Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @Texas-Hawk-10 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @kjayhawks said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @benshawks08 I’m not sure what to think as a parent. My son needs the structure badly with his autism and we all continue to work. It would be impossible for his daycare to have dozens of computers and try to online stuff much. He hates doing it to boot. I keep hearing about having every other day between grades. I’m lucky because our district may have 500 kids in it from pre-K to 12th grade total. Not sure what the right answer is but it has negatively effected him and he is losing progress because of this. The first 6-8 years are huge for autism kids and what he is losing at this point, he may never recover from. Small children won’t wear mask or social distance, you’d have better luck training a monkey to mow your yard. That being said it needs to be safe. It is a lose lose for us at this point.

    I’ve been following this for quite awhile now, in part as a education scholar and in part as an interested instructor. I think we’re down to the least bad option. I’ve come down to we basically have to run schools basically as I went to kindergarten; alternating MWF/TU weeks. Basically have to quarantine teachers during the year. I hate it with almost every fiber of my being but I can’t find a better option. Entirely open to suggestions.

    Alternating days doesn’t work either because those plans that have been proposed still call for teachers on campus every day so teachers can’t help kids on their days off campus. You also run into issues of childcare for younger kids in single parent households or where both parents have to work outside the home.

    One district here in Houston has already announced they’re going to be online only this year, but I’m fully preparing to have about 9 months of no social life or be able to see my mom who’s in her early 70’s because exposure is going to happen and districts here have pretty much said unless you’re showing symptoms, show up and if catch Covid, tough luck because you aren’t getting any extra sick days if you need them.

    This school year is going to be an absolute 💩show this year because there is no good option. They are all 💩 plans with significant issues that can’t realistically be solved.

    I think it could work. I didn’t even have full time kindergarten in Kansas. Half the grade went MWF one week, TU the next. If you incorporated the online element, you could conceivably pull it off so long as you give folks some runway to plan. I don’t like it, but I think both the full bore everyone in person or nobody in person are unacceptable. It keeps buses less full, and classrooms more spaced out so you mitigate risk to the most people while still getting some in person instruction.

    It’s still a 💩 plan because you’re now asking teachers to do two jobs. If students go alternating days to reduce class sizes, who helps students with questions about their assignments when those kids are off campus? Is it the teacher of record who would presumably be in a classroom teaching the other half of students supposed to take even more of their own time to answer those questions? How do special education students receive their services online? How does a kid who can’t afford the technology to work from home acquire that technology when the school district doesn’t have enough devices to have a 1:1 ratio? What do you do for the kid that’s too young to stay home alone, but doesn’t have a parent or guardian that can accommodate their schedule or afford child care?

    Alternating days is not a viable solution for this issue because what’s going to happen with that plan is an insane amount of burnout among teachers from being overworked which will lead to much more reduced level of education than either of the other two options.

    Again, we’ve done this before, so I’m not inventing things from whole cloth here. I never even said it was good, just the best of a lot of bad options. What you’re going to have to do is spend some time each day addressing questions about the material that come up for students who don’t have access to that technology. At least this way they’ll have an opportunity to get those questions answered, unlike an online only plan. And at least parents will have part time child care and not have to exit the labor force altogether and maybe come up with a device and reliable internet connection.

    Based on the evidence around virtual charters, we can’t go all virtual because the loss of learning will absolutely be catastrophic, and those schools are build from the ground up to teach virtually! And students need the school environment to be around peers and develop non-cognitive skills. We can’t just pretend you can pause the clock for 15 months. Plus, it will really exacerbate already existing inequities in the system. So what do we do? Have to mitigate risk as best we can and balance health and education. If it requires the feds to provide additional resources, so be it. Whether that’s additional technology, PPE (NC is distributing masks and other things to all their schools), or whatever.



  • @FarmerJayhawk Based on my personal experience, I straight up disagree with an alternating day schedule being the best option for the reasons I mentioned.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @FarmerJayhawk Based on my personal experience, I straight up disagree with an alternating day schedule being the best option for the reasons I mentioned.

    And that’s fine, I appreciate the dialog. So as a teacher, what do you suggest? Honestly curious because all I keep coming up with is shit, shittier, and shittiest depending on the day.



  • We are officially going virtual only in Austin for the first 3 weeks starting Aug 18 according to our superintendent.



  • @FarmerJayhawk 💩 is about all there is in regards to options. There’s no one blanket option that’s going to work across-the-board. Since the TEA here in Texas at this point has no plans to work in their offices until January, but still expect teachers to show up everyday even if they’ve been exposed and only stay home if they have any symptoms until they get test results back. If a teacher tests positive and has to miss a bunch of time and go over however many sick days they have, then you don’t get paid for those days you miss after you’ve run out of days.

    The TEA is also planning on moving forward with their standardized testing this year even though most schools will likely have shutdowns at some point and will be playing catch up from last year since most teachers I know reported only about 1/3 of students actually did any work last spring because word got out quickly that they couldn’t be retained for not doing that work. A lot of teachers are pretty pissed off at the TEA because of their hypocrisy in handling the situation.

    My personal thoughts are the TEA needs to invest in technology to get every district to a 1:1 ratio in regards to technology whether it’s through Chromebooks or tablets or something so kids have access to technology at least. Most politicians on both sides are only really focused of the needs of students, but not on the needs of teachers in regards to reopening plans and that’s going to bite people in the ass when schools have a Covid outbreak and have to shut back down. It doesn’t matter if it’s 5 days a week or alternating days, having in person learning at this point, at least here in Texas and probably most of the south, is just going to result in a cycle of outbreaks, shut downs, and returns and be far more disruptive than starting online.

    My district specifically this week sent out emails to parents giving them the option of sending their kids to school for in person learning or staying home. What they didn’t do is provide any details on what protocols will be in place to attempt to minimize the risk of an outbreak. The district hasn’t even sent a plan to teachers about what on campus instruction will look like and I’m 2 weeks out from having to return to campus to start prepping for football, if it happens. Without an answer to that, I don’t know if I have 2 or 3 weeks of summer left and my campus athletic coordinator doesn’t know yet either. That’s an answer that needs to be made known as well because of how much money in stipends is involved.

    My savings account prefers on campus with sports because no sports means about $7,000 in salary reduction for me which is a significant amount of money to have in limbo at this point.

    If you’re going to ask me which one would be the least disruptive, I would go with online because then there’s at least consistency there and has the lowest risk of disruption in learning. That said, lower socio-economic school districts like mine that simply don’t have the resources to get 1:1 technology at this point make going online impractical and not feasible.

    Realistically, the decision needs to be district by district and in the case of larger school districts, school by school in regards to what’s best for those populations.



  • Well, Governor Kelly just had her news conference and said she is making a executive order that goes into effect Monday - - - Schools will be delayed in opening at least till after Labor day weekend. & then after that the Schools will have mandates in the order.

    They will have to see after that. - - -The White house yesterday they said declared Kansas a RED Zone - -we had 875 new cases over the weekend and 11 deaths. - - Part of being a Red Zone is COVID-19 with a positive rate of over 10 % - -Dr Norman is very dissapointed about how people reacted when restrictions was lifted. - -Hey said they knew we would spike after the 4th of July weekend but NOT this high - -we are not having sports this fall watch. - - - -this effects K-12 hold on to your butts



  • @jayballer73 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    Well, Governor Kelly just had her news conference and said she is making a executive order that goes into effect Monday - - - Schools will be delayed in opening at least till after Labor day weekend. & then after that the Schools will have mandates in the order.

    They will have to see after that. - - -The White house yesterday they said declared Kansas a RED Zone - -we had 875 new cases over the weekend and 11 deaths. - - Part of being a Red Zone is COVID-19 with a positive rate of over 10 % - -Dr Norman is very dissapointed about how people reacted when restrictions was lifted. - -Hey said they knew we would spike after the 4th of July weekend but NOT this high - -we are not having sports this fall watch. - - - -this effects K-12 hold on to your butts

    Subject to SBoE approval. Will be interesting to see how they vote.



  • @FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @jayballer73 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    Well, Governor Kelly just had her news conference and said she is making a executive order that goes into effect Monday - - - Schools will be delayed in opening at least till after Labor day weekend. & then after that the Schools will have mandates in the order.

    They will have to see after that. - - -The White house yesterday they said declared Kansas a RED Zone - -we had 875 new cases over the weekend and 11 deaths. - - Part of being a Red Zone is COVID-19 with a positive rate of over 10 % - -Dr Norman is very dissapointed about how people reacted when restrictions was lifted. - -Hey said they knew we would spike after the 4th of July weekend but NOT this high - -we are not having sports this fall watch. - - - -this effects K-12 hold on to your butts

    Subject to SBoE approval. Will be interesting to see how they vote.

    think she was ask about legislators being able to overturn and her reply was they would only be able to review and not over turn. Think this stems from the 1st time , they overturned her decision and she went through court to uphold her decision- -I’m not real clear on that though I know this though if we are being declared a Red Zone - -thats not good



  • @jayballer73 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @jayballer73 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    Well, Governor Kelly just had her news conference and said she is making a executive order that goes into effect Monday - - - Schools will be delayed in opening at least till after Labor day weekend. & then after that the Schools will have mandates in the order.

    They will have to see after that. - - -The White house yesterday they said declared Kansas a RED Zone - -we had 875 new cases over the weekend and 11 deaths. - - Part of being a Red Zone is COVID-19 with a positive rate of over 10 % - -Dr Norman is very dissapointed about how people reacted when restrictions was lifted. - -Hey said they knew we would spike after the 4th of July weekend but NOT this high - -we are not having sports this fall watch. - - - -this effects K-12 hold on to your butts

    Subject to SBoE approval. Will be interesting to see how they vote.

    think she was ask about legislators being able to overturn and her reply was they would only be able to review and not over turn. Think this stems from the 1st time , they overturned her decision and she went through court to uphold her decision- -I’m not real clear on that though I know this though if we are being declared a Red Zone - -thats not good

    The legislature can repeal her authority to do this in its entirety if they really want to. Under current law, the Board of Education has the power to overturn the order.



  • @FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @jayballer73 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @jayballer73 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    Well, Governor Kelly just had her news conference and said she is making a executive order that goes into effect Monday - - - Schools will be delayed in opening at least till after Labor day weekend. & then after that the Schools will have mandates in the order.

    They will have to see after that. - - -The White house yesterday they said declared Kansas a RED Zone - -we had 875 new cases over the weekend and 11 deaths. - - Part of being a Red Zone is COVID-19 with a positive rate of over 10 % - -Dr Norman is very dissapointed about how people reacted when restrictions was lifted. - -Hey said they knew we would spike after the 4th of July weekend but NOT this high - -we are not having sports this fall watch. - - - -this effects K-12 hold on to your butts

    Subject to SBoE approval. Will be interesting to see how they vote.

    think she was ask about legislators being able to overturn and her reply was they would only be able to review and not over turn. Think this stems from the 1st time , they overturned her decision and she went through court to uphold her decision- -I’m not real clear on that though I know this though if we are being declared a Red Zone - -thats not good

    The legislature can repeal her authority to do this in its entirety if they really want to. Under current law, the Board of Education has the power to overturn the order. From what I could tell I think the Board was pretty much behind her as they were at the Conference - -I am not 100 % on this - -but you could see this coming

    yet this time round I don’t think that’s going to happen.



  • @FarmerJayhawk I think she worked with Watson, she worked with them yesterday.



  • I think this is a good call at this point, see where we are at in a month and address it then. Obviously it would be insane to think young kids are going to social distance and wear masks all day.



  • Copied

    “Supplies like masks thermometers and hand sanitizer and it allow each superintendent to thoroughly review the plan from the board of education to figure out what strategy is best for their district,” said Kelly. “The board and I are united in prioritizing the health of our students and faculty and ensuring we provide a world-class education for our students.”





  • @benshawks08 this is scary!



  • @kjayhawks said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    I think this is a good call at this point, see where we are at in a month and address it then. Obviously it would be insane to think young kids are going to social distance and wear masks all day.

    I had read where they were working on or are going to try when they do open that any child 6th grade and above wear masks - -under 6th they are not required. Voidance of lockers , stagger how many kids are in the halls at the same time - - stagger lunches - -and sanitize hands every hour - -I think it’s a good call too



  • @FarmerJayhawk boe still has to approve it, I was wrong, but I guess everyone thinks they will pass it.



  • Some info about transmission in kids related to schools opening.

    https://twitter.com/ct_bergstrom/status/1284644413470203909?s=21



  • @benshawks08 thanks for this.

    We detected COVID-19 in 11.8% of household contacts; rates were higher for contacts of children than adults. These risks largely reflected transmission in the middle of mitigation and therefore might characterize transmission dynamics during school closure



  • really tired of hearing some people and I’m not meaning here but in person and though others - really sick and tired of hearing people bitch and whine and moan about having to wear masks.

    This is an order that has been put in place by the Governor and another thing people trying to make this political - -this is not a political thing - IT’S A DAM VIRUS enough of the petty bullshit. , this is an order mandated by our Governor who is trying her best to protect people and Children from this virus. - -People who have that crap attitude - -GREAT then YOU get it - -get it like the kid that thought it was a hoax and told the nurse when on his death bed saying I think I made a mistake.

    Read of WIBW news day before yesterday , that Kansas as per Capita right now, - leads the Nation for new cases of COVID-19 - -so for the size of our State we have more new Cases of the Virus then any other State -and people don’t want to do whatever they can to try and protect themselves or others against this - - -what kind of bullshit is that ?

    Sure these masks are an incovience , sure they are a nuisance but tell you what I’d much rather put up with a little incovience - - nuisance then come down sick with this crap - -may not prevent it , but sure isn’t going to hurt to try and protect against what I can.

    Really sick of whinny ass people , crying about these masks. Just like a Clerk told my wife today , telling my wife because of her Condition being on oxygen 24/7 if she wanted to she could go to her specialist and tell them how she has hard time breathing while using the mask , and the wife could go anywhere and not have to wear the mask as long as she had that note exempting her. - - Yet my wife STILL wears a mask - -Why ? because she feels that’s her responsibility to do to try and do her pat for this. - -So if SHE can wear a mask when she really wouldn’t have to and then here sniffling little whinny ass bitches crying about having to - - - umm no take that crap somewhere else just wear the dam mask again it’s not JUST ABOUT YOU. - it’s about your Wife , your Husband , your Brother , your Sister , your Mom , your Dad , your Son , your Daughter , your Neighbors , your best friend - -you have more people’s life at stake then just yours step up and act your got a pair and do your part



  • @jayballer73 it’s everywhere. here in Virginia we have a governor’s order to wear them in public but my neighbors still routinely comingle and under 6 feet without masks. The worst problem is that their kids hang out constantly without masks. I wish people would understand that their children too have to make sacrifices. This is a nurse, a football coach and a police officer. Once the virus hits one of them it will roll through them all. They also all quietly think that they’ve already had it. I hope for everyone’s sake that they are right. Really unhappy with people using their kids as an excuse to be irresponsible. Weak.



  • @approxinfinity Our neighbor’s husband died last night in the hospital after a week on a ventilator. First fatality we have known personally, although not very closely. Stats are so overwhelming they become almost unfathomable, so hearing her sobbing makes it a lot more real.

    And I am afraid much, much worse is yet to come.



  • @approxinfinity said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @jayballer73 it’s everywhere. here in Virginia we have a governor’s order to wear them in public but my neighbors still routinely comingle and under 6 feet without masks. The worst problem is that their kids hang out constantly without masks. I wish people would understand that their children too have to make sacrifices. This is a nurse, a football coach and a police officer. Once the virus hits one of them it will roll through them all. They also all quietly think that they’ve already had it. I hope for everyone’s sake that they are right. Really unhappy with people using their kids as an excuse to be irresponsible. Weak.

    agree, but the thing is it has been proven you can get the virus more then once





  • Fully 1% of the city of Logan has now died of Covid after an outbreak at a nursing home. Just horrific.



  • @FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    Fully 1% of the city of Logan has now died of Covid after an outbreak at a nursing home. Just horrific.

    In a small city, an outbreak could be devastating. We have seen this rip through small communities and families already, with some families in previous hotspots enduring three or four deaths within their family. The only difference was that, because this happened in larger cities, those smaller tragedies were covered by the larger narrative in places like New York and New Orleans.

    This is a tragedy, and points more and more to why it is so important that we cut off the spread of this virus. It is wiping families out and damaging communities in ways that we don’t even fully understand yet.



  • This might be something that Texas Hawk might be able to tell us a little more about. - - -I saw this ans right off I called bullshit , and so did many others , there was a lady that had this Headline that said that in Texas the Hospitals were so full they were sending people home not treating that were more likely to die.

    People were all saying delete this bullshit and calling bullshit , then another poster saying that yes here is the proff and shared a link. It was from the Ft Worth Star Telegram and pulled that up and sure enough statements be made from Hospital personal , but it wasn’t the only link there was two or three they put up to reference to , also CNN news had reported suposedly. - fricken hard to believe but had multiple links.

    The lady had stated - - -And so it begins , and then she said probably people that was poor or no insurance, somewhere in there was mentioned about people that had multiple underlying health conditions. I still think thats so insane, IF that’s the case you think they would be sitting themselves up for a major Law Suit. - - - Texas Hawk ? is this true ? have you heard anything ?



  • @jayballer73 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    This might be something that Texas Hawk might be able to tell us a little more about. - - -I saw this ans right off I called bullshit , and so did many others , there was a lady that had this Headline that said that in Texas the Hospitals were so full they were sending people home not treating that were more likely to die.

    People were all saying delete this bullshit and calling bullshit , then another poster saying that yes here is the proff and shared a link. It was from the Ft Worth Star Telegram and pulled that up and sure enough statements be made from Hospital personal , but it wasn’t the only link there was two or three they put up to reference to , also CNN news had reported suposedly. - fricken hard to believe but had multiple links.

    The lady had stated - - -And so it begins , and then she said probably people that was poor or no insurance, somewhere in there was mentioned about people that had multiple underlying health conditions. I still think thats so insane, IF that’s the case you think they would be sitting themselves up for a major Law Suit. - - - Texas Hawk ? is this true ? have you heard anything ?

    Couldn’t tell you anything about DFW’s status, but I’m assuming it’s just media manipulating numbers to make it seem more dire. Same thing happened here in Houston where there were reports of the Texas Medical Center, which is the largest medical complex in the world, was at 98% capacity. To clarify the situation, the heads of several of those hospitals explained what was going on and it was nowhere near the crisis that it was being built up to be.

    The biggest issue hospitals are dealing with at this point is storage space in morgues for the dead, not just Covid deaths, because the social distancing restrictions mean people can’t have funerals so they haven’t been able to bury their deceased.



  • @jayballer73 Pretty sure this is what you are referring to. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/24/us/texas-starr-county-hospital-coronavirus/index.html

    Bad in small towns where capacity is low. I know we’ve had cases brought to austin from smaller towns that can’t handle the growing load.



  • @benshawks08 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @jayballer73 Pretty sure this is what you are referring to. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/24/us/texas-starr-county-hospital-coronavirus/index.html

    Bad in small towns where capacity is low. I know we’ve had cases brought to austin from smaller towns that can’t handle the growing load.

    yes , I think that was one of the links. Another link was from the Ft Worth Star Telegram , and then was reported by CNN - just sad



  • An interesting thread. Long but good.

    https://twitter.com/aslavitt/status/1287524301499965441?s=21



  • KSHSAA voted to go on with sports as scheduled. Local units get to decide on crowds and all that. It’s probably fine. If two schools from districts with no active cases play each other it’s probably as minimal risk as you can have. A blanket policy for the entire state doesn’t make much sense given most schools are in very small districts in rural areas with few, if any, active cases.





  • https://vimeo.com/443500702

    Young gal from Lawrence. I say young, 42 and very healthy



  • Seen where both Cardinals and Marlins have players with COVID. Interesting why the MLB didn’t go with a double like the NBA. It’s also worrisome for how both CFB and the NFL will fair. If they can keep everyone in a bubble without actually having a double they may stand a chance. I’ve heard several of the MLB guys aren’t taking it seriously.

    I’ve obviously become mad again about March madness being cancelled when the case numbers have sky rocketed since March. School is in the same boat with me, canceled for a few cases in my county. But now with hundreds they say let’s go back to school. Makes no sense logically.



  • @kjayhawks said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    Seen where both Cardinals and Marlins have players with COVID. Interesting why the MLB didn’t go with a double like the NBA. It’s also worrisome for how both CFB and the NFL will fair. If they can keep everyone in a bubble without actually having a double they may stand a chance. I’ve heard several of the MLB guys aren’t taking it seriously.

    I’ve obviously become mad again about March madness being cancelled when the case numbers have sky rocketed since March. School is in the same boat with me, canceled for a few cases in my county. But now with hundreds they say let’s go back to school. Makes no sense logically.

    Neighbor was telling me last night that THREE other teams now have players with the COVID- 19 , three more other then the Marlins, I still think this sports season when it’s all said is done will be screwed. - -Baseball just the start



  • @jayballer73 I’m glad they’re making an effort but I think if they show these pro clubs can’t contain the virus despite the caution they’ve tried to take it adds to the overwhelming proof that sending our snot nosed kids to school is a bad idea.



  • @approxinfinity said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @jayballer73 I’m glad they’re making an effort but I think if they show these pro clubs can’t contain the virus despite the caution they’ve tried to take it adds to the overwhelming proof that sending our snot nosed kids to school is a bad idea.

    agree. We got these kids coming back to Campus from all over the Country and some outside the Country right , and who’s to say how many people have come in contact with others that might be carriers - remember a lot of these people don’t even realize they have COVID-19 cause their cases are so mild - -BAD IDEA



  • That being said I got the MLB.tv this month. I think it’s going to be an interesting season until it isn’t.





  • Nominating this for the worst graph in the history of graphs. #helth https://twitter.com/michaelstavola1/status/1291461585035288579?s=21



  • Chicago I heard is the 1st Big School that is not going to have class at present - -going to hold off until after November and re-evaluate - -Said as badly as students wanted , and as Parents also wanted to go back and even Parents agreed that this is just NOT a good time for students to go back, Then today I heard that Michigan was to vote about not having Classes now , Mississippi has school district where they had 100 confirmed cases when students returned, wasn’t implementing Social Distancing - -not wearing mask , showing video of hall ways just an ABSOLUTE ZOO.

    Dr Norman said he fully expects the COVID to spike yet again after Labor day - - and there you go. - -the lead Dr the White House Dr responded to the remark from President Trump - -Trump saying this is going to go away like other things this will go away. Dr Faucci said that he just doesn’t think this is AGOING TO GO AWAY , saying this virus is to infectious to just GO AWAY



  • @FarmerJayhawk explain, I was watching this when he explained it



  • @FarmerJayhawk I think it’s a great graph



  • @Crimsonorblue22 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @FarmerJayhawk explain, I was watching this when he explained it

    Sure. In cases where you have two variables (in this case, date and cases/100k) you should only use 1 y-axis to ensure the scales are the same. You’ll notice that by using 2 different scales for the y-axis, the actual numbers are really distorted, making it look visually like masks had a much bigger effect than they actually did vs. non-mask counties. Here’s what it looks like using a common scale for the y-axis: Screen Shot 2020-08-07 at 1.37.14 PM.png

    The difference is striking! And to be clear, I support wearing a mask because the science is pretty clear it does help slow the spread, but using misleading documents they’re hurting their case. It’s also not really possible given these data to make a causal claim about masks being the driver of the decrease in cases because there are almost certainly other variables that explain the decrease, and it would take careful analysis and a bunch more data to tease out. To make the claim just using these data we’d have to run time forward with a mask mandate, then go back in time, don’t implement the mandate, and assuming masks were the only thing that changed, look at the difference between the two periods (basically run a giant RCT).



  • It’s extremely easy to make charts/graphs look misleading. But yes, wear a mask, it’s basically zero cost.



  • for many this will not pertain , nor will people care. BUT I am going to listen anyways just thought I would FWIW pas this along. - - Dr Anthony Fauci will be doing a one on one interview with WIBW at 2:15 - -think it could be interesting his views about Kansas and I’m sure he will give his opinion seeing it is doing the interview with WIBW.

    Heard on National news they showed the map & said where it WAS California now the WHO now says there are a NEW 11 hot spots in the United States & Good ol Kansas is kind of stuck like Chuck

    They list Colorado - - - Kansas - - - Missouri - - - - & - - - -Oklahoma as hot spots so that is 4 of the 11 new hot spots right here on top of us - if you want to follow by chance all you need to do is type WIBW.Com and should be able to listen - I am just because



  • @FarmerJayhawk did you watch his video? He explained why he did it, I understand what you mean, but I also was trying to get why he did it that way. It had to do w/population being so small in the no mask counties and he was doing it per 100,000. 1/3 pop. 90 counties were unmasked, 2/3 pop masks, 15 counties. I wrote that down because I was confused. He also started graph about a week after mandate cause nothing shows up then.



  • @Crimsonorblue22 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:

    @FarmerJayhawk did you watch his video? He explained why he did it, I understand what you mean, but I also was trying to get why he did it that way. It had to do w/population being so small in the no mask counties and he was doing it per 100,000. 1/3 pop. 90 counties were unmasked, 2/3 pop masks, 15 counties. I wrote that down because I was confused. He also started graph about a week after mandate cause nothing shows up then.

    Yeah, whatever he said it was a really bad way to do it. You’re purposefully altering the scale so the effect size looks a lot bigger than it actually is. You’re already controlling for population by normalizing rates to per 100k. It’s quite misleading to put the same time series on different scales and sell them as equivalent. With two variables and two groups you should only use two axes. Full stop.




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