Errata: That was supposed to be “hiding temperature decreases”, not increases.
You’re taking this somewhere I’m not comfortable with. I’m happy to let it go. I’ll keep an eye on the numbers to see if my opinion changes, and I’ll keep a good hope for the hospitals that are presently in the weeds (of which I’m sure there are very many).
Let’s not forget that interest groups out there are usually the first to manage to spin information to people in government. Jim Desmond might not even be the source, but that misleading talking point about the ICU capacity is more likely to come from powerful interests out there that do want to manipulate the narrative. Desmond comes from a military and business background, his opinion is just as valid as mine or others that are not involved in hospital matters and his opinions are clearly easy to manipulate by the people he does get information from.
That is why we should realize that we should not give any power to people that are easily misled as they influence others.
The Alaska governor Sarah Palin, in the Washington Post on 9 December, attacked the emailers as a “highly politicised scientific circle” who “manipulated data to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperatures”. She was joined by the Republican senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma – who has for years used his chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee to campaign against climate scientists and to dismiss anthropogenic global warming as “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”. During the Copenhagen climate conference, which he attended on a Senate delegation, he referred to Jones’s “hide the decline” quote and said: “Of course, he means hide the decline in temperatures.”
This is nonsense. Given the year the email was written, 1999, it cannot be anything of the sort. At that time there was no suggestion of a decline in temperatures. The previous year was the warmest on record. The full email from Jones says: "I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith [Briffa]'s, to hide the decline."The decline being referred to was an apparent decline in temperatures shown in analysis of tree rings, which have historically correlated well with changes in temperature. That relationship has broken down in the past half century. The reasons are still debated.
Similarly, Hospitals are not really spinning, they are following procedures that for sure had been set thanks to past historical precedents. The FUD pushers out there are busy sending misleading tweeter links to influencers out there, and those non experts just copy and paste.
Just for some context, here’s some backstory. In the beginning of the pandemic, the state of California offered some general guidelines, but mostly the counties decided on how they would handle the pandemic. There are a LOT of counties in CA. It started to become clear that if one county decided not to enforce covid restrictions, the surrounding counties would suffer from covid in their area.
When the virus started to ramp up, the governor decided to carve the state into regions so that one county’s (lack of) rules didn’t affect the surrounding counties.
San Diego county is in the SoCal region with LA County. This politician from San Diego county is not happy about that because the SoCal region just got restricted to indefinite stay at home orders because of the situation in LA County. This guy in San Diego county is saying that they shouldn’t be restricted to those rules because it’s LA County that is having the problems. San Diego county now has less power to make its own rules about their stay at home orders. San Diego has railed against being lumped in with LA since forever. But this is why the regions were created, so that counties couldn’t open up and add more infection to the region.
In the comments of that tweet, (where there was a lot of hate for that guy), it was pointed out that the capacity of the San Diego county hospitals is less than 100 beds.
The headlines are accurate. SoCal has 0% capacity on average. The politician was just saying that he didn’t want San Diego to be lumped into that average.
Since the tweet, a man in San Diego who has not traveled outside the country and who has only seen his family has tested positive for the UK variant which is more contagious.
That stay at home order won’t be ending any time soon.
Great video. I also enjoyed his conversation with Dr. Fauci.
That’s not at all what I said. I said that the fact that people can figure out ways to violate group size limitations and social gatherings doesn’t justify keeping venues open. Just like the fact that teenagers get ahold of weed and beer and other alcohol doesn’t justify making it legal for them to drink and get high.
It’s not about controlling sex or kissing, for Pete’s sake. It’s about controlling spread of an airborne disease. Closing social venues is done to discourage crowds forming at social venues. Crowd size limitations are done to prevent superspreader events. People choosing to not comply with recommendations or local ordinances limiting gatherings are a risk. The fact that people will choose to go to a giant biker rally or a Halloween dance party shows that people don’t have the best judgment. That does not justify keeping venues open during a raging pandemic.
And again I will point out that I am in favor of financial support to keep those venues alive and well for their eventual return. So there is no need to justify their existence, their existence should be protected. Just not their current participation.
No, I don’t think most restaurant or bar owners want their customers to get sick and spend time in the hospital or die. I think some don’t believe that their customers will get sick from coming to their venue. But there are a few who do violate the rules, and some that might comply when required by statute and licensing but don’t believe the disease is particularly dangerous - “It’s just a flu.”
There is also the problem that being open can create crowds by those waiting in line or in the streets to get in. Only 10 people in the restaurant but 40 waiting outside to get in is only a bit better than 50 inside the restaurant.
The only people I see trying to violate the Constitution are the Republicans, but that is on the election, not on the pandemic.
The quote from the Supreme Court:
Nothing in there about limiting that to vaccines or to omitting masks from that determination.
Or is this the remark to which you are reacting?
Simple statement. I assume you are objecting to the assertion that the people fighting masks and curfews are seeking anarchy. You are probably right about their motivation, but not the result. My liberties intrude on your liberties, where do we draw the lines? Letting everyone decide for themselves is anarchy.
That can be overused, but it is often accurate. There are people loudly protesting the wearing of masks. Is that pro or anti science? There are people saying this is just a flu, no more deadly than usual. Is that pro or anti science? There are people actively trying to spread the disease to push herd immunity. Is that pro or anti science? Okay, that last is more about opinion than fact on what’s the best approach to getting through the pandemic. How about someone arguing that 350,000 deaths this year from Covid and 125,379 hospitalizations on Dec. 31 just from Covid is normal? Arguing that workloads for hospitals is at normal levels for this time of year despite health care workers decrying having been working for 250+ days straight, or working while sick with covid themselves? Hospitals cutting elective surgeries and postponing care for other ailments to keep beds free for covid -is it anti science to argue that because there are still beds free that the surge is being exaggerated?
I’m willing to address the political and social arguments as policy disputes, but many of the attitudes that support some of those positions are rooted in a lack of science awareness or appreciation, based on ideas that are just false.
Mortuaries are turning away customers - they are too busy to serve everyone.
This rationale is not entirely thought through. It’s not enough to end the reasoning at “discourage crowds forming at social venues”. What you’d need to demonstrate is that discouraging crowds at social venues results in markedly less spread of disease.
I realize that to many people on this board it appears patently obvious on its face that closing any venue necessarily results in less disease, but to me it appears far from it. I contend it may well be the case that those people who will avoid closed social venues will pick up the virus at other venues that are not closed, that closing social venues is at best a half-measure, and that in this case half is all it takes. (In other words, once you get infected once, you’re infected, and it doesn’t do you any good to avoid multiple places that would have got you if just one will do.)
As far as I can see, the virus has been able to name its score on every single playing field in the United States, regardless any human efforts to stop it. It looks to me like it is just that contagious, at least under certain climatic conditions, and that no lockdown measures anywhere have been successful in sustaining indefinitely the delay of its spread. I don’t see anything that is working, apart from the human immune system.
If that’s true, then I think one should have a high burden of proof before unilaterally and arbitrarily closing one industry or another, given the lives and livelihoods at stake, not to mention the intangible losses to our communities in the way of culture and the arts. And I haven’t seen anything that meets that burden of proof.
And if you disagree with all of that, then I think it is entirely fair to ask how you explain away Florida, who Fauci said was “asking for trouble” when they re-opened but now seems in better shape than California, which is shut the hell down and has been for a while. I mean, if having social venues open is demonstrably relatively dangerous, and having them closed is demonstrably less so, then why isn’t that being demonstrated in Florida and California?
At what point do the “anti-science” accusers need to explain why the science, meaning the data, doesn’t support their point of view? If NPIs work, then at what point can we expect to see evidence they are working? It’s been nearly a year already. There is a mountain of evidence that would suggest, very strongly, that they don’t.
Nah what is not working are the sources you are depending of, for starters missing that lockdowns did work, but then the easing of them led to what we are seeing now. One should realize that it was the less scientific based side the one that demanded and got the easing of restrictions, with the expected results.
The main argument I see here is like insisting that the other shoe falling was not noted, that is about how much worse it can be with no restrictions. That can not be cavalierly ignored as your argument insists.
Just to point out, you seem to think that the pandemic policymakers must have a high standard of proof - evidence for which has been provided many times by many posters, and in the next turn you mention “the intangible losses to our communities” which by definition is exactly the opposite of proof - by your own words those losses are intangible - so to reverse the irresponsibility of your postings - those that advocate no control measures and huge resultant increase in deaths - this is all for “intangible losses” - we are supposed to watch perhaps millions die when we absolutely have the proof and evidence to prevent it, in order to prevent - as you state - “intangible losses”
We trade real lives for “intangible losses”? Really?
At least we now see your agenda, its pretty clear that you enjoy the prospect of lots of deaths and damage that we can prevent, and its clear that you cannot evidence the losses.
You are not irresponsible, no - you are far worse than that.
I don’t see any single bit of proof that you can prevent it, as you say. How many deaths were recorded in California today? Like 500? How does that possibly happen, with no live events, no gatherings, no indoor or outdoor dining, no in-person schooling, working from home, high mask compliance, and on and on? If the deaths are preventable, why aren’t the measures preventing them?
If you have a hard time with the idea that certain things are hard to measure and you think they aren’t worth considering for that reason, then fine, leave culture and the arts out of it. We can concentrate on the loss of lives and livelihoods, with all the attendant public health threats that are universally accepted to come along with the latter. Those ought to be tangible enough for you, even if they too are a bit hard to measure. And there’s certainly plenty enough destruction there to consider.
…and yet despite acknowledging that some things are hard to measure - specifically your intagibles, you fail to accept the things we can measure and for which we have hard evidence.
Isn’t it interesting that your position happens to be to ignore all that hard evidence in favour of supporting those ‘intangibles’ all the while you blithely ignore the hard evidence of the fact that restrictions of movement and socialising has had a provable effect on transimission of this virus. Why is it that all those restrictions have been imposed in other parts of the world, including the most populous nation on earth, and yet somehow in the wealthiest nation on earth it is somehow unprovable and impossible?
Your view has been contrary and that is not an issue - we should discuss contrary positions in order to test the evidence - however you have conveniently ignored robust evidence time after time in favour of an option that you have acknowledged right now that is difficult to measure, whose outputs are in your own words - not certain.
What you are doing is long after contrary views have been debunked, yours is the view that we should adopt measures that will kill, and will cause prolonged injury and suffering and yet you persist in presenting us with misleading, frequently out of date or out of context information - you have done this time after time until you have been booted out of various threads on this matter - and yet when presented with the opportunity to defend your stance you have signally failed to attend.
If you are so absolutely certain, then you can furnish us with your credentials and back up your authority on these matters - you see the balance is, all the evidence supplied in the form of cites from highly respected sources, versus your unspecified but higlhy likely complete ignorance.
So, go to the pit thread that is named for you and present us with your clear vision and some evidence of your superior knowledge.
Should you decide not to do this I leave it to others to draw their own conclusion - perhaps you can call me out too because I am calling you for what you are, a denier, distorter, deciever, a liar and all these tools are being used by you - a person who enjoys the pandemic and would like to see more deaths than necassary.
Now go to the pit thread ands face your accusers - you have refused so far despite several invitations and you leave no other options.
What I’m telling you is that the ‘hard evidence’ is in the case and death numbers. I’m not ignoring those. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m looking at that hard evidence and concluding that the policies do…not…work. What other hard evidence do you think it would be better to look at? What other hard evidence would be more relevant?
You said I have “the view that we should adopt measures that will kill”. No, no. I have the view that we are adopting measures that are killing. I have the view that we should not be adopting such measures. Those are two radically different ideas. Radically different. My view is that we have made this entire situation so much worse than it had to be, by our own hands. I am not advocating for the adoption of any policy at all. I’m advocating for our getting out of our own way.
…you need to be much more specific here. Because the epidemiological basis for how lockdowns break the chain of community transmission is pretty crystal clear. You can’t conflate a Victoria-style lockdown with what is happening in LA right now. The differences are specific and important. For starters look at the contact tracing: Victoria have been contact tracing close contacts at 100% within 24 hours for a long time now, in Los Angeles that figure is at 53%. Australia gnomic sequences 58% of reported cases. New Zealand 48%. The United States 0.3%.
You can’t claim “policies” doesn’t work without being specific about what policy you are talking about. There are a number of factors as to why Los Angeles is spinning out of control and Newsom & Co are directly responsible for many of them. But that doesn’t mean that lockdowns don’t work.
So is it your contention that people are disregarding the intent of the closures to create alternate venues? Or are you trying to assert that shopping in a grocery store masked is just as risky as drinking and dancing at a club?
Ah, so you are deriding half-measures. I take it then that you advocate a hard shut down to get control, followed by aggressive contact tracing and quarantining - not mere self-isolation if you feel like it, but actual quarantining?
Or is it your contention that half measures are inadequate, so we should do nothing?
What, specifically, would you recommend to reduce the hospitalizations and deaths until we get the vaccines widely distributed?
Moderator Note
This kind of personal attack is out of line for this forum. Whether of not the poster chooses to engage in the Pit thread, you are still not allowed personal attacks here. Address the posts, and not the poster.
Colibri
QZ Moderator
When the poster emits a continual stream of misinformation and bad-faith arguments, what point is there in addressing the posts?
No one who thinks lockdowns have been a spectacular failure needs to resort to anything remotely approaching misinformation, because the hard evidence for it is plain sight for everyone to see.
On the contrary, I would ask what kind of information you think there is that positively demonstrates lockdowns have been ‘worth it’? As far as I can tell, all you have is the argument that ‘it could have been worse’. Well, if that’s all you’d have, then I suppose we can agree to disagree, because I find ‘it could have been worse’ just as close to ‘misinformation’ and ‘bad faith’ as ‘we’re screwing ourselves and fooling ourselves that it’s helping’.
If blind faith is what passes for good faith in this anti-evidence day and age, then you can have it.
If you would find that unlikely, can you explain why? In scientific terms, I mean. If I find it a plausible enough hypothesis to explore, can you imagine why? In scientific terms, I mean.
It seems to me that none of this has been proven yet – or really, much of anything about this virus and its transmission. Seems that hundreds or even thousands of scientists are busy writing papers and doing studies and trying to figure it all out. But having said that, everything starts from a hypothesis, right? When I look at how widespread the virus has become in many places, and seemingly especially in places where people live and work in crowded conditions, my first inclination is not to suspect that singing and dancing in the club after 10 pm is our main culprit, if you know what I mean.
When half the people in a place have contracted the thing, then I want to start looking at where half the people in a place go. And I just don’t think the nightclub is that kind of place. But I’m happy to consider your argument for why it could be.
There is none. Leave him(?) to pollute unopposed at his own pace. If that’s too hard for you to watch, there is an ignore-this-poster feature that works pretty darn well.
Then ignore the poster. There is no legal requirement to continue arguing with them. Any further discussion of moderation should go in ATMB.