BBO Discussion Forums: Coronavirus - BBO Discussion Forums

kenberg, on 2021-May-01, 19:58, said:

Did you look at the chart that Pilowsky referenced?

Total COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people
That is where he is drawing his 70.58% number from

However, he is describing this is

"70.58% of the population has received at least one shot"

In one case the numerator is "shots given" in the other it is "people inoculated"

If each and every person who received a shot only received one shot, the two numbers would match. However an extremely large number of people in Florida have received two shots, in which case the two values start to skew from one another.

Leave him alone Ken, he's on a roll.
Yes, 70.58% of doses doesn't mean 70.58% have had 2 shots.
That's not what I said and it isn't what the data shows and it isn't the main point of the post.
But congrats on your stats Richard.

I went to
https://www.beckersh...d-march-15.html

We see:
As of 6 a.m. EDT May 1, a total of 103,422,555 Americans had been fully vaccinated, or 31.2 percent of the country's population, according to the CDC's data.



Of course, that percentage is of all Americans, and so includes children that, as of now, are not being vaccinated. And I suppose we might ask What is an American?

And, very important, we could know of how many are immune because they have already had it. I have not looked that up but I imagine I could.


But for my purposes, meaning having a fair grasp of where we are in our vaccination efforts, the numbers are useful enough. We can watch how they grow to get a feeling for developing problems.
Another number could be how many have received one dose of a two dose vaccnie and are expected to be getting the second dose. These people are not a problem, they are well into the pipeline and soon will be fully vaccinated.

My question is: Does it now look like we are on track to beat this? It seems the news is fairly encouraging but we still have quite a bit to go and things can go wrong.

in the last month or so the change has been that back a month ago many people were hoping to get a shot but were uncertain when they would or how to go about it. Now my wife's daughter has scheduled her 16 year old twins for a shot at the local Giant (a supermarket). Now I encounter or hear about people who are still waiting, but they are waitng to decide rather than waiting and worrying about when they might maybe get the vaccine. Those that want it might not get it tomorrow but they are confident that they will get it soon.

I repeat: My question is "Is this working?". And then "What do we need to do to reach those that for one reason or another are hard to reach?" I'll watch the site I just listed, or maybe look around for more later.

So far so good, or at least so far more or less good, but don't break out the Champagne.

Just as an aside, I would like to retire the word "troll" from online discussions. My daughter's favorite (well, one of her favorites, she would happily listen to as many as I would read) bedtime story was The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Who's that tromping over my bridge? A good place for trolls, let's leave them be.

kenberg, on 2021-May-02, 09:32, said:

Or, we could discuss fishing techniques.

PassedOut, on 2021-May-02, 10:28, said:

Yes, I grew up in Minnesota and learned how to handle a boat for trolling when I was maybe 8 or so.

It seems that Hey Joe Biden (http://bit.ly/HeyJoeHend) has come around - far too late - to the idea that it might be a good idea to suspend vaccine patents for a while.
At least according to an NBC news flash, I just saw.



No doubt he was reading the thread on this forum.


At the same time, Sydney just entered a sort of conservative government equivalent of lockdown.
In this form of lockdown, people can still wander about and meet in large groups.
It is impossible to find a place that will vaccinate you - except on Thursday or Friday mornings in two weeks time.


Meanwhile, the Morrison government is resorting to sabre-rattling with China to distract peoples attention from their incompetence.
Meanwhile, in other news, a famous footballer is being jailed for a crime that sounds like sexual assault; and a previously well-known cricketer "shocked" newsreaders by revealing that he had been kidnapped, beaten and threatened with a gun.
Australian priorities.

From New analysis finds global Covid death toll is double official estimates by Helen Bramswell at STAT

Quote

The first stats on the effect of lockdown on non Covid deaths in the UK have emerged. Around 1300 extra cases (around 20% extra) of people drinking themselves to death in 2020 compared to 2019, concentrated from late March onwards.

Cyberyeti, on 2021-May-07, 10:05, said:

Comment 1: Not really sure how you separate "drinking deaths due to the lockdown" from "drinking deaths during the time of COVID".

Comment 2: Do you understand what kind of death rates countries are experience when COVID gets loose?

The latest estimates here in the US are suggesting that there have been over 900 thousand deaths due to COVID

https://www.npr.org/...AzuLzAPnjIm_gp0

Currently, the official death toll in India is at 4000 people a day, however, there are a lot of claims that its closer to 40,000 deaths a day.

Cyberyeti, on 2021-May-07, 10:05, said:

I think your stream of causation ends too abruptly.

To me it seems as though this is your claim:

A. Alcohol related deaths are up during the period of the lockdown.
B. The lockdown has created that spike.

But you discount the following:
C. The lockdown was the result of Covid-19
D. This particular increase in alcohol deaths is secondary to Covid-19, not a direct result of the lockdown.
E. Therefore, these death could easily be termed Covid-related, as well as any deaths that occurred due to lack or access to a hospital or ICU because of Covid surge in patients.

It would be worthwhile to know if there has been similar increases during other periods of high stress environments. NPR here in the U.S. had an interesting article yesterday about the emotional, psychological, and psychiatric damage caused by the ever-present stress brought about by the pandemic.

hrothgar, on 2021-May-07, 12:04, said:

Yes of course I understand the death rates from Covid, I suspect there are virtually no drinking deaths from Covid and so did the researchers. There are just the first figures from the UK on the side effects of the pandemic, awaiting the suicide and domestic violence figures which will be published in future months.

The collateral damage from Covid will be significant and ongoing. Drug/alcohol related deaths, suicide, murder, treatable conditions going untreated due to lack of hospital resources, mental illness, lower birth rates, disruptions in education. I'm sure the list goes on.

I trust no one was suggesting the lockdown should be lifted to "save these lives"?

jillybean, on 2021-May-07, 12:43, said:

Indeed not, but I've been saying for a long time that lockdown kills people, it's necessary because Covid kills more people but it's not free, that's all I'm saying and these are the first UK figures to do with quantifying that.

Cyberyeti, on 2021-May-07, 12:53, said:

OK, I'm not sure how they come up with #deaths due to lockdown drinking as opposed to those who would have simply drunk themselves to death in normal times. I agree, lockdowns aren't without cost.

Cyberyeti, on 2021-May-07, 12:53, said:

All fine and dandy.

My reaction:

1. I haven't seen anyone claim that look downs are free
2. The number of COVID related deaths in the UK is over 125K (so a couple orders of magnitude greater)

So, I'm really not going to get too worked up over what appears to good public policy

jillybean, on 2021-May-07, 13:22, said:

Because they have the figures from the previous years and the start of 2020 pre lockdown, the rate went up with the start of lockdown.

Cyberyeti, on 2021-May-07, 13:47, said:

I certainly agree that it is possible to calculate excess deaths from drinking.

I'm just not sure that one can attribute these to the lockdown as opposed to any of a myriad of other shitty things that COVID has inflicted on us all

hrothgar, on 2021-May-07, 13:39, said:

You're not in the UK, plenty of people have denied an issue with lockdown.

How many historically have died is largely irrelevant lockdown was clearly needed, the question is whether with the MUCH lower rate of Covid deaths we have now in the UK (7 day average 12 or so) whether the costs of lockdown are higher than the lives saved. As the vaccination rate increases, the deaths from Covid will decrease further so there is a point at which modelling will indicate that the increase in deaths from releasing lockdown will not outweigh the deaths lockdown is causing.

hrothgar, on 2021-May-07, 13:52, said:

I believe the researchers did, but I've only heard second hand reports of this. I would expect there to be some where somebody's lost a loved one, but if the survey's done correctly they've probably taken this into account.

Cyberyeti, on 2021-May-07, 13:59, said:

No doubt

However, given your past histrionic claims about masks and COVID and lockdowns and the like this just doesn't feel like a productive discussion...