Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

Does she even realize she's an elitist tool while being an elitist tool?

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'm not willing to dig for this information but all that's needed is new cases associated with travel to prove or disprove Whitmer's allegation. Most states report the number of new cases associated with circumstance, e.g., recent travel, restaurants, retail, parks, etc. I can't readily find that data. I know it's there.

In a presser on Wednesday when asked why the numbers in MI are so high, Whitmer opined that it was because the state had a large reservoir of people naive to the virus. This was due to "the great job we did early on (with lockdowns)." On Sunday News she blamed travel to FL. That may have been the case but I want data that shows that before I believe this woman who has a history of making shit up.

Although data tracking for the relationship between states that imposed strict lockdowns (creating large reservoirs of SARS 2 naïve people) and those that didn't (more people got infected per100K population) does not appear in the public domain (because it doesn't fit the narrative), MI, now facing a surge in B1.1.7 (the UK) variant that is more transmissible, predictably case rates, as seen by county and as measured by R, are accelerating (1.02 - 1.2).

Anecdotally, I can make the case that states (and countries like Sweden among others that allowed greater mobility) ran up new cases in younger less vulnerable populations, albeit suffering higher death rates, while reducing the number of susceptible hosts over time. The virus tends to burn out in those regions where more people were infected early on leaving less to be vulnerable a year later.

I think this trade-off was discussed previously but the central question becomes the ethics of allowing the virus to spread trading higher death rates for a quicker end to the pandemic. In a recent interview, Sweden's Minister of Health, who has widely been credited with being a herd immunity proponent, when asked about Sweden's death rate, responded ask me that question in another year. The implication is that the Health Minister is standing by the path that Sweden took and as time moves on, the benefits of that path (or the downsides of it) will become clear.

Of course, the downside trade-off of increased deaths is offset by efforts to keep the virus out of LTC facilities (80 and up) and by new and significantly improved management and treatments for those in the 65-79 age group who develop COVID. I'd like to think FL will come out ahead when this thing actually does come to an end with Desantis preferring to not over-manage the pandemic in FL with a lot of do this and do that stuff. Whitmer, at this point, appears to have over-managed the pandemic in MI and is paying the price for that now.

[THE_WIZARD_]

"This was due to "the great job we did early on (with lockdowns)."

JFC...is she serious when saying this? ROTFLMFGDAO. What a dumbfuck.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Is she Cuomo's sister?

[lineygoblue]

She gets more preposterous by the day.

But hey, Mike .. she's got a 60% approval rating! The people LOVE her!!

[Mike]

"This was due to "the great job we did early on (with lockdowns)."

JFC...is she serious when saying this? ROTFLMFGDAO. What a dumbfuck.

Yes. I mentioned it up thread a few days ago. She said the reason things are so bad now is because since they did such a great job with the lockdowns, not enough people have antibodies.

[Jeff Buchanan]

....... I'm repeating the obvious: Don't close shit down, protect vulnerable populations with the strictest measures, let the rest go about living taking basic precautions. There's some after-the-fact theorizing that if countries had done that at the outset the world would have experienced a higher initial CFR with that number steeply declining over time. That's without vaccines. Add in mandated vaccines after 9 months, targeting over 80s, over 65's then the rest we very well might be out of the woods right now having experienced way less deaths.

Scientists and physicians talking about that were muzzled mostly by the press trashing this kind of thinking. Trump probably had the right idea with horrible execution and messaging. He brought in the wrong people. If he'd shit-canned Fauci and elevated the right ones in conjunction with the general direction he was taking, i.e., someone who could sell it sensibly, he might have pulled off a significant slowing of the spread of SARS2 by August and won the November election in a landslide. Oh for perfect hindsight.

[Jeff Buchanan]

In other COVID news today:

• Fauci tells the Sunday news shows J&J vaccines will be back on Friday. Possibly with age, sex limits or additional warnings. No telling how cautious the FDA will be in placing limits.
• New case numbers in the US are declining overall. You have to dig to find that. Increases are regional and seem to be isolated. Surprise, a national 4th wave is not emerging.
• Americans with at least one shot are hovering just below 40%.
• Deaths down sharply nationally. Higher where regional outbreaks are present.
• There's a prime time 30 minute program on right now touting vaccine safety and effectiveness. Been calling for that. Biden introduced it.

We should stop reporting new case numbers and vaccinations nationally or by state. They will be reported. Just stop looking at these.

The most important metric right now is the dependent variables vaccinations v. new infections displayed on one graph or table (neither reported alone - the current and misleading data reporting protocol). This is referred to as a count down to normality (removal of - or should remove - all restrictions).That calculation is based on reaching herd immunity nationally. I'd rather see it by state and by county; you can approximate your state's count down to normality by looking at your own state's reports of new cases v. vaccinations.

Politics will continue to interfere but if you're watching this dependency interaction, you'll get a much clearer picture of virus control. I'm predicting that by the first or second week in May, you'll start to see viral circulation by US county as measured by reported % positivity declining below 5% (signifies adequate control of the virus). Some states are already there. Most aren't. There will be laggards and i suspect those will be the states with large reservoirs of unvaccinated/infection naïve people whose governors went over-board with lock-downs ..... like MI. States lagging in administering vaccinations for any number of reasons will also be laggards.

This is a link to the interactive graphs depicting the date herd immunity is approached (Mid-May) and then reached (early-June).

https://covid19-projections.com/path-to-herd-immunity/

[Ghengis Jon]

A little song for the anti-mask/anti-vax crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koUf3HXV9Pw

[Dr. Strangelove]

....... I'm repeating the obvious: Don't close shit down, protect vulnerable populations with the strictest measures, let the rest go about living taking basic precautions. There's some after-the-fact theorizing that if countries had done that at the outset the world would have experienced a higher initial CFR with that number steeply declining over time. That's without vaccines. Add in mandated vaccines after 9 months, targeting over 80s, over 65's then the rest we very well might be out of the woods right now having experienced way less deaths.

Scientists and physicians talking about that were muzzled mostly by the press trashing this kind of thinking. Trump probably had the right idea with horrible execution and messaging. He brought in the wrong people. If he'd shit-canned Fauci and elevated the right ones in conjunction with the general direction he was taking, i.e., someone who could sell it sensibly, he might have pulled off a significant slowing of the spread of SARS2 by August and won the November election in a landslide. Oh for perfect hindsight.

Isn't this what Sweden initially did? And then they still had a huge spike, worse than most other European countries, from Nov to January

[Jeff Buchanan]

Isn't this what Sweden initially did? And then they still had a huge spike, worse than most other European countries, from Nov to January

The simple answer is yes, that's what they did but it's not that simple. What mitigation measures the Swedes have taken or didn't take depends on what source you are reading about it. It is accurate to say that Sweden has a similar if not slightly higher rate of deaths than other Scandinavian and/or EU nations. Aa I wrote up thread, when Sweden's Health minister was asked about this, his response was ask me again in another year.

His point illustrates the impact of allowing the virus to spread which incurs a higher death rate per capita but will produce a steeply declining death rate over time and a lower total of absolute deaths in the end as the number of human vulnerable hosts declines. Classic herd immunity approach with a twist ........

The realty is that Sweden did adopt some mitigation measures but not nearly as severe as other countries. My view is that they were more rational. For example, instead of shutting down all restaurants and bars, they directed these establishments to move dining out doors and space patrons. They did restrict gatherings but Swedes in general tended to be more responsible - there's a Swedish word for that that describes taking responsibility for the good of Sweden - in going about life. Masks were never mandatory but most swedes did mask indoors and continue to do so. One can argue that heavy handed pandemic restrictions to mobility produces unwanted back-lash in the form of irresponsible behaviors. I think we've seen this in the US.

[iam416]

The thing with Sweden is that that people only want to compare their numbers to other Scandinavian countries instead of the entire EU. The latter is by far and away more relevant. I guess, e.g., that Connecticut and NY look even worse than they really are if you compare it to Vermont. But real comparison is to the rest of the EU. Sweden has done slightly worse than average for the EU in the only stat that counts.

It's clear that Sweden's approach (as Jeff notes, that approach, like most countries, varied over time) didn't produce above average results. It's also clear that Sweden's approach didn't produce disastrous results.

Sweden is 20th in the EU in deaths per capita (removing the micro countries of Andorra and San Marino).

[Jeff Buchanan]

The NYT ran a piece this morning featuring a story told by Yale Law Professor and Federal Judge Guido Calabresi that he has been telling law students for more than three decades. He asks, would you eliminate automobiles, for example, to save the 11000 traffic fatalities that occur every year?" Of course the rational answer is no. That is becasue we accept that risk which is actually miniscule considering exposure to that risk that individuals willingly experience. When a risk is new though, such as death from COVID, there is a tendency for that risk to become outsized producing unwanted caution that begets bad public health policy.

Just last week the CDC produced a report that appeared on thier web site that trumpeted new government data showing that 5,800 fully vaccinated Americans had contracted Covid. That may sound like a big number, but it indicates that a vaccinated person’s chances of getting COVID are about one in 11,000. The chances of a getting a version any worse than a common cold are even more remote. Yet the Biden administration continues to message a negative COVID narrative and press for the continuation of increasingly unnecessary COVID mitigation measures. A couple of law makers are jumping on that band-wagon. The front running example at the federal level of irrational fear of becoming infected and getting seriously ill from COVID is the cruise industry - completely shut down by federal COVID related regulations. That sort of irrationality filters down to state governments as well where facing a spike in new COVID cases (discussed above) Governor Whitmer has threatened state-wide lockdowns in the circumstance of stable or declining death and serious illness rates. Everyone posting here knows people or friends of people that refuse to leave their homes harboring irrational fears of dying from COVID even though they are vaccinated.

I'm seeing more an more published thought like this appearing in multiple places. It's refreshing. It's producing push-back from Americans as well as law makers at the state and federal level against onerous and completely unnecessary COVID mitigation measures. The bottom line is that the risk of a vaccinated person becoming seriously ill or dying from COVID is exceedingly small and in general, the unjustifiable fear of that risk remains a major obstacle to getting on with life as the population of vaccinated Americans rises.

[WingsFan]

I have a lingering 'side effect' from the moderna vaccine. I asked a friend and he agreed with me, but he I think he was just going along with me. Now this is serious, I have a massive 'Sweet Tooth'

I have been eating food I usually avoid. Cake , Cookies, Pie, even candy bars. Friday I bought two different Ice Creams - Moose Tracks and Chocolate Mint Chip. Plus im hooked on Bagels (again) after a friend stopped and bought some fresh warm ones. Garlic, though I like the 'everything' the best.

[Tom W]

In a presser on Wednesday when asked why the numbers in MI are so high, Whitmer opined that it was because the state had a large reservoir of people naive to the virus. This was due to "the great job we did early on (with lockdowns)." On Sunday News she blamed travel to FL. That may have been the case but I want data that shows that before I believe this woman who has a history of making shit up.

LOL Mel Brooks or Monte Python couldn't write a character as ridiculous as her. But, she does have an amazing way of holding a straight face when she presents her assorted chartjunk that she passes off as "Science". She almost looks like she believes it.

Of course, nobody in the press seriously questions her and yes, there's enough fools in this state to re-elect her.