Bad News Thread

When you look at CA/FL, remember to look at socal and norcal separately.

Most of the deaths in CA were in LA, OC, Riv, and San Bernadino. For those four counties, you have 38,800 deaths out of 18 million residents. 2150 deaths per million. That is worse than Florida, and close to South Dakota.

For the entire rest of the state, you have 24,500 deaths out of a population of 22 million. 1,100 deaths per million. Considerably better than Florida, and similar to Colorado.

The question then becomes not “why did CA policies fail?”, but “what went wrong in socal?”.
I’ll take relative distance to the Mexico border for 500 Alex!
 
In the face of growing concerns about myocarditis, last week the CDC posted a statement saying it “continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 12 years of age and older. The known and potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis.”


Also: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/myocarditis.html
Except for the FACT that last summer lockdowners were using myocarditis as a reason for our kids NOT to return to outdoor sports because of the risk…..again, selective use of science.
 
It's funny. You are down to the variant was confined to La County.

And if you accept that Newsom may have been a variable, you may as well be open to putting it on the LA Board of Supervisors for their really long lockdowns (we know lockdown fatigue is a thing) and their shutting of outdoor dining.

Why was LA the only place with lockdown fatigue? We closed dining, too.

It may be that there was a cultural difference in when different people gave in to lockdown fatigue. But the lockdown itself was largely the same.

Besides, that sounds dangerously close to norcal smugness. “ Those weak souls in LA crumbled in fatigue, while we northerners endured with grace and dignity. If only those Dodgers fans were as mentally strong as the stalwart residents of Oakland.”.

Are you sure that’s the argument you want?
 
Yes. I mentioned this before, but as you all know I don't fear repeating myself. There is going to be a population of students who thrive when they can go at their own pace and don't miss the social aspect of school as well as families that appreciate the flexibility. If I had to guess, the COVID experience will act to skim a bit of the academic cream off the top of public schools.
(If we didn't repeat ourselves, we'd have nothing to say.) California students have been particularly disadvantaged as compared to students from other states. One of many issues is in regards to college admissions for this year's Seniors.

Despite my whining about the impacts of the Covid restrictions, most are "first world" problems for my family. Nothing really more than inconveniences. I'd even go so far as to say that we adapted and thrived at times during the pandemic, but we had the ability to do so.

However, the less fortunate took the brunt of both the virus and the restrictions. The short term impacts have been devastating to some. The long term impacts to our community as a whole are unknown, but potentially disastrous.
 
Nope. San Diego is closer, and they have a far lower death rate.

Besides, Texas is also kicking your ass. They’re close to Mexico, too.

Next try.
Aren't you in Santa Clara County? While a per capital death rate shouldn't ever be considered a good thing, SD County rate is nearly identical to Santa Clara's. We at least did better than LA.
 
Why was LA the only place with lockdown fatigue? We closed dining, too.

It may be that there was a cultural difference in when different people gave in to lockdown fatigue. But the lockdown itself was largely the same.

Besides, that sounds dangerously close to norcal smugness. “ Those weak souls in LA crumbled in fatigue, while we northerners endured with grace and dignity. If only those Dodgers fans were as mentally strong as the stalwart residents of Oakland.”.

Are you sure that’s the argument you want?

Or it could be the virus viruses based in part on density and latitude, but otherwise operates kind of like food coloring sloshing in a wave pool....it would all be very random so you wouldn't like that at all.
 
Aren't you in Santa Clara County? While a per capital death rate shouldn't ever be considered a good thing, SD County rate is nearly identical to Santa Clara's. We at least did better than LA.
That’s just the thing. If you grew up as a Chargers and Padres fan, then you know something about enduring hardship and were prepared for the rigors of quarantine. Same thing for Raiders and As fans.

Those weak-willed Lakers and Dodgers fans never stood a chance. They crumbled under pressure and gave in to covid fatigue.

:p
 
"We have stolen nearly two years of the most energetic and productive time in our children’s lives for a virus that 99% of people will survive and ostensibly 100% of children who contract it will survive. This virus has been no threat to youth (yes, I understand there are exceptions to every rule but in a country of 330 million, 100 to 200 deaths -while certainly heart wrenching- is statistically zero)."
 
That’s just the thing. If you grew up as a Chargers and Padres fan, then you know something about enduring hardship and were prepared for the rigors of quarantine. Same thing for Raiders and As fans.

Those weak-willed Lakers and Dodgers fans never stood a chance. They crumbled under pressure and gave in to covid fatigue.

:p
You finally may be on to something. They can buy championships, but they couldn't buy their way out of the pandemic.
 
"For society at large, the conclusion was obvious. We had to protect older, high-risk people while younger low-risk adults kept society moving.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, schools closed while nursing homes went unprotected. Why? It made no sense. "

I have to agree. Made no sense. To this day some still think it is/was impossible to protect the vulnerable and the only solution was the one size fits all blanket policy.

"Instead of understanding the pandemic, we were encouraged to fear it. Instead of life, we got lockdowns and death. We got delayed cancer diagnoses, worse cardiovascular-disease outcomes, deteriorating mental health, and a lot more collateral public-health damage from lockdown. Children, the elderly and the working class were the hardest hit by what can only be described as the biggest public-health fiasco in history."

"Throughout the 2020 spring wave, Sweden kept daycare and schools open for every one of its 1.8million children aged between one and 15. And it did so without subjecting them to testing, masks, physical barriers or social distancing. This policy led to precisely zero Covid deaths in that age group, while teachers had a Covid risk similar to the average of other professions. The Swedish Public Health Agency reported these facts in mid-June, but in the US lockdown proponents still pushed for school closures."

"Something was clearly amiss with the media. Among infectious-disease epidemiology colleagues that I know, most favour focused protection of high-risk groups instead of lockdowns, but the media made it sound like there was a scientific consensus for general lockdowns."

The above statement should hit home for @dad4 but it won't.

"I invited two scientists to join me, Sunetra Gupta from the University of Oxford, one of the world’s pre-eminent infectious-disease epidemiologists, and Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University, an expert on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations. To the surprise of AIER, the three of us also decided to write a declaration arguing for focused protection instead of lockdowns. We called it the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD).

Opposition to lockdowns had been deemed unscientific. When scientists spoke out against lockdowns, they were ignored, considered a fringe voice, or accused of not having proper credentials. We thought it would be hard to ignore something authored by three senior infectious-disease epidemiologists from what were three respectable universities. We were right. All hell broke loose. That was good.

Some colleagues threw epithets at us like ‘crazy’, ‘exorcist’, ‘mass murderer’ or ‘Trumpian’. Some accused us of taking a stand for money, though nobody paid us a penny. Why such a vicious response? The declaration was in line with the many pandemic preparedness plans produced years earlier, but that was the crux. With no good public-health arguments against focused protection, they had to resort to mischaracterisation and slander, or else admit they had made a terrible, deadly mistake in their support of lockdowns."


"After the Great Barrington Declaration, there was no longer a lack of media attention on focused protection as an alternative to lockdowns. On the contrary, requests came from across the globe. I noticed an interesting contrast. In the US and UK, media outlets were either friendly with softball questions or hostile with trick questions and ad hominem attacks. Journalists in most other countries asked hard but relevant and fair questions, exploring and critically examining the Great Barrington Declaration. I think that is how journalism should be done."

Read the rest.

 
Or it could be the virus viruses based in part on density and latitude, but otherwise operates kind of like food coloring sloshing in a wave pool....it would all be very random so you wouldn't like that at all.
It isn't latitude. Nearly every other state at your latitude did significantly better than LA.

Not do we see a general pattern of south = worse. Texas doesn't look worse than Oklahoma, for example. Arkansas isn't much different from Tennessee.

Waves sloshing in a pool might get you a good grade in English class. Big fat F for stats, though. Waaaaay too many individual events to blame it on random drift.

Try again. Why did LA do so poorly?
 
It isn't latitude. Nearly every other state at your latitude did significantly better than LA.

Not do we see a general pattern of south = worse. Texas doesn't look worse than Oklahoma, for example. Arkansas isn't much different from Tennessee.

Waves sloshing in a pool might get you a good grade in English class. Big fat F for stats, though. Waaaaay too many individual events to blame it on random drift.

Try again. Why did LA do so poorly?

Told you you'd reject the idea of it being random (the waves are influenced by certain things such as latitude and density [which you gloss over] and yes variant [but that's only a small part of the answer because otherwise if you look at what's happened in India San Diego and NorCal would be impacted too]). It's a complex problem and some of it is random. That's why we get Czechs did everything right and they get 3 waves, worst in Europe. That's why despite no mask mandate Norway and Finland largely escape things (until the end). That's why Latin America, despite 2 countries with the most stringent and longest lockdowns in the world (Peru and Argentina) got both the virus and economic ruin.

It's an interplay of various forces, including an element of randomness. I know you mathematicians like to simply things so you can fit it in your equations and models, but then those have been a failure throughout this thing. Or, if you really want to reduce to 1 variable, go with the LA Supervisors are idiots and they kept schools more shuttered than the rest of the state and even closed outdoor dining for longer than the state (forcing people to go indoors). If you are going to reduce it to 1 factor, may as well reduce it to this.
 
Told you you'd reject the idea of it being random (the waves are influenced by certain things such as latitude and density [which you gloss over] and yes variant [but that's only a small part of the answer because otherwise if you look at what's happened in India San Diego and NorCal would be impacted too]). It's a complex problem and some of it is random. That's why we get Czechs did everything right and they get 3 waves, worst in Europe. That's why despite no mask mandate Norway and Finland largely escape things (until the end). That's why Latin America, despite 2 countries with the most stringent and longest lockdowns in the world (Peru and Argentina) got both the virus and economic ruin.

It's an interplay of various forces, including an element of randomness. I know you mathematicians like to simply things so you can fit it in your equations and models, but then those have been a failure throughout this thing. Or, if you really want to reduce to 1 variable, go with the LA Supervisors are idiots and they kept schools more shuttered than the rest of the state and even closed outdoor dining for longer than the state (forcing people to go indoors). If you are going to reduce it to 1 factor, may as well reduce it to this.

Random just doesn't cut it. There is a branch of math called martingales to handle this.

LA has had about 4.5 million cases. Each one of those is the result of a small number of chance interactions. You end up with a martingale with over 20 million distinct independent variables. And all those independent interactions are random, but with 20 million of them, it averages out.

You don't get a result of 2400 one time and 900 the next, just by luck. It's possible to run the numbers, but we'd be asking whether the probability is 10^-10 or 10^-20.
 
SD did ok. Worse than most of CA, but nowhere near as badly as LA.

What did Garcetti do differently? San Jose, Oakland, and SF were all doing the same thing. None of them had 2400 deaths per million.

The problem was not politicians. Most of socal was more relaxed about rules. San Diego got the easy test (wild type covid) LA got the hard test (LA variant). So San Diego got a C and LA got an F.

Did you forget the Central Valley is part of California and not SoCal. Deaths per million there without the population density of LA.

Fresno alone had 1700+ deaths with a population in the 500k range.
 
"For society at large, the conclusion was obvious. We had to protect older, high-risk people while younger low-risk adults kept society moving.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, schools closed while nursing homes went unprotected. Why? It made no sense. "

I have to agree. Made no sense. To this day some still think it is/was impossible to protect the vulnerable and the only solution was the one size fits all blanket policy.

"Instead of understanding the pandemic, we were encouraged to fear it. Instead of life, we got lockdowns and death. We got delayed cancer diagnoses, worse cardiovascular-disease outcomes, deteriorating mental health, and a lot more collateral public-health damage from lockdown. Children, the elderly and the working class were the hardest hit by what can only be described as the biggest public-health fiasco in history."

"Throughout the 2020 spring wave, Sweden kept daycare and schools open for every one of its 1.8million children aged between one and 15. And it did so without subjecting them to testing, masks, physical barriers or social distancing. This policy led to precisely zero Covid deaths in that age group, while teachers had a Covid risk similar to the average of other professions. The Swedish Public Health Agency reported these facts in mid-June, but in the US lockdown proponents still pushed for school closures."

"Something was clearly amiss with the media. Among infectious-disease epidemiology colleagues that I know, most favour focused protection of high-risk groups instead of lockdowns, but the media made it sound like there was a scientific consensus for general lockdowns."

The above statement should hit home for @dad4 but it won't.

"I invited two scientists to join me, Sunetra Gupta from the University of Oxford, one of the world’s pre-eminent infectious-disease epidemiologists, and Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University, an expert on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations. To the surprise of AIER, the three of us also decided to write a declaration arguing for focused protection instead of lockdowns. We called it the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD).

Opposition to lockdowns had been deemed unscientific. When scientists spoke out against lockdowns, they were ignored, considered a fringe voice, or accused of not having proper credentials. We thought it would be hard to ignore something authored by three senior infectious-disease epidemiologists from what were three respectable universities. We were right. All hell broke loose. That was good.

Some colleagues threw epithets at us like ‘crazy’, ‘exorcist’, ‘mass murderer’ or ‘Trumpian’. Some accused us of taking a stand for money, though nobody paid us a penny. Why such a vicious response? The declaration was in line with the many pandemic preparedness plans produced years earlier, but that was the crux. With no good public-health arguments against focused protection, they had to resort to mischaracterisation and slander, or else admit they had made a terrible, deadly mistake in their support of lockdowns."


"After the Great Barrington Declaration, there was no longer a lack of media attention on focused protection as an alternative to lockdowns. On the contrary, requests came from across the globe. I noticed an interesting contrast. In the US and UK, media outlets were either friendly with softball questions or hostile with trick questions and ad hominem attacks. Journalists in most other countries asked hard but relevant and fair questions, exploring and critically examining the Great Barrington Declaration. I think that is how journalism should be done."

Read the rest.

Debate has been replaced with labels. Racist, denier, conspiracy theorist, fascist, extremist. This assumes that you even get to express your opinion and aren't silenced or shouted down.
 
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