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That's all fine and dandy; except what every comment here fails to challenge is "how did the data make actual decisions?" Because as a Canadian, living in a pr

That's all fine and dandy; except what every comment here fails to challenge is "how did the data make actual decisions?" Because as a Canadian, living in a prairie province, all the COVID-19 measures certainly didn't indicate any sort of intense number crunching took place. "No serving drinks past 11", "50% store capacity", "gathering limited to 15 people", etc etc.... All numbers that appear to be just like any other mandate - arbitrarily chosen in the moment.

akamaka 5y ago
I can’t speak for your specific province, but throughout this pandemic Canadian researchers have been studying how well each restriction works to feed back into more precise decisions during the next wave. It’s easy to find it if you look: https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=canada+covid+mobility&oq=canada+covid+mo https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=canada+covid+mobil...
- gompertz 5y ago
  It's good the studies take place; but cursory glance that's 'diagnostic analytics' more than 'predictive' or 'prescriptive analytics'. Tracking data should be used to get ahead of these things; not to augment post-case studies.
  - akamaka 5y ago
    There have been several waves of covid, and each time new restrictions were put into place, they were adjusted based on the studies which showed what worked in the previous wave. Again, I can’t speak for your provincial government, but in most of Canada, each successive lockdown was more finely tuned than the preceding one, thanks to the data that was collected.
SirSourdough 5y ago
There’s always a balance to be struck between what the actual science says and what will be manageable as law. Like, sure the science could say that if the temperature range is between 10-15c you can safely gather with 20, 15-17c only 15, and 17c+ only 10. But that’s probably not the policy that is going out to the public because it’s too hard for people to actually live with and enforce. Plus most of the purely scientific considerations were bastardized when they came in contact with political and economic considerations before being made into policy.
- gompertz 5y ago
  It's interesting, as I've heard the same reasoning with taxation too. We can have all these sophisticated statistical models, risk models, and so forth; yet what ultimately gets produced is a basic tax bracket step scale that (hopefully) anyone can understand. So is there actually academic research on how to best 'dummy down' complex models for society? Or is it end of day the actuaries, statisticians, and mathematicians tell policy makers their findings and some polysci major just approximates from there?
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Those decisions were made by your provincial government, not Health Canada.
- gompertz 5y ago
  Health Canada may be utilizing the data, but what good does it do if they don't share results analysis with the provinces to make informed decisions?
  - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    I'm sure they are. But don't fool yourself into thinking the provincial leaders are making decisions based on data. Most of what was done by provincial governments during lockdown was based on political calculations, not data. Amazingly a large % of the electorate seems to blame Trudeau for these actions. The feds don't have jurisdiction on this issue. Lockdowns etc and their poor methods of implementation (curfews, letting big businesses stay open but shuttering small businesses, etc) are the result of provincial governments.

akamaka 5y ago

I can’t speak for your specific province, but throughout this pandemic Canadian researchers have been studying how well each restriction works to feed back into more precise decisions during the next wave. It’s easy to find it if you look: https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=canada+covid+mobility&oq=canada+covid+mo https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=canada+covid+mobil...

gompertz 5y ago
It's good the studies take place; but cursory glance that's 'diagnostic analytics' more than 'predictive' or 'prescriptive analytics'. Tracking data should be used to get ahead of these things; not to augment post-case studies.
- akamaka 5y ago
  There have been several waves of covid, and each time new restrictions were put into place, they were adjusted based on the studies which showed what worked in the previous wave. Again, I can’t speak for your provincial government, but in most of Canada, each successive lockdown was more finely tuned than the preceding one, thanks to the data that was collected.

SirSourdough 5y ago

There’s always a balance to be struck between what the actual science says and what will be manageable as law. Like, sure the science could say that if the temperature range is between 10-15c you can safely gather with 20, 15-17c only 15, and 17c+ only 10. But that’s probably not the policy that is going out to the public because it’s too hard for people to actually live with and enforce. Plus most of the purely scientific considerations were bastardized when they came in contact with political and economic considerations before being made into policy.

gompertz 5y ago
It's interesting, as I've heard the same reasoning with taxation too. We can have all these sophisticated statistical models, risk models, and so forth; yet what ultimately gets produced is a basic tax bracket step scale that (hopefully) anyone can understand. So is there actually academic research on how to best 'dummy down' complex models for society? Or is it end of day the actuaries, statisticians, and mathematicians tell policy makers their findings and some polysci major just approximates from there?

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

Those decisions were made by your provincial government, not Health Canada.

gompertz 5y ago
Health Canada may be utilizing the data, but what good does it do if they don't share results analysis with the provinces to make informed decisions?
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  I'm sure they are. But don't fool yourself into thinking the provincial leaders are making decisions based on data. Most of what was done by provincial governments during lockdown was based on political calculations, not data. Amazingly a large % of the electorate seems to blame Trudeau for these actions. The feds don't have jurisdiction on this issue. Lockdowns etc and their poor methods of implementation (curfews, letting big businesses stay open but shuttering small businesses, etc) are the result of provincial governments.