FACT vs OPINION

[Jason Flare]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Voila.

Asking for evidence of me discounting your experience is not an example of me discounting your experience.

Is it?

[Jason Flare]

Originally Posted by Yihang

I think what Jason means is by wearing a PLB your crew need to go back for you therefore endangering themselves. Instead you should just suck it up and die.

It’s a funny one but it’s not what Jason means.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

You actually have it backwards. The current official numbers would state you died from diabetes, smoking and being overweight...not from the car crash.



Simply having a co-morbidity is not proof it wasn't covid that got you but it's equally disingenuous to claim someone on their death bed who got exposed, died of covid.



It really needs a more nuanced summary than a single number.

- There are a small number of cases where people had covid but it really had nothing to do with their deaths.

- On the other end of the spectrum there are a small number of cases where they were perfectly healthy and there really was no other cause than covid for their deaths.



In the middle we need a breakdown of how much of it was really due to covid. This is not a new issue and there are ways to quantify it. Co-morbidities are good for getting a very high level idea of who's at risk but they really don't tell us if you died from covid, the co-morbidity or some combination:

- If you otherwise healthy and have a minor bit of high blood pressure, a doctor assessing your case, likely would not list high blood pressure as a proximate cause of death.

- If you had stage 4 lung cancer in hospice and were already struggling to breath with no clear change in symptoms due to a positive covid test, a doctor assessing your case would correctly list the cause of death as lung cancer (or complications related to it if you want to be technical)

You make a good argument but my point was more directed to those who took the position that since I had these issues, well I was going to die anyway.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

You actually have it backwards. The current official numbers would state you died from diabetes, smoking and being overweight...not from the car crash.

Simply having a co-morbidity is not proof it wasn't covid that got you but it's equally disingenuous to claim someone on their death bed who got exposed, died of covid.

It really needs a more nuanced summary than a single number.
- There are a small number of cases where people had covid but it really had nothing to do with their deaths.
- On the other end of the spectrum there are a small number of cases where they were perfectly healthy and there really was no other cause than covid for their deaths.

In the middle we need a breakdown of how much of it was really due to covid. This is not a new issue and there are ways to quantify it. Co-morbidities are good for getting a very high level idea of who's at risk but they really don't tell us if you died from covid, the co-morbidity or some combination:
- If you otherwise healthy and have a minor bit of high blood pressure, a doctor assessing your case, likely would not list high blood pressure as a proximate cause of death.
- If you had stage 4 lung cancer in hospice and were already struggling to breath with no clear change in symptoms due to a positive covid test, a doctor assessing your case would correctly list the cause of death as lung cancer (or complications related to it if you want to be technical)

Multiple above points are incorrect.

I've posted this before but I encourage people to spend 3-4 minutes looking at a death certificate to see how information is recorded. It is perhaps far more simple than people might assume, but there's a strict logic involved.

The death certificate ~cares about the sequence of what killed someone. If there's a laundry list and the person picked up Covid in the hospital, there may not be an upper line for Covid if the other issues contributed more. But it's wrong to say that Covid shouldn't count if it more likely earned a place higher on the list, regardless of where/when infection occurred. If it strongly helped kill them, it strongly helped kill them. That's what a death certificate is for.

The medical chart would have more info, and other death-related reports may be produced somewhere for quality control reasons that may/may not be accessible for epidemiological purposes (complicated, having nothing to do with Covid).

Incidentally none of this is related to billing/payments at all, and notwithstanding current politics, the data is looked at more comprehensively than it might appear once it all gets into the computer.

https://youtu.be/oL3VMwieAms
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/blue_form.pdf

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Singularity

... I've posted this before but I encourage people to spend 3-4 minutes looking at a death certificate to see how information is recorded. It is perhaps far more simple than people might assume, but there's a strict logic involved.

The death certificate ~cares about the sequence of what killed someone. If there's a laundry list and the person picked up Covid in the hospital, there may not be an upper line for Covid if the other issues contributed more. But it's wrong to say that Covid shouldn't count if it more likely earned a place higher on the list, regardless of where/when infection occurred. If it strongly helped kill them, it strongly helped kill them. That's what a death certificate is for.
https://youtu.be/oL3VMwieAms

“Instructions for Completing the Cause-of-Death Section of the Death Certificate” ~ USCDC
➥ https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/blue_form.pdf

“Death Certification” ~ by Adebayo Adeyinka & Keneisha Bailey
Provides a clear and understandable description (not too long) of death certification, including examples of how to differentiate between the immediate (proximate), intermediate, & underlying causes of death..

Interestingly, the authors note:
“... In about 33% to 41% of cases, errors are made on the death certificate.[3][4][5] There is a significant over-representation of cardiovascular diseases as the primary cause of death.[6][7]
The most cited reasons for errors in death certification are:
Inexperienced physician (physician in training)
Lack of training by attending physicians ...”

Here ➥ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526015/


More:

“Physicians' Handbook on Medical Certification of Death” ~ CDC
➥ https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/hb_cod.pdf

“Handbook on Medical Certification of Death” ~ Ontario, Canada
➥ https://www.publications.gov.on.ca/s...les/016600.pdf

[dwedeking2]

Mike,



Just for the record I work for a smalll local business (a restaurant group of about 6 restaurants/bars) that has taken a stand against local ordinances such as mask mandates and lock downs/business closures. And I've seen the trend of small businesses taking this stand increase in Florida over the last few weeks. It's not that the businesses are against masks per se, but rather that they are mandated. They specifically have company policies that we not bring up the subject of masks to customers (they feel confronting customers can be a risk and that it isn't their place to do so). They have a policy of wellness checks at the beginning of shifts, a supportive policy of helping employees that maybe infected on getting tested and to isolate at home if needed, and onsite sanitation policies. If it was not for the local policy of the city government of fining individual employees (which I've seen them do, so it's not just a threat but a reality) they would have a policy of masks optional (both at the option of the employee and the client, with the client's desire outweighing ours).



In Naples, FL which has a mask mandate but allows for medication exceptions a local business posted a sign stating that due to HIPPA rules they will not ask about a person not wearing a mask.



Large corporations have chosen to follow a strict mask policy. I'd wager this is because it is easier for them to make a single overriding policy that covers all their locations vs allowing for individual locations to provide guidance on measures that are appropriate for their location. Plus the added benefit of virtual signaling as a PR/marketing point (boomers still have a lot of money to spend before they die).



For our business clientele the Covid19 virus just isn't the threat (in my opinion) to warrant the loss of business / loss of dining experience to warrant the lockdown/masking measures. And in our industry masks do affect the business, causing a loss in tips (money for employees) and fewer sales for the business owner. My personal opinion is that the loss is not worth the wearing of a mask.



Also, as our owner has taken legal action and publicly commented against the local city's handling of the issue I've seen support both online and in person by citizens for his actions. So there is a market for those with similar opinion. As the owner group won't force a vaccination on their employees I guess I'll still be able to be part of a community and live a normal life lol.



For the record, I'm not an anti-vaxxer but I'll wait until they do a first few rounds before making a decision on whether to take it or not (Microsoft / Apple has taught me never to be the first to get the update). I think masks are marginally useful but go along to get along. I don't think the threat of the virus is worth the crushing response to it (and I was watching China in January and thought that numbers were going to be horrendous, and had made a list of 6 or so family members I thought would be dead by now, of which none have been affected). I don't deny there is a virus, I just think that when you look at overall deaths on a 5 - 10 year graph, 2020 will be a minor blip.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

....I just think that when you look at overall deaths on a 5 - 10 year graph, 2020 will be a minor blip.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I suggest understanding that if you think now it's going to be a blip in 5-10 years, then there's a 70-80+% chance that in 5-10 years that you'll see it as a blip...no matter what. Not saying you're wrong or that I'm right, but we're sort of wired to see things as described below.

A point to ponder..not at all meaning to be of ill will or argumentative...about human nature and memory function that, if understood, should cause most people to fundamentally look at the world differently, particularly about how their own memory system works. TLDR; most everyone's intuition (on-board pattern recognition system) changes over time, but some much more faster than others. What this means is that it's harder and harder to "judge the past according to the past"...

You've heard the old joke/question about the frog in the pan. The question is, if you put a frog in a pan of room-temperature water and place the pan over a candle....will the frog, at some point, recognize that the water is getting too hot and jump out? Or will he not recognize the water changing, and slowly cook to death.

So what I suggest understanding as a fact of human nature is that...in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030...a good % of people will be re-writing the definition of "blip" such that, as if from God, "it is written already" that a good percentage of the population will see 2020-2021 as a "blip" no matter what. As a practical matter, this makes it hard to learn from mistakes of the past, because you go around not recognizing that you made one.

I suggest that the following is the making of a horror story in the works. Suppose you were to politically divide a population into 2 groups:
1st group---Likes to keep things the way they used to be (US conservatives)
2nd group---Likes to adapt to present day circumstances (US ~progressives)

IF the 1st group is ALSO the group who "disproportionately quickly re-writes history" you have a huge problem. In other words, if if the frogs who consider themselves to be the "experts on the way things used to be" are in fact the frogs who do not recognize that the water is getting hotter....then this group is more likely to cook. They literally cannot see things any other way. BUT, they won't cook. Sooner or later the water gets too hot, they don't connect the dots of their own undoing, and then they blame "others" leading to nothing good.

I suggest to folks that this is perhaps the most counter-intuitive and one of the most important phenomenon to recognize in life in general, particularly in times of Covid. People frankly do not realize the deleterious consequences from this. It's not anyone's fault....it's how we're wired. We all do this, we all suffer from it. Why they don't teach this in elementary school I do not know, as it's the kind of thing people would have recognized eons ago.

A couple books on the subject (first explaining the phenomenon, second ordinary examples in history of this playing out):
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Incidentally author of the book March of Folly also wrote The Guns of August...a book JKF read, made his team read ~around the Cuban missile crisis, otherwise considered a book that may have averted a nuclear war.

[dwedeking2]

Originally Posted by Singularity

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I suggest understanding that if you think now it's going to be a blip in 5-10 years, then there's a 70-80+% chance that in 5-10 years that you'll see it as a blip...no matter what. Not saying you're wrong or that I'm right, but we're sort of wired to see things as described below.

No I meant literally a blip. As in when they graph out all the deaths that overall death count for 2020, it will show an increase of deaths overall but that in the long run that graph will just show a minor uptick to 2020 vs the surrounding years.



As far as personal perception (what you are talking about), 2020 has made a substantial mark on my personal plans and raised many concerns about the ability to plan for the future. It's not just a blip. My personal bias has me very concerned about how much control I have in my future.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

Just for the record I work for a smalll local business (a restaurant group of about 6 restaurants/bars) that has taken a stand against local ordinances such as mask mandates and lock downs/business closures.

...For our business clientele the Covid19 virus just isn't the threat (in my opinion) to warrant the loss of business / loss of dining experience to warrant the lockdown/masking measures. And in our industry masks do affect the business, causing a loss in tips (money for employees) and fewer sales for the business owner. My personal opinion is that the loss is not worth the wearing of a mask.

I appreciate your perspective too.

We're at a unique time in history, with the power to do things that were never contemplated before - eg stop or control a pandemic. It's almost like a moon shot, except that most everyone has skin in this game. It's a tough problem.

This idea that "it's not worth it to me or my clients, so I'm not going to comply"... There seems to be no understanding or acceptance of how COVID-19 spreads, and no willingness to share the effort to beat it down.

Maybe this is a bigger issue in the US because there's less tradition or expectation that the government would (or should) step in or grant sufficient aid to make sure the burden of suppressing the pandemic is shared... hence the greater unwillingness to accept personal or business pain by complying, while other people/businesses do not.

The 2nd-wave lockdown thing has now hit my town too. Even I think the total lockdown of most "non-essential" businesses (especially small ones), while big-box stores like Wallymart can stay open because they have food sections, is unfair and not that effective, and I've lent my voice to efforts to permit a limited opening of small businesses, many of whom depend on Christmas business every year to survive. But in Canada we still seem to accept the collective responsibility to act, and compliance is still pretty high.

I just think that when you look at overall deaths on a 5 - 10 year graph, 2020 will be a minor blip.

It's currently on track to be a 400+k 'blip' in the US by spring. I still cannot get my head around the fact that most Americans aren't that bothered by the mounting toll. It's just olds and sickies, amirite?

Most of us know by now that fast and hard action right at the start of the pandemic, including ready-to-roll testing and contact tracing, could have made a big difference in many countries. it certainly did in S Korea, for example. But if a country's population doesn't seem bugged by a frankly shocking death toll... is there yet any appetite to be better prepared for the next one? Maybe we simply aren't advanced enough as a society.

[Singularity]

I don't mean to pull a Bill Clinton and mince words, but I suppose what is the definition of a "blip." World War deaths produced a blip in the population.

When it becomes normative to accept (for one reason or another) a "Vietnam war population loss of working-age people" in order to keep restaurants open (insofar as people in the first can cook at home) this suggests to some that our values system as a country is fundamentally changing from times past (water in the frog's pan is getting hotter). But when so many of us rely on such work to make ends meet, what can we do.

[Yihang]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

I appreciate your perspective too.

We're at a unique time in history, with the power to do things that were never contemplated before - eg stop or control a pandemic. It's almost like a moon shot, except that most everyone has skin in this game. It's a tough problem.

This idea that "it's not worth it to me or my clients, so I'm not going to comply"... There seems to be no understanding or acceptance of how COVID-19 spreads, and no willingness to share the effort to beat it down.

Maybe this is a bigger issue in the US because there's less tradition or expectation that the government would step in or grant sufficient aid to make sure the burden of suppressing the pandemic is shared... hence the greater unwillingness to accept personal or business pain by complying, while other people/businesses do not.

The whole lockdown thing has now hit my town too. Even I think the total lockdown of most "non-essential" businesses (especially small ones), while big-box stores like Wallymart can stay open because they have food sections, is unfair and not that effective, and I've lent my voice to efforts to permit a limited opening of small businesses, many of whom depend on Christmas business every year to survive. But we still seem to accept the collective responsibility to act.
It's currently on track to be a 400+k 'blip' in the US by spring. I still cannot get my head around the fact that most Americans aren't that bothered by the mounting toll. It's just olds and sickies, amirite?

Most of us know by now that fast and hard action right at the start of the pandemic, including ready-to-roll testing and contact tracing, could have made a big difference in many countries. it certainly did in S Korea, for example. But if a country's population doesn't seem bugged by a frankly shocking death toll... is there yet any appetite to be better prepared for the next one? Maybe we simply aren't advanced enough as a society.

Numbers get a bit abstract. I remember back in the day people were counting down to when the death toll would exceed SAR (800+) then when it exceeded 911(2996) and vietnam war (57k). I suppose the next milestone is WW2, about 400k.

https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/...ricas_wars.pdf

But on the flip side the argument is 30-50k die from the flu every year. When that was exceeded the argument started to shift to the numbers being wrong....

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Singularity

Pure logic is seeing the all the trees and the forest at the same time, how everything is connected. With respect, I don't think you understand the origins of logic; to wit below you're doing exactly what Spock did.

1) That is not the definition of logic.....The study of principles of reasoning, especially of the structure of propositions as distinguished from their content, and of method and validity in deductive reasoning.....nothing about it says anything about seeing the small details and the big picture simultaneously.

2) Spock regularly violates your definition by not seeing how everything is connected...ie: he keeps calling what people do illogical when they clearly are following a logic. He just can't follow their logic.

It's often bad logic but even the insane follow logic...from their point of view, it can be perfectly logical to act like a monkey. In fact, it would be impossible for them to do so, if they weren't following some form of logic.

Predicting the logical outcome in very complex scenarios is incredibly difficult as small changes in the inputs can have huge changes in the outcome (a variation on the butterfly effect). To presume, someone from an advanced civilization based on pursuing "pure logic" wouldn't understand this is....wait for it...illogical.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

You make a good argument but my point was more directed to those who took the position that since I had these issues, well I was going to die anyway.

Agreed, those saying who cares if Grandma dies are wrong.

Likewise, those countering with "Grandma Killer!!!" when you try to discuss it logically are equally wrong.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Singularity

Multiple above points are incorrect.

I've posted this before but I encourage people to spend 3-4 minutes looking at a death certificate to see how information is recorded. It is perhaps far more simple than people might assume, but there's a strict logic involved.

The death certificate ~cares about the sequence of what killed someone. If there's a laundry list and the person picked up Covid in the hospital, there may not be an upper line for Covid if the other issues contributed more. But it's wrong to say that Covid shouldn't count if it more likely earned a place higher on the list, regardless of where/when infection occurred. If it strongly helped kill them, it strongly helped kill them. That's what a death certificate is for.

The medical chart would have more info, and other death-related reports may be produced somewhere for quality control reasons that may/may not be accessible for epidemiological purposes (complicated, having nothing to do with Covid).

Incidentally none of this is related to billing/payments at all, and notwithstanding current politics, the data is looked at more comprehensively than it might appear once it all gets into the computer.

https://youtu.be/oL3VMwieAms
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/blue_form.pdf

The numbers being presented by the CDC, WHO and other official sources, don't provide any nuance. They give the total number and for the most part, if you had Covid, you get listed as a Covid death even if it really had no impact on why you died.

I never said, it shouldn't count if it had a significant impact but wasn't the top cause. But it paints a different picture if we are provided more details and the responses are likely to change.

And if you think payments don't have an impact, I have a bridge to sell you. You may be hard pressed to find outright falsehoods but there are lots of gray areas and when you get paid lots of money for adjusting the shade of gray...you can expect the shade of gray to change.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

Just for the record I work for a smalll local business (a restaurant group of about 6 restaurants/bars) that has taken a stand against local ordinances such as mask mandates and lock downs/business closures. And I've seen the trend of small businesses taking this stand increase in Florida over the last few weeks. It's not that the businesses are against masks per se, but rather that they are mandated.

Thanks dwedeking2. It's obviously your (and your store owner's) choice to make. As far as my 30-second Net-research shows, Florida allows restaurants to operate, and doesn't demand that masks be worn while at the table. Maybe your local ordinance is different?

So, I'm not really clear what the concern is. Sounds like you can operate your restaurants, and patrons don't have to wear masks while seated. If you're saying it's too much to ask people to wear masks other times, well, I guess we'll disagree.

Florida has done rather poorly in its response to the pandemic. Not the worst, but far from the best. According to Johns Hopkins the state has recorded nearly 2000 new deaths in just the last month alone and has a test positivity rate of over 8%. Monroe county, than includes the Keys, running at 44 new cases/100,000. None of this sounds good.

So I would say your state, and area, are doing rather poorly. But maybe it looks different in your local area.

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

They specifically have company policies that we not bring up the subject of masks to customers (they feel confronting customers can be a risk and that it isn't their place to do so).

I agree it is unfair that businesses like yours are forced to police these Covid-19 laws, although don't bars already enforce many liquor laws? I know they do in my country. Not sure why this would be any different.

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

For our business clientele the Covid19 virus just isn't the threat (in my opinion) to warrant the loss of business / loss of dining experience to warrant the lockdown/masking measures. And in our industry masks do affect the business, causing a loss in tips (money for employees) and fewer sales for the business owner. My personal opinion is that the loss is not worth the wearing of a mask.

Maybe this is the case with your clientel. The disease does disproportionately affect lower socioeconomic groups. I infer your clientele is not this.

But that's the point of public health measures; to try and protect the whole community, not just some small subset. The virus doesn't care which human it infects, but those already stressed are the ones most susceptible to the worst outcomes.

Once again, it's not (only) about you. It's about all of us.

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

As the owner group won't force a vaccination on their employees I guess I'll still be able to be part of a community and live a normal life lol.

I really can't see the USA forcing anyone to take the vaccine. But I can see institutions and businesses making their own free choice to bar people who have not been vaccinated. As I say, if you want repeat customers, it's better not to have them get sick at your establishment.

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

For the record, I'm not an anti-vaxxer but I'll wait until they do a first few rounds before making a decision on whether to take it or not (Microsoft / Apple has taught me never to be the first to get the update).

I share your caution and these vaccines (and yes, Apple is a good example of why ). They have come forward at "warp speed" . This is why I've spent some time looking at the published research, data and reports. I'm becoming more comfortable with them... but I'm happy not to be first in line .

As to your whole "blip" comment, it is your own perception, so I can't say much about it. I can say that statistically and epidemiologically it is not a blip -- or rather, we better hope 300,000+ excess deaths is not. If this becomes the new normal we'll be depopulating the developed world even faster than is already happening.