[HN Gopher] Why Don't They Believe Us?
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Why Don't They Believe Us?
Author : andrenth
Score : 16 points
Date : 2021-09-03 21:11 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tabletmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tabletmag.com)
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Justifying stupidity with reference to other stupidity still
| stupid. Details at 11, after these words.
| jleyank wrote:
| The red states had several waves to prepare their responses, then
| a vaccine appeared. One would think these two factors would have
| guaranteed excellent response vs later COVID waves. Instead, they
| planted their heads in the sand, blew off the vaccine and are
| leading n America if not the world in cases. And deaths are
| rising quickly. They just threw it all away, "reasons".
| torstenvl wrote:
| Ah, yes, those red state rednecks and their COVID-19 death
| rates barely better than backwaters like... (checks notes)...
| Belgium (2,180 deaths/1,000,000 people).
|
| Sorry for the sarcasm, but I don't know how better to express
| my frustration at this kind of stereotyping. Americans and the
| world should be in this together, rather than making this
| another divisive culture war political shibboleth.
| ojisan_seiuchi wrote:
| > Meanwhile, Texas and Florida, which largely remained open and
| avoided draconian lockdowns, seem to have made out OK. Kids have
| been going to school, businesses have stayed open. You look at
| COVID death rates by state, and neither Florida nor Texas cracks
| the top half.
|
| The arguments are passionate, but in at least one case
| objectively wrong. The current death rate in Florida is 1.15 per
| 100,000, putting it at #1 in the U.S. Likewise, the current
| COVID-19 death rate in TX is 0.81 per 100,000 putting that state
| at #6 in the U.S.[1]
|
| [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
| torstenvl wrote:
| That opinion piece is from August 10th, before the current wave
| impacted TX and FL as much as they have been affected
| throughout the middle-end of August. In any case, you're
| looking at the current average, which is obviously skewed
| toward the states experiencing a current wave.
|
| Texas has an overall COVID-19 death rate of 2,008/1,000,000
| people, which is 1/10000th of a percentage point higher than
| the national average.
|
| Florida has an overall COVID-19 death rate of 2,138/1,000,000
| people, which is still much better than New Jersey (3,032), New
| York (2,823), Massachusetts (2,653), Rhode Island (2,618), and
| Connecticut (2,354), and is certainly impacted by the high
| number of elderly and retirees in Florida.
|
| As for current rates, California has not-quite-twice the
| population of Florida (39.5mm vs 21.5mm) but a 3-day mov avg.
| death rate three times as high (119 vs. 39).
|
| Obviously, statistics can be interpreted a lot of ways. Lies,
| damn lies, and statistics, of course. FL's 7-day mov avg (64)
| is more than half of CA's 7-day mov avg. (94), for example.
|
| But the fact remains that the two states with the least
| restrictive lockdowns _did not_ end up the two states with the
| worst COVID-19 death rates over the course of the pandemic so
| far.
|
| At a minimum, that constitutes a reasonable basis to question
| whether the expert consensus is sufficiently based in evidence
| as to support unprecedented restrictions of liberty in the
| country that ostensibly leads the free world.
|
| Sources: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
| https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/FL
| https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/CA
| mikewarot wrote:
| WOW... there's a lot of insight and work put into that rant.
|
| I personally have little faith those leading the CDC et al, yet I
| and my family are all fully vaccinated. At this point I'm
| trusting the inertia built up in the system, not the people
| leading it.
|
| I wish things would improve, but I'm too exhausted (by long
| covid) to waste my energy on hope.
| legobmw99 wrote:
| This article is long on emotions and short on... anything else,
| really. Data, for starters, or an understanding that individual
| events don't determine the truth or falsity of claims like that
| institutional racism is real and present in America.
|
| It's not clear to me if the author is taking on these views
| themselves, or just presenting what someone _might_ think, but I
| think it's combining and conflating a lot of disconnected things
| to justify a viewpoint which can be deadly to hold
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(page generated 2021-09-03 23:04 UTC)