Bad News Thread

If case rates had no consequences, then you could drop all precautions.

However, running high case rates over summer also means that you are creating more new variants.

The more new variants you make, the higher the probability that one of them is seriously immune to the vaccine. Which would put us right back where we were in Feb 2020.

I'd really rather not do that.

Not that I have any choice. We seem to be dropping masks and opening up right now, even though we still have 1500 deaths per day.

At least we have priorities straight. Classes are by zoom, but I can eat at my favorite restaurant. Makes sense if my children hope to wait tables at Denny's some day.

Meh. This might be a serious concern if the rest of the world could get its act together regarding the vaccine. But there appear to be problems with both the Russian and China vaccines. The EU has been having a very had time with vaccinations and now has a third wave. And the vaccination in the third world is even more of a s show. It's going to come down to the US having to donate vaccines around the world. So it's sort of irrelevant what we do here...if there's a variant that pops up it has plenty of room to do it outside the US. The only way your argument flies is if we hard shut the US border, but not only have international airflights upticked, the southern border is increasingly becoming problematic. What you are talking about is basically shutting the barn after the horses have already escaped. Part of the world won't be vaccinated for 2-3 years....polio should have been eliminated years ago....we can't even do that.

p.s. doubt we'll be running "high" case rates over the summer due to seasonality, though I acknowledge our definitions of "high" vary greatly between us.
 
If case rates had no consequences, then you could drop all precautions.

However, running high case rates over summer also means that you are creating more new variants.

The more new variants you make, the higher the probability that one of them is seriously immune to the vaccine. Which would put us right back where we were in Feb 2020.

I'd really rather not do that.

Not that I have any choice. We seem to be dropping masks and opening up right now, even though we still have 1500 deaths per day.

At least we have priorities straight. Classes are by zoom, but I can eat at my favorite restaurant. Makes sense if my children hope to wait tables at Denny's some day.
Ha! This is funny. Not your post, @dad4. I was just ready to say that I'd guess the argument from the "zero-risk" folks will be that the higher the rate that virus is still going around, the risk of variants is higher. I don't have to guess anymore. I get the argument, I just don't believe it makes sense to live like this for 1.5 years and going. The sad thing is, that if they didn't attempt the indefinite lockdowns, they might have actually had a chance at convincing people to lock down pretty tight for a few weeks when things got bad. That ship has sailed.

You aren't going to get your way, @dad4. The unions are too strong and enough of the general population doesn't believe indefinitely sacrificing for this virus. (Flatten the curve, anyone?). Have you considered Australia, New Zealand, or South Korea? Those are your best bet for your approach.
 
Ha! This is funny. Not your post, @dad4. I was just ready to say that I'd guess the argument from the "zero-risk" folks will be that the higher the rate that virus is still going around, the risk of variants is higher. I don't have to guess anymore. I get the argument, I just don't believe it makes sense to live like this for 1.5 years and going. The sad thing is, that if they didn't attempt the indefinite lockdowns, they might have actually had a chance at convincing people to lock down pretty tight for a few weeks when things got bad. That ship has sailed.

You aren't going to get your way, @dad4. The unions are too strong and enough of the general population doesn't believe indefinitely sacrificing for this virus. (Flatten the curve, anyone?). Have you considered Australia, New Zealand, or South Korea? Those are your best bet for your approach.
As you said, I don't have a choice.

It’s not really a question of infinite lockdowns. That term has become all but meaningless, anyway. We now call it a lockdown if our favorite restaurant is limited to 75% capacity. Even wearing a mask is untenable in large parts of the country.

Moving internationally? No. But AU/SK/NZ are looking a lot smarter than we are at the moment. Per capita, we still have more covid deaths per day than NZ has had total.

Yet we still have fools talking about how they think it was inevitable. It wasn’t inevitable. We just had 1/3 of the country fighting on the side of the virus.
 
As you said, I don't have a choice.

It’s not really a question of infinite lockdowns. That term has become all but meaningless, anyway. We now call it a lockdown if our favorite restaurant is limited to 75% capacity. Even wearing a mask is untenable in large parts of the country.

Moving internationally? No. But AU/SK/NZ are looking a lot smarter than we are at the moment. Per capita, we still have more covid deaths per day than NZ has had total.

Yet we still have fools talking about how they think it was inevitable. It wasn’t inevitable. We just had 1/3 of the country fighting on the side of the virus.
Wow it’s just really shocking you think still at this late date we could have actually controlled it. Your arguments about masks variants and indoor dining are all well thought out and reasonable even if we disagree on points. But you are in major denial and out in fantasyland if you, after all this, think it wasn’t inevitable. I mean even Germany after all that couldn’t control it. Even Japan.

The world lost this fight the moment China lied about the data. South Korea and Taiwan were able to do what they did because they didn’t believe the Chinese. New Zealand because it’s just very remote. Australia through some really hard core steps including leaving its citizens overseas stranded and doing stuff which here is patently unconstitutional and a little luck in containing the cruise ship outbreak helped by some seasonality. And then there’s places like China Vietnam and Singapore. That’s the list.

We couldn’t even shut our borders or control protests that shattered the lockdown consensus and when trump tried partial restrictions on air flights and the border he was pilloried.
 
Wow it’s just really shocking you think still at this late date we could have actually controlled it. Your arguments about masks variants and indoor dining are all well thought out and reasonable even if we disagree on points. But you are in major denial and out in fantasyland if you, after all this, think it wasn’t inevitable. I mean even Germany after all that couldn’t control it. Even Japan.

The world lost this fight the moment China lied about the data. South Korea and Taiwan were able to do what they did because they didn’t believe the Chinese. New Zealand because it’s just very remote. Australia through some really hard core steps including leaving its citizens overseas stranded and doing stuff which here is patently unconstitutional and a little luck in containing the cruise ship outbreak helped by some seasonality. And then there’s places like China Vietnam and Singapore. That’s the list.

We couldn’t even shut our borders or control protests that shattered the lockdown consensus and when trump tried partial restrictions on air flights and the border he was pilloried.
Btw even south koreas “control” is questionable. They resorted to business closures, forced quarantines and testing, family separations and border controls and still are plateaued at 500 cases per day. Well better than the rest of the world but hardly controlled.
 
Meh. This might be a serious concern if the rest of the world could get its act together regarding the vaccine. But there appear to be problems with both the Russian and China vaccines. The EU has been having a very had time with vaccinations and now has a third wave. And the vaccination in the third world is even more of a s show. It's going to come down to the US having to donate vaccines around the world. So it's sort of irrelevant what we do here...if there's a variant that pops up it has plenty of room to do it outside the US. The only way your argument flies is if we hard shut the US border, but not only have international airflights upticked, the southern border is increasingly becoming problematic. What you are talking about is basically shutting the barn after the horses have already escaped. Part of the world won't be vaccinated for 2-3 years....polio should have been eliminated years ago....we can't even do that.

p.s. doubt we'll be running "high" case rates over the summer due to seasonality, though I acknowledge our definitions of "high" vary greatly between us.
I was thinking about international sources of variants as I wrote it, but decided not to make it complicated.

The real question is which places will cause vaccine resistant variants. To make a vaccine resistant variant, you need to have high case rates at the same time as you have moderately high vaccination rates. Right now, that sounds like USA more than anywhere else.

Opening up before we vaccinate will just make it that much more likely.
 
I was thinking about international sources of variants as I wrote it, but decided not to make it complicated.

The real question is which places will cause vaccine resistant variants. To make a vaccine resistant variant, you need to have high case rates at the same time as you have moderately high vaccination rates. Right now, that sounds like USA more than anywhere else.

Opening up before we vaccinate will just make it that much more likely.
Isn’t the sa variant vaccine resistant despite not having much of a vaccination rate to speak of at all? Sure I can see where evolution would help this along....life finds a way to survive...but you’d expect this in places also with a high natural immunity as well since the evolutionary pressure is the same. Then there’s also the species crossover danger....we dodged bullets with felines and minks but it’s also only a matter of time. Life will find a way
 
As you said, I don't have a choice.

It’s not really a question of infinite lockdowns. That term has become all but meaningless, anyway. We now call it a lockdown if our favorite restaurant is limited to 75% capacity. Even wearing a mask is untenable in large parts of the country.

Moving internationally? No. But AU/SK/NZ are looking a lot smarter than we are at the moment. Per capita, we still have more covid deaths per day than NZ has had total.

Yet we still have fools talking about how they think it was inevitable. It wasn’t inevitable. We just had 1/3 of the country fighting on the side of the virus.
Speaking of fools.

New CDC Report:
1615176533815.png

The results are inside the margin for statistical error.
 
Speaking of fools.

New CDC Report:
View attachment 10330

The results are inside the margin for statistical error.

Yeah I thought about bring up this critique too of the cdc mask study but I already know his answer: that small .5% compounds over time. That study has a lot of problems with selectivity and reference periods and methodology and didn’t even study the most interesting time period. It didn’t even try and present the counter factual and qualifications but despite putting a huge thumb on the scale that’s the best they could come up with. As a result the effect is probably overstated by the study making an even small result smaller. But we’ve pretty much known this all along...masks help a little...not enough to make a substantial difference, certainly not enough to control the outbreak and certainly not better than vaccines or 6-8 weeks of masking and covid disappeared. The biggest problem with the masks as religion school is they oversold the effectiveness thus creating bad secondary effects.
 
Yeah I thought about bring up this critique too of the cdc mask study but I already know his answer: that small .5% compounds over time. That study has a lot of problems with selectivity and reference periods and methodology and didn’t even study the most interesting time period. It didn’t even try and present the counter factual and qualifications but despite putting a huge thumb on the scale that’s the best they could come up with. As a result the effect is probably overstated by the study making an even small result smaller. But we’ve pretty much known this all along...masks help a little...not enough to make a substantial difference, certainly not enough to control the outbreak and certainly not better than vaccines or 6-8 weeks of masking and covid disappeared. The biggest problem with the masks as religion school is they oversold the effectiveness thus creating bad secondary effects.
Ps. My absolute favorite covid moment in all this was arguing with my sons school sport director who wanted him to take a covid test for 1 1 hour soccer practice: my argument to him was they are distanced, outdoors and in masks. “The cdc director said masks are better than vaccines so what are you worried about”. It was super sweet.
 
Yeah I thought about bring up this critique too of the cdc mask study but I already know his answer: that small .5% compounds over time. That study has a lot of problems with selectivity and reference periods and methodology and didn’t even study the most interesting time period. It didn’t even try and present the counter factual and qualifications but despite putting a huge thumb on the scale that’s the best they could come up with. As a result the effect is probably overstated by the study making an even small result smaller. But we’ve pretty much known this all along...masks help a little...not enough to make a substantial difference, certainly not enough to control the outbreak and certainly not better than vaccines or 6-8 weeks of masking and covid disappeared. The biggest problem with the masks as religion school is they oversold the effectiveness thus creating bad secondary effects.
Yet when convenient they drive policy, political & media narratives and power grabs. Amazed at how many gobble it up and surrender freedoms so willingly.
 
To make this an objective experiment, one would also have to show the result on a vulnerable population that mostly didn't wear masks.
Assuming that not wearing mask makes you more vulnerable than those that do wear mask. I see all the COSTCO employees wearing the Black FLTR Pure Protection mask made in China with this WARNING: THIS GENERAL USE MASK CANNOT ELIMINATE THE RISK OF CONTRACTING AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE.
 
Speaking of fools.

New CDC Report:
View attachment 10330

The results are inside the margin for statistical error.
Reread your quote.

It says "p<0.01". That does not mean "within the margin for statistical error".

P<0.01 means significant at the 99% level. It is usually called "highly significant", and means the exact opposite of what you said it means.

The "not significant" quote refers to case and death rates before the mask mandate was applied. That is, do case and death numbers in May correlate to mask mandates in June? They did not.
 
Few people on earth have been wrong more often than of Biden’s Senior Covid Advisors, Andy Slavitt He said on 10/1 that Florida didn’t learn from New York & wasn’t going to succeed in opening the economy New York’s had a higher hospitalization rate for over 4 months


Image
 
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the case and incidence rates of COVID-19 among youth soccer players and evaluate the relationship with background COVID-19 risk and phase of return to play.

Methods: Surveys were distributed to soccer clubs throughout the country regarding their phase of return to soccer (individual only, group non-contact, group contact) and date of re-initiation, number of players, cases of COVID-19, and risk reduction procedures that were being implemented. Overall case and incidence rates were compared to national pediatric data and county data from the prior 10 weeks where available. Finally, a negative binomial regression model was developed to predict club COVID-19 cases with local incidence rate and phase of return as covariates and the log of club player-days as an offset. Results: 129 clubs responded, of whom 124 had reinitiated soccer, representing 91,007 players with a median duration of 73 days (IQR: 53-83 days) since restarting. Of the 119 that had progressed to group activities, 218 cases of COVID-19 were reported among 85,861 players. Youth soccer players had a lower case rate and incidence rate than the national rate for children in the US (254 v. 477 cases per 100,000; IRR = 0.511, 95% CI = [0.40-0.57], p<0.001) and the general population from the counties in which soccer clubs were based where data was available (268 v. 864 cases per 100,000; IRR = 0.202 [0.19-0.21], p<0.001). After adjusting for local COVID-19 incidence, there was no relationship between club COVID-19 incidence and phase of return (non-contact: β=0.35±0.67, p=0.61; contact: β=0.18±0.67, p=0.79). No cases were reported to have resulted in hospitalization or death. 100% of clubs reported having a plan in place to reduce the risk of COVID-19 and utilizing multiple different risk reduction procedures (median 8, IQR 6- 10). Conclusions: The incidence of COVID-19 among youth soccer athletes is relatively low when compared to the background incidence among children in the United States and the local general population. No relationship was identified between club COVID-19 incidence and phase of return to soccer. Youth soccer clubs universally report implementing a number of risk reduction procedures.

COVID-19 in Youth Soccer
 
Meh. This might be a serious concern if the rest of the world could get its act together regarding the vaccine. But there appear to be problems with both the Russian and China vaccines. The EU has been having a very had time with vaccinations and now has a third wave. And the vaccination in the third world is even more of a s show. It's going to come down to the US having to donate vaccines around the world. So it's sort of irrelevant what we do here...if there's a variant that pops up it has plenty of room to do it outside the US. The only way your argument flies is if we hard shut the US border, but not only have international airflights upticked, the southern border is increasingly becoming problematic. What you are talking about is basically shutting the barn after the horses have already escaped. Part of the world won't be vaccinated for 2-3 years....polio should have been eliminated years ago....we can't even do that.

p.s. doubt we'll be running "high" case rates over the summer due to seasonality, though I acknowledge our definitions of "high" vary greatly between us.

Seasonality didn't work last summer.
 
Seasonality didn't work last summer.

yes it did. Compare the wave in summer and the wave in winter. Furthermore the worst of the summer outbreak in the us was confined to the florida-Georgia-Texas—arizona-southern california. Further if you exclude the border counties touching Mexico the us summer wave would be further reduced.

Seasonality does not mean it goes away. It’s just a factor (likely the biggest factor) that impacts the rate of reproduction.
 
yes it did. Compare the wave in summer and the wave in winter. Furthermore the worst of the summer outbreak in the us was confined to the florida-Georgia-Texas—arizona-southern california. Further if you exclude the border counties touching Mexico the us summer wave would be further reduced.

Seasonality does not mean it goes away. It’s just a factor (likely the biggest factor) that impacts the rate of reproduction.
Ps there have been a couple of studies recently looking into it that have found a clear correlation. One of the big indications is actually lines of latitude. Web md has a good summer of the research if you are genuinely interested instead of doing your usual schtick.
 
Here’s how the European situation is developing. There are 2 anomalies: Portugal and Ireland. The 3 hardest hit countries (Spain Belgium and Switzerland) are still in decline. Medium hit countries like Germany Poland France Sweden the Netherlands and southern Italy have plateaued and plateaued at rates higher than summer. Places with not a whole lot of previous cases like Norway Finland Estonia and Hungary are at their highest peak. And then there’s the Czech Republic which despite early praise is in a second meltdown with their hospital system nearing collapse for a second time in a row. Basically all the eu nations with the possible except of portugal and Ireland are going to end up the same. And yeah I know Switzerland and Norway aren’t officially members but they are closely integrated into the travel zone.
 
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