Rfk drops ball

[stevil]

The headline of that article is "New Zealand Eliminates COVID-19". I wonder if the author feels foolish in hindsight given the reality of the situation.

Oh boi, I wonder if you will feel foolish once you get out of argumentative mode and start to realise that the author was correct, and you are demonstrably wrong.

 

[stevil]

Yes, for a very brief period of time. As I've said all along, NZ successfully suppressed the disease for a very short period of time before it came raging back. I haven't wavered on that.

Oh boi, still arguing about the definition of a word. What a complete waste of time.

We got rid of the disease, irradicated it, eliminated it, "suppressed" it, whatever word you use, I really don't care.


What you call a short period of time, is a pathetic attempt to downplay what we did.
The goal was not to eliminate it forever, to achieve that we either would have to shutdown the country forever, or we would have had to eliminate it from the world entirely. So you are intentionally creating a strawman, if you know you are doing this, then you are trolling.

The goal was to buy time so that we could get people vaccinated before we opened up to the world (in order to save lives), and to get our businesses back in business. Our strategy of elimination worked, we succeeded in irradicating the disease, we succeeded in buying time to get vaccinated, we succeeded in getting businesses back in business and we succeeded in saving lives. It was a resounding success.

There has to be a threshold. Otherwise, some dubious people who want to toot their own horn might claim that they "eliminated" disease by stopping transmission for a mere 100 days.

No one is bragging that the disease is eliminated for 100 days. We are high lighting that we were able to save lives, by keeping the disease at bay until we got the populus vaccinated. The approach works and was a resounding success, whether it meets your definition of the word "eliminated" or not, I don't care.

So you seem to be tacitly admitting that disease suppression was only viable if you stayed "closed",

No, you are not understanding even though I have been clear, at this point I just think you are trolling.

Bonus points if they could convince the masses that the unique geographic features of the island were less important than cloth masks and social distancing. "Eradication" was never the end goal. Suppression of disease transmission was ALWAYS the goal.'

What you are saying here is stupid. The disease was here, it didn't matter that we are an island, we had the disease and a great effort was done and a great acheivement was gained to irradicate the disease from our general population.

 

[stevil]

Again, the reason NZ fared so well in the pandemic is because they're an island, all of their cities with any noteworthy population levels are all hours and hours away from each other, and the climate is more conducive to being able to do outdoor activities rather than indoor.

Being an island was a help, but we needed to do a great effort to irradicate the disease that had already established itself.
There are other non island nations that were also able to acheive something similar, e.g. China.

 

[probinson]

Oh boi, still arguing about the definition of a word. What a complete waste of time.

We got rid of the disease, irradicated it, eliminated it, "suppressed" it, whatever word you use, I really don't care.

Well as we already established, "irradicated" means to root firmly. So I think you might want to choose your words more carefully.

What you call a short period of time, is a pathetic attempt to downplay what we did.

What I call a short period of time was, well, a short period of time.

The goal was not to eliminate it forever,

Or to put it another way, the goal was not to eradicate the disease.

to achieve that we either would have to shutdown the country forever, or we would have had to eliminate it from the world entirely. So you are intentionally creating a strawman, if you know you are doing this, then you are trolling.

I am not trolling. I'm simply responding to your faulty points. Sorry you don't like when reality meets your talking points.

The goal was to buy time so that we could get people vaccinated

I'm not sure if you remember this, but originally, no one anticipated we'd have a vaccine in a few short months. In fact, public health experts said it could take years before we had a workable vaccine. So you're playing with a bit of historical revisionism here.

before we opened up to the world (in order to save lives), and to get our businesses back in business. Our strategy of elimination worked, we succeeded in irradicating the disease, we succeeded in buying time to get vaccinated, we succeeded in getting businesses back in business and we succeeded in saving lives. It was a resounding success

Sure it was.

Riddle me this. If this strategy was such a "resounding success", why have you cumulatively had nearly double the rate of infections as the US? I'm particularly interested in hearing your explanation as to why you think infections are so high since NZ is more highly vaccinated than the US. If vaccines reduce the risk of infection, wouldn't it follow that countries with higher vaccination rates would see FEWER infections?

No one is bragging that the disease is eliminated for 100 days.

Sure they were. As if interrupting disease transmission for 100 days was something to celebrate.

We are high lighting that we were able to save lives, by keeping the disease at bay until we got the populus vaccinated.

You're also ignoring that the IFR from COVID before vaccination was very, very low.

​

The median IFR was 0.0003% at 0-19 years, 0.003% at 20-29 years, 0.011% at 30-39 years, 0.035% at 40-49 years, 0.129% at 50-59 years, and 0.501% at 60-69 years.​

​

This is what the data shows. The idea that we had to get everyone vaccinated to "save lives" was a farce from the get go, because the vast majority of the population was at no significant risk from the beginning.

The approach works and was a resounding success,

As has been pointed out, you would never have been able to achieve the "resounding success" if you weren't on an island with low population densities.

whether it meets your definition of the word "eliminated" or not, I don't care.

Actually, it's the WHO's definition of disease elimination, not mine.

No, you are not understanding even though I have been clear, at this point I just think you are trolling.

Again, I "understand" what you're saying. You're just wrong.

What you are saying here is stupid.

Never a good sign when someone needs to resort to personal insults in an attempt to prove their point.

The disease was here, it didn't matter that we are an island, we had the disease and a great effort was done and a great acheivement was gained to irradicate the disease from our general population.

Every time you type the word "irradicate" in your posts, you demonstrate to everyone reading these exchanges that you are incapable of taking even the smallest correction, even when you are demonstrably incorrect.

 

[Pommer]

So, how about this Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Junior guy?
Where’s he in all the last eight pages?

 

[probinson]

Being an island was a help,

"Help" is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting in that statement.

but we needed to do a great effort

You did not need to do a great effort.

to irradicate

the disease that had already established itself.

Had it? Let's go to the data!

The article you posted from The Lancet proudly proclaiming "New Zealand Eliminates COVID-19" was published on May 9, 2020. Let's see just how well-established the disease was in NZ at that time.

So on May 8, 2020, one day before articles were written about the "elimination" of COVID-19 in NZ, the cumulative number of cases was 222 per 1,000,000. That means that only 1 out of every 4,504 people had COVID. I know your apparent disdain for proper word choice, but I'm not sure I would say that qualifies as being "established".

There are other non island nations that were also able to acheive something similar, e.g. China.

China's zero-COVID strategy is hardly something to emulate. Unless you're totally cool with the government literally welding people's doors shut.

 

[stevil]

"Help" is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting in that statement.

The virus can survive on an island, there is nothing about an island that kills off this virus.

You did not need to do a great effort.

We went into lockdown for two months, social distancing, mask wearing.
Contact tracing, quarantine, regular task force communications, lots of effort.

 

[essentialsaltes]

So, how about this Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Junior guy?
Where’s he in all the last eight pages?

Senate committee leaders ask RFK Jr. to testify on HHS overhaul​

The HELP Committee’s top Republican is describing his invitation to the HHS secretary as routine amid mass layoffs at the agency.

[GOP Sen] Cassidy received a number of assurances from Kennedy as a condition of voting in favor of his confirmation, including that he would not dismantle the nation’s vaccine safety systems or take down government vaccine guidance. But Cassidy quickly put out a statement Tuesday clarifying that he isn’t necessarily seeking to haul Kennedy to testify in front of his committee now because he suspects bad intent.

 

[probinson]

The virus can survive on an island, there is nothing about an island that kills off this virus.

No, but the virus does have a harder time thriving when population density is lower.

We went into lockdown for two months, social distancing, mask wearing.

Yeah. We did that here too. So did pretty much the entire free world. The collateral damage was immense. The response was disproportionate to the risk the vast majority of the population faced.

Science is repeatable. If what you did worked because of the mitigation measures you tout, then it would work everywhere. But what you fail to acknowledge is that there are a myriad of confounders that you are not accounting for, not the least of which is being on a literal island with lower population density.

 

[stevil]

I'm not sure if you remember this, but originally, no one anticipated we'd have a vaccine in a few short months. In fact, public health experts said it could take years before we had a workable vaccine. So you're playing with a bit of historical revisionism here.

Perhaps NZers are more forward thinking that USA right wingers, I don't know.
But we did expect that a vaccine would be devoloped and we were protecting our population for a period of time for this vaccine to come through.

Riddle me this. If this strategy was such a "resounding success", why have you cumulatively had nearly double the rate of infections as the US?

What I don't understand is why you keep making this point when I have clearly told you that the goal was to save lives.
The goal was not to stop everyone getting infected.

Do you understand this, or are you going to keep repeating yourself about total infections?

My guess that NZ reported infections are higher than USA reported infections is that NZ have been better at tracking and reporting infections.
My assumption is that pretty much everyone has caught Covid at some point.

Timing is the important thing here. In particular, people catching Covid before being vaccinated vs people catching Covid after being vaccinated. I have made this point several times.
Not many people in NZ caught the virus before being vaccinated.

 

[probinson]

including that he would not dismantle the nation’s vaccine safety systems

I find it amusing anytime anyone mentions our nation's vaccine "safety systems". I'm not sure what they're referring to. VAERS, perhaps? The FDA shilling for pharmaceutical companies instead of being an objective regulator? It's hard for me to understand what they're referring to here.

 

[stevil]

No, but the virus does have a harder time thriving when population density is lower.

We have 5 million people, cities, towns, roads. People travel around, they congregate.
The virus has no problems spreading around a country such as ours.

Yeah. We did that here too. So did pretty much the entire free world.

The strategy and leadership differed from country to country. You know this already. But.. that doesn't stop you.

The collateral damage was immense. The response was disproportionate to the risk the vast majority of the population faced.

I mean, you could say, who cares about the 1%, for NZ that's only 50,000 people, for USA only 3.6 million. Who cares if they die.
Or another approach is that the whole country joins forces and tries to save that 1% or as much of them as possible.

Two approaches. I know which approach I go for.

Science is repeatable. If what you did worked because of the mitigation measures you tout, then it would work everywhere. But what you fail to acknowledge is that there are a myriad of confounders that you are not accounting for, not the least of which is being on a literal island with lower population density.

There aren't many countries with the ambition of "elimination", some countries had huge numbers of people that thought the disease was pretty much the flu and not worth doing anything to stop it. Some people still believe that. In fact I've talked to a person like that just today.

 

[probinson]

Perhaps NZers are more forward thinking that USA right wingers, I don't know.
But we did expect that a vaccine would be devoloped and we were protecting our population for a period of time for this vaccine to come through.

April 29, 2020​

​

While these research efforts are encouraging, generally speaking, developing a vaccine is no easy feat. It’s critical to understand how well a vaccine protects from infection before it can be used in people. It’s equally important to make sure the vaccine doesn’t have any adverse effects. Both usually require extensive testing in animal models, which takes time.​

​

...​

​

How long does it typically take to develop a vaccine? ​

​

This is a difficult question to answer. Generally, for a vaccine or drug, it can take as long as 10 to 12 years for a discovery in the lab to make it to patient use.​

​

Internationally, compassionate use programs have allowed select vaccines to be tested in humans, but those results could be months or years away. ​

​

Why it may be years before there’s a vaccine for COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted millions of people around the globe, prompting researchers to shift their focus to developing vaccines and treatments to prevent and slow the spread of the virus. Learn more.

wexnermedical.osu.edu

​

​

In April 2020, no one was expecting a vaccine in a year. Not even Dr. Fauci, who said best case scenario was 12-18 months. But that was when people realized that the development of a vaccine takes time and rushing it was not wise. To wit:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said the earliest the US may get a coronavirus vaccine will be in 12 to 18 months.
• Some experts say reaching that target may be challenging, because vaccines require a lot of testing.
• One worry is "immune enhancement," normally spotted in animal testing, whereby a vaccine actually weakens a person's response to the virus.
• It can take 10 years or more to bring a vaccine from the starting block to being approved by regulators. The FDA says, in this case, it will be flexible to accommodate approval for a workable COVID-19 virus vaccine.
• 40 vaccines for the coronavirus are in development right now, according to the World Health Organization. A number of labs have begun human trials.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Fauci said it will take 12 to 18 months to get a coronavirus vaccine in the US. Experts say a quick approval could be risky.

As many as 40 coronavirus vaccines are under development. Some have started human trials, but an approved product is a long way off.

www.businessinsider.com

​

Note that "immune enhancement", where someone is actually MORE susceptible to the disease, was a concern. Unfortunately, more and more studies are validating that concern.

What I don't understand is why you keep making this point when I have clearly told you that the goal was to save lives.
The goal was not to stop everyone getting infected.

What I don't understand is the cognitive dissonance where you simultaneously believe that vaccines reduce infections, yet real-world data shows that NZ has had FAR more infections than the US despite being highly vaccinated.

Do you understand this, or are you going to keep repeating yourself about total infections?

Why are you downplaying the fact that the vaccine isn't stopping infections? You've made some bold claims that one is vaccinated, they are at reduced risk of being infected. The data does not show that to be the case.

My guess that NZ reported infections are higher than USA reported infections is that NZ have been better at tracking and reporting infections.

Well of course that's your "guess", because it is palatable to your preconceived ideas.

My assumption is that pretty much everyone has caught Covid at some point.

That's probably true, regardless of their vaccination status.

Timing is the important thing here. In particular, people catching Covid before being vaccinated vs people catching Covid after being vaccinated. I have made this point several times.

You have. But you've failed to address the IFR for COVID BEFORE vaccination was very, very low. Here it is again.

The median IFR was 0.0003% at 0-19 years, 0.003% at 20-29 years, 0.011% at 30-39 years, 0.035% at 40-49 years, 0.129% at 50-59 years, and 0.501% at 60-69 years.​

​

The risk of dying from COVID was already remarkably low. It wasn't nearly as important for everyone to be vaccinated as public health told you, as you should be able to see from this data.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Being an island was a help, but we needed to do a great effort to irradicate the disease that had already established itself.
There are other non island nations that were also able to acheive something similar, e.g. China.

I don't know that we'd want to prop of China as a shining example...

For one thing, they lied about their actual numbers

The US intelligence community has reportedly concluded that China intentionally misrepresented its coronavirus numbers

US officials have accused China of spreading disinformation, and even some Chinese residents have expressed skepticism about the numbers.

www.businessinsider.com

Second, they imposed measures that were beyond draconian

The army of millions who enforce China’s zero-COVID policy, at all costs

The Xian government was quick and resolute in imposing a strict lockdown in late December when cases were on the rise. But it was not prepared to provide food, medical care and other necessities to the citys 13 million residents, creating chaos and crises not seen since the country first locked...

economictimes.indiatimes.com

Forcing people in their houses at gun point, refusing to allow sick people into the hospitals for unrelated matters, simply because they lived near a "medium risk district", beating people who dared to leave their house for food, etc...

 

[probinson]

We have 5 million people, cities, towns, roads. People travel around, they congregate.

I'm not sure why you're pretending like the geography and demographics of NZ are comparable to the US. We both know that's not true.

The virus has no problems spreading around a country such as ours.

Well, that's true. I mean, just look at how many infections you have now, despite your high vaccination rates!

The strategy and leadership differed from country to country. You know this already. But.. that doesn't stop you.

In the US, the strategy and leadership differed from state to state. And yet the states that implemented stricter mandates and lockdowns for longer saw no appreciable difference in the long-term. Sure, there were mini victories declared. But I lost count of how many times someone claimed victory only to have a massive outbreak sometimes just days or week later. Reminds me of NZ claiming they "eliminated" COVID only to have case numbers skyrocket despite their high vaccination rates.

I mean, you could say, who cares about the 1%, for NZ that's only 50,000 people, for USA only 3.6 million. Who cares if they die.

Um, no one is saying that.

Also, are you aware of how many people die each day from all causes? Current data shows that someone dies in the US roughly every 11 seconds. Do you "care" about them? Or are only COVID deaths worth "caring" about?

Or another approach is that the whole country joins forces and tries to save that 1% or as much of them as possible.

I suppose you have to look at it that way to justify your position. The one metric you are hyper-focused on is COVID deaths. Any time I've mentioned any of the very real collateral damage, you've pretended like it didn't matter. Increased mental health crisis? Increased suicide rate? Increased domestic violence? Decreased education levels? People literally dying of loneliness? None of these things seem to matter to you, nor did they seem to matter to many of the public health officials. The myopic focus on COVID carried with it immense collateral damage.

Two approaches. I know which approach I go for.

As do I. I only hope that the next time something like this happens, the people in charge actually care about evidence and will adjust accordingly instead of digging in their heels and propagandizing people to do "what we know works".

There aren't many countries with the ambition of "elimination", some countries had huge numbers of people that thought the disease was pretty much the flu and not worth doing anything to stop it.

Given the IFR numbers I've posted, they were mostly correct.

Some people still believe that. In fact I've talked to a person like that just today.

COVID is in a category of non-specific respiratory viruses. It has no unique symptoms. It falls under the category of ILI, or influenza-like illness.

 

[probinson]

Forcing people in their houses at gun point, refusing to allow sick people into the hospitals for unrelated matters, simply because they lived near a "medium risk district", beating people who dared to leave their house for food, etc...

It's telling that anyone would attempt to use China's COVID response as an example of how to control a disease. I mean, I guess some people believe that beating people and holding them at gunpoint is just what's necessary to "save lives".

 

[stevil]

I'm not sure why you're pretending like the geography and demographics of NZ are comparable to the US. We both know that's not true.

I've never said that NZ's geography or demographics are comparable to the US.

Well, that's true. I mean, just look at how many infections you have now, despite your high vaccination rates!

Yes, agreed.

Once we had vaccinated our population and once we stopped with quarantining at the border, and stopped with lockdowns and social distancing and masks, then the disease was reintroduced to the country and quickly spread everywhere, as expected.

In the US, the strategy and leadership differed from state to state. And yet the states that implemented stricter mandates and lockdowns for longer saw no appreciable difference in the long-term.

The USA response was a disaster. You had the the Republican lead Pandemic Task force trying to get people wearing masks and distancing, you had the Republican president saying he won't be wearing masks, saying it's just like a flu, that it will miraculously just go away, and eventually inserting himself into the daily taskforce broadcast and contradicting the scientists and contradicting the message that the taskforce was trying to convey. You had Republican governers fighting against masks and social distancing, and you had Democrat governers trying to go with the WHO, CDC and taskforce recommendations.

Sure, there were mini victories declared. But I lost count of how many times someone claimed victory only to have a massive outbreak sometimes just days or week later. Reminds me of NZ claiming they "eliminated" COVID only to have case numbers skyrocket despite their high vaccination rates.

Unfortunately your capacity to understand is very limited, and instead you spout out propaganda troupes.

Also, are you aware of how many people die each day from all causes? Current data shows that someone dies in the US roughly every 11 seconds. Do you "care" about them? Or are only COVID deaths worth "caring" about?

The topic is the Covid Pandemic so I am focused on that.
If you are worried about deaths related to efforts trying to combat the Pandemic such as mask wearing and social distancing then just looking at the Excess death rates for those years and comparing those to the Covid deaths, you will see that there is a very strong correlation there. There isn't room for anything else significant that is not Covid deaths to account for those excess deaths.

I suppose you have to look at it that way to justify your position. The one metric you are hyper-focused on is COVID deaths.

Yes, we are talking about the Covid pandemic.

COVID is in a category of non-specific respiratory viruses. It has no unique symptoms. It falls under the category of ILI, or influenza-like illness.

COVID has symptoms like the flu, but being a novel virus it was much more deadly, many orders of magnitude more deadly than the flu.

 

[stevil]

I don't know that we'd want to prop of China as a shining example...

For one thing, they lied about their actual numbers

The US intelligence community has reportedly concluded that China intentionally misrepresented its coronavirus numbers

US officials have accused China of spreading disinformation, and even some Chinese residents have expressed skepticism about the numbers.

www.businessinsider.com

Second, they imposed measures that were beyond draconian

The army of millions who enforce China’s zero-COVID policy, at all costs

The Xian government was quick and resolute in imposing a strict lockdown in late December when cases were on the rise. But it was not prepared to provide food, medical care and other necessities to the citys 13 million residents, creating chaos and crises not seen since the country first locked...

economictimes.indiatimes.com

Forcing people in their houses at gun point, refusing to allow sick people into the hospitals for unrelated matters, simply because they lived near a "medium risk district", beating people who dared to leave their house for food, etc...

Yeah, not the way NZ did it, but still, with masks and social distancing they were able to contain the outbreak, eventually.

 

[stevil]

Why are you downplaying the fact that the vaccine isn't stopping infections? You've made some bold claims that one is vaccinated, they are at reduced risk of being infected. The data does not show that to be the case.

When did I say vaccinations stop infections?

​

The risk of dying from COVID was already remarkably low. It wasn't nearly as important for everyone to be vaccinated as public health told you, as you should be able to see from this data.

If USA didn't bother getting people vaccinated, you would have had 2-3 million dead.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It's telling that anyone would attempt to use China's COVID response as an example of how to control a disease. I mean, I guess some people believe that beating people and holding them at gunpoint is just what's necessary to "save lives".

It's because the whole thing became very political very quick.

"How seriously one takes covid" became a quasi-personality type in the US.

When people start decorating their social media profile pics with banners discussing what medical choices they've made, it's less about them actually taking it seriously, and more about letting everyone else know how much they take it seriously for "cred".

People posting Facebook profile pics of themselves in their car, alone, with a mask with a border that says "Do your part #SaveLives" just screams of "somebody like me please" desperation. Or posting a picture of themselves with a Band-Aid on their shoulder to let everyone know they got vaccinated.