Service Suspension Notice

[Splash]

I don't want to participate in the ongoing debate that has derailed this thread, however, here is an interesting and unbiased article worth reading. It seems to put things into perspective.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... e-with-it/

[Tdicommuter]

Cancel culture is a problem right now on society and take a moment of what you are writing and reading to actually ask yourself " is it possible I may be wrong?" There is absolutely nothing dangerous, harmful, or ill-willed about asking questions about what we are doing as a country. It's Infact more dangerous to democracy to have it forbidden to challenge norms, and question authority. It is that drive that causes decision makers to re-evaluate their choices. Blind faith, or expulsion are ideals adopted by authoritarian states not democratic ones.

The issue I have with lock down is the same I had in March. What's the next step? I agree we cannot condone people to die simply because it's bad for the economy to be closed. However if there is a plan to shut down... What's the next step in the plan? I don't think its too much to ask almost a year into this what is the next step? The reality is that a lock down is not eliminating the virus. It will never go away and at this point will need to go through the population one way or another. Part of the reason right now our second wave is so bad is because not enough people contracted the virus through the first wave. If you try and view this pandemic through a lense of zero deaths is the acceptable number you will look foolish in the end.

Hypothetically let's say we get through 50 percent of inoculations and the virus shifts again (as proven to have happened already), and our vaccines are no longer effective. What then? Keep the world closed indefinitely? What needs to happen now is people need faith that a plan a, b, c, d and being drawn up. Beyond simply close everything until we sort things out.

Finally, societal compliance is a big hamper/helper through this. My opinion (right or wrong) about Canadians is we have seen our leaders do a sub standard job at getting Canadians to follow directives. Why is that? They are bad leaders. It's easy to follow a leader when their motivations are easily accessible, and lead by example. People are not trusting what is being said, we have not had a perfect leader, and our compliance rates reflect what people think of their leaders. Trust is easily lost, and hard to regain. When you keep quoting New Zealand, Jacinda is leading by example. Justin drove through two closed borders to his cottage for Easter and posted pictures.
No matter how this ends we need to starting demanding better leaders and accountability because moving forward every tax dollar will count!

[mbav8r]

Cancel culture is a problem right now on society and take a moment of what you are writing and reading to actually ask yourself " is it possible I may be wrong?" There is absolutely nothing dangerous, harmful, or ill-willed about asking questions about what we are doing as a country. It's Infact more dangerous to democracy to have it forbidden to challenge norms, and question authority. It is that drive that causes decision makers to re-evaluate their choices. Blind faith, or expulsion are ideals adopted by authoritarian states not democratic ones.

The issue I have with lock down is the same I had in March. What's the next step? I agree we cannot condone people to die simply because it's bad for the economy to be closed. However if there is a plan to shut down... What's the next step in the plan? I don't think its too much to ask almost a year into this what is the next step? The reality is that a lock down is not eliminating the virus. It will never go away and at this point will need to go through the population one way or another. Part of the reason right now our second wave is so bad is because not enough people contracted the virus through the first wave. If you try and view this pandemic through a lense of zero deaths is the acceptable number you will look foolish in the end.

Hypothetically let's say we get through 50 percent of inoculations and the virus shifts again (as proven to have happened already), and our vaccines are no longer effective. What then? Keep the world closed indefinitely? What needs to happen now is people need faith that a plan a, b, c, d and being drawn up. Beyond simply close everything until we sort things out.

Finally, societal compliance is a big hamper/helper through this. My opinion (right or wrong) about Canadians is we have seen our leaders do a sub standard job at getting Canadians to follow directives. Why is that? They are bad leaders. It's easy to follow a leader when their motivations are easily accessible, and lead by example. People are not trusting what is being said, we have not had a perfect leader, and our compliance rates reflect what people think of their leaders. Trust is easily lost, and hard to regain. When you keep quoting New Zealand, Jacinda is leading by example. Justin drove through two closed borders to his cottage for Easter and posted pictures.
No matter how this ends we need to starting demanding better leaders and accountability because moving forward every tax dollar will count!

I don’t know if you’re directing the first paragraph at me but if the majority of the world is doing some type of lockdown or form of it, I’m going out on a limb and say there is some scientific consensus and a few, in the grand scheme, outliers don’t sway my opinion.
I do however agree with most of your post, one thing, I believe they have been planning for mutations of the virus and I believe with the delivery method of the vaccine perfected, it’s much easier to create a new one. Here is an interesting article;

https://time.com/5927538/covid-19-mutations-vaccines/

“The good news is that if the mutant strains do become resistant to the current vaccines, the mRNA technology behind the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna should enable the companies to develop new shots without the same lengthy developing and testing that the originals required. “The mRNA platform is eminently flexible to turn around”

[mbav8r]

I don't want to participate in the ongoing debate that has derailed this thread, however, here is an interesting and unbiased article worth reading. It seems to put things into perspective.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... e-with-it/

Interesting read, bottom line, until the vaccine and antibody response hits 70%, control of the spread seems to be the message

[BTD]

Mbav8r

I’ll get back to you on the updated studies. We just got a new puppy yesterday.

In regards to New Zealand. I can’t say lockdowns didn’t work maybe they did. What I can say is that I don’t know if that is the reason the numbers fell. Do you have any evidence that it was the lockdown that was the cause and not some other factor? It has to be demonstrated before it should be believed. Let’s not do the argument from incredulity/ignorance thing again.

So I don’t have an answer about New Zealand, maybe it was lockdowns maybe it wasn’t.

Have you tried searching studies that confirm lockdowns work or just ones that back up your opinion?
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32153-X

“Defining who is vulnerable is complex, but even if we consider those at risk of severe illness, the proportion of vulnerable people constitute as much as 30% of the population in some regions.8 Prolonged isolation of large swathes of the population is practically impossible and highly unethical. Empirical evidence from many countries shows that it is not feasible to restrict uncontrolled outbreaks to particular sections of society. Such an approach also risks further exacerbating the socioeconomic inequities and structural discriminations already laid bare by the pandemic. Special efforts to protect the most vulnerable are essential but must go hand-in-hand with multi-pronged population-level strategies.”

“Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories. The evidence is very clear: controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive within the coming months. We cannot afford distractions that undermine an effective response; it is essential that we act urgently based on the evidence.”

Well that is something at least heading in the right direction of evidence.

Although what you have posted in and of itself is a memorandum put together by a group of scientist and health care professionals. It is exactly the same but opposite as the Great Barrington Declaration, which last I checked had 32 co signatory health experts and 11000 signatures from health care professionals and that was a few months ago. But it doesn’t matter, in either case.

So the question then becomes okay so what now. I try my best, perhaps not perfectly, to follow the evidence and not an ideology. As such, there are references throughout that memorandum that I have to follow up on to see the data. And I will do that. If I am wrong, I am wrong and I need to revise my position.

However, I see one potential issue right off the bat. Here:

“Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories.”

They have not included a reference like they have throughout the rest of the document. I have seen at least one study along the way showing in the case of Japan, the likely cause of lack of mortality is due to better metabolic health and that lockdown had little or no impact. However, I will have to see if I can find that now.

Alternatively we could put the authors of the John Snow Memorandum and The Great Barrington Declaration in a room to fight it out and follow whoever is victorious.

[mbav8r]

Mbav8r

I’ll get back to you on the updated studies. We just got a new puppy yesterday.

In regards to New Zealand. I can’t say lockdowns didn’t work maybe they did. What I can say is that I don’t know if that is the reason the numbers fell. Do you have any evidence that it was the lockdown that was the cause and not some other factor? It has to be demonstrated before it should be believed. Let’s not do the argument from incredulity/ignorance thing again.

So I don’t have an answer about New Zealand, maybe it was lockdowns maybe it wasn’t.

Have you tried searching studies that confirm lockdowns work or just ones that back up your opinion?
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32153-X

“Defining who is vulnerable is complex, but even if we consider those at risk of severe illness, the proportion of vulnerable people constitute as much as 30% of the population in some regions.8 Prolonged isolation of large swathes of the population is practically impossible and highly unethical. Empirical evidence from many countries shows that it is not feasible to restrict uncontrolled outbreaks to particular sections of society. Such an approach also risks further exacerbating the socioeconomic inequities and structural discriminations already laid bare by the pandemic. Special efforts to protect the most vulnerable are essential but must go hand-in-hand with multi-pronged population-level strategies.”

“Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories. The evidence is very clear: controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive within the coming months. We cannot afford distractions that undermine an effective response; it is essential that we act urgently based on the evidence.”

Well that is something at least heading in the right direction of evidence.

Although what you have posted in and of itself is a memorandum put together by a group of scientist and health care professionals. It is exactly the same but opposite as the Great Barrington Declaration, which last I checked had 32 co signatory health experts and 11000 signatures from health care professionals and that was a few months ago. But it doesn’t matter, in either case.

So the question then becomes okay so what now. I try my best, perhaps not perfectly, to follow the evidence and not an ideology. As such, there are references throughout that memorandum that I have to follow up on to see the data. And I will do that. If I am wrong, I am wrong and I need to revise my position.

However, I see one potential issue right off the bat. Here:

“Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories.”

They have not included a reference like they have throughout the rest of the document. I have seen at least one study along the way showing in the case of Japan, the likely cause of lack of mortality is due to better metabolic health and that lockdown had little or no impact. However, I will have to see if I can find that now.

Alternatively we could put the authors of the John Snow Memorandum and The Great Barrington Declaration in a room to fight it out and follow whoever is victorious.

I guess I could go back but I’ll just ask, you say and site studies that are against lockdown, what are the alternatives.
Herd immunity has been attempted in some areas but has been abandoned as far as I am aware, it is hard to keep track really.

[BTD]

Have you tried searching studies that confirm lockdowns work or just ones that back up your opinion?
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32153-X

“Defining who is vulnerable is complex, but even if we consider those at risk of severe illness, the proportion of vulnerable people constitute as much as 30% of the population in some regions.8 Prolonged isolation of large swathes of the population is practically impossible and highly unethical. Empirical evidence from many countries shows that it is not feasible to restrict uncontrolled outbreaks to particular sections of society. Such an approach also risks further exacerbating the socioeconomic inequities and structural discriminations already laid bare by the pandemic. Special efforts to protect the most vulnerable are essential but must go hand-in-hand with multi-pronged population-level strategies.”

“Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories. The evidence is very clear: controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive within the coming months. We cannot afford distractions that undermine an effective response; it is essential that we act urgently based on the evidence.”

Well that is something at least heading in the right direction of evidence.

Although what you have posted in and of itself is a memorandum put together by a group of scientist and health care professionals. It is exactly the same but opposite as the Great Barrington Declaration, which last I checked had 32 co signatory health experts and 11000 signatures from health care professionals and that was a few months ago. But it doesn’t matter, in either case.

So the question then becomes okay so what now. I try my best, perhaps not perfectly, to follow the evidence and not an ideology. As such, there are references throughout that memorandum that I have to follow up on to see the data. And I will do that. If I am wrong, I am wrong and I need to revise my position.

However, I see one potential issue right off the bat. Here:

“Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories.”

They have not included a reference like they have throughout the rest of the document. I have seen at least one study along the way showing in the case of Japan, the likely cause of lack of mortality is due to better metabolic health and that lockdown had little or no impact. However, I will have to see if I can find that now.

Alternatively we could put the authors of the John Snow Memorandum and The Great Barrington Declaration in a room to fight it out and follow whoever is victorious.

I guess I could go back but I’ll just ask, you say and site studies that are against lockdown, what are the alternatives.
Herd immunity has been attempted in some areas but has been abandoned as far as I am aware, it is hard to keep track really.

Well... there could be limited non pharmaceutical interventions short of lockdown that could be shown to be effective I suppose. (I am not saying there is).

But if it can be shown that lockdowns aren’t effective at the goal, and if it can be shown that they actually increase overall mortality (especially if they disproportionately effect younger persons who lose more quality adjusted life years) and have negative public health impacts, economic and societal impacts, an argument could be made that the best course of action is to do nothing. I am not making that argument now though.

Pre covid is gone now. But in simplistic terms If lockdowns end up increasing mortality by 1000 deaths and not locking down with covid kills 500. Well then it’s obvious in that case which path should be taken. Especially factoring in the quality adjusted life years lost in each case. However, real life is more challenging and nuanced then that.

So the alternative may be carry on as usual if overall impact on society will be less.

I tend to be very careful about my positions and not adopting a burden of proof if I’m not intending on proving it.

In the grand scheme I am not making the claim “lockdowns don’t work therefore let’s let everything rip.”

I am responding to the claim “we need to shut everything down as it is the only way to stop covid”. I reject that claim until it is proven. And rejecting that claim isn’t the same as believing the opposite.

[EPR]

The fact that you have no idea why schools need to be open shows how narrow minded and brain washed you really are.
Canadian male youths are 14 times more likely to die from suicide than COVID-19. That’s using case fatality rate. Using infection fatality rate (the only one that truly matters) that jumps to 60 times more likely to die from suicide.

Wow, where did we go wrong? I would have given my left testicle back in the day if I could stay home from school everyday, and this was well before the internet! (hmmm, maybe that's the problem)!

[EPR]

Vaccines are the only way back to normalcy! Unfortunately Trudeau was busy negotiating a deal with China during the 5 months (Dec-Apr) that the rest of the world were ORDERING vaccines from Pfizer and Moderno. China backed out of the Trudeau deal, and now we as a Country are at the back of the line to order approved vaccines! Now, all Provinces are desperately SHORT of vaccines and can't vaccinate quickly enough, at this rate we'll all be vaccinated in 2034!

I'm not a fan of trudeau we we have ordered like a dozen shots per Canadian

You are so wrong and mislead, sorry.. but maybe get a brain and do some research gtappl!

[gtappl]

Vaccines are the only way back to normalcy! Unfortunately Trudeau was busy negotiating a deal with China during the 5 months (Dec-Apr) that the rest of the world were ORDERING vaccines from Pfizer and Moderno. China backed out of the Trudeau deal, and now we as a Country are at the back of the line to order approved vaccines! Now, all Provinces are desperately SHORT of vaccines and can't vaccinate quickly enough, at this rate we'll all be vaccinated in 2034!

I'm not a fan of trudeau we we have ordered like a dozen shots per Canadian

You are so wrong and mislead, sorry.. but maybe get a brain and do some research gtappl!

Please @#$! off to the hole you came out of.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-anywhere

Boom, you're WRONG

[altiplano]

That's a nearly 2 month old article.

Our vaccination rate has stagnated because we won't have a significant amount of vaccine available to Canadians for several months. They might have ordered a bunch, and we got an initial supply, but they ordered too late and a meaningful delivery is way down the road.

Just watch us fall down the list.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covi ... tribution/

Romania has vaccinated at a higher rated than Canada.

[dhc#]

Sad but true.

[Old fella]

Followed by O'Foole to our rescue...........

[jpilot77]

Followed by O'Foole to our rescue...........

Can’t be worse than Trudeau at this point. The vaccine rollout might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

[Old fella]

Followed by O'Foole to our rescue...........

Can’t be worse than Trudeau at this point. The vaccine rollout might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

No doubt, then again O’Toole wouldn’t do any better than what JT is doing now. I can go back to the Pearson years when John Diefenbaker was yelling at ole Lester. O’Toole yelling at JT and if roles were reversed JT would be yelling same stuff back at the Toole. Provincial Premiers- well they blame everything on something else for their woes, they fight amongst themselves a fair amount and they yell at a current sitting PM regardless of his/her political stripe. None of these Premieres are any better than their counterparts. Christ, I flew a couple of them around in my way back other life, I probably saw more PMs and Premiers in real life than you did. Sorry, but I have been around to long to be told or believe any different .

[Old fella]

Take your leftist hatred and racism elsewhere troll.

Whoa..... you have anger management issues dude. With your “sunny” disposition, one hopes you are nowhere near a cockpit of a commercial airliner flying people around.

Old fella,
For the record, I also found your post offensive!

Well redress is simple........ if you don't like my posts certainly block me, this site has that capability. For the record I stand by my position O'Toole is a Foole and his party CPC has racists, alt-right types, gay haters and the like as supporters. Totally disgusting in my view and I stand by that as well.

[flyingjerry]

I’m not going to jump on the let’s just let 75 year olds die because they are old. The question is, is the lockdown policy effective, and does it impact overall health related issues in other negative ways.

Please reference a study that shows how much higher deaths are with no lockdown policy. Otherwise it is just a claim that isn’t substantiated. Above I referenced some studies showing lockdown isn’t effective.

Just as a lead in point, I can also demonstrate that at least in some cases the modelling was off by a factor of 6-10 even when they were modelling for the restrictions that we in fact followed.

As you also pointed out, there are no studies and I would argue impossible to study this responsibly.
How about anecdotally, Manitoba was on a very troubling trajectory and locked down with beefed up enforcement, now we have numbers low enough to start opening up responsibly. Allowing retail at 25% but not restaurants, logic based on short duration at retail with masks on, long stay at the restaurant without masks.
Our hospitals were overrun, now they have started scheduling surgeries again, it took about two months despite the ones who did not follow the rules, 500 positive cases with about 3000 close contacts from holiday gatherings, how many did it but got away with it. If not for that the lockdown could have been eased a little sooner.
Thankfully it’s not you making the decisions, if lockdowns don’t work, why do the numbers go up when eased and go down when enacted?

Argument from incredulity much?

We have had this discussion before. You don’t just get to say that lockdowns work because in some cases the case numbers seem to track with the policies. You have to demonstrate the truth of the claim. Without evidence to support the claim, but one believes anyway, you can justify belief in anything. I got new pants at the same time the numbers in Manitoba started going up, and I threw them out just recently then the numbers started to fall. Must have been my pants right? No, that’s bullshit and I know it is.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

It’s one thing to enact policies that don’t really have any effect and hope they change direction of the health crisis, like masks. I wear a mask and I will continue to, despite the fact that just a over year ago the WHO stated in its pandemic guidance there is no evidence to support masks actually helping. But it hardly really effects my day so sure.

The same cannot be said about lockdown. It destroys livelihoods, the economy and ironically public health, for the sole focus of one issue. Those in charge better be demanding more then anecdotes.

Above I have provided some data and studies that show lockdown does not correlate with lower mortality risk. Until such time as there is data and lots of it to support that it does lower mortality risks etc, we should not be hammering society with these measures.

Finally, could it be possible that the drops in cases in the spring were due to seasonal variation, as like most respiratory illnesses they disappear in summer months? And is it possible that the drop in cases recently is following a pattern that respiratory illnesses have on populations as they move through the population then drop off naturally? I mean the numbers in Sweden started to drop, PRIOR, to any non pharmaceutical interventions being put in place. How could that be?

If you agree that it may be a possibility then you have to acknowledge that to believe in the “lockdown theory” should require evidence, which as you say above you only have anecdotal (aka none).

You're out of touch, and you're only legitimizing sources that verify what you already believe.

My spouse was an ER nurse throughout the pandemic, studies or not - the situation in many parts of Canada is insane. People on vents in the hall. People coming in from a car crash without the proper care available, etc. I know I wouldn't want to need emergency care at the moment.

Virus spread is very, very simple. You get close to people, there is exposure. You minimize contact, you minimize exposure. That's it. You can't just look at a "lockdown" without defining what the means. Ontario for example makes no sense - you can stuff full a Walmart but are unable to shop at the local photography store. Not to mention schools are "not a risk"

Australia/NZ is a much better example of how effective a science based lockdown could be.

From how you talk, your mind is made up, so I won't write anymore... but I really hope you take a more balanced look at the situation.

['97 Tercel]

..., your mind is made up,...

You just described 99.99999% of the people on this site.

[BTD]

As you also pointed out, there are no studies and I would argue impossible to study this responsibly.
How about anecdotally, Manitoba was on a very troubling trajectory and locked down with beefed up enforcement, now we have numbers low enough to start opening up responsibly. Allowing retail at 25% but not restaurants, logic based on short duration at retail with masks on, long stay at the restaurant without masks.
Our hospitals were overrun, now they have started scheduling surgeries again, it took about two months despite the ones who did not follow the rules, 500 positive cases with about 3000 close contacts from holiday gatherings, how many did it but got away with it. If not for that the lockdown could have been eased a little sooner.
Thankfully it’s not you making the decisions, if lockdowns don’t work, why do the numbers go up when eased and go down when enacted?

Argument from incredulity much?

We have had this discussion before. You don’t just get to say that lockdowns work because in some cases the case numbers seem to track with the policies. You have to demonstrate the truth of the claim. Without evidence to support the claim, but one believes anyway, you can justify belief in anything. I got new pants at the same time the numbers in Manitoba started going up, and I threw them out just recently then the numbers started to fall. Must have been my pants right? No, that’s bullshit and I know it is.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

It’s one thing to enact policies that don’t really have any effect and hope they change direction of the health crisis, like masks. I wear a mask and I will continue to, despite the fact that just a over year ago the WHO stated in its pandemic guidance there is no evidence to support masks actually helping. But it hardly really effects my day so sure.

The same cannot be said about lockdown. It destroys livelihoods, the economy and ironically public health, for the sole focus of one issue. Those in charge better be demanding more then anecdotes.

Above I have provided some data and studies that show lockdown does not correlate with lower mortality risk. Until such time as there is data and lots of it to support that it does lower mortality risks etc, we should not be hammering society with these measures.

Finally, could it be possible that the drops in cases in the spring were due to seasonal variation, as like most respiratory illnesses they disappear in summer months? And is it possible that the drop in cases recently is following a pattern that respiratory illnesses have on populations as they move through the population then drop off naturally? I mean the numbers in Sweden started to drop, PRIOR, to any non pharmaceutical interventions being put in place. How could that be?

If you agree that it may be a possibility then you have to acknowledge that to believe in the “lockdown theory” should require evidence, which as you say above you only have anecdotal (aka none).

You're out of touch, and you're only legitimizing sources that verify what you already believe.

My spouse was an ER nurse throughout the pandemic, studies or not - the situation in many parts of Canada is insane. People on vents in the hall. People coming in from a car crash without the proper care available, etc. I know I wouldn't want to need emergency care at the moment.

Virus spread is very, very simple. You get close to people, there is exposure. You minimize contact, you minimize exposure. That's it. You can't just look at a "lockdown" without defining what the means. Ontario for example makes no sense - you can stuff full a Walmart but are unable to shop at the local photography store. Not to mention schools are "not a risk"

Australia/NZ is a much better example of how effective a science based lockdown could be.

From how you talk, your mind is made up, so I won't write anymore... but I really hope you take a more balanced look at the situation.

Please feel free to engage more if you desire. You may feel my mind is made up, but that simply isn't the case. I tentatively hold my position based on the evidence so far presented until such time as it is demonstrated to be incorrect. That is what rationality is. To hold a position in contravention to the evidence would be irrational.

I am sorry that I don't accept anecdotal evidence from individual sources and extrapolate that to apply to everywhere all the time.

I have based my position on the evidence I have seen/been exposed to so far which includes reading multiple library books over the last number of months, including The Viral Storm, The Pandemic Century, Rules Of Contagion, and the Signal and The Noise, as well as the numerous published studies and the data based on Worldometer, Euromomo, Our World in Health, Stats Can, CDC among others.

To your point about not defining what a lockdown is, that is a fair criticism. I agree with that, and will concede my general use of the term is unclear. But the point you make about what makes sense in these policies is precisely my point. The reason behind why "lockdowns" often don't prove effective is irrelevant, unless you can clearly identify what the problem is and change it. It isn't enough to say we did a semi lockdown and hospitalizations are going up so we should lock down harder. That potentially ignores the root cause. Perhaps that the population including those recommending it, largely isn't following the guidance and hasn't been for almost a year.

I would suggest it is you who has a made up your mind and isn't willing to reconsider your position. You seem to have made up your mind based on your wife's experience. Which no doubt is troubling, but doesn't take into account a litany of other issues. Including, that ICU, surgeries etc have all been effected in previous years as I referenced with the picture of headlines from a few posts up.

If you feel I am incorrect, please rebut the argument and data I have provided. So far you have only claimed I am out of touch and provided no concrete examples to demonstrate that it is in fact the case.

As far as Australia and New Zealand go, I accept that they have had fewer deaths/million then other countries. That is not in question. The question is: Is the reason because of the "lockdown" policies. I don't know, can you please provide evidence that it is?

And what does that say about France, Spain, Italy, and the UK all of whom have implemented strict lockdown measures and have worse mortality rates then Sweden who implemented limited measures? I have heard it floated that population density is the reason, and that if you adjust Sweden's density up to UKs, Sweden's mortality would well above most European countries. However, that argument needs to be applied fairly across all countries (which it never is) and if you adjusted Australia's density up to the UKs they would have the worst Deaths/Million on the planet.

Again, I am not saying covid isn't a challenge that we need to face. I am saying the data suggests that so far, the way most of the world has dealt with it hasn't been effective, and perhaps will leave us in a worse position overall in regards to Health, Economy and Society.

We have thousands of experts on both sides debating the issues. So we are all left trying to find what the best options are.

Reasonable people can disagree. I hope we can still be friends.

[mbav8r]

BTD,
Regarding those articles from past health surges causing cancellations of routine surgeries, can you please provide the duration of the cancellations. For the last year in Manitoba routine surgery procedures have been delayed or cancelled for most of it, I believe they resumed for a 3 month period, then delayed or cancelled again.
I believe it is near impossible to compare any region to another, due to so many variables from one to another. Public compliance being a huge one, Sweden for example was recommending masks and compliance was said to be high, also they don’t have a huge population of young adults living with their elderly parents, just two factors of many.
The only comparison that would be fair would be the same region, with and without lockdown measures. The lockdown measures taken have also been inconsistent so how can anyone exclude anecdotal evidence. It is the only variable available to the same region and if it works, ie numbers go down after enforced lockdown, how can you say that in itself is not evidence?
I believe you are not spending near as much time trying to analyze evidence proving lockdowns work, instead you are focusing on those studies that support your feelings. Try reversing your search and see if you can find the evidence you’re looking for to reverse your opinion.
I am also curious, some of the studies you provided, you mentioned the thousands of experts that signed on, how many dismissed them? After all, Worldwide there are millions of them.
I found this interesting.
https://www.bluezones.com/2020/06/covid ... -pandemic/

“First of all, the Sweden model no longer exists. It was a myth to begin with. And it now is even being heavily criticized within Sweden to the point where there’s actually a criminal investigation going on about what did or didn’t happen in their long-term care. Sweden has one of the highest death rates in the world in terms of number of people that have died per population. They have not advanced any meaningful way towards a herd immunity level and are not much higher than the United States is right now. And they recognize in retrospect that maybe they didn’t accomplish all that they thought they were going to.

The adjoining countries of Denmark, Finland, and Norway – who did go into more extensive lockdown activities — have kept their death rates significantly lower than Sweden has. And they’re bringing back the economy, very similar to Sweden is doing. So, I think that one of the problems we have is everybody seems to have a magic answer for what’s going on. And my response is that it might be a magic answer today, but let’s wait a week and see what happens. And that has happened time and time again. We’ve heard about how China was successful in tamping down that initial outbreak in Wuhan and throughout Hubei. But now we see they’re having a resurgence of infection with large parts of Wuhan now being tested again and other major outbreaks in China. So everyone may have a perfect solution today, but following my leaky bucket concept it may not be that way tomorrow at all.
DB: So we should be continuing to lockdown and wear masks and proceed with caution.

MO: I think one of the things we have to understand is we can’t just lockdown. I look at this with two guardrails. On one side is a guardrail where we are locked down for 18 months to try to get us all to a vaccine without anyone having to get infected or die. We will destroy not just the economy but society as we know that if we try to do that. The other guardrail is to just let it go and see what happens. We will see the kinds of deaths we just talked about and we will see healthcare systems that will literally implode. And not just for COVID-19 care, but for heart attack, stroke, and all other causes of disease in our communities. That’s not acceptable.

And so we’ve got to thread the rope through the needle in the middle. The very question you asked me about, what do we recommend to our older citizens of this country — our parents, our grandparents — what do we tell them? That’s the part that we haven’t done a good job of addressing. We have to learn not only how to die with this virus, which tragically we’ve had to do, but we also have to learn how to live with it.“

[BTD]

Mbav8r,

I appreciate the well thought out post.

I don’t have data on how long surgeries etc were delayed in the past. It might very well be longer delays now then previously. But the comparisons to delays from past years is never made, as far as I can tell. The articles currently seem to be about delays and hallway treatments as if it is new due to covid. The headlines I posted are only to show that it is a systemic problem and not new this year. The extent of that problem I haven’t quantified but I also haven’t come across anything else quantifies it either.

As to my searching of studies. There may be a misunderstanding about claims and burdens of proof. It is up to those advocating for a position to demonstrate the evidence to support it. If you claim bigfoot exists and I say I reject your claim due to lack of evidence to support that position, it would be foolish of you to say to me, “well you are just searching for the evidence that validates what you already believe”. In that case, you are making the claim and have adopted a burden of proof. This is the same thing. My position is that I haven’t seen any good evidence to support that “lockdown” is a good strategy for lowering overall mortality. But I have in fact seen evidence to the contrary.

If, in fact, you are claiming that it is a good strategy, you have adopted a burden of proof and until the evidence is provided, I will maintain the default position, which is that it must be demonstrated to be the case. And we should be demanding top notch evidence if we are going to enact policies which can f*ck up the rest of society.

I have previously responded to the argument about Sweden vs it’s neighbours on a different thread. Highlighting that immediate neighbouring countries throughout Europe show vastly different mortality rates despite supporting similar policies. Why it is, I don’t know, but it highlights a problem saying that in fact the reason Sweden is doing worse is because of lockdown policies. Why is France way worse then Germany, why is Portugal way worse then Spain, why is England way worse then Scotland?

They can and do make comparisons between countries, but it is beyond the skill of my statistical knowledge.

As to my point about the experts; it is simply that we have thousands of experts on both sides arguing for one thing or the other. The Great Barrington declaration vs the John Snow memorandum you posted the other day. Or the Chief medical officer of Health’s recommendations vs that of his mentor and Previous Chief. So how do we sift through the bullshit. I look to the data, and the integrity of those experts s best I can. Example public health’s response to Babar’s letter , where they quietly switched his IFR quote (which had an error) to CFR. Hmm...

Anyway, that is a bad way of looking at things because it becomes close to an argument from authority fallacy.

But whenever I present this position, I never seem to get shown the evidence... I always get opinions.

Lastly, I am still reviewing your John Snow Memorandum. However, I have noticed that the first reference (1) they use is a study,, that links to a further study that shows the one they reference is flawed.

Like you guys, I just want this bs to end...

[mbav8r]

Mbav8r,

I appreciate the well thought out post.

I don’t have data on how long surgeries etc were delayed in the past. It might very well be longer delays now then previously. But the comparisons to delays from past years is never made, as far as I can tell. The articles currently seem to be about delays and hallway treatments as if it is new due to covid. The headlines I posted are only to show that it is a systemic problem and not new this year. The extent of that problem I haven’t quantified but I also haven’t come across anything else quantifies it either.

As to my searching of studies. There may be a misunderstanding about claims and burdens of proof. It is up to those advocating for a position to demonstrate the evidence to support it. If you claim bigfoot exists and I say I reject your claim due to lack of evidence to support that position, it would be foolish of you to say to me, “well you are just searching for the evidence that validates what you already believe”. In that case, you are making the claim and have adopted a burden of proof. This is the same thing. My position is that I haven’t seen any good evidence to support that “lockdown” is a good strategy for lowering overall mortality. But I have in fact seen evidence to the contrary.

If, in fact, you are claiming that it is a good strategy, you have adopted a burden of proof and until the evidence is provided, I will maintain the default position, which is that it must be demonstrated to be the case. And we should be demanding top notch evidence if we are going to enact policies which can f*ck up the rest of society.

I have previously responded to the argument about Sweden vs it’s neighbours on a different thread. Highlighting that immediate neighbouring countries throughout Europe show vastly different mortality rates despite supporting similar policies. Why it is, I don’t know, but it highlights a problem saying that in fact the reason Sweden is doing worse is because of lockdown policies. Why is France way worse then Germany, why is Portugal way worse then Spain, why is England way worse then Scotland?

They can and do make comparisons between countries, but it is beyond the skill of my statistical knowledge.

As to my point about the experts; it is simply that we have thousands of experts on both sides arguing for one thing or the other. The Great Barrington declaration vs the John Snow memorandum you posted the other day. Or the Chief medical officer of Health’s recommendations vs that of his mentor and Previous Chief. So how do we sift through the bullshit. I look to the data, and the integrity of those experts s best I can. Example public health’s response to Babar’s letter , where they quietly switched his IFR quote (which had an error) to CFR. Hmm...

Anyway, that is a bad way of looking at things because it becomes close to an argument from authority fallacy.

But whenever I present this position, I never seem to get shown the evidence... I always get opinions.

Lastly, I am still reviewing your John Snow Memorandum. However, I have noticed that the first reference (1) they use is a study,, that links to a further study that shows the one they reference is flawed.

Like you guys, I just want this bs to end...

Ok, fair enough, I thought you were arguing that lockdowns don’t work and completely dismiss proof that it works unless it’s a study. Anecdotal evidence is still evidence, I’ll give you an example, where I live we deal with annual flooding on the river, it’s hit or miss and some years have been worse than others but all agree it has been getting worse since they stopped dredging.
The government proposed to spend a million dollars to study whether to resume dredging, I think why not spend that million on dredging and see if the flood situation improves, then you have your study. It’s also easy enough to prove, given they measure the volume of water going through at various points and also measure the high water as well, one key variable is the thickness of the ice when the flow starts, will say the ice is the non compliant people.
I hope you get my point but the fact is, both lockdowns in my region have resulted in the numbers and deaths going down to a manageable level, they clearly work here no need to study it.

[dhc#]

Air Canada shares drop most in five weeks on virus, travel warnings

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/air-canada- ... -1.1553787

[BTD]

Mbav8r,

I appreciate the well thought out post.

I don’t have data on how long surgeries etc were delayed in the past. It might very well be longer delays now then previously. But the comparisons to delays from past years is never made, as far as I can tell. The articles currently seem to be about delays and hallway treatments as if it is new due to covid. The headlines I posted are only to show that it is a systemic problem and not new this year. The extent of that problem I haven’t quantified but I also haven’t come across anything else quantifies it either.

As to my searching of studies. There may be a misunderstanding about claims and burdens of proof. It is up to those advocating for a position to demonstrate the evidence to support it. If you claim bigfoot exists and I say I reject your claim due to lack of evidence to support that position, it would be foolish of you to say to me, “well you are just searching for the evidence that validates what you already believe”. In that case, you are making the claim and have adopted a burden of proof. This is the same thing. My position is that I haven’t seen any good evidence to support that “lockdown” is a good strategy for lowering overall mortality. But I have in fact seen evidence to the contrary.

If, in fact, you are claiming that it is a good strategy, you have adopted a burden of proof and until the evidence is provided, I will maintain the default position, which is that it must be demonstrated to be the case. And we should be demanding top notch evidence if we are going to enact policies which can f*ck up the rest of society.

I have previously responded to the argument about Sweden vs it’s neighbours on a different thread. Highlighting that immediate neighbouring countries throughout Europe show vastly different mortality rates despite supporting similar policies. Why it is, I don’t know, but it highlights a problem saying that in fact the reason Sweden is doing worse is because of lockdown policies. Why is France way worse then Germany, why is Portugal way worse then Spain, why is England way worse then Scotland?

They can and do make comparisons between countries, but it is beyond the skill of my statistical knowledge.

As to my point about the experts; it is simply that we have thousands of experts on both sides arguing for one thing or the other. The Great Barrington declaration vs the John Snow memorandum you posted the other day. Or the Chief medical officer of Health’s recommendations vs that of his mentor and Previous Chief. So how do we sift through the bullshit. I look to the data, and the integrity of those experts s best I can. Example public health’s response to Babar’s letter , where they quietly switched his IFR quote (which had an error) to CFR. Hmm...

Anyway, that is a bad way of looking at things because it becomes close to an argument from authority fallacy.

But whenever I present this position, I never seem to get shown the evidence... I always get opinions.

Lastly, I am still reviewing your John Snow Memorandum. However, I have noticed that the first reference (1) they use is a study,, that links to a further study that shows the one they reference is flawed.

Like you guys, I just want this bs to end...

Ok, fair enough, I thought you were arguing that lockdowns don’t work and completely dismiss proof that it works unless it’s a study. Anecdotal evidence is still evidence, I’ll give you an example, where I live we deal with annual flooding on the river, it’s hit or miss and some years have been worse than others but all agree it has been getting worse since they stopped dredging.
The government proposed to spend a million dollars to study whether to resume dredging, I think why not spend that million on dredging and see if the flood situation improves, then you have your study. It’s also easy enough to prove, given they measure the volume of water going through at various points and also measure the high water as well, one key variable is the thickness of the ice when the flow starts, will say the ice is the non compliant people.
I hope you get my point but the fact is, both lockdowns in my region have resulted in the numbers and deaths going down to a manageable level, they clearly work here no need to study it.

Just to finish my thinking on this... yes anecdotal evidence is evidence. The question should be is it good evidence. Here is the problem with anecdotal evidence. It is not a reliable pathway to truth. We know that, eye witness testimony is terribly unrealisble, people embellish stories or have lapses of memory, mis remember, or have a bias.


Miriam Webster:
Definition of anecdotal evidence
: evidence in the form of stories that people tell about what has happened to them
His conclusions are not supported by data; they are based only on anecdotal evidence.


So if anecdotal evidence is not a reliable pathway to truth and we are consistently misled by it, why would we put any confidence in it when making major decisions. I simply don’t. Science on the other hand, via data, reasoned argument and observation is the most consistently reliable pathway to truth, which is why I favour it so heavily.

In regards to your flood situation I can see your argument. Why not spend the millions anyway on running the experiment in the actual river rather then another stupid study to figure something out. Here is where I see the difference. The hypothesis is that dredging the river will mitigate the flooding issues. It is a testable prediction. It can be tested by dredging out the river and observing the consequences against some control. The problem comes when you say that dredging WILL fix the problem because of what you remember to be the case from earlier.

However, I would imagine there is enough data on river dredging and data to back up some position on the effect it has on flooding. This would come from centuries of dredging around the world. That way one wouldn’t have to do anything more then look at the data that is already out there.

But some need to justify their jobs and have some make work projects. So a few million here or there no big deal right?

I hope you get my point but the fact is, both lockdowns in my region have resulted in the numbers and deaths going down to a manageable level, they clearly work here no need to study it.

I hate to say it, but that is a claim that needs to be demonstrated. The old adage “correlation does not equal causation” is applicable here. I am not saying it didn’t work. But how do you know it wasn’t some other factor that you haven’t thought of yet? Your suggestions is consistent with the facts, but so could be a lot of others, like my pants example from before.

[EPR]

I'm not a fan of trudeau we we have ordered like a dozen shots per Canadian

You are so wrong and mislead, sorry.. but maybe get a brain and do some research gtappl!

Please @#$! off to the hole you came out of.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-anywhere

Boom, you're WRONG

This asshole of PM failed to secure vaccines for Canadians! He's a lying piece of shit, he's quoting dosses from companies that aren't even approved and will likely never be approved! Get your head out of your ass and research it yourself gtappl!