10 ms·

It's extremely sad that after nearly 2 years of this, governments still haven't mastered the ability to say "our uncertainty is high so we will not make policy

by nawgz 5y ago

It's extremely sad that after nearly 2 years of this, governments still haven't mastered the ability to say "our uncertainty is high so we will not make policy recommendations" and then to - only once having collected the new data - render data-driven policy. Even I, as someone who fully accepts vaccines and sees the data illustrating that mRNA vaccines reduced death rates enough to make COVID "the new flu" were it not for the antivax population and their role in overwhelming hospitals, am quite tired of hearing about how the boosters were only going to be for old and sick, and then it was a sudden flip into "everyone should get them". I don't even know what data would suggest that I should get a booster shot, I do not see death rates climbing and I have fatigue from doing the research I wish the nation-state which sets my laws would simply have done correctly and before recommending my action.

Toine 5y ago
Doing that would require humility and honesty.
- kgwxd 5y ago
  And a population that understands how to respond to it if they see it. The typical response now is to vote for the other guy, no matter how obviously worse they might be.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
Why do you think "our incertainty is so high we (shall) not make policy recommendations" ? Even if the example you are putting was correct, and there was an insane amount of uncertainty, it may have still be the correct recommendation and the correct policy to first vaccinate "risk groups" and then later extend to the entire population, when/if shown necessary. In other words: adding "unless conditions change" to every statement made by any organization is redundant, so they don't do it.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
I would take the opposite view: After nearly 2 years I would have expected government not to be so indecisive and to go for boosters for everyone earlier (like in the UK). Now, once again, they've only wasted time and probably made the new wave worse, which in turn may force them into more stringent measures.
T-A 5y ago
> I do not see death rates climbing https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_deaths_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~European+Union https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
- nawgz 5y ago
  "Rates" is the operative word, and I of course mean "in the vaccinated population", because antivax people will die from COVID; this is well-known. Seems to me that most EU countries are in a fourth wave of COVID with total cases surpassing anything in the past, yet the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves, and it doesn't discuss vaccination status. Please read a bit more charitably, it makes no sense to post this graph as if it shows something relevant.
  - T-A 5y ago
    > the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves and rising, which is what you said you didn't see > and it doesn't discuss vaccination status What is there to discuss? There are more vaccinated people in the EU now than at any earlier time, and yet the death rate has already climbed halfway back from to the November 2020 peak (which occurred when nobody had been vaccinated yet) and shows no sign of slowing down. > Please read a bit more charitably, it makes no sense to post this graph as if it shows something relevant However charitably I try to read this statement, I can make no sense of it.
    - nawgz 5y ago
      > > the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves > and rising, which is what you said you didn't see "Death rates". How explicit do I have to be? "Death rate" is the total amount of deaths (which you linked) DIVIDED BY the total amount of COVID cases. Linking "total deaths" and implying it is "death rate" is absurd. > There are more vaccinated people in the EU now than at any earlier time, and yet the death rate has already climbed halfway back from to the November 2020 peak And this is even more absurd. You must be able to ARGUE IN NUMBERS if you will argue that numbers are increasing; using half-baked logic and ignoring the unvaccinated population who is probably fueling most of that death spike is like me making a performance benchmark for performance-per-core and then measuring how many instructions were executed without providing a time measurement and saying "the higher instruction count is better", which is to say if someone was to do it they would be laughed out of the room. Perhaps this is your cue to exit.
mlyle 5y ago
> and then it was a sudden flip into "everyone should get them". I don't even know what data would suggest that I should get a booster shot There's some evidence of waning immunity and reduced antibody titers, and greater incidence of breakthrough infections for people who have been vaccinated a long time. There's also just a lot of evidence that 3 is better than 2 for likelihood of breakthrough infection. Waning immunity isn't enough to make overall death rates increase: even at current slow incremental rates of vaccination the effect from increased vaccination "beats" waning immunity. But this can't hold up forever. > I do not see death rates climbing Waiting for death rates to climb is way too late. It'll take a long time to move them in the opposite direction. Also, a lot of this is preventative: more doses doesn't mean just "more immune response" but "broader immune response and better protection against future variants". > and I have fatigue from doing the research I wish the nation-state which sets my laws would simply have done correctly and before recommending my action. There's no way the dose schedule is ideal steady-state. Doses a few weeks apart isn't what will maximize response. The vaccine doses themselves are probably too high. But we had to do something while supplies were lacking, the pandemic raging, and with partial information.
- nawgz 5y ago
  > There's some evidence of waning immunity and reduced antibody titers, and greater incidence of breakthrough infections for people who have been vaccinated a long time. There's also just a lot of evidence that 3 is better than 2 for likelihood of breakthrough infection I do not contest this. I am likely to receive a booster shot myself in January. What I contest is that they make the original suggestion that "only weakened immune responses will receive the booster" with no implication the policy will change with new data. Now it is a "major shift", and not an "predicted outcome acted upon with sufficient data". This is a consistent problem in public messaging throughout the pandemic; people feel uncertain and like the government is as clueless as them. > There's no way the dose schedule is ideal steady-state Again, I am not in medicine, nor do I in general care for this style of research, yet I have been made to do it consistently because I do not understand the public messaging, and I am quite staunchly a believer that you cannot simply not act against a pandemic. This is my complaint. I do not argue the conclusions you put forth, simply the way the governments have been unable to outline scenarios in any meaningful way and thus give off the appearance of constant reactivity without foresight
xdennis 5y ago
> were it not for the antivax population There's always someone to scapegoat. Instead of blaming politicians for being wrong, you're blaming the skeptics who knew that vaccines aren't going to change anything.
- Filligree 5y ago
  They've reduced my chance of dying from COVID (when I'm infected, not if; it's happened at least twice so far) by around 95%. That's more than nothing.
- tejohnso 5y ago
  Also, "antivax" is unnecessarily pejorative. There are plenty of people who are hesitant toward covid vaccines exactly for the reasons you mention, while they're not at all against vaccines in general. The communication habits of all major governments haven't really encouraged trust. Fauci is on record as having lied to the public deliberately.
- nawgz 5y ago
  Sorry, but you are making politically charged arguments. I am stating facts. COVID is defeated by Pfizer/Moderna when it comes to an increased background death rate, i.e. if 100% of the population had Pfizer & Moderna there would be approximately no excess deaths in the population vs pre-COVID times. The remaining issue with the disease isn't so much the people dying from it as it is the fact the unvaccinated population gets very sick and overwhelms healthcare systems, resulting in triage situations that were easily avoidable. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination#united-states https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination#unite...
  - vibrato2 5y ago
    Yet as vaccinations increase, the excess death rate increases
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    This data is interpreted wrongly. You need to separate mortality rate by age groups, need to check when cases were recorded, etc. pp. These graphs are more or less useless to draw conclusions from.
prof-dr-ir 5y ago
I do not think this is an example of the (real) problem you are highlighting. First, the ECDC is not a government. Second, their previous standpoint was not inconsistent or wrong: in particular, there was no urgent need for boosters (for healthy youngsters) in September since the vaccines appeared to be working well. Did you read the ECDC guidance, in September and now? Can you point out the passage that exemplifies your point? Or do you have another example of a government saying that young people will never get boosters? Since naturally you did not write your comment based solely on the tone implied by the words 'major shift' in the headline of the Reuters article... There are certainly people, journalists, and government ministers guilty of what you say. But throwing a catchall accusation around is a bit cheap, in my opinion.
kurthr 5y ago
This sounds more like reading news selectively reporting whatever is most engaging. From the mask stuff to the vaccine boosters there wasn't much serious doubt among scientists (yes I'm sure you can find somebody and some comment). I'm not sure what can really be expected of politicians (who aren't scientists) or scientists (who are public figures), much less reporters. The booster trials literally started as soon as the first EUV was issued, because they were expected to be more effective. They didn't invest in it because they thought it was unnecessary. The EUV was necessary because the disease is wide spread, communicable, and deadly enough to overwhelm ICUs, otherwise epidemiologists would prefer to have even more data. However, when the risk to your patient of actual illness is more than an order of magnitude higher without action... you take emergency action. I hear similar stuff from engineers who now are looking for even more data on the effectiveness of masks, because they've read reports saying they aren't effective, or questioning studies saying that they are. The germ theory of disease hasn't been disproven. People don't wear masks well. Cloth masks aren't very effective protection (of the person wearing them) due to bypass flow. Viruses can enter through the eyes as well, so a mask can never be "perfect". Masks and glasses also protect (if you bother to wash your hands) from accidental surface contacts. At the same time there are doctors/nurses working in ICUs intubating COVID patients for months without getting exposed... that's an (uncontrolled) experiment running in thousands of places. It's not published, but it's known to be effective by people working there. The PPE is expensive and training along with diligence is required, because even if you're vaccinated you can spread it just not as likely and not as much and not as long (another long chain of but, but, buts... which add up to more than an order of magnitude).

by nawgz 5y ago

Toine 5y ago

Doing that would require humility and honesty.

kgwxd 5y ago
And a population that understands how to respond to it if they see it. The typical response now is to vote for the other guy, no matter how obviously worse they might be.

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

Why do you think "our incertainty is so high we (shall) not make policy recommendations" ? Even if the example you are putting was correct, and there was an insane amount of uncertainty, it may have still be the correct recommendation and the correct policy to first vaccinate "risk groups" and then later extend to the entire population, when/if shown necessary. In other words: adding "unless conditions change" to every statement made by any organization is redundant, so they don't do it.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

I would take the opposite view: After nearly 2 years I would have expected government not to be so indecisive and to go for boosters for everyone earlier (like in the UK). Now, once again, they've only wasted time and probably made the new wave worse, which in turn may force them into more stringent measures.

T-A 5y ago

> I do not see death rates climbing https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_deaths_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~European+Union https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

nawgz 5y ago
"Rates" is the operative word, and I of course mean "in the vaccinated population", because antivax people will die from COVID; this is well-known. Seems to me that most EU countries are in a fourth wave of COVID with total cases surpassing anything in the past, yet the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves, and it doesn't discuss vaccination status. Please read a bit more charitably, it makes no sense to post this graph as if it shows something relevant.
- T-A 5y ago
  > the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves and rising, which is what you said you didn't see > and it doesn't discuss vaccination status What is there to discuss? There are more vaccinated people in the EU now than at any earlier time, and yet the death rate has already climbed halfway back from to the November 2020 peak (which occurred when nobody had been vaccinated yet) and shows no sign of slowing down. > Please read a bit more charitably, it makes no sense to post this graph as if it shows something relevant However charitably I try to read this statement, I can make no sense of it.
  - nawgz 5y ago
    > > the graph you link shows deaths below all the past waves > and rising, which is what you said you didn't see "Death rates". How explicit do I have to be? "Death rate" is the total amount of deaths (which you linked) DIVIDED BY the total amount of COVID cases. Linking "total deaths" and implying it is "death rate" is absurd. > There are more vaccinated people in the EU now than at any earlier time, and yet the death rate has already climbed halfway back from to the November 2020 peak And this is even more absurd. You must be able to ARGUE IN NUMBERS if you will argue that numbers are increasing; using half-baked logic and ignoring the unvaccinated population who is probably fueling most of that death spike is like me making a performance benchmark for performance-per-core and then measuring how many instructions were executed without providing a time measurement and saying "the higher instruction count is better", which is to say if someone was to do it they would be laughed out of the room. Perhaps this is your cue to exit.

mlyle 5y ago

> and then it was a sudden flip into "everyone should get them". I don't even know what data would suggest that I should get a booster shot There's some evidence of waning immunity and reduced antibody titers, and greater incidence of breakthrough infections for people who have been vaccinated a long time. There's also just a lot of evidence that 3 is better than 2 for likelihood of breakthrough infection. Waning immunity isn't enough to make overall death rates increase: even at current slow incremental rates of vaccination the effect from increased vaccination "beats" waning immunity. But this can't hold up forever. > I do not see death rates climbing Waiting for death rates to climb is way too late. It'll take a long time to move them in the opposite direction. Also, a lot of this is preventative: more doses doesn't mean just "more immune response" but "broader immune response and better protection against future variants". > and I have fatigue from doing the research I wish the nation-state which sets my laws would simply have done correctly and before recommending my action. There's no way the dose schedule is ideal steady-state. Doses a few weeks apart isn't what will maximize response. The vaccine doses themselves are probably too high. But we had to do something while supplies were lacking, the pandemic raging, and with partial information.

nawgz 5y ago
> There's some evidence of waning immunity and reduced antibody titers, and greater incidence of breakthrough infections for people who have been vaccinated a long time. There's also just a lot of evidence that 3 is better than 2 for likelihood of breakthrough infection I do not contest this. I am likely to receive a booster shot myself in January. What I contest is that they make the original suggestion that "only weakened immune responses will receive the booster" with no implication the policy will change with new data. Now it is a "major shift", and not an "predicted outcome acted upon with sufficient data". This is a consistent problem in public messaging throughout the pandemic; people feel uncertain and like the government is as clueless as them. > There's no way the dose schedule is ideal steady-state Again, I am not in medicine, nor do I in general care for this style of research, yet I have been made to do it consistently because I do not understand the public messaging, and I am quite staunchly a believer that you cannot simply not act against a pandemic. This is my complaint. I do not argue the conclusions you put forth, simply the way the governments have been unable to outline scenarios in any meaningful way and thus give off the appearance of constant reactivity without foresight

xdennis 5y ago

> were it not for the antivax population There's always someone to scapegoat. Instead of blaming politicians for being wrong, you're blaming the skeptics who knew that vaccines aren't going to change anything.

Filligree 5y ago
They've reduced my chance of dying from COVID (when I'm infected, not if; it's happened at least twice so far) by around 95%. That's more than nothing.
tejohnso 5y ago
Also, "antivax" is unnecessarily pejorative. There are plenty of people who are hesitant toward covid vaccines exactly for the reasons you mention, while they're not at all against vaccines in general. The communication habits of all major governments haven't really encouraged trust. Fauci is on record as having lied to the public deliberately.
nawgz 5y ago
Sorry, but you are making politically charged arguments. I am stating facts. COVID is defeated by Pfizer/Moderna when it comes to an increased background death rate, i.e. if 100% of the population had Pfizer & Moderna there would be approximately no excess deaths in the population vs pre-COVID times. The remaining issue with the disease isn't so much the people dying from it as it is the fact the unvaccinated population gets very sick and overwhelms healthcare systems, resulting in triage situations that were easily avoidable. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination#united-states https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination#unite...
- vibrato2 5y ago
  Yet as vaccinations increase, the excess death rate increases
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  This data is interpreted wrongly. You need to separate mortality rate by age groups, need to check when cases were recorded, etc. pp. These graphs are more or less useless to draw conclusions from.

prof-dr-ir 5y ago

I do not think this is an example of the (real) problem you are highlighting. First, the ECDC is not a government. Second, their previous standpoint was not inconsistent or wrong: in particular, there was no urgent need for boosters (for healthy youngsters) in September since the vaccines appeared to be working well. Did you read the ECDC guidance, in September and now? Can you point out the passage that exemplifies your point? Or do you have another example of a government saying that young people will never get boosters? Since naturally you did not write your comment based solely on the tone implied by the words 'major shift' in the headline of the Reuters article... There are certainly people, journalists, and government ministers guilty of what you say. But throwing a catchall accusation around is a bit cheap, in my opinion.

kurthr 5y ago

This sounds more like reading news selectively reporting whatever is most engaging. From the mask stuff to the vaccine boosters there wasn't much serious doubt among scientists (yes I'm sure you can find somebody and some comment). I'm not sure what can really be expected of politicians (who aren't scientists) or scientists (who are public figures), much less reporters. The booster trials literally started as soon as the first EUV was issued, because they were expected to be more effective. They didn't invest in it because they thought it was unnecessary. The EUV was necessary because the disease is wide spread, communicable, and deadly enough to overwhelm ICUs, otherwise epidemiologists would prefer to have even more data. However, when the risk to your patient of actual illness is more than an order of magnitude higher without action... you take emergency action. I hear similar stuff from engineers who now are looking for even more data on the effectiveness of masks, because they've read reports saying they aren't effective, or questioning studies saying that they are. The germ theory of disease hasn't been disproven. People don't wear masks well. Cloth masks aren't very effective protection (of the person wearing them) due to bypass flow. Viruses can enter through the eyes as well, so a mask can never be "perfect". Masks and glasses also protect (if you bother to wash your hands) from accidental surface contacts. At the same time there are doctors/nurses working in ICUs intubating COVID patients for months without getting exposed... that's an (uncontrolled) experiment running in thousands of places. It's not published, but it's known to be effective by people working there. The PPE is expensive and training along with diligence is required, because even if you're vaccinated you can spread it just not as likely and not as much and not as long (another long chain of but, but, buts... which add up to more than an order of magnitude).