Am I missing something here? (re: reopening of bars, etc... now)

The Quarantine Zone
621

Two weeks ago I said this:

I didn’t see any responses answer how to objectively measure the effects of shutting down indoor dining. This is an extremely important question that governments should be able to answer. We can’t just say, “Well, it would’ve been worse if we didn’t close it down.” That’s pretty much “begging the question” and “no true Scotsman” fallacies wrapped into one. What if closing indoor dining drove more people towards small, private get-togethers (where 2/3rds of infections occurred, per Lori Lightfoot before the ban)? Anecdotally, I know of a group that was meeting for drinks at a local spot seated next to open windows. They’ve now moved to a closed garage.

I understand the situation is fluid and there are no control groups. But, I’d think by this point of the pandemic we’d have enough data to start teasing out the effects of various policies using tools like multiple linear regression and other statistical techniques.

622

The epidemic started in China. We shut down flights as it spread. What’s your point?

Because it’s been 8 months of economic damage. I would think that obvious.

The Federal Government was trying to reduce exposure at a time when early intervention mattered most. State/local governments were doing the opposite when early intervention would matter most.

623

And if Texas were a country, it would be just below Italy.

We shut down flights from China, but ignored Europe. Then when we decided to include Europe, we left a several day window between announcing it and putting it into effect. And failed to engage in any screening activities on the returning people from Italy. No screening at the airport whatsoever, despite knowing that Italy was in the middle of a growing catastrophe.

My point is you are blaming Chinese Americans for a disease that largely came to this country from Europeans.

So the hits to Asian American businesses that have been going on for longer don’t count? Only white businesses count?

Trump did 1 thing right - attempting to shut down travel. Except he didn’t even do that right, as he left Europe open longer, and when he did start on Europe, had no plan whatsoever for screening or quarantining the incoming people. The Federal Government did jack shit else at reducing exposure.

And as the pandemic ramped up, as cases began to spread through the U.S., they did jack shit to limit that spread, and actively promoted not doing anything to control the spread. Even when the President created a Task Force to address the issue, he then promptly ignored or actively campaigned against their recommendations.

Different state and local governments reacted differently. Some local governments tried to react more strongly, only to be undercut by their governor (witness Texas). Other local governments refused to take the little state guidance they had seriously - say, Rockwall, Texas.

624

If New York was a country it would be 2.3 times worse than Italy. Add New Jersey and the combined area is 4.8 times as deadly as Italy. Both States had a policy of sending covid patients to nursing homes.

No, I’m blaming CHINA where it was deliberately allowed to travel by air while they shut down ground travel.

WOW. First off you divided the world into Asian American and white people which is a simplistic and rather racist view of the world. All the other groups that form New York are non existent. Secondly, you assume other businesses weren’t trashed by the pandemic.

The Federal Government isn’t empowered to to enforce restrictions. It is forbidden to send in troops unless a states requests them. Guidelines were put in place and resources were martialed within the scope of the War Powers Act to make needed medical products and fast-track vaccines. We’re looking at the fastest vaccine response in history by a significant amount. Prior to this the Mumps vaccine was the fastest and it took 4 years to develop.

625

This is the only bit I care to address:

““Nobody knew what they were talking about for a long time. That’s the bottom line here,” he told reporters in New York.”

The whole not long APNews article isn’t that long but it does describe 8 months ago and the findings as of July, 2020.

626

The problem with this experiment is that we are changing several variables at the same time. Then we wonder why we can’t pinpoint which change made the difference.

627

My reading of the situation is that there are underlying factors, the kinds of things that cause stark observable differences between places like the great bulk of the African continent and East and Southeast Asia on the one hand and Europe and the Americas on the other, that outweigh those mitigation efforts so severely as to render them essentially moot. And I think any fair and unbiased analysis – or even simple observation, really – of the measures taken in places all around the world and the data regarding spread in those places would necessarily conclude that there seems to be next to zero correlation.

As for the experts, I’d say that depends very much on who you want to listen to. I’ve certainly not observed them speaking with a singular voice worldwide, or being right all the time when they tend to. If you’re talking about how the virus itself spreads, I’d say there is little disagreement by anyone about that, at least in as much as we’ve managed to peer deeply enough past whatever biological mysteries remain. The physics and biology are the real ‘science’ there. The things like 10 pm curfews are not. Or closing one place when folks can simply go to another. There is no ‘science’ about that. Or at least, not any that has been anywhere near sufficiently executed. All we have are terribly confounded observations and (perhaps misguided) intuition. To the extent that the reputation of real and true science has suffered during this ordeal, perhaps irreversibly on the timescale of at least a generation, it’s because we’re in an age where that kind of stuff passes for ‘the science’ – and, I might add, very loudly so.

628

Why do you say that “real and true” science has suffered? Could you give an example? Are you referring to the people who won’t wear masks and weakly try to say that decision is backed by science?

629

I’ve said, “excuse me, your mask slipped below your nose”, to a lot of people. Maybe you aren’t allowed to say that to customers, but most people i say that to react sheepishly, “uh… It fogs my glasses”, not with hostility. I’ve given out a lot of advice of how to keep your glasses clear. Does it help those people? Probably some of them.

630

I’m lucky in that the only time I wear my glasses during the day is on Sunday. The rest of the week, I have contacts in. My glasses getting fogged up is a great incentive to get what I need and leave the store so I can take the mask off. It’s a good reminder that I already have what I need in my cart and I really don’t need to be milling around looking for something to spend money on.

631

It’s worth noting that the “real and true” science hasn’t suffered, nor has their reputation. It’s just that a lot of people that don’t understand how science works suddenly seem to think they’re the smartest guys in the room. A lot of people, for example, don’t realize that science is all about learning from mistakes and changing your notions based on new observations. It’s not, and shouldn’t be, 100% correct on the first try, every time. We learn by having our beliefs and facts challenged. But you suddenly have the public watching this play out in real time and discrediting people when someone they said one day is shown to be wrong the next day, even though that’s how science has worked since forever.

632

This.

633

I think the harm to the reputation is more about separate issues. While it’s certainly true that the reporting surrounding even the best scientific work often itself leaves a lot to be desired, the bigger problem is that the immense volume of work being reported on includes a lot that is so full of problems that it never should have seen the light of day (nor do I expect it ever would have, in normal times). This problem is being compounded by the apparent certainty with which either the authors of those works themselves or those who write about them seem to have in the infallibility of it all, which runs entirely counter to what you just said.

634

There are huge differences in the comparisons we are making with the one you are making.

I compared San Francisco with the states. San Francisco is a dense and well traveled area, so it should be having more problems with coronavirus than most states. The fact that San Francisco is doing better than most states makes the comparison significant, because it is opposite of the expected outcome.

Someone else compared Texas with Italy. Italy has a much more dense population than Texas and was hit much earlier. Therefore, Italy should have had a much rougher time than Texas concerning coronavirus. The fact that the two are doing roughly the same makes the comparison significant.

You are comparing New York and New Jersey with Italy. The NYC metro area is extremely dense and extremely well traveled. Italy got hit a little earlier, but that fact is not nearly enough to erase the huge advantage that Italy has over those two states. So your comparison is insignificant because those are the expected results. NYC metro SHOULD be doing worse than Italy with respect to coronavirus.

It’s as if I said that someone threw a football worse than Tom Brady. That means nothing because it is to be expected. But if I said someone threw a football better than Peyton Manning, then that would be significant, because there are few people who can.

635

Sure, but this is the real world. You can’t isolate your variables and test them independently of everything else, with a control group and all the other accoutrements of a good scientific experiment.

The best we can do is to identify what might be effective based on knowledge, experience and a little intuition, and then as we learn more, revise the recommendations.

In the context of what @MandaJo and I are saying, here’s how it went historically:

Full shelter-in-place lockdown- roughly about 2-3 weeks starting about March 19th. The transmission rate dropped dramatically here in Texas.

Starting in early-mid April, they started relaxing restrictions gradually. And not surprisingly, case counts and deaths started rising as well, reaching a peak of infections in the last week of July, and deaths peaked about two weeks later.

Meanwhile, seeing this rising case and death count, the governor had enacted a mask mandate of sorts on July 3rd. Not shockingly, the case counts and deaths peaked and started dropping, you guessed it, about six weeks later. He also shut down bars and more tightly restricted restaurants a few days prior to that as well.

They continued to decline until right around, yep, early October, when the state government relaxed the restrictions on bars and restaurants again. And school had started, in-person for more or less half of students a few weeks earlier.

And just like clockwork, the case count numbers have increased dramatically again. And it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the weather or anything like that- here in North Texas, it’s been a surprisingly beautiful Fall, with moderate temps, lots of sun, etc… people are spending MORE time outdoors than in the oppressively hot summer.

So it’s not at all unreasonable to conclude that the determining factor in what’s driving the case counts here is something directly related to how tight or loose the state government’s restrictions are. And that’s why I started the thread- back on Oct 6, with all the public health authorities (Fauci, Hotez, et al) warning us of a hard winter w.r.t. COVID coming up, we had those clowns in Austin loosening the restrictions just in time to ensure that it actually happens. It seemed crazy- my inclination would have been to tighten up hard right about then, and relax/re-tighten as necessary to keep the numbers manageable. But the state government is all about economic issues, and not at all concerned with anything else, so they flat out don’t care.

That said, there does seem to have been a sort of sea change in people’s attitudes in about September, where people seem to have just accepted that this virus is out there, and they may get it, and YOLO! I don’t know how to combat that; it seems to be primarily driven by some sort of combination of selfishness and stupidity.

636

And just sheer exhaustion. And the realization of the fact that young people are overwhelmingly going to be fine if they get it (yes, I know there are exceptions, long-haulers, and uncertainties about long-term effects, but the vast, vast majority of young folks who get it seem to be just fine).

I’m only now really beginning to come to grips with the toll isolation is taking on my immediate family, and it’s high. Not seeing my parents/siblings/very-elderly-grandma at all over the upcoming holidays is going to be extremely difficult. As much as my wife and I enjoy each other’s company, not spending time with other adults is like not sleeping…it builds up over time and we get more and more desperate.

It’s hard for me to judge too harshly somebody who decides it’s all just not worth it.

637

This is really that time when people have to wear their big-kid pants and suck it up. Not socializing in person isn’t the end of the world for another nine months, if it means that we can keep a lot of elderly and vulnerable people from getting it.

I, for my part, would rather put up with another year of this stuff than risk being a link in the chain of infection that might get someone’s parent or grandparent killed as a result of the virus. I’m not so selfish that I can’t do without eating at restaurants or drinking in bars for as long as is necessary.

And nobody’s saying you have to be a shut-in, just that if you do socialize with others, do it socially distanced and wearing masks. And if you can’t manage that, then that IS stupidity and selfishness, no matter how much fatigue is going on.

638

Well said there @bump.

For my part …
Lots of Europeans put up with between 4 and 7 years of WWII happening in their town. And after 4-7 months most Americans are tapping out? Many of whom have declined to be inconvenienced from the git-go?

So much for the land of the brave. Land of spoiled weaklings is more like it.

639

What would it have looked like if Europeans had not put up with it? I’m not sure anyone has successfully made the case, or possibly could, that the virus is in the same category as whatever the things were that we fought a world war about, but all that aside, I’m curious what that would have looked like.

640

The analogy, like all analogies, only goes so far. Because the European citizens in WWII had no choice in the matter–they had war forced upon them.

But consider the Americans and Canadians (among others) who made the policy decision to join the war and later invade the Continent even thought they were under no immediate threat themselves.

They sacrificed tens of thousands of lives and incredible sums of money to fight fascism across the ocean. What would it had looked like if they had not “put up with it”? Not good, I’d say.

They were called “The Greatest Generation”. What will today’s selfish science-deniers be known as?

Ooooh! It could be a whole separate thread just coming up with disparaging names for the knuckle-draggers that are killing people.