Our Covid Response

[bluegate]

Got my second booster shot yesterday.

 

[Agema]

Remdesivir is worse, does nothing, and given out like candy.

If you wanna make standards, fine, but you have to apply it to everything. There's no reason why remdesivir is STILL given out (just heard a nurse talking about giving remdesivir the other day) and ivermectin was demonized.

Au contraire. Remdesivir has had some back and forth in the evidence base, but more recent meta-analyses suggest it is, in fact, effective (if weakly) when administered early enough.

Remdesivir and three other drugs for hospitalised patients with COVID-19: final results of the WHO Solidarity randomised trial and updated meta-analyses

Remdesivir has no significant effect on patients with COVID-19 who are already being ventilated. Among other hospitalised patients, it has a small effect against death or progression to ventilation (or both).

www.thelancet.com

Claiming it's handed out like candy is of dubious significance when talking about a country that hands out virtually all drugs like candy, up to and including dangerous and addictive ones like opioids.

Ventilation was not effectively communicated as stated by tons of experts.

More tedious invention of fake problems.

I am painfully aware that your "tons of experts" - if they even exist - are going to be nothing more than the same handful of anti-estalishment cranks pushed by the same YouTube cuntnuggets that you've been feeding off for your two years of useless opinions on ivermectin, vitamin D, HCQ and masks.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Sorry, I don't assign dollar values to lives. Why not prove Florida consistently had a better than average death rate? I'm not sure how you're going to do this, since all available CDC data says they did below average, but hey. Maybe one day you'll find a source worth listening to.

The cost benefit analysis I posted wasn't about money. THERE'S MORE THAN JUST COVID THAT KILLS PEOPLE. Just because you save more people from covid doesn't mean you saved more total life. What about all the depression caused by covid measures? What about how people have eaten far less healthy during covid? If you didn't know, there's costs associated with anything you do. WHERE IS A SINGLE COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF COVID MEASURES THAT SAYS THE BENEFITS WERE GREATER THAN THE COSTS? Nobody has yet to post one of these because, guess what, they don't exist.

Au contraire. Remdesivir has had some back and forth in the evidence base, but more recent meta-analyses suggest it is, in fact, effective (if weakly) when administered early enough.

Remdesivir and three other drugs for hospitalised patients with COVID-19: final results of the WHO Solidarity randomised trial and updated meta-analyses

Remdesivir has no significant effect on patients with COVID-19 who are already being ventilated. Among other hospitalised patients, it has a small effect against death or progression to ventilation (or both).

www.thelancet.com

Claiming it's handed out like candy is of dubious significance when talking about a country that hands out virtually all drugs like candy, up to and including dangerous and addictive ones like opioids.



More tedious invention of fake problems.

I am painfully aware that your "tons of experts" - if they even exist - are going to be nothing more than the same handful of anti-estalishment cranks pushed by the same YouTube cuntnuggets that you've been feeding off for your two years of useless opinions on ivermectin, vitamin D, HCQ and masks.

Shocker, no placebo. Drugs are indeed handed out why too much. I've never taken a single prescription drug in my life.

I don't know why you're even arguing this point about ventilation. I think it's only because I said X and you don't wanna agree with it. It's obvious by dumbass covid measures like closing beaches that ventilation works wasn't communicated, it's obvious by people avoiding others outside and not even wanting to walk past each other or yelling at people outside not masking that it wasn't communicated, it's obvious by the fact that more bicyclists (Stanford students) wear masks than wear helmets.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

The cost benefit analysis I posted wasn't about money. THERE'S MORE THAN JUST COVID THAT KILLS PEOPLE. Just because you save more people from covid doesn't mean you saved more total life. What about all the depression caused by covid measures? What about how people have eaten far less healthy during covid? If you didn't know, there's costs associated with anything you do. WHERE IS A SINGLE COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF COVID MEASURES THAT SAYS THE BENEFITS WERE GREATER THAN THE COSTS? Nobody has yet to post one of these because, guess what, they don't exist.

People don't like comparing people to money, who knew?

 

[Seanchaidh]

 

[Phoenixmgs]

People don't like comparing people to money, who knew?

How is number of years of life lost have anything to do with money?

Basically everyone is vaxxed or has natural immunity at this point, what the fuck do you want done? You guys only seem to like democracy when the majority agrees with you.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

How is number of years of life lost have anything to do with money?

Because they equate people's lives with money. It's pretty straightforward, and why economists in general are ghouls.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Because they equate people's lives with money. It's pretty straightforward, and why economists in general are ghouls.

They didn't...

This analysis only considers the number of years of lost life. A proper cost/benefit analysis would consider the value of these lost years.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

They didn't...

This analysis only considers the number of years of lost life. A proper cost/benefit analysis would consider the value of these lost years.

You're a terrible reader, as per usual.

You missed page 12

To estimate benefits and compare them to costs economists
assign a dollar value to the change in outcomes. If lockdown benefits are in terms
of the number of deaths delayed, then a value to these lives must be used.

It then has a whole ass section based around calculating the dollar value of a human life to be used for the rest of the calculations in the paper.

Funnily enough, the big point of your paper that makes all this math work is your old favorite, undervaluing old people compared to young! You have once again fallen to the same meme! You're predictable!

Also another favorite of mine is you complaining that nobody can show you any alternate cost/benefit analyses, but the paper you quote is specifically written as a rebuttal to the consensus of cost/benefit analyses. It is by it's own admission a minority opinion in the field. You truly are a terrible reader.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

You're a terrible reader, as per usual.

You missed page 12



It then has a whole ass section based around calculating the dollar value of a human life to be used for the rest of the calculations in the paper.

Funnily enough, the big point of your paper that makes all this math work is your old favorite, undervaluing old people compared to young! You have once again fallen to the same meme! You're predictable!

Also another favorite of mine is you complaining that nobody can show you any alternate cost/benefit analyses, but the paper you quote is specifically written as a rebuttal to the consensus of cost/benefit analyses. It is by it's own admission a minority opinion in the field. You truly are a terrible reader.

And you missed this entire section. Where is there a single mention of money?

III. An Alternative Cost/Benefit Methodology

To my knowledge, as of March 2021, no one has calculated the sum of Covid-
19 lockdown losses into dollar costs, nor has there been any systematic attempt
to determine the total lost quality of life brought about by lockdown. Therefore,
economic arguments against lockdown have run along the lines that the benefits are
negligible and the costs are obviously high.
Professor Bryan Caplan at George Mason University has proposed an interesting
thought experiment that provides a solution for this issue.46 Professor Caplan
proposes the following question:
Suppose you could either live a year of life in the COVID era, or X months under
normal conditions. What’s the value of X that makes the AVERAGE American
indifferent?
Professor Caplan’s thought experiment addresses the perceived costs of lock-
down for each person living under it. For some this past year has been horrific.
Perhaps they suffered violence or abuse that was fueled by frustration and alcohol
while locked down during a long stay-at-home order. Or perhaps they lost a busi-
ness, a major career opportunity, or struggled over a long period of unemployment.
How many months of 2020 would these people have been willing to sacrifice to have
avoided the negative consequences of lockdown? Many might be willing to give up
years, others several months.
On the other hand, for others who are older, professional, have no children at
home, live in a large house with a garden, dislike travel, and have poorer health,
lockdown might have given them comfort and been no inconvenience. These folks
might sacrifice nothing to avoid lockdown.
The question is: how many months would be sacrificed on average? Professor
Caplan argues that X = 10 months is a conservative estimate. That is, on average,
two months would be sacrificed to have avoided lockdown. For the sake of argument,
suppose this is the true number for the average Canadian.
As of March 2021 the pandemic has lasted one year. That means that the
average Canadian has lost two months of normal life. The population of Canada is
about 37.7 million people, which means that 6.3 million years of life have been lost
due to lockdown.
The average age of reported Covid-19 deaths in Canada is about 80.47 In Canada
an average 80 year old has a life expectancy of 9.79 years.48 This means that the
6.3 million years of lost life is equivalent to the deaths of 643,513 80 year olds.49 As
of March 22, 2021 Canada has had a total of 22,716 deaths due to Covid-19. That
amounts to 222,389 lost years of life.
The question is, however, how many lost years of life would have resulted from
Covid-19 deaths if there had been no lockdown? Consider two extremes:
a. Assume that the number of Covid-19 deaths would have been 10% higher
had there been no lockdown. Then Canada would have experienced an ad-
ditional 2,271 deaths, which means there would have been additional 22,333
years of lost life due to Covid-19 deaths. The benefit of lockdown, therefore,
was the avoidance of this extra 22,333 years of lost life. However, the cost of
lockdown, as noted, was 6,300,000 years of lost life. The cost/benefit ratio
of lockdown is 282 = 6, 300, 000/22, 333.
b. Assume that the initial ICL model forecasts were correct and without a
lockdown Canada would have experienced 200,000 deaths. This would
mean that Canada’s lockdown policies prevented 177, 281(200, 000−22, 716)
deaths. Under the same age and life expectancy assumptions lockdown pre-
vented the loss of 1,735,580 life years. The cost/benefit ratio of lockdown is
3.6 = 6, 300.000/1, 735, 580.
Case (b) is highly unrealistic and nothing close to this rate of death happened
anywhere in the world. However, even in this extreme case, lockdown is a failure as
a policy by cost/benefit standards.
The review of the literature suggests that Case (a) is closer to reality. If lock-
down only had a marginal effect on deaths, then by cost/benefit standards, lockdown
has been a public policy disaster.50
This analysis only considers the number of years of lost life. A proper cost/benefit
analysis would consider the value of these lost years. As noted above, the value of life
is not constant across age. Since the life years lost to Covid-19 deaths were mostly
among those older than 60, and since the years of lost life because of lockdown have
mostly been among the young, adjusting the the above cost/benefit ratios for the
value of life will make lockdown an even worse policy.

You can't read. How the fuck is this a rebuttal to the consensus of other cost-benefit analyses when it says right here in the paper...?

Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no public evidence
that either the federal or provincial governments of Canada have considered both
the benefit and cost sides of their policy decisions. To my knowledge, no government
has provided any formal cost/benefit analysis of their actions.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And you missed this entire section. Where is there a single mention of money?

The part where there's a whole ass section on calculating the cost of a human life and using it in calculations, you illiterate.

You can't read. How the fuck is this a rebuttal to the consensus of other cost-benefit analyses when it says right here in the paper...?

Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no public evidence
that either the federal or provincial governments of Canada have considered both
the benefit and cost sides of their policy decisions. To my knowledge, no government
has provided any formal cost/benefit analysis of their actions.

Page 2, which is the first page after the abstract.

This review of a small segment of the literature is intended to give some guidance
for those who would otherwise not have access to academic research. The focus is to
only critically assess the cost/benefit studies that have been written over the past
year on lockdown policies related to the Covid-19 pandemic.1

You illiterate.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

The part where there's a whole ass section on calculating the cost of a human life and using it in calculations, you illiterate.




Page 2, which is the first page after the abstract.



You illiterate.

And the section where they remove money from the equation, lockdowns still fail to save years of life. Where's your rebuttal to that? Instead of "uh... well... the other section had money and calculations and stuff I don't like".

And how is this a REBUTTAL to them? Link me to a single study linked that says lockdowns saved more life that the author is actually rebutting and saying something like "nope, this is where this study is wrong and here's why."

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And the section where they remove money from the equation, lockdowns still fail to save years of life. Where's your rebuttal to that? Instead of "uh... well... the other section had money and calculations and stuff I don't like".

It's your paper, don't be mad when I'm right about your shitty paper. I don't care about papers that equate lives to dollars and rely on "dude, trust me" as a source.

And how is this a REBUTTAL to them? Link me to a single study linked that says lockdowns saved more life that the author is actually rebutting and saying something like "nope, this is where this study is wrong and here's why."

I have to ask, are you capable of breathing and walking at the same time? It says it's a rebuttal to papers you say don't exist and threw a temper tantrum demanding people provide. Take the L dude.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

It's your paper, don't be mad when I'm right about your shitty paper. I don't care about papers that equate lives to dollars and rely on "dude, trust me" as a source.



I have to ask, are you capable of breathing and walking at the same time? It says it's a rebuttal to papers you say don't exist and threw a temper tantrum demanding people provide. Take the L dude.

I was never using the money aspect. The whole section on years of life lost is extremely against lockdowns, that's a fact.

Then what paper that he rebutted says lockdowns saved more life? Are you incapable of providing basic proof to support your argument? I've asked for probably a year to provide one analysis showing lockdowns saved lives and not a single one has ever been linked.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I was never using the money aspect. The whole section on years of life lost is extremely against lockdowns, that's a fact.

You used a paper that equates lives to money to make it's point. That section isn't even worth talking about because the source is literally "dude, trust me".

Then what paper that he rebutted says lockdowns saved more life? Are you incapable of providing basic proof to support your argument? I've asked for probably a year to provide one analysis showing lockdowns saved lives and not a single one has ever been linked.

You linked it yourself, in your own paper. Read your own paper. Read anything. Read what you yourself write. Until you do, you're literally not worth talking to. This will be my last post to you on this subject because this is farcical. Nobody should take you seriously. There's low information opinions, and then there's whatever abyss you've thrown yourself into of blind faith and staunch zeal in just being wrong about everything.

 

[Trunkage]

There has only been just over a million people die of Covid this year to date

The yearly average for flu deaths around the world is somewhere between 250 and 650k per year

Covid is still killing more people than the flu

 

[Seanchaidh]

Basically everyone is vaxxed or has natural immunity at this point, what the fuck do you want done? You guys only seem to like democracy when the majority agrees with you.

It is questionable whether there even is such thing as natural immunity to COVID, and long COVID can happen vaxxed or not. A strategy of vaccination can only, at the very maximum, be as effective as the relative lack of viral mutation allows it to be. The more we let COVID spread, the less effective our vaccinations are and the less effective any speculated 'natural immunity' might be because viruses change and evolve the more you allow them to replicate. And that's what we are allowing.

What more do I want? What more don't I want? We haven't even begun taking COVID-19 seriously. But some of us are content to repeatedly gain the lethal preexisting conditions of COVID-19 that arise from having had COVID-19. Stop the fucking spread. That's what I want.

 

[thebobmaster]

I just want to point out that, despite being vaccinated and boosted, my sister quite probably got COVID. My nephew got COVID for sure, but I don't know if he was vaccinated because I don't know if they could vaccinate him, because he's only 5, and my sister started running a fever yesterday, which is not a good sign.

My point being that vaccines are not a guaranteed immunity. Boosters are not guaranteed immunity. Anyone who says "We have a vaccine and boosters now, what more do you want"? Try combining those vaccines and boosters with more caution, and see what happens. A family sedan is safer in a car crash than a sports car, but you still buckle your damn seatbelt if you don't want to fly out the windshield, right?

 

[Silvanus]

I just want to point out that, despite being vaccinated and boosted, my sister quite probably got COVID. My nephew got COVID for sure, but I don't know if he was vaccinated because I don't know if they could vaccinate him, because he's only 5, and my sister started running a fever yesterday, which is not a good sign.

My point being that vaccines are not a guaranteed immunity. Boosters are not guaranteed immunity. Anyone who says "We have a vaccine and boosters now, what more do you want"? Try combining those vaccines and boosters with more caution, and see what happens. A family sedan is safer in a car crash than a sports car, but you still buckle your damn seatbelt if you don't want to fly out the windshield, right?

After the line about never taking any prescription drugs whatsoever, I wouldn't be massively surprised if Phoenixmgs said he didn't use seatbelts.

 

[Agema]

Shocker, no placebo.

And...? Doesn't mean they aren't valid studies.

I don't know why you're even arguing this point about ventilation.

I'm arguing it because you're manufacturing stupid, pissy claims just to make people on your anti-establishment shitlist (i.e. anyone who provided advice about covid you didn't like) look bad.

Like the remdesivir above. The data available is pretty okay. But you want to stress the problem - with absolutely zero consistenvy given all the godawaful crap you've posted in support of drugs you decided weren't evil.