3 ms·

I know the article is about false-positive rates. I did read it. But the claim is: 1. There is not a significant uptick in deaths in Germany. 2. The test is n

I know the article is about false-positive rates. I did read it. But the claim is: 1. There is not a significant uptick in deaths in Germany. 2. The test is not 100% accurate, and indicates some false positives. 3. From #1 and #2, we can conclude that the "pandemic" we saw there was the result of false positives, and not people actually getting sick. If #1 isn't reliable, then neither is the conclusion. As hospitalizations and death climb in the US, writing a think-piece article pointing at how Spain is mis-accounting for false positives is irresponsible and dangerous. It pushes a "reopening is fine" narrative, when the people most-likely to read the article are living in places where that is patently false.

thu2111 6y ago
I don't believe (3) appears anywhere in the article. That's your inference, not the authors. As for (1), the graph clearly shows there is no uptick in deaths in Germany. So I'm not sure what you mean by, if (1) is not reliable. The graph is right there. As for your final point, you seem to be assuming the article was written by an American for a US audience. What's your evidence for that? COVID is bigger than the USA, you know.
- discardable_dan 6y ago
  Here is where (3) is heavily implied in the conclusion of the article: ...if something causes test numbers to rise then so will case numbers, which in turn will cause a further increase in testing, causing the rise to continue, triggering local lockdowns and pointless evidence free rituals, until people get depressed and stop trying to do things causing numbers being tested to fall again... Health is run by people who suffer no consequences from policy over-reactions. Lockdown induced job losses won’t affect them, as they work for the government. A larger-scale case of “one rule for them and another for us” can’t be imagined. It’s thus no surprise when we read things like Public Health England defining a COVID death as anyone who has ever tested positive and then died, for any reason, at any time i.e. the UK being supposedly “one of the worst hit countries in the world” is a statistical fantasy. PHE officials defined it this way because they didn’t want to be accused of being a nasty libertarians who were underplaying the problem just to help capitalist workers. The idea that they’d create other, bigger problems simply didn’t occur to them — or worse, it did but they didn’t care. This is, indeed, a bit of speculation on my part, but I do not know how else to interpret this beyond "the pandemic wasn't anywhere near as severe as the tests suggests, the majority of cases we saw are false positives, and lockdowns are much worse than the actual risk." What do you think I should take away fro this conclusion, instead? -------------------- My top comment in this thread explains why (1) is not reliable. The graph is a trick of the eyes, due to a lack of consideration for externalities. Over the entire time period, ~10,000 people died in Germany of Covid. Amortized over a 10-week outbreak period, that's 1k / week, on a graph with a scale an order of magnitude higher. Combined with the citation I provided for fewer traffic deaths, plus additional drops in violent crimes, seasonal flu, etc., it is not unimaginable that "everyone staying home" saved a thousand lives a week, or more, during that same time period. -------------------- My final point is that the assumed audience is members of the UK, and given the author's concluding thoughts are mostly concerned with their degradation in respect for the UK health establishment, I think that's sort of a fair assumption to make.

thu2111 6y ago

I don't believe (3) appears anywhere in the article. That's your inference, not the authors. As for (1), the graph clearly shows there is no uptick in deaths in Germany. So I'm not sure what you mean by, if (1) is not reliable. The graph is right there. As for your final point, you seem to be assuming the article was written by an American for a US audience. What's your evidence for that? COVID is bigger than the USA, you know.

discardable_dan 6y ago
Here is where (3) is heavily implied in the conclusion of the article: ...if something causes test numbers to rise then so will case numbers, which in turn will cause a further increase in testing, causing the rise to continue, triggering local lockdowns and pointless evidence free rituals, until people get depressed and stop trying to do things causing numbers being tested to fall again... Health is run by people who suffer no consequences from policy over-reactions. Lockdown induced job losses won’t affect them, as they work for the government. A larger-scale case of “one rule for them and another for us” can’t be imagined. It’s thus no surprise when we read things like Public Health England defining a COVID death as anyone who has ever tested positive and then died, for any reason, at any time i.e. the UK being supposedly “one of the worst hit countries in the world” is a statistical fantasy. PHE officials defined it this way because they didn’t want to be accused of being a nasty libertarians who were underplaying the problem just to help capitalist workers. The idea that they’d create other, bigger problems simply didn’t occur to them — or worse, it did but they didn’t care. This is, indeed, a bit of speculation on my part, but I do not know how else to interpret this beyond "the pandemic wasn't anywhere near as severe as the tests suggests, the majority of cases we saw are false positives, and lockdowns are much worse than the actual risk." What do you think I should take away fro this conclusion, instead? -------------------- My top comment in this thread explains why (1) is not reliable. The graph is a trick of the eyes, due to a lack of consideration for externalities. Over the entire time period, ~10,000 people died in Germany of Covid. Amortized over a 10-week outbreak period, that's 1k / week, on a graph with a scale an order of magnitude higher. Combined with the citation I provided for fewer traffic deaths, plus additional drops in violent crimes, seasonal flu, etc., it is not unimaginable that "everyone staying home" saved a thousand lives a week, or more, during that same time period. -------------------- My final point is that the assumed audience is members of the UK, and given the author's concluding thoughts are mostly concerned with their degradation in respect for the UK health establishment, I think that's sort of a fair assumption to make.