We have been discussing the ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in tossing the death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev due to juror bias (as well as reversing some convictions). The ruling is a relatively rare case of a court taking such action. Criminal defense attorneys, including myself, have long complained that judges talk a good game about fair trials but always seem to find a way of avoiding new trials in the face of even clear juror bias. That was my objection to the Stone trial where Judge Amy Berman Jackson refused to grant a new trial on grounds very similar to those of Tsarnaev, including alleged bias in forepersons in the both cases. While Tsarnaev only got a new sentencing proceeding, Stone should receive an entirely new trial.
With his recent racist remark to a Black radio host, Stone continues to struggle to make himself even less popular than Tsarnaev. I have long been a critic of Stone who admits to being little more than a performance artist and provocateur. However, he still deserves a fair trial and he did not get one from Judge Jackson.
The similarities between the cases are striking. At issue was the bias of Juror 1261. That is lawyer Tomeka Hart who served as the foreperson on the jury. Hart is a Democratic activist and critic of the Trump administration. She was the Memphis City Schools board president. Hart has been vocal in public on her views of Trump and his associates. She referred to the President with a hashtag of “klanpresident” and spoke out against “Trump and the white supremacist racists.” She posted about how she and others protested outside a Trump hotel and shouted, “Shame, shame, shame!” When profanities were projected on the Trump hotel, she exclaimed on Jan. 13, 2018, “Gotta love it.” On March 24, 2019, she shared a Facebook post — no longer public — while calling attention to “the numerous indictments, guilty pleas, and convictions of people in 45’s inner-circle.” She also made direct references to Stone, including a retweeted post, in January 2019, from Bakari Sellers, again raising racist associations and stating that “Roger Stone has y’all talking about reviewing use of force guidelines.” She also described Trump supporters such as Stone as racists and Putin cronies.
These statements were not disclosed to counsel or the Court despite various questions that should have prompted such disclosures. Nevertheless, Jackson refused a new trial, making a mockery out the entire voir dire process. It turns out that you must disclose such bias so you can be barred from service. But if you don’t, it really does not matter.
It did matter in Boston.
In the 224-page opinion for the appellate panel, Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson noted that George A. O’Toole Jr. denied a request to move the trial out of Boston due to the obvious risk of juror bias but then failed to take necessary takes to protect against such bias. The result were jurors who made comments on social media that raise serious questions over their willingness to be impartial.
Notably, in a striking analogy to the Stone case, this included 22 Twitter posts and retweets by the jury’s forewoman. One referred to Mr. Tsarnaev as “that piece of garbage” but was never disclosed during juror selection.
She was not alone. Another juror went on Twitter on the day of the sentencing to say that Mr. Tsarnaev was “scum” and “trash” and that he belonged in a “dungeon where he will be forgotten about until his time comes.”
Notably, O’Toole struck a juror who was a criminal defense attorney because he was not “open to the possibility of the death penalty.” O’Toole based that judgment on his “sense of him” from his answers. However, he failed to explore such bias adequately in other jurors particularly in social media postings. The First Circuit reaffirmed that “decisions about prospective jurors’ impartiality are for the judge, not for the potential jurors themselves.”
“To repeat what we wrote earlier, the judge qualified jurors who had already formed an opinion that Dzhokhar was guilty — and he did so in large part – 65 – because they answered “yes” to the question whether they could decide this high-profile case based on the evidence. The defense warned the judge that asking only general questions like that would wrongly “make[]” the potential jurors “judge[s] of their own impartiality” — the exact error that the Patriarca line of cases seeks to prevent. But the judge dismissed the defense’s objection, saying that “[t]o a large extent” jurors must perform that function. Yet by not having the jurors identify what it was they already thought they knew about the case, the judge made it too difficult for himself and the parties to determine both the nature of any taint (e.g., whether the juror knew something prejudicial not to be conceded at trial) and the possible remedies for the taint. This was an error of law and so an abuse of discretion.”
The problem has never been the standard for a fair trial. “[T]he right to jury trial guarantees to the criminally accused a fair trial by a panel of impartial, indifferent jurors. The failure to accord an accused a fair hearing violates even the minimal standards of due process.” Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 722 (1961). The problem has been the willingness of federal judges to enforce it, particularly after prolonged and expensive trials.
Reading this opinion, it is impossible not to think of the Stone ruling. Ultimately, this precedent is not controlling on the D.C. Circuit but will likely be cited as “persuasive authority.” In the age of social media, courts must do a better job in pursuing evidence of juror bias. That was not done in Tsarnaev and it was not done in Stone.
Here is the decision: Tsarnaev Opinion
Just to get this in:
There is no doubt Barack Obama Sr. was married to Ann Dunham. What’s not certain is how long they actually cohabited. Seven months would be a passable wager, though there is some documentation indicating it might have been less than that. There is no reason to think Frank Marshall Davis was his sire. Davis was a friend of Stanley Dunham ca. 1971. Barack Obama Jr was conceived in the fall of 1960. The Dunhams had lived in Hawaii for all of five months at that point, renting in the Hawaii Kai section of Honolulu. Davis and his wife lived about 15 miles away. He was at that time operating a small business (a paper distributorship, I believe). There would have been on Oahu at that time about 3,000 black males capable of siring a child.. A student at the University (aged 24) known to have been in Ann Dunham’s circle of friends is a rather more plausible candidate for sire than a 55 year old businessman who lived 15 miles away and whose known connection to the Dunhams does not antedate 1971. No clue why anyone would think Barack Obama Sr. would marry Ann Dunham to legitimate someone else’s child; none of the coarse bits of information known about him would give one the impression that he was anything but a self-centered a**hole.
Family lore is often garbled, so it’s unsurprising there is a certain amount of hooey in Screams at My Father. Obama himself at age 31 was something of a contrived personage, so you’d expect less veracity than you would from an ordinary person operating in good faith. Look at Pete Booty-gag for another example.
[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: So I just watched a clip. And Joe Biden, this morning, totally disparaged and insulted the black community. What he said is incredible. And I don’t know what’s going on with him, but it was a very insulting statement he made. And I guess you’ll figure that out. You’ll see it in a little while. But it was a great insult to the black community.
He is just cognatively impaired.
We should not be imputing motives to statements by someone whose marbles are slipping.
My father went through this.
He said lots of things that did not reflect who he had been.
The crime here is that his family and his party are using him in this way.
Joe should spend the time he has left with his family.
Cuomo can keep his dinner, but if he is only worried about them residing in the Hamptons he better think again. NYC will lose taxes but if these people now move out of state the state loses taxes as well. When they move out of state they frequently decrease their businesses in NY. My entire family lived in NYC. All but one left and all paid a lot of taxes. The last one left permanently this year. Now the only question is do any of us keep any homes or businesses in N.Y.C. or NYS. It’s highly doubtful.
When we listen to the bloggers that can’t seem to do math or understand what motivates people they don’t recognize the dangers. Cuomo isn’t the smartest crayon in the box, but I think he is slowly recognizing the danger of “rich” people being unhappy where they live.
Paint Chips worried that Trump and others sold $20-$100 million properties to Russians, Chinese, etc. but they pay big taxes. Maybe Cuomo should send them away as well.(sarcasm alert)
This marathon on masks seems never ending. I don’t agree entirely with John, but he is providing a scientific point of view with some important data. Btb and the bug seem to base all their conclusions on correlation and polls based on feelings. They do not recognize that correlation does not imply causation.
I will use the btb-bug scientific method to determine the cause of severe covid viral spread. Democats.
Methodology: In a study I used Belgium as a cut-off point. It is the European state with the highest number of deaths per million, 850 deaths per million. That is the highest count in the EU where different states have handled things differently. In the US we have 50 states that handled things differently so I will look at the states that surpassed Belgium’s death rate.
Results:
The states are Deaths per million
New Jersey 1,793
New York 1,686
Massachusetts 1,256
Connecticut 1,245
Rhode Island 954
Louisiana 871
Discussion: The common denominator of those 6 states is that they are all run by Democrat governors.
Conclusion: Democrats are the cause for the widest spread of the Covid-19 virus
After recognizing the cause of the widespread Covid virus to be Democrats it is imperative to vote Republican and Trump in 2020.
Sorry, Allan, but Massachusetts actually has a Republican governor, Charlie Baker. It’s true that Democrats have a commanding majority in both houses of the legislature, and a lock on most municipal governance as well.
Thank you Buttle for the correction and thank you for also being fair and adding “Democrats have a commanding majority in both houses of the legislature, and a lock on most municipal governance as well.” I guess I need a revision to the recent study I posted that is based on btb-Bug science.
Just out of curiosity since you seem to know a bit about Massachusetts, how far from center is Buttle and how does he compare with Romney?
Baker, Allan. Charlie Baker. Unlike at the federal level, he’s a republican that has worked very well with my governor Gina Raimondo.
Baker is Romney esque without the Mormonism.
And he’s openly called Trump out on his Covid response in governor group calls.
Baker hasn’t done all that well in Massachusetts. His number of deaths per million is almost 1.5X that of Belgium and Belgium leads the European states in deaths per million.
Remember the study I provided stated it was based on the btb-Bugs theories of science.
Allan, you’re showing stats that recognize what Covid does when it hits population density centers. Quick primer: Covid hit Europe early, lot’s of people died. Covid largely traveled to the northeastern states from Europe…., lots of people died. Covid is now ravaging the south and the soutwest, lots of people are dying now.
“Allan, you’re showing stats that recognize what Covid does when it hits population density centers. Quick primer: Covid hit Europe early, lot’s of people died.”
True – but in some places more than others.
“Covid largely traveled to the northeastern states from Europe…., lots of people died.”
True but in some places more than others.
“Covid is now ravaging the south and the soutwest, lots of people are dying now.”
False.
There is no south and southwest state in the top 10 greatest 14 day increases in positive tests.
All of those are still in the north east or pacific islands.
The rate in the country and the southwest is declining.
The hospitalization rate is declining.
Despite the so called surge in the south west the death rate has been stable or barely increasing,
and will follow the declining hospitalization rate.
Your vile hopes for the southwest are dashed.
I would also note that the first US C18 death was Jan 4 – in CA – before Europe.
CA imposed the nations most draconian measures and still has 119,000 new C19 cases over the past 14 days.
Bug, Florida is more populous than NY and I beleive has a higher percentage of vulnerable people so if what you say is true Florida’s death rate should far exceend the death rate per million from NY.
Florida’s death rate is 355 per million and I think the metrics are showing a decline in infections which should mean that shortly the death rate will drastically fall. NY is at 1,686 per million. That means that the NY death rate is almost 5 times higher than Florida. That blows still another hole in your argument. If you are thinking that Florida is going to catch up then consider it needs ~25,000 more deaths to be in the vicinity of NY.
Anything is possible. Who knows, the sun might not rise tomorrow.
Yes, we should all desparately want to hear who the people who have failed the worst blame.
Yes it is interesting that the politicians leading the states that have failed the worst, are blaming Trump.
While those that have done well are not.
Baker has to work with Democrats, and his constituency, which re-elected him, votes consistently Democrat. He’s probably a bit to the left of Romney. He seems to be popular in Massachusetts, for giving sane-sounding, reassuring speeches about the covids, death rate aside. He did somewhat better than Cuomo on nursing homes, which is faint praise indeed.
Allan, what you’re findings represent is that Covid struck the Northeast first. Stay tuned for South and the West. And say good bye to Trump in Jan. 21.
Covid has hit different places at different times with varying results. I believe Covid hit Europe first and what I did was to provide the European state, Belgium, that had the highest deaths per million for comparison. All these states I mentioned had death rates exceeding that of Belgium even though they were hit later. New Jersey and New York have about twice the per million death rate of Belgium. Are you not able to check your theories in the most superficial way before unloading on the blog?
Since they don’t fit in with your statistical 3 card monty apparently not.
“Since they don’t fit in with your statistical 3 card monty apparently not.”
What is your idea of C19 success ? millions of deaths by few positive tests ?
Just wondering how you define success.
1. Flattening the curve
2. Developing a capable vaccine.
3. Education of the public about ways to enhance their own immune system.
4. Modeling U.S. public health measures after the ones proven to work in the pandemic realm (i.e. massive point of care testing, compliance with mask wearing, stimulus to develop counterbalancing aspects of the economy in response to the glaring weaknesses laid bare by Covid.
5. Getting Trump out of office…, he’s beyond incapable of leading through this particular challenge.
“1. Flattening the curve”
No “expert” onsiders that success. It is a tool, not an objective.
The purpose of flattening the curve is to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed anf the purpose of that is to reduce deaths.
Overwhelming the hospitals is only a harm if it increases deaths – we have not actually seen that.
Even in Italy the higher death rate is beacuse of an elderly and unhealthy population – not overwhelming hospitals.
Flattening the curve has no impact on the total number of infections, and thus far no proven impact on deaths.
But it has many other clearly negative impacts.
So your goal is something that has proved net BAD ?>
“2. Developing a capable vaccine.”
There is probably no other area that Trump has acted more agressively.
No other country in the world has committed so strongly to getting an effective vaccine as fast.
Trump has openly fought with “experts” who claimed an accelerated schedule was not possible.
Yet we already have atleast 2 vaccines in phase III trials and will have more each day.
I beleive there are atleast 70 difference vaccines in various stages of development.
If one of the more advanced ones gets through Phase III we might have a vaccine in Sept.
Right now it looks like the worst case is Jan 2020. That would be by far the fastest vaccine for a “novel” virus ever.
“3. Education of the public about ways to enhance their own immune system.”
Get out in the sun.
Take Vitamin D.
Take Vitamin Get lots of exercise.
“4. Modeling U.S. public health measures after the ones proven to work in the pandemic realm (i.e. massive point of care testing, compliance with mask wearing, stimulus to develop counterbalancing aspects of the economy in response to the glaring weaknesses laid bare by Covid.”
Claiming something has worked does not make that so.
There is not a single public heath measure that is “proven to work”
Massive testing does not change the number of people infected, it merely informs you.
Once you have failed to stop a disease at the countries borders the only value of testing is informational.
There are no real world studies of mask effectiveness,
The laboratory studies demonstrate insufficient reduction in spread to actually halt the virus.
You constantly make the mistake of beleiving that reduction in the R0 value without bring it below 1.0 have any benefit.
They do not – they likely make things WORSE.
Stimulus does not work. It does not work for republicans, democrats or both.
Standard of living is inseparable from production. If you do not produce as much, we are all poorer. No matter hoe much money you hand out. There is no means to make up for lost production except more production.
Money is not wealth. It is a tool that aides in the transfer and production of wealth. If you do not produce more, adding more money has no benefit.
“5. Getting Trump out of office…, he’s beyond incapable of leading through this particular challenge.”
You have failed to make that case.
“You have failed to make that case.”
Not only did the Bug fail to make his case but he demonstrated that he hasn’t learned a thing since Covid-19 was first discussed on the blog. Generally people get smarter with time but the Bug remains static. The only thing he thinks he knows is that getting rid of Trump will solve all problems. That is pure foolishness especially since Trump did a better and faster job doing all the things the Bug wants, including the vaccine, than any other politician around.
Of course we have spent money like it has no meanng but that is what democrats love to do spend money out of the pockets of the people many who actually need that money. We are going to have a rough bunch of months ahead. Hopefully, Trump will win in 2020 and the Republicans will gain control of the House and keep control of the Senate. I don’t think Trump likes the spending but is forced into it by the democrats and the spineless Republicans.
Mostly agree.
But Trump likes to spend. He has been trying to do a big infrastructure bill since he was elected.
John, this is where you and I have some disagreement. I believe spending on infrastructure ***can*** be good. One thing I have noted about Trump is he has an idea of how much money is needed for things of this nature and can help control costs. Look at the Israeli embassy. He takes a lot of heat for decreasing costs because people on the hill and large companies are finding that the easy government money for a specific task doesn’t permit all the payoffs. Of course that attemp by Trump is limited by democrats and some Repbulicans since so many act based on their own pocketbooks and fail to protect America.
“I believe spending on infrastructure ***can*** be good”
Not by government.
Regardless, we have beaten this to death.
“>>>“I believe spending on infrastructure ***can*** be good”
>>Not by government.
>Regardless, we have beaten this to death.”
John, that is too rigid and light years away from where we are today. You can move at lightspeed to dial back where we are. I can’t. I’ll go with Hayek ‘if needed do so in the way that least effects the marketplace’. Move slow but steady in the libertarian direction.
In any event I get back to Jo Jorgensen. I agree with her on nuclear power. I’ll bet she doesn’t disagree with some type of license for nuclear plant owners and engineers.
“Not only did the Bug fail to make his case but he demonstrated that he hasn’t learned a thing since Covid-19 was first discussed on the blog.”
That’s because I do my research with realistic sources. There is much quakery on this blog about Covid, Allan. Hate to break the bad news to you, but the fact that you learn about Covid on this blog and from Fox is hilarious. Even a bit sad.
Laugh all you want, but when I laugh I take it to the bank. A measure of success is how much people are willing to pay you for your knowledge and how much you can independently earn from it. That knowledge took me from being in debt for college and advanced degrees for two persons to being able to retire with a high standard of living in a relatively short span of time. I didn’t retire when I was first able because I did so many different things that I liked doing.
By the way, no one who contributed to my income ever complained about my spelling.
“That’s because I do my research with realistic sources.”
obviously false.
“There is much quakery on this blog about Covid,”
Correctm and there would be far less if you would quit spreading quackery.
“Allan. Hate to break the bad news to you, but the fact that you learn about Covid on this blog and from Fox is hilarious. Even a bit sad.”
I do not know where Alan learned anything. I do not watch Fox, but I do read medical studies – most of which are from health experts in Europe.
You seem to get your information from the MSM which no one sane trusts anymore.
We live in the internet era. You can get information direct fromt he experts.
You do not need some SJW reported at NYT who never took a science course much less biology to explain epidemics to you.
Look, three things matter here…deaths, hospitalizations and therapeutics. None of them look good in the states most affected at any given time although the therapeutics are looking better as time goes on due to consolidated experience with on the ground treatment. Play 3 card monty statistically all you want…,and over simplify all you want. Increasing immune response is far more than getting sun and exercise. Laughable response. And denigrate all you want, Covid has hit the U.S. much harder than your minimization addresses. Much more than your herd immunity pipe dream addresses. You, my friend, haven’t made the case. You, like Allan, are totally susceptible to fixating on the latest isolated defocusing tool, you ignore what the big picture is telling you by focusing on a minute statistic. Ro, 2 standard deviations, cosmic rays, all good in their place…, they’re just not the whole picture. IOW, you are the definition of the guy who misses the forest for the trees. Your ideology comes first, and you seek out the statistic taken in isolation to justify your politics. You’re laughed out of any serious discussion on the science of the Covid pandemic and that’s why you parade your b.s. on an op ed legal blog. I suppose that’s the best place for a holocaust approach to a pandemic.
Have at it there, cap.
Rarely do we witness someone as self deluded as John, who makes a habit of claiming virtually all the experts wrong on multiple subjects – including hilariously NOAA in a dispute with Trump on Alabama – and because they are either not as smart as he or part of a conspiracy. Not surprisingly, and as you point out, his “scientific” conclusions remarkably dovetail with his equally crackpot politics!
In just the last day he has demonstrated complete ignorance on some of the subjects relating to covid 19 and then demands I/we prove them to him, or he will – continue – to ignore them, while continuing his pet theory that – surprise! – calls for less government!
If he is an architect, he has a societal and economic position secured by government licensing attesting to his supposed expert knowledge on designing structures and picking colors – we don’t know which he is best at, though most modern architects let the engineers figure out how to attain their fantasies in the real world (Some mainstream architecture schools actually preach that such encumbrances as gravity are improper constraints on the soaring imaginations of those in the profession and the engineers working in the pits will have to deal with it.). One imagines it very unlikely that John welcomes the input of Walter Mitty clients like him who think the little they know about buildings qualify them to question his decisions, but hey, maybe not. We can only hope he gets more clients like that.
Well said, Book. Plus, I imagine John is just a barrel of laughs at social gatherings!
Wasn’t aware of the questioning of NOAA position of his…, I wonder if he did it in Sharpie? Ha.
Do you have an argument ?
And no BTB is not “well said” – nor are you.
I have thus far seen no evidence that your existance is justified.
Why do you exist ? What have you accomplished ?
How is the world better for your being ?
Your analytical and logical skills are so bad I would not hire you for anything.
You reject reality – what are you good for ?
Advanced underwater basket weaving ?
“Rarely do we witness someone as self deluded as John, who makes a habit of claiming virtually all the experts wrong on multiple subjects”
False. i have asserted that YOUR experts are wrong.
We live in the internet era – we do not need to depend on the MSM for either data or expert oppinion.
“including hilariously NOAA in a dispute with Trump on Alabama”
Actually you would be the one who is hilarious. NOAA admitted they provided Trump with the information he used.
Regardless, this is an incredibily bizzarre claim. There has NEVER been a huricane prediction that has been right.
That is why they are constantly revised. We fully expect that the NOAA is fallible.
Ordinary people are capable of treating experts as information, not the word of god.
Discussions with you are like debating evangelical christians over the bible.
You are a religious nut job. You invest purported experts with authority and infallability that the good ones grasp they do not have.
“Not surprisingly, and as you point out, his “scientific” conclusions remarkably dovetail with his equally crackpot politics!”
This is quite an interesting observation. Who would have guessed in 2016 that the right wing loon conspiracy theorists would be RIGHT ABOUT ALMOST EVERYTHING ? Regardless, my conclusions are driven by data, facts, logic and reason.
Unlike you – I have an excellent track record.
I offered you a bet some time ago. The offer is still on the table. If you beleive I am wrong – it should be a no brainer. Take the bet, and if I lose, I will vote for Biden, but if I win, You must vote for Trump.
My predictions whether on C19 or other issues are not perfect – but they have been damn good so far – much better than your “experts”.
“On just the last day he has demonstrated complete ignorance on some of the subjects relating to covid 19”
Again how so ?
You do not even have enough confidence in your own nonsense to make specific claims.
You want to claim I am obviously in error, but not only are you unwilling to back up the claim of error,
you are not even willing to identify the purported error.
Of course I demanded proof from you – you have a multi year record of bad judgement, error, and false accusations.
You are simply not credible and you do not have integrity.
And as time will tell, C19 will prove to be another example.
“and then demands I/we prove them to him, or he will – continue – to ignore them, while continuing his pet theory that – surprise!”
“calls for less government!”
It is tautology that government that can not deliver is unjustifed.
I think there is pretty much universal agreement – right left, libertarian, that government does not deliver much of the time.
Why is it so hard for you to agree that we should pare failure from govenrment, and that given the extent of government failure – we whould be skeptical of future promises from government ?
That should be a no brainer.
BTW nothing in that argument is ideological – unless not continuing to support failure is ideological.
“If he is an architect, he has a societal and economic position secured by government licensing attesting to his supposed expert knowledge on designing structures and picking colors – we don’t know which he is best at, though most modern architects let the engineers figure out how to attain their fantasies in the real world (Some mainstream architecture schools actually preach that such encumbrances as gravity are improper constraints on the soaring imaginations of those in the profession and the engineers working in the pits will have to deal with it.).”
I am a registered architect,
Absolutely government licensing laws artificially reduce the market and subsidize those who dot their eyes.
I oppose those laws. I oppose licensing architects, and lawyers, and hairdressors, and manicurists.
These are not the role of government.
I have met the requirements for an architectural license, because without that license I could not own part of the family business that i helped to build.
You have little knowledge of what architects do. But that is not important to this debate.
Absolutely there are lots of stupid architects out there – as well as lawyers, and doctors, and engineers, and ….
I have no interest in defending any profession. Significant portions of my own architectural education involved nonsensical political indoctrination. So I spouted the maoist nonsense necescary to get my degree. Now I do not need to.
“One imagines it very unlikely that John welcomes the input of Walter Mitty clients like him who think the little they know about buildings qualify them to question his decisions, but hey, maybe not. We can only hope he gets more clients like that.”
The job of an architect – like that of every profession is to make their clients happy.
It is my job to comply with the requirements of the law – whether those are rational or not, to meet the wants and needs of my clients, and to do so in a way that I can be happy with the results myself.
Do you have any actual experience in anything ?
Have you demonstrated actual competence in anything ?
Have you accomplished anything in your life ?
What reason is there to trust anything you say ?
You lob moral hand grenades, you rant and rave, but I have thus far seen no evidence that you have any skills at all.
That should you catch C19 and die tomorow, that you will have left any finger prints on the world.
that you will have any accomplishements to show.
“Look, three things matter here…deaths, hospitalizations and therapeutics. ”
The simple generalized statement sounds smart to you but it is merely a cover of tremendous ignorance. One has to understand the relationships between these factors and whole bunch of others. You keep proving that you are incapable of such thought.
Three things matter but as an example of your ignorance, what about the virus? If it mutates it can get better or worse. Which direction it turns tremendously effects what happens next. Unfortunately for us it appears that the strain in our country is the most virulent. That is just one thing that matters left unmentioned. There are many more.
You have minimal facility in this type of logic.
I’ll take that in the best possible light…, as an unintended, backhanded compliment from a moron.
Bug, take it anyway you wish. Fortunately your lack of intellectual ability is not transmissible so I will continue in my success and you will continue with whatever success you have but that success will not translate to the critical thinking skills necessary to understand what the discussions are all about.
K Trumper.
“K Trumper.”
Bug, I don’t know what you mean, but it is likely more nonsensical talk. I listen to you because at least half of the country (probably a lot more) are ignorant. You inform me about what is on their minds though it leaves out the group that is a little more accomplished.
Bug, let me give you a real time example. My friend just called to have me do a Google search. He said in the search bar to place any 3 numbers and after the numbers to write cases. He said there was something fishy going on with Google because no matter what three numbers you put in you will get results of the search with your number in front of the word cases.
Understand, I know there is something more than fishy with Google, but I told him this was not fishy at all. It took me a bit of time to convince him I was sane and then he finally said he wasn’t sure. He needs time to think. It is very hard to deal with people that have preconceived notions. It shuts their brains down and if they look for the truth they seek out those things that provide confirmation bias.
I didn’t have to think more than a second or two to understand what was going on and then I told him I would be surprised if any 3 digit number didn’t appear with search ending findings. That would be shocking. It all has to do with numbers and statistics. This type of understanding is integral to what I have done my entire life.
Cool. You’ve discovered two rocks. Now…, I hear there’s a rumor if you rub them together they’ll create sparks…
Bug, it looks like you don’t understand the logic or the point of my prior remark. Paint Chips who follows definitely doesn’t understand. How we became such a great nation with people like you guys is an enigma to me.
Alan, google three numbers plus ‘Dow Jones Closing’.
“Look, three things matter here…
deaths,”
Yes,
“hospitalizations”
Less
“and therapeutics.”
Whatever that means.
“None of them look good in the states most affected at any given time”
About as clear as mush.
“although the therapeutics are looking better as time goes on due to consolidated experience with on the ground treatment.”
I would direct you to Orwell’s advice on writing.
” Play 3 card monty statistically all you want”
Whatever that means.
Data is data.
It means what it means.
As I think we agreed, Deaths is the most meaningful statistic.
With hospitalizations next.
“and over simplify all you want.”
The data is the data. It is as simple or complex as it is.
Mostly I am NOT dealing with statistics, but actually raw data.
“Increasing immune response is far more than getting sun and exercise.”
Nutrition and vitamins also.
And that really is pretty much all there is to it.
Maybe HCQ has a beneficial effect on immune response.
” Laughable response.”
Nope – biology.
“And denigrate all you want,”
I am dengrating your poor analysis with facts.
“Covid has hit the U.S. much harder than your minimization addresses.”
Again refer to Orwell on clear writing.
You are doing a comparison between two things that you leave unclear.
“Much more than your herd immunity pipe dream addresses.”
There is no pipe dream. This is how ALL epidemics end.
Vaccines are a means to herd immunity.
C19 will not go away until it is unable to further infect people.
“You, my friend,”
I am not your friend. We are two people commenting on the internet, you are not entitled to presume familiarity you do not have.
“haven’t made the case.”
Not only have I but the planet agrees.
“You, like Allan, are totally susceptible to fixating on the latest isolated defocusing tool,”
No, just reality, data, facts, logic, reason.
You seem to think that reality is just another oppinion.
If actual facts are not as a assert – demonstrate that.
If I am wrong – it is because I am asserting incorrect facts, or making arguments that are not consistent with the rules of logic.
These are not arbitrary. They are not oppinions, that are not “isolated defocusing tools:” or whatever gobbledygook language mauling you can offer to avoid confronting facts.
“you ignore what the big picture is telling you by focusing on a minute statistic.”
“Ro,”
The C19 epidemic ends when R0 is reduced below 1.0 for long enough.
That makes that pretty relevant.
Further the effect of some measure on R0 IS the effect of that measure on the epidemic. It is not some minute statistic, it is the measure of effectiveness against C19.
“2 standard deviations,”
Any hypothesis that is 2.5 std dev separated from reality is FALSIFIED.
Again not a small thing. Something that is 2.5 std dev from reality has less than a 2% chance of being true.
“cosmic rays,”
If you are going to mention something – actually make an argument.
Cosmic rays are real, they have a natural cycle that obviously tracks the sun, they are known to be critical for cloud formation and thus are important to climate, and they have significant impact on the earth’s upper atmosphere. They have a strong negative impact on Ozone – especially at the poles and much more at the south pole than north pole because of the declanation of the earth’s axis.
These are just facts. they are not minute statistics.
“all good in their place…,”
Actual science reguires that a theory must conform to all aspects of the real world that are impacted by that theory.
A single disparate fact disproves an entire theory. Newtonian physics has been falsified. We still study it and use it because its error is incredibly small for things less than 90% of the speed of light. But it is still false.
I am dealing with you on discrpancies far larger than that of Newtonian physics.
If a tiny error in newtonian physics falsifies it – in what world would a massive error in CAGW not falsify it ?
Newtonian physics is atleast still predictive in most instances that humans deal with regularly.
The 2.5 std dev error between CAGW models and realities means they are NOT predictivive.
“they’re just not the whole picture.”
Both wrong and irrelevant.
The big picture on C19 is that it is following the same pattern that every epidemic does.
It cares very little for our efforts.
The big picture on CAGW is that the predictions have failed BADLY.
So badly that any honest scientist would reject the theory.
“IOW, you are the definition of the guy who misses the forest for the trees.”
Look arround you – you are missing BOTH the forest and the trees.
Pick a subject – your predictions have proven false. You can not support any of your claims with evidence.
“Your ideology comes first”
Look in the mirror.
“and you seek out the statistic taken in isolation to justify your politics.”
First my ideology is not politics. Neither republicans nor democrats are classical liberals.
Next, no the statistics I use are not in isolation.
They are the measues that are most important or most predictive or both.
You agreed that deaths are extremely important – they are important both as a measure of actual harm and as a measure of the effectiveness of different measures.
Hospitalizations are next – they track harms beyond death, and they lag less than deaths so they tell us what is happening about 14 days earlier than deaths.
Both trends falsify the nonsense of the left that things are going to hell.
Data from NYC dept health indicates that NYC alone had several days of greater than 6000 deaths per day in April.
Current daily C19 deaths for the entire country are averaging 1000 for the past 9 weeks. That is 1/6th the peak.
To the extent there has been any increase it is very small.
We can not have had a REAL massive spike in C19 in july without a REAL massive spike in deaths 2 weeks later.
AS that did not occur, the narative of some 2nd wave is FALSIFIED.
This is not cherry picking. Cheery picking is claiming that variations in a variable that is not independent – deaths and hospitalizations are not merely sigificant they are also mostly independent of artifacts that might distort them, While positive tests is obviously a function of the amount of testing.
Fixating on positive tests without adjusting for the increased frequency of testing is not just cherry picking – it is lying.
“You’re laughed out of any serious discussion on the science of the Covid pandemic”
And yet reality is confirming my predictions.
“and that’s why you parade your b.s. on an op ed legal blog”
And you are here for the pizza ?
“I suppose that’s the best place for a holocaust approach to a pandemic.”
Do words mean anything to you ?
I am most definitely not predicting a holocaust.
I am arguing the obvious – that we have every reason to be optomistic.
I do not need evidence for that – it is actually the universal default.
If the earth was so fragile that humans or epidemics could easily wipe out humanity or life, we would not be here.
C19 did prove worse than I expected, It beat some of the odds, It appears to be about a once in 50+ years event.
It is not a once a century event. it is worse than any epidemic since 1967. But it is not the worst epidemic of the past century.
The odds that C19 would be worse than H1N1 were not high, but it beat those odds. The odds that it would be worse than 1967 were far higher – and it is no worse than 1967. The odds that it would be worse than 1918 were astronomical – and it did not come close to that.
In all of human history humans have had only one effective tool to fight respiratory viruses – that is vaccines.
This time has not proven different.
All those predictions were easy from the start,
YOU are the one who keeps betting against the odds and expecting to succeed.
You have a bad gambling addiction and worse you are really bad at understanding odds.
If you were betting money in cassino’s – the mob would have broken your legs.
But instead you are gambling inside of government, with peoples rights.
And you are very bad at it.
Lets try some real measures of success.
Protecting the most vulnerable – the elderly and those in poor health.
Getting fewer people per million killed.
Not destroying the economy.
Not increasing deaths by drug overdose, crime, suicide, lack of non C19 related medical care.
Not disrupting peoples lives.
Not sacrificing the freedom of others on whimsical ideas like “flattening the curve” that have failed.
Not electing a doddering old fool, who botched H1N1 and whose official strategy is to reject his own attacks on Trump towards the start and to be even more Trump like that Trump;.
Protecting the elderly>> hey, let’s not lean on herd immunity shall we, because the susceptible are who get squeezed the most by overrunning the hospitals and healthcare in general.
Getting fewer people per million killed>> How about getting fewer people, period, killed?
Not destroying the economy >> You mean by not behaving in a way that forces multiple shut downs and starving the poorest among us???
Not increasing deaths by drug overdose, crime, suicide, lack of non C19 related medical care.>>> Sorry to say, drug overdose, crime, and suicide are rather pandemic with or without Covid. And the quickest way to insure lack of medical care for non C19 related issues is to over run the healthcare system with Covid.
Not disrupting people’s lives >> Oh you mean by them getting Covid??? Oh my god. White privilege much?
Not sacrificing the freedom of others on whimsical ideas like “flattening the curve” that have failed.>>> Flattening the curve happened in the NE states after the spring. Problem with that??? And again, white privilege much?
Not electing a doddering old fool, who botched H1N1 and whose official strategy is to reject his own attacks on Trump towards the start and to be even more Trump like that Trump;.>> Translator please.
** Every one of your points is a political talking point, John. They have little to do with the active treatment of Covid. They’re just libertarian mish mash.
Bug, you live off of generalizations that frequently are inept and useless.
We can manage the hospital overflow problems today. We have prepared ourselves to build hospitals where and when needed. Not pretty but will do most of the job. However when the economy falls opiod addiction rises as does the suicide rate. We also destroy industry and impoverish ourselfves. The key to solving pandemics lies in a vibrant economy. That is why the best solutions are coming from strong economies and not from central Africa.
It appears you still don’t understand what “flattening the curve” means. You probably never will and that is a good reason that people with your nature should not be in charge of deciding anything.
Take a look, one of the most important things to do in the future is recognize risks and one of the biggest risks is a pandemic arising in China whether it be natural or manufactured. Your side was busy with hoaxes and impeachments that were garbage to the core. If that time were spent by intelligence agencies surveiling China they could have known something was wrong months earlier. Satillites combined with smart people can reveal things being hidden. We have a CIA to protect us but they did nothing. We have a CDC that exists to protect us and they were near useless. They never looked out for the American public as much as they looked out for everyone else.
“If that time were spent by intelligence agencies surveiling China they could have known something was wrong months earlier.”
They did. And dear leader ignored them and said the pandemic would magically disappear. After complimenting Chinese on how they handled it…., and by not taking national public health measures used by *every* other industrialized country, managed to kill upwards of 40 thousand people needlessly.
Keep looking for that tennis ball. It’s bound to reappear from the pavement sometime.
“They did. And dear leader…”
You are making things up again. You have huge gaps of knowledge that appear all the time. You pretend these gaps don’t exist by saying stupid things. You assume people cannot see through your bluster. You are wrong. You have no idea of strategy of international relations.
You are no longer young and your mind is toast so educating you is probably impossible. If you ever had any type of formal education you might have read Thucydidies and books of that nature or might have read things that were written by Kissinger or others like him. There is a lot of literature out there that is beneficial. You, however, seem to have limited yourself to playing ball and doing your job. Good for you, but for some reason you act as if you can gain knowledge from an empty vessel. You can’t and that is why your remain ignorant.
“They did.”
It is correct that the IC had some indications of problems in Wuhan very early.
It has not been established that these were forwarded to Trump.
“And dear leader ignored them”
Inknown.
“said the pandemic would magically disappear.”
So did Pelosi.
” After complimenting Chinese on how they handled it….,”
Based on bad information.
“by not taking national public health measures used by *every* other industrialized country,”
Both false and irrelevant.
There is no distinction between the actions of the US and other developed countries.
There is also no consequential difference in outcome.
“managed to kill upwards of 40 thousand people needlessly.”
Because you say so ?
There is actual evidence That Cuomo and several blue governors killed thousands by sending infected patients into nursing homes.
There is no other government policy (or lack thereof) that is know to have been effective.
How did those “national public health measures” work for Belgium, the UK, France, Italy, Spain ?
You said “all industrialized nations” – yet here are some of the most significant industrialized nations that did WORSE than the US.
You keep ignoring that.
Actually a NIH & NSF funded study says so…
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.15.20103655v2
I suppose you’ll find a way to argue with this, too.
“I suppose you’ll find a way to argue with this, too.”
1) Bug, you may not realize this but many good articles are written and some contradict one another.
2) An abstract doesn’t necessarily provide one with the data to draw conclusions from.
3) “I suppose you’ll find a way to argue with this, too.”
Lots of good research has been wrong or given people the wrong opinion.
4) I don’t think you read the comments on the blog any better than you do abstracts of articles. In what way and where did I disagree with the major points of the abatract?
5) It sounds like you may have drawn some unwarranted political conclusions from the abstract.
It is hopeless to talk to a person that is only looking for information that confirms their bias and doesn’t understand the subject matter under discussion. I think you are frustrated due to an inability to maintain a neutral position putting yourself in conflict with data as it comes in.
“Protecting the elderly>> hey, let’s not lean on herd immunity shall we, because the susceptible are who get squeezed the most by overrunning the hospitals and healthcare in general.”
Let go of the ADD – one argument at a time.
If you focus on protecting the elderly and those with health issues – the hospitals do not get overrun.
Very few people under 40 are hospitalized for C19.
“Getting fewer people per million killed>> How about getting fewer people, period, killed?”
Same difference.
“Not destroying the economy >> You mean by not behaving in a way that forces multiple shut downs and starving the poorest among us???”
Todate there is no evidence that shutdowns have worked.
The only states that have done “multiple shutdowns” are lunatic blue states.
The very red states you rant about, never shutdown, The impose few restrictions they relaxes those, and they briefly reimposed SOME of those. And they are now through your faux 2nd wave.
Only an idiot thinks shutdowns worked.
New York actually did worse than Italy. This hit NYC hard and fast. I would like to blame Cuomo, but fundimentally it burned through NY because of its population density. By the time the lockdowns tool place it was already way too late. They had no effect.
The good news of high population density is that the epidemic is over fast.
Maybe NY reached herd immunity – maybe C19 stopped machincally.
“Not increasing deaths by drug overdose, crime, suicide, lack of non C19 related medical care.>>> Sorry to say, drug overdose, crime, and suicide are rather pandemic with or without Covid. And the quickest way to insure lack of medical care for non C19 related issues is to over run the healthcare system with Covid.”
You are oblivious to the fact that these and many other bad things increased as a CONSEQUENCE of lockdowns.
You are completely oblivious to the harms of your purportedly beneficial policies.
The medical system in the US never came close to being overrun.
The only developed country that MIGHT have come close was italy.
And even italy had a lower mortality than NYC.
So there is no evidence that we prevented the collapse of the healthcare system.
NYC – the worst case in the US never reached more than 1/3 of its emergency capacity, and little more than 60% of its ordinary capacity.
The emergency field hospitals remained empty.
“Not disrupting people’s lives >> Oh you mean by them getting Covid??? Oh my god. White privilege much?”
Only a left wing nut would turn this into a racial matter – but then left wingnuts are so obviously racist.
Black white red, yellow brown – green, gay straight, or a little bit or both – your have the RIGHT not privilege of controling your own life so long as you do not actively harm others.
The only racism or privilege evident here is YOURS – YOU are the one who claims the PRIVILEDGE of dictating to others how they must live.
“Not sacrificing the freedom of others on whimsical ideas like “flattening the curve” that have failed.>>> Flattening the curve happened in the NE states after the spring. Problem with that??? And again, white privilege much?”
I did not say flattening the curve did not happen. I am saying it failed – it did not save lives.
We flattened the curve in many states, for no benefit and lots of harm – that is pretty much the epitomy of a whimsical idea.
IT is pretty much the pinnacle of the arrogance of the left. Doing what sounds good or feels good rather than what is good.
CA has “flattened the curve more than anywhere else. They have had C19 for 8 months so far, and they still have the 2nd highers number of new cases
“Not electing a doddering old fool, who botched H1N1 and whose official strategy is to reject his own attacks on Trump towards the start and to be even more Trump like that Trump;.>> Translator please.”
Pretty clear to me. Regardless, I do not speak left wing nut.
“** Every one of your points is a political talking point, John. ”
Is that so ?
I am pretty sure that all or nearly all of them are what most people measure success by.
Not killing people is a start. And given that we know who C19 is most likely to kill, it makes sense to focus on those at risk – something the LEFT actively interfered with.
“They have little to do with the active treatment of Covid.”
We have only 4 active treatments – remdsivir – which is about 50% effective, but expensive and in limited supply, and the supply problem will just not be fixed any time soon.
Treatment using antibodies from the blood of recovered patients – again difficult and in short supply.
Steriods – about 20% effective and cheap.
HCQ+ – about 20% effective and dirt cheap.
The left has $h!t all over the latter – even though the evidence for steroids is no better,
So that one is off the table in the US – except for doctors who are defying the FDA.
If you have some other miracle “active treatment” – be my guest.
I would note that Trump has been more agressive that any prior president in advancing those.
Obama/Biden has ZERO treatment options for H1N1 until a vaccine was developed.
Trump has inarguably pushed HARD for a vaccine, forcing the FDA to do things it did not want to do.
Regardless, by your standard – active treatment – your villian is a hero.
“They’re just libertarian mish mash.”
Nope they are actually the norms for dealing with Virus’s for hundreds of years.
Bug, you provided a superficial answer so once again I took your logic and proved the point made.
Remember I am using your logic to come up with these ideas, not my own. I believe there are good reasons for NY and New Jersey to have high numbers and those reasons might in a few years end up as significant reasons for those high numbers.
What you don’t know about my logic could just about fit in the Grand Canyon, Allan. But thanks for trying.
You have zero logic but you are filled with enough hot air to fill the Grand Canyon.
There is only “logoc” – not “your logic”.
Given that you have not yet made a valid or non fallacious argument, you do not seem to know much about logic.
Good thing you’re talking to Allan here because I have no idea what “logoc” is.
States/teritories with the highest positive trend of new cases
Hawaii
Mariana Islands
Guam
Massachusets.
Puerto Rico
New Jersey
The only red states with a small positive trend in new positive tests are
Nebraska
Misouri and South Dakota.
All other red states have a declining 14 day trend of new positive tests
FL is -24%
TX is -5%.
The US is once again overall trending down in positive tests.
Daily deaths have been averaging 1000/day for a long long time.
There was a very small upward trend consistent with reopening,
that is certain to tank as new positive cases decline.
Hospitalizations are declining.
Here’s the data source you need to protect yourself from making so many wildly false claims, John.
https://covidtracking.com/data
So according to YOUR data,
The increase in cases exactly matches the increase in testing.
The average deaths per days has been 1000 for the past 2 months.
And everything is declining now.
So what claim of mine do you think is contradicted here ?
I have no idea whether coviddata.com is any good.
I have not seen obvious errors – beyond game playing with the scale or origen of charts to exagerate impacts.
Take any of the charts at the top of the page and start them in march or april and the meaning will be quite different.
Take any of them and represent 60 days of data in more than 30mm of space and the meaning will be quite different.
But the actual data looks correct as far as I can check and does not conflict with anything I have said.
Wild oversimplification of the data sources used by doctors in the States to track Covid. Your response is staggeringly oversimplistic and inept and shows you didn’t even look into the data at all, but just looked at it through the lens of trying to justify your political views first. Newsflash: Covid doesn’t care about your libertarianism. Neither do I for that matter.
“Wild oversimplification of the data sources used by doctors in the States to track Covid. Your response is staggeringly oversimplistic and inept and shows you didn’t even look into the data at all, but just looked at it through the lens of trying to justify your political views first. Newsflash: Covid doesn’t care about your libertarianism. Neither do I for that matter.”
Insulting an argument is not refuting one or making one.
Doctors are lookjing at the same data the rest of us are.
In many cases we have better data than doctors do.
You keep thumping “oversimplification” – without any explaination of why ?
What is being simplified.
The data is the data.
If course I have looked at the data.
You are The only one trying to justify using politics.
We see much the same C19 pattern throughout the world.
Yet, you keep trying to argue the US is unique – how ?
We are way past the point at which it is certain that the Swedish approach worked.
MAYBE it resulted in more deaths – that is actually not known.
But it is highly likely that the current low death, hospitalization, and infection rates in Sweden will drop further or disappear.
That is also likely true in Italy, and NY – both of which had HIGHER death rates than sweden.
Regardless, because the Swedes did nothing special, it is unlikely that they will see some massive 2nd wave.
There is nowhere else in the world that can say that with certainty.
If as you claim the public health policies of other nations were effective – then those nations remain PERMANENTLY at risk should they let their guard down.
You have claimed that C19 immunity is shortlived.
I think the obvious data indicates that immunity is atleast 6 months long, and probably longer.
But so what if I am wrong ?
No matter what Sweden is better positioned to deal with C19 than those nations that enacted your critical public policies.
Unless of course – those public policies did not work and C19 just burned out – as it did in sweden.
So what do you think conflicts with what I have said ?
And what in this demonstrates that masks or any other govenrment policies are effective ?
A successful argument requires data that refutes your oponents claim not supports it.
It is not enough to claim that something supports you – it actually has to do that.
All of us would love it if masks work.
That should not stop us from critical thinking.
I have attacked masks – CORECTLY as not even optimally sufficiently reducing R0 for C19.
That does not mean that in combination with other measures a reduction of R0 below 1 might be possible.
But we have not seen any real world evidence of that yet.
There is no nation where C19 has returned dramatically.
That means that everywhere were C19 has declined, it has done so because it has infected the vast majority of the infect able.
If 80% of Italy was still susceptable to C19 – Italy would have to continue lockdowns etc forever.
The proof that R0 had been reduced below 1 would be a spike in C19 deaths in that country after measures purpotedly limiting C19 were released.
NY still has 500 new cases a day. if 80% of the NY population is still susceptable to C19 – and there are 500 new cases today – there will be 1000 new cases a day in a few days.
All epidemics follow a logistics curve. The new cases start to decline when the number of infectable people is low enough that the spread rate reduces.
That can be acheived through immunity, or through measures reducing the spread.
But if it is the later the infection rate will increase again the moment you reduce those measures.
You would be required to permanently wear masks, social distance lockdown the country until C19 was completely gone from the world.
C19 is not rushing back in Sweden, or NY or Italy, because there are few people left that it can infect.
More BS from John. Don’t listen to this quack.
“C19 is not rushing back in Sweden, or NY or Italy, because there are few people left that it can infect.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/health/coronavirus-infections-us.html
“The study indicates that even the hardest-hit area in the study — New York City, where nearly one in four people has been exposed to the virus — is nowhere near achieving herd immunity, the level of exposure at which the virus would stop spreading in a particular city or region. Experts believe 60 percent of people in an area would need to have been exposed to the coronavirus to reach herd immunity.
I ask you for a study regarding herd immunity.
Read your own article. The “Study” in the article indicates that the infection rate is far higher than the postive test rate.
Something I have said for months. There are LOTS of studies that confirm that.
I would absolutely agree that 1 in 4 new yorkers were infected and atleast had a very mild case.
The only reference to herd immunity is the REPORTERS remark that unnamed experts claim 60% is needed for herd immunity.
That is incorrect – it is 80% or more, and it is higher the higher the R0 is. For C19 it might be 90%.
But herd immunity is NOT a function of the number of people infected.
It is a function of the number of people who are immune or highly resistant.
Accross the world C19 has stalled and burned out as the infection rate approached 20% of the population.
With some minor variability based on population density and other demographic factors. somewhere between 60 and 80% of people are naturally immune or resistant. Add 20% infected and immune and you reach herd immunity.
We are nearly there in Sweden, NY, Italy, and any nation.state that has very few new infections/day.
Even the world as a whole appears to have peaked. Though new cases in the southern hemisphere are still rising.
John Doofus previously stated above:
“C19 is not rushing back in Sweden, or NY or Italy, because there are few people left that it can infect.”
The following reliable source, with a link to the study says:
“The study indicates that even the hardest-hit area in the study — New York City, where nearly one in four people has been exposed to the virus — is nowhere near achieving herd immunity, the level of exposure at which the virus would stop spreading in a particular city or region. Experts believe 60 percent of people in an area would need to have been exposed to the coronavirus to reach herd immunity.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/health/coronavirus-infections-us.html
Apparently John Doofus thinks that the approx 3/4 of the people in NYC – that was ground zero in the state of NY – means there are “few people left that it can infect” in the state.
So, not only was John completely wrong about another key statement in his long screeds on the subject, but he has within the last day also demonstrated he knows nothing of the fairly common scientific discussion surrounding the size of particle we exhale and the virus – which has importance regarding the wearing of masks – or the questions regarding the length of immunity achieved by those who have been infected, which bears on the possibilities for herd immunity.
His response is to ignore the pile of s..t he dumped and now has to walk around and then double down on demanding I prove what is easily available while he expounds without links for pages of his outlier BS.
Good times
From WebMD
“Herd immunity, or community immunity, is when a large part of the population of an area is immune to a specific disease. If enough people are resistant to the cause of a disease, such as a virus or bacteria, it has nowhere to go.
While not every single individual may be immune, the group as a whole has protection. This is because there are fewer high-risk people overall. The infection rates drop, and the disease peters out”
Is the word “infected used anywhere in that description ?
The paragraph you cut and pasted is error. I do not know or care whether the error is the reporters or the unnamed study.
Refering to the WebMD definition – accross the world we have seen C19 “peter out”.
In some places draconian policies have been imposed and those on the left like yourself illogically credit those.
But in other places C19 peters out completely absent any govenrment interventions.
Highly contageous virus’s do not “peter out” by magic.
Further if their decline is the result of the policy choices of government – they will return with a vengeance as those policies are undone.
You keep pissing on Herd Immunity – but it is actually the only way you will ever end C19 at this point.
The entire purpose of vaccines is to make herd immunity acheivable without infecting 80-90% of people.
They do not work by magic, and everyone who is not vaccinated does not get sick.
Even the 1918 H1N1 flu – which was much more aggressive than C19 and specifically attacked the healthy, ultimately “petered out” – and it did so without a vaccine and without 90% of people getting infected.
No epidemic has ever infected more than about 30% of the world, or any nation.
You can attribute this limit to MAGIC or natural immunity – it really does not matter.
I honestly do not care about your stupid arguments about language.
So lets address some facts:
Even on completely closed systems with optimal conditions for spread – such as the Diamond Princess – no more than 27% of the passengers and crew were infected.
Please cite a single place ever anywhere in the world where C19 has infected more than 30% of people ? Just one ?
That is a hard limit. You can make up whatever reason that you wish to for that limit. The words do not matter at all.
Attribute it to magic if that makes you happy. Regardless, data from all over the world confirms that C19 NEVER infects more than 30% of a population – no matter what. Not in developed countries, not in undeveloped ones, not in poor ones, not in rich ones, not in old countries, not in young ones.
I can speculate on the cause of that hard limit – and you can disagree. But the limit is still there regardless of the cause.
So lets take NYC – just like everywhere else in the world we MUST presume that 70% of people either can not get C19 or can not easily get C19. If C19 peters out when the portion of the population that can not be infected reaches 80-90% and 20% of New yorkers have been infected and are immune and another 70% are unifectable for some reason, then 90% of New Yorkers are in some way immune and her immunity has been reached.
And that is precisely what we are seeing with the downward curve in deaths.
That is also what we are seeing in Sweden.
And with few exceptions it is what we are seeing throughout the world.
It is also what we have seen pretty much universally with every single epidemic through history where there was no vaccine.
You keep trying to attack what i am saying with random claims of reporters, and hearsay science from unnamed experts.
Regardless of your attacks – the virus behaves exactly like every other epidemic – particularly those where there was no vaccine.
You can rant and rave and engage in Covid Panic Porn all you want.
World Wide C19 has probably peaked – that does not mean that it has peaked in every single country.
The US likely Peaked in April, But dramatically increased testing has resulted in a faux 2nd peak in July. Absent another dramatic increases in testing there will be no further faux peaks.
The fact that the US peaked in April does not mean every state peaked in April. or has peaked even today.
There are significant differences in timing and outcome between various states.
If you wish to attribute those to policies – Red States will have had about 1/3 the economic damage that blue states have had, and about 1/4 the deaths that blue states have.
The alternative is to attribute the differences primarily to demographics and latitude.
But EITHER way – you, the left, and your faux experts FAILED. Either your policies caused greater harm, or they had no effect at all.
What is absolutely clear is that the States that followed all your left wing nut purported expert policies did WORSE not better than those that did not.
“Apparently John Doofus thinks that the approx 3/4 of the people in NYC – that was ground zero in the state of NY – means there are “few people left that it can infect” in the state.”
Here is the current conditions in NYC according to the NY department of health.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
There are few deaths, there are few infections, it has been that way for 2 months and the decline started 4 months ago.
This is a classic logistics curve that reflects the course of pretty much every epidemic ever.
You can attribute the dramatic decline in C19 to magic rather than herd immunity if that makes you feel better – but it is still very real.
You have this problem constantly you engage in word mangling – and the result impairs YOUR thinking.
You do not want to call the situation in NYC or Sweden “herd immunity” – your unwillingness to use a label.
Your desparate search for hearsay unsourced experts to challenge my language,
Does not alter reality. Call it whatever you want, it is very hard to catch C19 in NYC right now.
And in the event that I am wrong – the slightest inching back to normalacy will cause NYC to explode with new cases.
But we both know that is not going to happen. it has not happened in most of the rest of the world.
Or You can keep wishing for disaster if you wish.
“the fairly common scientific discussion surrounding the size of particle we exhale and the virus – which has importance regarding the wearing of masks ”
Once again the you make the same mistake as always – you claim that you are supported by experts – but fail to cite any actual expertise.
With respect to C19 areosole size:
There is an example of a so called super spreader in NYC. This is a woman who had C19, and got onto an elevator ALONE, road several floors to her apartment, and never left until she was hospitalized.
Yet, there were able to trace 71 cases of C19 to other people who rode that elevator after her.
If that woman was exhaling large particles they would all have dropped out of the air before another person rode the elevator.
For aerosolized C19 to stay in the air for the long periods of time necescary to infect 71 other people, the droplet size had to be very tiny – just to remain suspended in the air.
Regardless, every claim you have made regarding masks remains speculation – not known measured fact.
While the same is true of most of my counter claims, the bottom line remains.
We had the ability to determine the actual effectiveness of masks in real world testing.
And we have failed to do so.
And you can not impose your will on others based on speculation regarding benefits.
That is immoral.
“the questions regarding the length of immunity achieved by those who have been infected, which bears on the possibilities for herd immunity.”
Once again you seem to think there is some massive controversy with political implications when there isn’t.
There is lots of evidence that immunity is more than sufficiently long to achieve herd immunity.
But so what if there isn’t ? If herd immunity it not achievable then a vaccine will be ineffective.
Immunity from vaccines is identical to that achieved from infection albeit weaker.
If immunity does not last very long C19 will be with us forever and we will ultimately have to make peace and learn to live with it.
It is telling that it is POLITICALLY critical that you are right on various issues
That you demand that reality conform to your politics.
That immunity much be short lived – because the alternative would be politically unacceptable.
Why is it so important to you to reject the clear reality that has happened in Sweden ?
If you do not want to attribute the decline to “herd immuntiy” – that does not matter.
Whatever explanation you are prepared to accept – what occured is real.
The same is true of NYC – The fundimental difference between the curve in NYC and that in Sweden is that Sweden’s is longer and flatter do to lower population density – but otherwise the same curve.
The C19 is petering out – in Sweden, in NYC, in the US and in the world.
It is doing so because that is what epidemics do.
Nor because of government policies.
You do not need to be an expert to see this.
Your definition of wrong is quite interesting.
Aparently in BTB world one can be filly consistent with the real world and still be wrong if some reporter claims some unnamed expert or study disagrees.
Unfortunately the NYT is one of the worst sources. Sometimes they are great and sometimes they lie so one never knows what is true and what is not. One needs a better source.
The NYT story that BTB keeps linking is useless.
It is the reporters opinion of a source that is purportedly an expert but is never identified.
A lot of the NYT articles are written by people without expertise on the subject. Their object is spin either through confusion or outright lies.
“His response is to ignore the pile of s..t he dumped”
Bizarre statement.
What facts, or analysis have I offered that I am now ignoring ?
If I have changed my position on something – which is rare – I am clear about it.
If I have asserted something in the past – I own it. I expect to be evaluated based on it.
If some reporters unattributed claims are more compelling to you than the facts in the real world – then you can conclude I am wrong.
I am not concerned. I do not care about your judgement – as you have no judgement.
Regardless, what reporters or experts claim is irrelevant. Facts, Data, logic, reason those matter.
It is already possible to draw the conclusions that I have.
But time will make those conclusions increasingly irrefutable.
And if they do not than it is my credibility that will suffer.
What of yours ? Your track record is abysmal.
When do you get tired of being wrong about everything ?
When does cognitive dissonance cause you to re-evaluate your beleifs ?
“now has to walk around and then double down on demanding I prove what is easily available”
If it is easily available you should have no problem proving it.
Btu lets be clear:
The rambings of a reporter are not proof of anything.
The hearsay of a reporter is not proof of anything.
Even the actual attributed opinions of a health expert are not proof of anything.
Facts, data, logic reason are proof. Well done studies – that rely on facts, data, logic, reason -those are proof.
Finally – as i have noted repeatedly – your track record for truthfullness sucks.
You are obligated to prove claims.
Those of us with a track record of accuracy, reliability, honesty, who have not made constant false accusations,
do not owe you proof.
There is no parity standard. You burned your own reputation. Your credibility, your integrity.
That is your problem.
I have no sympathy for you.
Really that dense?
John previously stated above:
“C19 is not rushing back in Sweden, or NY or Italy, because there are few people left that it can infect.”
The following reliable source, with a link to the study says:
“The study indicates that even the hardest-hit area in the study — New York City, where nearly one in four people has been exposed to the virus — is nowhere near achieving herd immunity, the level of exposure at which the virus would stop spreading in a particular city or region. Experts believe 60 percent of people in an area would need to have been exposed to the coronavirus to reach herd immunity.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/health/coronavirus-infections-us.html
Apparently John thinks that the approx 3/4 of the people in NYC – that was ground zero in the state of NY – means there are “few people left that it can infect” in the state.
“John previously stated above:
“C19 is not rushing back in Sweden, or NY or Italy, because there are few people left that it can infect.””
Is C19 rushing back into Sweden or NY or Italy ?
Unless it is, why should I give any weight to some idiot reporter who has a different oppinion and is offering anonymous hearsay ?
But lets be clear – even if Brix and Faucci or CDC, or WHO claimed I was wrong – that would not change the FACTS.
You are making this incredibly stupid argument that an obviously false opinion falsifies FACTS.
Sweden death/day
https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden/0/a25d5f113795bb55787275a8aac276d2a6dada40.png
One last time for the dummy here.
If you say “there are few people left (in NY state) that it can infect.” and I post the information quoted from the CDC – with a link – saying that the ground zero city for the virus in the state (and the nation) has only 1/4 of it’s population infected, you have just been proven wrong on the necessary premise of your theory on herd immunity.
Only a complete idiot or a liar would fail to acknowledge this and you may be both.
Reading comprehension is NOT your forte.
I have told you repeatedly that when you mangle the meaning of words, you impair your ability to think.
infected is a subset of immune
they are not synonyms.
If immunity requires infection – 100% of the Princess diamond would have been infected.
If immunity requires infection – NYC would already have exploded with new cases after even a partial reopening.
There are still more infected people in NYC than there were in early march.
If the 75% of NYC that was not infected is not atleast strongly resistant.
You will see C19 come back again and again in NYC until it either infects 80% of the city or a vaccine is developed.
You have only two choices – NYC is close to herd immunity – as a result of a combination of immunity through antibodies.infection
and natural immunity or resistance OR magic.
I tend to reject magic.
Only a complete idiot or a liar would fail to acknowledge this and you may be both.
Since infected is a subset of exposed, any confusion on those words falls against your attempt to spin out of your BS. If only 1/4 of NYC residents has been exposed, significantly less will be infected. My article cited “exposure” (bigger number), you used “infect” (smaller number).
The mangling of words is your forte and last resort for a sinking argument.
“Since infected is a subset of exposed, any confusion on those words falls against your attempt to spin out of your BS.”
Are you really going to make this about semantics ?
Are you really going to argue that I am actually right and NYC is close to herd immunity, but claim I used the wrong words ?
” If only 1/4 of NYC residents has been exposed”
1/4 have antibodies. That means that they are likely immune.
Whether you label that infected or exposed is irrelevant.
Far more than 1/4 have been “exposed” Possibly near 100%.
MOST exposures do not result in transmission and infection – we already know that.
Further many of those exposed are not infectable – they are immune or resistant.
There are many possible reasons for that.
“significantly less will be infected. My article cited “exposure” (bigger number), you used “infect” (smaller number).”
I am not interested int he semantics of your article.
There are plenty of studies of NYC population indicating that 1/4 of the population has ANTI-BODIES to C19.
“The mangling of words is your forte and last resort for a sinking argument.”
And yet your word mangling brings you closer to my position.
So lets make the argument as clear as possible.
NYC is close to herd immunity.
That is actually obvious.
All epidemics follow a logistics curve. If the measure of infections is perfect – it will follow a logistics curve.
If as we have positive tests do not exactly match infections – the curve may be distorted.
If measures like lockdowns are imposed in the middle – the curve may be distorted.
Regardless the infection rate peaks when approximately 50% of the INFECTABLE population has been infected.
And after that it declines – eventually to 0 when herd immunity is reached.
This is ALWAYS true.
Lockdowns, etc. ATTEMPT to reduce the effective INFECTABLE population. Those who stay home and never go anywhere can not be exposed and at thus removed from the infectable population.
You can theoretically reach herd immunity on only a small subset of the population – if you near perfectly isolate the majority of people.
And thereby cause the virus to burn out early.
But you will have an explosion of new cases if you release the lockdown before ALL C19 cases have disappeared.
AND you will have an explosion after you release the lockdown, should an infected person enter the group.
Regardless, if the Virus is declining – that means you are working towards herd immunity – for the group of people that is currently INFECTABLE.
This is not true SOME of the time – it is ALWAYS true.
It is math.
In March, Imperial College London’s dire projections influenced the White House, but a careful reading of the advice contained in the Imperial College report reveals that its authors knew lockdown alone could not eliminate any infections, only delay them: “The more successful a strategy is at temporary suppression,” it stated, “the larger the later epidemic is predicted to be in the absence of vaccination, due to lesser build-up of herd immunity.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pandemic planning documents state non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing are ineffective once a disease infects 1% of a region’s population. Literature on this subject is unanimous worldwide. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control:
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control:
“There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods in order to slow the spread. It is hard to imagine that measures like those within the category of social distancing would not have some positive impact by reducing transmission of a human respiratory infection . . . However, the evidence base supporting each individual measure is often weak.”
“Publicly available data shows no causal relationship between government orders and COVID-19 mortality outcomes. Sweden’s all-cause, per-capita mortality for 2020 is approximately 290 per million above the prior five-year average, while lockdown-loving New Jersey’s is almost 1,900 per million above the prior five-year average, and Michigan’s is over 700 per million. (In case you suspect Sweden “naturally” locked down on its own, mobility data reveals it didn’t.) The mainstream media does not report this. Instead, its energetic smearing of Sweden, coupled with its pseudo-scientific insistence that lockdowns do anything more than delay the inevitable, helps politicians exploit the human tendency to mythologize.”
John raised semantics in an effort to bail out of his “I have Marshall McLuhan right here” moment and now denounces me for following that line of attack to another defeat for him.
I don’t know what his problem is – I think he actually believes the stream of consciousness drivel he is forced to spew to avoid traps he previously set for himself – but whatever, I remind myself again to not try to engage him. I’ll limit myself to correcting his mistatements at the top of his lengthy screeds – who wants to wade more than 4-5 sentences into those fun houses of language?
“John raised semantics in an effort to bail out of his “I have Marshall McLuhan right here” moment and now denounces me for following that line of attack to another defeat for him.”
BTB – I have pointed out that you abuse words constantly and that it damages your ability to think.
This is an argument you can not win. The reason you can not win is that you can play all the “semantic” games you wish.
Reality does not listen.
On virtually everything that is verifiable – you have been wrong.
“I don’t know what his problem is – I think he actually believes the stream of consciousness drivel he is forced to spew to avoid traps he previously set for himself – but whatever, I remind myself again to not try to engage him. I’ll limit myself to correcting his mistatements at the top of his lengthy screeds – who wants to wade more than 4-5 sentences into those fun houses of language?”
You should spend more time examing and correcting your own remarks.
Italy deaths/day
https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Italy/0/5029a79423a9d58aceec06aa456b0dafb0299c23.png
Here is a real published medical study.
“Our estimates suggest that the hardest-hit areas, such as NYC, are close to the persistent heterogeneity herd immunity threshold”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.26.20162420v1
Cool predictive study. Time will tell. And, if true, gee, look what it cost to get there.
Sweden is at the same point as NYC at far lower cost.
You keep pretending there is an alternative.
Actually, I keep listening to the people who know what they’re talking about.
no evidence of that.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/959558/italy-nears-herd-immunity-coronavirus-antibodies/
Bergamo is not the entire nation of italy it is one area., It’s great news the antibody rates have risen there, after all the human suffering
However if antibodies are at 57% that is a high rate but it is not the 70+% that the epidemiologists are projecting as sufficient to stop spread. There is still a large number of people left to go who will likely get sick and a number of them will die, hopefully a small number. but it is still in play. assuming that they are underprojecting the exposure rates is not a valid notion when you are talking about a heavily tested population like Bergamo. there are cities there where they have tested every single person. So adding a fudge factor to push that up and say “nearly herd immunity” is stretching your assertion too far.
the “r o factor” is a relevant dimension of this as well
I might add that if you like Earl Grey tea, as I do, it is seasoned with the Bermamot lemon, which gives it its delightful flavor, and that comes from Bergamo.
However if antibodies are at 57% that is a high rate but it is not the 70+% that the epidemiologists are projecting as sufficient to stop spread.
No clue where you got that datum. 70% would be what you’d epect were Ro were in excess of 2. It is not.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/ was the source for my 70+ number. i lost the article. you can come up with a better citation perhaps.
herd immunity requires a high proportion of the population to be immune of resistant.
It does nto require that level of antibodies.
We have never seen an epidemic with an infection rate about 30%.
WE did not see that for C19 on the Princess Diamond where is it likely that everyone who could be infected was.
WE do not need to know WHY people are immune – only THAT the are immune.
We have seen a pretty standard logistics curve in ever single region that was somewhat homogenous.
Absent evidence of another expanation the only reasonable assumption is that when the logistics curve starts to decline herd immunity is being approached
Numerous studies have indicated that somewhere between 50 and 80% of people are either immune to C19 or highly resistant.
Again Herd Immunity does not require antibodies.
It does not even require absolute immunity.
It merely requires significant resistance.
70%. .Commonly accepted figure for “herd immunity”
False,
Herd immunity is a factor of the R0 of the virus. The higher R0 is the higher the portion of the population that must be immune or resistant.
It is likely that C19 requires 80% of greater immunity.
But that does not mean it requires 80% of people to have been infected.
It is unimportant to the existance of herd immunity HOW that immunity is acheived, only that sufficent portion fo the population are immune.
And good call on the Earl Grey w/ lemon, Kurtz.
This one’s a push piece, a good look at how reporting crosses into op ed. Bergamo is just one region, the hardest hit region. And look what it cost to get there. See, you’re treating the idea of herd immunity as a political and philosophical point (which it is on some level, just not one that rescue care puts much weight in). The problem with herd immunity, if it’s the stated goal, is the burden it places on the hospital’s in order to reach the goal. It costs too many lives and burns up too much resource for treating anything other than Covid…
But hey, WTF, Ayn Rand would dig it.
that’s why the goal of measures designed to slow spread is to flatten the curve
projecting rate of herd immunity is a forward looking epidemiological statistical and modelling problem, not some precise figure that’s easily detected.
a lot of the public health methods are not really in question. and yet some valid questions have been politicized, the mass media has lost credibility in constructively guiding public debate.
Lancet publishing an obviously flawed infomatics study as supposedly debunking HCQ+ as prophylaxis– and then having to retract it, due to numerous methodological flaws, and doing so quietly without a sufficient explanation nor apology, and the big newspapers ignoring the retraction, is the sort of thing that makes serious people believe the “public debate” about the covid response is hopelessly politicized.
another unexplored problem in some of the publications has been failing to provide honest attribution to authors of studies who are employees of the PRC government if not the PLA itself, and are thus perhaps biased; and a little more afield but still worthy of mention, publications by authors who are westerners directly funded by the PRC. there is an Australian researcher whose name escapes me at the moment, who is part of the small clique of virologists incestuously involved with gain of fuction research worldwide, that both peer reviewed publications and the mass media fail to question whenever they are publishing or quoting him.
I am not going to waste time looking up his name, the point would be ignored anyhow. The point is, there is major bias not only in mass media, but some bias in research publications as well. bias that is discrediting “the system” and making it hard to build public confidence in “science” which is not a religious clique of priestly authorities expressing dogma, but rather, a process which requires open debate and objective and rigorous evaluation of complex phenomena and the analytical methods used to explore them. bias in authors must be taken seriously and disclosed transparently.
Amen!
Science is replication. Not consensus.
Not appeals to authority.
Bug,
So what ?
You cite nothing.
Regardless, I provided a separate article publiched in a medical journal that asserted that NYC has herd immunity.
Is that a “push peice” a descent into op-ed journalism ?
You and BTB keep pushing the same garbage article that is a reporters oppinion of hearsay from an unbaned expert referencing an unidnetified study,
I am hard pressed to think of anything that could be worse.,
Has the left learned absolutely nothing from their collusion delusion reporting ?
Regardless. your not capable of being honest – even with yourself.
“you’re treating the idea of herd immunity”
It is not an idea. it is not political – that claim is just full of $h!t.
It is the only means we have EVER had to deal with respiratory viruses. PERIOD.
“The problem with herd immunity, if it’s the stated goal, is the burden it places on the hospital’s in order to reach the goal.”
Bunk.
Hospitals are entirely irrelevant UNLESS they can demonstrably reduce the death rate.
Until more recently there has been ZERO evidence that they can.
Even recently the available treatment is at best 20% effective – not great, but we will take whatever we can get.
So the first criteria regarding burdens on hospitals is that they must provide a demonstrable benefit.
The next is that there is no need to protect them if they are not overwhelmed.
The objective is NOT to reduce the load on hospitals.
It is to reduce the number of C19 deaths.
No sane person would trade more deaths for less burden on hospitals.
Are you completely incapable of critical thinking ?
I guess all that socialist psycho babble that keeps getting spouted arround you has deluded you into the indiocy that hospitials are more important than people.
“It costs too many lives”
That is a conclusion for which you have not provided evidence.
“burns up too much resource for treating anything other than Covid…”
That is what you have done.
We have radically interfered with non-covid treatmment from the start.
That is one of the other problems of the lockdown.
You have increased the duration during which people can not get routine medical care – or even critical care for non-covid issues.
The faster you get through this the sooner ordinary medical care can resume.
“But hey, WTF, Ayn Rand would dig it.”
non sequitur.
I have followed a very astute pathologist named Chris Martenson, who has researched this since the outbreak, and given a lot of objective feedback which has run counter to the mass media Democrat propaganda.
however, John, he says and I agree with his well reasoned explanation, that we are not even close to herd immunity, anywhere.
“however, John, he says and I agree with his well reasoned explanation, that we are not even close to herd immunity, anywhere.”
Then why has C19 stopped with fairly close to the same proportion of the population everywhere in the world ?
As I have said to BTB and Bug – it is NOT magic.
The same polices have not be used everywhere. The disparity in policies has been extreme.
FRankly /i think that lockdowns etc in NYC had zero effect – it was already way too late.
So NYC is not really an example of effective(or ineffective) government intervention, it is an example of how fast C19 can burn through a highly dense population pretty much completely unimpeded.
That is also evidence by the curve in NYC which has the steepest vertical rise and the fastest fall of anywhere.
Pretty much the opposite of flattening the curve.
We see much the same thing in Italy.
Do you beleive that as NYC reopens that the number of deaths is going to spike again ?
If you beleive there will be as most a small increase that will fade, then you are rejecting your own expert.
One of the things that i do not seem to be able to get though to most of you here is that it does not matter whether i am right or not.
C19 is not stopping until herd immunity is acheived.
You can delay it. but you can not stop it.
John, the very last thing is true almost by definition. the pandemic will not end until herd immunity is achieved. there’s really no arguing with that one
“John, the very last thing is true almost by definition. the pandemic will not end until herd immunity is achieved. there’s really no arguing with that one”
And yet in many places it appears to have ended.
So a reporter citing unidentified purported experts is a source ? a study ?
Where have I heard that before ?
Oh, the Collusion Delusion.
https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-which-never-had-lockdown-sees-covid-19-cases-plummet-rest-europe-suffers-spike-1521626
I would note that Trump touts the very low US Case fatality rate compared to nearly all of the EU.
That is because the EU has more deaths than the US, but only half as many positive tests.
It is highly likely that the cases int he US and the EU are signficantly underestimated.
In the US we are likely off by a factor of 8-10, and the EU is likely off by a factor of 20.
nowhere in the world is any nation or signficant geographic area even close to herd immunity. not even close. this is an erroneous claim if somebody made it.
even if infection rates are significantly higher than anticipated, we are still NOT EVEN CLOSE
there is another concern which is rapid mutation, which would make herd immunity potentially impossible
it may be that the COVID becomes endemic. we should all hope not. i suspect that the promises of vaccines are too rosy
however, if that is the outcome, quarantines will necessarily become counterproductive and will not be viable for further use
we may have to just learn to live with this. like that other less dangerous but ever recurrent coronavirus, the common cold
that is a fear and I hope it does not turn out that way.
“nowhere in the world is any nation or signficant geographic area even close to herd immunity”
If true then every place C19 has burned out it either should have returned with a vengence or will.
Why did C19 decline in italy, NYC, Sweden ? Pretty much everwhere it is burning out ?
Logic is not optional. Magic is not an acceptable explanation.
If you want to attribute this to policies then you have a massive amount of explaining todo,
Outbreaks – with lower death rates because old people learned in the 1st several months to hide out – flare up depending on the level of carelessness of populations. Not a surprise and what we see shows the effectiveness of that self quarantining with safe practices by the general population. Of course national testing coordination and safe practices promotions improves results as well. Our exploding cases demonstrates exactly the hazards of having a president with less seriousness than a chimp.
“Outbreaks – with lower death rates because old people learned in the 1st several months to hide out – flare up depending on the level of carelessness of populations. Not a surprise and what we see shows the effectiveness of that self quarantining with safe practices by the general population.”
First you claim a bunch of things that are not effective, are. Then you claim that people that you beleive will not act as you wish without force,
acted as you wish as a wise choice.
Even if you were right about how people should respond – you are by your won argument WRONG about the need to force them to do so.
While you are actually factually wrong about most everything.
You are not even consistent in your errors.
“Of course national testing coordination and safe practices promotions improves results as well.”
You keep ranting as if testing is actually a cure. It is not. It is close to useless.
If you have symptoms – quarantine yourself.
It does not matter if you have the flu, a cold, or C19.
There is no libertarain impediment to forcibly quarantining those with an infectuous disease who refuse to self quarantine.
You keep claiming that masks are to protect others.
If you have symptoms of ANY infectuous disease you should self quarantine – going out in public with a mask may be better than nothing,
But if you have symptoms you should be at home.
”
Our exploding cases demonstrates exactly the hazards of having a president with less seriousness than a chimp.”
There is no “exploding cases” – there is an increase in positive tests – not the same time, especially for a disease that we miss 95% of the time. We increased testing 6 fold, we should expect a near 6 fold increase in positive tests. We did not see that.
Regardless once again the new case trend is down, and absent another increase in the testing rate it will stay down
Over the past 10 weeks there was no statistically significant change in hospitalizations.
There was a very small increase in the daily deaths which is also trending down slowly again.
You have been pretty much wrong by the numbers about everything.
“there is another concern which is rapid mutation, which would make herd immunity potentially impossible”
So far the mutation rate is not that rapid. So far NextStrain is only tracking 5 significant mutations.
And thus far they have similar mortality and interchangeable immunity.
Further. there is increasing evidence that TCell immunity to other coronaviruses conveys immunity to C19.
That strongly implies that mutation is unlikely to effect immunity.
None of this si certain. But it is based on what is currently most probably true.
“Conclusion: Democrats are the cause for the widest spread of the Covid-19 virus” This was said by ‘Allan’.
Pure Allanonsense.
Hi Diane. The staff let you use the dayroom computer I see.
More nonsense from the ‘absurd’ one.
Has anyone seen Absurd’s psych meds?
I know who apparently hasn’t, but should; Natacha.
The only one in “the dayroom” is “This is absurd….” And he appears to be hallucinating.
Anonymous the Stupid can’t read. It can’t be “Pure Allanonsense”. It could be the btb-bug-nonsense based on what I wrote and have copied below. It’s hard to believe someone as Stupid as you would be posting on this blog. Even though some democrats probably were instrumental for a large portion of the deaths the posting itself was sarcasm.
“I will use the btb-bug scientific method to determine the cause of severe covid viral spread. Democats.”
Yep, just more Allanonsense from a guy who lives for (and lives on) this blog.
Anonymous the Stupid, it is clear to any intelligent person that you goofed again.
Allan you’re a pup as far as your understanding of good science goes. You chase irrelevance like sticks or a tennis ball. You fixate on abstraction constantly and are incapable of synthesizing various strands of research into a cohesive whole. When it becomes clear and you get called on it your only response is lamely trying to insult the messenger.
Best just to back up, get off Fox, and try to piece together the big picture that has heretofore been completely obscured from your tunnel vision.
Strange reply from someone that cannot deal with the facts. Almost everything you say is generalized and when it comes to rational thinking you are lost.
I’d love if you would copy anything I say that doesn’t make sense and provide your analysis. You can’t do that. My last demonstration of btb-bug science demonstrates that you have no understanding of how science works. Correlation does not mean causation and many things you say correlate poorly but you think that is credible scientific proof.
Says the guy who maintains the states with democratic governors have handled Covid worse than ones with Republican governors. You’re beyond help, Allan.
I have recopied what I said since you have the memory of a frog. Take note I wrote a sarcastic piece simulating a btb-bug scientific study. If you couldn’t catch that it appears truly impossible that your intellectual abilities permit you to understand Covid. Here is what I wrong.
—-
I will use the btb-bug scientific method to determine the cause of severe covid viral spread. Democats.
Methodology: In a study I used Belgium as a cut-off point. It is the European state with the highest number of deaths per million, 850 deaths per million. That is the highest count in the EU where different states have handled things differently. In the US we have 50 states that handled things differently so I will look at the states that surpassed Belgium’s death rate.
Results:
The states are Deaths per million
New Jersey 1,793
New York 1,686
Massachusetts 1,256
Connecticut 1,245
Rhode Island 954
Louisiana 871
Discussion: The common denominator of those 6 states is that they are all run by Democrat governors.
Conclusion: Democrats are the cause for the widest spread of the Covid-19 virus
After recognizing the cause of the widespread Covid virus to be Democrats it is imperative to vote Republican and Trump in 2020.
“Says the guy who maintains the states with democratic governors have handled Covid worse than ones with Republican governors. You’re beyond help, Allan.”
If you accept – as you claim to that government policies have an effect on C19, then Allan’s statement is FACT,.
There is only one scenario in which red states have not out performed blue states in terms of policy by an order of magnitude,
That scenario is the one where the differences have nothing to do with policy.
If Policy actually matters – blue states have failed.
AS a matter of fact if one wishes to look at bad errors or contradictory responses one can look at a number of Democrat governors.
Who but a democrat or a stupid person would place Covid Positive seniors back into a nursing home to infect other patients?
Who but a democrat or a stupid person wouldn’t sanitize a transportation system which crowds people together in small spaces for long periods of time. That is a sure way to spread the virus?
Who but a stupid person or democrat would think that people walking on the street pose a health risk but masses of rioters, looters and arsonists close together were immune from Covid because they belonged to a left wing group?
Only Stupid people don’t recognize that those that encouraged that type of behavior have mishandled Covid.
Bug you fit that category since you have a memory of a frog without its intellectual abilities. Hop along Bug before you become someone’s frog’s legs dinner.
Data abstraction and synthesis are practically synonyms.
There is an obvious cohesive whole to all the C19 data,
One that supports everything Allan and I have said and rejects what you have.
Your own sources support my analysis.
You just scored and “own goal”.
The big picture from the first two charts of your source is that the increase in C19 positive tests directly corresponed to the increase in testing.
In otherwords there was no big spike – and probably not much of a little one.
There was little variation in daily deaths – i.e. no big spike *2.
Your prefered source.
https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-daily-tests
Your prefered data source
https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-daily-deaths
Now this has a problem because we know that the daily deaths from NY alone were over 2000 in mid april
Sorry the peak deaths on April 14 was over 6000 and 3778 were from NYC
I have not seen you or anyone else here disprove a single assertion by either Allan or I
Though i would note that NBC news – not Fox radically disagrees with your prefered source.
I would suggest spending more time with actual data rather that NYT reporters claims that unidentified experts beleive something.
If it is error – refute it.
More impressive still – find a way to refute it without undermining every other claim that you have made.
“From these numbers alone one might draw a broader conclusion that instead of lockdowns for entire nations the young and healthy should have continued their lives without interruption while the older or sick group could have voluntarily chosen their level of protection.”
My only disagreement is with “might”.
Further we KNEW this based on data from China.
Sweden made one mistake which they admitted, and which many others have.
They reacted slowly to protect the elederly. This was more consequential because Senior facilities in Sweden are large and have hundreds of seniors.
In Norway they are small and have 5-10 people. The result is that if C19 gets into a senior fascility in Norway a very small number of people are exposed.
It has always been easy to identify those at serious risk. The vast majority of people are NOT at serious risk.
For those under 20 this is 5 times LESS serious than the flu. For those under 40 it is about as serious as the flu.
As you get older it is increasingly worse than the flu.
There is a small portion of people under 50 with health issues that are at higher risk.
In the US the risk for those under 20 is 1:1000000 which is much less than the flu.
Despite all the things we do not know about C19.
We knew from March who was at risk and who was not.
And we made very stupid choices that increased the risk to the most vulnerable, and fixated on protecting people who were not at risk, as well as damaging the economy.
BTB fixates on this nonsense that the young may give it to the old – that is not actually that common.
kids under 20 do NOT interact with Seniors regularly. They rarely live together.
Regardless, one of the problems with one size fits all government action is that people do not get the flexibility of resolving issues on a case by case basis.
My wife and I are not high risk, But we are over 60. We have 3 20 somethings living with us – one of whom works in a Target.
She is extra careful, and we are extra careful with her.
Regardless, the burden of extra precautions falls on those for whom there is a benefit – not everyone.
Shutting the economy down is stupid.
BTB noted that there are teachers in their 60’s – SO WHAT ? Are we going to shutdown millions of school kids to protect a handful of older teachers ?
If you are at risk – do not work. We could have spent a fraction of $2T providing compensation for the small portion of our workforce that is older and at high risk.
And we continue to be stupid. Whitmer veto’d a bill that prohibited her from sending recovering C19 patients into nursing homes.
“My only disagreement is with “might”.”
John, since you are quoting a paragraph that I wrote I will explain the reason why I used the word “might”. I don’t think any of us have the underlying knowledge or experience to draw draw a definitive conclusion. When we did the 2 week shutdown I thought that was the plan of the President and the nation. Politics intervened and many forgot about the science of respiratory infections and instead dealt in polling. There is prior research on respiratory infections and if the R0 is significantly more than 1 the infection quickly becomes impossible to stop. I think some honestly believed, wrongfully so, that along with preserving the hospital system mitigation could bring the R0 below 1. I think in the back of a lot of people’s minds was the hope that the change in season would provide respite.
A lot of people continue to argue against what science seems to be proving. I think that is more political than anything else. The country needs to be fully opened and the children need to go back to school. We need to help seniors and the ill to be able to self isolate if desired. We need to be active in helping areas where the disease flares up but it doesn’t appear that the hospital system is in danger.
One of the reasons I am libertarian rather than conservative or progressive is that we rarely know enough with certainty to act with force until after the need to act has passed.
In this instance one of few things we knew sufficiently well was that C19 had a very strong age/impact curve and a very strong health/impact curve.
We know both of these much better now, But we knew at the time enough about who was going to be most effected to make much better choices than we did. There is no “might” to the fact that with our knowledge at the time we made wrong choices.
But I will go a step further, to the extent there is significant uncertainty in our knowledge – we can only act as individuals with regard for ourselves. As an individual i can decide for myself whether a mask is a benefit or a risk. If I decide wrong – I pay the price. If i decide right, I get the benefit. Govenors and president may not morally compel our actions without a high level of certainty about the benefits and costs.
That’s a false analysis. As anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the virus knows, wearing a mask is primarily effective in protecting others and secondarily, and less effectively, at protecting the wearer. John would be less selfish running red lights than deciding to not wear a mask, as the odds in the intersection between his car and others are probably closer to 50-50.
Anon – viruses don;t care about your mask unless you are N100 or better, The cloth ones that people are running around with are placebos at best and harmful to their health at worst.
That is false Paul. Anything which limits our broadcasting of exhaled breath helps limit the spread of the virus, which travels on relatively large droplets. Approx 95% of cases are due to direct human interaction ( about 5% from the presence of the virus on surfaces).
Smarten up and quit spreading false information.
Anon – well, you could stop breathing.
“Anything which limits our broadcasting of exhaled breath helps limit the spread of the virus”
That is only known true in a laboratory under optimal conditions.
And in a laboratory test the effect of bandana’s is quite small.
“which travels on relatively large droplets.”
Sometimes.
“Approx 95% of cases are due to direct human interaction ( about 5% from the presence of the virus on surfaces).”
Has no bearing on whether masks are effective.
“Smarten up and quit spreading false information.”
Take your own advice – provide a controlled study of masks preferably against C19 in the real world with ordinary people.
But lets assume that the laboratory value of .7 effective is true in the real world AND is not multiplicative – which clearly false.
That would mean that an N95 mask would reduce the R0 to .72 – which would be enough.
But if the real world reduction is .5 not .7, then R0 drops to 1.2 not enough.
Next that R0 is not for a single exposure – it is the number of people that an infected person transmits to over multiple exposures.
But the effectiveness of the mask is for ONE exposure. A .7 mask is .49 effective for 2 exposures. For 10 exposures its effectiveness is 0.03.
This is why hospital workers win .97 effective PPE all test positive eventually.
Masks are a delaying tactic nothing more.
“Take your own advice – provide a controlled study of masks preferably against C19 in the real world with ordinary people. ”
In the real world Hong Kong has 20 deaths and New York has 28000 deaths. Both cities are about the same size and Hong Kong is more crowded and had cases arriving earlier direct from Wuhan. The difference was that in Hong Kong almost everybody started to wear masks immediately without being told while the people of New York waited until thousands had died until they started wearing masks. Today New Yorkers are pretty good about wearing masks and that is one of the few places in the US where the number of cases is declining.
Actual Hong Kong
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.oZOiK3i2adGP4BWaFpJ7PwHaE8%26pid%3DApi&f=1
“Hong Kong is more crowded and had cases arriving earlier direct from Wuhan.”
False, when C19 came to the attention of the Chinese govenrment they shut down ALL internal flights from Wuhan,
They only allowed international travel from Wuhan.
” The difference was that in Hong Kong almost everybody started to wear masks immediately without being told while the people of New York waited until thousands had died until they started wearing masks.”
I doubt that is true – but if so it proves my point not yours.
Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan all are culturally inherently more suspicious of China.
Both politically and practically.
The flu comes from China most of the time. It arrives in other asian developed countries long before their is a vaccine.
They do a far better job of securing their borders from disease.
“Today New Yorkers are pretty good about wearing masks and that is one of the few places in the US where the number of cases is declining.”
FALSE
https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/33021/image.jpg
You do not seem to grasp that when you make a claim that is likely false – that I am going to go out and demonstrate that.
If you are going to say something – like New Yorkers are religiously wearing masks – remember that google exists.
62% of those in Tokoyo went to work with cold/flu like symptoms AFTER the government requested that anyone feeling ill stay home.
More than 70% went out to dine or grocery shopping.
I hate to say i agree with book, but i do agree, that physical barriers which impede droplet spread will help, ie masks, even ones not rated as n95 masks, but, I do agree with him.
This is basic physics. obviously, rigorous use helps the effect.
I do not favor more “lockdowns” and “quarantines” but masks where close contact cant be avoided, is a reasonable and worthy measure.
The physics do not overcome the math.
There is no way that in the real world an n95 mask will perform as well as in the laboratory.
The best numbers I have seen is that an n95 mask in laboratory use is 70% effective for a single exposure.
That will only get you an apreciable step towards an R0 below 1 if 90% of us are only exposed ONCE.
Each additional exposure results in a rapidly diminishing net effect of the mask.
And that is for n95 masks. It is far worse for bandana’s.
Rather than guess about all of this
WHY is it that we can EVER impose these types of policies by force, based on your agreement over what is speculation.
We have the ability to actual test things in the real world.
If you are prepared to support imposing one persons will over others by force, absent a high probability that the results promised will actually be acheived, there is no limit. You have more than a slippery slope,. You have a greased vertical slide.
Today those imposing there will by force could agree with you.
Tomorow they will be imposing their will on you.
Are you really going to argue that government does not “get it wrong” most of the time ?
How would you know what a virus cares about?
The purpose of wearing masks is to prevent the infected individuals from spreading the disease. It doesn’t take much to keep the larger droplets that people are spewing from there mouths from spreading the disease. The only places in the world where you find the virus is spreading uncontrolled is where people are not wearing masks.
“The purpose of wearing masks is to prevent the infected individuals from spreading the disease.”
And you know this because?
Why do health care workers wear masks?
“How would you know what a virus cares about?”
Because virus’s do not care about anything.
“The purpose of wearing masks is to prevent the infected individuals from spreading the disease. ”
A purpose is not proof of a result.
“It doesn’t take much to keep the larger droplets that people are spewing from there mouths from spreading the disease. The only places in the world where you find the virus is spreading uncontrolled is where people are not wearing masks.”
And yet the best PPE in existance worn by healthcare workers still ulitmately results in positive tests.
“You are And yet the best PPE in existance worn by healthcare workers still ultimately results in positive tests.”
Your libertarian beliefs have given you a damaged and defective mind.
Yes it is very difficult to prevent infection by trying to protect yourself with a mask but a simple cloth mask is effective to stop the spread when the source of the infection wears the mask. Surgeons and other operating room personnel have been wearing cloth masks for more than 100 years not because it does anything to protect the surgeon but because without the mask the patient will be subject to infection from the spittle that flows out of the mouth whenever people breathe or talk. This does not need to be researched it is an establish fact.
“Your libertarian beliefs have given you a damaged and defective mind.”
Nope – I follow the facts.
“Yes it is very difficult to prevent infection by trying to protect yourself with a mask but a simple cloth mask is effective to stop the spread when the source of the infection wears the mask.”
Not according to studies.
“Surgeons and other operating room personnel have been wearing cloth masks for more than 100 years”
Yes, and they change masks after each operation and they are doing so to prevent the spread of myriads of different diseases – not specifically a respiratory disease with an R0 of 2.4.
If a surgeon of Nurse invested with Covid operates on a patient – they are with near certainty going to be infected.
No sane surgeon would do so.
Cloth masks are not used by surgical staff to keep from spreading the illnesses they are currently suffering from,
But an assortment of germs and diseases that are in their mouth or saliva that could be dangerous or fatal if introduced directly past the skin barrier that prevents the spread of most diseases.
“not because it does anything to protect the surgeon but because without the mask the patient will be subject to infection from the spittle that flows out of the mouth whenever people breathe or talk. This does not need to be researched it is an establish fact.”
You are also dealing with a single exposure situation.
The same individual is not being operated on day after day.
Our experiences with cloth masks in operating theater’s have very little bearing on the spread of a highly contagious respiratory virus in public settings.
There are several thousand species of bacteria in a persons mouth – several hundred of which would be a serious health problem if they found there way internal to someone being operated on, every one of which would be stopped by a cloth mask.
Paul.
We do not know – means we do not know.
Just as i will criticize BTB for claiming knowledge that does not exist.
I can not allow you to assert the inverse – that because data does not exist, we can conclude they are inefective.
I highly doubt that masks – any kind are completely neutral.
I strongly suspect that worn properly and not fussed with, N95 masks have a small but measurable benefit.
I suspect that as actually used by normal people in the real world – they MIGHT actually be net negative.
But that is speculation. Just as BTB is speculating.
I also suspect that experts are pushing masks to give us all talismans.
By the laws of physics, larger droplets of your breath – you know, the kind most likely to be carrying the virus – will be hindered by fabrics of any kind, some more than others. Given that wearing the mask will contain to some extent your breath, we can logically deduce – try to keep up here John, this is getting really technical – you are therefore less likely to be spreading the virus if you are a carrier. Also given that your inhaling tends to draw airborne particles and droplets toward your mouth some droplets from those not wearing a mask or too close to you or wearing a lower quality mask may cause infected droplets to attach to your mask, and since it is not a complete barrier, you may still be exposed even while wearing the mask.
Maybe even John will get from this that the benefit of his wearing a mask is mostly to others and not his fat ass and therefore his libertarian ruminations on the subject have nothing to do with reality.
Because I said so.
masks help reduce proximate droplet spread and so if used en masse when people are close by, they will reduce droplet spread of sars cov 2 and also cold virus and other airborne and droplet spread respiratory illness. this is not rocket science.
What you say is correct in the lab.
In the real world there are several issues.
The first is laboratory tests assume perfection.
The next is that unless you reduce R0 below 1 you have done nothing but delay.
If each of us is only exposed ONCE to a virus with an R0 of 2.4 any single measure reducing spread by .60 will result in the virus dying off before infecting everyone who is not resistant. But that still may increase the duration of the epidemic by a factor of 2-4.
Any lower an effective measure will increase the duration of the virus with no effect on the number infected.
Even a .6 reduction in spread will increase the duration but only slightly reduce the total infected.
The above is for a SINGLE measure. Combining measures can increase the effectiveness.
At the same time we are each likely exposed more than once. And the longer the virus duration the more frequently we will be exposed.
A measure with a .6 effectiveness – only has a .36 effectiveness for 2 exposures and a .2 for 3.
Put simply an N95 mask with 100% compliance and perfect use will substantially increase the duration of the epidemic.
But will not alone reduce the total number of infections.
Try think of this differently.
If an N95 mask reduced your chances of dying in a car ride by .7 – after 3 car rides you would still have an 80% probability of dying.
We need real world tests.
really it is fine if someone can produce real world tests john but the physics of this are so simple that it’s a worthy measure.
I can’t imagine why you are so tenacious in this dubious point you are trying to make, except that you are habitually contrarian
You are correct about the physics being simple – though I would note – especially as BTB keeps ranting, the specifics of particle size are not clear.
Absolutely any mask will stop the large particles that can get into ones eyes or nose or mouth with a high probability of infection.
But we also know we have superspreaders that all you have to do to be infected is enter the space they were in some time ago.
That can not occur unless the particles are extremely small. The time a droplet remains in the air is inversely proportionate to size.
I do not know the actual facts, but I am finding increasing claims that C19 spread rate from most infected people is actually very low,
That this high R0 value is primarily the result of “superspreaders” who have infected as many as 500 people.
Regardless i find it extremely disturbing that with an epidemic that has effected the entire world, and with myriads of things that we should and could easily study, there are so few that we have actually bothered to study.
The actual effectiveness of masks is one of those.
My guess – is that n95 masks are probably effective against the Flu with a much lower R0, but that even n95 masks are just not good enough with C19. That their effect is likely sufficiently small that they are not useful even as part of a larger set of policies.
All that said n95 Masks likely ARE useful, specifically as part of a strategy for protecting the unhealthy and old.
Had we focused on the historic strategy of quarantine and protecting the vulnerable. Even the small effect of n95 masks might be sufficient to provide a small benefit to the most vulnerable.
That type of strategy is close tot he opposite of “flattening the curve”, the idea is to allow the epidemic to burn through as fast as possible, while protecting the most vulnerable. Because you can only do that effectively for a short time.
Flattening the curve actually increases the risk to the most vulnerable.
“By the laws of physics, ”
Which one ?
“larger droplets of your breath – you know, the kind most likely to be carrying the virus”
And you know that how ? Why isn’t it the smallest ones that are most likely ?
You are just making things up.
There is a reason that we do controlled studies in the real world.
” – will be hindered by fabrics of any kind, some more than others. Given that wearing the mask will contain to some extent your breath, we can logically deduce – try to keep up here John, this is getting really technical – you are therefore less likely to be spreading the virus if you are a carrier. Also given that your inhaling tends to draw airborne particles and droplets toward your mouth some droplets from those not wearing a mask or too close to you or wearing a lower quality mask may cause infected droplets to attach to your mask, and since it is not a complete barrier, you may still be exposed even while wearing the mask.”
BTB – actually no, we can not reach your conclusions logically. They are possibilities, but they are not the only possibilities.
It is also possible that masks can capture the virus and as the mask is fussed with deliver even larger doses that we would have gotten otherwise.
You can not test that in a laboratory. You need real world tests.
You do not have any.
You conclusions are bad speculation.
It is self evident that you are not capable of critical thinking.
“Maybe even John will get from this that the benefit of his wearing a mask is mostly to others and not his fat ass and therefore his libertarian ruminations on the subject have nothing to do with reality.”
The effects of a mask – whether beneficial or harmful, whether to yourself or to others are not established by facts/data.
They are speculation nothing more.
Further, lets assume that your speculation is correct.
Masks do not STOP the spread of anything, they SLOW it, and unless you slow the spread BELOW 1.0,
then you accomplish nothing but delay. Worse still you INCREASE the odds the disease will get to the most vulnerable.
“Because I said so.”
And nothing more.
John writes:
““larger droplets of your breath – you know, the kind most likely to be carrying the virus”
And you know that how ? Why isn’t it the smallest ones that are most likely ”
I know that John because unlike you apparently, I read technical reports on the virus. Google “Covid 19 droplets aerosol” and you’ll find the current accepted science is that the virus is definitely transmitted via large droplets produced coughing, speaking, etc, with some evidence under study that smaller aerosol contamination may also carry it.
First your cut and past leaves it unclear who said what – and implies I said what you actually said.
Regardless, I demanded proof of what you have said.
You have not provided it.
BTW there is no current “accepted’ science – science is not an opinion.
There is current demonstrated science.
This is part of your problem with Climate.
You refered to engineering.
When there is a structural failure – Engineers typically give you an expert oppinion as to the cuase of the failure.
i.e. Which of often many mistakes that were made proved the fatal one.
When designing a beam – there are no opinions involved. There is a load, there is a design and the math demonstrates success or failure.
If failure – then the design must be changed.
Regardless, you have STILL not cited a study of public use of masks specific to C19.
Masks in surgery are not even close to the same.
Even public use of masks for Flu is not the same – though you have no cited such a study.
Even the study I cited regarding hospital workers and highly effective PPE is not the same – but it does illustrate the problem.
Nothing should of 100% is effective for continuous exposure.
You prove that Masks are beneficial in a public setting you have to demonstrate that the mix of actual masks used in the way they are likely to be used will reduce the R0 below 1 for about 28 days. Anything less than that merely delays the inevitable.
Herd immunity for covid 19 is under question as there is evidence we only retain it for short periods of time. This is not uncommon with viruses. It is possible and likely that a vaccine will overcome this problem. John’s theory is therefore probably wrong.
“Herd immunity for covid 19 is under question”
Again STUDIES not speculation.
We have seen very very few instances were C19 appeared to burn out and came back.
That is strong evidence for durable immunity.
Regardless, immunity only needs to last approx 2 times the duration of the epidemic.
Which is another reason that “flattening the curve ” can often be a bad idea.
BTW we KNOW that immunity lasts more than long enough to eradicate the virus – otherwise it would never burn out in Sweden and would have returned with a vengeance in Italy
“as there is evidence we only retain it for short periods of time. This is not uncommon with viruses.”
Actually that is false. There are viruses with low duration but the primary reason we do not have vaccines is not duration of imunity
it is number of similar viruses – there are several hundred cold viruses. A vaccine against one or two would be near useless.
But there is now a 2 step vaccine against Pneumonia – that confers resistance to about 50 different pneumonia viruses.
“It is possible and likely that a vaccine will overcome this problem.”
Also false.
No vaccine can convey more immunity than actually getting infected.
All vaccines do is fool your body into generating the same immune response – forming the antibodies and TCells that fight the virus without infecting you.
Generally a vaccine produces LESS immunity than an infection – not more.
“John’s theory is therefore probably wrong.”
Not a theory.
If you are correct and immunity is short lived then YOU have already F’d up.
Had we done nothing the virus would have burned through the world in about 4 months and then burned out never to return.
We may have only had immunity for a short period, but we would have only needed it for a short period.
By “flattening the curve” we now have the virus spread accross the world at different stages with people accross the world at different levels of immunity and we may never be able to get rid of it – if immunity is as shortlived as you say.
Flattening the curve is a VERY bad idea – if immunity is short lived.
It is also a bad idea if your objective is to protect the most vulnerable.
You have failed Bastiats “seen vs. unseen”
You have presumed that a single clear benefit was the totality of all factors related to C19.
You have presumed that If some action has one obvious positive impact that it can not still be net negative.
You are making the same mistake with masks.
By choosing Protecting everyone, you could well be harming those who are most vulnerable.
And you are blinded to the fact that even positive effects of an action often come with negative effects.
This is another reason NOT to impose by force one size fits all rules.
When you impose a rule by force, and make a mistake – even a small mistake, you introduce the posibility of systemic failure.
Something only government can cause.
When people chose for themselves – they will not all choose the same. Sometimes the people you think screwed up end up being the ones who made the wise choice.
Regardless, you pretty much always want some group to work AGAINST the norms,
They are your insurance against making a decision that results in catastrophic failure.
John, my posts are intended for those with at least basic knowledge about the subject – or why are you posting about it? Your unfamiliarity about recent questions about the period of immunity for covid 19 patients, like your ignorance about what type of exhalations carry the virus indicate you’re just not up to the discussion, and it’s not my job to train you.
“John, my posts are intended for those with at least basic knowledge about the subject”
Then you have failed.
Further it is self evident that you do not have basic knowledge of math.
I have noted that the laboratory single exposure effectiveness of an N95 mask is .7.
The real world in use number will be much lower.
That effectiveness is not sufficient to make masks useful unless we can limit everyone to a single exposure
AND get 100% use of N95 masks
AND get lab effectiveness in the real world,
None of that is realistic.
Reducing R0 to 1.5 buys us nothing. It may even be net harmful by increasing the duration of exposure for the most vulnerable
All of that is MATH,.
It is also all self evident.
It is also all things you are completely unaware of.
You are self evidently uninformed.
“or why are you posting about it?”
To prevent others from being suckered by your idiocy,
“Your unfamiliarity about recent questions about the period of immunity for covid 19 patients”
You keep making a claim – without evidence.
Italy in the west got first,
if immunity were short lived – Italians should be again dying in droves – they are not.
I have asked you for evidence to back your claims.
I have provided a powerful counter to the claim to broad rapid loss of immunity – Italy.
You have provided nothing.
You also seem to thing this claim of rapid loss of immunity hurts my arguments – as I noted, it does not, it makes them stronger.
Short immunity means that flattening the curve was abysmally bad policy.
We can rid the world of most any disease if the period of immunity is about twice the duration of the epidemic.
But if we “flatten the curve” and lengthen the epidemic we make it likely the disease is with us forever.
“like your ignorance about what type of exhalations carry the virus indicate you’re just not up to the discussion, and it’s not my job to train you.”
It is not your job, it is also not your skill, to teach anything you must understand it.
You clearly do not.
As to “exhalations”
The water surrounding the virus increases the time it can survive out in the open.
But the more water the less likely it will remain in the air.
Masks stop large drops which will not go far or remain in the air long.
Those are very dangerous if they should get in your mouth or eyes, but they are also the least likely to do so.
Masks – particularly cloth masks are inefective at blocking the droplets that remain in the air the longest that are the most dangerous.
Regardless, all you do is introduce even more reasons for real world testing.
Because humidity and temperature are going to be factors effecting the performance of masks.
“That’s a false analysis.”
Because you say so ?
There exists absolutely no in vivo studies of masks in the general population.
There are studies of full PPE in a hospital environment with people who likely properly use it,
and with sufficient time – nearly everyone tests positive.
This is not “analysis” it is data.
“As anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the virus knows,”
The number of Covid fallacies is enormous. The number of aspects of Covid we still do not know that people are told are true is also huge.
“wearing a mask is primarily effective in protecting others”
That MAY be true, but there is no data on it.
“and secondarily, and less effectively, at protecting the wearer.”
Again no evidence.
“John would be less selfish running red lights”
Absolutely false – we know something about the odds of harm from running a red light.
You are again misusing language. Not wearing a mask is not selfish. It MIGHT be unwise.
I would note that if masks prevent the spread to others but do not protect you – then masks have little value.
The best “policies” we can have would be to protect those at high risk and NOT everyone else.
You do not seem to get that uniformly protecting everyone – ultimately protects no one.
“the odds in the intersection between his car and others are probably closer to 50-50.”
The odds that an infected person will infect another person absent any measures at all are about 240% over the course of 14 days.
The odds in a single encounter are low – though they are higher if you are older and less healthy.
We have had plenty of people live in the same home as an infected person – without masks and not get infected.
In fact the likelyhood of getting infected by a person in your home who has C19 apears to be about 10%.
I expected John would know something about the relative odds of running red lights.
It’s a lIbertarian thing, we wouldn’t understand.
I used your claims regarding red lights.
You seem to beleive that the recomendations you hear from the small subset of experts that manage to get on the news, are the same as certainty.
In his testimony before congress Fauccie admitted to lying about masks because there was a shortage at the time.
But if public heath experts will lie to us about masks in one way – why not another ?
There is enormous pressure to “do something”.
People do not want to hear “there may be nothing you can do”. But often that is the case.
And often experts lie to us – what do you think a placebo is ?
BTW this is not specific to Faucci.
But I am not buying what health experts say without actual data – studies.
I would note that “in vitro” stidies of N95 masks found them about 75% effective in a laboratory setting.
The odds of their being half that effective in a real world setting are slim to none.
And the reality could be far lower.
Many experts have noted that mask wearers are significantly more prone to fuss with their face.
Mask could easily increase your risk of infection.
You are ready to reject real world controlled studies that indicate HCQ is effective – because that suits your ideology,
but you accept the claims regarding masks without real world contrrolled studies ?
John, unlike you, I am not a doctor, pharmacological researcher, climate scientist, and hurricane expert, so I defer to others. But hey, keep us up on your multiple basement experiments, AND BE CAREFUL!
Ha! Absolutely.
Real science demands proof.
Science requires those making a claim, prove their claim, not that those who challenge it prove the claim is wrong.
I have been thinking of going to Costa Rica for some pharmacological research on Ayahuasca but probably it’s not a good idea.
Nietzsche said “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”.
I think I passed that milepost back when i was a teenager. if i take ayahuasca now, it might have a reverse effect and I might just become normal again. I wouldnt want that!
“John, unlike you, I am not a doctor, pharmacological researcher, climate scientist, and hurricane expert, so I defer to others.”
The cost of all decisions regarding your life will be paid by you – no matter who you defer too.
I trust facts, logic, reason.
I sometimes trust people with a prove track record. That is SUPPOSED to mean “experts” – but historically the error rate for experts is high.
Just the malarky being spread by experts regarding C19 should make that clear.
Again – it is YOU life – not ‘the ecperts”.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/us/bill-nye-face-covering-tiktok-trnd/index.html
Paul needs to watch this.
You should not be taking science advice from Bill Nye.
No Paul, you should be listening to the architect.
Nye, is a mechanical engineer, his science background is inferior to mine.
His engineering background is no better.
But most importantly he is wrong.
“The candle moves, but remains lit, showing that even a DIY sewing project can keep air and respiratory particles from escaping.”
Very poor science explanation if one understands the science. I think what he wrote is a logical fallacy. We know that the intesity of air flow decreases with obstruction but to assume it prevents particles from leaving is an assumption especially when those particles are so small. This type of explanation is used to convince people of things they don’t understand. If I put a small sheet of metal between my lips and the candle the air and all the particles will go out on the sides and the candle will not move.
This is the way snake oil salesmen were able to convince the innocent and make money.
You also thought my neighbor’s dog was being open minded when I told you of bouncing a tennis ball off the pavement and he just kept waiting for the ball to appear once again from the inner depths of the earth (because you remind me of my neighbor’s dog).
I guess the concepts I explained involving Nye’s poor scientific explanation went above your head. I recently explained the same thing to a seven year old and he understood it right away. Maybe I can get the seven year old to tutor you.
Bill Nye ? Really ?
There is a cottage industry debunking Nye.
He has a horrible track record on myriads of subjects.
John, I am sure there is a cottage industry debunking Nye and I’m guessing you are one of their main customers.
Nope, but when you claim expertise and you have a track record of error, I am not going to trust you.
I do not trust Nye any more than you.
I suspect you are right about as often.
Not often enough for trust.
Really. Your post suggested you needed to hear from him.
I have absolutely never said I needed to hear from an expert. I have never implied that. I have never suggested it.
Data, Logic, Reason.
Appeal to authority is a fallacy.
As a professional, it is amazing that John does not grasp the differences in understanding on the issues and questions which someone trained in a discipline brings vs an amateur. I’d love to see him a table with a John Say like client questioning his choices of columns and beams – actually, most architects hand that tech stuff off to the engineers, so maybe it would be on his choice of tiles and counter tops.
Clearly John is not smart enough – none of us here are – to expound on hydrowhogivesaf..k or glaciers in Antartica, but his self image requires him thinking he is.
“As a professional, it is amazing that John does not grasp the differences in understanding on the issues and questions which someone trained in a discipline brings vs an amateur.”
Newton, Franklin, Galleleio – amateurs,
Einstein was a clerk in a patent office.
My degree is in architecture – though I have more than enough engineeing to get a PE.
Today ONE of my jobs is writing embedded software. My real name is in the Linux Kernel.
I have been published atleast half a dozen times in computer systems journals.
I had a chemistry paper published when I was in HS.
I have written software to design buildings to run payroll, to do energy calculations, I have written RTOS’s.
I have written software for JPL, IAEC, I am currently working on communications laser contollers, Balistic targeting software, and rethinking the relationship between CPU’s and memory that will likely result in a paper to be published this november.
Every single project I have ever undertaken has required learning complex material in areas that I was not previously familiar with.
I deal with “experts” in their fields all the time – and then I go out and actually do the things they claim are impossible.
I would suggest looking up The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity)
“I’d love to see him a table with a John Say like client questioning his choices of columns and beams – actually, most architects hand that tech stuff off to the engineers, so maybe it would be on his choice of tiles and counter tops.”
The statistical distance between structures and climate science is near infinite.
When the calculations for steel, wood or concrete beams and columns are done – if they are done correctly, they will ALWAYS work for the loads specified. The math that climate scientists get away would would not be tolerated for making a matchstick model.
Engineering is applied science – and 2.5 std deviations of error is FAILURE.
No engineer would EVER design a column that would work 2 times out of 105.
I have designed myriads of projects that will kill people if they fail. All of which are in fields I am purportedly according to you an “amateur”.
“Clearly John is not smart enough – none of us here are”
According to you ?
” – to expound on hydrowhogivesaf..k or glaciers in Antartica, but his self image requires him thinking he is.”
My self image is not in question. I do not come here to bolster my self image. I am plenty of accomplishments if I have any doubts.
And myriads of extremely inteligent people that I work with.
What matters is the FACTS.
You fail at that constantly.
Error is error.
Those on the left constantly get things wrong – because regardless of their education – most of them are unaccomplished amateurs in all aspects of life.
You ranted that no human can live outside of society. Go read Swiss Family Robinson, or Robinson Crusoe
Can you manage that. I can, and most of the people I know and work with can.
Living as part of society is a CHOICE for me. It was also for most humans ever born.
But it would not surprise me if it is outside of your abilities.
The only one here who seems to need their ego stroked is you.
I will risk pissing everyone off again.
masks definitely help reduce particle spread and therefore based on simple physics they help reduce spread of disease borne by particulates.
that is not rocket science it is pretty simple. i dont like masks but i freely use them as required by law and before they were required. i hope we will get more used to masks and they should help reduce the spread of cold and flu too, in the process. i have no problem with masks. i dont agree with people who see it as a form of oppression. that’s wrong.
I also don’t like how the Democrats have politicized that, which has been counterproductive. And many of the other COVID measures
Nor do I like how Republicans have gotten to the point where they feel compelled to argue the most obvious things like masks.
this is one situation where both factions have clearly befuddled themselves. Here’s one big Democrat error”: hcq+ zinc +zpac is a legit prophylaxis against early exposure. the tests that have been quoted were flawed and did not say what the NYT and Wapoo falsely claimed they did. When Lancet retracted their big supposed proof, nobody fessed up and admitted that they had gone overboard against hcq. in fact they just kept on repeating the same old crap. oh and the design flaws and negative peer review of the other supposed debunkings got zero play in the lying fake media. because, they are sticking to the demonization of this therapy because they have a megaphone that will outshout any subtlety with ease.
Here is another obvious Democrat delusion. Quarantine measures will help reduce disease spread; but likewise the quarantine measures will bring on other public health problems besides covid. Poverty itself is a problem, to say nothing of suicide and ODs, and reduced elective surgery and treatment of other diseases due to quarantine, there is a complicated risk picture and Democrats have laid about this on a daily basis by oversimplifying the public health tradeoffs.
oh here’s another Democrat whopper. public gatherings should be banned., unless it is a BLM gathering. maybe they think the COVID isnt spread by a mob engaged in arson? not sure how that works but seems to me all the BLM rioting probably had a role in the recent spike.
So ok some Republicans can’t get the picture about masks. That is a mote in their eye. But Democrats look to the beam in your own
Dude, right on, but this was politicized by the President and most in the GOP and of course Democrats and just plain sane people will push back. Why is this even a question?
You have a right to your opinion but based on your record this statement is like all the others, WRONG.
BTB – it is YOU that is politicizing this.
It is you that is mandating something that is CLEARLY insufficient,
The laboratory effectiveness of an N95 mask is .7.
That is only sufficient to reduce the R0 below 1 if you have 100% compliance, Laboratory conditions, and each person is exposed only once.
And still it may only reduce the number of total infections a small amount.
You do not seem to grasp that you can not use force against others unless you can PROVE a net benefit.
The math is NOT on your side here.
Though frankly we can not solve this with math.
This is something we need real world tests.
What is the effective reduction of transmission of masks in real world use – not labortories, facing real world frequencies of exposure.
I do not know that for certain, but the odds of an N95 mask in 100% use having a .58 effectiveness accross the number of exposures in a normal population is very small. Even the laboratory results make that highly unlikely.
And if you can not get atleast .58 effectiveness over the long run, you are likely making this WORSE not better.
OK John, but tell me this.
If a person with covid is going to cough on you, do you want them to not wear a mask or bandanna, simply because they dont have a n95 mask?
the notion here is dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good. masks help!
“If a person with covid ”
Centuries of law, none of which is rejected by any libertarians I know allow the quarantining of those who are actually infected by a highly contageous and deadly disease.
I do not think there is a person here who would argue that if you are sick – you should not be out and about.
Beyond that – if you are actually sick – I have no problem with mandating a mask – if you are not quarantined.
But frankly I would prefer to see those who are sick required to stay at home and have services provided to them.
There are myriads of examples like this where in the case of C19 we have rejected centuries of law and epidemiology and went off on badly implementing this stupid nonsense that resulted from a HS science fair project in 2006.
But I would note even those guidelines would not have shutdown the economy or removed kids from school for a virus that was between 1 and 10 times more fatal than the flu.
We have taking this “NEW” nonsense, that has never been tried and jumped from a catagory II epidemic to a catagoty 6 – because …. Trump. Or some other nonsense.
This is not about the perfect being the enemy of the good enough, this is more “not wasting a good crisis”.
Not pissing me off, Kurtz. I appreciate you being willing to venture beyond tropes. I don’t even really believe you go as hard into the blood and soil schtick as you sometimes allude to.
But you’re wrong about CTHD.
Kurtz, There is evidence from laboratory studies supporting what you say regarding masks.
But real life is not the laboratory and a mask on a person, is not the same as a mask in a laboratory.
There is a reason we need actual real world tests. Which we have not done.
The next problem with masks is that the laboratory results indicate that excellent masks ALONE are not even close to sufficient to have any benefit – beyond delay.
An N95 mask appears to reduce the odds of sufficient Viral material passing the mask by about 70% for each exposure.
That is really good for a single exposure, But over multiple exposures it still does not get R0 below 1.
And that means the effect of an N95 mask alone is DELAY. Nothing more.
Delay – flattening the curve – has numerous effects – NOT ALL positive. The sole benefit is to the healthcare system. It is economically harmful, emotionally harmful, it increases the risk to high risk groups, ……
I suspect that with further study we MIGHT find that N95 masks are good enough to actually thwart the flu or colds – where R0 is about half that of C19 – but that is speculation.
Further any broad rather than individual benefit requires very high mask use with 100% N95 masks.
Few people I encounter are wearing N95 masks.
And the math on this is all compounding. the .7 effectiveness of an N95 mask is NOT good enough to does anything but delay C19 – and that is under laboratory conditions.
The effectiveness of lessor masks is statistically insignificant.
For those who can not do math – as noted before – in the real world, in hospitals with medical staff, using complete .97 effective gear, masks, gloves, face sheilds, over a long enough period, almost all staff tests positive.
Airborne viruses are incredibly difficult to stop. Ones with transmission rates as high as C19 probably can not be stopped in the real world.
WE have lots of clues regarding the spread of this, but nearly everything we are sure of has atleast a few counter examples.
There is excellent data that not only is the harm of C19 lower for younger healthy people, but their ability to spread it is lower.
Almost the entire under 40 population should be unrestricted right now. For them this is no worse, and likely better than a cold or the flu.
But very low rates for those under 20 does not mean the rate is ZERO
One of the huge mistakes the left constantly makes with everything, is this ludicrously stupid presumption that we must acheive PERFECT safety. That is not acheiveable. Worse still the efforts we take to be safe in one way expose us to harms in others.
The objective should be NET positive for all harms, not ZERO for one.
And the critieria for net positive all harms is different for each individual.
“One of the reasons I am libertarian”
John, I don’t have a firm commitment to any ideology. The closest I can come is to call myself a classical liberal which some might call libertarian though definitely not fitting into the same mold as you. One might add a bit of conservatism because I believe long lasting laws for the most part followed societal tradition that could have developed over millenia. Therefore I am sometimes reluctant to changing certain beliefs because many are foundational and destruction of those beliefs cause many others to fall.That leads to a bit of pragmatism especially since I know I have to deal with others that think differently which leads to compromise.
I think the biggest fault in the way you manage your ideology is your unwillingness to bend and your tendency not to recognize that “perfection is the evil of good”.
We do not differ very much as to how we perceived the threat of Covid-19. There is, however, a difference in our analysis.
You say “There is no “might” to the fact that with our knowledge at the time we made wrong choices.”
That is wrong. There is a lot we (as a nation) didn’t know and far more that you and I didn’t know. If it was strongly thought that anyone of numerous things were possible then a slight delay might have been beneficial. That is why I didn’t object to the 2 week lockdown. We have only learned recently that the virus would not die off in the summer and we are constantly learning new things some unexpected initially.
None the less if I were on the panel and had to vote I would have cautiously opened the nation after 2 weeks leaving metropolitan NY closed. But in that area at the very least I would have sanitized everything the larger public used especially in poorly ventilated areas such as mass transit.
In our earlier discussions where you stated nothing would effect the virus I pointed out that things could effect the virus pointing out mostly stupid things that were done or not done. To this day I don’t know for sure if the seriousness of the infection can in part be based on the dose infecting the individual. I think yes but I can’t say that I know.
I don’t want you to take this as an insult but your mind appears to be tightly shut which is problematic when there is no solution that fits the perfection of your ideology. (example: You never responded to one of my posts and that ended a series of postings. I provided you with a question or a statement that went something like this. Jo Jorgensen supports nuclear energy. Do we only use licensed persons to build a plant or can I hire some people and build it myself. It’s a ridiculous question but once licensing is involved there is a degree of force no different than the prostitution example I provided that you spurned.)
This is not an insult because I consider you one of the smartest and most knowledgeable persons on this blog. I also find that you are one of the most able to point out deficiencies in arguments so on the whole I am giving you a good deal of praise limited by your lack of concern for “perfection is the enemy of good.”
“As an individual i can decide for myself whether a mask is a benefit or a risk. ”
John, I agree, however, there are always ‘howevers’. In a tight space where people might be near one another if the prevailing thought is that masks help then one can be pushed into wearing a mask either by the owner of the facility and in some cases the government. Government attempts at such an activity should be the least invasive and most definitely should be accompanied by proofs and rationals that are consistent thoughtout the area.
That is where government is failing miserably. Government should not be enforcing masks if government isn’t enforcing it on everyone including rioters. It is the seemingly random enforcement of the rules that is creating the problems we see and making people act against the rules. Once that happens, along with favoritism, as citizens we should be removing such governments for they are rapidly moving in a fascist direction which should cause protesting and mass refusal to follow the dictates of such leaders.
Honest belief is not sufficient.
Eichman put up a very credible defense that he honestly beleived in what he was doing.
I would further note that the “science” regarding getting R0 below 1 is well understood.
Nothing – not even in combination works EXCEPT quarantining the infected – nearly immediately and to an incredibly high degree of success.
This has been known forever, and it is easily modeled mathematically.
The impact of every single other method we have imposed is to delay the time until the virus can no longer spread.
I would note that while these policies do NOT change the total number of people infected – only the duration of the epidemic, and the number of people infected at any given time, they DO have an impact on WHO successfully avoids infection.
The use of Masks, social distancing and self isolation can increase ones odds of not getting infected – but only if everyone is not doing the same thing.
Again a reason why letting people make their own choices actually produces the BEST outcome.
if the benefits of masks are small – their use by ONLY the most vulnerable would still result in a substantial portion of those avoiding infection.
We also failed to grasp that Except for protecting the hospitals – which increasingly appears to have had little merit, the impact of delaying the spread is significantly new NEGATIVE.
“Again a reason why letting people make their own choices actually produces the BEST outcome.”
That of course is true but in places where many people are libertarians this pandemic may result in the worst outcomes.
That is because libertarians do not grasp the concept of acting selflessly and that is a fatal flaw that the sars2 virus exploits mercilessly. Not being able to act purely for the benefit of others is why libertarians cannot understand the importance of wearing masks.
Take as an example New York and Hong Kong. Both are cities of about the same size and yet the outcomes are enormously different. The death toll in NY has been 100000% higher than HK
No govt had to tell the people of Hong Kong to wear masks
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/18/21262273/coronavirus-hong-kong-masks-deaths-new-york
Your dream that someday the population may achieve herd immunity may be nothing but wishful thinking. If the virus is allowed to replicate the enormous number of times to achieve that end the probability that the virus will remain the same and not mutate into different forms is practically zero. That seems to be what happened in the 1918 pandemic. The first wave was not very virulent and was fatal to the sick and the old. The second wave was far more contagious and tended to kill those who were young and the most healthy.
“That of course is true but in places where many people are libertarians this pandemic may result in the worst outcomes.
That is because libertarians do not grasp the concept of acting selflessly and that is a fatal flaw that the sars2 virus exploits mercilessly. Not being able to act purely for the benefit of others is why libertarians cannot understand the importance of wearing masks.”
Because you say so ?
Progressives do not act selflessly. They act idiotically. They impose their will on others by force over things they beleive rather than actually know.
Lots of claims have been made that masks are effective.
Based on WHAT – what real world data do you have ?
I know the laboratory test results for both n95 masks – that is about .7 reduction in transmission PER EXPOSURE.
The power of compounding is amazing. It means that even hospital grade PPE – masks, gloves, face shields which tests at .97
Still results in nearly all hospital workers testing positive.
You are making moral claims – when you do not have the facts to support your fundimental argument.
Finally I will note that it does not matter whether masks and policies reduce transmission.
Unless they reduce the overall R0 below 1 – and hopefully significantly below 1 across MANY exposures,
Then they buy time NOTHing else
And that means they should be used by the vulnearable – not everyone.
A young healthy person who goes out of their way to avoid C19 – is actually being selfish.
They are increasing the risk to seniors.
Progressives do not act selflessly. They act idiotically.
Well, the buts-to-nuts demonstrations endorse by alleged public health mavens (while we deplorables are cooped up at home) is certainly a bit of idiocy.
Now that the transcript and the rest of the video is out, we can see it was all hooey from the get go.
No, they’re not. John is off on some unsubstantiated “herd immunity” fantasy which the most recent research says may not be attainable.
Given his leader is a complete incompetent. he has to argue that chaos is the proper response, because, hey, that’s what we’ve got. That and 25% of the world’s cases and 4% of the population and the highest death totals in the world. Oh yeah, Paul says China – with 18% of the world’s population may have more. We’re number 2! We’re number 2!
“No, they’re not. John is off on some unsubstantiated “herd immunity” fantasy which the most recent research says may not be attainable.”
I have not seen such a study – if you wish to source it that would be helpful.
Though honestly it is irrelevant. If herd immunity is not acheiveable, then C19 will be with us forever.
“Given his leader is a complete incompetent.”
I have no leader, and the claim is irrelevant.
“he has to argue that chaos is the proper response”
No, just ordinary life, the same as we respond to colds and the flu without a vaccine.
“because, hey, that’s what we’ve got. That and 25% of the world’s cases”
False, positive tests are not cases.
“4% of the population and the highest death totals in the world.”
False, The EU has 5% of the worlds population and higher total deaths than the US
The fact which is obvious to anyone without blinders is that no public policy has been effective in thwarting C19.
Covid laughs at your policies.
You say the US has failed – what did the rest of the world do that was purportedly better ?
Sweden did pretty much what I recomended – and they are nearly through this completely
The US deaths/M are currently lower than Sweden, but will likely match by the time we are done.
The EU deaths/M are about the same as Sweden.
There is no pattern anywhere in the world demonstrating that any government policy has been effective.
Yet you wish to claim the US has failed ? How ?
CA clearly has from start to finish done exactly as you wished and yet it is a poster child for failure.
NY likely got caught behind the curve, but still did everything you asked and still has outcomes 4 times worse than almost anywhere else in the US.
In fact the evidence accross the US is that the states imposing the most draconian measures had the worst outcomes.
John, Google “covid 19 immunity” to get caught up on the issue. Apparently you only read crack pot “science”, which would explain a lot.
John is exhibiting an expanded example of limited thinking.
The problem is not my purportedly limited thinking, it is your actually magical thinking.
We all hope for means to defeat C19.
But we may not morally impose our hopes on others by force.
Much of what you are claiming is “crackpot science” is epidemiology 101.
Regardless, your primary error – and that of most purported public health experts is the failure Bastiat pointed out in “the seen and unseen”.
Confusing a possible first order benefit with the entirety of the impact of some action.
You conflate the results of optimal single exposure mask testing in a laboratory with their real world multiple exposure effectiveness.
You fail to grasp you are dealing with a virus with an R0 of 2.4 – nearly twice as contageous as the flu,
And you completely fail to grasp that if broad immunity can not be acheived – you will have C19 arround continuously for ever, and
everyone will likely get it again and again once immunity wears off.
I would note that every mass epidemic in history occured after a significant improvement in public health.
You do not seem to grasp that even improvements can actually be harmful.
The radical increase in fatal nut allergies is the direct result of reduced exposure to nuts and other alergens.
That the safer we make the world the more fragile we become.
Reducing the transmission rate of C19 at the cost of prolonging the epidemic can easily be a BAD not good idea.
That is not some crackpot idea. We have seen many purported heatlh gains result in disaster.
One of the reasons that conservatives and libertarians tend to be able to coexist, is that while conservtism is NOT an ideology, its core principle is correct.
One should disrupt systems that have been in place for years or centuries with great care – even when they are flawed.
Because shiny new ideas are more likely to make things worse than better.
That is also why we should value individual liberty.
Let the few take the risk of some new idea. They get to reap the benefits of success or the cost of failure.
The rest of us can follow when it has been found safe.
We are doing exactly this with vaccine trials – even accelerated ones.
We tested on animals first, then higher animals, then small numbers of human volunteers and then larger numbers of human volunteers,
We do not take risks with millions of people on new ideas – unless you are progressive.
Flattening the curve, social distancing, masking the general population, shutting down a nations economy are all things that have never been tried before, or atleast not on a national scale.
Yet, here you are claiming they are “accepted science” – they are not. They are an experiment that has just been conducted on the people of the world.
We have never tried any of this before. We have never pretended we could stop an aiborne respiratory virus before. much less one twice as contagious as the flu.
“Based on WHAT – what real world data do you have ?”
There is lots of real world data. Look at the places where they wear masks and places wear they don’t.
“There is lots of real world data. Look at the places where they wear masks and places wear they don’t.”
Saying something does not make it true.
Where is actual data.
Data that is specific to the problem
Surgery, The Flu and C19 are radically different problems.
You do not seem to get that.
Reducing the transmission rate is net BAD UNLESS you get it below 1.
If you can not reduce the R0 below 1 – you are expending energy to make the disease last longer and leaving the vulnerable at risk even longer INCREASING their risk.
Surgery is a 1 time exposure.
And a surgeon with C19 should not operate PERIOD there is no ppe good enough for that.
Let me repeat – if you are going to use FORCE, then you need to be SURE that what you are doing will not only work,
but will be NET positive.
You have not come close to that.
Do not give me Flu data for C19 – while I have not seen studies that masks in the general population are effective in stopping the Flu, those studies would be meaningless, the R0 for the flu is about 1.4 It is probably that all N95 masks and SOME cloth masks reduce the R0 below 1 for the Flu. The R0 for C19 is 2.4. You need .58 effective to be beneficial for a single exposure, you need .8 for 3 exposures.
Anything less is just prolonging the inevitable, and subjecting high risk groups to higher risk.
“Your dream that someday the population may achieve herd immunity may be nothing but wishful thinking.”
Then C19 will be arround forever.
Even a vaccine is just a tool to reach herd immunity.
“If the virus is allowed to replicate the enormous number of times”
The virus is going to replicate very nearly the same number of times no matter what.
The only effect of measures that do not acheive herd immunity is to make the time it takes to replicate that many times longer.
“to achieve that end the probability that the virus will remain the same and not mutate into different forms is practically zero.”
Maybe true, but irrelevant. You are math challenged.
You do not grasp that slowing the spread of the virus does no change the eventual outcome – unless you can reduce R0 below 1 for a long time.
“That seems to be what happened in the 1918 pandemic. The first wave was not very virulent and was fatal to the sick and the old. The second wave was far more contagious and tended to kill those who were young and the most healthy.”
It is rare for a virus to become more rather than less virulent. Evolution favors less virulent.
Immunity by vaccine is not achieved in the same way as herd immunity, which indeed may not be achievable. Nor is the possibility that we can’t reach herd immunity by attrition mean that a vaccine will not work. That is ignorant and wrong.
BTB immunity is immunity.
There are many ways it can be achieved, but vaccine immunity is pretty close to literally the same as immunity received through infection.
You keep claiming that herd immunity can not be achieved – yet you provide no support for that.
There is really only one means by which herd immunity can not be achieved – and that is if resistance achieved naturally, through infection or through vaccine does not last sufficiently long.
I would note that if that is the case “flattening the curve” will have proved to be the reason C19 was not wiped out.
Had it spread rapidly through the world, rather than been drawn out, herd immunity would have been acheived long enough for it to die out.
“Nor is the possibility that we can’t reach herd immunity by attrition mean that a vaccine will not work. ”
straw man and non sequitur.
You protect the vulnerable and wait until sufficient of the rest get infected.
I would further note that the global evidence is that 50-80% of people are naturally resistant already.
We do not know why, but no nation has seen more than a 20% level of total infections before the disease burned out on its own.
This should not be surprising. No airborne virus has ever infected more than 30% of the population.
“Honest belief is not sufficient.”
John, no one said it was and your example is meaningless in this present discussion
“I would further note that the “science” regarding getting R0 below 1 is well understood.”
I agree and that is why arguments by btb demonstrate he knows little of what he is talking about. He is an all or none type of guy who cannot understand the variables that are needed to make such a decision. He doesn’t recognize that variables can be additive and if they aren’t high enough all those mitigating variables fail based on our understanding of RO. However, time is also a factor in making decisions so that has be taken into account as well and time is not the only thing.
After eight years of Obama, a terrorist holds more rights than an innocent American who is a friend of Donald Trump.
Amazing! The USSA is a true banana republic!
Stone: ” I want you to hate me! If you don’t hate me I’m not doing my job ! “
Mr/ Kurtz —
Continuing your post earlier on pipers and war I wanted to add this You Tube link to a good video on pipers in WW I.
https://youtu.be/oy9D_zXq9hk
Young– when I was a young teenager, the custodian at our church was named Scotty Fraser. My friend and I would skip church and go to his shed and listen as he read Bobby Burns poetry, properly lubricated by Colt 45 Malt Liquor and his ever present pipe. Years later when he died we learned that in World War I, he enlisted in the Black Watch Highlander regiment. He was captured early on in the war and taken to a German POW camp. At some point he had learned German and was recruited by the British secret service (acting as Red Cross volunteers.) He rose to the rank of Sgt. Major. The Black Watch Highlander Band heard he was living in the States and found him. While they were touring the United States, they diverted the tour to visit Mr. Frazer and give a concert in his honor. I was overseas and could not be there. It must have been impressive.
Honest– What a wonderful memory of an extraordinary person! Thanks for telling us and thanks for the video. Playing it now!
Well, tried to play it. On my computer it came up ‘Disabled by Owner’. Too bad. I wanted to hear them.
The same site had a link to the Black Watch in Perth. Perth is where both my grandparents on my father’s side came from.
Young…Try this!
Click on the link that says play it on youtube.
honest…. mine works, too
To clarify, “when he died” was when I learned about his WWI service and the concert. I had moved away many years before it all happened.
Honest…I love that story…..wish I had met Scotty.
Yeat
Young…….holy cow…..I never knew about Canadians and pipes to this extent..though I read that Bill Millin was originally Canadian.. Thank you for what seems like a college mini course on this subject!
I got the videos to play. Thanks! That music does stir my soul in a good way.
God bless the Scots and their ancestors and also this eerie instrument – when you hear the skirl of the pipes, if you have even a trace of Scots blood, it calls to you
but, as the fellow said, the sound evokes other people in a similar way
I have noticed that in the fascinating form of kickboxing called Muay Thai, they have a cacophany of drums and native pipes which picks up the pace in each round. It’s a similar “atavistic” effect, thanks
Mr Kurtz – we used to remind my Irish mother yearly that it was the Irish, not the Scots, who invented the bagpipes. She was so ashamed.
I think the following demonstrates how bureaucrats can’t answer the easiest of questions.
Rioters
Funerals
Church
Work
and Dr. Fauci
My feelings for Fauci are kinder. He is trying to do his job in a dark room of slashing knives. He has to be a careful bureaucrat as well as a scientist and it is wrong to draw him into political statements. He said that any large gathering of people risks spreading the disease. That’s enough. The Democrats will say BLM gatherings are not a problem and that funerals for Democrat politicians are safe but that a funeral for your loved one isn’t. Let them. Shove their faces in it. But Fauci said all that anyone needs to hear–any large gathering puts people at risk.
Young, he was in a tight spot. His answer was appropriate if that was his only set of comments, but did it match the answers given to other groups at other times. Do you believe he has been consistent?
No one has been consistent.
Most of the times they do not know the answers. or they have educated guesses at best
The vast majority of what we are being told is pandemic theater NOT science.
I am prepared to accept that Masks as an example may have sufficient value to wear one myself.
But I also KNOW the evidence is POOR. That all the PSA’s and laws demanding we where a mask are not based on science,
they are based on hope, and the need to tell people there is something that is inside their control that they can do.
There are several other areas that I am very disturbed with Faucci. He personally has a bug up his ass over HCQ.
He rejects the studies on HCQ – which would be fine, except his OWN carreer started as a consequence of similar studies on another drug with no stronger a claim than HCQ. As many have noted double blind controlled studies are nearly impossible under the circumstances, take forever and may well be unethical under the circumstances. There have been many HCQ studies that have shown statistically significant effect. Most of these are CONTROLLED studies – Faucci claims otherwise and is WRONG. The HCQ studies are as good as the remedsivire and steriod studies, and produce results pretty much the same as the steroid studies.
HCQ is not a game changer – but it has a high probability of reducing mortality by about 20%.
Actually barring its use as Illinois has is immoral.
But beyond that Faucci, Brix – all of these people. are as much politicians as anything else.
And the FACT is that we do not know nearly as much as they pretend.
And worse, the evidence is that much of what government has done has been ineffective.
That in fact, there may be very little we can do.
Young, I think Fauci should be consistent in his recommendations and should take the bull by the horns and forcefully state that protests are unsafe and should be avoided. The main reasons that they are so unsafe is that there’s no control over social distancing and there’s a lot of yelling and screaming being done that likely makes masks much less effective.
Fauci is supposed to be a man who recognizes science, not a politician. The fact that there are so many protests happening all the time, combined with the number of Covid cases continually increasing since, should be enough for people to do the right thing and stay home, but Fauci assertively stating that protests should be avoided would be immensely important and helpful to controlling the virus.
Additionally, Fauci shouldn’t be giving all these interviews and being out there so much playing celebrity. He demeans his position and this behavior, combined with his playing politics, has made me lose all respect for him and his various recommendations.
Allan and DV– You are right. He should be more consistent. That may take more moral courage than successful, life-long bureaucrats have. Character is likely weeded out on the rise. I notice Dr. Birx is now under attack by Pelosi. Nobody wants the Democrats to do to their careers what they are doing to Portland and Seattle.
Allan– Everything you say seems valid to me. Fauci likely was too long in the position and likely infused it with his personality. He was king., and probably wants to remain king. But he has to survive next to Democrat gods who in an instant are prepared to declare, “Now I am become Death, destroyer of careers”. Trump probably could not have switched without being impeached again for ignoring the advice of “the one and only expert who can save us all”.
As for strategy changes when new evidence appears, I am comfortable with that. I would worry more if they were not prepared to change. I worked for several years as a tech in an industrial research lab and I came to accept surprises from nature as common, and accept that one adjusts to the facts.
I am more sympathetic to Dr Birx. I like her elegance and her immersion in numbers. Nature’s facts seem to dominate her world to such a degree that she doesn’t seem aware of the political storms building on her horizon. She seemed truly, and justifiably, shocked when Pelosi said she was horrible.
Young, if there is blame for Covid blame both parties but mostly democrats. Even today they cannot understand that China is an enemy. Democrats, big tech and the media all play footsie with China. Our leaders do the Cuomo game providing trinkets to get reelected but when it comes to protecting citizens from boring or things they would rather not think about, like ventillators, they do nothing.
” I worked for several years as a tech in an industrial research lab and I came to accept surprises from nature as common, and accept that one adjusts to the facts.”
Interesting to go from there to law.
Interesting to go from there to law.
***
Where I started there were a lot of rungs on my ladder.
DV
The fact is
THEY DO NOT KNOW.
There are a few things we know well enough to make good generalizations on
This is far worse as you get older. In those under 20 – this is 1/5 as dangerous as the flu.
In those over 65 it is 5 times more dangerous than the flu.
Many other things are beleifs – with some evidence but no certainty.
There is little evidence of transmission between children or from children to adults.
There is little evidence of transmission outside in public on a sunny day – even in crowds.
But we are less sure at night and we know this is much easier to spread indoors.
But even those things – have counter examples.
500 people in germany were traced to a single infected person at an outdoor german beer event at night.
The more i learn the more clear it is that masks are not very effective.
A full set of PPE worn religiously and properly in a hospital is purportedly 97% effective – YET over a period of 2 months, most protected care givers will test positive.
Mere masks worn badly by ordinary people likely have small benefit, and under some cases may be worse.
You can look at most of what we think we know – and find that either the evidence is not that strong, or that there is a great deal of uncertainty.
I would note that is the nature of problems like this.
It is why govenrment is inherently BAD at them. and why one size fits all solutions are BAD.
It is increasingly evident that most of the world botched handling this.
We tried something that has never been tried before – this “flatten the curve” approach.
I predict we will never do it again. It has been a massive failure and we would have been better off following the procedures that have been used for centuries.
I believe the Dems are pi$$ing on the constitution every day. Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, it doesn’t take much research to find a current incident…Portland Mayor and Governor, any sanctuary city, etc, etc, etc…
Bob, your comment reads like, “etc, etc..
Absolutely Bob.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson was appointed by Barack Obama. Rather than accepting the appointment, an objective candidate, in possession of vast legal acumen and honor, must have been ethically compelled to refuse it based on the best evidence and fact that Obama is not and will never be eligible for the office of president. Judge Amy Berman should have declared the act of Obama’s presidential candidacy and his presidency void, as contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution. Staggered by anti-American communist diligence, Judge Amy accepted his appointment and, without a concern, the egregious violation of fundamental law that was the false and illicit presidency of Barack Obama.
Justices and judges are politicians. The absolutely politicized judicial branch constitutes gross corruption of American fundamental law. America has one executive and two legislative branches. The once great American restricted-vote republic is now a one man, one vote, one-party communist dictatorship.
The time is too late. It is now left for new American Revolutionaries to take America from the communists as the American Revolutionaries took America from the British Empire in 1776, lest they capitulate and attend its funeral.
______________
“…men…may do…what their powers do not authorize,…[and] what they forbid.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
George, I weep at your idiotic ideation.
Thanks for reading, comrade.
Is your opinion of Hamilton’s admonition the same?
Which component of American freedom do you hold in contempt the most?
Would you mind that we start at the beginning. Please proffer, with citations, your position on “Crazy Abe” Lincoln’s denial to Southern States of fully constitutional secession, the point at which the process leading to the extant, contemporary, total nullification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights of 1789 began.