Delta variant and all future global variant surges (all are free post)

[rogue06]

As one wag on another forum posted - This is the only positive thing about the Biden presidency.

I've seen that a couple times

[Stoic]

White House physician is claiming that a relapse after taking Paxlovid is not unusual. So once again, we have a China flu remedy that doesn't actually work.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...r-coronavirus/

Just imagine someone at high risk for severe covid-19 turning down Paxlovid because it isn't perfect.

"It only provides an 89% reduction in the risk of hospitalization and death? That's not good enough. It also has to cure me and keep me cured!"

[Mountain Man]

Just imagine someone at high risk for severe covid-19 turning down Paxlovid because it isn't perfect.

"It only provides an 89% reduction in the risk of hospitalization and death? That's not good enough. It also has to cure me and keep me cured!"

"Not perfect" is an understatement. What is your source for claiming an 89% risk reduction?

[Stoic]

"Not perfect" is an understatement. What is your source for claiming an 89% risk reduction?

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/13...lovid-covid-19

[Starlight]

Just imagine someone at high risk for severe covid-19 turning down Paxlovid because it isn't perfect.

"It only provides an 89% reduction in the risk of hospitalization and death? That's not good enough. It also has to cure me and keep me cured!"

One of the failures in reasoning I see from US conservatives over and over again is the inability to properly reason with statistics or probability - they can only seem to handle all or nothing, 100% or 0%. Their reasoning is also almost always anecdotal rather than statistical. It's really bizarre, and it seems some sort of fundamental failure in thinking ability.

[Mountain Man]

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/13...lovid-covid-19

So a figure that is months old and based on short term preliminary testing, sort of like how the China flu vaccines were initially deemed "safe and effective" until longer term studies proved otherwise.

[Stoic]

So a figure that is months old and based on short term preliminary testing,

So when you say, "doesn't actually work", you really mean, "hasn't been tested as much as you would like."

"So once again, we have a China flu remedy that doesn't actually work."

sort of like how the China flu vaccines were initially deemed "safe and effective" until longer term studies proved otherwise.

The covid-19 vaccines are still deemed "safer than becoming infected while not vaccinated" and "pretty effective at keeping people alive and out of the hospital."

[Stoic]

One of the failures in reasoning I see from US conservatives over and over again is the inability to properly reason with statistics or probability - they can only seem to handle all or nothing, 100% or 0%. Their reasoning is also almost always anecdotal rather than statistical. It's really bizarre, and it seems some sort of fundamental failure in thinking ability.

It's perplexing. A conservative friend of mine who is extremely bright (perfect scores on the SAT, and an engineering degree from Caltech) had difficulty comprehending the idea that masks don't have to provide perfect protection in order to be worth wearing.

[Starlight]

It's perplexing. A conservative friend of mine who is extremely bright (perfect scores on the SAT, and an engineering degree from Caltech) had difficulty comprehending the idea that masks don't have to provide perfect protection in order to be worth wearing.

Incidentally, I haven't encountered the same failure in logic when talking to conservative in other countries (my own included). Even conservative extremists outside America who I have seen claim that covid doesn't exist or that no viruses exist, don't seem to make the same logical error of "masks / vaccines aren't worth it if they aren't perfect". I've only seen US conservatives fall into that logical error. I don't know why.

[seanD]

One of the failures in reasoning I see from US conservatives over and over again is the inability to properly reason with statistics or probability - they can only seem to handle all or nothing, 100% or 0%. Their reasoning is also almost always anecdotal rather than statistical. It's really bizarre, and it seems some sort of fundamental failure in thinking ability.

This coming from a guy that couldn't fathom why it's more difficult containing a pandemic in a country like America than it is in a country like NZ with the exact same policies.

[Starlight]

This coming from a guy that couldn't fathom why it's more difficult containing a pandemic in a country like America than it is in a country like NZ with the exact same policies.

Errors by me, if I make them, don't really have much relevance to different errors by others.

Nor would I say I at all hold the view you describe. My position is more based observing that the US has been statistically among the worst countries at handling covid (death rates, etc) and NZ statistically among the best, and hence suggesting that the US's policies were suboptimal. I, and others, can certainly point to plenty of reasons as to why the US had a poor response, how it went awry, and how the US is badly structured for handling a pandemic. At no point did I ever say I "couldn't fathom why it's more difficult containing a pandemic in a country like America" or anything close to that: Of course I can fathom why you guys have such big issues.

I did find it amusing though that those here who could normally be relied on to claim in general that the "US is number one" were the quickest to insist that absolutely no comparison between the US and other countries on their handling of covid was warranted/applicable, because of the US's many inherent problems that meant it could never perform as well as other countries and hence that comparison was unfair because the US was always going to lose. It was quite shocking to see how fast Team "US is #1" turned on a dime to argue that the US was of course going to do worse than other Western nations.

[NorrinRadd]

It's perplexing. A conservative friend of mine who is extremely bright (perfect scores on the SAT, and an engineering degree from Caltech) had difficulty comprehending the idea that masks don't have to provide perfect protection in order to be worth wearing.

How often and how carefully do the maskvocates consider the known detriments of masks?

Some of us would consider even "perfect" protection (from the particular pathogen in question) to be a dubious trade-off for the various physical discomforts and, more importantly, the various negative social and psychological impacts.

[seanD]

Errors by me, if I make them, don't really have much relevance to different errors by others.

Nor would I say I at all hold the view you describe. My position is more based observing that the US has been statistically among the worst countries at handling covid (death rates, etc) and NZ statistically among the best, and hence suggesting that the US's policies were suboptimal. I, and others, can certainly point to plenty of reasons as to why the US had a poor response, how it went awry, and how the US is badly structured for handling a pandemic. At no point did I ever say I "couldn't fathom why it's more difficult containing a pandemic in a country like America" or anything close to that: Of course I can fathom why you guys have such big issues.

I did find it amusing though that those here who could normally be relied on to claim in general that the "US is number one" were the quickest to insist that absolutely no comparison between the US and other countries on their handling of covid was warranted/applicable, because of the US's many inherent problems that meant it could never perform as well as other countries and hence that comparison was unfair because the US was always going to lose. It was quite shocking to see how fast Team "US is #1" turned on a dime to argue that the US was of course going to do worse than other Western nations.

We tried to explain to you why a response in a tiny country like NZ would be vastly different than in a country like America and why the outcomes would be different, yet you were absolutely befuddled by this because you couldn't seem to grasp the logic behind what an 8 year old should have been able to grasp. Most countries had a poor response, or the responses and outcomes varied -- some good, most bad, and some somewhere in between for obvious reasons.

And I have no idea what the rest of the blather above is. Who here ever said "US was number one"? And what does even mean? Number one at what? Or is that just in your own mind and you're projecting?

[Starlight]

How often and how carefully do the maskvocates consider the known detriments of masks?

I would generally say that mask advocates do, and have always, assessed the pros and cons of masks. The cons are relatively tiny, and the pros relatively large in a pandemic, so they make clear sense in our current situation.

Some of us would consider even "perfect" protection (from the particular pathogen in question) to be a dubious trade-off for the various physical discomforts and, more importantly, the various negative social and psychological impacts.

That's because you insane people overstate the claimed cons of masks by multiple orders of magnitude.

[Starlight]

And I have no idea what the rest of the blather above is. Who here ever said "US was number one"? And what does even mean? Number one at what? Or is that just in your own mind and you're projecting?

Don't you claim to be American? Have you lived your entire life in a cave?

If you're seriously that ignorant, and have never heard the phrase, perhaps you should start a thread and ask those questions of your fellow Americans here. You wouldn't want a foreigner to be educating you on the basics of US culture would you?