rising. Only the very very old have been vaccinated so far, otherwise vaccination is a complete disaster, with large groups of vulnerable and essential people looking at months until more vaccines are shipped.
But reality is simply that society can't endure this lockdown any longer, and the administration has finally capitulated. We can only hope that warm weather, more vaccinations, and sensible personal behavior will keep infections on a level that society can live with.
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As I said a year ago - there aren't going to be a lot of countries that are going to be a "success story" when all is said and done. The coronavirus has a lot more endurance than the people who live in infected countries, no doubt about it. Almost every country that did an exemplary job handling it at first eventually faltered. A few did hold out this far, to be fair, but now we're down to only a handful.
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Collection of the some of the most recent insight into the efficacy of mask mandates.
There's still no definitive conclusion, with the most careful estimate saying the mandates have been roughly 18% effective. It's becoming very clear that masks only show a clear effect if they're of high quality, i.e. FFP2 or better, while face shields show no effect at all (unsurprisingly I'd say). I always suspected that surgical masks are not sufficiently protective to show significant results (for general use), but now finally we are starting to have enough data to prove it.
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/scicheck-the-evolving-science-of-face-masks-and-covid-19/
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On March 05 2021 02:12 LegalLord wrote:
As I said a year ago - there aren't going to be a lot of countries that are going to be a "success story" when all is said and done. The coronavirus has a lot more endurance than the people who live in infected countries, no doubt about it. Almost every country that did an exemplary job handling it at first eventually faltered. A few did hold out this far, to be fair, but now we're down to only a handful.
Depends on the context of how you measure success. Compared to New Zealand, sure, we are all failures. But compared historically to other pandemics? So far 2-3 million have died globally. Less than 0.05% of all people. That's a blip compared to any other pandemic not just in history but even compared to modern diseases such as malaria, AIDS, TB, that have killed millions more over the years. The ceiling for COVID deaths if left completeltly unrestrained with zero interventions would surely be in the tens of millions. We are at a small fraction of that.
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On March 05 2021 05:23 Magic Powers wrote:Collection of the some of the most recent insight into the efficacy of mask mandates. There's still no definitive conclusion, with the most careful estimate saying the mandates have been roughly 18% effective. It's becoming very clear that masks only show a clear effect if they're of high quality, i.e. FFP2 or better, while face shields show no effect at all (unsurprisingly I'd say). I always suspected that surgical masks are not sufficiently protective to show significant results (for general use), but now finally we are starting to have enough data to prove it. https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/scicheck-the-evolving-science-of-face-masks-and-covid-19/
That 18% number isn’t the effectiveness of a mask mandates. It’s, at best, the protection a mask provides for the person wearing a mask in a place where others don’t. As pointed out in the discussion of the paper, there’s no measurement of the effect of mask wearing on the rate of infecting others, and there’s no measurement on the rate of spread between groups where everyone wore masks vs groups where no one wore masks. Those would both be impactful on determining the actual impact of mask mandates. That said, if I’m 18% safer just by wearing a mask, seems like a no brainer for me...
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EPT
