Bad News Thread

Grace T. said:
Not cherry picking. Reasoning. New Zealand got hit very late and to their credit effectively shut down their borders (remember when Trump partially tried to do that....New Zealand even left its own citizens stranded overseas until they could set up quarantine centers to get people back home off island). South Korea has very different policy outcomes. What I'm trying to do is filter out the circumstances to compare masks to masks. Japan and the Phillipines are perfect....they have similar policies and similar mask usage, but a very different history of coronavirus exposure.

You just want to ignore everything that distrupts your image that something (anything) might work and might control it. And the harder someone tries to tear that blue pill out of your hand, the tighter you clutch at it, crying for dear life.
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Japan and Philippines might have a slightly different economy and culture.

There are people who do this for a living, you know. You might try listening to them. They have certain tricks. For example, they don't do paired country comparisons between rich elderly nations and impoverished youthful ones.
 
Desert Hound said:
Be careful where you fart ;)

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Can farts spread COVID-19? This Australian researcher claims so! - Times of India

If you thought farts could just stink, think again. A new body of research suggests that farts might be the newest form of transmission to spread the
timesofindia.indiatimes.com timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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There was a ‘albeit without clothes’ statement in the article, not sure how they adjusted for that... it is interesting nonetheless.

I’ve always thought that restrooms pose the greatest issue due to lack of ventilation in an enclosed space for open businesses (restaurants, gas stations, hotels, etc.) and avoid them, but if you can smell it, through a mask and the pants of she who dealt it... how can you not receive arisolized particles from former visitors to the restroom, even if it’s not the flatulence, but their presence in the same enclosed space?
 
dad4 said:
Japan and Philippines might have a slightly different economy and culture.

There are people who do this for a living, you know. You might try listening to them. They have certain tricks. For example, they don't do paired country comparisons between rich elderly nations and impoverished youthful ones.
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I'm one of them. Comps are one of my things. You are right there is a difference in culture but that's true of any country (in fact, it's part of your point....if your point is we should all have Asian culture good luck with that and you are culturally appropriating too as a bonus). You have a good point of the economics, but I can flip that around on you...my entire argument is Asia is different so you can't compare government policies there to those here.....oooopppppssss!!!!
 
Grace T. said:
I'm one of them. Comps are one of my things. You are right there is a difference in culture but that's true of any country (in fact, it's part of your point....if your point is we should all have Asian culture good luck with that and you are culturally appropriating too as a bonus). You have a good point of the economics, but I can flip that around on you...my entire argument is Asia is different so you can't compare government policies there to those here.....oooopppppssss!!!!
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I love our Melting Pot in da states. It's what makes our country so beautiful and unique and one I will help defend. The United States of America. One Nation under God. That's how it was started.
 
O.k. so here's a critique about the way to think about the metrics behind Newsom's order. The good thing is that its finally tied to an actual meaningful metric (which is ICU capacity). The bad news that ICUs never run empty. Hospitals don't sit around having ICU beds and staff free waiting there for people to come in because that would lose money. They do have "surge"capacity, but that capacity is limited because you can't suddenly retrain staff to do jobs overnight....you can take them from other areas of the hospital but you can't just go out into the streets and annoint people into nurses. And at this time of year, in Los Angeles at least, they run at least 80% staffed because people just get more sick (with a variety of ailments and not just respiratory diseases) in the winter. So it doesn't take an awful lot to capsize the boat. It's why in a typical bad flu season you'd see that surge capacity go into effect, and hospitals putting up tents in the parking lots. IHere's a good article in the local paper about why counting this metric is challenging. It also raises the question of the federal/state/local governments/hospitals knew this was coming months ago so why is it a problem all of a sudden now?

www.toacorn.com

State, county in talks over ICU benchmark

One of the six requirements for counties to get off the state’s COVID monitoring list and reopen is the ability to demonstrate that they have a sufficient number of intensive care unit beds for patients who need the most medical attention. As of last week, despite Ventura County never having...
www.toacorn.com www.toacorn.com
 
Grace T. said:
I'm one of them. Comps are one of my things. You are right there is a difference in culture but that's true of any country (in fact, it's part of your point....if your point is we should all have Asian culture good luck with that and you are culturally appropriating too as a bonus). You have a good point of the economics, but I can flip that around on you...my entire argument is Asia is different so you can't compare government policies there to those here.....oooopppppssss!!!!
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You’re one of them? Really?

Where is your epidemiology degree from? Which university or health department do you work for?

Send us links to some of your published papers.

Or, as was said before, Grace, you are not an epidemiologist.
 
A couple of comments from
dad4 said:
You’re one of them? Really?

Where is your epidemiology degree from? Which university or health department do you work for?

Send us links to some of your published papers.

Or, as was said before, Grace, you are not an epidemiologist.
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Reading comprehension. Your issue was about working with comps. I work with comps. I do it day in and day out. Epidemiologists do not work with comps. Comps are inexact tools for approximation, which is why their usefulness is limited. Which is why the argument "masks work in Asia" isn't very useful.
 
kickingandscreaming said:
Can any of these guys get out of their own way?
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I've defended Fauci and felt he has been operating in good faith, but now I'm beginning to wonder and leaning more to GraceT's opinion of him. Ultimately, that's on Trump. He should have taken Fauci to the woodshed privately (not on twitter) on his mixed messaging months ago. Fauci in front of Congress would always respond that's a political question and refuse to answer. Then he goes on the TV shows and gives opinions with political ramifications. Personally, I felt Birx was way more circumspect.
 
watfly said:
I've defended Fauci and felt he has been operating in good faith, but now I'm beginning to wonder and leaning more to GraceT's opinion of him. Ultimately, that's on Trump. He should have taken Fauci to the woodshed privately (not on twitter) on his mixed messaging months ago. Fauci in front of Congress would always respond that's a political question and refuse to answer. Then he goes on the TV shows and gives opinions with political ramifications. Personally, I felt Birx was way more circumspect.
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I liked Birx. She's also a pro lockdowner but is much more circumspect and careful than Fauci. I still think Fauci is pretty much operating on good faith. It's just he has a limited ability to view his biases (heavily towards his areas of expertise whether it's vaccines or purely the health numbers to the exclusion of other things) and I think it was kicking who said he's just a disaster on the PR aspect of his job.

It was Trump's fault for elevating him, yes. But as a career bureaucrat there is little Trump could do to fire him without setting off another constitutional crisis. It's been rumored he was close, but was pursuaded not to since it would backfire in the election. Fat lot it did him.
 
watfly said:
Fauci "mispeaks" again and has to walk back another opinion.

www.reuters.com

Fauci apologizes for casting doubt over UK's approval of Pfizer vaccine

Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, apologized on Thursday after casting doubt over the rigor of the British regulators who approved the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19 and said he had faith in their work.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
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I stopped trusting his opinions months ago. He seems to love the limelight this pandemic has given him. This along with his political leanings have clouded his judgement and created an ego he must feed each Sunday when he joins the morning shows and spouts off what he believes that week.
 
Grace T. said:
I liked Birx. She's also a pro lockdowner but is much more circumspect and careful than Fauci. I still think Fauci is pretty much operating on good faith. It's just he has a limited ability to view his biases (heavily towards his areas of expertise whether it's vaccines or purely the health numbers to the exclusion of other things) and I think it was kicking who said he's just a disaster on the PR aspect of his job.

It was Trump's fault for elevating him, yes. But as a career bureaucrat there is little Trump could do to fire him without setting off another constitutional crisis. It's been rumored he was close, but was pursuaded not to since it would backfire in the election. Fat lot it did him.
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She was pro lockdown but on a micro level. I can't recall the term she used for it, but it was on an individual county by county basis. I don't remember her making broad sweeping generalizations like Fauci does.
 
watfly said:
She was pro lockdown but on a micro level. I can't recall the term she used for it, but it was on an individual county by county basis. I don't remember her making broad sweeping generalizations like Fauci does.
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Biden isn't exactly off to a rip roaring start in my book. Yesterday, he said that Fauci has been offered the chief medical advisor role. He also came out for a 100 day mask policy. He should know better than that after 2 weeks to slow the spread. If it actually works, he might be forced to extend it and by saying really forcefully he really promises only 100 days he's backed himself into a corner. But more likely (given Europe) it doesn't work and he's embarassed or has to turn around and blame people. Regardless, there isn't any science behind the 100 in 100 days and it's basically a sales slogan (he's probably hoping to catch the drop due to vaccine distribution and declare his policy a victory). Then there was his statement that schools should reopen, but it will cost billions of dollars to retrofit them all with new ventilation systems (so assuming he'd get the money, they'd do this over the summer or something so Fall 2021 for school reopenings).

I'm not exactly disappointed though or saying he's done. None of the other democratic leaders around the world (whether left or right) have done much better.
 
Grace T. said:
A couple of comments from


Reading comprehension. Your issue was about working with comps. I work with comps. I do it day in and day out. Epidemiologists do not work with comps. Comps are inexact tools for approximation, which is why their usefulness is limited. Which is why the argument "masks work in Asia" isn't very useful.
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You said you are ”one of them“. “Them“, in this context, means people who forecast epidemics and epidemic control measures for a living.

It does not mean anyone who does comparisons.

You, on this board, have demonstrated a level of mathmatical sophistication roughly at a high school pre-calculus level.

Before you are qualified to do “comps“ of this sort, you need stats, biostats, multivariate calc, differential equations, non linear differential equations, and at least two classes in biological dynamical systems.

Then, and only then, will you be even remotely qualified to do a “comp” of the kind you are trying to do.
 
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