3 ms·

It is inconclusive because there are many other studies that show that lockdowns were ineffective. Do you know what is a metastudy? And that the biggest metast

by NoPie 5y ago

It is inconclusive because there are many other studies that show that lockdowns were ineffective. Do you know what is a metastudy? And that the biggest metastudy about ivermectin actually tended to support that it is slightly effective? So, how do we know that ivermectin is actually non-effective? Because those positive studies have big limitations that make the results very suspect. It takes a lot of time to read through every study, its methodology, limitations etc. I have had not time for that but others have done and those reviews have very big error bars about their effectiveness and overall evidence is not very convincing. Medicine is a field which is very complicated and as in stock market, past experience with similar things do not guarantee future results with different diseases. Researchers needed more than 50 years to realize that stomach ulcer is caused by bacteria. Before that they believed that no bacteria could live in such acidic environment. So, don't bring an examples about different diseases. It does work like that in medicine. But now everybody on the internet is an expert and reads one study, selectively quotes something without even understanding full implications and thinks that they have proven everything. No, that's not a game I am playing here. Especially your last question. My statement was that we don't forcefully take away cigarettes from smokers. I don't know if that would be effective or not but that was never for consideration. We don't do first of all because we value people's freedom to choose and we don't think that it is ever appropriate to force people like that.

eesmith 5y ago
> there are many other studies that show that lockdowns were ineffective Where are these studies? I linked to multiple papers, themselves containing links to other papers, all stating that lockdowns are effective. Put up or shut up. Otherwise you're one of the people you're complaining about.
- NoPie 5y ago
  Can you even summarize them? I personally read https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness-much-more https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness...
  - eesmith 5y ago
    I pointed to published papers in the peer-reviewed literature, and you point to a newsletter? You wrote: "everybody on the internet is an expert and reads one study, selectively quotes something without even understanding full implications and thinks that they have proven everything" You didn't even point to a study. Were the red zones in Italy effective? That's the closest Italy had to the specific type of lockdown you mention. And I pointed to a study which argued that it was indeed effective.
    - NoPie 5y ago
      I pointed to review which is higher than a single study because it incorporates many studies and practically all meaningful available evidence. I asked you a question do you know what a metastudy is? You didn't answer, so I suppose the answer is no. You are not qualified to even read the studies and understand what they really say. As far as I read from the study you quoted, there was no clear data that showed that the red zones in Italy were effective. Italy had one of the worst results overall. Arguing that lockdowns there were effective is like a mockery of science.
      - eesmith 5y ago
        I'm not a complete doofus about reading the research literature, which is why at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28281057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28281057 I pointed you to the peer-reviewed review article at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7881715/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7881715/ titled "Non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A review" Quoting from it: > In doing so, I analyze 348 articles written by more than 2518 authors in the first 12 months of the emergency. If you honestly believe "higher" is a meaningful point, then "peer-reviewed review in the scientific literature" is "higher" than someone's review in a personal newsletter. You cannot possibly believe that newsletter summary you pointed to contains "practically all meaningful available evidence". Quoting the same review paper I linked to: > searchers in PudMed for restrictions AND COVID, lockdown AND COVID, (control measures) AND COVID and (social distancing) AND COVID return more than 2000, 2900, 3000 and 8000 results respectively. Furthermore, any systematic review should play with synonymous and similar words. This monumental work, which would end up with well more than fifteen thousand papers is left for the future and it would benefit from a large collaboration. If your statement is true then either Astral Codex Ten managed to read and review 10K+ papers on the topic, or you somehow know that most of those papers are not meaningful. As for "no clear data" about Italy's red zones, what is unclear about these quotes from that Italy paper?: > the red zone policy was by far the most successful in reducing the rate of growth of new cases, hospitalizations in regular wards and ICUs. > the red zone is an instrument that makes it possible to rapidly bring down cases and the speed of transmission of the virus and consequently both hospitalizations and deaths (being very correlated). However, it implies severe social and economic consequences due to forced economic activity suspensions and restrictions on the freedom of movement. Therefore, this choice can be considered as a tool of last resort in cases of dramatic spread of the epidemic or when the local health system is close to the collapse. > The package of measures contained in the red policy well responds to the need of quickly reducing the speed of transmission of COVID-19 and consequent hospitalizations. That sounds pretty clear to me, and you haven't highlighted the faults, nor identified where I've mis-understood things, beyond making seemingly unsupported statements of fact. I'll be clear as well. Stay-at-home orders for, say, New York might have been useless while the red zone orders for Italy were useful. But your argument appears to be that no lockdowns for COVID were useful, while I can point to at least one case where it was successful. Regarding "metastudy", the term "meta-analysis" is far more frequently used. A quick HN search shows I'm aware of that concept, yes. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=eesmith%20meta-analysis&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... I ignored that question as it appeared a meaningless ad hominem, especially as you weren't actually pointing to any meta-analysis to back your claims, nor demonstrating that you are qualified to read the primary literature and able to understand what they really say.

by NoPie 5y ago

eesmith 5y ago

> there are many other studies that show that lockdowns were ineffective Where are these studies? I linked to multiple papers, themselves containing links to other papers, all stating that lockdowns are effective. Put up or shut up. Otherwise you're one of the people you're complaining about.

NoPie 5y ago
Can you even summarize them? I personally read https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness-much-more https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness...
- eesmith 5y ago
  I pointed to published papers in the peer-reviewed literature, and you point to a newsletter? You wrote: "everybody on the internet is an expert and reads one study, selectively quotes something without even understanding full implications and thinks that they have proven everything" You didn't even point to a study. Were the red zones in Italy effective? That's the closest Italy had to the specific type of lockdown you mention. And I pointed to a study which argued that it was indeed effective.
  - NoPie 5y ago
    I pointed to review which is higher than a single study because it incorporates many studies and practically all meaningful available evidence. I asked you a question do you know what a metastudy is? You didn't answer, so I suppose the answer is no. You are not qualified to even read the studies and understand what they really say. As far as I read from the study you quoted, there was no clear data that showed that the red zones in Italy were effective. Italy had one of the worst results overall. Arguing that lockdowns there were effective is like a mockery of science.
    - eesmith 5y ago
      I'm not a complete doofus about reading the research literature, which is why at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28281057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28281057 I pointed you to the peer-reviewed review article at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7881715/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7881715/ titled "Non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A review" Quoting from it: > In doing so, I analyze 348 articles written by more than 2518 authors in the first 12 months of the emergency. If you honestly believe "higher" is a meaningful point, then "peer-reviewed review in the scientific literature" is "higher" than someone's review in a personal newsletter. You cannot possibly believe that newsletter summary you pointed to contains "practically all meaningful available evidence". Quoting the same review paper I linked to: > searchers in PudMed for restrictions AND COVID, lockdown AND COVID, (control measures) AND COVID and (social distancing) AND COVID return more than 2000, 2900, 3000 and 8000 results respectively. Furthermore, any systematic review should play with synonymous and similar words. This monumental work, which would end up with well more than fifteen thousand papers is left for the future and it would benefit from a large collaboration. If your statement is true then either Astral Codex Ten managed to read and review 10K+ papers on the topic, or you somehow know that most of those papers are not meaningful. As for "no clear data" about Italy's red zones, what is unclear about these quotes from that Italy paper?: > the red zone policy was by far the most successful in reducing the rate of growth of new cases, hospitalizations in regular wards and ICUs. > the red zone is an instrument that makes it possible to rapidly bring down cases and the speed of transmission of the virus and consequently both hospitalizations and deaths (being very correlated). However, it implies severe social and economic consequences due to forced economic activity suspensions and restrictions on the freedom of movement. Therefore, this choice can be considered as a tool of last resort in cases of dramatic spread of the epidemic or when the local health system is close to the collapse. > The package of measures contained in the red policy well responds to the need of quickly reducing the speed of transmission of COVID-19 and consequent hospitalizations. That sounds pretty clear to me, and you haven't highlighted the faults, nor identified where I've mis-understood things, beyond making seemingly unsupported statements of fact. I'll be clear as well. Stay-at-home orders for, say, New York might have been useless while the red zone orders for Italy were useful. But your argument appears to be that no lockdowns for COVID were useful, while I can point to at least one case where it was successful. Regarding "metastudy", the term "meta-analysis" is far more frequently used. A quick HN search shows I'm aware of that concept, yes. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=eesmith%20meta-analysis&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... I ignored that question as it appeared a meaningless ad hominem, especially as you weren't actually pointing to any meta-analysis to back your claims, nor demonstrating that you are qualified to read the primary literature and able to understand what they really say.