I don't feel like looking up the specific percentage because it hardly matters. Last I checked the 65+ crowd in America is ~18%. But presuming they use the strata given by the CDC (They don't specifically say they do, but it's a fair assumption considering where they're getting their data from), then the 65+ crowd is further broken up into 65-74, 75-84, and 85+. Each of those groups will be subdivided into less than 18% by definition, if you want more concrete numbers and not recognizing the issue at hand.
Don't weight it. If you want to say the elderly population is the problem, compare just the elderly population between states. Find the per capita death toll among the elderly. They have the tools to do so and even did so at first... then added a ridiculous weight to it to smooth out the differences between states, making elderly dead count for less.
I'd assume census data is used. If you have better numbers to go by, then link to them. That's the best numbers I've found and they are better than just per capita data.
Again, if you have better data, post it. Why is the weighting ridiculous? Or way is elderly counting for less objectively bad? You just like the sound of your argument vs it being an actual legit argument. I can make the same argument about counting via per capita as 1 death is say Montana counts more than 1 death in California.
The issue at stake is what level of comparison you are trying to make. The covid mortality rate is the covid mortality rate, and thus a good bottom line.
I don't particularly mind someone attempting a more detailed comparison, but the point is perhaps that your more detailed comparison is half-arsed. You surely do see a problem with trying to "knock out" studies using complex analysis, and then putting forward extremely weak analyses of your own. It's an inconsistency about how you treat evidence, that you do not demand the same rigour from what supports your point of view as you do from what opposes it.
Not really, I listed why mortality rate alone can be very flawed way to compare two places. Also, before vaccines were widely available when covid measures were the most important,
California's deaths per capita was higher than Florida. That obviously can't be true if "the science" was the actually the science as Florida gave "the science" a big ass middle finger and performed better.
I gave a better method for comparison and you'd prefer not to use it because you don't like the results and they don't fit your preferred narrative.
You possibly should, because it indicates Ioannidis has a track record on the subject substantially below the reputation you ascribe to him.
Again, in a failure to really scrutinise your sources, the article (at least being transparent) notes the relationship that the authors have with Ioannidis, and briefly details some of their work, which relates to harms perceived done by modern medicine - making us again wonder whether they have a bone in this squabble beyond the science.
I'm not going to Ioannidis for the ins and outs of virus science. He's a very good scientist and knows when there's holes in the methods that you can drive semi truck through. That existed with covid and still exists, it's clear as day and the article is pointing that out. Ioannidis was the 1st to point out Theranos yet he wasn't a blood expert.
Bhattacharya was hypothesising and predicting, fine... in the service of highly politicised organisations. It's not that I have a problem with the idea that everything was very politicised throughout covid. What I reject is the bizarre notion that people like Ioannidis and Bhattacharya are some sort of fearless speakers of pure scientific truth, and their critics are politicised. The evidence points to the opposite. In fact, Bhattacharya was particularly big news because he volunteered to have his views politicised.
This again is a typical aspect of politicisation, one you do a lot. You like the myth of the maverick hero scientist, which attempts to bury actual scientific debate under media articles and discussion pieces lionising or condemning individuals. I attack the likes of Bhattacharya as a counterpoint to your attempts to put them on a pedestal. You aren't arguing science: you're arguing "Hero scientist says X". To which my answer is: maybe you are overrating your scientist. Bhattacharya's opinion remains a minority viewpoint among experts in the field, not least because time has rolled on with more data, and we can see the flaws in his predictions. For instance, it has become clear that the herd immunity principle underlying his views was not accurate.
The one discussion video in Florida with Bhattacharya and other prominent scientists was taken off Youtube due to "misinformation". You've yet to make an argument on way X is wrong or worse than Y. You never actually attack the argument but keep attacking the person. With regards to herd immunity, everyone was wrong regardless of what side you're looking at either those saying to build herd immunity earlier or those building herd immunity via vaccines. Why does Bhattacharya's hypothesis on herd immunity that ended up being wrong have anything do with his main stance on focused protection? It worked to make Florida perform better than California the 1st year of the pandemic.
There is not enough information to meaningfully assess that.
Never mind that there is precious little evidence Florida conducted any "focused protection". What it did was use Bhattacharya's hypothesis to keep kids going to school and stopped them wearing masks. What provisions did it enact to keep the vulnerable from harm, though? None that I can readily see.
In that sense, Florida simply operated a low-restriction society. So did other states, like Oklahoma and Arkansas: how did they fare? (Badly.) Thus the nature of attempting to cherry pick your data.
DeSantis implemented major restrictions on visitation to assisted living facilities (that lasted basically a full year) and after there were just a handful of cases, he forbid covid positive patients from going to assisted living facilities (remember how Cuomo did the opposite?). Did Oklahoma and Arkansas implement what Florida did?
California has the 45th biggest elderly population while Florida has the 2 biggest elderly population, yet Florida had a better straight-up mortality rate than California in the 1st year of the pandemic. Care to explain how that happened if all these restrictions (that California implemented every single one and then some) are supposed to help when Florida implement none of them? Stuff like closing beaches made no fucking sense basically ever, we knew covid didn't spread outside before it even came to the US.
Here's how my 'lockdown' went
No mask (at least until Omicron so Sept last year)
All business open
All school open
Economy booming
Here's what it cost: 8 weeks of business being closed. This was spread over two years, but half was front loaded to April 2020.
If you get an outbreak at your work, send everyone to work at home if possible
Tourism had to shift to internal tourism. It actually worked really well for most people
Airlines are fucked
America never had a lockdown and you paid the economic and social consequences. Those school problems in the US you were talking about is a RESULT of not going into lockdown
That's not how other places in Australia went. What school problems outside of them being closed?
If masks worked then why did "United Airlines — which scrapped hundreds of flights in December due to many crew members contracting COVID-19 as the Omicron variant spread over the holidays — said it is not currently experiencing any disruptions related to employees being infected with COVID-19."?
Side note: One of my students has a sibling who is 5 months old. He spent all of last week in hospital on death door. But Covid doesn't hurt kids
Infants have more risk than say a 5-year old because they're an infant, similar to the flu.
It just snowed in Michigan yesterday so I guess global warming doesn't exist because a single isolated event. Seriously, why bring up such bad arguments? Kids are more safe from covid than the flu so why would you put higher restrictions on kids for covid than you do for the flu?
