Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19
-
@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.
-
-
@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.
I watched the video before I saw this thread with keen interest as it suggested compelling evidence that masks are effective. And when he explained that the blue line had a different scale than the red line and that the key was to focus on the trend lines, I let out a deep sigh. I get it, but he’s got to know that approach can be interpreted as deceptive.
It’s a bad graphic that opens him up to questions of objectivity… and undermines his message. Did they do that to make the “mask mandate” counties look better or was it to create a more compact graph or some other reason?
@FarmerJayhawk did it right. In his chart, the evidence is still compelling and accurate.
-
If I quit posting for awhile, you all know why. https://twitter.com/unc/status/1294726798387761152?s=21
-
@FarmerJayhawk ugh. Be safe man.
-
@approxinfinity said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@FarmerJayhawk ugh. Be safe man.
Thanks my dude. I pulled the plug on my in-person courses so I’m trying to keep everyone off campus as much as possible. Three outbreaks in a week tells me we won’t be here for long. And check out Aggieville last night. Just wut https://www.facebook.com/ureddi/posts/3310231629063564
-
“Students are not to blame. This is on us.” ??? If they’re at the bar they’re presumably 21.
Why must it be zero-sum blame? There’s enough to go around for all!
-
Saw a bunch of OU players came back infected. 9
-
Yikes, be safe my friend @FarmerJayhawk. @Crimsonorblue22 this was kinda what I was talking about on the football thread. These football players in bubbles are probably safer than the other students that are hanging out, in bars etc. Tho I question anyone’s intelligence that goes to bars and eats in at restaurants in these times.
-
@kjayhawks I’ve seen people waiting in line to eat at the Cheesecake Factory in the mall. Like, what are you even doing? They serve to go people! I’m certainly not risking it for over priced, mediocre at best food.
-
@FarmerJayhawk The anxiety of going back to school and interacting with groups of people is very real. Glad my district is starting all online for the first 4 weeks and reevaluating from there. I was in a CPR training today and 3 people continually pulled down their masks to talk to each other. Why where the mask if you’re just going to take it down to spew your droplets all over the people you are excited to see?!!
-
Basically it’s all an overblown election year stunt. Sure the disease is bad for a subset of people, but the hysteria and the politicalization of medicine and science has been over the top.
-
-
The 9 OU players had gone home since they weren’t playing for awhile. Came back infected.
-
@Bwag interesting article. what would be the appropriate level of response in your eyes? No shut down?
-
@Bwag said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
Basically it’s all an overblown election year stunt. Sure the disease is bad for a subset of people, but the hysteria and the politicalization of medicine and science has been over the top.
It’s bad for even non-olds. I know several in their mid-late 20’s who are still having neurological issues months after infection. Add that to the very likely case that we’re significantly undercounting covid deaths makes it a huge deal to me. All cause mortality in the US is much higher this year than it’s been in quite awhile, even though mortality had cratered for those under 18. In folks 18-64, deaths are about 15% higher than a year ago. If you add in all age groups, we’ve had as many deaths this epidemiological year than all of last year, with 6 weeks to go. So it’s hard for me to say it’s overblown when we’re barreling toward the worst year for death in 30 years, even though we’ve taken extraordinary steps to contain it.
-
-
-
UNC up to 4 outbreaks now. Good times
-
@FarmerJayhawk school start Monday?
-
@Crimsonorblue22 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@FarmerJayhawk school start Monday?
We started last Monday
-
What’s your prediction for how long this lasts before you’re fully remote? Sorry if you already said.
-
@approxinfinity said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
What’s your prediction for how long this lasts before you’re fully remote? Sorry if you already said.
I think we pull the plug before the end of the month. At this rate, our quarantine dorms will be full in a matter of a week or two.
-
@approxinfinity To me the real question is how long until people start talking about an acceptable death rate for schools.
-
@benshawks08 morbid, but you’re keeping it real. Ironically, once they’re all infected, sending them home may make the death rate explode. Finishing my attic is starting to sound better and better. What house is complete without an isolated sick room?
-
@benshawks08 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@approxinfinity To me the real question is how long until people start talking about an acceptable death rate for schools.
I think it’s a reasonable conversation to have. Usually flu deaths among kids range from 50-150 per year. The biggest vector is schools and we kind of just chug along like normal. Under 18 we’re at 73, per the CDC. I think for kids, especially elementary age, there’s an acceptable risk across most of the country to reopen schools utilizing proper protocols. In hotspots maybe you wait. But my local district is fully remote until January, which seems an overreaction to me. The district is very affluent, but also has the largest racial achievement gap in the country (right up with Evanston, IL and Ann Arbor, MI). I think it’s unacceptable to lose another semester to year of learning for those kids.
-
@FarmerJayhawk I just know there was one year where we lost three kids in my school of 1600 and it was probably the most traumatic year of my life. Each one was so devastating and the next just compounded the loss. For reference, 1% Of my student population would be 16, .5% would be 8. So I will be watching those numbers carefully. A majority of our students are Latinx, the community who statistically taken the biggest hit both locally and nationally.
I think a big thing people haven’t really been thinking about is how much kids have been protected up until this point by schools shutting down and being closed all summer. We have no idea what this is going to look like when it hits the school population for real.
Good news is death rate overall is going down As we learn more how to treat it and I think I saw fda approved new tests that should provide faster results but I can’t remember where I saw that.
@FarmerJayhawk First rule Of a pandemic is if it feels like an overreaction you are probably doing it right.
-
People have already been talking about this. It’s not just the kids. The reasonable conversation to have is how many deaths among teachers, staff, students and family members we’re willing to accept… before shutting it down after a couple of weeks or a month for zero meaningful learning for kids, but the experiment sets us back 2+ more months and 50K more dead.
I know it’s not possible to just shut down for everyone. My 77 year old mom is flying back from Raleigh to KC tomorrow. I’m picking her up at the airport because… well, wtf else am I supposed to do. She’s been in Goldsboro, NC, for 2 weeks to help with my military nephew and his wife who just had their second baby in 18 months (never underestimate Air Force fertility). They probably were not hanging out at fraternity houses at UNC, but it sure sounded like they were going out to eat a lot like everything was all 2019. I’m stocking her fridge, leaving a new thermometer on her bathroom counter, and I’m hoping she can hunker down for a few days to make sure she avoided it… before she drives around town getting her favorite groceries at every store in Lawrence.
College kids are pouring into town anyway, so it’s going to get interesting. My wife is a prof at KU, and I can assure you that faculty have all spent their summers putting together 2 or 3 or 4 scenarios for their fall semester syllabi. EVERYONE wants to get kids back in school and college in person, but the stupidest thing will be to try against obviously bad odds … and fail… for nothing.
-
@DanR
agreed. what is the point?It seems the only schooling that can reasonably open would be hyperlocal rural school.
Universities are only opening because they’re a business imo
-
@benshawks08 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@FarmerJayhawk I just know there was one year where we lost three kids in my school of 1600 and it was probably the most traumatic year of my life. Each one was so devastating and the next just compounded the loss. For reference, 1% Of my student population would be 16, .5% would be 8. So I will be watching those numbers carefully. A majority of our students are Latinx, the community who statistically taken the biggest hit both locally and nationally.
I think a big thing people haven’t really been thinking about is how much kids have been protected up until this point by schools shutting down and being closed all summer. We have no idea what this is going to look like when it hits the school population for real.
Good news is death rate overall is going down As we learn more how to treat it and I think I saw fda approved new tests that should provide faster results but I can’t remember where I saw that.
@FarmerJayhawk First rule Of a pandemic is if it feels like an overreaction you are probably doing it right.
The IFR for covid for under 18 (and even moreso under 12) is far less than the flu. It seems like we can eyeball it at less than .01% based on this preprint meta-analysis. So in that scenario, a school of 1600 would expect to lose .16 students if every single student became infected. If they’re off by a factor of 10 and everyone got infected, you’d expect to lose 1.6 to COVID. So then the calculus changes some in multiple ways. At what level is ok vs. not ok to open? 1 student too high? 2? 10? I don’t know the answer, though I certainly think 0 is too low a threshold. Even among COVID cases, kids have a 4-9x lower risk of hospitalization than people aged 18-29. Overreacting has significant costs as well. Potentially putting parents out of work, destroying their finances and mental health. Wealthy parents can buy pods and all these things, less well of parents don’t have much choice in most of the country,
We all have to take on some level of risk to avoid increasing and permanent damage to kids and the economy. The costs of losing all the learning, plus the costs of lost work hours for parents, are just too high across most of the country. I’m all for virtual charter schools and others that specialize in online learning for kids and families who don’t want to take any risk (yay choice!) though they do underperform traditional charters and traditional neighborhood schools.
These are hard choices, and takes very serious and sober examination of the data by decision makers. If parents want to pull their kid out, fine, that’s their choice. The more information that comes in, the more I lean to opening at bare minimum K-6, possibly K-8.
-
I’m still amazed that people are trying to solve a million consequential problems rather than the one big problem. Basically, we all already frittered 5 months away, half-assed, for nothing and the problem is worse than when it started. Too eager to eat the turkey before it was completely cooked. Still–at any point, no matter how bad this is–we could suck it up, isolate for 6-8 weeks and this thing is mostly long gone. Will it happen? Nope. Nobody offers that as a solution.
And, we’ll have this same discussion in January about re-opening schools.
-
@DanR said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
I’m still amazed that people are trying to solve a million consequential problems rather than the one big problem. Basically, we all already frittered 5 months away, half-assed, for nothing and the problem is worse than when it started. Too eager to eat the turkey before it was completely cooked. Still–at any point, no matter how bad this is–we could suck it up, isolate for 6-8 weeks and this thing is mostly long gone. Will it happen? Nope. Nobody offers that as a solution.
And, we’ll have this same discussion in January about re-opening schools.
Probably because that’s my daily life. Solving issues as they come up. I’m not the governor. I can’t lock down the state. I also think another lockdown is impossible. The public health establishment already shot its wad when it said people couldn’t go to church or anything else, but mass protests are a-okay. Politically it’s just not feasible.
-
@FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@DanR said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
I’m still amazed that people are trying to solve a million consequential problems rather than the one big problem. Basically, we all already frittered 5 months away, half-assed, for nothing and the problem is worse than when it started. Too eager to eat the turkey before it was completely cooked. Still–at any point, no matter how bad this is–we could suck it up, isolate for 6-8 weeks and this thing is mostly long gone. Will it happen? Nope. Nobody offers that as a solution.
And, we’ll have this same discussion in January about re-opening schools.
Probably because that’s my daily life. Solving issues as they come up. I’m not the governor. I can’t lock down the state. I also think another lockdown is impossible. The public health establishment already shot its wad when it said people couldn’t go to church or anything else, but mass protests are a-okay. Politically it’s just not feasible.
It would be possible if the right people supported it. But they don’t. The left has taken this more serious from the get go. If our “leader” were to use his influence over his “shoot someone in the street and they’ll still vote for me” crowd we could knock this out like a lot of europe has done. All it takes is being truly pro life (The real kind not just anti-abortion), pro health and pro science. That’s it.
I still don’t get the protest v church dichotomy. They just aren’t the same thing.
-
@benshawks08 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@DanR said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
I’m still amazed that people are trying to solve a million consequential problems rather than the one big problem. Basically, we all already frittered 5 months away, half-assed, for nothing and the problem is worse than when it started. Too eager to eat the turkey before it was completely cooked. Still–at any point, no matter how bad this is–we could suck it up, isolate for 6-8 weeks and this thing is mostly long gone. Will it happen? Nope. Nobody offers that as a solution.
And, we’ll have this same discussion in January about re-opening schools.
Probably because that’s my daily life. Solving issues as they come up. I’m not the governor. I can’t lock down the state. I also think another lockdown is impossible. The public health establishment already shot its wad when it said people couldn’t go to church or anything else, but mass protests are a-okay. Politically it’s just not feasible.
It would be possible if the right people supported it. But they don’t. The left has taken this more serious from the get go. If our “leader” were to use his influence over his “shoot someone in the street and they’ll still vote for me” crowd we could knock this out like a lot of europe has done. All it takes is being truly pro life (The real kind not just anti-abortion), pro health and pro science. That’s it.
I still don’t get the protest v church dichotomy. They just aren’t the same thing.
It’s because public health officials picked and chose causes based on content, not science. It makes zero sense to forbid people from worshiping or going to funerals outside with masks and social distancing but also saying protests in the streets are totally fine. The coronavirus doesn’t care why people gather, it’ll hop from person to person whether they’re reciting the 23rd Psalm or chanting George Floyd. There was no scientific basis for separating them, so they should’ve just been honest and said they didn’t think religion was important but protesting was, and that view was independent of COVID.
-
The church thing was before the protests, here in ks. We had, maybe 12 deaths from church clusters in ks. I never missed a service, our pastor and every one I knew around central ks did streaming services, they still do. They recently opened up with masks and social distancing, no materials, one way in and one row dismissed at a time. No socializing. Parking was even every other space, with one entrance. I went to a protest with the police and naacp at the court house. Everyone had a mask one. It was organized and peaceful. I haven’t heard of anyone dying in ks from protests. People did get Covid from a wedding in great bend, nobody goes by the rules! I was at walmart
no masks on quite a few! 1 gal had a KSU T-shirt on!
-
@Crimsonorblue22 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
The church thing was before the protests, here in ks. We had, maybe 12 deaths from church clusters in ks. I never missed a service, our pastor and every one I knew around central ks did streaming services, they still do. They recently opened up with masks and social distancing, no materials, one way in and one row dismissed at a time. No socializing. Parking was even every other space, with one entrance. I went to a protest with the police and naacp at the court house. Everyone had a mask one. It was organized and peaceful. I haven’t heard of anyone dying in ks from protests. People did get Covid from a wedding in great bend, nobody goes by the rules! I was at walmart
no masks on quite a few! 1 gal had a KSU T-shirt on!Yes! This is my view as well. Rules should be content neutral. If you want to have church or a funeral or a protest outside with masks and social distancing, that should be fine. I don’t support different rules for different activities. The first amendment applies equally to protests and exercise of religion. Anyone is free to not like it but that’s the law. And from a humanitarian point of view, it’s gross to say you can’t be at a family member’s burial (if it’s a nonreligious ceremony) but can protest.
Kansas contact tracing is also a trash fire since anyone can opt out.
-
Funeral thing is cruel, I know quite a few from my home town that couldn’t have them. But, some of them didn’t want to fly and or bring older folks to them. Most had graveside and planned for a memorial later. They didn’t want to gather. Smart!
-
@Crimsonorblue22 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
Funeral thing is cruel, I know quite a few from my home town that couldn’t have them. But, some of them didn’t want to fly and or bring older folks to them. Most had graveside and planned for a memorial later. They didn’t want to gather. Smart!
I don’t begrudge anyone who doesn’t want to participate. A good friend is eloping in a few weeks to avoid crowds at his wedding. My grandpa hasn’t attended his beloved church for months. My discomfort is with those who want government to enshrine those choices in law, but protesting for specific causes is totally fine. Not like the virus reads Kendi, DiAngelo, and Coates and decides it won’t infect those folks.
-
Quite a headline from the daily tar heel
https://twitter.com/tarheelsoup/status/1295337202495426560?s=21
-
@benshawks08 guess they got it covered 🦠
️
-
@Crimsonorblue22 Funerals and weddings are impossible choices. My wife’s uncle died a couple weeks ago and she fretted for 3 days about whether to go – 90 minute visitation followed by a rosary at the funeral home, plus full Mass church service and graveside service the following morning (traditional catholic funeral with about 200-300 family members through 5 generations). We ended up driving 3.5 hours to Springfield and back just for the visitation (stayed about 20 minutes and left before the rosary part). My wife thought she could follow social distancing… yeah, right… walks in the funeral home door, bursts into tears, hugging her sobbing aunt who she hadn’t seen since Christmas.
I was apologizing to her cousin about not being able to stay for his dad’s funeral, and he said he’d tried to talk his extended family out of having the full big funeral mass etc. but felt pressured to do it. He talked my 81-year-old mother in law out of coming back for the funeral too. She was upset. Everyone was upset. The entire situation was more painful than any funeral I’ve ever been to.
Frankly, a funeral ban might’ve been better. Blame the governor instead of expecting relatives to make those choices.
-
@DanR only in Mizzou, huh? I’m pretty sure they don’t have any bans on mass gatherings. But, they have a lot of deaths too. I hope they remain healthy! Does your wife have online classes or in classroom? So tired of this!
-
@benshawks08 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
Quite a headline from the daily tar heel
https://twitter.com/tarheelsoup/status/1295337202495426560?s=21
. You know it’s the start of a new school year when UNC students complain about UNC. A proud tradition among the student body.
-
@Crimsonorblue22 She’s planning to meet half her students at a time on alternate days, but giving students the option to do all-online from the get-go or at any point in the semester. (she teaches graduate classes, so they are smaller groups-- half a class would not be more than 7 at a time if everyone chooses in-person).
Lots of teachers had hoped to be able to let students zoom into live classes (with some online and some in class). They tested the technology and, unfortunately, the online students couldn’t hear class discussions clearly enough to make it work. Partly due to masks and partly due to the fact that classrooms aren’t set up for that. Can’t exactly share a microphone!
@Crimsonorblue22 said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@DanR only in Mizzou, huh? I’m pretty sure they don’t have any bans on mass gatherings. But, they have a lot of deaths too. I hope they remain healthy! Does your wife have online classes or in classroom? So tired of this!
-
@DanR they gotta fix that! High school classes have that!
-
Heh.
-
And boom goes the dynamite.
-
And THIS surprises Who ? - - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
-
@jayhawkblue73 I hope we can continue to live in a world where competence from authority figures is expected.
-
@approxinfinity said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@jayhawkblue73 I hope we can continue to live in a world where competence from authority figures is expected.
I wish I could up-vote this a million times!
