Let's Keep an Eye on Texas and Mississippi

[Derek1234]

As numbers get smaller, percentages become deceiving. If you have a one penny and I have two, I have 100% more money than you. Significant? I suppose that depends on the context of your analysis.

Here is a visualization on a pie chart of 7% vs 10.3%. Those pieces of pie aren't substantially different, even if one is 47.14% larger.

View attachment 299818

I'm also not sure why the focus is on "infection rate" when we've already established that lower infection rates do not equate to lower mortality. The vast majority of people "infected" with COVID-19 have very mild or no symptoms at all. So the goal never should have been to try to prevent all infections, but rather to protect those who are most vulnerable.

Aha. Well let's look at some other factors. Texas has a population density of scarcely 1/10 of Rhode Island. Could that be a factor? New York State also has a circa 25% larger population of African Americans than Texas, and that demographic unfortunately is statistically significantly more vulnerable to COVID-19 mortality. Could that be a factor? And this is even setting aside factors like healthcare inequalities. There's no point in assuming a homogenous population equally shared among US states. The evidence shows masks help to limit infection, and limiting infection saves lives. There's no reason to persist in putting out erroneous data to support an dogmatic anti-mask position.

 

[The Barbarian]

The vaccine, of course, changes everything.

Yes. It was quickly available in larger urban areas of Texas, where it mattered most. And people were more sensible than their leaders. When Gov. Abbot announced mask mandates were over, businesses, some cities, and most Texans said "in your dreams", and kept masks in public. Took a state supreme court ruling to slap him down, when he tried to impose his rules on cities and businesses that didn't want to take part in his experiment with the health of Texans.

I noticed that even in places like malls, Texans mostly kept masked in spite of the governor's foolishness. And those who didn't generally looked like they failed the dress code at Wal-Mart.

Now that CDC has found that enough people are vaccinated that it's relatively safe to go in public without masks, I see many people without them. And that's fine. Texans aren't stupid; they listened to doctors and scientists, but not some hack politician.

 

[Derek1234]

As numbers get smaller, percentages become deceiving. If you have a one penny and I have two, I have 100% more money than you. Significant? I suppose that depends on the context of your analysis.

Here is a visualization on a pie chart of 7% vs 10.3%. Those pieces of pie aren't substantially different, even if one is 47.14% larger.

View attachment 299818

I'm also not sure why the focus is on "infection rate" when we've already established that lower infection rates do not equate to lower mortality. The vast majority of people "infected" with COVID-19 have very mild or no symptoms at all. So the goal never should have been to try to prevent all infections, but rather to protect those who are most vulnerable.

I also shouldn't let your cavalier indifference to the actual people affected by the "smaller" numbers go unchallenged. Your two pennies vs one penny analogy is woeful in this context. If one piece of the pie is 47.14% larger than the other - with all other factors being equal, which I don't for a second believe they are - would you want your friends and family to live in a place where their risk of infection was nearly half as much again as elsewhere?

 

[Hammster]

Aha. Well let's look at some other factors. Texas has a population density of scarcely 1/10 of Rhode Island. Could that be a factor? New York State also has a circa 25% larger population of African Americans than Texas, and that demographic unfortunately is statistically significantly more vulnerable to COVID-19 mortality. Could that be a factor? And this is even setting aside factors like healthcare inequalities. There's no point in assuming a homogenous population equally shared among US states. The evidence shows masks help to limit infection, and limiting infection saves lives. There's no reason to persist in putting out erroneous data to support an dogmatic anti-mask position.

Dallas/Fort Worth has a population of around 4 times that of the entire state of Rhode Island. I only bring that up to show that your idea of population density doesn’t really factor in here.

 

[Derek1234]

Dallas/Fort Worth has a population of around 4 times that of the entire state of Rhode Island. I only bring that up to show that your idea of population density doesn’t really factor in here.

Hmmm. Let's explore that. The population size of a place is not the same as population density. Even looking at urban areas in Texas - like Dallas/Forth Worth - the population density is around 60% of Rhode Island's. But even population density is only a proxy measure for people's susceptibility to transmission. Many rural or suburban areas have had a worse C19. For example, in NY, Manhattan has (or had) a much lower transmission rate than Queens, but preliminary studies suggest that this was because of C19-aware behaviours such as distancing and ... yes ... mask-wearing.

In short, the available best evidence suggests that people's behaviours - supported by environments that allow them to distance, and access to high-quality healthcare - reduce infection rates and certainly reduce mortality rates. This really should not be a surprise to anyone, except for the dogmatists.

 

[The Barbarian]

Dallas/Fort Worth has a population of around 4 times that of the entire state of Rhode Island.

Rhode Island has an area of 1,214 square miles.
Rhode Island - Wikipedia

The Metroplex has an area of 9,286 square miles. (census data)

Which means that DFW has about half the population density of Rhode Island. However, the majority of Texans live outside urban areas in much less densely settled areas. This is changing, a fact that is contributing to the ongoing bluing of Texas. But not there yet.

I only bring that up to show that your idea of population density doesn’t really factor in here.

Seems to be one of the big factors. Rhode Island is the second most densely-populated state in the U.S. Texas is 26th most densely-populated.
List of states and territories of the United States by population density - Wikipedia

 

[probinson]

I also shouldn't let your cavalier indifference to the actual people affected by the "smaller" numbers go unchallenged. Your two pennies vs one penny analogy is woeful in this context.

Actually it shows your attempt to make that "50%" difference seem "significant" is severely overstated. What if the percentage odds of infection with or without masks was only 1% with and 2% without? You could be mathematically accurate in saying that the risk is 100% higher, but you'd be incredibly disingenuous in trying to make that sound like it was that "significant" by tossing out that it's "100% higher".

If one piece of the pie is 47.14% larger than the other - with all other factors being equal, which I don't for a second believe they are - would you want your friends and family to live in a place where their risk of infection was nearly half as much again as elsewhere?

First, I would agree with you that there are many other contributing factors in why infection rates vary from one place to another, not the least of which is the season and region. This is one of the reasons that all of the "evidence" that the maskers present that shows "masks work" is incredibly disingenuous. Conveniently, if an area has a lower infection rate that enforced masks, then it certainly must be because of masks. But if there are places that had a lower infection rate without masks (as countless states did), it must be because of other factors. This isn't an objective analysis. It's simple confirmation bias.

Secondly, the risk isn't "nearly half as much". We're talking about a risk percentage difference of just a few percentage points (3.3, to be exact).

Thirdly, we've already established that a higher infection rate does not equate to higher mortality. So simply having a higher risk of infection does not directly translate to a higher risk of mortality. For the vast majority of "infected" people, they will have mild symptoms. The younger they are, the less of a risk they have. So I would have no problem living in a place where the risk was a few percentage points higher than someplace else.

Lastly, the masking zealots continually fail to take into account countless other factors, collateral damage that results from their embrace of mitigation measures. As long as "infection rate" is kept down, they seem happy. They don't really seem to care that mental health is on the decline, and kids are falling behind in school, and unemployment is at record high levels, and there is an impending crisis as people are evicted from their homes once the rent/mortgate moratorium expires, or that suicides have increased in younger people at a disproportionately quicker pace, or that other diseases are going undiagnosed as people have delayed routine examinations.... the list goes on. These things are all a result not of the virus, but of the response to it. The myopic focus solely on COVID numbers will have repercussions for years to come long after the pandemic is behind us. But hey, at least there is a 3.3 percentage point decrease in risk, or maybe not, since there are countless other factors at play...

 

[probinson]

Masks merely protect people against infection. If one is infected, then masks won't help. I don't think that's a difficult concept, but apparently, it is.

Hmm. Funny how that's changed so drastically. At the beginning of the pandemic, we were told masks were pointless, and might actually make things worse. Then almost overnight, there was a whole boat-load of propaganda about why you should wear a mask and how your mask protects me and my mask protects you. That was the whole premise of wearing masks. You might be asymptomatic and transmit the disease fo someone unknowingly. Source control, we were told, is why we needed to wear masks. So if you are infected, masks were supposed to stop you from transmitting the infection to someone else and reduce the infection rate. Yet you say if you got infected, then the mask didn't help. So now we all have to pretend like an ill-fitting porous cloth on your face "protects" you from a virus.

And yes, there's a nice correlation between the number of people infected and the number of deaths from the infection.

There is not. You can see that in the graphs I posted. States with the highest infection rates did not also have the highest death rates. No point in denial...

We know that more infections mean more deaths.

That depends entirely on WHO is infected. More infections in younger people, especially children, does not equate to more deaths. Did you know that there have only been roughly 300 deaths in children 17 and under in the US since the beginning of the pandemic? That's why making kids wear masks in school is nothing more than performative mask theater.

 

[probinson]

Dallas/Fort Worth has a population of around 4 times that of the entire state of Rhode Island. I only bring that up to show that your idea of population density doesn’t really factor in here.

When you support masks, you must, at all costs, explain away anything that shows masks are anything short of miraculous. Rhode Island has had a strict mask mandate since early in the pandemic, and they have the second highest infection rate in the country. This is a simple fact. But it's irrelevant you see, because of "population density", or some other reason.

Look at India. The Wall Street Journal was singing the praises of masks keeping infections low in December. But when India became THE hotspot of infections in the world, no one went back to explain what happened, and why all of a sudden masks stopped working. They'd prefer you to forget that they set the criteria which said that masks were the reason cases were so low. This then begs the question (which no one will answer anyway), why did cases go up so high? You can't have it both ways.

 

[The Barbarian]

Masks merely protect people against infection. If one is infected, then masks won't help. I don't think that's a difficult concept, but apparently, it is.

Hmm. Funny how that's changed so drastically. At the beginning of the pandemic, we were told masks were pointless, and might actually make things worse.

Well, let's take a look...

"There's no reason to be walking around with a mask," infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes.

While masks may block some droplets, Fauci said, they do not provide the level of protection people think they do. Wearing a mask may also have unintended consequences: People who wear masks tend to touch their face more often to adjust them, which can spread germs from their hands.
March 2020: Dr. Anthony Fauci talks with Dr Jon LaPook about COVID-19

Turns out, he was right about masks not being very effective at protecting the wearer. It does have some protection for wearers, but mostly protects others from people with the virus who are wearing masks. And it turns out, that surfaces are much less likely to spread COVID-19 virus than they are for other, similar viruses. But scientists didn't know it at that time.

And then, several researchers found that masks were unexpectedly effective at reducing the number of virus particles emitted by infected people:

A recent study published in Health Affairs, for example, compared the COVID-19 growth rate before and after mask mandates in 15 states and the District of Columbia. It found that mask mandates led to a slowdown in daily COVID-19 growth rate, which became more apparent over time. The first five days after a mandate, the daily growth rate slowed by 0.9 percentage-points compared to the five days prior to the mandate; at three weeks, the daily growth rate had slowed by 2 percentage-points.

Another study looked at coronavirus deaths across 198 countries and found that those with cultural norms or government policies favoring mask-wearing had lower death rates.
Still Confused About Masks? Here’s the Science Behind How Face Masks Prevent Coronavirus

Then almost overnight, information was being broadcast about why you should wear a mask and how your mask protects me and my mask protects you. Not just in lab tests, but in real world cases. And it matters.

And yes, there's a nice correlation between the number of people infected and the number of deaths from the infection.

States with the highest infection rates did not also have the highest death rates. No point in denial.

However, total cases correlated nicely with the total number of deaths. You've confused total cases with rates. Two different things. Total deaths correlate nicely with total cases, as I showed you. Death rates, as you learned earlier, have to do with the population age, population density, and other factors.

Yet surprisingly, there is a moderate positive correlation between the infection rates and death rates of the states with the ten highest infection rates. (0.3940). And seven of ten states with the highest infection rates had covid-19 death rates higher than the national average covid-19 death rate.
United States COVID: 34,030,271 Cases and 609,215 Deaths - Worldometer

Did you know that there have only been roughly 300 deaths in children 17 and under in the US since the beginning of the pandemic?

That's why masks are so important for kids of school age; they are often completely asymptomatic when infected. But they can still infect adults. And as you also learned, masks are mostly important to stop the wearer from infecting others.

That's why making kids wear masks in school is nothing more than performative mask theater.

See above. You forgot, again.

 

[The Barbarian]

When you support masks, you must, at all costs, explain away anything that shows masks are anything short of miraculous.

Nope. You just have to show that they significantly reduce infections. Which, as you have found, is the case.

Rhode Island has had a strict mask mandate since early in the pandemic, and they have the second highest infection rate in the country.

As you admitted, population density affects infection rates. This is a good example.

you see, because of "population density", or some other reason.

This is a simple fact. And that's a good example.

 

[Derek1234]

Actually it shows your attempt to make that "50%" difference seem "significant" is severely overstated. What if the percentage odds of infection with or without masks was only 1% with and 2% without? You could be mathematically accurate in saying that the risk is 100% higher, but you'd be incredibly disingenuous in trying to make that sound like it was that "significant" by tossing out that it's "100% higher".

This seems to be simple innumeracy in an applied context. Where we are talking about rates per million, that single percentage point - just one percentage point - is 10K cases. Perhaps you think that's small beer. I don't. And I don't think it's disengenuous to point it out. In the same way, I have a mortgage. If my lender were to say to me that they'll put up by interest rate by "just one percentage point" I wouldn't think "phew, that's a single solitary percentage point." I'd be thinking "that increases the interest component of my mortgage by around 30% per month." Not something to celebrate.

 

[Derek1234]

Lastly, the masking zealots continually fail to take into account countless other factors, collateral damage that results from their embrace of mitigation measures. As long as "infection rate" is kept down, they seem happy. They don't really seem to care that mental health is on the decline, and kids are falling behind in school, and unemployment is at record high levels, and there is an impending crisis as people are evicted from their homes once the rent/mortgate moratorium expires, or that suicides have increased in younger people at a disproportionately quicker pace, or that other diseases are going undiagnosed as people have delayed routine examinations.... the list goes on. These things are all a result not of the virus, but of the response to it. The myopic focus solely on COVID numbers will have repercussions for years to come long after the pandemic is behind us. But hey, at least there is a 3.3 percentage point decrease in risk, or maybe not, since there are countless other factors at play...

Your last point includes some stuff I agree with, albeit you unhelpfully attribute collateral damage to "masking zealots". Let's be clear, these phenomena are real, and are highly likely to be attributable to the overall C19 response. But why do you think they're to do with "masking"? Are you suggesting that the global spike in domestic violence is because of masking? That people are committing suicide because of masking? Of course you're not. Masking is a strategy that reduces the risk of people infecting each other, and enables some semblance of normality. It enables social interaction (which tends to have a positive effect on mental health); it enables kids to go to school; it enables people who need to work in a workplace to do so, meaning they have income. Masking is an enabler, but lockdowns are disablers.

After 9/11 I thought the world would never be the same again. And in some ways, it's not. We now have to have body scans before going on planes, not to carry more than 100ml of liquids, not to carry sharp things in our carry-on baggage, to remove our shoes at airports. The cost of these procedures in productive time has been enormous. But it's the "new normal" and something people seem to accept because they want to fly. Let's not lose sight of what we're trying to achieve with masking. If science shows it doesn't work - or that some other strategy is more effective, or if the environment no longer requires it - then great. I will celebrate as much as the next person. But until then, out of respect for social good, I'll keep masking.

 

[probinson]

This seems to be simple innumeracy in an applied context. Where we are talking about rates per million, that single percentage point - just one percentage point - is 10K cases. Perhaps you think that's small beer. I don't.

I do, because we're talking about 10,000 "infections", almost all of which, data shows, will be asymptomatic or very, very mild.

 

[iluvatar5150]

I do, because we're talking about 10,000 "infections", almost all of which, data shows, will be asymptomatic or very, very mild.

With a mortality rate of 1-2%, that’s 100-200 people dead. That’s equivalent to an average commercial airliner crash.

 

[probinson]

Your last point includes some stuff I agree with, albeit you unhelpfully attribute collateral damage to "masking zealots". Let's be clear, these phenomena are real, and are highly likely to be attributable to the overall C19 response. But why do you think they're to do with "masking"? Are you suggesting that the global spike in domestic violence is because of masking? That people are committing suicide because of masking?

Not masking in and of itself, but the overzealous mitigation measures as a whole. Schools had to remain closed (in the US, but not the rest of the world), because "experts" decided that everyone needed to be 6 feet apart (or 1 meter, depending on which "expert" you believe). Schools couldn't abide by these regulations. There simply was not enough physical space in the building.

I just attended my son's high school musical which, thankfully, the school put on in defiance of recommended measures. I watched on their last day as the seniors in the play broke down in tears because they had their senior years robbed from them. You think this hasn't played a major impact on their mental health? Of course it has. Masks. Social distancing. These are the reasons our students have suffered.

After 9/11 I thought the world would never be the same again. And in some ways, it's not. We now have to have body scans before going on planes, not to carry more than 100ml of liquids, not to carry sharp things in our carry-on baggage, to remove our shoes at airports. The cost of these procedures in productive time has been enormous. But it's the "new normal" and something people seem to accept because they want to fly.

And it's all performative nonsense to make people "feel" safer. But they're not.

Now, because of the pandemic, you can carry larger containers of hand sanitizers. But not shampoo. Sure, that makes sense.

And for the low, low price of $75, you can get TSA pre-check, which allows you to be "pre-screened" for 5 years, so that you can skip the full body scans, and shoe removals, and laptop removal from your carry-on. It's actually quite brilliant. They convinced everyone that these measures were needed to keep us "safe", and then charged us to do all these things we used to do for free.

Let's not lose sight of what we're trying to achieve with masking. If science shows it doesn't work - or that some other strategy is more effective, or if the environment no longer requires it - then great. I will celebrate as much as the next person.

The problem is, any "science" that doesn't come to the same conclusions of the approved narrative that masks work, it is marginalized or censored. Groupthink has taken the place of "science".

Just look at the origins of the coronavirus. It was a "conspiracy theory" last year to suggest that the virus may have leaked from a lab. "Fact-checkers" decided that it came from a bat and originated in a wet market. No other explanation was even allowed to be considered. Facebook would censor your post if you dared to suggest that the virus may have leaked from a lab. But here we are now, just a year later, and it's quite plausible that the virus did leak from a lab after all. So once again, it's acceptable to discuss.

Do you not see a problem with this? Science has been infected with politics and is no longer objective. You don't have to look far to find evidence of this. Remember back in February when Director of the CDC Dr. Walensky said that it was safe for kids to go back to school even before all teachers were vaccinated? Then just a few hours later, Jen Psaki threw her under the bus and said that was not the position of the Biden administration? Then when the school guidance came out, it had little resemblance to anything Walensky had said? Heck, even CNN called her out on it. This isn't "science".

But until then, out of respect for social good, I'll keep masking.

See, if I thought masks did any good. I might actually agree with you. Particularly as a Christian, we do need to be willing to put others above ourselves. But I've seen absolutely no benefit of masking. There are countless examples of masks working, until they don't. And then no one even bothers acknowledging that the masks did not, in fact, reduce infections.

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

[probinson]

With a mortality rate of 1-2%, that’s 100-200 people dead. That’s equivalent to an average commercial airliner crash.

First of all, the mortality rate of COVID is not 1-2%. It is highly dependent upon the age of the person infected.

For young, healthy adults, the risk of death from COVID is roughly the same as the risk of death from the flu. For young children, the flu has a higher mortality rate than COVID. For older adults, COVID is many times more deadly for them than the flu. Your post is a friendly reminder that many people have been badly misinformed about the actual risk of COVID.

Secondly, in 2018, long before there was COVID-19, 7,800+ people died EVERY SINGLE DAY for a total of 2,854,838 deaths, according to CDC data. You have been made acutely aware of deaths from COVID because it's reported 24/7. But the idea that we can prevent ALL deaths, or zero-COVID as it's sometimes called, is foolishness.

Seeing you compare the theoretical number of potential COVID deaths to the capacity of a single commercial airliner fails to acknowledge that we ACTUALLY lose the equivalent of 39 commercial airliners to all causes of death every day. We just don't hear about it 24 hours/day.

 

[iluvatar5150]

First of all, the mortality rate of COVID is not 1-2%. It is highly dependent upon the age of the person infected.

For young, healthy adults, the risk of death from COVID is roughly the same as the risk of death from the flu. For young children, the flu has a higher mortality rate than COVID. For older adults, COVID is many times more deadly for them than the flu. Your post is a friendly reminder that many people have been badly misinformed about the actual risk of COVID.

And that all averages out to a mortality rate of what?…

Secondly, in 2018, long before there was COVID-19, 7,800+ people died EVERY SINGLE DAY for a total of 2,854,838 deaths, according to CDC data. You have been made acutely aware of deaths from COVID because it's reported 24/7. But the idea that we can prevent ALL deaths, or zero-COVID as it's sometimes called, is foolishness.

Seeing you compare the theoretical number of potential COVID deaths to the capacity of a single commercial airliner fails to acknowledge that we ACTUALLY lose the equivalent of 39 commercial airliners to all causes of death every day. We just don't hear about it 24 hours/day.

How do the CDC’s all cause mortality statistics from the last ~14 months compare to the number of published covid deaths and the mortality statistics for previous years?

 

[probinson]

Masking is a strategy that reduces the risk of people infecting each other, and enables some semblance of normality. It enables social interaction (which tends to have a positive effect on mental health); it enables kids to go to school; it enables people who need to work in a workplace to do so, meaning they have income. Masking is an enabler, but lockdowns are disablers.

I'm going to address this point specifically.

You've been conditioned to believe these activities are "unsafe" without a mask. This is why you believe masks are "enablers". But I strongly disagree.

Last year when the pandemic began and we had no data, I advised caution. I stayed home. I wore my mask. I diligently kept my social distance. I said we should listen to the experts. But as the months wore on, and I watched the data myself and the "experts" flip-flopped like pancakes on a griddle, we decided to return to life as normal. Data began to show that this virus was like every other virus before it, in that it is regional and seasonal, which is by far the most reliable predictor of infection rates.

Since last June, we've held regular, unmasked church services. We've gathered with our extended family on multiple occasions, indoors and outdoors. I went to an unmasked weekend retreat with over 40 people. We've had birthday parties and (gasp!) even blown out candles on the cake. We've hugged and shaken hands. We had a super-bowl party at our house. Yes, there were some cases of COVID in our circles in the last year, not the least of which was my 82-year old, diabetic father. He was hospitalized for 2 days and given fluids. But he's fine today. A few of my friends tested positive and quarantined for 2 weeks. I may even have had the infection myself, as I was sick for a few days back in August with an unexplained illness, although I never got tested. And yes, even a few people we knew died after they were infected, although all of them had some serious health issues and multiple co-morbidities.

My dad put it best when we were deciding whether we should get together as a family for Thanksgivng or not. Everyone who decided to forego those family gatherings was simply taking a different kind of risk. The opportunity to make family memories was skipped in favor of "safety", reasoning they could get together next year. But there's no guarantee of that. Not one of us is promised tomorrow.

So this is why I don't associate masks as an "enabler", because I don't need a mask to "enable" me to do what I've always done.

 

[probinson]

And that all averages out to a mortality rate of what?…

I hope you know that it's not that simple. Here is a good explainer of why mortality rates, CFR and IFR are constantly moving, and why it's misleading to just rattle off an "average" mortality rate.
Mortality Risk of COVID-19 - Statistics and Research

How do the CDC’s all cause mortality statistics from the last ~14 months compare to the number of published covid deaths and the mortality statistics for previous years?

If you're talking about excess deaths, preliminary data is indicating that excess deaths are higher in younger age groups, which would seem to indicate that there was an increase in deaths from causes other than COVID. It will take time to analyze that data to know for sure, but it's very likely that the response to the pandemic resulted in these additional deaths. I've been saying for quite a while that our mitigation measures did not save lives. It simply traded them to other causes. Time will tell if that is a correct assesement.