Coronavirus COVID-19

[kalm]

I think most believe that the vaccines will dramatically reduce the risk of the person vaccinated serving as a vector. However, they don't know that yet. So they are asking you to continue to wear a mask to be sure other people are protected. That's perfectly reasonable. And wearing a mask when you are around other people is not a big imposition.

I suspect it won't be long until we hear that they have confirmed that a vaccinated person is not a threat to others. But one should be a responsible citizen and wait until they do that before acting as though it is already confirmed.

Isn't being a responsible citizen, against your natural given freedoms. That's what I keep hearing from the Trump scolds.

They’re confused about freedom and losing that argument more and more. Also, eye doctors suck at epidemiology.

[SeattleGriz]

Isn't being a responsible citizen, against your natural given freedoms. That's what I keep hearing from the Trump scolds.

They’re confused about freedom and losing that argument more and more. Also, eye doctors suck at epidemiology.

You do know Rand Paul graduated from medical school and THEN had 5-6 years of specialty training to become a simple eye doctor?

You must also know Epidemiology only requires a 4 year degree, although many have masters.

[SeattleGriz]

Isn't being a responsible citizen, against your natural given freedoms. That's what I keep hearing from the Trump scolds.

They’re confused about freedom and losing that argument more and more. Also, eye doctors suck at epidemiology.

You do know Rand Paul graduated from medical school and THEN had 5-6 years of specialty training to become a simple eye doctor?

You must also know Epidemiology only requires a 4 year degree, although many have Masters.

Lastly, he was referring to the field of Immunology. Triple fail.

[kalm]

They’re confused about freedom and losing that argument more and more. Also, eye doctors suck at epidemiology.

You do know Rand Paul graduated from medical school and THEN had 5-6 years of specialty training to become a simple eye doctor?

You must also know Epidemiology only requires a 4 year degree, although many have Masters.

Lastly, he was referring to the field of Immunology. Triple fail.

Double post = quadruple fail. I win!

It’s still a epidemiological question. The big brother of immunology.

Rand has all that education and still an idiot on so many levels.

Btw, what are immunologists saying about this?

So. Much. Fail.

[SeattleGriz]

Recent CDC study shows wearing masks only reduced cases and deaths at MOST 2%, but doesn't account for these other factors.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm

The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, although models controlled for mask mandates, restaurant and bar closures, stay-at-home orders, and gathering bans, the models did not control for other policies that might affect case and death rates, including other types of business closures, physical distancing recommendations, policies issued by localities, and variances granted by states to certain counties if variances were not made publicly available. Second, compliance with and enforcement of policies were not measured. Finally, the analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining, adequacy of ventilation, and adherence to physical distancing and occupancy requirements.

[SeattleGriz]

You do know Rand Paul graduated from medical school and THEN had 5-6 years of specialty training to become a simple eye doctor?

You must also know Epidemiology only requires a 4 year degree, although many have Masters.

Lastly, he was referring to the field of Immunology. Triple fail.

Double post = quadruple fail. I win!

It’s still a epidemiological question. The big brother of immunology.

Rand has all that education and still an idiot on so many levels.

Btw, what are immunologists saying about this?

So. Much. Fail.

Sorry, no. It's an Immunology question.

Immunology - the branch of medicine and biology concerned with immunity
Epidemiology - the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health.

Rand Paul is talking about the immune response that after you are infected or have received a vaccination, you should start producing antibodies within 2 weeks. Immunologists would agree with Rand Paul on the timeline.

So let me get this straight. You think Rand Paul AND Ben Carson are idiots?

[AshevilleApp]

SO CLOSE!!!

[JohnStOnge]

Recent CDC study shows wearing masks only reduced cases and deaths at MOST 2%, but doesn't account for these other factors.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm

The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, although models controlled for mask mandates, restaurant and bar closures, stay-at-home orders, and gathering bans, the models did not control for other policies that might affect case and death rates, including other types of business closures, physical distancing recommendations, policies issued by localities, and variances granted by states to certain counties if variances were not made publicly available. Second, compliance with and enforcement of policies were not measured. Finally, the analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining, adequacy of ventilation, and adherence to physical distancing and occupancy requirements.

They measured outcomes in terms of increases in rates of growth in cases and deaths, not in terms of total numbers of cases and deaths. Here is how it's described:

The daily growth rate was defined as the difference between the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on a given day and the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on the previous day, multiplied by 100.

EDIT: Until I get back to this I'll just say I have to redo some math below because of the word "cummulative." I'll come back and update later. But it won't change the bottom line.

As an example of what they are talking about, take the finding that case growth rate was reduced by 1.8 percentage points 81 to 100 days after mask mandate implementation. For illustration, lets say you are at 100 cases on one day. The natural log of 100 is 4.605170186. So lets say there are 110 cases the next day. The natural log of 110 is 4.700480366. The percent growth as defined by the authors is about 2%. In 10 days, the daily cases would be about 284.

Now lets' say the growth rate is reduced by 1.8 percentage points as indicated in the scenario for 81 to 100 days after mask mandate. Now the daily growth rate is 0.2%. Go through all the natural log stuff again. Now, in 10 days, the daily cases would be about 113. So the rate in terms of number of cases is 173 lower at that point. And that's for that one day. As time goes on, the difference per day increases and the differences are additive. As time goes on, the number of total cases under the "no mask mandate" scenario becomes MUCH larger than the total number of cases under the "mask mandate" scenario.

The study does not support your apparent point of view at all. It strongly supports the idea that mask mandates are effective.

[JohnStOnge]

By the way: We would not have had to wait five years for a vaccine if there had been no Trump. That is a ridiculous claim. Pfizer wasn't even part of Operation Warp Speed. We had new vaccine development technologies. They had been working on SARS-CoV vaccines for years and the work was relevant to developing vaccines to SARS-CoV2. We would have vaccines at this point regardless of who had been President during 2017-2020.

[kalm]

Double post = quadruple fail. I win!

It’s still a epidemiological question. The big brother of immunology.

Rand has all that education and still an idiot on so many levels.

Btw, what are immunologists saying about this?

So. Much. Fail.

Sorry, no. It's an Immunology question.

Immunology - the branch of medicine and biology concerned with immunity
Epidemiology - the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health.

Rand Paul is talking about the immune response that after you are infected or have received a vaccination, you should start producing antibodies within 2 weeks. Immunologists would agree with Rand Paul on the timeline.

So let me get this straight. You think Rand Paul AND Ben Carson are idiots?

So immunity isn’t also a part of epidemiology? The government scolds referred to don’t employ both disciplines before making recommendations? All immunologists agree on the timeline for relaxing social distancing and mask wearing guidelines during the novel virus pandemic? What does “novel” mean again?

Rand Paul’s opening in the tweet is purely political. Yeah...we get it Rand...you like libertarianism.

This is not Rand exploring some serious scientific debate into efficacy. It’s actually rather irresponsible for him to tweet that. He needs to stay in his lane.

And no...Paul is a freaking brain surgeon compared to Carson.

[kalm]

By the way: We would not have had to wait five years for a vaccine if there had been no Trump. That is a ridiculous claim. Pfizer wasn't even part of Operation Warp Speed. We had new vaccine development technologies. They had been working on SARS-CoV vaccines for years and the work was relevant to developing vaccines to SARS-CoV2. We would have vaccines at this point regardless of who had been President during 2017-2020.

We also cut through a shit load of red tape out of necessity.

[UNI88]

By the way: We would not have had to wait five years for a vaccine if there had been no Trump. That is a ridiculous claim. Pfizer wasn't even part of Operation Warp Speed. We had new vaccine development technologies. They had been working on SARS-CoV vaccines for years and the work was relevant to developing vaccines to SARS-CoV2. We would have vaccines at this point regardless of who had been President during 2017-2020.

We also cut through a shit load of red tape out of necessity.

[JohnStOnge]

By the way: We would not have had to wait five years for a vaccine if there had been no Trump. That is a ridiculous claim. Pfizer wasn't even part of Operation Warp Speed. We had new vaccine development technologies. They had been working on SARS-CoV vaccines for years and the work was relevant to developing vaccines to SARS-CoV2. We would have vaccines at this point regardless of who had been President during 2017-2020.

We also cut through a shit load of red tape out of necessity.

I don't know. I don't think there is any evidence that, for example, the FDA behaved any differently than it would have under any Administration under the given circumstances. In fact I think the main effect of what Trump did in acting like he was making the FDA act differently than it otherwise would have was compromise confidence in the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.

[JohnStOnge]

Recent CDC study shows wearing masks only reduced cases and deaths at MOST 2%, but doesn't account for these other factors.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm

The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, although models controlled for mask mandates, restaurant and bar closures, stay-at-home orders, and gathering bans, the models did not control for other policies that might affect case and death rates, including other types of business closures, physical distancing recommendations, policies issued by localities, and variances granted by states to certain counties if variances were not made publicly available. Second, compliance with and enforcement of policies were not measured. Finally, the analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining, adequacy of ventilation, and adherence to physical distancing and occupancy requirements.

Ok. Finally got to get back to this as my wife's Mom that lived with us passed away in distressing fashion so I had other fish to fry. But here is the deal:

The percent figures apply to case and death growth rates, not numbers of cases and deaths. They calculated percent increase in death rate in a weird way:

The daily growth rate was defined as the difference between the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on a given day and the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on the previous day, multiplied by 100.

Just to get a real case rate for illustration, I picked the daily cumulative case count for Wyoming. It's not a county but it's a small State and I had to use something. Anyway, during October, the cumulative case count for Wyoming increased from 5,948 to 13,298. If you assumed there was a constant "percent increase" defined as the authors of the assessment defined it the daily percent increase would be about 2.7 percent.

If you reduce that by 0.5 percentage points, which is the percentage point decrease associated with 1 - 20 days after mask mandates, and so assume that the constant rate is about 2.2 percent, the cumulative number of cases at the end of October drops from 13,298 to 6,079. That's how big a difference what seems like a small percentage point change in the rate makes with the way the authors defined things.

So, no, that assessment does not suggest at all that mask mandates had a minimal effect. It suggests the effect was quite significant in both statistical hypothesis testing and practical terms.

Yes, there are caveats and limitations. It is an observational study. You can't control for everything that might have an effect.
You may not even know everything that might have an effect. All that is handled by randomization in controlled experiments. Unfortunately, as is often the case in public health in general and epidemiology in particular, there is no way to conduct a controlled experiment on the effectiveness of mask mandates.

[BDKJMU]

400 pages. Longest thread ever?

[JohnStOnge]

400 pages. Longest thread ever?

I doubt it.

[JohnStOnge]

BTW, Italy is locking down again. I'm sure it's a hoax to keep Trump from being re-elected.

As soon as the election is over COVID-19 will disappear because it's all just an anti-Trump hoax.

Oh wait...

[kalm]

Recent CDC study shows wearing masks only reduced cases and deaths at MOST 2%, but doesn't account for these other factors.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm

Ok. Finally got to get back to this as my wife's Mom that lived with us passed away in distressing fashion so I had other fish to fry. But here is the deal:

The percent figures apply to case and death growth rates, not numbers of cases and deaths. They calculated percent increase in death rate in a weird way:

The daily growth rate was defined as the difference between the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on a given day and the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on the previous day, multiplied by 100.

Just to get a real case rate for illustration, I picked the daily cumulative case count for Wyoming. It's not a county but it's a small State and I had to use something. Anyway, during October, the cumulative case count for Wyoming increased from 5,948 to 13,298. If you assumed there was a constant "percent increase" defined as the authors of the assessment defined it the daily percent increase would be about 2.7 percent.

If you reduce that by 0.5 percentage points, which is the percentage point decrease associated with 1 - 20 days after mask mandates, and so assume that the constant rate is about 2.2 percent, the cumulative number of cases at the end of October drops from 13,298 to 6,079. That's how big a difference what seems like a small percentage point change in the rate makes with the way the authors defined things.

So, no, that assessment does not suggest at all that mask mandates had a minimal effect. It suggests the effect was quite significant in both statistical hypothesis testing and practical terms.

Yes, there are caveats and limitations. It is an observational study. You can't control for everything that might have an effect.
You may not even know everything that might have an effect. All that is handled by randomization in controlled experiments. Unfortunately, as is often the case in public health in general and epidemiology in particular, there is no way to conduct a controlled experiment on the effectiveness of mask mandates.

My condolences to you and your wife.

[AshevilleApp]

So who has been vaccinated? I'm on two waiting lists right now. On one, that of our county Health Department, I'm number 65,000 on the waiting list.

Patience is a virtue.

[Gil Dobie]

So who has been vaccinated? I'm on two waiting lists right now. On one, that of our county Health Department, I'm number 65,000 on the waiting list.

Patience is a virtue.

I'm in 2 lotteries, community and my normal clinic.

[Winterborn]

400 pages. Longest thread ever?

I doubt it.

It would only be half as long, if you didn't type out War & Peace (in the original Russian mind you) almost every time you post.

[Winterborn]

So who has been vaccinated? I'm on two waiting lists right now. On one, that of our county Health Department, I'm number 65,000 on the waiting list.

Patience is a virtue.

Multiple co-workers walked up to one of the vaccination facility's and got a shot for one of the three vaccines in the last couple of weeks.

I am waiting till I see if I need it for any overseas trips I have planned this year. Until then, I am in no hurry.

[Winterborn]

Ok. Finally got to get back to this as my wife's Mom that lived with us passed away in distressing fashion so I had other fish to fry. But here is the deal:

The percent figures apply to case and death growth rates, not numbers of cases and deaths. They calculated percent increase in death rate in a weird way:



Just to get a real case rate for illustration, I picked the daily cumulative case count for Wyoming. It's not a county but it's a small State and I had to use something. Anyway, during October, the cumulative case count for Wyoming increased from 5,948 to 13,298. If you assumed there was a constant "percent increase" defined as the authors of the assessment defined it the daily percent increase would be about 2.7 percent.

If you reduce that by 0.5 percentage points, which is the percentage point decrease associated with 1 - 20 days after mask mandates, and so assume that the constant rate is about 2.2 percent, the cumulative number of cases at the end of October drops from 13,298 to 6,079. That's how big a difference what seems like a small percentage point change in the rate makes with the way the authors defined things.

So, no, that assessment does not suggest at all that mask mandates had a minimal effect. It suggests the effect was quite significant in both statistical hypothesis testing and practical terms.

Yes, there are caveats and limitations. It is an observational study. You can't control for everything that might have an effect.
You may not even know everything that might have an effect. All that is handled by randomization in controlled experiments. Unfortunately, as is often the case in public health in general and epidemiology in particular, there is no way to conduct a controlled experiment on the effectiveness of mask mandates.

My condolences to you and your wife.

Condolences to you and your family John.

[SDHornet]

[AshevilleApp]

Recent CDC study shows wearing masks only reduced cases and deaths at MOST 2%, but doesn't account for these other factors.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm

Ok. Finally got to get back to this as my wife's Mom that lived with us passed away in distressing fashion so I had other fish to fry. But here is the deal:

The percent figures apply to case and death growth rates, not numbers of cases and deaths. They calculated percent increase in death rate in a weird way:

The daily growth rate was defined as the difference between the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on a given day and the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on the previous day, multiplied by 100.

Just to get a real case rate for illustration, I picked the daily cumulative case count for Wyoming. It's not a county but it's a small State and I had to use something. Anyway, during October, the cumulative case count for Wyoming increased from 5,948 to 13,298. If you assumed there was a constant "percent increase" defined as the authors of the assessment defined it the daily percent increase would be about 2.7 percent.

If you reduce that by 0.5 percentage points, which is the percentage point decrease associated with 1 - 20 days after mask mandates, and so assume that the constant rate is about 2.2 percent, the cumulative number of cases at the end of October drops from 13,298 to 6,079. That's how big a difference what seems like a small percentage point change in the rate makes with the way the authors defined things.

So, no, that assessment does not suggest at all that mask mandates had a minimal effect. It suggests the effect was quite significant in both statistical hypothesis testing and practical terms.

Yes, there are caveats and limitations. It is an observational study. You can't control for everything that might have an effect.
You may not even know everything that might have an effect. All that is handled by randomization in controlled experiments. Unfortunately, as is often the case in public health in general and epidemiology in particular, there is no way to conduct a controlled experiment on the effectiveness of mask mandates.

Sorry to hear Jon.