Coronavirus

[mgil]

Thought this was a good article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ss/671879/

[omaniphil]

Thought this was a good article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ss/671879/

You're in the minority. I agree with you entirely however, and I think Emily Oster has been pretty good voice of reason during the pandemic, but man, did that article stir up the angry mobs on both the COVID extremist ends, and the anti-lockdown/antivaxxer end.

[weisgarber]

Thought this was a good article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ss/671879/

You willfully, and deliberately went against the science- blocked people who offered citations, and your actions built a narrative that killed children. You killed children @ProfEmilyOster. You get to live with that. I couldn't, but I bet you can.

Clearly, Covid didn't kill enough people.

[Brackish]

(don't let my epic corona thread die !!!!)

There's some talk on how bad our flu season is going to be this year, since regular ol' Flu has taken the backseat to corona for the last couple of years.

It will be fun to see if/how this pans out?

N of 3, anecdotal - very, very bad. The type A my sons lovingly brought home to share with me made Covid-19 look like a joke. Top recorded fever during the 7 day illness - 106.7 degrees. Not cool.

[GlasgowJock]

Well I'm glad shutting down the UK for lengthy periods over the last two years in 2020/21 has mega exacerbated the deteriorating situation of our national health service. We questionably prolonged the lives of a few oldies with numerous comorbidity for a few more years though have trashed our adult social and mental health services and consigned 10'000s with then treatable cancers to the dustbin in the process with ambulance services on the brink of striking due to the system being virtually unfit for purpose nowadays.

[Culican]

(don't let my epic corona thread die !!!!)

There's some talk on how bad our flu season is going to be this year, since regular ol' Flu has taken the backseat to corona for the last couple of years.

It will be fun to see if/how this pans out?

I had an appointment with the ophthalmologist last Thursday at 1:30pm. At 10am they called and cancelled because they were short of help due to all of the staff "being out with the flu."

[Brackish]

(don't let my epic corona thread die !!!!)

There's some talk on how bad our flu season is going to be this year, since regular ol' Flu has taken the backseat to corona for the last couple of years.

It will be fun to see if/how this pans out?

I had an appointment with the ophthalmologist last Thursday at 1:30pm. At 10am they called and cancelled because they were short of help due to all of the staff "being out with the flu."

We had roughly 15% of the student body out today. Figure 5% is noise, but the vast majority are marked "illness w/ fever" in our system. Any bets on what that mysterious illness might be?

[gtl]

(don't let my epic corona thread die !!!!)

There's some talk on how bad our flu season is going to be this year, since regular ol' Flu has taken the backseat to corona for the last couple of years.

It will be fun to see if/how this pans out?

I had an appointment with the ophthalmologist last Thursday at 1:30pm. At 10am they called and cancelled because they were short of help due to all of the staff "being out with the flu."

We had roughly 15% of the student body out today. Figure 5% is noise, but the vast majority are marked "illness w/ fever" in our system. Any bets on what that mysterious illness might be?

tummy aches from too much candy?

[dw]

Thought this was a good article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ss/671879/

You're in the minority. I agree with you entirely however, and I think Emily Oster has been pretty good voice of reason during the pandemic, but man, did that article stir up the angry mobs on both the COVID extremist ends, and the anti-lockdown/antivaxxer end.

I'm not familiar with the writer's other work. Can you summarize the controversy a little?

I'm just surprised because the article as written seems inoffensive, in fact willfully inoffensive.

[omaniphil]

Thought this was a good article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ss/671879/

You're in the minority. I agree with you entirely however, and I think Emily Oster has been pretty good voice of reason during the pandemic, but man, did that article stir up the angry mobs on both the COVID extremist ends, and the anti-lockdown/antivaxxer end.

I'm not familiar with the writer's other work. Can you summarize the controversy a little?

I'm just surprised because the article as written seems inoffensive, in fact willfully inoffensive.

Emily Oster is an economist and has written a number of evidence based books on pregnancy, child-rearing, etc. Her general approach is to try to translate outcomes from research studies into practical suggestions. During the pandemic, she was pretty cautious about COVID and supported in some circumstances vaccine mandates, etc, but thought that the harm to children of school closures outweighed the benefit to closing schools. The article is mostly written from the position of "during the pandemic we didn't have sufficient information, therefore, the natural inclination was to be overly cautious, but its over now, lets forgive those who overreacted"

1) The COVID hawk's general position is "we were trying to protect people, you wanted people to die, we don't need forgiveness"
2) The COVID denialists position is "people like you and the people you want to forgive are responsible for the lives ruined by closures, and you belong in prison" (if you doubt how charitable a description this is, just look at the quote tweets to her post here: https://twitter.com/ProfEmilyOster/stat ... h_comments)

The negative polarization over this is just astounding.

[5hout]

Thought this was a good article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ss/671879/

You're in the minority. I agree with you entirely however, and I think Emily Oster has been pretty good voice of reason during the pandemic, but man, did that article stir up the angry mobs on both the COVID extremist ends, and the anti-lockdown/antivaxxer end.

I'm not familiar with the writer's other work. Can you summarize the controversy a little?

I'm just surprised because the article as written seems inoffensive, in fact willfully inoffensive.

Emily Oster is an economist and has written a number of evidence based books on pregnancy, child-rearing, etc. Her general approach is to try to translate outcomes from research studies into practical suggestions. During the pandemic, she was pretty cautious about COVID and supported in some circumstances vaccine mandates, etc, but thought that the harm to children of school closures outweighed the benefit to closing schools. The article is mostly written from the position of "during the pandemic we didn't have sufficient information, therefore, the natural inclination was to be overly cautious, but its over now, lets forgive those who overreacted"

1) The COVID hawk's general position is "we were trying to protect people, you wanted people to die, we don't need forgiveness"
2) The COVID denialists position is "people like you and the people you want to forgive are responsible for the lives ruined by closures, and you belong in prison" (if you doubt how charitable a description this is, just look at the quote tweets to her post here: https://twitter.com/ProfEmilyOster/stat ... h_comments)

The negative polarization over this is just astounding.

Could also add:

https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.co ... o-way.html
and
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/401640.php

[omaniphil]

Thought this was a good article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ss/671879/

You're in the minority. I agree with you entirely however, and I think Emily Oster has been pretty good voice of reason during the pandemic, but man, did that article stir up the angry mobs on both the COVID extremist ends, and the anti-lockdown/antivaxxer end.

I'm not familiar with the writer's other work. Can you summarize the controversy a little?

I'm just surprised because the article as written seems inoffensive, in fact willfully inoffensive.

Emily Oster is an economist and has written a number of evidence based books on pregnancy, child-rearing, etc. Her general approach is to try to translate outcomes from research studies into practical suggestions. During the pandemic, she was pretty cautious about COVID and supported in some circumstances vaccine mandates, etc, but thought that the harm to children of school closures outweighed the benefit to closing schools. The article is mostly written from the position of "during the pandemic we didn't have sufficient information, therefore, the natural inclination was to be overly cautious, but its over now, lets forgive those who overreacted"

1) The COVID hawk's general position is "we were trying to protect people, you wanted people to die, we don't need forgiveness"
2) The COVID denialists position is "people like you and the people you want to forgive are responsible for the lives ruined by closures, and you belong in prison" (if you doubt how charitable a description this is, just look at the quote tweets to her post here: https://twitter.com/ProfEmilyOster/stat ... h_comments)

The negative polarization over this is just astounding.

Could also add:

https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.co ... o-way.html
and
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/401640.php

I'm not surprised at that blog post from Ace at all. I should really change my avatar (which references a 15 year old meme from Ace's site).

[BostonRugger]

[math][/math]

Also, I wonder if quarantining is the best move sometimes.

Like, you are now concentrating people into tight small little groups, guaranteeing that all those people infect each other in a confined space.
I mean, if they don't run that quarantine out to the Nth degree, and then declare its "off" at the wrong time.
Seems like could be a recipe for disaster.

On the topic of being correct - I just went back to page 2 and found this whopper from early February 2020

ETA: Favorite line from Oster:

Obviously some people intended to mislead and made wildly irresponsible claims. Remember when the public-health community had to spend a lot of time and resources urging Americans not to inject themselves with bleach? That was bad. Misinformation was, and remains, a huge problem. But most errors were made by people who were working in earnest for the good of society.

Yes, the bleach thing was up there for pure stupid-factor. Still, for an article written to be conciliatory, the line she chooses to draw between the well intentioned and the malevolent is pretty conveniently placed.

[5hout]

I'm not surprised at that blog post from Ace at all. I should really change my avatar (which references a 15 year old meme from Ace's site).

Both of those blogs went from "out there, but still interesting stuff linked" to "f'ing bonkers" over the last few years.

[neandrewthal]

How can you forgive and forget when it's not even over? The Covidians in my neck of the woods won't even admit they got anything wrong and just keep going on about the latest incarnation of their narrative: the mass disabling event.

And sure, forgive people who pushed school closures in spring 2020. But 2021? I dunno man.

Or forgive the people who want me to wear a mask for the seasonal flu now?

Forgive someone who supported my being barred from my gym for refusing to provide private medical information? No fucking way. And before you call me bitter and resentful and say I need to let it go, approximately 0% of those people are sorry or even realize they made a mistake. This isn't an anti-vax extremist position. I am still fucking furious at the extremism enacted against me.

The people Emily Oster represents, those who made honest mistakes and regret them are an extremely tiny minority. I haven't personally met one in real life.

[mbasic]

Thought this was a good article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ss/671879/

Kinda off the main point of the article.....but I discounted anything the woman wrote after this.

Obviously some people intended to mislead and made wildly irresponsible claims. Remember when the public-health community had to spend a lot of time and resources urging Americans not to inject themselves with bleach? That was bad. Misinformation was, and remains, a huge...

I don't remember anybody injecting themselves with bleach, or enough so that any govt entity would have to respond with 'dont inject yourself with bleach' PSAs.
("Spend a lot of time and resources on")

I mean, I DOOOooo remember THE ONE OLD SENILE GUY who killed himself with fish tank cleaner.....but same thing, was that enough of a problem to "spend a lot of time and resources on"? I guess that would've been a better example for the educated lady to cite? Over injecting bleach....

Then there's HoRsEpASte!!!!.....but, IIRC they keep going back and forth on that....so I'm guessing that's why she didn't cite that example.....but that'd be one true example of where some resources were spent "undoing misinformation" .....but nay, she stayed away from that.

I just watched some cool(sad) mini documentary videos on the Sackler family, from Valum in the 60's up to the recent opioid epidemic. I'm not surprised many people don't trust the FDA, the federal govt, and big pharma ....one fucking bit. And the amount of trust even worse now.....after all this bullshit.

Fuck it. Country got what it deserved.

[Travis]

I had a wall of text ready to go, but it wasn’t productive.

I’ll just say, I forgive 2 weeks to slow the spread, everything past that is just more than small, petty heart can muster.

I hope for the world more people are better than me.

[Brackish]

(don't let my epic corona thread die !!!!)

There's some talk on how bad our flu season is going to be this year, since regular ol' Flu has taken the backseat to corona for the last couple of years.

It will be fun to see if/how this pans out?

I had an appointment with the ophthalmologist last Thursday at 1:30pm. At 10am they called and cancelled because they were short of help due to all of the staff "being out with the flu."

We had roughly 15% of the student body out today. Figure 5% is noise, but the vast majority are marked "illness w/ fever" in our system. Any bets on what that mysterious illness might be?

tummy aches from too much candy?

I wish that were the case. Teacher's kids are getting it too. Most of them end up testing positive for influenza type A, and the fevers are lasting 5-7 days with some outliers lasting much longer than that.

[omaniphil]

(don't let my epic corona thread die !!!!)

There's some talk on how bad our flu season is going to be this year, since regular ol' Flu has taken the backseat to corona for the last couple of years.

It will be fun to see if/how this pans out?

I had an appointment with the ophthalmologist last Thursday at 1:30pm. At 10am they called and cancelled because they were short of help due to all of the staff "being out with the flu."

We had roughly 15% of the student body out today. Figure 5% is noise, but the vast majority are marked "illness w/ fever" in our system. Any bets on what that mysterious illness might be?

tummy aches from too much candy?

I wish that were the case. Teacher's kids are getting it too. Most of them end up testing positive for influenza type A, and the fevers are lasting 5-7 days with some outliers lasting much longer than that.

I have two kids out of school today, resting listlessly on the couch, with fevers and hacking coughs. The third kid had it last week, and half her class it out sick this week. Our pediatrician thinks its RSV, but who knows.

[Brackish]

(don't let my epic corona thread die !!!!)

There's some talk on how bad our flu season is going to be this year, since regular ol' Flu has taken the backseat to corona for the last couple of years.

It will be fun to see if/how this pans out?

I had an appointment with the ophthalmologist last Thursday at 1:30pm. At 10am they called and cancelled because they were short of help due to all of the staff "being out with the flu."

We had roughly 15% of the student body out today. Figure 5% is noise, but the vast majority are marked "illness w/ fever" in our system. Any bets on what that mysterious illness might be?

tummy aches from too much candy?

I wish that were the case. Teacher's kids are getting it too. Most of them end up testing positive for influenza type A, and the fevers are lasting 5-7 days with some outliers lasting much longer than that.

I have two kids out of school today, resting listlessly on the couch, with fevers and hacking coughs. The third kid had it last week, and half her class it out sick this week. Our pediatrician thinks its RSV, but who knows.

That's the way both of my boys were with this flu. My house sounded like a tuberculosis ward for two weeks. Heck, that was two weeks ago, and they still have random coughing fits where they sound like a 3 pack a day for 20+ years smoker. It's nuts.