jamest wrote:
YOU (and people like you)(of which there are many) are precisely why the world is now in disarray for a problem which really ISN"T THAT SERIOUS.

It felt pretty serious to me when the police had to break down my front door and subsequent hospital stay because I was having life threatening seizures through COVID induced blood clot on brain (of which many die - I'm one of the "lucky" ones). Funny, I could have sworn I was just replaying to myself the other day some good memories of us getting along very well, which DID happen from time to time. Ah well, drunken posting at 1:30 am = peril....terrible peril.

Keep It Real wrote:

jamest wrote:
YOU (and people like you)(of which there are many) are precisely why the world is now in disarray for a problem which really ISN"T THAT SERIOUS.

It felt pretty serious to me when the police had to break down my front door and subsequent hospital stay because I was having life threatening seizures through COVID induced blood clot on brain (of which many die - I'm one of the "lucky" ones). Funny, I could have sworn I was just replaying to myself the other day some good memories of us getting along very well, which DID happen from time to time. Ah well, drunken posting at 1:30 am = peril....terrible peril.

Not everything is about you, KIR. While I disagree with JamesT's assessment of the pandemic's seriousness, I am quite sure that he did not have your, or any particular individual's trauma in mind. My guess is that he regards the fatality rate as insignificant in relation to the total population, and it is rather a small proportion of it indeed. For instance, 662,853 is a big number - that's how many people have been reported to have died in the US alone - but that number represents only 0.2% of the country's population of 333,300,000. So, 1 in 500 people died. Official reports very likely understate the number of deaths, but even calculating that number by looking at excess deaths for the period, you finish up with a fatality rate of 0.26%.

I wasn't being narcissistic Hermit but rather driving home the point that...the COVID Grim Reaper is very real for those who's lives it...touches. If statistics is the call of the day I might suggest that, say, US COVID deaths far exceed those from narcotic abuse and gun violence and automobile accidents COMBINED, and nobody (surely) would dream of espousing that those are not "very serious" problems.

Keep It Real wrote:I wasn't being narcissistic Hermit but rather driving home the point that...the COVID Grim Reaper is very real for those who's lives it...touches. If statistics is the call of the day I might suggest that, say, US COVID deaths far exceed those from narcotic abuse and gun violence and automobile accidents COMBINED, and nobody (surely) would dream of espousing that those are not "very serious" problems.

Hold their beer...

Que?

^ the seriousness of gun victim & car accident statistics is definitely up for debate, for a lot of Americans.

Re: the other thing... I think the point that gets glossed over by hardline anti-maskers is that the virus is highly contagious, new (we're still not adapted to it), and is impacting old ppl & the chronically ill... and masks help keep those ppl safer (if they can't quarantine). Masks are like seatbelts to car accidents: low-cost & useful. Anti-mask is not a reasonable stance.

The recent controlled study in 600 Bangladeshi villages:

Surgical masks reduce COVID-19 spread, large-scale study shows (Stanford Medicine)

About half of the villages received interventions (free masks, advice about the benefits of mask-wearing, reminders about mask-wearing when seen maskless in public, etc.), the other half were the control. Only about half in the "intervention" villages made regular use of masks in public. (Social distancing wasn't very different between the two, slightly better in the non-control.) Even with this shitty adoption rate, the non-control villages saw 11% fewer infections, and 35% fewer infections among old ppl. It would likely be much starker with better adoption.

jamest wrote:

The_Piper wrote:Maine was averaging under 20 cases a day a few months ago. Now we had 624 new cases reported on Wednesday, which is almost double from the day before. The Delta variant is incredibly easily spread compared to what we dealt with over the winter, the last time it was this widespread. It's not looking good for my area as practically no one is taking any sort of precautions. The elderly people I see unmasked probably don't realize what's going on. They are operating on pre-internet Maine forest time rates.

Do you realise that there are less than 1000 deaths attributed to covid-19 in Maine in the last 18 months? A State with nearly 1.5 million people.

Can you explain to the members here why you should get ANY thumbs-ups for your scaremongering?

YOU (and people like you)(of which there are many) are precisely why the world is now in disarray for a problem which really ISN"T THAT SERIOUS.

If only there were a virus that wiped-out wimps.

If only there were a virus that wiped out psychopaths.

Well, as with many things, this all seems to come down to many people (most even) not understanding big numbers and their implications when paired with small probabilities.

Better education might help, but unfortunately shaved ground ape brains aren't really designed to cope with numbers greater than about 100 (i.e. a troop/tribe/century), so there's a major learning cliff to get over before you start and the majority really don't get up there.

Framing the arguments along the lines of "everyone wearing a mask will stop the equivalent of 3 Hiroshima bombings" will get written written off as hyperbole, even if it's demonstrably correct. Consequently I have no idea what would help with this sort of thing.

Meanwhile the propagandists will make hay by twisting statistics in relation to everything from gun crime to cat food ("in tests 8 out of 10 cats....") and innumerate people can't understand why people call them psychopaths. (They aren't, they just don't understand big/small numbers).

Keep It Real wrote:I wasn't being narcissistic Hermit but rather driving home the point that...the COVID Grim Reaper is very real for those who's lives it...touches.

You saw an opportunity to talk about yourself, and it had nothing to do with what JamesT wrote. That post off yours belongs in the rant thread.

Keep It Real wrote:If statistics is the call of the day I might suggest that, say, US COVID deaths far exceed those from narcotic abuse and gun violence and automobile accidents COMBINED, and nobody (surely) would dream of espousing that those are not "very serious" problems.

Now that would have been a relevant response. Pity you did not make it at the time.

JamesT might have countered that neither gun violence nor automobile accidents result in lockdowns. You do realise that lockdowns are his bugbear, don't you? He did opine on more than one occasion that the effect of lockdowns will be more catastrophic than if the pandemic had been let to run its course without them. If you had any genuine desire to engage in a discussion with him, you'd pick him up on that instead of erecting a strawman in order to draw attention to yourself.

arugula2 wrote:The recent controlled study in 600 Bangladeshi villages:

Surgical masks reduce COVID-19 spread, large-scale study shows (Stanford Medicine)

About half of the villages received interventions (free masks, advice about the benefits of mask-wearing, reminders about mask-wearing when seen maskless in public, etc.), the other half were the control. Only about half in the "intervention" villages made regular use of masks in public. (Social distancing wasn't very different between the two, slightly better in the non-control.) Even with this shitty adoption rate, the non-control villages saw 11% fewer infections, and 35% fewer infections among old ppl. It would likely be much starker with better adoption.

Thank you.

Tortured_Genius wrote:Well, as with many things, this all seems to come down to many people (most even) not understanding big numbers and their implications when paired with small probabilities.

Better education might help, but unfortunately shaved ground ape brains aren't really designed to cope with numbers greater than about 100 (i.e. a troop/tribe/century), so there's a major learning cliff to get over before you start and the majority really don't get up there.

Framing the arguments along the lines of "everyone wearing a mask will stop the equivalent of 3 Hiroshima bombings" will get written written off as hyperbole, even if it's demonstrably correct. Consequently I have no idea what would help with this sort of thing.

Writing a piece on this very topic as we speak; the rudiments of statistics, dynamic and stochastic systems, regression to the mean, significance, confounders, etc.

Not an easy one to make approachable, it must be said.

jamest wrote:

The_Piper wrote:Maine was averaging under 20 cases a day a few months ago. Now we had 624 new cases reported on Wednesday, which is almost double from the day before. The Delta variant is incredibly easily spread compared to what we dealt with over the winter, the last time it was this widespread. It's not looking good for my area as practically no one is taking any sort of precautions. The elderly people I see unmasked probably don't realize what's going on. They are operating on pre-internet Maine forest time rates.

Do you realise that there are less than 1000 deaths attributed to covid-19 in Maine in the last 18 months? A State with nearly 1.5 million people.

Can you explain to the members here why you should get ANY thumbs-ups for your scaremongering?

YOU (and people like you)(of which there are many) are precisely why the world is now in disarray for a problem which really ISN"T THAT SERIOUS.

If only there were a virus that wiped-out wimps.

Lame-assed trolling as usual.

The self-declared brilliant philosopher still doesn't grasp the extremely simple fact that the world has gone to unprecedented lengths to combat this virus, and even with all that, the virus has still killed 4.5 million people and harmed hundreds of millions more. Imagine having a posturing moron in charge who thinks you just need to tough it out - how many would die in a place run by a twat like that? Well, we don't need to imagine as we can see exactly what happens - those of us who pay attention to reality, anyway, rather than concocting little fictions to portray ourselves as special.

jamest wrote:

The_Piper wrote:Maine was averaging under 20 cases a day a few months ago. Now we had 624 new cases reported on Wednesday, which is almost double from the day before. The Delta variant is incredibly easily spread compared to what we dealt with over the winter, the last time it was this widespread. It's not looking good for my area as practically no one is taking any sort of precautions. The elderly people I see unmasked probably don't realize what's going on. They are operating on pre-internet Maine forest time rates.

Do you realise that there are less than 1000 deaths attributed to covid-19 in Maine in the last 18 months? A State with nearly 1.5 million people.

Can you explain to the members here why you should get ANY thumbs-ups for your scaremongering?

YOU (and people like you)(of which there are many) are precisely why the world is now in disarray for a problem which really ISN"T THAT SERIOUS.

If only there were a virus that wiped-out wimps.

It's not scaremongering, it's describing reality. People over 80 make up less than 5% of the cases in Maine, but have the most deaths of any age range. I can't find the exact numbers for deaths, but it doesn't matter, because you'll merely put your fingers in your ears and go lalala because you can't face what's true and real. There have been 32 deaths among vaccinated people in the state already. Even if you don't die, you may be left with one or more serious, lingering side effects. 28 year old athlete Eduardo Rodriguez missed all of last baseball season with myocarditis after being infected. He wasn't even ever cleared to work out. Currently the Red Sox have several players infected even though most have been vaccinated. They're all under 40. You don't posses any special knowledge. Your claim was that the financial fallout will kill far more people than the virus. How's that working out? Get lost.

Nothing, James? Not even an acknowledgement?

More consequences of long COVID, kidneys this time.

Kidney Outcomes in Long COVID

Large study.

Hermit wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:I wasn't being narcissistic Hermit but rather driving home the point that...the COVID Grim Reaper is very real for those who's lives it...touches.

You saw an opportunity to talk about yourself, and it had nothing to do with what JamesT wrote.

Another psychic in our midst, and an at best lackadaisical one at that being as I highlighted the relevant part of JamesT's post to which I was directly replying.

Hermit wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:If statistics is the call of the day I might suggest that, say, US COVID deaths far exceed those from narcotic abuse and gun violence and automobile accidents COMBINED, and nobody (surely) would dream of espousing that those are not "very serious" problems.

Now that would have been a relevant response. Pity you did not make it at the time.

JamesT might have countered that neither gun violence nor automobile accidents result in lockdowns.

That would be a totally LAME counter however as the criminal charges for DUI/murder/drug dealing etc make the particulars of lockdown legislation and even the consequences of lockdown contravention seem like a slap on the wrist compared to a set of broken legs.

Hermit wrote:you'd pick him up on that instead of erecting a strawman in order to draw attention to yourself.

Thanks for repeating yourself - see my first response in this post. Mealy mouthed, bitter...cantankerous - check. I'll add hypocritical to that list too, in that if ANYBODY is drawing attention to me in this thread, it is YOU.