Coronavirus COVID-19

[AZGrizFan]

Welcome to the club!

Thanks bro! I've been on Team Earth for a long time. Said before that my biggest fear is that we are unknowingly poisoning the planet. As such, I've maintained a pretty small footprint.

Me too. I’m cutting down from four houses to two as we speak.

[SeattleGriz]

Thanks bro! I've been on Team Earth for a long time. Said before that my biggest fear is that we are unknowingly poisoning the planet. As such, I've maintained a pretty small footprint.

Me too. I’m cutting down from four houses to two as we speak.

Ha! That's a good problem to have.

[AZGrizFan]

Me too. I’m cutting down from four houses to two as we speak.

Ha! That's a good problem to have.

Not really. Giant PITA….I’m only doing it for Trip, since he laid such a guilt trip on me for sucking up all the available housing…

[SeattleGriz]

Ha! That's a good problem to have.

Not really. Giant PITA….I’m only doing it for Trip, since he laid such a guilt trip on me for sucking up all the available housing…

You're like those horders, but instead of worthless shit, you horde houses. I like how you're sucking up housing instead of the green angle of reducing density and footprint. Just can't win.

[AZGrizFan]

Not really. Giant PITA….I’m only doing it for Trip, since he laid such a guilt trip on me for sucking up all the available housing…

You're like those horders, but instead of worthless shit, you horde houses. I like how you're sucking up housing instead of the green angle of reducing density and footprint. Just can't win.

Oh, don't get me wrong: they were/are four HUGE houses. As a 0.1%'er, I can't be caught in anything smaller than 4000 square feet....

[BDKJMU]

Prediction: This fall, probably in Sept, we will have the new midterm variant, where the left will try to use that as an excuse for mass mail in of ballots like in 2020..

[houndawg]

Desperate for any sort of point he changes the subject......how many million times do you have to be told that that no vaccine is 100% effective?

Bro, please.

What I'm trying to ask is if he thinks we can push around Mother Nature. I do not. I believe we need to learn how to coexist with COVID and leaky vaccines aren't helping shit.

Zero Covid vs living with it.

All vaccines are leaky.

[SeattleGriz]

Bro, please.

What I'm trying to ask is if he thinks we can push around Mother Nature. I do not. I believe we need to learn how to coexist with COVID and leaky vaccines aren't helping shit.

Zero Covid vs living with it.

All vaccines are leaky.

Then why did they mandate vaccinating everyone during a respiratory pandemic?

[houndawg]

All vaccines are leaky.

Then why did they mandate vaccinating everyone during a respiratory pandemic?

you can't be serious

[houndawg]

Not really. Giant PITA….I’m only doing it for Trip, since he laid such a guilt trip on me for sucking up all the available housing…

You're like those horders, but instead of worthless shit, you horde houses. I like how you're sucking up housing instead of the green angle of reducing density and footprint. Just can't win.

hoarders, hoard.

A horde is something different.

[houndawg]

Prediction: This fall, probably in Sept, we will have the new midterm variant, where the left will try to use that as an excuse for mass mail in of ballots like in 2020..

yeah except this time there won't be any Republicans winning any of the contests on the ballot. Can't believe they didn't think of that last time.

[SeattleGriz]

Then why did they mandate vaccinating everyone during a respiratory pandemic?

you can't be serious

No, I'm not, but neither were you.

[houndawg]

you can't be serious

No, I'm not, but neither were you.

yeah but I'm not serious on purpose

[BDKJMU]

Bro, please.

What I'm trying to ask is if he thinks we can push around Mother Nature. I do not. I believe we need to learn how to coexist with COVID and leaky vaccines aren't helping shit.

Zero Covid vs living with it.

All vaccines are leaky.

So are your Depends..

[BDKJMU]

Prediction: This fall, probably in Sept, we will have the new midterm variant, where the left will try to use that as an excuse for mass mail in of ballots like in 2020..

yeah except this time there won't be any Republicans winning any of the contests on the ballot. Can't believe they didn't think of that last time.

[AZGrizFan]

https://www.cureus.com/articles/93826-c ... -in-europe

This ought to get JSO’s head spinning….study finds a POSITIVE correlation between highly mask-compliant countries and higher death rates….something about “unintended consequences”….

[SeattleGriz]

https://www.cureus.com/articles/93826-c ... -in-europe

This ought to get JSO’s head spinning….study finds a POSITIVE correlation between highly mask-compliant countries and higher death rates….something about “unintended consequences”….

Have fun with this.

[JohnStOnge]

Had some fun with numbers this afternoon. Copied and pasted case and death information by State from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... e_vignette (numbers as of end of yesterday), state by state vaccination rates from https://usafacts.org/visualizations/cov ... er-states/, State by State percentage of population >=65 years old from https://www.prb.org/resources/which-us- ... he-oldest/, and State by State population densities from https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... -densities pasted them into Excel.

All statistical tests were one tailed based on expecting that case and death rates would be negatively associated with vaccination rates and positively associated with percentages of populations >=65 and population densities.

Here is the correlation matrix:



"%FV" is percent fully vaccinated. Yellow highlights means the coefficient is significant at >95% confidence. The 0.905215949 coefficient for percent fully vaccinated and percent boosted is important because it tells you that, as variables, both tell you close to the same thing. Most of you probably know that the absolute value of a correlation coefficient ranges from to 0 to 1 with 0 being no correlation and 1 being perfect correlation. 0.9 is a very high correlation. In subsequent regression analyses, I used percent boosted. I consider it to be the best indicator of relative tendencies of people in States to follow vaccine recommendations over time.

I did regression analyses to consider impact of percent boosted, %>=65, and population density on case and death rates at the same time. When I did it with case rates, %>=65 dropped out and I ended up with this Excel linest function output:



The fact that population density (Pop/mi2) is a "significant" factor in the model tells us that, even though population density was not "significant" when considered alone, it is "significant" when one "controls" for percent of population boosted.

When I did it with death rates, I got this:



What that says is that, when one "controls" for percent of population boosted, both percent of population >=65 and population density become "significant"

What all this tells you is that the "effect" of percent Boosted "overcomes" the effects of percent of population >=65 and population density on death rates and the effect of population density on case rates. Both percent population >=65 and population density have effects on death rates and population density has an effect on case rates. But you cannot "see" those effects when you just look at either percent population >=65 or population density alone because the percent vaccinated effect is strong enough in the opposite direction to "overcome" them.

[AZGrizFan]

Nothing on the positive correlation between highly mask compliant and death rates, JSO?

[JohnStOnge]

Nothing on the positive correlation between highly mask compliant and death rates, JSO?

I don't know of any source of data on actual mask compliance rates. That would be very tough to get and I doubt such data exist

[OL FU]

Had some fun with numbers this afternoon. Copied and pasted case and death information by State from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... e_vignette (numbers as of end of yesterday), state by state vaccination rates from https://usafacts.org/visualizations/cov ... er-states/, State by State percentage of population >=65 years old from https://www.prb.org/resources/which-us- ... he-oldest/, and State by State population densities from https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... -densities pasted them into Excel.

All statistical tests were one tailed based on expecting that case and death rates would be negatively associated with vaccination rates and positively associated with percentages of populations >=65 and population densities.

Here is the correlation matrix:



"%FV" is percent fully vaccinated. Yellow highlights means the coefficient is significant at >95% confidence. The 0.905215949 coefficient for percent fully vaccinated and percent boosted is important because it tells you that, as variables, both tell you close to the same thing. Most of you probably know that the absolute value of a correlation coefficient ranges from to 0 to 1 with 0 being no correlation and 1 being perfect correlation. 0.9 is a very high correlation. In subsequent regression analyses, I used percent boosted. I consider it to be the best indicator of relative tendencies of people in States to follow vaccine recommendations over time.

I did regression analyses to consider impact of percent boosted, %>=65, and population density on case and death rates at the same time. When I did it with case rates, %>=65 dropped out and I ended up with this Excel linest function output:



The fact that population density (Pop/mi2) is a "significant" factor in the model tells us that, even though population density was not "significant" when considered alone, it is "significant" when one "controls" for percent of population boosted.

When I did it with death rates, I got this:



What that says is that, when one "controls" for percent of population boosted, both percent of population >=65 and population density become "significant"

What all this tells you is that the "effect" of percent Boosted "overcomes" the effects of percent of population >=65 and population density on death rates and the effect of population density on case rates. Both percent population >=65 and population density have effects on death rates and population density has an effect on case rates. But you cannot "see" those effects when you just look at either percent population >=65 or population density alone because the percent vaccinated effect is strong enough in the opposite direction to "overcome" them.

Thanks I needed that nap

[JohnStOnge]

I also compared the cumulative case and death rates of States with high boosted rates to those of States with low boosted rates. I used the convention whereby one says numbers within one standard deviation of the mean are in the average range, numbers more than one standard deviation above the man are in the high range, and numbers more than one standard deviation below the mean are in the low range.

Using that approach, I identified 8 States with a combined 40.7% boosted rate as being high boosted rate States and 8 States with a combined 19.5% boosted rate as being low boosted rate States.

As of the end of yesterday, the high boosted rate States had a 9.9% lower combined cumulative case rate (232,335 vs. 257,748 per million population) and a 26.0% lower combined cumulative death rate (2,508 vs. 3,391).

It should be noted that the high boosted rate States have a higher combined percentage of the population >=65 (17.5% vs. 16.5%) and a higher combined population density (155 persons per square mile vs. 86 persons per square mile). A couple of posts ago I posted analytical results supporting the belief that higher percent population >=65 is associated with higher death rate and higher population density is associated with both higher case and death rates. If boosted rates were equal, one would expect a group of states with a higher percent population >=65 and higher population density to be characterized by higher case and death rates.

[JohnStOnge]

Had some fun with numbers this afternoon. Copied and pasted case and death information by State from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... e_vignette (numbers as of end of yesterday), state by state vaccination rates from https://usafacts.org/visualizations/cov ... er-states/, State by State percentage of population >=65 years old from https://www.prb.org/resources/which-us- ... he-oldest/, and State by State population densities from https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... -densities pasted them into Excel.

All statistical tests were one tailed based on expecting that case and death rates would be negatively associated with vaccination rates and positively associated with percentages of populations >=65 and population densities.

Here is the correlation matrix:



"%FV" is percent fully vaccinated. Yellow highlights means the coefficient is significant at >95% confidence. The 0.905215949 coefficient for percent fully vaccinated and percent boosted is important because it tells you that, as variables, both tell you close to the same thing. Most of you probably know that the absolute value of a correlation coefficient ranges from to 0 to 1 with 0 being no correlation and 1 being perfect correlation. 0.9 is a very high correlation. In subsequent regression analyses, I used percent boosted. I consider it to be the best indicator of relative tendencies of people in States to follow vaccine recommendations over time.

I did regression analyses to consider impact of percent boosted, %>=65, and population density on case and death rates at the same time. When I did it with case rates, %>=65 dropped out and I ended up with this Excel linest function output:



The fact that population density (Pop/mi2) is a "significant" factor in the model tells us that, even though population density was not "significant" when considered alone, it is "significant" when one "controls" for percent of population boosted.

When I did it with death rates, I got this:



What that says is that, when one "controls" for percent of population boosted, both percent of population >=65 and population density become "significant"

What all this tells you is that the "effect" of percent Boosted "overcomes" the effects of percent of population >=65 and population density on death rates and the effect of population density on case rates. Both percent population >=65 and population density have effects on death rates and population density has an effect on case rates. But you cannot "see" those effects when you just look at either percent population >=65 or population density alone because the percent vaccinated effect is strong enough in the opposite direction to "overcome" them.

Thanks I needed that nap

You're taking a good natured shot but that is the problem. Most people's eyes glaze over when someone tries to get them to understand the situation with the data that are out there. I think that people who understand data know that the vaccines have had a very significant beneficial effect. The percent declines my not look big but they happened in the context of a situation where we had a constant drumbeat by anti vaccine people trying to sabotage efforts to maximize vaccination rates. For vaccination to really work on a population level you need to have a very high percentage of the population follow the recommendations. Right now we are only at 67% "fully vaccinated" and at this point "fully vaccinated" does not mean being vaccinated according to recommendations. According to recommendations now is boosted once if you are at least 5 months out from the second dose of the primary series and, if you are 50, boosted again if you are at least 4 months out from your first booster. At this point only 31% of the population is boosted at all.

I don't think we ever even reached 60% vaccinated according to recommendations. I say that because we were at 53% fully vaccinated when they started recommending boosters. Now we've got 67% but having only 31% boosted strongly suggests most of those are not up to date on their vaccinations.

When I, for instance, compare high boosted rate States to low booster rate States, I am comparing two groups where the majorities of both are not up to date on their vaccinations. It's just that one group isn't as far behind as the other is. It would be great if we could see what would happen if we had States with 95% or greater vaccination rates vs. States with nobody vaccinated at all. The cumulative case and death rates would be huge. But we don't have anything close to that.

[JohnStOnge]

This discussion reminds me of something I told my wife today after seeing some Facebook stuff from her anti mask sister. It was a group she's in where people talked about their strategies for not just doing what's recommended. They were actually sharing information on a source where you could get fake masks that weren't really protective. Something called "Fake Masks USA" I think.

For community masking to work, the community has to achieve a very high rate of mask wearing. That is because the primary benefit is source control. A mask reduces the risk that a contagious individual will transmit the disease to other people. And, yes, we do have asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission of COVID-19.

So we have a bunch of people who do everything they can to sabotage efforts at community masking and create situations where we can never achieve the rate we need. Then, after they sabotage the effort and the results aren't really obviously clear cut because people like them sabotaged the effort, they say "SEE, masks don't work."

Never mind that there is sufficient evidence in the form of statistical analysis of observational data as well as experimental evidence in terms of the effect on droplet and aerosol emission and dispersion to convince any reasonable person that they do reduce the risk.

Thankfully we are in a lull right now. But this constant nonsense has caused this pandemic to do a lot more damage than it needed to.

[SDHornet]

Oh.