Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

[everything]

"Authorities" seem to be taking it all seriously, finally, but now young people and the "stupid" people as I call them -- are they?

It appears not. There will always be young and foolish people doing dangerous things. Unfortunately at the moment, their foolishness is dangerous for others (as opposed to some of the stupid stuff I'm sure we all did, but those things may have been bad mostly for ourselves, I'd guess - depending on the activity). I suppose if I were an "authority" I'd try to tell them to enjoy their young, rebellious, foolish days in SOME OTHER WAY.

Not really sure the authorities can do much for the "toddler teenagers" (that's what I call them sometimes) if they don't want to listen / want to rebel / etc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[LaoDan]

science does not generate certainty.

https://www.independentsciencenews.org/ ... ab-origin/

An article written by scientist presenting facts as known at this time allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Of course science does not generate certainty. Anyone who understands science understands this. One needs to look at the most current information (which the authors of the article that you linked to seemed to have done). I am not certain why YOU are referencing them, however.

Hopefully the authors of that article will make an updated article after examining the implications of the following article:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1

In it they state:

SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Barcelona sewage long before the declaration of the first COVID-19 case, indicating that the infection was present in the population before the first imported case was reported.

This indicates that the virus may have existed in Europe (e.g., when testing untreated wastewater samples from Spain dated 12 March 2019) prior to the outbreak that was first detected in China. Therefore the blaming of China and calling it Kungflu, saying that it may have been released from a research lab (after being manufactured there), etc. may be totally inaccurate.

Other research also appears to rule out the novel virus from being manufactured artificially rather than being naturally occurring (based on DNA sequence mutations...).

But WHY are these claims being given preferred status? For SPIN? In order to find someone to blame? For politics? For propaganda? For distractions from the abysmal response the USA has had (and continues to have) to this pandemic?

I am glad that you are now acknowledging that the coronavirus is dangerous rather than dismissing it as just being similar to the seasonal flu. Perhaps people in the USA can finally be convinced that it is serious enough to wear masks and to observe social distancing...

Finally, could you clarify precisely what bogyman you think that I may be holding on to?

[windwalker]

I am glad that you are now acknowledging that the coronavirus is dangerous rather than dismissing it as just being similar to the seasonal flu. Perhaps people in the USA can finally be convinced that it is serious enough to wear masks and to observe social distancing...

An ignorant comment.

30 to 60,000 people a year die from the flu. If it was counted the same as COVID-19 the numbers would be higher.
Comparison to the flu are done to show a relative danger comparable to something else that is dangerous
allowing one to understand the risk associated with it and take measures voluntarily
Based on understanding and risk assessment.

Sounds like you still need a boogie man, you better stay inside it’s safer.

[windwalker]

Finally, could you clarify precisely what bogyman you think that I may be holding on to?

It’s your boogie man, when you learn how to face it you’ll understand what it is.
Can’t help you with that.

[LaoDan]

30 to 60,000 people a year die from the flu. If it was counted the same as COVID-19 the numbers would be higher.

What? You will need to elaborate on this for me to understand what you are talking about.

I boogie in music and dance. A bogeyman is a mythical being used to frighten children; are you trying to say that the coronavirus is fictitious??? Again, I cannot seem to understand you.

[windwalker]

COVID rarely kills children, even compared with influenza, against which many children are already vaccinated.

Our data show that for mortality COVID-19 is similar to flu, or less severe, in children whilst being the opposite in adults.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0620302092

[Steve James]

Our data show that for mortality COVID-19 is similar to flu, or less severe, in children whilst being the opposite in adults.

[everything]

great for kids not so great for teachers staff parents grandparents

[everything]

seems strange to me that trained epidemiologists, presumably good at stats would make apples to oranges comparisons.

* covid is more contagious than flu, and we get some flu vaccines that help
* so more people will get it, increasing the denominator
* death rate in US and worldwide is about 4.5%.
* if we assume "everyone will get it", roughly 341 million people will die in the world. roughly 13.5 million people will die in the USA.
* we don't really know that denominator will be correct and we might assume treatment will improve, so hopefully that would be a worst case scenario (which is insanely high numbers).
* comparing absolute death numbers, death rates MAKES NO SENSE WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE THE DENOMINATOR. This is because, simply, rates are a NUMERATOR / a DENOMINATOR. If one input isn't known, you don't really know a rate correctly. However, you can take the rate out of the current "sample" of the population and try to project the numerator GIVEN the denominator. This is 5th grade math, but that's for whatever reason confusing...

Hope that helps someone out there. I realize that 5/4 people are bad at math, and stats are really, really hard. Comparisons are even harder to make correctly. I'd certainly bet some epidemiologists even need some help from their stats experts.

I'd say not only are people foolish, but they by and large are bad at math, and don't know how to draw a conclusion from a comparison or understand if a comparison makes sense. I work with statisticians, and I still get confused. So people aren't necessarily "stupid", but it's really, really easy to not really be smart at this.

[Trick]

COVID rarely kills children, even compared with influenza, against which many children are already vaccinated.

Our data show that for mortality COVID-19 is similar to flu, or less severe, in children whilst being the opposite in adults.

It’s a designed virus, design to target an ever growing elderly population that’s becoming more and more costly. Also the elderly of today live with traditions possessing an immediate threat to the global climate and they the elderly might pass on their destructive way of life to younger generations.
The virus was strategically simultaneously released around the world to make a quick work because the global climate can’t take it for much longer.
It’s all done in the spirit for a better future for coming generations, although they the coming generations have to live with that they probably can’t live beyond their 70th birthday...but it will be 70 years of life in paradise....The VIPs of course has reached immortality...

[everything]

american idiot: how freedom became free dumb

https://eand.co/how-freedom-became-free ... =social.fb

[LaoDan]

Windwalker has shown in the past that he does not understand statistics, and now it appears that his reading comprehension is also subpar. No wonder I cannot make sense out of his posts, especially since he is typically quite vague and rarely elaborates in order to clarify his understanding of what the sources that he links to mean to him.

As to death rates, the denominator is unknown if one is looking for the lethality of the virus itself since one would need to know the [# of deaths]/[# of infections] and the number of infections is unknown. BUT, one can calculate a death rate in terms of the total population, in which case the denominator IS known. I think that this is what is typically used in order to normalize the data and allow comparisons between different groups (i.e., per capita for different countries, states, or other jurisdictions that are being compared).

[everything]

I don't want to criticize ww more than the rest of us, but I think it's helpful if he's our only representative of some strange (to me) views out there.

As for math, that still makes no sense to me to look at the death rate out of the total population as the denominator because the numerator is changing SO FAST. It's apples and oranges. If the flu and covid-19 both existed at stable rates for the past 10 years, it might make sense. Otherwise, how could this comparison of rates make ANY sense?

Maybe I'm missing something:

* death rate out of cases ... rates could maybe be compared reasonably
* death rate out of total population: makes NO SENSE to compare AT THIS TIME.

Somebody please tell if I'm missing something in that last bullet, but if not, I'd say to everyone here and everywhere else to avoid doing that comparison. It is possibly very misleading to make people think there isn't much danger based on bad assumptions/logic.

[Steve James]

There are people in NYC who are just getting out of the hospital after three months of covid. So, assuming treatment improves, we can assume that many current patients will be hospitalized for a month. Either there will be enough beds or not. Slowing the spread will still help.

[LaoDan]

I don't want to criticize ww more than the rest of us, but I think it's helpful if he's our only representative of some strange (to me) views out there.

As for math, that still makes no sense to me to look at the death rate out of the total population as the denominator because the numerator is changing SO FAST. It's apples and oranges. If the flu and covid-19 both existed at stable rates for the past 10 years, it might make sense. Otherwise, how could this comparison of rates make ANY sense?

Maybe I'm missing something:

* death rate out of cases ... rates could maybe be compared reasonably
* death rate out of total population: makes NO SENSE to compare AT THIS TIME.

Somebody please tell if I'm missing something in that last bullet, but if not, I'd say to everyone here and everywhere else to avoid doing that comparison. It is possibly very misleading to make people think there isn't much danger based on bad assumptions/logic.

[Michael is a much better (more articulate, more reasoned, etc.) proponent for views similar to WW.]

For statistical comparisons it is very important to know what the denominator represents. To make apples to apples comparisons, they must represent the same thing.

Comparing the death rate for the flu vs. for COVID-19 would be difficult at this time since the denominator (total infections/cases) for COVID-19 is not accurately known yet. But since the flu has been around a long time, it is possible to get a reasonably accurate value for total estimated cases.

Using only confirmed cases for both would also be inaccurate since we do not know if equivalent levels of testing occur, if the levels of accuracy for the tests are equivalent, if a similar percentage of potential cases are being tested...

However, if someone wanted to show the death burden on a population to date, then one could compare, for example, all USA deaths for the year to date from flu vs. from COVID-19. In that case the denominator for both would be the same value (i.e., the population of the USA). This would be a valid comparison, but it would only be a snapshot since the number of deaths for both would continue to rise over the coming months, and the rates of increase are almost certainly different for the different diseases.

Similarly, one could make similar snapshot comparisons between countries by NORMALIZING the data to each country’s population (i.e., per capita data). But this is also only a snapshot since the number of deaths will continue to rise over time and the rate of rise will probably be different for different countries.

So one could make the following snapshot information:
• Sweden has a mortality rate (currently!) of ~53.83/100K pop.
• The USA has a mortality rate (currently!) of ~40.44/100K pop.
But these numbers will change in the future, and we cannot be certain what the final numbers will show.

Yes it is complicated, and one needs to understand what the statistical data is actually showing. Perhaps you could check the above with the statisticians that you work with.