The South is in a league of its own.
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The South is in a league of its own.
I suppose that 50% might not be evenly distributed. Still depressing.
Hopefully in cities like Atlanta where there's more risk there'll be less idiocy on this.
Have you been able to find the actual survey question and results? I read somewhere they had no responses at all from 1 in 5 districts, and the number seems so low that I feel like it might not be completely accurate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The only person I saw without a mask in Atlanta was a police officer. Even (what looked like) a drug dealer was wearing a mask. Though I guess that might be helpful in that career. In my part of the state, about half the white people wear masks. Maybe 2/3 of African Americans. At least anecdotally, both numbers have been falling.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Kemp said that data was presented to him. Not sure if there's a public survey. He could also be lying, but that would be a weird thing to lie about. Unlike Trump, he's strategic with his lies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
A remarkable—and remarkably silly—drama has been unfolding, in Sweden, over the past couple of days.
1. A pediatrician named Jonas Ludvigsson—one of the original signatories of the heavily criticized Great Barrington Declaration—got a letter published in NEJM, describing a not very useful study on covid-associated mortality and severe morbidity among school-age children and schoolteachers (honestly remarkable that it was published in the first place).
2. This letter received some serious criticism.
3. A private citizen who'd obtained emails between Ludvigsson and our chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell discovered that Ludvigsson had discussed an aspect of this study with Tegnell last year, and had noted that there appeared to be a significant rise in excess mortality among children aged 7-16y (one of the specific groups he looked at in his study).
4. Gretchen Vogel—a journalist at Science, who has covered Sweden's pandemic response in several articles over the past year—reported on this exchange, as well as on the critical responses to Ludvigsson's letter, noting that Ludvigsson had himself identified and been concerned about a potentially important contradictory finding that he then neglected to acknowledge in his letter as well as in his own response to the criticism.
5. The article in Science triggered a reaction that can only be regarded as extraordinary, given what it's about. It was interpreted as accusing Ludvigsson of deliberately covering up important but inconvenient findings in his own research, in order to further a malevolent and downright deadly agenda. There was a lot of talk about retractions, investigation for misconduct, etc. Ludvigsson recently rose to (entirely disproportionate) prominence in Swedish public discourse as a result of some dubious interviews and an investigation of a Facebook group in which a number of members have taken it upon themselves to lobby other countries and int'l organizations against Sweden. He has somehow become the personification of the mainstream Swedish self-image—so what was perceived as a vicious and unfair attack on him provoked an absolutely bonkers response, with a number of Swedish scientists, scicomm people, journalists, pundits and their hangers-on going after scientists and journalists in other countries who had weighed in on the matter. Everyone lost their god-damned minds.
What's clear at the moment is that Ludvigsson thought there was a major rise in excess mortality in a specific group of children, tried to get Tegnell to help him investigate this more closely, and then requested the relevant data himself—but published without having received the data he'd sought, and without acknowledging the apparent finding. I think most people will agree that this wasn't good; he could've dealt with the issue in one or two sentences. What's not clear is whether the finding itself is important—or even real. Ludvigsson thought the excess was 68% compared to the average for the five preceding years, but, if you take significant changes in the size of that demographic into account, it's more like 36%—an outlier, but, considering how few deaths there are in this group overall, not a slam dunk. Settling the matter conclusively would require a review of death certificates and medical records, which Ludvigsson has asked—but not yet been authorized—to do. Sadly, Ludvigsson, in his response to the critics, did not mention this—saying, instead, that an official had told him that none of the deaths among children—over the course of the period covered by his study—had been attributed to covid. As a result there's been a fresh wave of scientists and assorted commentators spreading a lot of clueless nonsense about official cause-of-death statistics. That being said, the apparent excess deaths are almost certainly not attributable to covid. The funniest thing about all this is that Ludvigsson himself looks much more diligent and conscientious than his defenders. The saddest thing about all this is that this episode has turned what was already a fairly toxic debate into something that might be completely unsalvageable.
I don't think he's lying, just thinking that the headline figure might be obscuring some nuance. The finding itself is politically advantageous, in a way—it allows him to argue that it's no big deal that they haven't started vaccinating most teachers yet, because most teachers don't even want the vaccine :oQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
That was his argument for vaccinating K-12 teachers. I.e., it won't take many doses.
I am frequently shocked at how ostensibly intelligent people have trouble understanding vaccinations. I recently heard from a relative who was publicly discussing how she was so happy she would be getting the Moderna vaccine because the JNJ shot was 'controversial' and 'less effective' and it was just going to be given to marginalized communities because it was cheaper while rich white people got the 'good' vaccine.
When she was gently corrected that in fact it was equally effective at its main endpoints (not even getting into the complexities of comparing headline data from two very different trials), she doubled down with the conspiracy theory about how well all know who's going to get which vaccine and it's because of The Man trying to keep the poor and minorities down. (Which of course is wrong; marginalized communities will find it much easier to get the JNJ vaccine because it doesn't require two appointments, can be delivered to areas with less sophisticated healthcare infrastructure, and is generally a massive leap forward for our ability to fight this thing.) That brought out other people from the woodwork to talk about 'strong arguments on both sides' of the debate, even though of course *they're* going to get vaccinated.
This kind of uninformed conspiracy mongering is why vaccine hesitancy is so widespread in the US.
Those conspiracy theories have been encouraged by politicians and media in Europe from Macron to Handelsblatt.
A myth has been adopted by many that Pfizer and Moderna are the only good vaccines.
Jeez this is worse than I thought. Though an extremely long interval of dates.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/sD...-lgO80v2Bk8stA
Is it too cynical to joke that at least this will help demographically for upcoming elections?
It's mind boggling how the same people who are most vocal about opening everything back, and returning to normal in general, are least inclined to do anything to get to that point.
This is how you end up with 46% of teachers wanting a vaccine. Plus the newest GOP message is Covid no longer exists (or at least isn't worth worrying about).Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
It's all part of the narrative they tell themselves. "Covid isn't really that bad anyway, this is all too much" easily segues into "well, I don't need a vaccine, I don't get flu shots either."
Twitter Link
Impressive. Especially considering it takes three weeks for a vaccine to reach full efficacy, then another couple of weeks for a death to occur, and the vaccine rollout hasn't been completed yet five weeks prior to this chart ending.
Will be interesting to see how this CFR death rate continues to decline as time goes on.
The Swedish scientific conversation around covid continues to disappoint. Meanwhile, I was asked if I wanted my first vaccine dose today, but they had to postpone it till friday because half (!!!) of vaccinated personnel have had post-vaccination reactions strong enough to make them stay home for 1-3 days (a few even longer).
:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Why? That's inconsistent with what I'm seeing here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Probably cultural fever, tremor, muscle pain and vomiting :downcast:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
All kidding aside, you're absolutely right that it's doesn't match study findings or experiences from other countries. If it isn't influenced by culture and the like, there are other immunological, genetic & epidemiological hypotheses to explore. It would be weird and kinda outrageous if it had anything to do with production issues, and I don't think anyone has been able to connect this to specific batches (one batch may have been more likely to cause an allergic reaction, but it's uncertain).
I suspect there's an aggravating psychosomatic factor involved. If everyone you know is having reactions, you're bound to expect and feel a reaction - a bit like man flu.
My wife works in a care home and she was amongst the first to get vaccinated last December, she had no real reaction and very few of her colleagues that booked their own appointment because they were eager to get it had a reaction.
When it was brought into the home to vaccinate the laggard staff and the residents, for the next day or two all the staff who'd avoided the vaccine until then were almost all complaining about reactions (though I don't think anyone went home because of it). The residents with dementia had not much in the way of adverse reactions. The dementia meant they rather forgot they had been vaccinated and it stopped playing in their mind.
The residents without dementia were in between the two. More likely to complain than the dementia residents (when the reverse is normally true), but less likely to complain than the staff.
The UK now has lower case rates than all ten of the highest population EU countries.
https://i.ibb.co/0KvwtCq/Ew-Cf-VOVXIAg-Hdr-I.jpg
Which is even more remarkable when you consider how stunning our test and trace is now and just how many tests are going on here to find these cases.
https://us.v-cdn.net/5020679/uploads...jhvadtbfuf.png
Over the past two months, we've had (on average) 1 case of Wernicke encephalopathy per week, where we'd expect to see several weeks or occasionally months between cases. All men in their 50s and 60s, all clearly associated with alcohol abuse, almost all with excellent response to treatment—but all with more severe symptoms at presentation than we usually see. This is a smallish town with a young, healthy, educated and mostly middle-class population, so a streak like this is very unexpected; in the 9 years that I've worked here, I can't recall a single year in which we've seen so many people with this condition in such a short time—not even last spring. Gonna try to see if I can get some info at the regional & national levels, but it's gonna be difficult due to inconsistent coding.
I thought you had condemned Lewk for treating covid as a league sport.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
It is not a league sport it is far more serious than that. I was never against pointing out that eg states in the USA that were refusing lockdowns etc were having higher rates than the high population density states that had been hit hard first.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
Lewk was misreading figures that were an accident of geography since he didn't understand the significance of population density etc, then when pointed out he'd dismiss it as if population density was a State's "fault".
That the UK despite having one of the highest population density of all now has lower rates now is not an accident of geography, it is not a coincidence, it is because the UK in 2021 [and in its procurement decisions made in 2020] is handling the pandemic far, far better than our neighbours are because the 4 governments in this country are following different policies that work. Which is why we are defeating the virus, and they are saying lies about catching up with the UK. The grim reality is that lies don't save lives, vaccines do, and the EU have not caught up with the UK that was a pathetic lie. If the EU had really caught up with the UK they'd be eliminating the virus like we are.
The sooner countries in Europe put their arrogance to one side, adopt our methods that work, the sooner this virus can be behind us and lives can be saved.
Some functional steps that can be done to save lives.
- Countries need to fix the procurement mistakes by seeking to purchase vaccines by any means necessary, at any price.
- Holding back vaccine for second doses is absolute insanity. If you have a vaccine dose available, use it. Second doses should come from future supply, not current supply.
- A first dose alone provides 80% protection, two doses give 95% protection. Halt doing second doses until all the vulnerable have had a first dose.
- Face saving should not come before life saving.
For what its worth even if the EU adopt these policies today they'll have lost close to 3 months so will take 3 more months to catch up with the UK. A wasted Quarter that will cost many tens of billions more in cash and tens of thousands of lives more than what they saved by penny pinching on vaccine procurement. But at least they will make progress and possibly quite rapidly. But instead they're still twisting in the wind with spin and lies to save face rather than learn lessons.
Still talking out of your ass as if your government didn't implement deadly policies—that you supported—leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of people :noob:
Also point 1 is a bit odd since that would go at the expense of other countries (supply us limited), and if I recall correctly he was upset when EU flexed some muscle preventing export of vaccines. Yet now it seems like that's what he wants? Would make sense though considering he applauds the UK getting vaccines produced in the EU to make up for lost production in the UK (threatening repercussions if they don't).
You're right, it didn't. There's a deadly pandemic going on so deaths are almost inevitable and no western high population density highly connected nation has escapted unscathed, but vaccinations are the route out and we're doing it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Supply is limited if there is limited investment. Invest more on producing vaccines sooner and more vaccines can be produced. Trying to steal vaccines bought and paid for by the investment of others is not the same as investing sufficiently yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Splashing the cash to invest in and buy vaccines is different to trying to steal the vaccines others have paid for. The only people who have engaged in conspiracy theories or threatened repercussions is the EU to cover up for the fact that they chose to penny pinch on investing in vaccinations and were boasting that they'd spent months more to negotiate paying less per dose without comprehending the nature of first come, first served.
Penny pinching on vaccinations does not work.
https://us.v-cdn.net/5020679/uploads...xulfobubl.jpeg
There comes a point at which the nonsense becomes too much, too convoluted, and too time-consuming to address.
Judging from discussions within the medical community here in Sweden, we have a massive wave of working-age adults—as well as a not-insignificant number of children and adolescents—with a broad range of more or less severe post-covid issues heading our way. Countries that failed to protect these groups—and esp. countries that implemented policies that actively facilitated infections in these groups—are going to pay for those failures of leadership for a long time to come. I thought at first that this would be an esp. big challenge for my specialty, but we're seeing issues crop up in a variety of specialties, and primary care physicians are absolutely swamped ofc. Our healthcare & social security systems are not equipped to deal with what's coming, as things currently stand; neither are any other country's healthcare & social security systems, tbh.
You mean there comes a point where the facts are so unequivocal you can't bullshit and lie your way out of them anymore?
But don't worry, the UK fucked this up and the EU has "caught up" with the UK hasn't it? Because that wasn't a complete and utter lie, was it? :haha:
What pathetic spin. In comparison to similar countries, your country is doing uniquely poorly wrt deaths and infections, and a very large proportion of that poor performance can be attributed to deadly—and stupid—decisions that you yourself enthusiastically supported in a breathtaking display of partisan psychosis. You were told what the consequences would be, but you cared more about upholding political spin and saving face—and pretending you knew what you were talking about :haha:—than about saving lives. Sad and gross :down:Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Remember my story about my friend and the surgeon :)Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Absolutely untrue. On current infections and deaths the UK is doing far better than comparable countries, thanks to wisely not penny pinching on vaccines and not wasting them on second doses or even more gross keeping them in fridges for three weeks then using them on second doses.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
On overall excess deaths its not a league sport, but the UK is doing comparable to other high population density western nations. Despite the Kent Covid variant evolving here when the UK had lower rates and lower excess deaths at the time than other comparable nations.
How do you possibly define the UK as doing uniquely poorly? Or are you not aware that the UK is rather uniquely actually measuring deaths accurately (indeed we're overmeasuring them) when other nations are not?
I think you need to listen to your own story about your friend and the surgeon as you're falling for spin and lies hook, line and sinker.
Eerily Aimless won't say a word about this absolutely tragic, will lead to deaths and has been fed by the lies from EU leaders.
Twitter Link
This is the outcome of having a lack of integrity. What a tragedy.
Especially in France with Macron feeding antivax conspiracy loons dismissing vaccines authorised by the EMA as "ineffective".
Lmao you sneaky little fucker :haha: the pandemic spans a year and you're talking about the last few months :haha: I am, of course, referring to decisions throughout last year, that saw your govt. cause the deaths of tens of thousands of people—and the suffering of tens of thousands more—through deadly and stupid decisions that you yourself cheered on enthusiastically due to your partisan psychosis. It should have been apparent from context, but obv. that only works with people who can read.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Deaths, hospitalizations, ICU-admissions, and cases per capita, over the course of the pandemic, compared to other similar nations as well as compared to plausible counterfactual scenarios with different policy decisions.Quote:
How do you possibly define the UK as doing uniquely poorly?
You're not "overmeasuring" deaths.Quote:
Or are you not aware that the UK is rather uniquely actually measuring deaths accurately (indeed we're overmeasuring them) when other nations are not?
Sadly, the point of the story strongly suggests that your advice re. the story is probably worthless :noob:Quote:
I think you need to listen to your own story about your friend and the surgeon as you're falling for spin and lies hook, line and sinker.
Seems you don't have a foggiest what you're talking about. :haha:
Go on then provide facts and figures to substantiate your preposterous lies. Which countries do you think are comparable to the UK in ways that matter - ie population density, age profile, levels of obesity etc - and please provide the "deaths" figures you're using for them to justify the claim the UK has done "uniquely" badly. Facts and figures please, because it seems you don't understand them.
Sadly, this discrepancy between confidence in Pfizer's and AZN's vaccines is primarily a consequence of AZN's clumsy trial designs and messy reporting, in combination with pre-existing vaccine skepticism that has been amplified by irresponsible journalism. Nobody outside France cares about Macron's statements, and nobody in France is going to have their already skeptical attitudes to vaccination influenced by Macron. Antivaxx sentiments are spread and fueled by existing groups and networks whose impact is independent of and far greater than whatever some national leader in another country may have said. It should be noted that Macron's statements were criticized by representatives of other EU member states, in Brussels. Do you think antivaxx conspiracy loons would've gotten vaccinated if only Macron hadn't irresponsibly criticized a specific vaccine? Having spent a decade grappling with the Swedish antivaxx movement—and helping to assuage patients' concerns about vaccines—I can say that I don't buy that simplistic view at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Yeah the irresponsible German lies to Handelsblatt etc then the German government overturning the EMA approving a vaccine for approved for all ages had absolutely no impact. :haha:
I know you're having a difficult time in the coalface but you've really gone off the deep end and can't see the wood for the trees now. Probably why you thought the EU had caught up with the UK on vaccines. :haha:
I think it's best if you first start by explaining your strange position that the UK is "overmeasuring" deaths. That way we can reach a consensus on a key aspect of the comparison, before proceeding. In addition, I think you should first present evidence that any particular population density measure is particularly relevant to the comparison at the population level—and the same for age profile, obesity and "etc". Why should these things be taken into consideration at all, and in what way should we adjust for them? These are important questions to answer before trying to make a meaningful comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
I literally said "amplified by irresponsible journalism" in my post you illiterate buffoon. It's right there in my post. "Irresponsible journalism" is a reference to the Handelsblatt incident, in which an unknown source provided a very dubious and harmful bit of information that was not adequately vetted. What "etc" are you referring to wrt "German lies"? Which lies have been told by "Germans" to "etc"? You mentioned EU leaders. Which German leader provided Handelsblatt with that misleading figure and forced Handelsblatt to publish it without adequate vetting?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
The German government didn't "overturn" an EMA approval; Germany's equivalent to the MHRA recommended against deploying Astrazeneca's vaccine among the elderly, pending more data, acknowledging the same issue the EMA had identified wrt the insufficient data on efficacy in that age group. That is what I acknowledged in my post, in my reference to "AZN's clumsy trial designs and messy reporting". The issue could have easily been avoided if AZN had set up trials with more people in the relevant age-group—as their competitors did.Quote:
then the German government overturning the EMA approving a vaccine for approved for all ages had absolutely no impact.
I again refer you to my story about my friend and the surgeon. See, the problem here is that you, being functionally illiterate and a little dim, are not capable of understanding what was said—now or then.Quote:
I know you're having a difficult time in the coalface but you've really gone off the deep end and can't see the wood for the trees now. Probably why you thought the EU had caught up with the UK on vaccines. :haha:
In case you were not aware here are some basic facts for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
- The UK "official" death tally is deaths with Covid, not deaths from Covid. Even if someone tests positive, is asymptomatic or makes a full recovery, then dies of natural causes or from a road traffic collision 27 days later they're still counted as a Covid death. I agree that there's an accurate way to look at real figures and I said excess deaths, which pretty much everyone at the start said was the gold standard. What are you using or preferring instead?
- You want evidence that population density affects viral transmission? Seriously? I refer you back to the past 100 pages of this thread and countless evidence worldwide.
- You want evidence age profile affects mortality? Refer to WHO advice from over a year ago now, the past 100 pages of this thread and countless studies worldwide.
- You want evidence obesity affects mortality? As above though not quite 100 pages but countless studies and concrete evidence known since at least last summer.
So go on then. Do you accept excess deaths as the gold standard or something else you'd rather use instead? And were you unaware UK figures are otherwise "with" and not "from" Covid? Oops that's embarrassing for you.
Or have you got an agenda? Since you claimed deaths were unique you must have had a metric, what is it?