Subj : Re: COVID-19 demographics To : Mike Powell From : Jeff Thiele Date : Fri Oct 21 2022 18:49:49 On 21 Oct 2022, Mike Powell said the following... MP> > You left a lot of facts unquoted. MP> The only parts out of what I quoted that were not opinion were the first MP> two sentences. Not so. There were many contributing factors. MP> > MP> and assumes that people MP> > MP> who were set against getting the shot would have waited until Autum MP> > MP> 2021, to finally decide not to get it. MP> > No, it doesn't. It tracks the death rates among the two demographics ove MP> > time. MP> Yes it does. Otherwise, white republicans would have always been the MP> leading demographic, if the "white republicans" conclusion was the MP> correct one. No, they wouldn't have, especially pre-vaccine. There's no "waiting until Autumn 2021 to finally decide not to get [the vaccine]." Every single day that the vaccine was available and they didn't get vaccinated was a day they decided not to get vaccinated. Meanwhile, everyone else also had varying numbers of days that they decided not to get vaccinated, but those numbers of days were obviously less than the number of days that the people dead-set against getting vaccinated decided not to get vaccinated. And so, the relationship between the effects of the virus on the two demographics changed over time, with the death rate among the unvaccinated staying fairly steady and the death rate among the vaccinated dropping. Some white people were vaccinated, and some black people were unvaccinated, but the discrepancy in the vaccinated/unvaccinated ratio in each demographic was enough to cause the white death rate to overtake the black death rate. MP> > MP> It is probably easily explained by the first sentence. By Autumn 2 MP> > MP> most people were no longer following masking or distancing guidelin MP> > The catch is in the demographics of that "most." MP> As whites still make up the majority of the country, most of them not MP> wearing masks would likely be white. The only people who kept wearing MP> them in my office (besides me and one other person -- both white) were MP> not black or white. They were Indian and usually female. That's a pretty small sample size. It doesn't matter that white people make up the majority of the country because the death rates were not based on raw numbers,but on deaths per 100,000 individuals in each demographic. Your statement also fails to compensate for vaccination status. MP> > MP> Some places were also forcing their workforce back into the office MP> > MP> then. MP> > And some of those employees were vaccinated while others weren't. MP> Yes, but both groups got sick, and not only unvaxed die. Unvaxxed individuals have a higher death rate than vaxxed individuals. Also, not all people work in office environments. There are a great number of people living in largely-white rural areas that thought the virus would never reach them. MP> > MP> Something it doesn't mention (or that you left out), is that MP> > MP> by that point, the gaps between the continued effectiveness of the MP> > MP> shot flavors (Moderna, Pfizer, and J&J) were growing. MP> > The gaps between the vaccines is not nearly as large as the gap between MP> > vaccinated and not being vaccinated. MP> They are large enough to cause a difference, especially the J&J vax. However, the difference that they cause is smaller than the difference caused by vaxxed vs. unvaxxed. MP> Basically you picked an article that came to a conclusion that you liked. The article backed its conclusion with facts. MP> Other stuff that might involve science, like continued effectiveness or MP> what one's doctor might tell them, doesn't make a difference. Not very MP> critical thinking of you. Your doctor told you that one vaccine was better than the others at preventing people from getting sick. Getting sick is not the same as dying, and people who have had any vaccine tend to have milder cases than those who have had no vaccine, thus less risk of death. MP> Not very MP> critical thinking of you. I disagree. The article was acked up by facts, not the least of which is that white people are now more likely to die of COVID-19 than black people. That's not a conclusion that the article reached; it's a fact discussed in the article. MP> Also, you will claim that posting it MP> doesn't mean you were trying to politicize COVID or the conclusions the MP> article came to. It is what it is. If your political beliefs are preventing you from doing what is clearly in your best interest, then that's a function of your political beliefs, not me or the article. You're the one politicizing it by working it into your political beliefs. My political beliefs do not include "COVID-19 vaccines are beneficial." That's what I believe, of course, based on science and data, but it's not a political belief any more than the fact that I believe that exercise and diet are essential to healthy weight loss. It's just a medical fact. MP> Uh-huh, only in Jeffland is that the case. Nope, that being anti-vax is part of the Republican political belief system does not make it political on my end. Jeff. --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32) * Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (1:387/26) .