Lurker > SmartMuffin

charmander6000 posted...

Still waiting for SmartMuffin's political angle

College football is the least woke of all sports and is enjoyed primarily by poor southerners, not northern elites.

Almost everything about how these shutdowns have been targeted has basically been class and tribal warfare.

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https://twitter.com/alexsalvinews/status/1283525543980228608

This is pretty much the best thing to have happened ever.

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Can someone give me a non-political explanation as to why women's soccer was allowed to start up a month ago, but we're still insisting college football definitely will be to unsafe to start two months from now?

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Corrik7 posted...

Well, Sweden's goal was to come out ahead in the long run, I believe. That said, their economy took just as much a hit as many lockdown countries did also.

Not really. It'll also look even better long-term as they're definitely closer to herd immunity than anyone else is.

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friendly reminder that sweden mostly used the "GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING" tactic that you're such a huge fan of. how did that work out for them?

Pretty well! They did better than a few of countries that had strict lockdowns. How do you explain that exactly if lockdowns are a magic panacea which definitely work?

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I haven't caught COVID and therefore haven't infected a single other person with it. So what are you "holding me accountable" for exactly? I am personally responsible for exactly zero COVID deaths, COVID hospitalizations, and COVID cases.

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And they aren't tiny, insignificant ones either...



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Europe's state is infinitely better than the US's.

There are six European countries with higher deaths per million than the US.

If you were to take out New York and New Jersey, there'd be a whole lot more.

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colliding posted...

It's fine. In a few months they'll lift the travel restrictions to non-US countries and all the tourists will actually talk about how nice it is that there are no Americans here.

Then they'll get reinfected. If you think the entire landmass of Europe is going to "eradicate" this disease prior to reaching herd immunity you're literally insane.

My suspicion is that we're nearly at herd immunity though. And by "we" I mean all the places that "didn't get it under control." Not New Zealand though. They're going to have to remain terrified of this thing for years.

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red13n posted...

International travel actually hasn't been that widespread until more recent history.

It is actually very much sustainable.

And there it is. A demand we revert to 19th century standards of living. How did I know this would happen sooner rather than later?

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colliding posted...

Uhhh smuffin, I think most people would say that "not being open to international travel without quarantine" is part of "having it under control"

No, it's having it under control temporarily and at great cost while increasing the risk of having it not be under control as soon as you lift the restriction and avoid the cost.

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I'll be waiting for a relevant argument if you would like to make one.

It's not "under control" if it requires a near-total shutdown of a huge portion of your economy literally indefinitely.

It is not sustainable for New Zealand to have approximately zero international tourism.

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Nope, there's not almost entire continents that have this under control.

How many of the places who "have it under control" are open to international travel without quarantine?

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red13n posted...

None of this is inevitable though.

It is only inevitable if you are insistent on taking half-measures the entire way through.

It is, in fact, inevitable that an organization as big, as bureaucratic, and as generally ineffective, as the US government (at all levels) would not do anything useful with the time granted by a two-week shutdown.

The lockdown "not being severe enough" has nothing to do with the fact that contact tracing wasn't ready, or that the CDC and WHO and surgeon general were all still saying "masks don't work" or whatever else.

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Yeah and that's exactly what I was saying back in March. That the lockdown would be useless because we weren't doing anything other than delaying the inevitable. And hey, whaddya know, that's exactly what happened.

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looks like that schedule was basically confirmed

https://www.nhl.com/schedule

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RaidenGarai posted...

https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-director-universal-masking-could-control-virus-in-weeks-2020-7

I liked this better when it was in March and they told us a two-week lockdown would keep it under control.

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weird how this disease has been "ravaging the country" for 4+ months, and my area in particular is said to have been slammed and hit hard and being devastated and the hospitals are overwhelmed for 1.5+ months, and I still don't know anyone who has it

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Apparently over half had an adverse effect of some type and 21% had serious ones. Still hopeful news though.

Some 80% of people who get COVID have no serious symptoms whatsoever.

This cure will literally be worse than the disease. And they'll make it mandatory. Because it isn't about your health, it's about government control.

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guffguy89 posted...

Sounds like conspiracy theory fuel for plandemic believers.

And yet it's also true - so maybe you should re-evaluate your priors on what counts as a "conspiracy theory" and how likely they are...

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Yeah, the US has famously reported people who died in car accidents, of overdoses, and even suicides, as COVID deaths so long as they tested positive at some point.

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It's very possible that the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths is highly inaccurate everywhere.

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Hong Kong is a small island with stringent quarantine policies.

Every small island with stringent quarantine policies has low numbers and good results.

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No. Show me an article saying it doesn't.

I don't have to show you an article. I can show you actual numbers. Belgium has 844 deaths per million. The Netherlands has 358. Do they have radically different mask policies?

If not, then something else is the cause of the discrepancy.


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That has nothing to do with the claim at hand.

Show me evidence that jurisdictions with mask orders outperform jurisdictions without them.

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No it isn't. Stop lying to promote panic and fear.

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

my point is that the premise that there's one single thing that has to be "the answer" and everything else is "not the answer" is stupid. if you concede that mask wearing has an effect and reduces the spread (as muffin did in his facebook post), then it's obviously PART of the answer. again, it's just not the ONLY thing that reduces the spread and nobody is saying that it is.

It's weird that it falls to me to explain the basic concepts of linear regression, but fine, here goes.

Let's say that scientists are working to answer the question "Why do people in country X seem to get lung cancer more than people in country Y?" They do some studies and they determine that the following factors contribute to whether or not an individual person gets lung cancer: Smoking, Environmental Pollution, Occupation, Diet, and Exercise. Five factors that contribute. So based on that, it's fair to say that "exercising prevents lung cancer." And if we were to notice that Thailand has more cases of lung cancer than Bolivia, we might say "Maybe Thailand should exercise more so that they can have lower rates of lung cancer like Bolivia does."

But wait... it turns out those five factors do not contribute to lung cancer equally. Let's say that the scientists discover that smoking contributes 50% to lung cancer risk, environment contributes 25%, occupation contributes 15%, diet contributes 9%, and exercise contributes 1%. It's still technically true that getting enough exercise "helps" prevent lung cancer. But it's also of completely trivial importance compared to smoking, environment, and occupation. If it turns out that Thailand has more smokers, worse pollution, and more people in high-risk occupations, it's not even worth taking the time to even look at whether or not their rates of exercise compare favorably to Bolivia. We need to focus on the things that actually matter a lot, not the things that matter only a little.

There's little to no data that suggests masks and social distancing matter a lot. Only a small amount of data to suggest they matter a little. And not much of that really... most of the mask/distancing stuff is "common sense" rather than data driven (and I'm pro-common sense... up until it is disproven or made doubtful by actual data!) For as long as they're the only things we're aware of, they're probably worth doing for certain individuals (particularly those at high risk) but almost certainly not worth mandating/requiring. What we really need to do is figure out what the actual important factors are.


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Don't worry, you won't have to stay up late to watch the Leafs for very long :D

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https://twitter.com/NHLtoHouston/status/1282520143780872192/photo/1

I don't think this is "official" yet but it's still a nice preview.

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I actually don't think I'm as inconsistent as you're implying.

My position is NOT that "masks cannot provide any benefits." My position IS that there is no particular evidence that masks are the reason some locations have had more or less cases than others.

My theory is that there are multiple, currently unknown, factors that determine both how fast the disease spreads and how deadly it is to those who contract it. And that these "unknown factors" are far more important and move the needle much farther than mask adoption or social distancing (government enforced social distancing in particular). So it could simultaneously be true that "masks help" and also true that "masks have nothing to do with why location X did better or worse than location Y."

It's like if I asked you, "What should I do to avoid contracting hypothermia?" and you said "Wear a warm hat!" It's true that in general wearing a warm hat would help me from getting too cold. But it's also true that if I jumped in a frozen river, I would get hypothermia and die, regardless of whether I was wearing a hat or not. That doesn't mean "hats don't keep you warm," it just mean that hats are largely irrelevant in the presence of other, more critical, factors.

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Yeah, my personal Facebook (which I make like one post to every couple months) includes friends, family, coworkers, etc. As in, people whose opinions of me actually matter. I have to avoid promoting heresy or wrongthink there.

With you silly randos, I can say whatever I want. You already think I'm pure evil incarnate, so why hold back?

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https://twitter.com/IsabelaRM1/status/1282520093176541185

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As the media continues to push the narrative that cases in Houston are spiking because of ignorant hick Republicans who hate science and are ignoring social distancing because they want old people to die, somebody actually ran the numbers and...

https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1282342925519601664

It turns out that, according to Google mobility data, not only is the state of Texas social distancing more than the US average, Harris County (all of the city of Houston and most of its outlying suburbs) is social distancing more than the Texas average.

One more piece of data strongly suggesting lockdowns aren't really the issue.

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Honestly, I am completely serious about this. The US government and all associated agencies is no more honest or reliable than the Soviet government was. It's all propaganda. None of it is real.

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https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1281778023935737858

This is pretty amazing. Over half of the deaths they reported in the last week actually occurred in March and April. This is such blatant statistical manipulation for the purposes of inciting panic. They are going back in time, "finding" deaths from the first wave, reporting them this week, and pointing to this week's reported numbers as justification to scare you into thinking the second wave is spiking.

"Everything they say is a lie" is closer to truth than it is to fiction.

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Corrik7 posted...

The Ventilators are a cause of major long term damage. If you can help it, you should avoid them. Some doctors even question if they are the proper response to the virus even due to the damage they can cause.

Remember when Cuomo demanded 40K ventilators and Trump said no and everyone in the media said Trump was a mass murderer?

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https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1281627545952235520

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I'm pretty sure most people have been in a dentist's office waiting room before!

At an age old enough to read but not old enough to have a cell phone? That's pretty much just us, dude.

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ok, boomer

(no seriously I'm pretty sure nobody under 30 has any idea what this is)

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https://twitter.com/TheJoeyRC/status/1281556026865725441

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It has never been about safety and has always been about control.

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What are government ordered lockdowns if not just non-voluntary social distancing?

The problem is that the type of people who are likely to give a shit about government-ordered lockdowns are the type of people who would already be voluntarily social distancing anyway.

I mean super totalitarian no-kidding lockdown of the type we saw early in China and are seeing just now in Australia might work. But that means you have to go full "the cops will shoot you if you disobey" which doesn't seem even remotely close to happening here (and didn't happen anywhere in Europe either).

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Jakyl25 posted...

I dont disagree with you, but Im curious as to how you can say that theres no proof social distancing is effective and also say that this is overwhelmingly obvious?

There's no evidence that government ordered lockdowns work. But voluntary social distancing measures probably help. Like, it's reasonable to assume that there are "cultural factors" that explain not only why the disease hammered Italy much more than Japan, but also why there are certain groups of people in the US who seem to be much more likely to catch and spread the disease than others...

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Miami-Dade County also has one of the few mayors in the country who is willing to admit the overwhelmingly obvious - that BLM protests almost certainly contribute to the spread of COVID

https://www.newsweek.com/miami-dade-county-gop-mayor-blames-blm-protests-coronavirus-case-spike-1515682

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Shockingly, assuming linear growth of a quantity that fundamentally grows exponentially is not a reasonable thing to do!

Does that look exponential to you?

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Since last week, New Jersey's deaths per million increased by 23. Mass increased by 14. Texas increased by 14. FL by 16.

Not only are the evil horrible no good very bad red states still nowhere even remotely near catching the Northeast in terms of death, they're barely even gaining ground at all. At this rate, if current trends continue (i.e. FL gains about 20 deaths per capita per week), even if all deaths in the Northeast stopped today and there were no more ever, it would take Florida 74 weeks (around November of 2021) to catch up to New York.

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David Friedman basically saying what I just did

https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2020/07/cases-vs-deaths-covid-puzzle.html

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Regardless, more infections (not necessarily confirmed cases) will lead to more deaths

If everything else is equal, yes.

But if some things aren't equal (like say, if all the new infections are coming from young, healthy people) then it won't.

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BlackDra90n posted...

Expanded testing also means that you're getting more people that are asymptomatic or with mild cases that might not require hospitalizations in addition to detecting more severe cases early. You're right that there's a lot of factors at play here though, so it's hard to say what the numbers will look like since we don't know the exact breakdown of things until they occur.

Well yeah, but that's an argument in favor of "rising cases is not something we actually need to worry about very much" (my position), not "OMG rising cases SHUTDOWN EVERYTHING NOW!" (the mainstream position)

The mainstream position is that the cases to deaths ratio has not significantly changed, and therefore rising cases will lead to an equivalent relative rise in deaths, and the fact that it obviously has not yet is just a factor of timing.

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Well first of all, thanks for responding at all. Most of the hysterics just ignore me. Secondly, I acknowledge that your claims are plausible. All of that could be happening, although it seems like pure speculation at this point. But if we agree that in Wave One, the "lag" between cases and deaths was ~1 week and that now, the "lag" between cases and deaths is ~3 weeks (or more) then I think we can do some scenario planning here. Let's make some assumptions and ask what would have to be true in order to see the lag expand by 3x.

So let's just stipulate that the time between Infection and noticeably serious symptoms is 14 days, and that once you receive serious symptoms, you are hospitalized the same day, and that once hospitalized, the average fatality occurs ~7 days after hospitalization. This takes us to a total of 21 days between infection and death, pretty much the upper limit of what could be true based on current data, and assumes deaths will have to start spiking basically today.

To see a lag in Wave 1 of only seven days, we'd have to see something like the average infection going undetected until basically the date of symptoms being so severe that immediate hospitalization is required. So, if we assume the "date of detection" (14 days after infection) and the date of hospitalization are identical, and it takes seven days to go from hospitalization to death, then we'd see a 7-day lag between cases and deaths.

So let's say that in Wave 2, because of expanded testing, we get twice as good at detecting cases "early." Let's say that instead of detecting them on Day 14, we detect them on Day 7. So detection happens on Day 7, hospitalization still happens on Day 14. Now let's also say that better treatment methods and/or more favorable case demographics have caused us to get twice as good at "delaying" death, such that the time between hospitalization and death doubles from 7 days to 14 days. We're detecting cases 7 days earlier, and we're extending total hospitalization time by 7 days. This is just enough to take us from a 7-day lag to an 21 day lag.

In order to believe that the extension of the lag (from 7 days to 21+ days) is due to earlier detection and/or longer hospitalizations, you'd have to believe that detection has improved somewhere in the range of 7+ days on average (basically meaning that we've gone from not detecting any cases until hospitalization is imminent, to detecting cases a full week ahead of symptoms getting severe enough to require hospitalization, which would suggest there's a whole lot of testing being done for people who are entirely asymptomatic) AND that we've extended the time of "hospitalization to death" by somewhere by over a week on average.

All of that being true strikes me as relatively unlikely. And that's what would be necessary just to explain where we are today. Every additional day that passes and sees deaths rise at anything less than at "exponential growth" levels makes this explanation all the more implausible.

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