The Politics of Covid 19, mask wearing and the vaccination process

[LawBeefaroni]

During bad flu seasons on the oast we asked people to mask and no one ever had any problem with it. Now? Everyone's an infectious disease expert.

Did we? Not sure who the "we" is, but pre-covid I'm not aware of anyone masking or being asked to mask. There was masking and mask requirements during the Spanish Flu, but that led to massive backlash then as well.

"We" being hospitals/doctors' offices. Not uncommon for visitors to be asked to mask during heavy flu seasons.

Well it wasn't uncommon. Now? It's probably some reason to revolt.

[LordMortis]

During bad flu seasons on the oast we asked people to mask and no one ever had any problem with it. Now? Everyone's an infectious disease expert.

Did we? Not sure who the "we" is, but pre-covid I'm not aware of anyone masking or being asked to mask. There was masking and mask requirements during the Spanish Flu, but that led to massive backlash then as well.

My private practice GP offered and suggested them. No one I ever saw took them up on it.

[Defiant]

Excess Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the COVID-19 Pandemic

We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats. Post- vaccines, the excess death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats widened from 1.6 pp (22% of the Democrat excess death rate) to 10.4 pp (153% of the Democrat excess death rate). The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available.

https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1 ... 8121737216

[LawBeefaroni]

Excess Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the COVID-19 Pandemic

We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats. Post- vaccines, the excess death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats widened from 1.6 pp (22% of the Democrat excess death rate) to 10.4 pp (153% of the Democrat excess death rate). The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available.

https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1 ... 8121737216

Yeah, but when Bill Gates activate the microchips, only the unvaxed Republicans will be left standing.



On a serious note, anyone who went unvaxed and survived will see their continued existence as proof that they were right. That's how these things work. Nevermind the number of dead around them.

[Kurth]

A Public Health Success Story.

From the NYT morning newsletter, some interesting — and positive — analysis on the efforts to combat racial disparities in COVID impacts. According to this piece, despite early lack of vaccine access and vaccine skepticism among minority populations, that has largely been overcome for some time now: “The overall Black and Latino [death rates] rates have been generally lower than the white rate for more than a year.”

“The inequities have largely dissipated in recent weeks and months, even after adjusting for age,” Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist who writes a popular newsletter, told me. “This is absolutely a success story about public health: Targeted, local outreach and stakeholder engagement and investment can overcome decades of health inequities.”

…

If you listen to much of the public discussion about Covid, however, you still might not know about the change in the racial gaps. You might be unaware of a public health success story, with potential lessons for reducing the country’s other stark racial inequities — in incomes, housing, education, criminal justice, the medical system and many other realms.

There are even lessons for future Covid policy. Absent a continued effort, racial gaps could open in booster rates or access to Paxlovid, a drug that reduces Covid symptoms.

There seem to be multiple reasons that the Covid story has been mostly overlooked. In our polarized country, many conservatives are reluctant to call attention to any accomplishment of Biden’s. Many liberals, meanwhile, feel uncomfortable calling attention to any decline in racial or economic inequity, because they worry it minimizes those problems. Some liberals have also been hesitant to talk about positive Covid news, believing that the country is still too blasé about the virus.

But it should be possible to acknowledge the full picture. For all of the misery that Covid has brought, it has also become a case study that should remind us racial injustice can sometimes be overcome.

[Smoove_B]

I'm sure you won't be surprised, but that article is getting pilloried by the public health community for being disingenuous as hell, submitted by a NYT author that has been the worst regarding COVID-19 coverage for 2+ years.

Here's another take:

https://twitter.com/Lakshmi_RKG/status/ ... 9581244421

WHCOS claims “We built our Covid response with equity at the heart of it” in the Morning Newsletter today. If this were true, the disproportionate no. of Black/Hispanic/AIAN people we have lost under this admin's watch would still be here. As @asosin notes, such proclamations gloss over historical and persisting inequities in multiple realms including booster uptake, testing, and treatments. Such proclamations also gloss over disparities in non-death outcomes. And this is objectively documented. Example 1: Disparities in receipt of monoclonal antibodies (when we still had variants that they were active against). Example 2: The disproportionate hospitalizations among Black New Yorkers compared to White New Yorkers during the Omicron surge. Example 3: While data is limited, more recent analysis shows that disparities in access to COVID-19 persist among the potentially highest risk and highest need counties (counties that are majority Black, Hispanic and AIAN). And where oh where is there any mention of the unequal burden of Long COVID and disparities in access to care for Black/Hispanic and AIAN people ? And the most glaring omission of all: the substantial declines in life expectancy with disparities in this measure worsening in the pandemic. AIAN people have seen a six-year drop in life expectancy. The morning newsletter has long been a bullhorn for the admin. So this piece is not entirely unexpected. That said, re-iterating proclamations of "absolutely a success story" within the piece deserves greater interrogation which I hope this thread has done in part.

[Smoove_B]

If you want something more biting, read up on what Gregg Gonsalves has to say:

https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/stat ... 2973241344

.@DLeonhardt loves to go on about how all but him have a political bias that he is here to correct. But he does work this morning to quietly announce that the pandemic is essentially over for everyone, including people of color. It is a piece of political work. It is an agenda.

[Kurth]

I don’t know, Smoove. I just don’t get it: I read that NYT morning newsletter piece to be saying two things: (1) at the beginning of the pandemic, in part due to inequitable policy, vaccination rates were horribly skewed against minorities and they were dying in far greater numbers than white populations; and (2) through education, outreach, and better policy, those vaccination rates have been addressed and we’re now seeing death rates that are equally low.

I don’t understand how that’s not good news or how that newsletter merits being pilloried.

[Smoove_B]

I think part of it is knowing that this whole time Leonhardt has been complaining about over-reactions to COVID - that it's harmless in kids, that Omicron was mild, that all of our early responses to COVID increased suicides, etc...

So the idea that this morning he's trumpeting the success of the White House is...odd. Why, all of a sudden is he now thinking our COVID mitigations have been great? Could it be because it helps the narrative that COVID is over and we all need to just continue to ignore what's still happening?

Case in point:

https://twitter.com/JuliaRaifman/status ... 7216192513

Racial and ethnic disparities in COVID deaths continue, shaped by policy choices like not having workplace safety standards

Native American, Black, and Hispanic people continue to have highest death rates, especially at young ages (best to standardize to age-group, here: 50-64)

Have there been improvements since March of 2020? Undoubtedly. But what we're seeing now is messaging suggesting that it's over - we're done. No more action is necessary because everything is fine. Public health academics and practitioners en masse are saying, hold up - that's not the case at all. This isn't over and we shouldn't be acting like it is - despite active efforts to message it.

I genuinely think the current Administration is going "All-in" on hybrid immunity for this coming Winter, believing that the Omicron wave that caused ~20K deaths in a single week in February of this year and the BA.5 wave that just passed through in July infected enough people that this winter won't be as bad. They've more or less accepted the Great Barrington declaration nonsense that infection is the key to ending this and the more people that are infected, the better off we all are; it's insane.

To go back to the disparities, from a late August report from the KFF:

In sum, these data show that, overall, Black, Hispanic, and AIAN people have experienced higher rates of COVID-19 infection and death compared to White people when accounting for age differences across racial and ethnic groups. The age-adjusted data also suggest that while these disparities have narrowed at times over the course of the pandemic, people of color are disproportionately impacted by surges caused by new variants, with disparities widening during these periods.

In short, as we continue to "lower the bar" by removing funding, access to testing, workplace and social protections, etc... the groups that have historically experienced the most negative impacts continue to experience the most negative impacts to a greater degree.

EDIT: Not necessarily racial disparity focused, but what we're really seeing now is this cycle of "But they're saying..." happening between businesses and the federal government. As noted above in workplaces, this feeds into disparity, but it's not exclusively affecting historically marginalized groups. Here, businesses (including schools) are saying, "The CDC is telling us you can come back after 5 days. Are you not coming back after 5 days? Because if so, you're fired." Same with schools - can't come in after 5 days? Now you're truant. The relationship between what the federal government is pushing and what's happening in communities and businesses all over America is striking. I've just seen it with my employer. Out of nowhere they randomly declared masking was no longer required - having previously decided it was mandatory in specific locations. But that kind of policy flies in the face of "everything is fine" as schools and businesses throughout the state lower the bar.

Let's see what happens in the days and weeks after 11/8. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm terminally cynical at this point. But I really can't help but think all of this is coordinated to boost chances on election day.

[Kurth]

I think part of it is knowing that this whole time Leonhardt has been complaining about over-reactions to COVID - that it's harmless in kids, that Omicron was mild, that all of our early responses to COVID increased suicides, etc...

So the idea that this morning he's trumpeting the success of the White House is...odd. Why, all of a sudden is he now thinking our COVID mitigations have been great? Could it be because it helps the narrative that COVID is over and we all need to just continue to ignore what's still happening?

I've been following Leonhardt throughout, and, not a shocker, I've generally felt like he's tried to have a rational and data-driven approach to the pandemic. I know that's not a take that is going to have much support here, but there it is, for transparency.

I don't understand why you'd think he's being disingenuous here. He's always been very much pro-vaccination, so why does it seem surprising that he's trumpeting reversals in the racial vaccination disparities we were seeing earlier and celebrating that as a public health victory? I don't see him saying anything in that piece about our COVID mitigations, generally. As I read it, it's all about vaccination rates and deaths.

Also, I'm sorry, but WTF is an AIAN person? I've seen that term thrown around a bunch now, and I googled it and google just seemed to think I was misspelling Asian (thanks a lot google).

[Isgrimnur]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIAN_(U.S._Census)

[Smoove_B]

AIAN = American Indian and Alaska Native.

Many of the acronyms come from surveys where demographic data is self-reported - how people identify themselves.

I appreciate the heads up and acknowledge that my perspectives (hopefully, clearly) are coming from a very different spot. He's a known "influencer" with COVID-19, so it's not a surprise he's trumpeting the current message. Please consider this piece from Februrary:

“Many liberals have spent two years thinking of COVID mitigations as responsible, necessary, even patriotic. This attitude has become part of their identity,” Leonhardt told me. This was a good thing earlier in the pandemic, leading to high vaccine uptake, masking, and compliance with social distancing and lockdowns. But thanks to vaccination and the cresting Omicron variant, the costs of liberal caution — he cites “mental-health problems, anger, frustration, isolation, drug overdoses, vehicle crashes, violent crime, learning loss, student misbehavior” — have begun to outweigh the benefits. Leonhardt, who has described his journalistic colleagues as having a “bad-news bias,” sees his role as being an implicit corrective to some of the more alarmist coverage showing up elsewhere in traditional media and even in the Times itself.

This position has enraged some readers — doctors, scientists, and journalists among them — who believe it’s absurd to call for a return to normal when, according to the Times, around 2,000 people are dying from COVID each day. “Leonhardt is one of the key pundits leading the charge of those who want to declare unilateral surrender to COVID-19,” Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, told me. In a January 26 appearance on The Daily, Leonhardt pressed his case that America is at a “pivot point” in which COVID “goes from being this horrible, deadly, life-dominating pandemic to something that is more endemic — to something that looks more like things that we deal with all the time without shutting down daily life, like the flu.” He cited the results of a poll, conducted by his staff and Morning Consult, purporting to show that while older Republicans remain irrationally unafraid of COVID, younger and vaccinated Democrats are irrationally overcautious about it. The episode produced a wave of denunciation online. “What we learn from this episode is not really what Americans think about the pandemic, but rather Leonhardt’s flawed interpretations thereof,” began a viral tweet thread by Cecília Tomori, a public-health scholar at Johns Hopkins. “People cannot simply navigate an infectious disease based on their own individual risk (even if it was fully known) — they are part of all the complex networks. They make decisions in relation to one another.”

He has his opinions. That he gets to megaphone them out as "normal" or "right" as some type of authority on the issue is the problem. More to the point:

Lately, Leonhardt has served as a sort of Rorschach test for liberal America. For those who are healthy and ready to move on with their lives — or those who, by choice or necessity, already have — his message is comforting and authorizes their behavior, their exhaustion, and even their resentment toward those who still insist on caution. For others, Leonhardt is a dangerous font of wishful thinking: a Pied Piper leading the nation’s liberal elites into a self-satisfied state of necro-normalcy in which thousands of lives are disposable. These disagreements are as much about how we should regard all this suffering as they are about how we may prevent it.

[Smoove_B]

An analysis of the costs (because sometimes people are only motivated by cost), provided by the Commonwealth Fund:

"If 80% of eligible people receive their new COVID vaccine, it would prevent about 90,000 deaths, more than 936,000 hospitalizations & prevent $56 billion in medical costs in the next six months compared with the baseline current vaccine uptake scenario.”

So, divide let's say $50 billion among the American population that's eligible and pay them to vaccinate or show proof of vaccination. Or just focus on people younger than 55 (because we already give those seniors too damn much!). Savings of 6 billion dollars!

[LawBeefaroni]

The owner of 2 safety net hospitals in Chicago/metro just declared chapter 11. The Medicare/Medicaid mix of those two ways costing the system $70m/year.

Costs are killing providers and it's only going to get worse. Contrary to popular belief, a ton of sick people isn't a boon to healthcare systems. What happens when no one can afford to see Medicaid or *gasp* Medicare patients?

[Smoove_B]

Our world in COVID-19 data, part whatever

https://twitter.com/MackayIM/status/1578237325187854336

Imagine being from the west and implying that Japan needs to get with the program and stop being unnecessarily cautious.

"Many Japanese are still reluctant to go unmasked."

"Why get a face lift when you can get a face covering?"

...and Tawian, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia?
All made early effective efforts to reduce transmission and thus death, until vaccination could be rolled out.

All coming from this article:

[Victoria Raverna]

I don't think Singapore was a country that made effective efforts to reduce transmission before vaccination could be rolled out.

Cases per population number for Singapore was not very good and is still not very good.

Their population size is less than 6 millions. The total cases almost reached 2 millions.

On the other hand, they are very good at death prevention.

With almost 2 millions case, their death is less than 1700. Only less than 0.1% of those got COVID-19 in Singapore died.

Compare to USA. Over 1% of those that got COVID-19 died.

You have 10 times the chance to survive if you got COVID-19 in SIngapore than in US but not many countries can match Singapore's death prevention effort.

[El Guapo]

I don't think Singapore was a country that made effective efforts to reduce transmission before vaccination could be rolled out.

Cases per population number for Singapore was not very good and is still not very good.

Their population size is less than 6 millions. The total cases almost reached 2 millions.

On the other hand, they are very good at death prevention.

With almost 2 millions case, their death is less than 1700. Only less than 0.1% of those got COVID-19 in Singapore died.

Compare to USA. Over 1% of those that got COVID-19 died.

You have 10 times the chance to survive if you got COVID-19 in SIngapore than in US but not many countries can match Singapore's death prevention effort.

Any sense of why Singapore was so good at preventing deaths pre-vaccines? Better medical care? Healthier underlying population? Some mix?

[Smoove_B]

Any sense of why Singapore was so good at preventing deaths pre-vaccines? Better medical care? Healthier underlying population? Some mix?

Singapore is one of a few nations that has exceptional contact tracing and then followup investigations, quarantine/isolation and case support. Unlike here in 'Merica where contact tracers were ignore, derided, hung up on, etc... better support for these actions allowed them to stem localized outbreaks more efficiently.

I'm a bit out of my depth here as global public health isn't my bag, but I do know that their overall success (early on) was attributed to much more proactive (and integrated) public health planning and controls than most countries.

[Victoria Raverna]

I don't think Singapore was a country that made effective efforts to reduce transmission before vaccination could be rolled out.

Cases per population number for Singapore was not very good and is still not very good.

Their population size is less than 6 millions. The total cases almost reached 2 millions.

On the other hand, they are very good at death prevention.

With almost 2 millions case, their death is less than 1700. Only less than 0.1% of those got COVID-19 in Singapore died.

Compare to USA. Over 1% of those that got COVID-19 died.

You have 10 times the chance to survive if you got COVID-19 in SIngapore than in US but not many countries can match Singapore's death prevention effort.

Any sense of why Singapore was so good at preventing deaths pre-vaccines? Better medical care? Healthier underlying population? Some mix?

It is possible early on the ones that got sick are younger people. So in a sense, they managed to reduce transmission to their older population. Later COVID-19 also reached their older population but by then they have vaccines.

[Victoria Raverna]

Any sense of why Singapore was so good at preventing deaths pre-vaccines? Better medical care? Healthier underlying population? Some mix?

Singapore is one of a few nations that has exceptional contact tracing and then followup investigations, quarantine/isolation and case support. Unlike here in 'Merica where contact tracers were ignore, derided, hung up on, etc... better support for these actions allowed them to stem localized outbreaks more efficiently.

I'm a bit out of my depth here as global public health isn't my bag, but I do know that their overall success (early on) was attributed to much more proactive (and integrated) public health planning and controls than most countries.

I don't think that can explain their much lower death rate. With all their exceptional contact tracing, they still have almost 2 millions cases with population of less than 6 millions. So on average 1 in 3 got COVID-19.

Their success is not preventing people from getting COVID-19 but to reduce the death rate among people that got COVID-19.

I previously thought SIngapore has good medical care coverage but turned out they are on the lower side compare to other developed countries.

Singapore has a ratio of 1 hospital for more than 220,000 Singaporeans

[Smoove_B]

I don't think that can explain their much lower death rate. With all their exceptional contact tracing, they still have almost 2 millions cases with population of less than 6 millions. So on average 1 in 3 got COVID-19.

I'd have to rely on experts here, but my impression is that their healthcare system (and preventative health in general) is at a better level than America. I am not sure if baseline health for populations is the same (or how it looks when standardized) but I also know American healthcare (broadly) is pretty far down the list when you start comparing it to what happens around the globe in comparable nations.

EDIT: For your link, that's health care, but they also do more for preventative health (and public health) meaning their healthcare (medical treatment needs) are lower. I dunno. Definitely not an expert by any means here.

So it could be a lot of things. We'll be looking at data for a decade+, I'm sure trying to analyze what happens. Well...assuming we make it.

[Zaxxon]

I don't think that can explain their much lower death rate. With all their exceptional contact tracing, they still have almost 2 millions cases with population of less than 6 millions. So on average 1 in 3 got COVID-19.

This is tangential to your question, but 1 in 3 is waaaaayyyy lower than in the US. Night and day lower.

[Victoria Raverna]

I don't think that can explain their much lower death rate. With all their exceptional contact tracing, they still have almost 2 millions cases with population of less than 6 millions. So on average 1 in 3 got COVID-19.

I'd have to rely on experts here, but my impression is that their healthcare system (and preventative health in general) is at a better level than America. I am not sure if baseline health for populations is the same (or how it looks when standardized) but I also know American healthcare (broadly) is pretty far down the list when you start comparing it to what happens around the globe in comparable nations.

So it could be a lot of things. We'll be looking at data for a decade+, I'm sure trying to analyze what happens. Well...assuming we make it.

Their hospital coverage is also on the low side compare to other developed countries. Or maybe they don't depend on hospital. So hospital per population is misleading.

On their physicians number, they are at 2.2 per 1000. That is probably not high too, right?

[Victoria Raverna]

I don't think that can explain their much lower death rate. With all their exceptional contact tracing, they still have almost 2 millions cases with population of less than 6 millions. So on average 1 in 3 got COVID-19.

This is tangential to your question, but 1 in 3 is waaaaayyyy lower than in the US. Night and day lower.

Singapore is actually slightly higher than US in case number per population.

Singapore is 1,936,720 / 5,954,238 = 32.5%

US is 98,474,755 / 335,100,304 = 29.4%

[Smoove_B]

Singapore is actually slightly higher than US in case number per population.

This is where the wheels come off. America (by way of the CDC) no longer counts breakthrough cases (as of May 2021) or situations where the same person is infected twice in < 90 days (Summer 2022)

Early on comparing testing 1:1 might be better, but the data now is so muddled...

[Max Peck]

I'm not sure you can reliably compare infection statistics between countries with significantly different contact tracing and testing regimens. I can't speak to the situation on the ground in the US, but here in Canada there hasn't been testing available to the general public since the first Omicron wave late last year (aside from at-home testing that doesn't contribute to the official numbers). That means that a lot of milder but still symptomatic cases aren't reflected in the official numbers, so our infection rate looks better on paper than it is in reality.

[El Guapo]

Singapore is actually slightly higher than US in case number per population.

This is where the wheels come off. America (by way of the CDC) no longer counts breakthrough cases (as of May 2021) or situations where the same person is infected twice in < 90 days (Summer 2022)

Early on comparing testing 1:1 might be better, but the data now is so muddled...

Also I have to imagine that the % of undetected / unreported cases is much higher in the U.S. than in Singapore. Though one effect of that would be to improve the relative U.S. fatality rate vs. Singapore.

[Zaxxon]

I don't think that can explain their much lower death rate. With all their exceptional contact tracing, they still have almost 2 millions cases with population of less than 6 millions. So on average 1 in 3 got COVID-19.

This is tangential to your question, but 1 in 3 is waaaaayyyy lower than in the US. Night and day lower.

Singapore is actually slightly higher than US in case number per population.

Singapore is 1,936,720 / 5,954,238 = 32.5%

US is 98,474,755 / 335,100,304 = 29.4%

I guess it depends on your definition--I was using the estimates of actual infections rather than case #s, where the best guess is something like 80% of Americans have had COVID.

[Blackhawk]

And what about pre-COVID risk factors? One of the nations in question is world-famous for being obese and sedentary, bringing with it heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, poor respiratory performance, etc.

[Defiant]

It looks like cases in Singapore only started exploding starting in October 2021 (they only had ~90,000 cases prior to then), by which point something like ~80% had been vaccinated.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... singapore/
https://www.straitstimes.com/multimedia ... index.html

[Smoove_B]

Now do Ivermectin. But seriously, this graph is bonkers.

https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/sta ... 3182481409

COVID19 Treatment saves lives

Nevertheless, a stunning plot of Paxlovid use based on population voting behavior

Paxlovid treatment is prescribed for COVID much more frequently in populations that primarily voted for Biden vs Trump

Even now, awareness is low in some populations

[Smoove_B]

I'm putting this here, because it's an example how we're being failed by our public leaders (elected and appointed) and now apparently reliant on corporations to provide better data:

[El Guapo]

Jesus. Does Vermont have a lake of Paxlovid or something?

[LawBeefaroni]

Re: the Singapore question.

Do we believe China's death rate reporting? Because they have an extremely low [reported] death rate too. Singapore is around 80% ethnic Chinese. Is there a genetic/biological component at work? In populations but maybe also in the virus?

[Smoove_B]

Jesus. Does Vermont have a lake of Paxlovid or something?

Data is so screwed up now, I don't even know what to trust anymore or what to make of anything. I can only report that I know of more people in the last two weeks that had or currently still have COVID-19 than I can report personally knowing about in the last 6 months. I also think they're all home RAT and not going to a doctor or a public clinic so their positive testing status is invisible.

I don't know enough about other places (like VT or PA) to understand why their testing is off the charts. Are they better at tracking things? Do they still have easy access to free testing somehow? No idea.

[Smoove_B]

Do we believe China's death rate reporting? Because they have an extremely low [reported] death rate too. Singapore is around 80% ethnic Chinese. Is there a genetic/biological component at work? In populations but maybe also in the virus?

The evergreen question. I'm honestly not sure where we're at with this other than to suggest that if death rates were really high, in theory we'd know it about it somehow (leaks, intelligence reporting, etc...)? I really don't know but I had flagged something to read over the weekend about what it might mean if China moves away from a "COVID Zero" policy - in terms of death (the scale), but I need to go back and find that again.

I haven't see anything yet suggesting specific factors that have or haven't been ruled out for anything related to COVID-19 - still lots of theories but nothing concrete.

[LawBeefaroni]

Jesus. Does Vermont have a lake of Paxlovid or something?

Data is so screwed up now, I don't even know what to trust anymore or what to make of anything. I can only report that I know of more people in the last two weeks that had or currently still have COVID-19 than I can report personally knowing about in the last 6 months. I also think they're all home RAT and not going to a doctor or a public clinic so their positive testing status is invisible.

I don't know enough about other places (like VT or PA) to understand why their testing is off the charts. Are they better at tracking things? Do they still have easy access to free testing somehow? No idea.

[Max Peck]

That Florida “analysis” on COVID vaccines is—you guessed it—total garbage

Epidemiologists and public health experts spent the past weekend collectively shaking their heads at the latest harmful pronouncement from Florida's provocative surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, who on Friday announced that he was recommending against mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines for men ages 18 to 39.

Ladapo based his recommendation on a dubious analysis, which was posted online by the Florida Department of Health. According to a misleading press release from the department, the analysis found "an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination."

The press release says the analysis was carried out by the department, but it was posted as a simple PDF without the health department's official letterhead, and—most strikingly—no authors are listed, which is highly unusual. It has clearly not been peer-reviewed, published in a scientific journal, or even thoroughly edited.

“Studying the safety and efficacy of any medications, including vaccines, is an important component of public health,” Ladapo said in the press release. “Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed—these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians.”

Experts roundly dubbed the analysis "utter rubbish," "extremely misleading," and "comically bad." Some called the analysis method "terrible," and one epidemiologist called it "the absolute most batshit study design & analysis plan I have ever seen." Others noted that the conclusion "smells of p-hacking" and data cherry-picking.

[Victoria Raverna]

Re: the Singapore question.

Do we believe China's death rate reporting? Because they have an extremely low [reported] death rate too. Singapore is around 80% ethnic Chinese. Is there a genetic/biological component at work? In populations but maybe also in the virus?

Compare to their reported total cases, China's death rate is not extremely low.

5226 / 254066 = 2.05%.

Worse than US's death rate. Around twice the chance of dying if someone got COVID-19 in China compare to getting COVID-19 in US.

[Max Peck]

This is completely normal and will undoubtedly go well.

New Alberta premier says unvaccinated 'most discriminated against group' after swearing-in

Smith also said Albertans should expect rapid changes to who is managing health care in the province.

She will replace Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, and recruit a new team of advisers in public health that consider COVID-19 to be an endemic disease.

She also repeated a pledge to review the leadership of Alberta Health Services (AHS) by the end of 2022.

"I want our front-line health care workers to know that reinforcements are coming," Smith said. "We cannot continue understaffing our hospitals and then forcing our front-line workers to work mandatory overtime and be called in on days off and have to cancel their holidays."

As the world grapples with a shortage of health-care workers and professionals burn out, Smith says Alberta won't have any vaccination mandates, which will help attract employees to the province.