Bad information, at this point, plays such a central role now. The issue has been fully politicized and polarized, and I don't see how we undo that.

So, how many deaths among people like me would it take for the hypothetical "me" to start to take something seriously? I don't know, to be honest.

A million dead Americans, probably a click or two more than that if you measure by the more neutral "excess deaths" metric... and most of the country has decided it's time to back off. And many are now furious that we did any of the things that we did to try to slow/stop it as an article of faith.

It's bananas and driven by such irrationality that I don't think this is about math.

I work with and around political people, professionally. I wear a mask a lot more than the average person, especially of late, so I end up tagging myself (like it or not) as out of the mainstream. And I have lost track of the anecdotes from relatively mild covid-deniers who have fully hinged their actions on the most specious and absurd little things. That anecdote about the car crash victim dying of physical trauma but being "counted as a covid death because he tested positive" is just a get-out-of-thinking-free card for an awful lot of people (and these are people charged with making decisions on behalf of the public). It's just staggering.

-Nobody really dies of this, I got it and it was just like a cold
-I heard about the hospital just using covid numbers to get more funding
-The car crash guy story, gimme a break
-The studies say that the vax was always a lie and does nothing at all
-The studies say that masks were always a lie and do nothing at all

A million plus dead is crazy. We had a poll on this I need to look at again.

A million is roughly 1 in 330 people in this country that have died from covid. I'd imagine if you filled a stadium with 50k people and announced 150 people would randomly be chosen to die it's something that would be taken seriously.

Then again, a significant percentage of people don't believe that number and always have a friend or relative that knows someone that died in a car accident and the death certificate listed covid as the cause of death.

If you told people that, for the Super Bowl, 150 people would be killed and there's nothing they could do about it. After all the hemming and hawing and rules lawyering came to nothing, there would still be a full stadium full of people thinking "it won't be me" rather than an empty stadium full of people going "I'd rather not give myself an extra 1 in 300 chance of dying today".

SI

ping Shirley Jackson

I know this misses 100% of the audience who really would need to grok it, but I still love the fuck out of it...

In 2018, "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial" was published in the British Medical Journal.

It sought to determine if wearing a parachute when jumping from a plane had any impact on survivability.

It did not. pic.twitter.com/SkyzKRDgrc

— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance) February 23, 2023

Oh, to one day experience the joy felt by the data scientists developing this abstract:

I would even go so far as to suggest EXTREMELY cautious extrapolation.

I can't fathom how ANYONE believes that number. That's far scarier than Covid ever was.

unfortunately it seems to me that the worse the threat, the more chaotic society responds. at least it has been like that throughout history and covid reminded us of that.

The football stadium example is good to comprehend scope but it doesn't say much about whether or to what degree we "take COVID seriously" (I'm never sure what that means).

I've traveled internationally the last few years and did stuff like go to the movies and restaurants as soon as they were open. Those things increased my risk of infection, illness, and death, to some degree, but, all of those things could have happened if I didn't go too. And my personal risk was further muddled by working in an office with people most of that time, and living with someone who worked in a grocery store the entire time. It seemed silly to avoid mostly-empty theaters when I lived with someone who was around hundreds of people every day indoors, most of that time with no mask mandate.

Vaccines were an easy choice, so was masks, deciding not to give up experiences I'll never get back was an easy choice too - COVID wasn't nearly scary enough. And I believe all the numbers. As it was I tested positive one time, and then negative the next day. I wish I did more traveling and socializing, I probably would have got through it all cleaner from a mental health standpoint. Or maybe I would have died. But it would have been worth the risk.

Nothing to worry about yet …

Bird Flu has been around for a while. I’d hope if/when it becomes person to person transmissible, we should be better prepared in treating it vs Covid.

https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2023...cambodia-death

I still look at this in the opposite direction. A million plus dead is incredibly low. Astonishingly so. A third of a percent. That's not to minimize anything about the pandemic or the tragedy of the people dying, but just to put it perspective.

I think 1M+ is high. Recent annual Flu deaths are typically below 60k.

I do wonder (knowing what we know now, without all the uncertainties then) with the relatively low impact to younger folks, would we still do what we did like school closures, the remote work etc. What could we have done differently with the 100% hindsight.

[Poll] How many actual COVID pandemic deaths in the USA (once the pandemic is over)? - Front Office Football Central

It was lower than I thought we would have at the very start of the pandemic (though we had a lot of fog of war about the numbers coming out of China) but higher than I thought we would get to around June, apparently (from thread above).

SI

Bottom-line. The various US agencies disagree if Covid was a lab leak or (un)natural transmission via the Wuhan market.

I don't understand why US Energy Dept gets a vote at the table on this (?) but the FBI believes it.

A Lab Leak in China Most Likely Origin of Covid Pandemic, Energy Department Says - WSJ

Who are the other 4 agencies that disagree? Not identified


And the FBI won't share their rationale.


So yeah, I'd like the congressional hearing on the origins of Covid and also the lessons learn & recommendations for next time.

With this Congress?

Office of Science - Wikipedia

Thought to check the CDC website for updated metrics.


Now 4+ months later, we are at

CDC COVID Data Tracker

> 12 is at 77.4% (2 shots)
> 12 is at 90.3% (at least 1 dose)

And the bivalent (shot #5 I believe) metrics are much worse with everyone other than 65+ with < 20% for bivalent.

It will be good to combine flu+covid into one shot otherwise I suspect most Americans won't want to come back another day to get the covid shot. Flu shots are in the 50-52% range.

I'm planning to get another booster for the 4 of us before my boys head (via plane) to see my folks for Spring Break.

I understand the government's reluctance to ask people to do too much on the theory that people will then get confused/frustrated and do nothing.

But there are those of us who want to get vaccinated as much as needed to decrease our chance of catching COVID. And I think that we are being ignored/left behind.

I'd like the government to give us their thoughts on whether every 4 months makes sense for a booster. Or every 6. I Understand that most people won't do that. But it feels like there is now a deliberate decision to let immunity wane for people who don't want it to wane simply because the government is afraid of what some anti-vaxxers might say about them asking for too much.

I suspect the ideal frequency for boosters is once a quarter, actually, but regardless any message about regular boosters is one with almost 0 political upside.

I don't disagree.

And that sucks. No one is making anyone get a shot. I'm just asking the government not to withhold information from those of us who want it because it will hurt some people's feelings to know that other people are making different choices than they are.

Yeah, they could give a simple guideline: The optimal frequency for boosters is every X months. We will continually update the booster to work for the most current variants. Come get 'em if you like, if you don't, good luck.

I've avoided catching it so far. I'd like to keep the streak going.

Just don't give the 5g proteins to anyone else.

Bill to prevent mRNA vaccine recipients from donating blood is killed

Well crap, no combo shot this year.

I get an annual combo of Flu+Covid probably is not "optimal" for Covid vaccinations (e.g. prob 6-8 month range, so twice a year instead of annual) but do think this is the best compromise. With flu shots in the 50-52% range, it's a good way to get the low hanging fruit done.

I have to believe it'll be ready for 2024.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flu-cov...official-says/

I got my 3rd booster a month before we went on a cruise and my wife got her 2nd booster 2 weeks before and she got Covid and I had pretty much the same symptoms but tested negative (so far). I suppose it made it milder but who knows.

Basically, reputable research firm says masks "makes little or no difference".

I googled on other articles about this and there is definitely pushback on the methodology and other stuff etc. But Cochrane is reputable, so do think it's good to keep an open mind that the conventional wisdom of wearing masks (including N95) may not be correct.

It's not intuitive to me, I know masks are not near 100% but would still think there's some level of protection for getting/passing on bugs.

Masks Cochrane review: There’s still not strong evidence for masks’ effectiveness.

Yet, even that "high quality" study is a mess.



And, just to get in the weeds a little, since my wife works in academic publishing (so guess what gets talked about at the dinner table. That's a review study. It's in Cochrane, which is a good, legit journal and not some predatory bunch of hacks. However, there's no actual new science being done there - it basically aggregates other reviews and tries to draw a conclusion from them. The heavy lifting in a review article is being done by which studies you choose to include - which you choose to leave in because you think it's "good science" and which you choose to omit because it's "bad science". And that Slate article talks about the limitations of that sort of study. There's a reason why review articles are some of the hardest to get accepted in major journals - because you're just reporting on science that's already been done, as opposed to original research or case studies. So who is making the determination of your review articles matters a lot more than what the science says in those. (And, seriously? Talking about fomite transmission 3 years into COVID? I get it in the early days when we were trying to get our arms around this, but now? Really? When there's been very little evidence for it? That really calls into question the potential conflicts of interests from the author)

SI

To keep it short... the correlation between the number of golf balls that make it into the cup in golf was unchanged when controlling for trees. Therefore trees on the course have no bearing on the ball going into the cup.

That's how I feel most of the right sums up mask usage. You take that particular conclusion and say what you wanted to say all along. Regardless of the nuances that are abandoned to reach that conclusion.

I tried very hard to find a decent analogy for the central flaw in the Cochrane meta-analysis that got Bret Stephens etc to declare that masks "do nothing."

It's this: "Imagine you found 100 papers showing that it’s hard to get kids to replace sugary snacks with broccoli..." pic.twitter.com/KB443Y5vtC

— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) March 3, 2023

Doesn't matter. The paper is out that comes to the conclusion I like. Therefore, no criticism of it matters. I refuse to allow surgical staff to wear masks when they do surgery because this study says it is useless, and it will make libs angry. Yee-haw!

The study itself admits it's basically useless. It rates its conclusion as "low confidence" and cites the ridiculous reasoning that they don't know if many people in the masked cohorts actually wore masks.

Completely stupid to even publish garbage like that. One might say intentionally irresponsible.

I've been reading more critiques about the study and this is what I'm starting to think.

I've not seen a rebuttal from Cochrane to all the criticism. I'd like to see what they say or have them issue a clarification/retraction.

As I was reading the article, I was just thinking "why, why do this". I do think we need to do the research but it seems like a free for all right now, and there are some scientists/hobbyist that may not have rigorous controls.

Viruses in permafrost: Scientists have revived a 'zombie' virus that spent 48,500 years frozen | CNN
Important quote.

The Cochrane Review 'Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses' was published in January 2023 and has been widely misinterpreted.

Karla Soares-Weiser, Editor-in-Chief of the Cochrane Library, has responded on behalf of Cochrane:


source link: https://www.cochrane.org/news/statem...viruses-review

Thanks.

From Mar 10. You'd think they would have offered a clarification a little earlier. But good walk back I guess.

I feasted positive for COVID for the first time yesterday. It was a good three year run.

Purely anecdotal as I've seen zero news coverage of any type of an increase in positives, but 4 people in my office have had spouses or kids test positive in the past 2 weeks. None of us, though, have tested positive despite living with those people through it all.

Yes, it certainly took them long enough.

Three years ago, things looked bleak. But at least we were united. We had a common enemy. We had a sense of purpose. If you had told me then that the pandemic would end up, like everything else, being eaten by red versus blue, I would’ve been skeptical. It felt like maybe something was finally bigger than that.

Best I can imagine they may have still been operating in the mindset of "we didn't think people would wilfully misinterpret our findings from what is basically a pretty niche academic exercise and that it would be used to drive widespread misinformation".

I mean, that would be pretty naive, but institutional inertia is a bitch, and academics generally have a pretty tough time understanding the ways in which things like facts and studies can be wildly misinterpreted or misunderstood by non-academic.

Whoops!

An Ivermectin Influencer Died. Now His Followers Are Worried About Their Own ‘Severe’ Symptoms.

As a lib, I feel owned/sad that my fellow humans are slowly poisoning themselves to death.

So, I guess good job by them. Owned a lib on the way out and all that.

"He took it wrong" "He was murdered by Big Pharma- the Biden Crime Family- Hilary Clinton- The Easter Bunny."

When did the Easter Bunny turn liberal!?!?!

That story is so damn sad. We truly are a country of idiots.

The part about people giving this stuff to their kids made me slightly physically ill.

Yeah, the kids part pisses me off.

The adults, no problem. Free(ish) country, that's why we have the Darwin awards.

Article says Bird Flu not too much of a concern right now for humans. But I can see tremendous damage done to our poultry industry. I didn't know this was a reason why egg prices are so high.

Avian Flu is Far From Becoming a Human Pandemic | Time