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How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns

fireflygmf said:
This is a very interesting perspective, and it might turn out that this infection isn't as deadly as initially feared. I'd be reluctant to draw a parallel between climate modeling and epidemic modeling, two different discipline.

Countries initially responded very conservatively, i.e. they responded as if the worst-case modeling was going to happen. The more data we get, it seems like the viral infection is much less deadly than initially feared. I personally still think that it's a big problem and measures are needed to contain it, but I might be wrong... I'm just some guy behind a keyboard. From my best calculations from all sources, the virus doesn't look to be any greater than 0.5% deadly.

Taken over an entire population that's a lot of deaths and very severe, but I also acknowledge that lives must go on, or else other damages from economic and partial societal damages begin to outweigh the benefits. Time will tell, I guess.

I will say one thing: I'm glad that despite all the corruption, all the greed and political jostling, when push came to shove, most societies chose to value the life of their citizens over their own wealth. It may have been an over-reaction, but I believe governments acted in what was believed to be the best interest of the citizens.
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I appreciate the rational and measured approach you brought to the discussion. The final conclusions are years away, but so far we've been told the following:

Nancy Pelosi Visits San Francisco’s Chinatown Amid Coronavirus Concerns - NBCBayArea
Subway Shutdown: NY Closes System Overnight for First Time - NYT
Why You Shouldn’t Wear Gloves to the Grocery Store - Cleveland Clinic
WHO says there is no need for healthy people to wear face masks, days after the CDC told all Americans to cover their faces

The response has been all over the map, and the outrage from the left has followed.

As it turns out, we didn't need 40,000 ventilators in every state, much less NY or even NYC.
 
Schism said:
I appreciate the rational and measured approach you brought to the discussion. The final conclusions are years away, but so far we've been told the following:

Nancy Pelosi Visits San Francisco’s Chinatown Amid Coronavirus Concerns - NBCBayArea
Subway Shutdown: NY Closes System Overnight for First Time - NYT
Why You Shouldn’t Wear Gloves to the Grocery Store - Cleveland Clinic
WHO says there is no need for healthy people to wear face masks, days after the CDC told all Americans to cover their faces

The response has been all over the map, and the outrage from the left has followed.

As it turns out, we didn't need 40,000 ventilators in every state, much less NY or even NYC.
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Yeah the response has been confused, messy and all over the map. People were scared, and politicians were scared too. I can forgive it because they were up against a brand-new virus that initially looked bad. Really bad. Nobody knew anything other than is was starting to kill people, and quickly. It's only been recently with many serological surveys showing that the true fatality rate is much lower than the initial estimates.

Maybe the lockdown was too harsh, but we really won't know until we look back after this is all over.
 
GhostlyJoe said:
Those numbers mean nothing. We do not know how many cases there are. We just know how many tests we've administered. There isn't even uniform data-gathering among differing countries.

The stats are low-resolution. They are not a clear picture of what's happening. Be patient before drawing big conclusions.
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We don't know how accurate the testing is, either. We can only go on what counts we have. That's what the science community does, too. That's all they have to work with. They can't give current guidance, which is their job, by being "patient before drawing big conclusions". Drawing conclusions to the extent they can is their job. They do use other stats, like excess death counts, to determine what is most indicative of what is happening and where things are going. Even in the end, when things finally "shake-out", no one particular figure is used as what the actual, final, number of any kind is. The CDC uses a statistical model that will spit-out a range of each category of count (cases, deaths) and pick a number in-between, usually at midpoint. Based on the best data available, my post cannot be refuted with better data. Or, do you have better information?
 
Lutherf said:
That chart is based on deaths per confirmed case. The Worldometer numbers are based on deaths per 1M population. They show two completely different things. Deaths per confirmed case is wholly dependent on testing for the virus and can be skewed quite dramatically based on what criteria are used to determine whether someone gets a test or not. Deaths per million population is based on population and is independent of differing testing criteria.
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For the purposes of our discussion, I like the per pop measurement better. It isn’t affected by testing or number of cases, just proper COD assignment. I can understand why the science community uses death rate as a % of cases vs of pop to determine how deadly a virus is, once the disease is contracted, and would use contraction as a % of pop to determine how infectious a virus is. But for containment and treatment, it would be the number of deaths and its % of the pop. Sweden’s testing rate is about 1/3rd that of Spain. It isn’t necessarily so, but one could argue that would mean there could be 3x as many virus positive Swedes as is confirmed. That would, theoretically, make Sweden’s death rate as a % of cases one of the lowest of all countries. Which would then brings up the greater possibility that it isn’t the prevention of contracting the disease that Sweden is doing a good job of, but the treatment and recovery that is saving lives that makes the diff btx Sweden and other countries. Seems like the subject requires more investigation.
 
"Faulty models" is 2020's theme.
 
You didn't read the article.


Deuce said:
The virus has killed more people in six weeks than the worst modern flu season did in an entire year, and that's during an unprecedented lockdown.

Anyone using results from a quarantine as evidence that the predictions prior to quarantine were wrong is... well, stupid. ****ing stupid.

"If we don't do anything, bad thing will happen!"

*does something to prevent bad thing, bad thing does not happen*

Reasonable person: "Good thing we prevented bad thing!"
Conservative: "SEE! STUPID LIBERALS! BAD THING WAS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN!"
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bluesmoke said:
For the purposes of our discussion, I like the per pop measurement better. It isn’t affected by testing or number of cases, just proper COD assignment. I can understand why the science community uses death rate as a % of cases vs of pop to determine how deadly a virus is, once the disease is contracted, and would use contraction as a % of pop to determine how infectious a virus is. But for containment and treatment, it would be the number of deaths and its % of the pop. Sweden’s testing rate is about 1/3rd that of Spain. It isn’t necessarily so, but one could argue that would mean there could be 3x as many virus positive Swedes as is confirmed. That would, theoretically, make Sweden’s death rate as a % of cases one of the lowest of all countries. Which would then brings up the greater possibility that it isn’t the prevention of contracting the disease that Sweden is doing a good job of, but the treatment and recovery that is saving lives that makes the diff btx Sweden and other countries. Seems like the subject requires more investigation.
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Right. There are a LOT of factors that go into both rate of infection and rate of mortality. It's kind of hard to wrap your head around all of it so it's no surprise that so many seek for the "solutions" that they CAN wrap their heads around.
 
Schism said:
How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns | RealClearPolitics



Sweden seems to have gotten it right. We now have that info for the next time. My primary concern is with models, and how data can be misused, misinterpreted, or exaggerated to further political goals or narratives. How does this affect the credibility of some science circles and other models being used that we're being told are accurate? Climate crisis??
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Go ask the Brazilians how ignoring SD and PPE's is working out for them.
 
Schism said:
How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns | RealClearPolitics



Sweden seems to have gotten it right.
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I do love it when you people declare victory almost before the match starts. Sweden's little experiment with herd immunity has resulted in that country's death toll now coming in no. 8 in the world for deaths per million population while it's neighboring Scandanavian countries which instituted stricter measures (Denmark 26th, Finland 35th, Norway 42nd). They've logged 4,000 deaths in a population of just 10 million. If we'd followed Sweden's plan there'd be 132,000 dead Americans already instead of the 99,000 so far. But Trumpers have already told us that they really don't care how many die since most of them are old, sick, poor and non-white anyway.
 
Deuce said:
The virus has killed more people in six weeks than the worst modern flu season did in an entire year, and that's during an unprecedented lockdown.

Anyone using results from a quarantine as evidence that the predictions prior to quarantine were wrong is... well, stupid. ****ing stupid.

"If we don't do anything, bad thing will happen!"

*does something to prevent bad thing, bad thing does not happen*

Reasonable person: "Good thing we prevented bad thing!"
Conservative: "SEE! STUPID LIBERALS! BAD THING WAS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN!"
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Facts don't matter to the Cult of Donnie Dirtbag.
 
Rickeroo said:
Sweden has outperformed France, UK, Italy and Spain in deaths per 1 million population, and did it without lockdowns.

This tells me that the lockdowns in those other countries increased their death rates.
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Sweden has the population density of Arkansas. 22 people per square KM.

France 119. UK 259. Italy 206. Spain 91.4

Sweden should be out preforming all of these on a baseline perspective.

When compared with Finland and Norway and Estonia (sharing geography and more similar population density) you get this comparison:

Sweden has 22 people per square KM and 392 deaths per million.

Norway has 14 people per square KM and 44 deaths per million.

Finland has 16 people per square KM and 55 deaths per million

Estonia has 29 people per square Km and 48 deaths per million
 
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Rickeroo said:
Sweden has outperformed France, UK, Italy and Spain in deaths per 1 million population, and did it without lockdowns.

This tells me that the lockdowns in those other countries increased their death rates.
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Barely outperformed. Sweden is in the top ten worst for deaths/million at number 8. The other 4 you mentioned are 4,5,6 and 7 respectively. IOW, you're telling us that Sweden is the least worst of the 8 worst.* This is why I call you, in Cult of Donnie Dirtbag, also the Cult of Failure. You are one-in-the-same.

*BTW, of those 5 countries only Sweden's rate of new cases is still going up while all the others have flattened so look for Sweden to move up in the ranks of the worst. Or in your world: WINNING!!!!!!
 
Lutherf said:
According to Worldometer, Sweden's death rate per million is dramatically lower than Spain, Italy, France, the UK and Belgium. It's also not dramatically higher than the Netherlands and Ireland. Unless something changes substantially they will have done better than many of their peer nations in the same region.
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And keep in mind that 100 out of a million is a tiny difference.
 
Variant said:
Sweden has the population density of Arkansas. 22 people per square KM.

France 119. UK 259. Italy 206. Spain 91.4

Sweden should be out preforming all of these on a baseline perspective.

When compared with Finland and Norway and Estonia (sharing geography and more similar population density) you get this comparison:

Sweden has 22 people per square KM and 392 deaths per million.

Norway has 14 people per square KM and 44 deaths per million.

Finland has 16 people per square KM and 55 deaths per million

Estonia has 29 people per square Km and 48 deaths per million
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Density metric is a factor, correct - just how much is up for debate. DC has 10 times the density of New York State but half the deaths per population. NJ, MA, CT and RI are all at least twice as dense as NY. Delaware and Maryland are also denser than NY.
 
Schism said:
Hate mob language renders your biased opinions moot.
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Playing the fake victim card confirms that you're both a cult member and full of **** -- oh, but that's a redundancy--as we already knew.
 
Ikari said:
It is true, Fox News and Trump both seem to consistently defy logic.
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If you say so...

Conversely, I could also say that this is true. CNN and Biden both seem to consistently defy logic.

:mrgreen:
 
trixare4kids said:
If you say so...

Conversely, I could also say that this is true. CNN and Biden both seem to consistently defy logic.

:mrgreen:
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They do, so good job being in the same boat as Biden.
 
digitusmedius said:
Playing the fake victim card confirms that you're both a cult member and full of **** -- oh, but that's a redundancy--as we already knew.
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Lashing out is just one sign of defeat. Try a hobby.
 
TobyOne said:
You didn't read the article.
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I did. It's a massive lie from start to end. Just this graph alone sums it up:

Screen Shot 2020-05-24 at 11.52.07 AM.jpg

Excess deaths during April this year (CDC Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19
Screen Shot 2020-05-24 at 11.55.41 AM.png

Those spikes represent increased mortality over weekly averages of up to 36% increases for this time period over and above the much more gradual increases known to be due to covid-19 in the month before. These are also covid-19 related deaths in the tens of thousands until proven otherwise.
 
It's all Trump's fault!!!!!!!


Even he forced Governor Coon Dog to go out to the beach with no mask and hang out with a lot of people within 6 feet of him.

Northam3.jpg
 
GhostlyJoe said:
Those numbers mean nothing. We do not know how many cases there are. We just know how many tests we've administered. There isn't even uniform data-gathering among differing countries.

The stats are low-resolution. They are not a clear picture of what's happening. Be patient before drawing big conclusions.
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there isn't even uniform data-gathering within our own country
 
Rickeroo said:
Density metric is a factor, correct - just how much is up for debate. DC has 10 times the density of New York State but half the deaths per population. NJ, MA, CT and RI are all at least twice as dense as NY. Delaware and Maryland are also denser than NY.
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Comparing DC and New York State is comparing apples and oranges. DC is a CITY! You need to compare DC to New York City. DC has a population density of 10,000 per sq mile and NYC has a population density of 26,000. NYC 2.6 times as dense as DC.


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Lutherf said:
According to Worldometer, Sweden's death rate per million is dramatically lower than Spain, Italy, France, the UK and Belgium. It's also not dramatically higher than the Netherlands and Ireland. Unless something changes substantially they will have done better than many of their peer nations in the same region.
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The death rate for Sweden is not comparable to the other countries at this point in time. Sweden still has 72% of their cases classified as active. Spain for example only has 20% of their cases active now. The others have either recovered or died. Obviously Sweden will have many of their active cases die. Spain doesn’t have that many active cases left. Sweden is also adding new cases daily at a much faster rate than Spain at this point. Sweden’s death rate has no where to go but up fast while Spain’s is climbing very slowly now.

Unfortunately, the US is more like Sweden, with more than 1.1 million cases (67%) classified as still active and still adding 20K cases per day we will see many more deaths here.


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