The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

I think in a lot of cases this is just a result of being poorly educated and as a result they've become idiots.

Unfortunately being more educated makes people also better at making up rationalizations that aren't actually consistent with all the facts but instead cherry picking useful subsets of facts that lead to a desired conclusion (ie motivated reasoning, as jamincan was talking about upthread.) So education and critical thinking isn't a sure cure here.

[KevinL]

The biggest cause of the current plague of ignorance is internet social media - it helps them find these theories, and get themselves into echo chambers with other believers. Once in, they cannot be easily extracted.

[ijmorlan]

Unfortunately being more educated makes people also better at making up rationalizations that aren't actually consistent with all the facts but instead cherry picking useful subsets of facts that lead to a desired conclusion (ie motivated reasoning, as jamincan was talking about upthread.) So education and critical thinking isn't a sure cure here.

I would argue that by definition being educated means understanding something about correct argumentation, logic, and evaluation of evidence. If a medical doctor, for example, is also a vaccine denialist, then it means they’re actually uneducated, although they managed to pass the exams which certify their medical training.

The problem with this is I’m not sure we can find a way of evaluating somebody’s actual level of education independent of looking at whether they believe in various conspiracy theories and other nonsense, which may end up being pretty circular.

It is also true that there are many different ways of being intelligent. For example, an astrologer may be a compassionate and empathetic listener. Doesn’t mean their astrological “knowledge” is anything other than utter nonsense, its theoretical basis having been thoroughly destroyed centuries ago, but there are other important skills besides understanding science.

[jeffster]

Seems we still have a lot of idiots in this town.

Still waiting for that facepalm emoji.

https://www.kitchenertoday.com/local-new...nt-2619482

Good grief!

Now at the same time, as a child, you have zero chances of dying with COVID, and you have 66 chances of being kidnapped.

Children HAVE died from covid-19. So it's not 'zero'. As for how many children are kidnapped in any given year, for example, is less than 350 in the US. That number, btw, are for children under the age of 21. The death rate for children, 17 and under, is 0.2% of the total that have died so far, in the US. This is a low number and works out to about 315 so far. And keep in mind, this only include 17 and under, not under 21 when kidnapping numbers are put up. And that's only 5 months. What this means is that children ARE more likely to die from covid-19 that being kidnapped.

Damn...

[jeffster]

Unfortunately being more educated makes people also better at making up rationalizations that aren't actually consistent with all the facts but instead cherry picking useful subsets of facts that lead to a desired conclusion (ie motivated reasoning, as jamincan was talking about upthread.) So education and critical thinking isn't a sure cure here.

I would argue that by definition being educated means understanding something about correct argumentation, logic, and evaluation of evidence. If a medical doctor, for example, is also a vaccine denialist, then it means they’re actually uneducated, although they managed to pass the exams which certify their medical training.

The problem with this is I’m not sure we can find a way of evaluating somebody’s actual level of education independent of looking at whether they believe in various conspiracy theories and other nonsense, which may end up being pretty circular.

It is also true that there are many different ways of being intelligent. For example, an astrologer may be a compassionate and empathetic listener. Doesn’t mean their astrological “knowledge” is anything other than utter nonsense, its theoretical basis having been thoroughly destroyed centuries ago, but there are other important skills besides understanding science.

The one issue with this covid-19 was the early messages from out 'top of the class' doctors.

To be honest, back in March I had argued with some people over the usage of masks, and making them mandatory. I was lucky enough to have some N95's that I let my mother use when going out, back in March. But through March, April, May and even into June, tops doctors were arguing the effectiveness of masks, and that the general public shouldn't use them, as they offered little protection.

And while standard masks offer little protection against the virus, they 100% do offer protection to others from you, if you're wearing one. Yet even as a region, it wasn't mandatory until July.

So even the most educated totally ignored best practices when it comes to PPE. It seems they all looked at it from a standpoint if it protected YOU from the virus. Perhaps an N95 does offers protection, but that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing how we can limit the spread. If the war against masks were to protect the N95 supply, fine. Say that. Encourage alternative facial coverings. Yet we didn't.

I believe had the message of proper PPE had been implemented back in February, we'd be in a very different spot right now. Of course we can argue that China fudged their death tolls. But their covid-19 numbers are LOW. Contrast to the USA, who's approach to PPE has been at a snails pace, we see the results, with them having one 25% of the worlds cases, while only have 4% of the worlds population.

I also believe the reason why we continue to see lower spread rates now is because of PPE. While I don't think we'll get down to zero until a vaccine is finalized, I think we can at least have a somewhat "new" normal until then.

[plam]

While I don't think we'll get down to zero until a vaccine is finalized, I think we can at least have a somewhat "new" normal until then.

I am quite sure that masks help but they aren't a panacea (and it's not clear to me that there will be a single panacea). Victoria in Australia has had masks for a while but is catching up to Ontario. The new lockdown might ensure they don't make it quite to Ontario's cumulative count.

https://theconversation.com/two-weeks-of...igh-143898

Education: there's being an expert in one field which may not transfer to other fields, except in the ability to form theories and compelling arguments that are wrong.

Some people don't believe in objective truth. I do more often than not, but it's not always 100% clear. Thinking in probabilities is often closer to being correct.

And there is evolving expert opinion, which is to be expected to some extent.

[ijmorlan]

The one issue with this covid-19 was the early messages from out 'top of the class' doctors.

Yes, that was weird.

I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but I think our experts don’t know how to be experts. It seems to me they should have said the current state of knowledge, which was that we at the time didn’t know exactly how much masks would help; and if they wanted to add something about please not using them up when medical staff are likely to need them more, that would be a good thing to add.

But there is also the question of why the medical establishment didn’t have plenty of PPE stockpiled. I don’t just mean in some government warehouse somewhere; shouldn’t every hospital have a 6 month supply in storage rooms?

And don’t get me started on the failure to impose a border quarantine early on. We flew a few people out of China, as I recall, and quarantined them on a military base, but we didn’t do anything serious about people flying into the country from all over the world. To be fair, a mandatory 2-week quarantine on the border would have looked draconian at the time, but it would have been nothing compared to what actually happened.

If nothing else comes out of this, I hope we at least get our international borders and related policies set up so that next time we have the ability and the will to do border quarantines. We should also have the ability to re-configure transborder trucking so that the cab portions hand off at the border and return to their original country so that we don’t have truckers crossing the border — only their cargos. This doesn’t need to be done all the time but should become mandatory when a pandemic event is declared.

Most importantly, we need to realize that some measures will be mandatory, and everybody must comply whether they like it or not. We’re rightly skeptical of being told what to do by the government in a democracy, but in some areas individual decision making is not possible.

[KevinL]

Scientists don't always understand how to communicate their findings and theories to a lay audience; which subtleties are important to their research but irrelevant to its implementation, and vice versa, for example. The press is often less than helpful, trying to find the part of the story with the most bang or flash, as opposed to what's actually important.

[ac3r]

tops doctors were arguing the effectiveness of masks, and that the general public shouldn't use them, as they offered little protection

Were they not simply advising people not to use them or seek sources of them because we were not sure to what extent hospitals were going to be hit, and so, they wanted to ensure that the general public was not panic buying them? I mean...people rushed out to buy toilet paper, bananas and meat within a week of the WHO declaring the virus a pandemic. People were also panic buying masks, sanitizer, soap and chemical disinfectants. That really worried hospitals, especially because we saw that in certain places (like NYC) they were quickly running out of PPE supplies for those who needed them.

[jeffster]

While I don't think we'll get down to zero until a vaccine is finalized, I think we can at least have a somewhat "new" normal until then.

I am quite sure that masks help but they aren't a panacea (and it's not clear to me that there will be a single panacea). Victoria in Australia has had masks for a while but is catching up to Ontario. The new lockdown might ensure they don't make it quite to Ontario's cumulative count.

https://theconversation.com/two-weeks-of...igh-143898

Education: there's being an expert in one field which may not transfer to other fields, except in the ability to form theories and compelling arguments that are wrong.

Some people don't believe in objective truth. I do more often than not, but it's not always 100% clear. Thinking in probabilities is often closer to being correct.

And there is evolving expert opinion, which is to be expected to some extent.

From the article you posted, it's been mandatory for 2 weeks. It really sounds like community transmission among friends and family and per co-workers. My guess is they were too late to the game with masks. To add, article states that many were not following the mask order. And people that are sick were still going to work.

This last part surprised me. It's been mandated across Canada that if you're sick, stay home. Every workplace in Canada has this protocol in place.

I believe if everyone simply followed some basic rules, wearing a mask, avoiding contact with anyone if sick, and social distancing where possible, infection will be greatly mitigated. And this it seems is where it failed in Australia (at least the State of Victoria). We look in Ontario though, our numbers are still slowly dropping even while opening.

Though we still need to make further changes, that is, more businesses need to make masks mandatory for entry. Masks prevent you from getting others sick if your infected. It's agreed they are limited at preventing you from getting sick from an infected, if they're not wearing masks. Also whenever I am out, I still see a few ladies not wearing, and the odd man having his chin covered only. Accommodation is going to be key when dealing people not wearing masks, as we all know they'll use an excuse that 95% of the time isn't valid in their situation. But they need to be kept out of enclosed spots with a lot of foot traffic.

[jeffster]

tops doctors were arguing the effectiveness of masks, and that the general public shouldn't use them, as they offered little protection

Were they not simply advising people not to use them or seek sources of them because we were not sure to what extent hospitals were going to be hit, and so, they wanted to ensure that the general public was not panic buying them? I mean...people rushed out to buy toilet paper, bananas and meat within a week of the WHO declaring the virus a pandemic. People were also panic buying masks, sanitizer, soap and chemical disinfectants. That really worried hospitals, especially because we saw that in certain places (like NYC) they were quickly running out of PPE supplies for those who needed them.

That might be true, but the government could easily restrict sales of N95's, which was needed by the medical community. In the early stages, they said anything less than N95's were useless. There wasn't much thought given to the idea that masks could limit spread. Dr. Tam was quite vocal initially that simple masks were ineffective.

Look, I am no expert in medicine, let alone pandemics, or stopping the spread of disease. But I do have a lot of experience with PPE. 90% of the time we think of PPE as protecting ourselves. That's not always the case.

An example to think of are condoms. With healthy people, condoms offer nothing to the wearer. They do prevent the partner from getting pregnant, though. When it comes to STI's, condoms can protect both partners.

It is what it is now. And we're paying for it.

[ijmorlan]

Re: the reasons for not wearing masks, as far as I can tell they apply to almost no one. So the rule should be “everybody wears a mask”; anybody who can’t for medical reasons needs to get somebody else to do their shopping for them. Of course, this would mean that approximately 100% of the non-mask-wearers would suddenly realize that they actually can wear a mask.

That being said, the present rules are OK for now, as we have a low and dropping incidence of infection. If it starts getting worse again, then the rules need to come back in full force quickly and with no further exceptions.

[tomh009]

No Waterloo Region  reports until Monday.

Ontario reported only 70 new cases today, a new low, with a seven-day average of 91. 107 recoveries and one death translated to a decrease of 38 active cases, so we're now at 1,052. A weekly total change of -267. 26,008 tests for a 0.27% positivity rate. The positivity rate is averaging 0.39% for the past seven days.

The new cases are 0.2% of the total and 6.7% of the number of active cases. New cases averaging 7.6% of actives over the past seven days.

The ICU population is down to 27 (-1).

• 13 cases in Ottawa: 1.3 per 100K population
  
• 13 cases in Peel: 1.3 per 100K population
  
• 0 cases in Waterloo: 0.0 per 100K population
  

Only Ottawa and Peel in the double digits today; Toronto reported only a singular new case. Waterloo reported -1 including a correction but it's not clear yet whether the correction was bigger than that and there were also new cases; we'll find out on Monday.

[tomh009]

Were they not simply advising people not to use them or seek sources of them because we were not sure to what extent hospitals were going to be hit, and so, they wanted to ensure that the general public was not panic buying them? I mean...people rushed out to buy toilet paper, bananas and meat within a week of the WHO declaring the virus a pandemic. People were also panic buying masks, sanitizer, soap and chemical disinfectants. That really worried hospitals, especially because we saw that in certain places (like NYC) they were quickly running out of PPE supplies for those who needed them.

That might be true, but the government could easily restrict sales of N95's, which was needed by the medical community. In the early stages, they said anything less than N95's were useless. There wasn't much thought given to the idea that masks could limit spread. Dr. Tam was quite vocal initially that simple masks were ineffective.

N95 is what a doctor or nurse absolutely needs when dealing with an infectious patient. But every healthcare worker, whether in a hospital or in LTC, should have been wearing a surgical mask to limit the spread. Unfortunately there was a serious shortage of those, too.

So, I think what happened was that they tried to deemphasize the importance of masks to the public to avoid a panic. And the message was muddled, causing no end of confusion.

[tomh009]

No Waterloo Region  reports until Monday.

Ontario reported only 79 new cases today, a new low, with a seven-day average at a new low of 85. 148 recoveries and two deaths translated to a decrease of 71 active cases, so we're finally below 1,000, with a total of 981 active cases. A weekly total change of -331. 27,771 tests for a 0.28% positivity rate. The positivity rate is averaging 0.37% for the past seven days.

The new cases are 0.2% of the total and 8.1% of the number of active cases. New cases averaging 7.5% of actives over the past seven days.

The ICU population is down to 26 (-1).

• 25 cases in Toronto: 0.9 per 100K population
  
• 17 cases in Peel: 1.7 per 100K population
  
• 1 cases in Waterloo: 0.1 per 100K population
  

Ottawa dropped below 10, but Toronto popped up to 25, although still under 1 case per 100K population.