Negatory

Some good charts showing how a simple offset of 4 days for hospitalizations or 21 days for deaths can potentially predict effects. Here’s hoping that both of those things don’t follow the curves of the past.

Yes in the bar, a fighter.

Doesn't appear that is the case. Although the positivity rate has increased by an order of magnitude. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/04/us-global-record-more-than-1m-daily-covid-cases @ViperMan et al? Looks like your feelings based argument that we would never go a multiple above 250k isn’t panning out. Just like COVID going away on its own, ending when it heats up, disappearing, etc…

This is ironically great because it’s how it should work, but doesn’t. Reference the 2 bros I’ve seen get Art-15d by the group commander for drunken sexual jokes they made in front of the wrong person.

No one here is arguing for this guy to be locked up. They are arguing that this guy is a douche, and that everyone should think that he’s a douche. Big difference. While the first amendment let’s you say almost whatever you want with a few caveats, it only protects you from the government. Private citizens, private organizations, and private businesses have all the rights in the world to never interact with this guy in a positive way again based on what he said if they want. We can judge his speech harshly. We can denounce him and convince others to denounce him. We could petition Twitter and Facebook to deplatform him right now with no real constitutional recourse - and before you tell me I’m wrong, they already did it with Trump. Twitter/Facebook could choose to do that on their own! I can even openly advocate for other free citizens to legally boycott this guy based on his beliefs. I can tell everyone else that this guy is a shitty dude, if I want. I can try to convince others of the same. As long as I don’t lie about facts, I am absolutely protected, and you should embrace that no matter how much you dislike it. It’s a common misconception that the first amendment gives you any more protection for yourself than freedom from gov persecution. It’s not freedom from societal judgment. Not even an iota. Also, arguing tolerance of all free speech could be what brings us back to the middle is a ridiculous over generalization. Would you have been the one arguing for tolerance of the American Nazi Party’s platform in 1946? Sure, the gov shouldn’t do anything if it’s not criminal. But private society choosing to harshly judge someone for being a childish douche? Sorry bout ya.

We just got to 2X on confirmed cases. Probably 1.0M a day if you include unreported literally now. I’m not kidding you! https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coronavirus-tally-us-counts-more-than-500000-new-covid-cases-in-a-day-lifting-the-daily-average-to-a-near-1-year-high-2021-12-28

Also nice to see people not engage in any amount of data analysis and instead sit on the sidelines with a sense of smug superiority.

Okay, we’ll I’m not okay with a 5-15% and 30% mortality rate for a population that will almost surely get infected with entirely unmitigated spread. That’s where we disagree! Great, we figured it out.

There are many ideas that are not just "I support mandates" or "I don't support mandates." For example, I think that mandating vaccines for high risk populations - those at a 10%+ risk of being admitted to the hospital, based on age, gender, race, BMI, previous health conditions - could be in the interest of America. If you don't like the idea of a mandate, then let's do it economically. Maybe we should increase taxes on society by a blanket 3% and then offer a grant to any high-risk person who gets vaccinated while offering the vaccine to everyone. I talked about it at the beginning of the pandemic, but I was strongly in support of providing a temporary monthly unemployment allowance to those over the age of 60 or anyone who is provably high risk so that they could isolate if they choose. If they don't, then they go to the hospital and die on their own dime. The rest of society keeps working and chugging along. Once the vaccine came out, let it be a personal decision, for the most part, as to how much risk you wanted to accept from COVID. If you choose to not get vaccinated when you're high risk, then you do so at your own risk. And to be clear, the only reason I don't support continued mandates is because everyone has been given the opportunity to protect themselves. I would not have supported no mandates or government intervention prior to about March this year. Do you see how this is a gray continuum that is different than mandates forever or no mandates ever?

We aren't arguing about a personal decision to get a vaccine. We're arguing about ethics of vaccine mandates. You are mad at pawnman, for example, because he believes that you, ethically, should be required to get the vaccine. You believe that vaccine mandates are wrong. And your reasoning, as just stated, was because it's "anything but proven." Which is entirely based off of feelings. Numerous studies show that the vaccine decreases hospitalization and death rates by an order of magnitude. And the only statistically significant scientifically proven side effect to this point is a mild increase in risk of myocarditis in males under the age of 30. Also, your comments about "individual research" are a copout to try to legitimize any idea, regardless of source or evidence to the contrary. And I don't believe in blanket vaccine mandates, which, again, is hilarious in how you can't wrap your mind around that.

Show me any proof of this. I think this is gonna be a tough one for you. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - how do you make policy when you actually have so many unknowns? Cloth masks have been shown to be at least 20-30%+ effective with current terrible usage, increasing with N95s. I personally don't agree with using them, but it is a far cry for someone to try to say that they are wholly ineffective. With that being said, based on the risks to emotional health/interpersonal relationships, I believe we should accept the increased spread that would come with unmasking. But that is a different argument than "mask don't work." There is 100% a scientific justification that isolation prevents spread. Don't see how that is unscientific. Sure, the kids may not die if they get COVID, but I don't see how you can argue that this wouldn't reduce spread to their families and therefore the rest of America. The middle is the way forward. Maybe this is the fundamental disagreement that we won't see eye-to-eye on. Compromise and understanding is the way forward. An America of 330M people, not just half on one side or the other, is the right way.

Fixed that for you, buddy. Gotta love when bullies on both sides play the victim.

This is where you're wrong, and it would be kind of hilarious if it wasn't just a reflection of the polarization of society. I actually do not think this virus is a big deal. Haven't for a few months now, especially with omicron. Check my posts. But that probably doesn't compute, as you probably only think of people on two sides. What I do think is a big deal is the pathetic way folks argue about the virus that only sows more division. The way the right - and folks on this forum, specifically - argues about COVID is super dumb in that it takes uninformed black and white stances or, a recent favorite, uses statistics in a totally inapplicable way. The "scientific" approach to any argument is clearly with the left, because the right doesn't even attempt to use data effectively. Both sides have valid points. And both sides need to be communicated with in a way that isn't retarded, or else we aren't going to convince anyone of anything. That's why I played devil's advocate to a poorly constructed point. This forum loves to take indefensible black and white stances, and my only goal was to point out the absurdity. I am 100% sure that any solution to this pandemic that America as a whole can get on board with is in the middle. Just electing a new president in 2024 that says "fuck you" to half of America sure as fuck isn't going to help us be a better country. Stupid arguments are the continuation of the status quo.

How about we dismount from this semantics based argument where we are nitpicking words. This is what matters. The estimated mortality for those of any age from COVID is higher than it is from normal causes for almost every age. Usually by a significant margin. And the hospitalization rate of almost every demographic is extremely significant. Even folks in their 30s olds are hospitalized at a 2-5% rate, with those in their 60s+ hitting 15-30%. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mortality-risk-estimator Just saying that folks die anyways doesn't discount the fact that getting this disease will personally increase an individual's odds of dying by a significant factor, especially for older Americans. Are we really still arguing that? Excess deaths in America right now are estimated at about 1.0M.

Doubling down? If your argument is those over 60 have a death rate of 4%, then sure. Is that your argument? How can he possibly be referring to those over 60 - or how can that possibly be what we are talking about - when his literal quote was “The annual mortality of people over 70 is > 4%.”

To be pedantic, because you are, this is what I said. Don’t misquote me when it’s literally the next sentence. We’ve been talking about those over 70 100% of the time, which I have consistently used 5-15% for.

To be clear, death rate for folks at almost any age is significantly greater from COVID than from just being alive. That was the point all along. Throwing a “the death rate over 70 is 4%” actually does nothing. Compare death rate for a 70 year old to mortality risk. Do the same for a 75 year old, an 80 year old. That’s the statistic

Okay, you’ve added arbitrary constraints to fit your argument. Let’s remove those and get back to the point. More specifics to the scenario: The virus is latent and asymptomatic for 6-12 months, where it is still transmissible. Then the host experiences a very high death chance over about a month of illness. Based on this, many people claim it’s not even real. The R0 for this disease is similar to Delta, ~5-8. Scientific papers have been watching and writing about this virus in small populations over the last 2 years before it started spreading more and are relatively certain of these characteristics, although they can’t know anything definitively. You’re the president and you get to choose. Option A: Do something to limit the spread in an attempt to retain American society. Option B: Maintain liberty for the next 2 years while society likely collapses. This is all just an exercise in proving that black and white stances are asinine. I promise I can give you a scenario that is contrived enough that you have to act. We don’t have to keep going down this path, but we can if you want. The point is that there actually should be a point where the governments balance of liberty and security require them to focus on security based on those risks. Arguing there is no red line is ridiculous. Arguing where it should be is a much more intelligent discussion.

Why do I have to protect children? I don’t want that vaccine, why should I have to get it?

Please do enlighten me, how do averages work? And what is your point? Also, remember that I specifically was talking about folks with a COVID death rate from 5-15% when this reply was created, so make sure to include only the ages that that statistic applies to. Show your work. Oh and if your point is that the death rate for each age is actually lower because there are fewer males than females at those ages, then I totally agree. Thanks, I just figured that would be lost so I just halfed it for y’all.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html Doesn’t get to 4% until age 78. At age 70 it’s closer to 1.5%.

Meh, don’t play because you don’t like the framing of the questions. That’s fine. It’s wholly impossible to engage in debate of merits of ideas or philosophy when you quadruple down on an intentionally absurd black and white stance.

Here’s a more pointed devils advocate question, because you’re not actually answering my questions. Let’s imagine there is a new disease that just came out. You’re in charge of figuring out the response. Here’s the question: How many excess deaths should we accept? And the answer is not any unless you’re an anarchist, because I’ll just pose a hypothetical illness that kills 320M Americans as my example. Where obviously something like that would necessitate an extensive government reaction to stave off total societal collapse. The questions get a lot harder when they’re posed like this, which is why skeptics love to do it. Is it 1M excess deaths? Because we just got there. Is it 10M? Is COVID specifically okay because it just doubles to triples the mortality of old people? They are unanswerable, and asking people to describe very specific “lines in the sand” is unreasonable. When it comes down to it, it’s all based on feelings on both sides.

To play devils advocate, you don’t get to ask that question and not have the same thrown back at you. You’ll find it’s equally difficult to answer. What level of annual mortality risk are you willing to accept? Are you good with a 5-15% mortality risk for a highly contagious disease for those over the age of 70ish? If not, what mortality risk do you think is good? Should we let the disease spread freely throughout our society? Or do you think there should be any attempt to slow the spread? Is a 1-2% risk of mortality for those over 60 okay? What level of hospitalization of Americans are you comfortable with? How many months of cancelling elective surgeries and minor medical care are you comfortable with? I think most people went into this with good intentions. Decrease the absurdly high risk that some demographics would be literally decimated, somehow. I think we’ve now effectively done that and should call this complete, but my point is that it’s not easy to put an effective bounds on what the goals should be from either viewpoint. As absurd as it is that Fauci is arguing he thinks we should potentially wear masks ad infinitum, it’s also absurd in my view that some people - some of them on this forum - think we should have done nothing ever. There’s a balance.