5 ms·

> I wouldn't be too quick to point to Covid as evidence of anything, yet. It's evidence of something. The US covid response is a distinct, notable, and quite

> I wouldn't be too quick to point to Covid as evidence of anything, yet. It's evidence of something. The US covid response is a distinct, notable, and quite frankly disastrous outlier in the industrial world. No one handled this as badly as we did, objectively. Shouldn't we be looking for an explanation for that? And maybe taking lessons that might hold for other things we're doing badly?

taeric 6y ago
Without a counterfactual, it is hard to know what could have made it better. I'm personally very sceptical that we know what could have made things better. This is while still being dismayed at how crappy leadership has been. So, I think we'll know more in a few years. Hopefully we learn enough that we make better choices next time. As things are standing though, my money is on prior exposure to corona and sars being the largest contributors to places that have "done better." And we aren't out of the woods, yet, as it were. If that is the case, most of what we are seeing is just more evidence that the majority vote lost out last time. Such that now we are seeing the majority is still upset about that.
- newacct583 6y ago
  > Without a counterfactual, it is hard to know what could have made it better. You realize there are dozens of other nations that saw the same virus, right? That seems like a nonsensical response to me, as if you're asking "Well, who could have known?". Well, Germany. Germany seems to have known. Also Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand (especially those guys)... Even nations like Spain and Belgium, which had disastrous early outbreaks got it under control at a time when we had a huge second wave. You really don't think we have anything to learn from that data? > my money is on prior exposure to corona and sars being the largest contributors to places that have "done better." Uh... what? Let's ignore the pseudoscience argument and just talk demographics: you're saying that the United States, alone among all nations in the industrialized world, was unique in that it had no prior exposure to pre-existing coronavirii. Everywhere else in the industrialized world, every nation, had large pre-existing immunity? That's what you're going with? And you think that makes sense?
  - taeric 6y ago
    There is decent evidence that the US did a worse job than other places. That I cannot and do not disagree with. What we don't have is evidence of what exactly would have been different if the US did other things. So, in that, we don't have perfect counterfactuals and I think most of the news has been more speculation on how much better it could have gone than folks are admitting to. There is also the chance that things would have been just as bad as this basically no matter what. (The cynic in me asks "could native populations have just followed social distancing to save themselves from measles and smallpox?" The answer could be "yes", but that feels off to me.) I'll ignore you being a jackass, and claim I am not saying we are alone in anything. This is a global pandemic of a novel virus. That is not really in dispute. The US is marked in how the numbers are, and there is every chance we remain that way. I just have a hard time reconciling much of the news of how contagious this is, with how well anyone contained it, without using something like vaccination. That would make this not just a novel virus, but a new one that has been contained in ways that we have never contained a virus before.
- tspike 6y ago
  > my money is on prior exposure to corona and sars being the largest contributors to places that have "done better." What are your thoughts on how Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Italy and Spain have handled things?
  - taeric 6y ago
    Well, first off, my thoughts are pretty worthless here. I'm doing a "my money" wager where "my money" isn't that much. :D That said, I haven't checked on numbers a lot lately. Just checking quickly, Spain seems problematic in that they are growing again in cases. (Am I looking at bad data?) Italy is also growing, just somewhat masked by how giant their initial wave was. Which is all to say, I suspect some places have done something "right" to contain this. I'm not convinced we know what that thing was, yet. Is akin to folks saying beer was drank because the alcohol made it safe. Really, it was the boiling of the water, but the evidence was hard to separate those. So, to that end, I am not calling for reopening or anything of that sort. So, please don't take my scepticism for that.
gwright 6y ago
> The US covid response is a distinct, notable, and quite frankly disastrous outlier in the industrial world. No one handled this as badly as we did, objectively. I don't think that assertion holds up. Our economy didn't contract as much as others, our per/capital death rate isn't the worst, we blocked international travel sooner, etc. https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/393903/ https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/393903/ https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality The US is probably one of the most globally interconnected countries also, which epidemiologically speaking is probably a worst case scenario. This is my speculation though, not sure I've seen any reliable information in this regard.
- danielecook 6y ago
  This thing is not over, and the US per capita death rate is not good. In fact it is one of the worst, and you cannot ignore the fact that we still have a huge number of active cases whereas much of the rest of the industrialized world has reduced their case numbers significantly to manageable levels that allow contact tracing and fast turnarounds on testing. The US is still adding to our death rate and case numbers aggressively. Other countries are not. This is what makes the U.S. a disasterous outlier. And don't ignore the long term impacts either. Just because you the U.S. has a low mortaility rate does not mean the disease will not have long term effects. People may die sooner, or suffer significant health effects later on that leave a lasting mark on the economy. You suggestion that this is because the US is so interconnected is a foolish one. Europe is quite interconnected, has had similarly bad initial outbreaks, but has subsequently been able to address those outbreaks much better than the U.S.. What would you say about the politicization of preventative measures that we know work - wearing masks and social distancing?
  - gwright 6y ago
    > a huge number of active cases whereas much of the rest of the industrialized world has reduced their case numbers significantly to manageable levels that allow contact tracing and fast turnarounds on testing. The US is still adding to our death rate and case numbers aggressively. Other countries are not. This is what makes the U.S. a disasterous outlier. It isn't an outlier by any statistical definition that makes sense to me and you are glossing over the way aggressive testing changes the "case numbers" and also aren't being clear if you are talking about "case numbers" or "cases per 1000 tests" or "cases per capita". These details matter in order to have a coherent discussion about the numbers.

taeric 6y ago

Without a counterfactual, it is hard to know what could have made it better. I'm personally very sceptical that we know what could have made things better. This is while still being dismayed at how crappy leadership has been. So, I think we'll know more in a few years. Hopefully we learn enough that we make better choices next time. As things are standing though, my money is on prior exposure to corona and sars being the largest contributors to places that have "done better." And we aren't out of the woods, yet, as it were. If that is the case, most of what we are seeing is just more evidence that the majority vote lost out last time. Such that now we are seeing the majority is still upset about that.

newacct583 6y ago
> Without a counterfactual, it is hard to know what could have made it better. You realize there are dozens of other nations that saw the same virus, right? That seems like a nonsensical response to me, as if you're asking "Well, who could have known?". Well, Germany. Germany seems to have known. Also Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand (especially those guys)... Even nations like Spain and Belgium, which had disastrous early outbreaks got it under control at a time when we had a huge second wave. You really don't think we have anything to learn from that data? > my money is on prior exposure to corona and sars being the largest contributors to places that have "done better." Uh... what? Let's ignore the pseudoscience argument and just talk demographics: you're saying that the United States, alone among all nations in the industrialized world, was unique in that it had no prior exposure to pre-existing coronavirii. Everywhere else in the industrialized world, every nation, had large pre-existing immunity? That's what you're going with? And you think that makes sense?
- taeric 6y ago
  There is decent evidence that the US did a worse job than other places. That I cannot and do not disagree with. What we don't have is evidence of what exactly would have been different if the US did other things. So, in that, we don't have perfect counterfactuals and I think most of the news has been more speculation on how much better it could have gone than folks are admitting to. There is also the chance that things would have been just as bad as this basically no matter what. (The cynic in me asks "could native populations have just followed social distancing to save themselves from measles and smallpox?" The answer could be "yes", but that feels off to me.) I'll ignore you being a jackass, and claim I am not saying we are alone in anything. This is a global pandemic of a novel virus. That is not really in dispute. The US is marked in how the numbers are, and there is every chance we remain that way. I just have a hard time reconciling much of the news of how contagious this is, with how well anyone contained it, without using something like vaccination. That would make this not just a novel virus, but a new one that has been contained in ways that we have never contained a virus before.
tspike 6y ago
> my money is on prior exposure to corona and sars being the largest contributors to places that have "done better." What are your thoughts on how Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Italy and Spain have handled things?
- taeric 6y ago
  Well, first off, my thoughts are pretty worthless here. I'm doing a "my money" wager where "my money" isn't that much. :D That said, I haven't checked on numbers a lot lately. Just checking quickly, Spain seems problematic in that they are growing again in cases. (Am I looking at bad data?) Italy is also growing, just somewhat masked by how giant their initial wave was. Which is all to say, I suspect some places have done something "right" to contain this. I'm not convinced we know what that thing was, yet. Is akin to folks saying beer was drank because the alcohol made it safe. Really, it was the boiling of the water, but the evidence was hard to separate those. So, to that end, I am not calling for reopening or anything of that sort. So, please don't take my scepticism for that.

gwright 6y ago

> The US covid response is a distinct, notable, and quite frankly disastrous outlier in the industrial world. No one handled this as badly as we did, objectively. I don't think that assertion holds up. Our economy didn't contract as much as others, our per/capital death rate isn't the worst, we blocked international travel sooner, etc. https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/393903/ https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/393903/ https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality The US is probably one of the most globally interconnected countries also, which epidemiologically speaking is probably a worst case scenario. This is my speculation though, not sure I've seen any reliable information in this regard.

danielecook 6y ago
This thing is not over, and the US per capita death rate is not good. In fact it is one of the worst, and you cannot ignore the fact that we still have a huge number of active cases whereas much of the rest of the industrialized world has reduced their case numbers significantly to manageable levels that allow contact tracing and fast turnarounds on testing. The US is still adding to our death rate and case numbers aggressively. Other countries are not. This is what makes the U.S. a disasterous outlier. And don't ignore the long term impacts either. Just because you the U.S. has a low mortaility rate does not mean the disease will not have long term effects. People may die sooner, or suffer significant health effects later on that leave a lasting mark on the economy. You suggestion that this is because the US is so interconnected is a foolish one. Europe is quite interconnected, has had similarly bad initial outbreaks, but has subsequently been able to address those outbreaks much better than the U.S.. What would you say about the politicization of preventative measures that we know work - wearing masks and social distancing?
- gwright 6y ago
  > a huge number of active cases whereas much of the rest of the industrialized world has reduced their case numbers significantly to manageable levels that allow contact tracing and fast turnarounds on testing. The US is still adding to our death rate and case numbers aggressively. Other countries are not. This is what makes the U.S. a disasterous outlier. It isn't an outlier by any statistical definition that makes sense to me and you are glossing over the way aggressive testing changes the "case numbers" and also aren't being clear if you are talking about "case numbers" or "cases per 1000 tests" or "cases per capita". These details matter in order to have a coherent discussion about the numbers.