Coronavirus COVID-19

[JohnStOnge]

Here's something using something else people worry about and are willing to get draconian over to put the COVID-19 risk into perspective.

Do a Google search for "2019 Data: Alcohol-Impaired Driving - CrashStats - NHTSA." Click on it and you will download a pdf document. Open the pdf document and you can note two things. One is that there were 10,142 fatalities associated with "Alcohol impaired driving." The other is that the report you are looking at includes the statement:

In all cases throughout this fact sheet, use of the term does not indicate that a crash or a fatality was caused by alcohol impairment, only that an alcohol-impaired driver was involved in the crash.

That statement is important because it makes the "death count" similar to that for COVID-19 in a way. They are saying that they do not know that any particular death was caused by impaired driving. They just know that the risk is increased.

Now look at the CDC COVID-19 death counts at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covi ... /index.htm. Scroll down and click on the "Sex and Age" link. When you get to the table click on the "Yearly" tab at the bottom. Scroll to the death count for 50 - 64 year olds during 2021. The number of deaths is 94,626. I picked that age group because it's the one I'm in. We're kind of old. But still in the main of life. And the number of deaths among us for one year...2021...is 9 times the number of alcohol impaired driving deaths among ALL age groups during the last year for which data on that are available.

Now look at the COVID-19 deaths among 0-49 year olds during 2021. You have to do some addition. It's 38,143. That's 3.8 times the number that died in alcohol impaired crashes during the most recent year for which data on that are available.

I'm not going to try to estimate it. It might not be possible. But my bet would be that, if you could estimate it, there were more deaths associated with people failing to get vaccinated and/or failing to wear masks during 2021 than there were with people driving with BACs of 0.08 or more.

I'd also bet that many of the people saying we are making too big a deal out of COVID-19 are ALL for throwing people in jail and making their lives hell if they get popped in a DUI checkpoint and blow a 0.08.

Given the risk aversion of this culture when it comes to many other things, saying that we are over reacting to COVID-19 is just ridiculous. It really is.

[SeattleGriz]

Here's something using something else people worry about and are willing to get draconian over to put the COVID-19 risk into perspective.

Do a Google search for "2019 Data: Alcohol-Impaired Driving - CrashStats - NHTSA." Click on it and you will download a pdf document. Open the pdf document and you can note two things. One is that there were 10,142 fatalities associated with "Alcohol impaired driving." The other is that the report you are looking at includes the statement:

In all cases throughout this fact sheet, use of the term does not indicate that a crash or a fatality was caused by alcohol impairment, only that an alcohol-impaired driver was involved in the crash.

That statement is important because it makes the "death count" similar to that for COVID-19 in a way. They are saying that they do not know that any particular death was caused by impaired driving. They just know that the risk is increased.

Now look at the CDC COVID-19 death counts at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covi ... /index.htm. Scroll down and click on the "Sex and Age" link. When you get to the table click on the "Yearly" tab at the bottom. Scroll to the death count for 50 - 64 year olds during 2021. The number of deaths is 94,626. I picked that age group because it's the one I'm in. We're kind of old. But still in the main of life. And the number of deaths among us for one year...2021...is 9 times the number of alcohol impaired driving deaths among ALL age groups during the last year for which data on that are available.

Now look at the COVID-19 deaths among 0-49 year olds during 2021. You have to do some addition. It's 38,143. That's 3.8 times the number that died in alcohol impaired crashes during the most recent year for which data on that are available.

I'm not going to try to estimate it. It might not be possible. But my bet would be that, if you could estimate it, there were more deaths associated with people failing to get vaccinated and/or failing to wear masks during 2021 than there were with people driving with BACs of 0.08 or more.

I'd also bet that many of the people saying we are making too big a deal out of COVID-19 are ALL for throwing people in jail and making their lives hell if they get popped in a DUI checkpoint and blow a 0.08.

Given the risk aversion of this culture when it comes to many other things, saying that we are over reacting to COVID-19 is just ridiculous. It really is.

Covid is a problem for those that should be worried every cold and flu season. It's just going deeper into the population than we are used to.

[Gil Dobie]

Spreading it to a friend or family member that dies, would be a terrible consequence if I was the one responsible for the spread.

Which could also happen from a vaccinated* family member.

*Vaccinated meaning fully booster, yes?

I wouldn't say different, but thanks for the assist SD

[Gil Dobie]

Here's something using something else people worry about and are willing to get draconian over to put the COVID-19 risk into perspective.

Do a Google search for "2019 Data: Alcohol-Impaired Driving - CrashStats - NHTSA." Click on it and you will download a pdf document. Open the pdf document and you can note two things. One is that there were 10,142 fatalities associated with "Alcohol impaired driving." The other is that the report you are looking at includes the statement:



That statement is important because it makes the "death count" similar to that for COVID-19 in a way. They are saying that they do not know that any particular death was caused by impaired driving. They just know that the risk is increased.

Now look at the CDC COVID-19 death counts at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covi ... /index.htm. Scroll down and click on the "Sex and Age" link. When you get to the table click on the "Yearly" tab at the bottom. Scroll to the death count for 50 - 64 year olds during 2021. The number of deaths is 94,626. I picked that age group because it's the one I'm in. We're kind of old. But still in the main of life. And the number of deaths among us for one year...2021...is 9 times the number of alcohol impaired driving deaths among ALL age groups during the last year for which data on that are available.

Now look at the COVID-19 deaths among 0-49 year olds during 2021. You have to do some addition. It's 38,143. That's 3.8 times the number that died in alcohol impaired crashes during the most recent year for which data on that are available.

I'm not going to try to estimate it. It might not be possible. But my bet would be that, if you could estimate it, there were more deaths associated with people failing to get vaccinated and/or failing to wear masks during 2021 than there were with people driving with BACs of 0.08 or more.

I'd also bet that many of the people saying we are making too big a deal out of COVID-19 are ALL for throwing people in jail and making their lives hell if they get popped in a DUI checkpoint and blow a 0.08.

Given the risk aversion of this culture when it comes to many other things, saying that we are over reacting to COVID-19 is just ridiculous. It really is.

Covid is a problem for those that should be worried every cold and flu season. It's just going deeper into the population than we are used to.

A lot of them survived the cold and flu season, but not covid.

[SDHornet]

After Googling "Mass formation psychosis," my belief is that this is another one of those things that somebody on the wrong side of the argument threw out there recently that's now being parroted by other people on the wrong side of the argument.

It's obvious that governments all over the world take SARS-CoV-2 very seriously. I think we can all agree that the overwhelming majority of public health officials in the area of containing contagious diseases like this take it very seriously. Is there a certain element of ordinary people fearing the situation more than it should? Yes. That's unavoidable.

But this is not an irrational thing. The people not being rational are the people like Joe Rogan and that Dr. Malone guy he interviewed. People trying to do what public health professionals recommend, things like wearing masks, social distancing, avoiding large crowds (especially indoors), etc., are being rational.

The irrational ones are the ones saying COVID-19 is a hoax, etc., associated with government trying to control people. Those are the "Mass formation psychosis" people.

People saying vaccines have microchips in them to allow government to track you? People saying mask mandates are so government can identify people who can be controlled vs. people who can't be controlled? And these people are calling people who are taking the worst pandemic in over a century seriously the ones manifesting "Mass formation psychosis?" Seriously?

Only a small percentage of the right says (the wackadoodle portion) says it a hoax.

Most on the right believe:
-It was realeased from the WIV (probably accidentally due to shoddy procedures), amd the Chi Coms lied, obfuscated, and covered up.
-The elderly, obese, and those (at least middle aged and up) with other co-morbities should get vaxxed.
-The young and healthy don’t need to.
-There should be no mandates: vax, mask, show me your papers, etc.

I refer to the propaganda that has pushed the "everyone should be afraid of the China Virus" as a hoax. But yeah, the virus is real and there is an at risk demographic that should take measures to protect themselves from that risk.

[Gil Dobie]

Only a small percentage of the right says (the wackadoodle portion) says it a hoax.

Most on the right believe:
-It was realeased from the WIV (probably accidentally due to shoddy procedures), amd the Chi Coms lied, obfuscated, and covered up.
-The elderly, obese, and those (at least middle aged and up) with other co-morbities should get vaxxed.
-The young and healthy don’t need to.
-There should be no mandates: vax, mask, show me your papers, etc.

I refer to the propaganda that has pushed the "everyone should be afraid of the China Virus" as a hoax. But yeah, the virus is real and there is an at risk demographic that should take measures to protect themselves from that risk.

There are quite a few out there that don't know they have a health issue that Covid could compromise. Long term drinkers, smokers, drug users, etc. Drinkers are the one's that mostly don't know. My Nephews girlfriend was like a rescue pet. Came off the street, after years of drinking. Died at age 30 from liver failure, only a couple years after getting straight.

[SeattleGriz]

Hmm. Is it just lockdown stress and skipping your doctor's appointment? As stated in the article, it's not all Covid driving these numbers up.

https://www.thecentersquare.com/indiana ... 25e2c.html

Davison said the increase in deaths represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica.

“And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said.

“Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.”

[BDKJMU]

These people are neurotic- getting unapproved 4th and even 5th shots.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... ots/?amp=1

[SeattleGriz]

These people are neurotic- getting unapproved 4th and even 5th shots.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... ots/?amp=1

That would be my father if my step mom didn't put some brakes on him. As stated previously, then my father will touch all manner of dirty items, then touch his eyes or mouth out in public!

[BDKJMU]

FFS here we go:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... riant.html

[BDKJMU]

DeSantis on lib media criticism he was MIA in December: 'I guess I should’ve been at the beach in Delaware.” Lawl…

[BDKJMU]

CNN, after multiple of their ‘experts’ have admitted over the last couple of weeks that cloth mask don’t works vs the China Virus, and are basically nothing more than facial decorations (something that many of us have known all along), CNN with more groundbreaking news:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/03/health/c ... urce=twCNN
https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-coul ... vid-deaths

Hey CNN, did you hear the Bucs won the Super Bowl?

[SeattleGriz]

Shouldn't be seeing such low % of infections in the unvaccinated for Omicron if the vaccine effectiveness was still positive. Roughly 23% of the population is unvaccinated, but only comprise 8.7% of those infected by Omicron.

Danish health site where you can find the report in English:

https://files.ssi.dk/covid19/omikron/st ... 12022-9gj3

[JohnStOnge]

Remember the thing where Leana Wen said that cloth masks are little more than facial decorations?



I saw her a little while ago on Anderson Cooper. He asked her about that comment. Here is her response:

My point in saying this is not to say that we shouldn't wear cloth masks if that's the only thing that's available to us, but rather that at this point in the pandemic when we're facing this contagious of a...of a virus that is airborne that a simple cloth mask just is not going to do. I get so worried Anderson, when I see my patients walking around going to train stations and visiting grocery stores wearing just a facial...a simple cloth mask...because I know that they think they are being protected when, actually, they're not.

That's actually consistent with one of her quotes in the article at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 80394.html from which I got the video link:

my point isn’t that we don’t need masks, but rather that we should require masks that are most effective to prevent disease transmission. Everyone, including children, should be wearing at least a three-ply surgical mask when indoors and around others of unknown vaccination status

Notice, also, that in her answer to Cooper tonight she was looking at things from the standpoint of the mask protecting the wearer. As we know, that is not the primary benefit of widespread mask wearing. In any case, the woman clearly supports widespread mask use. She just appears to think that we need to make sure to wear the most effective masks available now that we have this far more contagious variant going around.

[SeattleGriz]

Remember the thing where Leana Wen said that cloth masks are little more than facial decorations?



I saw her a little while ago on Anderson Cooper. He asked her about that comment. Here is her response:

My point in saying this is not to say that we shouldn't wear cloth masks if that's the only thing that's available to us, but rather that at this point in the pandemic when we're facing this contagious of a...of a virus that is airborne that a simple cloth mask just is not going to do. I get so worried Anderson, when I see my patients walking around going to train stations and visiting grocery stores wearing just a facial...a simple cloth mask...because I know that they think they are being protected when, actually, they're not.

That's actually consistent with one of her quotes in the article at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 80394.html from which I got the video link:

my point isn’t that we don’t need masks, but rather that we should require masks that are most effective to prevent disease transmission. Everyone, including children, should be wearing at least a three-ply surgical mask when indoors and around others of unknown vaccination status

Notice, also, that in her answer to Cooper tonight she was looking at things from the standpoint of the mask protecting the wearer. As we know, that is not the primary benefit of widespread mask wearing. In any case, the woman clearly supports widespread mask use. She just appears to think that we need to make sure to wear the most effective masks available now that we have this far more contagious variant going around.

Dude. She is a political hack.

I swear if she uses Klam's tried and true "it's science" when proven wrong, I'll shoot myself. I hope she's at least better than that.

[JohnStOnge]

Shouldn't be seeing such low % of infections in the unvaccinated for Omicron if the vaccine effectiveness was still positive. Roughly 23% of the population is unvaccinated, but only comprise 8.7% of those infected by Omicron.

Danish health site where you can find the report in English:

https://files.ssi.dk/covid19/omikron/st ... 12022-9gj3

I don't see any narrative interpreting the table but the percentages seem consistent with the idea that the vaccines offer less protection against Omicron. I don't think the table says that 23% of the population is unvaccinated. I read it as saying that 23.8% of the cases involving other variants are among the unvaccinated.

The most striking thing to me is that the overwhelming majority of the cases involving both Omicron and other variants were among people who had completed their vaccination schedule. 70.1% of the cases involving other variants and 82.7% of those involving Omicron. I think one should expect that a disproportionately high number of the cases among the fully vaccinated would be Omicron because the vaccines do not protect them as well against that. And you can do some math and see that 38% of the cases among the fully vaccinated were Omicron while 16% of the cases among the unvaccinated were.

But it'd be nice if they had some discussion.

[JohnStOnge]

CNN, after multiple of their ‘experts’ have admitted over the last couple of weeks that cloth mask don’t works vs the China Virus, and are basically nothing more than facial decorations (something that many of us have known all along),

See the post I made a little while ago. That "decorations" remark by Leana Wen was colorful but she did not say cloth masks don't reduce the risk. Tonight on CNN she said she didn't mean not to use them if they are the only thing available. Another thing to remember is that, when cloth masks were recommended, it was in the context of a mask shortage and a far less contagious set of variants.

The point she was trying to make is that we are dealing with a far more contagious variant now so people should use the most effective masks.

[SeattleGriz]

Shouldn't be seeing such low % of infections in the unvaccinated for Omicron if the vaccine effectiveness was still positive. Roughly 23% of the population is unvaccinated, but only comprise 8.7% of those infected by Omicron.

Danish health site where you can find the report in English:

https://files.ssi.dk/covid19/omikron/st ... 12022-9gj3

I don't see any narrative interpreting the table but the percentages seem consistent with the idea that the vaccines offer less protection against Omicron. I don't think the table says that 23% of the population is unvaccinated. I read it as saying that 23.8% of the cases involving other variants are among the unvaccinated.

The most striking thing to me is that the overwhelming majority of the cases involving both Omicron and other variants were among people who had completed their vaccination schedule. 70.1% of the cases involving other variants and 82.7% of those involving Omicron. I think one should expect that a disproportionately high number of the cases among the fully vaccinated would be Omicron because the vaccines do not protect them as well against that. And you can do some math and see that 38% of the cases among the fully vaccinated were Omicron while 16% of the cases among the unvaccinated were.

But it'd be nice if they had some discussion.

Thank you. Great post. You told us what you thought. I'll say I'm impressed you noticed:

overwhelming majority of the cases involving both Omicron and other variants were among people who had completed their vaccination schedule. 70.1% of the cases involving other variants and 82.7% of those involving Omicro

This is for sure interesting.

[JohnStOnge]

Since it's easy to do I copied and pasted some data tonight. What are your theories about why the associations exist?

First I just copied and pasted the State by State case and death rates (per million population) for the entire pandemic from Worldometers and compared mean rates for States that voted for Trump and States that voted for Biden. The States that voted for Trump are characterized by significantly higher case (p = 0.0001) and death (p = 0.03) rates.

Next I copied the the Worldometers State by State case and death rates along with the State by State fully vaccinated rates from the table at the bottom of the page at https://usafacts.org/visualizations/cov ... te/alabama and ran both Pearson and Spearman correlations for fully vaccinated rate vs. case rate as well as fully vaccinated rate vs. death rate. All four coefficients were negative and highly significant, indicating associations such that case and death rates tended to go down as fully vaccinated rates went up. Here are the p values:

Pearson case rate vs. fully vaccinated rate p = 0.0002
Pearson death rate vs. fully vaccinated rate p = 0.001
Spearman case rate vs. fully vaccinated rate p = 0.0006
Spearman death rate vs. fully vaccinated rate p = 0.001

As noted last time I did that, it's interesting. Vaccinations did not start until we were about halfway through (46% of the way in terms of days from the first US case until today) the pandemic period as it stands now. Then, of course, it took time to ramp up and administer a significant number of vaccinations. Yet there are those highly significant associations. Did another factor or set of factors cause the trends whereby states with higher case and death rates at this point also have lower vaccination rates?

[JohnStOnge]

Thank you. Great post. You told us what you thought. I'll say I'm impressed you noticed:

overwhelming majority of the cases involving both Omicron and other variants were among people who had completed their vaccination schedule. 70.1% of the cases involving other variants and 82.7% of those involving Omicro

This is for sure interesting.

Denmark has a pretty high fully vaccinated rate. It was 76.1% on November 21 and 78.2% on December 28. But if you assumed the samples provide unbiased estimates being fully vaccinated doesn't look too good. On the other hand, under the same assumptions, being boosted would look pretty good. The proportion of the population made up of that group changed rapidly over the period. It was 10.2% on November 21, 19.7% halfway through the period on December 9, and 46% on on December 28. So it's fuzzy. But I think it'd be fair to assume something like a daily average of 20% of the population being boosted (could actually calculate the average but it'd take me too much time to extract the numbers). That makes having only 2.5% of the cases involving other variants and 6.2% of the Omicron cases be among the boosted people look pretty good. Consistent with the idea that we need to boost people.

Of course it's likely that the samples are biased to at least some extent and pretty much certain that there are confounding factors. Like, for instance, I can't find the vaccination rates by age group for Denmark but in the United States more than 85% of the people over 65 are fully vaccinated while the overall population fully vaccinated rate is 63%. So if you just compare the fully vaccinated group to the unvaccinated group straight up the proportion of people in the high risk age group is going to be notably higher.

When people try to estimate vaccine effectiveness they try to take age as well as other confounding factors into account. But there's no discussion that I can see in that report. That's not a criticism. I don't think they are presenting it as an effort to estimate of vaccine effectiveness.

[BDKJMU]

[CID1990]

Remember the thing where Leana Wen said that cloth masks are little more than facial decorations?



I saw her a little while ago on Anderson Cooper. He asked her about that comment. Here is her response:

My point in saying this is not to say that we shouldn't wear cloth masks if that's the only thing that's available to us, but rather that at this point in the pandemic when we're facing this contagious of a...of a virus that is airborne that a simple cloth mask just is not going to do. I get so worried Anderson, when I see my patients walking around going to train stations and visiting grocery stores wearing just a facial...a simple cloth mask...because I know that they think they are being protected when, actually, they're not.

That's actually consistent with one of her quotes in the article at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 80394.html from which I got the video link:

my point isn’t that we don’t need masks, but rather that we should require masks that are most effective to prevent disease transmission. Everyone, including children, should be wearing at least a three-ply surgical mask when indoors and around others of unknown vaccination status

Notice, also, that in her answer to Cooper tonight she was looking at things from the standpoint of the mask protecting the wearer. As we know, that is not the primary benefit of widespread mask wearing. In any case, the woman clearly supports widespread mask use. She just appears to think that we need to make sure to wear the most effective masks available now that we have this far more contagious variant going around.

This is exactly what I said several times before (and it was this woman I was offhandedly referring to) and you wrote fucking war and peace over it-

cloth masks are ineffective against viruses of any kind. Yes, they are better than nothing but that is a silly argument to make. Putting your hand over your face is better than nothing. So is holding your breath.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SDHornet]

I refer to the propaganda that has pushed the "everyone should be afraid of the China Virus" as a hoax. But yeah, the virus is real and there is an at risk demographic that should take measures to protect themselves from that risk.

There are quite a few out there that don't know they have a health issue that Covid could compromise. Long term drinkers, smokers, drug users, etc. Drinkers are the one's that mostly don't know. My Nephews girlfriend was like a rescue pet. Came off the street, after years of drinking. Died at age 30 from liver failure, only a couple years after getting straight.

This is where those who want to cut access to healthcare for "anti-vaxers" chime in and say your nephews gf got what she deserved and shouldnt have been allowed access to treatment of her ailments.

[SDHornet]

[SDHornet]