Science Deniers Try to Take Over a Sarasota Public Hospital

[KCfromNC]

I get that. You've been trained to believe that anything that sounds even moderately critical of the vaccines is "anti-vax" in nature.

That's a falsehood. Thanks for the guess, though.

 

[rturner76]

Just too many examples to count.
joe biden senior moments at DuckDuckGo

Have you ever tried public speaking? I took a class on it and I can't think of one speech I made where I didn't flub a word or lose my place at one point. Especially if we are talking about 30-minute speeches or on-the-fly public addresses. You could search any president's speeches and see just as many flubs.

Do you honestly think President Biden doesn't know where the button is r the procedures for using it or were you just taking an opportunity to point out his imperfections?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

That paper was a complete disaster and it should have been retracted.

Are there still problems with the corrected paper? It still says covid is a leading cause of death for 0-19 year olds. Apparently the errors Kelley found were not significant enough to alter the general finding.

And even with all of that finagling, they STILL couldn't get it to land in the top five causes of death for children, which was a claim repeated by both the FDA and the CDC in their approval of the vaccines for those under five.

Do you have any evidence that the approval of the vaccines for those under five depended on that specific ranking of #5?

No, it was when I was pointing out seasonality, and how COVID cases are actually higher this year than last.

I agree that covid cases will likely turn out to be higher this calendar year than the last year. And I agree that it is somewhat affected by the season. But these two facts don't have anything to do with each other. But then I was not part of that argument, so I don't know where you were going with that.

Look at you! Sneaking in the pejorative "science-denier" twice in two sentences! Impressive.

It's in the title of the thread, and it applies.

Yeah, that's not a fact at all.

Look at this article from February 2021 that explains the above scenario almost to a tee;

Yeah, I read the article. But I did not stop at the anecdote you quoted that opened the article. I read the whole article. It does not support your inflated doubt about the seriousness of covid. That's another item from the science denier's playbook. Take a small doubt that definitely exists and inflate it to the hilt. If you read the whole article you will see that corrections were made to the counting process. Even your anecdote is reasonable to count as a covid death. As sick as that person was, he did not appear to be dying from cancer that day. The medical professionals on hand determined that in combination with his condition, covid pushed him over the edge sooner than he would have if he only had the cancer and nothing else. The anecdote was presented in this article to show the kind of case that people wonder about. But since we are in a Christian forum, it is appropriate to mention that this case touches on a Christian principle - the principle of the inviolate dignity of every human life. That means those still in the womb, those who are in the prime of their life, those who are elderly, and yes, even those who are suffering a terminal illness. Each and every one of those lives has dignity worthy of our respect. To say of a cancer sufferer, "Oh well, he was going to die anyway. We don't have to worry about the fact that something made him die two days earlier" is an affront to this dignity. The reason we count deaths and attribute them to causes is to assess the importance of that cause to society in general. The moment we start taking a class of people (like people dying of cancer, homosexuals, indigenous people, Downs syndrome babies, any pre-born babies) and say their deaths are of no concern to us we have denied the dignity that God imparts to every human life.

Now imagine the same scenario above, and imagine this elderly man contracted the flu. Do you think they're classifying that death as a flu death? Doubtful.

Once again, inflating a doubt beyond what can be justified.

Also, consider this article from June 2021;

What evidence do you have that Alameda Counting was typical of the over 3000 counties in the US? Or that the corrections they made did not already get reflected in the current totals?

As these 2 articles demonstrate determining cause of death isn't quite as straightforward as one may think, and all throughout the pandemic, people have erred on including the death as a "COVID" death if they were positive at the time of their death.

More doubt inflation. Changes were made during the pandemic. It is inaccurate to say that systematic inflation of death counts occurred "throughout the pandemic" or that they have not been corrected.

Just imagine if we applied this same scrutiny all over the country.

Another page from the science-denier's playbook: Rely on the reader's imagination to reach a conclusion you cannot prove rather than trying to present solid logical arguments.

Someone who has had a long-term illness that has 2 months to live and dies in 1 month because COVID "accelerated" that death still does not indicate that was a COVID death, or at least it shouldn't.

Sounds like a good excuse for euthanasia. If a doctor kills a patient who only has 1 month to live, then according to you, that death should not be counted as euthanasia because he only "hastened" the death that would have happened anyway. Does your Word of Faith religion actually support euthanasia?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

And it is the CDC who has decided to introduce this doubt into their data. It is extremely poor methodology when analyzing data to say, "Hmm, I don't know where this piece of unknown data belongs, so I'll just toss it over in this column".

The CDC did not say that. That is your flawed interpretation. All they said was the criterion for counting someone as vaccinated is that it was verified. They said nothing about any "unknowns". That is your invention out of whole cloth.

Why on earth would there be a footnote stating that they included "unknown" data with "unvaccinated"...

There is no such footnote. It is just like your invention that the Danish health authorities told children under 18 they should not get the vaccine. You are very good at distorting other people's statements to fit your narrative. That is one of the more advanced techniques from the science-denier's playbook.

You're dead wrong. It is ABSOLUTELY INEXPLICABLE that the CDC has chosen to concatenate "unknowns" with "unvaccinated".

You have no evidence they did. Only your supposition that they did. From what you have demonstrated, you are in no position to call out the CDC for poor science.

That's why they're not offering it to them any more.

That is just your assumption. It could be they just don't want to bother with cost of vaccines and staff time administering it. I think that is more likely than that they suddenly decided that something they had been giving out was actually bad for these children. The explanation they gave sounded more like "these children do not get sick often enough from covid to justify giving the vaccine to them."

And now here we are back to them not offering it because it costs something. I thought we established (and you understood) that the reason they are not offering it is because children under 18 almost never get severe disease.

Right. So the benefit to those children is not enough to justify the cost of giving it to them.

They made no mention of its cost.

They also made no mention of "you should not take this."

And correct me if I'm wrong, but if the Danish public health authority is saying they're not offering it unless you have a very specific medical assessment, I believe what they're saying is that you can't get it unless you have a medical reason to do so.

That is all correct. You can't get it from us because we won't give it to you. That is very different from "This vaccine is terrible for you. You should not take it."

It would be like the CDC not approving the vaccine (sorry, I know that would never happen) for a specific age group.

That happens, and it is not like stopping offering something that was already approved. You analogy is inapt.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

After listening to this compelling discussion on relative vs. absolute numbers, I've come up with a new, surefire way for everyone to become independently wealthy. The lottery! Yes, I know the odds of winning the lottery are quite poor, but hear me out.

If you only buy one lottery ticket, your chances of winning are quite poor indeed. But if you buy TWO lottery tickets, the relative odds of you winning are DOUBLED!

I shouldn't need to do this, but this analogy is also inapt. Yes, your chance of winning is doubled, but the price you paid for that chance at the lottery is also doubled. This is very unlike the case of covid where the cost of getting vaccine vs. not getting the vaccine is much smaller than the benefit of cutting your chances of infection in half. I'll give you a better analogy. Want to cut your chance of getting covid next month? Simply infect yourself deliberately with covid right now. If you recover in a month, you will be fairly well protected from covid for a while. Of course that course of action is stupid because the cost of getting the protection is the taking of a risk comparable to the risk you are trying to avoid.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Nearly everyone is going to get COVID. Care to explain how this >3x reduction in relative risk shows that the vaccines are effective at preventing infections if they will almost 100% fail to prevent infections?

The two things you claim are impossible coexist definitely can. There is nothing to show. Why do you think cutting risk by a factor of 3 is incompatible with everyone getting covid eventually? Maybe we should start by qualifying what it means for the vaccine to cut the risk of infection by a factor of 3. It is not a one-time risk reduction that holds for all time. You get the vaccine and then, for a period of time (whatever was specified in the study - let's say 5 months) your risk of infection during those 5 months is 1/3 of what it would have been. As the 5 months passes, so does the risk prevention. Now you have a choice. If you get a booster, you can get another 5 months of risk reduction. If you don't, your risk becomes essentially the same as those unvaccinated (although the prevention of serious illness lasts longer than that, but that is another issue, so we won't go into it.) So let's suppose you get a booster every 5 months. If chance of getting infected in 5 months without vaccine is P, then the chance of getting infected in 5 months with the vaccine is P/3. Therefore the chance of NOT getting infected in 5 months with the vaccine is (1-P/3). The chance of NOT getting infected in 10 months is (1-P/3)^2. The chance of NOT getting infected in 15 months is (1-P/3)^3, etc. Since 1-P/3 < 1, powers of 1-P/3 approach zero. That means even if you get a booster every 5 months, given enough time, you will eventually get infected if the virus is endemic. In practice, P is not a constant. In time, we hope P will be reduced to something like measles, which is also endemic, but infects far fewer people. Most people die long before they ever get infected with measles. We can hope that eventually covid will turn out that way too. That's what happened to the 1918 flu - even without vaccines for the flu. Returning to the analysis I did for the vaccinated, we see that the probability of an unvaccinated person remaining infection free for 5 months is not 1-P/3 but just 1-P. The probability of remaining uninfected for 10 months is (1-P)^2, etc. This also approach zero for higher powers of (1-P), but faster than (1-P/3)^n for large n. So you see there is no contradiction between risk reduced by a factor of 3 and everyone tending to get infected eventually.

 

[tall73]

Vaccine data record matching is a problem. If we don't know someone's vaccination status, there is no logical reason to lump them in the "unvaccinated" column. The only thing that does is unfairly bias the data toward vaccination. Why not have a third "unknown status" column? That would be simple enough, and then we'd know if that is a substantial number or not.

As I said, state health departments keep excellent records on vaccination. I don't know about your state, but here in Minnesota every pharmacy authorized to give covid vaccines is required to take data on every shot they give, including the name. It is not a big deal. Hospitals have instant access to this information when they have a covid case to report.

I remembered seeing this definition some time ago from the CDC:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/mm7034e5-H.pdf

CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

Persons were considered fully vaccinated ≥14 days after receipt of the second dose in a 2-dose series (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines) or after 1 dose
of the single-dose Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) COVID-19 vaccine; partially vaccinated ≥14 days after receipt of the first dose and <14 days after the second dose in a 2-dose series; and unvaccinated <14 days receipt of the first dose of a 2-dose series or 1 dose of the single-dose vaccine or if no vaccination registry data were available.

They are counting people in the unvaccinated category who actually received the vaccine, but have not reached the two week mark.

To my thinking these should be a distinct category altogether.

 

[disciple Clint]

Have you ever tried public speaking? I took a class on it and I can't think of one speech I made where I didn't flub a word or lose my place at one point. Especially if we are talking about 30-minute speeches or on-the-fly public addresses. You could search any president's speeches and see just as many flubs.

Do you honestly think President Biden doesn't know where the button is r the procedures for using it or were you just taking an opportunity to point out his imperfections?

I have very serious doubts about his competency and anyone who checks public opinion or follows the even the liberal media will see that it is obvious that I am far from being alone.

 

[probinson]

Because it shows that people who are vaccinated are 3x less likely to get infected.

Even though they will get infected. Because nearly everyone is going to get infected, regardless of their vaccination status.

 

[probinson]

I remembered seeing this definition some time ago from the CDC:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/mm7034e5-H.pdf

CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

Persons were considered fully vaccinated ≥14 days after receipt of the second dose in a 2-dose series (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines) or after 1 dose
of the single-dose Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) COVID-19 vaccine; partially vaccinated ≥14 days after receipt of the first dose and <14 days after the second dose in a 2-dose series; and unvaccinated <14 days receipt of the first dose of a 2-dose series or 1 dose of the single-dose vaccine or if no vaccination registry data were available.

They are counting people in the unvaccinated category who actually received the vaccine, but have not reached the two week mark.

To my thinking these should be a distinct category altogether.

Yep. That's another data crime that's been true all throughout the pandemic. By CDC's definition of "unvaccinated", there are people that have had 2 doses of the vaccine and still land in the "unvaccinated" column because it's been <14 days since their second dose. This also, of course, skews the data in favor of the vaccinated.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Yep. That's another data crime that's been true all throughout the pandemic. By CDC's definition of "unvaccinated", there are people that have had 2 doses of the vaccine and still land in the "unvaccinated" column because it's been <14 days since their second dose. This also, of course, skews the data in favor of the vaccinated.

That's not skewing the data. That is accurately reporting the effect of being fully vaccinated vs. NOT being fully vaccinated. NOT being fully vaccinated includes being only partially vaccinated. Since no claim was ever made for the efficacy of partial vaccination, it is entirely correct to include them in the NOT fully vaccinated group. IF there had been a claim of benefit for being partially vaccinated, then your criticism would have been valid. But no such claim was ever made. We can just assume that being only partially vaccinated confers zero benefit, and then we would be skewing the data AGAINST vaccines, which is what we do. But if there is some minor benefit from being partially vaccinated, then separating out those people who were only partially vaccinated into a third category and looking only at the two categories would have yielded even stronger support for the efficacy of the vaccine. So by including that group in the statistics, the results not biased FOR vaccines but AGAINST vaccines. I can produce the math for you if you need convincing. You know basic college-level probability theory, right?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Even though they will get infected. Because nearly everyone is going to get infected, regardless of their vaccination status.

This is at least 20 times this author has made this particular irrelevant statement, despite the fact that it has been shown to be irrelevant.

 

[probinson]

Are there still problems with the corrected paper? It still says covid is a leading cause of death for 0-19 year olds. Apparently the errors Kelley found were not significant enough to alter the general finding.

Yes they were. It was a main talking point that COVID was a top 5 killer of children. That was untrue. And then you watched them cherry-pick a 12-month window with the highest COVID mortality to continue to support the general finding.

When an error is pointed out, you should go back and reanalyze, not cherry-pick numbers so that your general finding is not altered.

>400 changes were made. Disaster.

Do you have any evidence that the approval of the vaccines for those under five depended on that specific ranking of #5?

Yes. It was referenced and mentioned in both the FDA and CDC review of the data. The CDC repeated the false claim on Twitter even after the paper had been corrected, because using garbage data to push political narratives seems to the be the CDC's primary role in the pandemic.

I agree that covid cases will likely turn out to be higher this calendar year than the last year. And I agree that it is somewhat affected by the season. But these two facts don't have anything to do with each other. But then I was not part of that argument, so I don't know where you were going with that.

COVID is seasonal. The main driver of infection numbers is season. Not masks. Not distancing. Not vaccination rates. Not plexiglass barriers. Seasonal. Public health has attempted to control something that they have no control over, and claimed "victory" when the seasonal numbers have dropped.

It's in the title of the thread, and it applies.

It does. For example, modifying a study once an error has been brought to your attention in such a way not to correct the results, but rather to ensure the general finding is unharmed, is incredibly anti-science.

Yeah, I read the article. But I did not stop at the anecdote you quoted that opened the article. I read the whole article. It does not support your inflated doubt about the seriousness of covid. That's another item from the science denier's playbook. Take a small doubt that definitely exists and inflate it to the hilt. If you read the whole article you will see that corrections were made to the counting process.

Yes, after a 25% downwards revision in the death count.

Even your anecdote is reasonable to count as a covid death.

It is not.

As sick as that person was, he did not appear to be dying from cancer that day.

What if that person contracted a bad cold and it killed them? Do you think they're going to classify the cause of death as the common cold for that person? Of course not.

The medical professionals on hand determined that in combination with his condition, covid pushed him over the edge sooner than he would have if he only had the cancer and nothing else. The anecdote was presented in this article to show the kind of case that people wonder about.

As well they should, because this not unique to COVID. There are any number of people who suffer from long-term illnesses that are "pushed over the edge" by what would otherwise be a minor illness for most people.

But since we are in a Christian forum, it is appropriate to mention that this case touches on a Christian principle - the principle of the inviolate dignity of every human life. That means those still in the womb, those who are in the prime of their life, those who are elderly, and yes, even those who are suffering a terminal illness. Each and every one of those lives has dignity worthy of our respect. To say of a cancer sufferer, "Oh well, he was going to die anyway. We don't have to worry about the fact that something made him die two days earlier" is an affront to this dignity. The reason we count deaths and attribute them to causes is to assess the importance of that cause to society in general. The moment we start taking a class of people (like people dying of cancer, homosexuals, indigenous people, Downs syndrome babies, any pre-born babies) and say their deaths are of no concern to us we have denied the dignity that God imparts to every human life.

With respect, this is a load of religious sounding cow flop that has nothing at all to do with what. we're talking about. No one is saying that these deaths are "of no concern" to us, nor denying "the dignity that God imparts to every human life." What is being stated is not that their deaths are unimportant, but rather that their deaths should be properly attributed.

I'm curious. You said "The moment we start taking a class of people and say their deaths are of no concern to us we have denied the dignity that God imparts to every human life." Would you apply that to the class of people have chosen not to get vaccinated. Because there were plenty of people who said "Let them die!" and wanted to deny them the "dignity that God imparts to every human life". Did you support any of this discrimination against unvaccinated people? You don't have to answer that, by the way. Just something for you to reflect on.

Once again, inflating a doubt beyond what can be justified.

Oh, it can be confirmed.

What evidence do you have that Alameda Counting was typical of the over 3000 counties in the US? Or that the corrections they made did not already get reflected in the current totals?

Sure. I'm sure this was the ONE county that had a problem determining the difference between FROM COVID and WITH COVID deaths. I'm sure everyone else got it perfect.

More doubt inflation. Changes were made during the pandemic. It is inaccurate to say that systematic inflation of death counts occurred "throughout the pandemic" or that they have not been corrected.

You have no idea if that's correct. Alameda county shows us plausibility that death numbers could be considerably higher if different definitions were applied.

Another page from the science-denier's playbook: Rely on the reader's imagination to reach a conclusion you cannot prove rather than trying to present solid logical arguments.

Plausibility in hypothesizing is not "science-denying".

Sounds like a good excuse for euthanasia. If a doctor kills a patient who only has 1 month to live, then according to you, that death should not be counted as euthanasia because he only "hastened" the death that would have happened anyway. Does your Word of Faith religion actually support euthanasia?

You're getting into some deep topics.

What if a Christian cancer patient that has been given one month to live wants to end their life today instead? What if they determine this world has nothing for them? Do you think it's wrong for them to choose to hasten their own passing? Would you deny them that dignity of not descending further with their health? And if they did, do you think people would talk about how they chose to kill themselves, or how the cancer took them to a point where they no longer had any quality of life and so chose to end their life before it would have gotten even worse for them?

And I thought you didn't want to get "personal", yet here you are now questioning my faith and beliefs because you've (apparently) run out of ways to make cohesive, substantive arguments otherwise.

 

[probinson]

The CDC did not say that. That is your flawed interpretation. All they said was the criterion for counting someone as vaccinated is that it was verified. They said nothing about any "unknowns". That is your invention out of whole cloth.

Nope. The CDC quite clearly said they lump "unknowns" and "unvaccinated" into the same column.

There is no such footnote.

Now you're just denying reality;

An unvaccinated person had SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen detected on a respiratory specimen and has not been verified to have received the COVID-19 vaccine.​

It is just like your invention that the Danish health authorities told children under 18 they should not get the vaccine.

The Danish health authorities are no longer offering the vaccine to those under 18.

You are very good at distorting other people's statements to fit your narrative.

Actually, you are very good at intentionally misunderstand other people's statements to fit your narrative.

That is one of the more advanced techniques from the science-denier's playbook.

"Advanced" science-denier. Sounds like an empty pejorative.

You have no evidence they did.

Sure I do. Their footnote says they include unknowns with unvaccinated.

Only your supposition that they did. From what you have demonstrated, you are in no position to call out the CDC for poor science.

And then you end up having the CDC, which has a lot of data that it doesn't publish. And partly because it seemed as though the CDC was more interested in keeping that data to itself and then publishing its own studies about the data in order to push a certain narrative or back up a certain policy, for instance, mask guidance. And it's, again, really caused a lot of Americans to just tune out the CDC, not really pay any attention to this guidance, especially as well, because so much of the guidance was coming months after everyone else had figured this out in one way, shape, or form, in particular at the state level where public health officials were very much ahead of the ballgame and sort of forging the way in what was clearly becoming a different environment in COVID.

The CDC Needs More Than a Makeover - Opinion: Potomac Watch - WSJ Podcasts​

That is just your assumption. It could be they just don't want to bother with cost of vaccines and staff time administering it.

THAT is a supposition. And a poor one at that.

I think that is more likely than that they suddenly decided that something they had been giving out was actually bad for these children. The explanation they gave sounded more like "these children do not get sick often enough from covid to justify giving the vaccine to them."

Yes! That's exactly what they said. Which you'll note has nothing to do with cost.

Right. So the benefit to those children is not enough to justify the cost of giving it to them.

Precisely. But that "cost" is more than just financial.

They also made no mention of "you should not take this."

That is all correct. You can't get it from us because we won't give it to you. That is very different from "This vaccine is terrible for you. You should not take it."

I never suggested that the vaccine was "terrible" for them. I have no idea why you have to invent things to make your points.

That happens, and it is not like stopping offering something that was already approved. You analogy is inapt.

No, the analogy is quite sound. Until the CDC approved vaccines for under fives, you COULD NOT get your <5 year-old child vaccinated. Now that the Danish health authority is no longer offering the vaccine to those <18, you cannot get it for them unless you have a very specific medical assessment.

 

[probinson]

This is at least 20 times this author has made this particular irrelevant statement, despite the fact that it has been shown to be irrelevant.

Yeah, it's not irrelevant. It means that even if you're vaccinated, you'll almost certainly get COVID, which means that all of this 2x and 3x more likely to get infected talk is just smoke and mirrors in a lame attempt to obfuscated that nearly everyone is going to get COVID.

Imagine this hypothetical conversation with your doctor;

Patient: Will I get COVID if I get vaccinated?

Doc: Well, data shows that you'll be 2-3x less likely to get infected.

Patient: Great! So my odds will be increased that I won't get COVID?

Doc: Actually, you'll almost certainly get COVID, even with greater odds of avoiding the infection.

Patient: So I will get COVID if I get vaccinated?

Doc: Almost certainly.

Patient: Even though you just said I have 2-3x less likely chance of getting infected?

Doc: Yes. The facts are, nearly everyone will get COVID, regardless of their vaccination status.

Patient: So you're saying I'm 2-3x less likely to get COVID, but it's still an almost certainty that I'll get COVID?

Doc: Exactly.

Patient: ...




​

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Yeah, it's not irrelevant. It means that even if you're vaccinated, you'll almost certainly get COVID, which means that all of this 2x and 3x more likely to get infected talk is just smoke and mirrors in a lame attempt to obfuscated that nearly everyone is going to get COVID.

I gave a detailed mathematical account of how 2x and 3x more likely is entirely consistent with everyone getting covid eventually in this post. You chose to ignore the math and continue with this emotional appeal to intuition. I thought were a data guy? Were you unable to follow the math that I laid out in great detail?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Nope. The CDC quite clearly said they lump "unknowns" and "unvaccinated" into the same column.

How is that possible if the word "unknowns" or any synonym appears in the CDC document you cited?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

>400 changes were made. Disaster.

That's why there are pre-prints, to find and correct errors - which they did.

COVID is seasonal. The main driver of infection numbers is season. Not masks. Not distancing. Not vaccination rates.

The "main" driver does not mean it is only significant driver. All the other factors you mention are also significant drivers. We see again and again how science deniers take a true fact and then exaggerate it beyond it's applicability. If something is not the biggest factor, it must be NO factor, etc.

What if that person contracted a bad cold and it killed them? Do you think they're going to classify the cause of death as the common cold for that person? Of course not.

You still have not addressed why this same argument would not justify euthanasia. Don't you remember?

What is being stated is not that their deaths are unimportant, but rather that their deaths should be properly attributed.

So tell me, should a terminally ill cancer patient who only has one month to live and is killed by euthanasia have his death "properly attributed" to cancer? Or should it be attributed to euthanasia?

Because there were plenty of people who said "Let them die!"

No one in my Church was saying that.

Sure. I'm sure this was the ONE county that had a problem determining the difference between FROM COVID and WITH COVID deaths. I'm sure everyone else got it perfect.

Another unscientific ploy - take one data point and extrapolate to the entire population for which there is no data. "Unknowns" are the science-denier's best friend.

What if a Christian cancer patient that has been given one month to live wants to end their life today instead? What if they determine this world has nothing for them? Do you think it's wrong for them to choose to hasten their own passing?

I have two answers for you. Consider both of them. First of all, I am a Catholic, and I support the Catholic Church's position that euthanasia is never justified. In place of that we believe in maximum palliative care to relieve as much suffering as possible until natural death occurs. But secondly, even if you don't accept that view, another way euthanasia occurs is when the patient is not consulted, either because he just isn't, or because he is not capable of being consulted to give his consent. In that case, a doctor or the family will sometimes decide on his behalf to end his life before God takes him. According to your logic, those deaths should not be attributed to euthanasia. In fact I have a thrist response. Even if you do think that euthanasia is moral (and I know some Christians do believe that), shouldn't they at least be counted?

And I thought you didn't want to get "personal", yet here you are now questioning my faith and beliefs because you've (apparently) run out of ways to make cohesive, substantive arguments otherwise.

I find it very odd that two Christians cannot mention the role of faith in a Christian forum. Or that basing arguments on faith is somehow "not substantive."

 

[probinson]

That's not skewing the data.

Yes it is.

That is accurately reporting the effect of being fully vaccinated vs. NOT being fully vaccinated. NOT being fully vaccinated includes being only partially vaccinated.

Let's put aside for a minute that the newly invented term "fully vaccinated" was defined by the pharmaceutical companies to frame their products as "effective" at preventing infections.

Don't you think it would be good to know if infections increased, decreased or stayed flat while you are "partially vaccinated"? It is, again, inexplicable to include those that have had 2 doses of the vaccine in the "unvaccinated" column simply because it's only been 13 days since their second dose.

Since no claim was ever made for the efficacy of partial vaccination, it is entirely correct to include them in the NOT fully vaccinated group.

Nope. It would be "entirely correct" to have these groupings;

• Unknown vaccination status
• Unvaccainated
• Partially Vaccinated
• Fully Vaccinated

Those are four different categories of people. There is NO reason any of then should be grouped together.

IF there had been a claim of benefit for being partially vaccinated, then your criticism would have been valid. But no such claim was ever made.

Sure they have. They've said one dose provides some protection, but two doses provides the best protection. Have you been living under a rock?

We can just assume that being only partially vaccinated confers zero benefit, and then we would be skewing the data AGAINST vaccines, which is what we do.

No, we take people who have received a dose of the vaccine and classify them as "unvaccinated". But this is untrue. Now we're pretending not that the single dose of vaccine failed to protect them, but rather that they weren't vaccinated at all.

But if there is some minor benefit from being partially vaccinated (a transitory increase in susceptibility to infection, for example), then separating out those people who were only partially vaccinated into a third category and looking only at the two categories would have yielded even stronger support for the efficacy of the vaccine.

Likewise, if this is some detriment to being partially vaccinated, then separating out those people who were only partially vaccinated into a third category would have shown there is an elevated risk during that transitory period where you are partially vaccinated, information that would be quite beneficial. Either is plausible.

So by including that group in the statistics, the results not biased FOR vaccines but AGAINST vaccines.

Only if your assumptions are correct. And NONE of these assumptions would need to be made if the data were classified correctly. And again, the CDC has chosen this poor method of data classification and reporting.

 

[probinson]

That's why there are pre-prints, to find and correct errors - which they did.

Interesting. So the CDC and the FDA used a non-peer-reveiewd pre-print in their approval for <5 vaccination. That's... concerning.

The "main" driver does not mean it is only significant driver. All the other factors you mention are also significant drivers. We see again and again how science deniers take a true fact and then exaggerate it beyond it's applicability. If something is not the biggest factor, it must be NO factor, etc.

The CDC PUSHED that this was a top-5 killer of children, because it sounds bad and they were trying to manipulate parents into vaccinating their <5 year-olds. They used a garbage pre-print to make this case. And they didn't even correct themselves when the pre-print was proven to be incorrect.

With regards to NPIs, we really should have known that they were ineffective. There were pandemic preparedness plans all over the world that said they would be marginally beneficial at best. Yet we tossed all of those plans in favor of the untested Chinese-inspired lockdown methodology. And now we're just starting to discover that lockdowns may have killed more people than the virus.

These are the "experts" you hold in such high-esteem.

You still have not addressed why this same argument would not justify euthanasia. Don't you remember?

So, you think we should say that someone who has had cancer for 5 years and chooses a doctor-assisted suicide died from euthanasia? That shouldn't count as a cancer death?

What this conversation should be showing you is that "cause of death" is not nearly as cut and dry as you've implied.

So tell me, should a terminally ill cancer patient who only has one month to live and is killed by euthanasia have his death "properly attributed" to cancer? Or should it be attributed to euthanasia?

Cancer. Cancer is the reason they chose euthanasia. Cancer caused them to make that choice.

No one in my Church was saying that.

Well, I'm glad to hear that. But many, MANY people were quite happy to put their bigotry against unvaccinated people on full display when it became socially acceptable to do so.

Another unscientific ploy - take one data point and extrapolate to the entire population for which there is no data. "Unknowns" are the science-denier's best friend.

These don't need to be "unknowns". They are only unknowns because The Science™! chose to make them so.

I have two answers for you. Consider both of them. First of all, I am a Catholic, and I support the Catholic Church's position that euthanasia is never justified.

You'd rather see people devolve here on this earth and suffering endlessly because that's what your religion tells you? You'd not rather let them pass on to eternity and be relived of all of their suffering because that's what Catholicism tells you is right? That sounds rather cruel and selfish to me to justify a religious position.

In place of that we believe in maximum palliative care to relieve as much suffering as possible until natural death occurs.

But you don't accept that they can choose to relieve ALL of their suffering? Alrighty then.

But secondly, even if you don't accept that view, another way euthanasia occurs is when the patient is not consulted, either because he just isn't, or because he is not capable of being consulted to give his consent. In that case, a doctor or the family will sometimes decide on his behalf to end his life before God takes him.

Indeed. And those are excruciatingly difficult decisions to make.

According to your logic, those deaths should not be attributed to euthanasia.

Ask yourself this; would that family have made the incredibly difficult decision to end their loved ones' life if they hadn't been sick? Of course not. It is because they had a terminal diagnosis that the decision was made. In fact, I suspect most people in these situations would say something like, "We made the difficult decision to end ____'s life because their disease had progressed so far and we just wanted to end their needless suffering."

In fact I have a thrist response. Even if you do think that euthanasia is moral (and I know some Christians do believe that), shouldn't they at least be counted?

Sure. We can track how many people chose to end their life, but that doesn't change the cause being their terminal illness.

I find it very odd that two Christians cannot mention the role of faith in a Christian forum. Or that basing arguments on faith is somehow "not substantive."

It's not odd at all. I'll happily discuss my faith with you any time. But you are the one that said you didn't want to get "personal". There's little more "personal" than a person's individual faith and beliefs.