3 ms·

> I don’t get it. How can social distancing NOT help during a pandemic? It mostly seems to be for the same reason that several other things didn't work: half t

> I don’t get it. How can social distancing NOT help during a pandemic? It mostly seems to be for the same reason that several other things didn't work: half the population doesn't do it and ruins it for everyone else.

monsecchris 3y ago
My own experience is more like 1 in 5000 people followed all the rules.
- kadoban 3y ago
  Followed every rule perfectly? That sounds about right. That's really not that important though. But half of the US at least is actively hostile to doing anything to help anyone. Our society is broken and doomed.
- ghaff 3y ago
  "All" is doing a lot of work there. My experience in Massachusetts, for example, is that there was quite a high rate of compliance with public masking rules in general. Yes, some people were sloppy about wearing them and many wore less effective masks. But I saw very little outright refusal in indoor public places.
ghaff 3y ago
In that case, I'd expect to see more obvious correlation between areas where people were fairly observant of masking rules in public and a lower incidence of disease. AFAIK, that correlation is weak at best in general.
- kadoban 3y ago
  The places high in observence of safety protocols are cities, which are more dense, and they have a decent proportion of Republicans anyway. The different cities you might be able to compare (eg between different states that had different messaging and rules) are in different climates, so that ruins comparison as well.
  - danenania 3y ago
    But if we compare California to Florida/Texas, for example, we can at least say pretty conclusively though that the effect wasn't strong enough to overcome climate differences or whatever other confounding variables might be involved. So while we can't say for sure they aren't effective at all, we can place a limit on how effective they are based on the data, and as far as I'm aware, that points to them being marginal at best. They certainly aren't, in themselves, any kind of panacea for stopping a pandemic--that much has been proven.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Exactly. I've not done clinical research but I have done market research. And, while you can cherry-pick apparent differences (or lack of differences), construct stories around those, and just conclude some results are weird anomalies, at some point you need to conclude there's very little evidence there's a lot of consistent signal in some particular policy/demographic/cultural difference.
    - kadoban 3y ago
      Does the comparison even tell us that? There's more confounding variables than there is signal IMO.
      - danenania 3y ago
        Well that's my point. If these measures were really so effective, then there should have been a strong signal in spite of the other variables, but we didn't see it.
        kadoban 3y ago
        The variables are all over the place though, why should the signal be strong?
        ghaff 3y ago
        At some point then though, it's about faith. The data is noisy but we believe this hard to discern signal to be true even in the absence of statistical evidence because it's complicated.

monsecchris 3y ago

My own experience is more like 1 in 5000 people followed all the rules.

kadoban 3y ago
Followed every rule perfectly? That sounds about right. That's really not that important though. But half of the US at least is actively hostile to doing anything to help anyone. Our society is broken and doomed.
ghaff 3y ago
"All" is doing a lot of work there. My experience in Massachusetts, for example, is that there was quite a high rate of compliance with public masking rules in general. Yes, some people were sloppy about wearing them and many wore less effective masks. But I saw very little outright refusal in indoor public places.

ghaff 3y ago

In that case, I'd expect to see more obvious correlation between areas where people were fairly observant of masking rules in public and a lower incidence of disease. AFAIK, that correlation is weak at best in general.

kadoban 3y ago
The places high in observence of safety protocols are cities, which are more dense, and they have a decent proportion of Republicans anyway. The different cities you might be able to compare (eg between different states that had different messaging and rules) are in different climates, so that ruins comparison as well.
- danenania 3y ago
  But if we compare California to Florida/Texas, for example, we can at least say pretty conclusively though that the effect wasn't strong enough to overcome climate differences or whatever other confounding variables might be involved. So while we can't say for sure they aren't effective at all, we can place a limit on how effective they are based on the data, and as far as I'm aware, that points to them being marginal at best. They certainly aren't, in themselves, any kind of panacea for stopping a pandemic--that much has been proven.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Exactly. I've not done clinical research but I have done market research. And, while you can cherry-pick apparent differences (or lack of differences), construct stories around those, and just conclude some results are weird anomalies, at some point you need to conclude there's very little evidence there's a lot of consistent signal in some particular policy/demographic/cultural difference.
  - kadoban 3y ago
    Does the comparison even tell us that? There's more confounding variables than there is signal IMO.
    - danenania 3y ago
      Well that's my point. If these measures were really so effective, then there should have been a strong signal in spite of the other variables, but we didn't see it.
      - kadoban 3y ago
        The variables are all over the place though, why should the signal be strong?
        ghaff 3y ago
        At some point then though, it's about faith. The data is noisy but we believe this hard to discern signal to be true even in the absence of statistical evidence because it's complicated.