What's tendentious is submitting papers and not reading or understanding them.

I had already linked you to several things that summarised and supported my view. You sulked and nagged me for direct links to research papers (in the expectation that I wouldn’t be able to find any?)

Basically, you lost an argument and have since had us play Study Wars in order to bury it in the mud.

People will sell their soul for very little. — MondoR

:up:

How have I lost an argument if there are several studies with conflicting conclusions? I've looked into why they conflicted and gave you my view based upon my reading of them, including the ones you shared. You can playfully call that "study wars", In consider that getting informed. I'm not the one so entrenched in his own opinion that I refuse to actually read the papers.

How have I lost an argument if there are several studies with conflicting conclusions? — Benkei

Because I’m not the one advocating for restrictions and assumed obligations. I’m saying leave people alone because your claims are doubtful.

You can playfully call that "study wars" — Benkei

And I’m being derogatory.

Of course you are. You can't even muster the respect to actually read what's shared with you.

Because I’m not the one advocating for restrictions and assumed obligations. I’m saying leave people alone because your claims are doubtful. — AJJ

You can't even muster the respect to actually read what's shared with you. — Benkei

The Study Wars began after you refused to read what I’d shared with you.

Dude, I read everything.

Edit: why else do you think I noticed dead links and links to non-peer reviewed papers? Because I didn't read it?

Come on now:

At a glance the studies you’ve shared are models/guesswork.

Here are some actual observations:

An interview with Sunetra Gupta where she speaks about the virus behaving in the same fashion regardless of differing lockdown conditions: https://unherd.com/2020/05/oxford-doubles-down-sunetra-gupta-interview/

Here’s an article referring among other things to the UK death rate falling too soon for lockdown to be the cause: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/no-the-nhs-was-not-overrun-by-covid-during-lockdown/amp

Here’s the initial Imperial College/Neil Ferguson report that scared the West into locking down in the first place (I think the final paragraph is worth drawing your attention to): https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

And here’s an article listing Neil Ferguson’s past (grossly inaccurate) predictions: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/six-questions-that-neil-ferguson-should-be-asked — AJJ

Also note that you have not managed to submit information that's researched and peer reviewed. So my heuristic is to not spend time on reading it. Send a paper how lock downs don't work. — Benkei

Yes, which is completely transparent isn't it? I've read the studies you shared because I don't care about articles that are already coloured by the bias of the newspaper providing them. Especially as a reply to actual studies that you dismissed as "guesswork".

EDIT: Also, as far as Sunetra is concerned, her whole paper was "guessing" as well, trying to see what models could fit the data, which in no way shape or form was a rejection of Neil Ferguson's model. That merely resulted from presenting the results as a dichotomy and the press ran with that. In reality the model has a 95% confidence interval that anywhere between 0.71% to 56% of people were infected as of March 2020 in the UK.

Especially as a reply to actual studies that you dismissed as "guesswork". — Benkei

“Stochastic” is a term derived from a Greek word meaning... “guess”.

Remember?

I responded with information from an Oxford epidemiologist as well as relevant comments and observations from other professionals, including the Imperial College modellers themselves.

Your get-out has been to insist on other information that you can make assertions about; assertions that you expect me to verify for you.

Remember? — AJJ

I do and that reply is silly as can be. You apparently don't understand how stochastic modelling works.

I responded with information from an Oxford epidemiologist as well as relevant comments and observations from other professionals, including the Imperial College modellers themselves.

Your get-out has been to insist on other information that you can make assertions about; assertions that you expect me to verify for you. — AJJ

“Stochastic” is a term derived from a Greek word meaning... “guess”.

Remember? — AJJ

I do and that reply is silly as can be. You apparently don't understand how stochastic modelling works. — Benkei

Well then.

EDIT: Also, as far as Sunetra is concerned, her whole paper was "guessing" as well, trying to see what models could fit the data, which in no way shape or form was a rejection of Neil Ferguson's model. — Benkei

So it appears you have to accept that according to their nature these models aren’t to be relied on.

To reiterate: this isn’t “I’m right” vs “No, you’re wrong”. It’s “I’m right” vs “We can reasonably doubt that you are, so stop bothering people”.

People do things because they consider them worthwhile, in line with their value system and such. Not because something would be a low risk or a high probability of success.
— baker

Fine— and people should get vaccinated for the same reasons. It’s simply irrational not to, at this point. — Xtrix

"Oh, look, a guy on the internet said that it's irrational not to get vaccinated! So let's just all get vaccinated!"

- said noone ever.

Can't you see that calling people "irrational" (etc.) is _not_ serving your purpose (which is to get them vaccinated)?


For the most part, I'm amazed at the uproductive strategies and tactics that the vocal pro-vaccers use, ostensibly to get people vaccinated. Why does someone insist on spitting into the well like that?!

So you empathize more with anti-vaxxers and their concerns than those who are suffering and dying from COVID. Figured as much. Which is why you're a complete waste of time, and probably deserving of the contempt you so quickly project onto others while engaging in it yourself. — Xtrix

You get an A+ for emotional reasoning, that's for sure.

Correct. A lot of Chinese goods are made in prisons and concentration camps. — Apollodorus

But you see no fault in Westerners eagerly buying those goods?

But for Westerners in general to be so naive as to believe that China is the benefactor of the world, seems incomprehensible to me. — Apollodorus

Greed can make people believe all kinds of crazy things.


Make no mistake: I despise China, but I find less fault with China than with the Westeners who in their greed gobble up whatever China throws at them.

So the Westerners cry foul now, with the coronavirus? Why didn't they cry foul when they eagerly imported from China anything from cheap plastic toys to computer chips??!

While I don't think China has leaked the coronavirous, I think they're laughing at the greedy Westerners for being such idiots to eagerly buy trash that even China's poor wouldn't gladly do so.

If these orders entail those things you say are “definitely effective” then why aren’t they associated with reduced mortality? — AJJ

Some EU countries have been trying to scare people into getting vaccinated by making it a policy to publish the daily covid numbers (infected, hospitalized, dead) along with the percentage of the unvaccinated in those numbers.

Too bad that the percentage of the fully vaccinated who get infected, hospitalized, or who die keeps growing.

Just the other day on the Croatian news, the reporter said "Of today's 18 coronavirus deaths, as much as 13 were unvaccinated". No, adding that "as much as" doesn't make it more egregious, but it does make the other number more egregious.

Risk analysis is not perfect, but it's a damn sight more complex than the naïve presentation of national prevalence statistics we see posted here masquerading as serious analysis. — Isaac

Not just here at the forums. More importantly, it's being fed to us by the government. What is worse, we can not communicate with the government, the government does not discuss with us.

You play hard to please. The data is never good enough for you. — Olivier5

Actually, this is part of the standard problem of how statistical data based on large studies is presented by doctors to individual patients. It appears to be a "scientific" way to foster faith.

We don't give a rat's ass. — Olivier5

Riiight.

A brilliant attitude to have for the purpose of fostering trust and encouraging people to act in a way you want them to act. Really.

It seems as though people just want to argue for argument's sake. That's fine -- but not when we have literally millions of people refusing vaccinations during a pandemic because of anti-vaxxer claims and massive amounts of misinformation/manufactured doubt. — Xtrix

Except that you're not actually asking them why they refuse to get vaccinated.

The discussion was about people refusing the vaccine out of fear of risks like stroke and death. Those risks are minuscule -- no matter how you slice the data. They remain so. — Xtrix

Those minuscule risks don't simply translate into minuscule strokes or minuscule deaths.

What's you story Baker? You got yourself vaccinated, then you regretted it?

Because you brought up the fact that people are having strokes. So while you may not make this argument yourself (as I would assume, given you’re vaccinated), I assumed you were bringing it up to demonstrate how others may be reasoning about this. If that’s not true, I wonder why you brought it up at all? — Xtrix

For one, because your position lacks empathy. And while you eagerly claim to empathize with others, it clearly doesn't matter to you whether the person you're supposedly empathizing with experiences you as empathizing or not. You have demonstrated on several occasions that you don't care how you are perceived by others, you don't care about how they feel about you.

Which, at the very least, is a strange position to hold for someone who wants to affect others (ie. get them to get vaccinated).


For two, I myself am not out of the woods. With the Janssen scandal now, who knows what lies in wait for those of us who got vaccinated with it. Of course I'm scared. And what do you have to offer to me as consolation? Luck?!! That it might just be my bad luck that I will get a stroke or some other bad side effect? To say nothing of the repugnant prospect of getting sick and debilitated despite being vaccinated.

But even if we aren’t, it’s a bit disingenuous to say “it’s not my business” and walk away. What exactly are you arguing about on here, then? You go on about “pro-vaxxers” and how bad they are at communicating, but you’re answer is: don’t communicate at all?

I expect the vocal pro-vaccers to offer something of substance that is relevant to people. Ie. that is assessed as relevant by the people, not merely by the vocal pro-vaccers. So far, your camp has offered nothing of this kind.

Getting vaccinated will not bring an added quality to one's life.
— baker

It will.

Only in the administrative sense in countries where there are mandatory covid passports, and being vaccinated makes some things easier as far as those passports are concerned. And in a social sense, insofar as one is trying to avoid being ostracized by one's pro-vaccer friends, family, and acquaintances.

But vaccination itself has no directly observable positive effects. One doesn't get a boost of energy from it; if one already has covid symptoms, getting vaccinated doesn't cure them.

Perhaps if some time after vaccination, one were to deliberately get exposed to the infection and then observe that one hasn't fallen sick, then that could bring added quality to one's life.

But beyond that, the added quality to one's life brought on by vaccination is symbolic and potential at best.

Also, what’s the consolation for the millions who have died of coronavirus?

You need consolation for those people?

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that those who would argue in favor of using government coercion to force people into getting vaccinated, simply do so out of a sense that authority should always be followed.

If governments are acting contrary to human rights, willfully misinforming their populations about the health risks, instating medical apartheid etc. the only people who are not on their hind legs drawing a line are the ones that love authority. If one doesn't draw the line here, I doubt one has a line at all, and will simply "follow orders" (aka the Nuremberg Defense) wherever they may lead.

Historically speaking, the authoritarians are almost always the majority. Why? Perhaps because being under authority provides a sense of safety and stability, and a sense one cannot be held accountable as long as the authorities are responsible. Perhaps it is a natural tendency of the powerless to want to follow authority - If they cannot be powerful themselves, at least they can comfort themselves they're rooting for the winning team, in an attempt to satiate their will to power through a surrogate.

Understanding that 150 out of 10 million is a low risk doesn’t warrant the term “expert,” true. — Xtrix

I have supported them with real data. I cited the study— and there are many more. — Xtrix

The claim of yours I'm disputing is that national prevalence rates are used to assess individual risk even when there are known varibles. So I don't know why you're responding as if I'd questioned your knowledge of what the national prevalence rates are.

The reason you and others continue on like this is because it’s been politicized. — Xtrix

And the reason why you continue on like you do is because you've found a flag you can waive which makes you feel like the virtuous hero with absolutey no risk of ostracisation from your group identity. We could psychoanalyse each other, or we could talk charitably. I don't mind which.

Risk analysis is done using national figures all the time. I did it myself — Xtrix

I'm talking about proper risk analysis, not whatever you just did. My claim is that it's not actually risk-based. What you call it, or think it is, is irrelevant.

Maybe it goes slightly above or below overall numbers — but not by much. Why?

Because 150 strokes out of 10 million people, for example, is astronomically low. — Xtrix

Show me the maths then. What is it about 150/10,000,000 as a prevalence rate which makes it impossible for any cohort to have a high risk. As far as I can see there's a potential cohort of 150 for whom the risk is 1.

If it turns out that 90% of those 150 people were over 65, that’s important to know — no doubt (especially if you’re over 65). Does that significantly change the overall odds? As I mentioned before: no, it doesn’t. It simply means if you’re over 65, you have a slightly greater chance of having a stroke after taking the vaccine. — Xtrix

That is changing the odds. It's literally what changing the odds is. You've taken one odds (the national prevalence), and you've changed them to get the risk for a 65 year old.

it doesn’t change the odds much at all — perhaps by 0.00001% or something to that effect. — Xtrix

For some variables that may well be the case. For others we know it's much higher. Obesity, for example has an OR of over 13. Age above 65 even higher, making your estimate more than a thousand-fold out.

How do I support this claim? With mathematics — which can be checked by everyone. — Xtrix

I've yet to see any mathematics, despite several requests.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that those who would argue in favor of using government coercion to force people into getting vaccinated — Tzeentch

Technically, I'm one of those, but my reason for doing so is that making covid vaccination into an actual law would require a thorough vetting process and a safety net provided for the case of negative side effects of the vaccine and its failure. Which seems to be the best guarantee possible.

Also, it is unfair and dangerous to place the whole burden of responsibility on the people. matters of public health are a complex and urgent matter and shouldn't be left to individuals to decide about.

As things stand, people have as much protection against the negative side effects of the covid vaccine as they have for drugs they'd buy on the street, and as much promise of success.

So you're a protector of the people!

How noble.

Mankind can rest easy, knowing that stalwart proponents of their well-being such as yourself decided that the forced parting with perhaps the most fundamental of human rights, from which many other human rights flow forth, was deemed "in their best interest".

Glad we have folks like that around to tell us when it is time to rewind centuries of enlightened thought to keep us safe from what sensible countries are now treating as a severe flu.

The first virus discovered was the Tobacco Mosaic Virus. Both tobacco (inhaled form - cigarettes, cigars) and pandemic-causing viruses (influenza & COVID-19) attack the respiratory system (lungs). Non-smokers, especially hardcore anti-smoking folks, are put off, even disgusted to the point of retching and vomiting, by the smell of burning tobacco (death sticks) and one of the symptoms of COVID-19 is anosmia (nose malfunction). Coincidence?! :chin:

Does the coronavirus want us to smoke and tolerate smokers?