I was vaxxed and boosted 3 times. Never got COVID. If it stays around in another mutated form, and another booster is recommended by my physician, I may get it. Just like I get flu vaccines.
Did the government lie when they said it would prevent infection or transmission? Yes, but they weren't lying about the lower-chance-of hospitalization or death. Which are pretty good benefits.
But they also lied about natural immunity, which is a pretty BFD. Our young adult son got the original Crud in 2020, got double-vaxxed because you couldn't live your life in NYC without Zee Papers proving you were anointed, and then got the Crud again in late 2021. If you are counting, that's like getting the Crud four times. He was already more protected from serious illness (which he didn't even need to be protected to begin with at zero mortality rate) from first having gotten the original strain, but was forced to get two more jabs and thus at some risk for vax adverse effects. Thank the lord that he was out of college or they would STILL be requiring he get boosted and boosted and boosted against all sanity and morality. It's personal now that our son might have sub-clinical heart damage FOR NOTHING.
Okay, I get your point, but...they did lie and insulted and betrayed the American people. Because they believe us to be that stupid. TheyтАЩve lost me.
Look into non covid related all cause mortality numbers in highly vaxxed nations. Also there is absolutely no way to prove that it reduces illness, hospitalization, or death. In fact the numbers say otherwise. It is called antibody dependent enhancement. If they lied about this, why would you believe the rest??
Yeah, my view was similar to yours until recently. I spent 18 months on FB defending the vaccines, only to see my arguments repeatedly undermined by revelations of the shortcomings of the vaccine. Turns out Fauci wasnтАЩt sold on them from the start so IтАЩm feeling like a dunce for taking government sources at their word. At this point time, with Covid now endemic, itтАЩs clear that it no longer makes sense to vaccinate or boost.
Thanks for the reminder what the topic is about :-) No surprise it has gone in other directions; some see all angles as connected as part of a grandiose big lie. But that seems as unlikely as those who compliantly believe every word governments say, apparently unaware of the use of propaganda to promote fear and guilt.
You need to get to know a few more people. You can still get COVID if youтАЩre vaccinated but you wonтАЩt die from it. You said тАЬ multiple timesтАЭ.I think that should tell you something. Maybe the vax. worked.
You need to skip the opening insult.. IтАЩm not basing my comments strictly on my тАЬ people.тАЭ My primary Care doctor has made the same observation in her practice. And she is livid with the CDC, etc. Her reputation has been tarnished by following their тАЬscience.тАЭ The vax did not stop people from dying. One of her teenage sons developed myocarditis. The average age of COVID death in the US is 84.5. The elderly were vulnerable as they are every year to the flu. IтАЩm not anti vax but I sure as hell am never taking a vaccine with Emergency authorization. They took a gamble with this vaccine, possibly because Fauci knew that it had been engineered.. and we were the Guinea pigs. And now the CDC is putting it on the recommended pediatric schedule.. adding a minimum of 32 more shots before the age of 18. ThatтАЩs mad scientist madness. PeopleтАЩs immune systems are being weakened by this onslaught.
That is such a great honest answer. We donтАЩt know and evidently , neither did the experts. My own personal problem was being lectured by family and friends about the masks, social distancing and my choice to not get boosters after I had some disturbing symptoms after my second Pfizer.
They are merely reporting on the mortality gap between rural and urban America, which has existed long before Covid.
They duped you into thinking it had anything to do with masks, vaccines, social distancing, etc.
Consider that West Virgina in 2019 had 12,735 deaths per million (all cause mortality) compared to Virginia at 8,110 deaths per million.
In 2020 WV, which overwhelmingly voted Trump, jumped to 14,535 (+14%) and Biden voting Virginia saw 9,454 deaths per million (+17%).
Now, if you wanted to paint this as a problem of WV eventually voting for Trump the following year, you could say "Hey - look, West Virginia had 14,535 deaths per million compared to only neighboring Virginia at 9,454 deaths per million", and, to the statistically illiterate, they would fall for this direct analysis (as David Leonhardt repeatedly did in the NYT).
But that of course would be a classic trick of "lying with statistics", as it fails to consider the before scenario. Since West Virginians were already dying at higher rates than their neighbors, we should expect them to continue to die at higher rates during a pandemic. That Virginia actually had a higher year-over-year increase as a % of course wouldn't be reported, which is how people came to believe this misinformation.
To further debunk this theory, note that in the analysis you shared suggests that masks were the difference in 2020 - yet everyone was wearing cloth masks back then which we now know (well, we knew it pre-2020 before forgetting) are completely useless.
And insult to injury - the lowest masked countries - Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, had the best outcomes of the entire pandemic while highly masked countries like South Korea had the worst outcomes.
What is sad about the media regurgitating this lie you fell for, is that what I am pointing out isn't a secret. The gap between mortality of urban and rural counties has long been studied by the CDC. And drilling down, we have *always* seen higher flu deaths in republican counties than democratic counties. The reason? Age, Obesity, Access to Healthcare, Medical Coverage, Drug/alcohol use, diet.
"Rural Americans at higher risk of death from five leading causes"
Michael, your recitation of facts is very thorough and on point. However, for those like Ronsch, it will be dismissed out of hand. I've studied Covid statistics for 3 years now, and the evidence is overwhelming regarding vaccines and masks, as you clearly elucidated. I've given family members volumes of information from people like Pierre Kory and Robert Malone. I've suggested they read RFK Jr's book on Fauci. But they refuse to budge. Once someone has been convinced of something that they've acted upon, being vaccinated many times and wearing masks, even in their cars, there is NO information that will change their minds, NONE! They are impervious to facts. So now I've given up trying. The only pleasure I get these days is venting my frustration through diatribes. That's MY healing practice now.
You have to keep trying. Just make sure not to be condescending, and always remain polite. Even if I didn't convince Ronsch he's been duped, I may have helped anyone not so sure what to think lurking in these comments question this charade, and, perhaps, Ronsch may be less confident and pause before repeating these false claims elsewhere in the future.
Michael, I agree with your approach but fear using reason, indeed taking a reasonable approach, is doomed to failure. Multiple reasons are cited in the links given below, but most boil down to:
You're not a healthy professional; you are wrong.
You are a healthy professional, but you are on the lunitic fringe; you are wrong
You are too young/too old to know what you are talking about; you are wrong.
You are a Trump supporter; no one with correct information could support Trump. You are wrong about this too.
You are a Republican; you must believe incorrect information to be a Republican. You have wrong information about this too.
Sad, but once a person's mind is made up, changing it is like holding up your hand to stop a train!
At the very least, I take comfort in how many private messages I receive from people "on the fence". When I was in Michael Olesens Facebook group for example I would occasionally get members privately expressing how relieved they were to see another side of the fear they were bathed in.
I tentatively believe if more people took a polite but firm tone, carefully explaining how they got their ideas wrong will - if not change the mind of the person - will at least box them in so others won't be as easily infected with their erroneous and pseudoscientific ideas.
Appreciate the links though, many I've read, but a few new ones to help me sharpen my approach. I was admittedly a bit condescending to Ronsch which I try to avoid.
IMHO this data is suspect because of the nature in which the data was collected. The Federal Government incentivized hospitals to maximize deaths attributed to COVID. Even when the death was due to a separate incident such as automobile accident, shooting, prior dominant medical condition, drownings, etc. anyone dying that tests positive with COVID then the death was attributed to COVID regardless if they were a carrier or had COVID and recovered.
Anyone citing these statistics needs to understand the basis of the data.
It's actually true, but false. Yes, people died in higher rates in rural areas (which happened to vote Trump) than urban areas (which happened to vote Biden). Just as they have for the last 100 years. Rural counties always have higher burden of flu, cancer, strokes, etc.
The media only seemed to notice this during Covid, and failed to point out this was always happening. I explained more above
Mr. Ronsch: You cited тАЬExcess Death Rates For Republicans and Democrats During the Covid 19 Pandemic тАЬ.
The introduction of the paper states тАЬNBER working papers are for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer reviewed or been subject to review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.тАЭ This is speculation by the authors according to their opinion of their data. It proves nothing.
Further along the authors state: тАЬSecond, because we did not have information on individualтАЩs vaccination status, analysis of the association between vaccination rates and excess deaths relied on county level vaccination rates.тАЭ They have no idea of the number of Republicans who were vaccinated in the counties studied. They have no idea of how many Democrats were vaccinated. They used party affiliation and voter rolls to identify Democrats and Republicans in each county. They used Florida as an example. Many African-Americans vote Democrat but are very leery of forced government medical interventions. I live in the South. Almost every acquaintance I know who voted for Trump also took the vaccine. Without exception.
This paper is worthless speculation wrapped in faux authority.
Might I also mention that the largest donor to the NEBR is the National Institute of Health...the home of Frances Collins.
Actually it's true. People in rural counties die at slightly higher rates of ILI (flu, RSV, coronaviruses) than urban counties. This has been the case since at least 1969 (as far back as data I can find), but logically, likely goes back as far as civilization.
These covid astrologers are playing a trick on the naive, just as their ancestors would know the pattern of the moon to predict an eclipse and claim it was their doing, they of course already know that all-cause mortality in rural counties is roughly 20% higher than urban counties so of course that ratio would exist for Covid as well.
This trick is how they duped so many otherwise intelligent people into thinking their intervention strategies made any difference when their masks and chained up playgrounds were merely the modern day rain dance.
I read this paper you linked before commenting (is this your work or someone else's?).
Quick thoughts on it:
1) I'm very familiar with Michael Olesen. I spent two years in his private FB group politely refuting his repeated fearmongering and catastrophizing of the pandemic. I have debunked that claim to him many times, we are at an impasse. I can only plead to you to rerun the analysis yourself with the raw data and see if you still agree with how this is presented.
Side note - The paper refers to him as an epidemiologist, which is a stretch (does only studying epidemiology for 2 years and then not being ever employed as an epidemiologist grant this title?). I'm not one to seek credentials, but that's an error nonetheless.
2) The NEBR paper presents only in relative percents not sharing the absolute (miniscule) differences, nor does it examine the obvious question - why were deaths so high in people over 65 when 95% of them - regardless of party - were vaccinated? The people not vaccinated (young republicans) were not dying in those counties, it was still the vaccinated elderly dying.
3) Peter Hotez cited. I hate to de-credentialize, but that guys a crank. That graph he shared is ridiculous. Scale of .5 to 1.3 per 100000. Hilarious. Hint - Excess is still zero!
4) The paper said "During last fallтАЩs Delta wave, the mortality rate in Spokane County was 20 times that of the King County which includes Seattle. "
I would love to see all cause mortality by age, month, year, for those two counties going back 5 years.
You're impugning Francis Collins? So you're claiming Republicans are vaccinating more than Democrats? Actually, I believe masks matter more than vaccinations. Florida had a catastrophic death toll in the Delta wave compared to New York State, and I believe it was masks more than vaccines. https://politicsofthelastage.blogspot.com/2022/08/floridas-covid-19-catastrophe.html
Fauci has now publicly admitted that masks made very little or no difference. The virus is so microscopically small, it easily permeates a medical mask. A cloth mask even more so.
Tell that to Asians who wear masks every year and who have a fraction of our death toll.
Of course masks don't stop all of the virus but it does reduce it, and it is important that everyone is wearing them. The one worn by an infected person reduces it, and the one worn by the uninfected person reduces it more to a point the immune system can handle it. Studies looking only at individuals will not be able to measure the effect. It is important to analyze groups. For example, here is a study showing masks are effective by comparing schools. https://time.com/6231516/universal-masking-in-school-works-new-data-shows-how-well/?xid=homepage
Dr. Fauci has flip-flopped a couple of times on masks. I wouldn't trust his opinion on masks. He certainly wouldn't urge health workers to stop wearing them. Cloth masks are definitely not good, but most everyone I know wear N95's.
Ok, so here you have made yet another demonstrably false claim - that Asians wear masks every year and have a fraction of our death toll.
South Korea has 14% more deaths than expected through the pandemic [1], placing them among the highest death tolls in the world, far higher than largely unmasked Nordic countries which hovered around 4%. China of course, had a devastating Covid toll as well - despite masks - but they aren't as transparent with data.
So that claim is false.
Next, you cite Time which cites the horribly flawed Boston Mask Study, let me quickly run through the problems of the shoddy study:
1) The authors are on record pushing for masks in Boston even starting a Change.org petition before the study, demonstrating they weren't neutral [2]
2) Uses statistical tricks [3]
3) Wasn't aware that several of the schools they counted as "masked" had exemptions to unmask [4]
4) And faced strong critiques which went unanswered [5]
5) It should just be obvious how poor this study is. Seriously man, just look at the main graph - don't you wonder how it was that all schools WITH mask mandates before dropping them had such high infection rates? I thought they worked? And why did the study not include the before rates of infection to get a baseline?
Collins and Fauci colluded early on to use their authority to suppress any lab leak questions from colleagues, notably Kristian Andersen, who suspected a lab origin for the virus. Collins and Fauci also moved to suppress any consideration of the Great Barrington Declaration. Why were Fauci and Collins so adamant about not allowing any consideration of a lab leak? Did they know something nefarious that would impact them personally?
I have no idea whether Republicans vaccinated more than Democrats. And neither do you. And neither do the authors of the NEBR discussion paper you cited.
"The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?" New York Times Feb. 21, 2023
What we do know, is that regardless of party affiliation, 95%+ of everyone over 65 got vaccinated, and 80% of the Covid deaths continued in that age cohort regardless of vaccination.
Which shouldn't surprise us as we have never made an effective vaccine for any ILI. Not Covid, Not the Flu, not MERS, or any of the other two hundred upper respiratory viruses.
To think that after trying and failing for 80 years we could suddenly do it was wishful thinking.
You are factually wrong Ronsch. Completely and utterly wrong. But I'm not expecting that you will accept that. Your kind are so deluded, that a brick could fall on your head and you'd think it was raining.
Often when I wish to counter an argument, especially one with attached citings, I usually prepare some facts for the rebuttal, or I challenge what the other is citing. Perhaps I should try the "No, you're wrong dummy!!" approach. Is it effective?
Nothing is effective with these folks. I've tried for 2 years to debate them, many times. It's impossible to break through. So now I just insult them. Yeah, it 'aint gonna change their mind. But it makes me feel better. And for all the shit they've dumped on our heads, a little fighting back seems appropriate.
So your argument is all insults and no data analysis? You certainly have presented nothing resembling a fact, while I present data analysis in support of my claims.
Sorry, but any Covid excess deaths analysis that doesn't factor in age and health is worthless and it is completely disingenuous for the author to present it as if it has value. Republicans skew older and in poorer health and you would expect excess deaths to be greater in that population. Sometimes insults are warranted.
Insults and ad hominem arguments are NOT appropriate responses to your clearly good faith position. To be equally charitable to your opponents, though, they are obviously (and with good reason) frustrated by bad faith arguments on COVID that are represented in the data you cite. I have taught research methods and design in graduate programs and can tell you some of the "studies" you reference would never pass muster. For example, I'm sure you've heard the old aphorism, "Correlation is not causation." The relationship between Trump voting and incidence or death from COVID is a textbook example of that fallacious reasoning. Honestly, it wreaks of confirmation bias. Obviously, voting for Trump did not cause bad COVID results...it is a proxy variable, presumably for not getting vaccinated or wearing a mask or social distancing. There are reams of data showing that the dispositive variables in bad COVID outcomes are age (as one of the commentators observed, Trump voters skew old), co-morbidities, class/education level (a proxy for access to quality medical care and for the ability to work from home & Trump voters skew lower on these measures). As one of your critics observed, only a multi-causal model would be appropriate for analyzing a complex social phenomenon like this. The study you cite would have to control for all these obvious variables to be taken seriously. Here is a more professional and unbiased analysis: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-major-study-argues-floridas-covid-death-rate-compares-favorably-to-californias/
Rich, I would agree with your thorough and thoughtful response here. I'ver recited many of these points numerous times on these platforms. However, I would not agree that ad hominem attacks are not appropriate here. I think there's room for both, and we are all free to express ourselves as long as we're not threatening violence. 1st amendment don'tcha know!! No, my comments won't change the mind of someone like Ronsch or their ilk. But It is cathartic. We've been demonized for 3 years. It is appropriate, at times, to fight fire with fire. Let it roar.
You should make a distinction. Insults are fine where warranted ie calling someone stupid for doing something stupid can be ok, but ad hominem ie saying someone's argument is wrong because they are stupid is always wrong. Arguments are never wrong because of someone's characteristics, they are correct or incorrect on their own.
I appreciate your view and of course you are 100% correct that folks have a 1st amendment right to be insulting or ad hominem...hard to imagine a lot of great comedy without that latitude. But that's a different argument than "appropriateness," and we'll just have to agree to disagree on that score. I would reserve the fire option for the malefactors of misinformation and power abuse (looking at you Cuomo, Biden, Trudeau, Fauci, Daszak, Weingarten, etc.).
Don't want to beat a dead horse BC we're both on the same page Rich. I will still say that it is appropriate because if these pontificators on social media are not getting a taste of their own medicine, they'll believe that it's OK to attack us. You're recitations are more important, I agree. But after three years of this nonsense, I think we need to put them down every once and a while. Kind of like a rabid dog that's foaming at the mouth. Peace brother. Keep up the good fight.
Okay, Mr. Silly. Anecdotally in my own real life, there was no correlation between political affiliation and vaccine/mask choices. And as an FYI segue, the majority of total anti vaxxers for themselves and their children are far left liberals.
Yes, but you need to look at the data analysis. For example, an epidemiologist collected data on U.S. counties, the 2020 vote for President, and Covid death rates. You can find the plot of the death rate against the Trump vote in one of the links I provided above. The correlation of the death rate with the Trump vote is very strong. Please explore the studies I cite in the links above.
Sorry but single factor analyses are worthless and are as bad as straight out lying. You have to do a multi-factor analysis with age and health along with political affiliation. No one should ever quote that "study" ever again.
As a primary care doctor practicing throughout the pandemic, I think the truth, on vaccines at least, falls somewhere between the highly polarized narratives put out by the two sides.
I recall when the vaccines were first made available that they were advertised to us physicians not as a means of preventing infection but as a means of preventing severe illness and death. In this regard, I would say they seem to have been highly successful, at least in our clinic. I ended up having about four times as many patients vaccinated as unvaccinated on my panel, but all of the five patients I lost to Covid were in the unvaccinated group as were all of the hospitalizations for severe illness aside from one. Anecdotal, true, but the numbers are so markedly divergent between those two groups - there should after all have been about 20 deaths in the vaccinated group if there was really no vaccine effect - that itтАЩs hard to imagine this occurred by chance. Even more so given that my four colleagues with similar panel sizes had identical outcomes.
The problem, of course, is that it wasnтАЩt very long before the vaccines were advertised in ways that turned out to be misleading. We were told theyтАЩd prevent actual infection and hence also transmission, which paved the way for тАЬexpertsтАЭ to insist on universal vaccination, including children and enforced by punitive job-loss mandates, in the quest for that elusive high level of тАЬherd immunityтАЭ that would allegedly end the pandemic. We were also assured that they were really no significant vaccine side effects whatsoever, even though I saw a few episodes that, although not lethal, would definitely prompt most MDтАЩs to withhold future vaccination based on the general medical principle of тАЬdo no harmтАЭ.
Bottom line, we were told so much that was untrue that itтАЩs hard to dissect out the parts that were true. My ultimate take is:
1. Yes, the vaccines do reduce death and serious illness in that group of people prone to more severe respiratory complications.
2. No, they arenтАЩt particularly useful for reducing transmission, possibly in part because (ironically) by reducing symptoms they allow some subclinically ill people to wander around and infect others.
3. Because of this there was never any good rationale for giving them to children, in whom the risks of serious illness are quite low.
4. Like many vaccines, they are NOT entirely safe, and although serious side effect seem to be uncommon, there are certain groups (such as young males) in whom the small but real risk of side effects may actually surpass the small risk of serious illness from Covid infection, which is pretty much definitionally the point when one withholds rather than mandates a vaccine.
This is exactly right and thank you for the balanced take. We should have been able to discuss this openly two years ago when there was sufficient anecdotal evidence.
You are correct about anecdotal stories; you can find an abundance on both sides of the vax/Covid issue. I have to say your story resonates with me as my views have evolved in conjunction with my cynicism. Will the lab leak story be a case of the coverup is worse than the crime? Or is Gain of Function research the original sin?
Given the high proportion of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases, and the fairly high unreliability of rapid tests in asymptomatic cases, unless you have had a blood test you simply can't say that you never had it. In my experience most of the people that claim not to have caught it have never had a blood test confirmation of that, and almost certainly they did get it and were simply asymptomatic.
The only people I know who have had COVID multiple times , as many as four times, are all Vaxxed and 2-3 times boosted.
I was vaxxed and boosted 3 times. Never got COVID. If it stays around in another mutated form, and another booster is recommended by my physician, I may get it. Just like I get flu vaccines.
Did the government lie when they said it would prevent infection or transmission? Yes, but they weren't lying about the lower-chance-of hospitalization or death. Which are pretty good benefits.
The topic is virus origin, not vaccine efficacy.
But they also lied about natural immunity, which is a pretty BFD. Our young adult son got the original Crud in 2020, got double-vaxxed because you couldn't live your life in NYC without Zee Papers proving you were anointed, and then got the Crud again in late 2021. If you are counting, that's like getting the Crud four times. He was already more protected from serious illness (which he didn't even need to be protected to begin with at zero mortality rate) from first having gotten the original strain, but was forced to get two more jabs and thus at some risk for vax adverse effects. Thank the lord that he was out of college or they would STILL be requiring he get boosted and boosted and boosted against all sanity and morality. It's personal now that our son might have sub-clinical heart damage FOR NOTHING.
Okay, I get your point, but...they did lie and insulted and betrayed the American people. Because they believe us to be that stupid. TheyтАЩve lost me.
Look into non covid related all cause mortality numbers in highly vaxxed nations. Also there is absolutely no way to prove that it reduces illness, hospitalization, or death. In fact the numbers say otherwise. It is called antibody dependent enhancement. If they lied about this, why would you believe the rest??
Yeah, my view was similar to yours until recently. I spent 18 months on FB defending the vaccines, only to see my arguments repeatedly undermined by revelations of the shortcomings of the vaccine. Turns out Fauci wasnтАЩt sold on them from the start so IтАЩm feeling like a dunce for taking government sources at their word. At this point time, with Covid now endemic, itтАЩs clear that it no longer makes sense to vaccinate or boost.
https://archive.is/2023.02.08-175647/https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/dr-anthony-fauci-now-admits-the-mrna?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=363080&post_id=101474378&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Thanks for the reminder what the topic is about :-) No surprise it has gone in other directions; some see all angles as connected as part of a grandiose big lie. But that seems as unlikely as those who compliantly believe every word governments say, apparently unaware of the use of propaganda to promote fear and guilt.
I am a pureblood and had Covid 3 times. I have small children and they also had it 3 times. No long Covid and IVM every time.
That's usually the case, but I do know a few who weren't vaxxed, but immuno-compromised that have had it a couple times.
You need to get to know a few more people. You can still get COVID if youтАЩre vaccinated but you wonтАЩt die from it. You said тАЬ multiple timesтАЭ.I think that should tell you something. Maybe the vax. worked.
Here ya go, hot off the Cleveland Clinic press....https://open.substack.com/pub/igorchudov/p/being-up-to-date-on-covid-vaccines?r=2n3v7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
You need to skip the opening insult.. IтАЩm not basing my comments strictly on my тАЬ people.тАЭ My primary Care doctor has made the same observation in her practice. And she is livid with the CDC, etc. Her reputation has been tarnished by following their тАЬscience.тАЭ The vax did not stop people from dying. One of her teenage sons developed myocarditis. The average age of COVID death in the US is 84.5. The elderly were vulnerable as they are every year to the flu. IтАЩm not anti vax but I sure as hell am never taking a vaccine with Emergency authorization. They took a gamble with this vaccine, possibly because Fauci knew that it had been engineered.. and we were the Guinea pigs. And now the CDC is putting it on the recommended pediatric schedule.. adding a minimum of 32 more shots before the age of 18. ThatтАЩs mad scientist madness. PeopleтАЩs immune systems are being weakened by this onslaught.
That is such a great honest answer. We donтАЩt know and evidently , neither did the experts. My own personal problem was being lectured by family and friends about the masks, social distancing and my choice to not get boosters after I had some disturbing symptoms after my second Pfizer.
Vaccines and masks became politicized with the result the Covid death toll for Republicans became far greater than for Democrats. Republicans refused to comply with masks, social distancing, vaccines, and it was killing them. https://politicsofthelastage.blogspot.com/2022/12/update-on-covid19-mask-and-vaccine.html
and https://politicsofthelastage.blogspot.com/2022/08/ten-years-from-now-what-will-be-written.html
They are merely reporting on the mortality gap between rural and urban America, which has existed long before Covid.
They duped you into thinking it had anything to do with masks, vaccines, social distancing, etc.
Consider that West Virgina in 2019 had 12,735 deaths per million (all cause mortality) compared to Virginia at 8,110 deaths per million.
In 2020 WV, which overwhelmingly voted Trump, jumped to 14,535 (+14%) and Biden voting Virginia saw 9,454 deaths per million (+17%).
Now, if you wanted to paint this as a problem of WV eventually voting for Trump the following year, you could say "Hey - look, West Virginia had 14,535 deaths per million compared to only neighboring Virginia at 9,454 deaths per million", and, to the statistically illiterate, they would fall for this direct analysis (as David Leonhardt repeatedly did in the NYT).
But that of course would be a classic trick of "lying with statistics", as it fails to consider the before scenario. Since West Virginians were already dying at higher rates than their neighbors, we should expect them to continue to die at higher rates during a pandemic. That Virginia actually had a higher year-over-year increase as a % of course wouldn't be reported, which is how people came to believe this misinformation.
To further debunk this theory, note that in the analysis you shared suggests that masks were the difference in 2020 - yet everyone was wearing cloth masks back then which we now know (well, we knew it pre-2020 before forgetting) are completely useless.
And insult to injury - the lowest masked countries - Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, had the best outcomes of the entire pandemic while highly masked countries like South Korea had the worst outcomes.
What is sad about the media regurgitating this lie you fell for, is that what I am pointing out isn't a secret. The gap between mortality of urban and rural counties has long been studied by the CDC. And drilling down, we have *always* seen higher flu deaths in republican counties than democratic counties. The reason? Age, Obesity, Access to Healthcare, Medical Coverage, Drug/alcohol use, diet.
"Rural Americans at higher risk of death from five leading causes"
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0112-rural-death-risk.html
"Widening RuralтАУUrban Disparities in All-Cause Mortality and Mortality from Major Causes of Death in the USA, 1969тАУ2009"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3978153/
Michael, your recitation of facts is very thorough and on point. However, for those like Ronsch, it will be dismissed out of hand. I've studied Covid statistics for 3 years now, and the evidence is overwhelming regarding vaccines and masks, as you clearly elucidated. I've given family members volumes of information from people like Pierre Kory and Robert Malone. I've suggested they read RFK Jr's book on Fauci. But they refuse to budge. Once someone has been convinced of something that they've acted upon, being vaccinated many times and wearing masks, even in their cars, there is NO information that will change their minds, NONE! They are impervious to facts. So now I've given up trying. The only pleasure I get these days is venting my frustration through diatribes. That's MY healing practice now.
You have to keep trying. Just make sure not to be condescending, and always remain polite. Even if I didn't convince Ronsch he's been duped, I may have helped anyone not so sure what to think lurking in these comments question this charade, and, perhaps, Ronsch may be less confident and pause before repeating these false claims elsewhere in the future.
Michael, I agree with your approach but fear using reason, indeed taking a reasonable approach, is doomed to failure. Multiple reasons are cited in the links given below, but most boil down to:
You're not a healthy professional; you are wrong.
You are a healthy professional, but you are on the lunitic fringe; you are wrong
You are too young/too old to know what you are talking about; you are wrong.
You are a Trump supporter; no one with correct information could support Trump. You are wrong about this too.
You are a Republican; you must believe incorrect information to be a Republican. You have wrong information about this too.
Sad, but once a person's mind is made up, changing it is like holding up your hand to stop a train!
https://research.com/education/why-facts-dont-change-our-mind
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_is_it_so_hard_to_change_peoples_minds&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj4k6DMncT_AhUMMlkFHSAiBOMQFnoECAEQAg&usg=AOvVaw22Ia-ReTjF-oDguO3fLTnE
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj4k6DMncT_AhUMMlkFHSAiBOMQFnoECAUQAg&usg=AOvVaw0uuTBnQk-JNzRUBfQOi4JL
Good luck!
At the very least, I take comfort in how many private messages I receive from people "on the fence". When I was in Michael Olesens Facebook group for example I would occasionally get members privately expressing how relieved they were to see another side of the fear they were bathed in.
I tentatively believe if more people took a polite but firm tone, carefully explaining how they got their ideas wrong will - if not change the mind of the person - will at least box them in so others won't be as easily infected with their erroneous and pseudoscientific ideas.
Appreciate the links though, many I've read, but a few new ones to help me sharpen my approach. I was admittedly a bit condescending to Ronsch which I try to avoid.
It's difficult to avoid condescension whem one hears the samething over. I think you did pretty good in resisting the impulse.
IMHO this data is suspect because of the nature in which the data was collected. The Federal Government incentivized hospitals to maximize deaths attributed to COVID. Even when the death was due to a separate incident such as automobile accident, shooting, prior dominant medical condition, drownings, etc. anyone dying that tests positive with COVID then the death was attributed to COVID regardless if they were a carrier or had COVID and recovered.
Anyone citing these statistics needs to understand the basis of the data.
It's actually true, but false. Yes, people died in higher rates in rural areas (which happened to vote Trump) than urban areas (which happened to vote Biden). Just as they have for the last 100 years. Rural counties always have higher burden of flu, cancer, strokes, etc.
The media only seemed to notice this during Covid, and failed to point out this was always happening. I explained more above
https://www.racket.news/p/on-todays-explosive-coronavirus-story/comment/17288687
Mr. Ronsch: You cited тАЬExcess Death Rates For Republicans and Democrats During the Covid 19 Pandemic тАЬ.
The introduction of the paper states тАЬNBER working papers are for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer reviewed or been subject to review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.тАЭ This is speculation by the authors according to their opinion of their data. It proves nothing.
Further along the authors state: тАЬSecond, because we did not have information on individualтАЩs vaccination status, analysis of the association between vaccination rates and excess deaths relied on county level vaccination rates.тАЭ They have no idea of the number of Republicans who were vaccinated in the counties studied. They have no idea of how many Democrats were vaccinated. They used party affiliation and voter rolls to identify Democrats and Republicans in each county. They used Florida as an example. Many African-Americans vote Democrat but are very leery of forced government medical interventions. I live in the South. Almost every acquaintance I know who voted for Trump also took the vaccine. Without exception.
This paper is worthless speculation wrapped in faux authority.
Might I also mention that the largest donor to the NEBR is the National Institute of Health...the home of Frances Collins.
Actually it's true. People in rural counties die at slightly higher rates of ILI (flu, RSV, coronaviruses) than urban counties. This has been the case since at least 1969 (as far back as data I can find), but logically, likely goes back as far as civilization.
These covid astrologers are playing a trick on the naive, just as their ancestors would know the pattern of the moon to predict an eclipse and claim it was their doing, they of course already know that all-cause mortality in rural counties is roughly 20% higher than urban counties so of course that ratio would exist for Covid as well.
This trick is how they duped so many otherwise intelligent people into thinking their intervention strategies made any difference when their masks and chained up playgrounds were merely the modern day rain dance.
How about a highly greater rate. https://politicsofthelastage.blogspot.com/2022/08/ten-years-from-now-what-will-be-written.html
I read this paper you linked before commenting (is this your work or someone else's?).
Quick thoughts on it:
1) I'm very familiar with Michael Olesen. I spent two years in his private FB group politely refuting his repeated fearmongering and catastrophizing of the pandemic. I have debunked that claim to him many times, we are at an impasse. I can only plead to you to rerun the analysis yourself with the raw data and see if you still agree with how this is presented.
Side note - The paper refers to him as an epidemiologist, which is a stretch (does only studying epidemiology for 2 years and then not being ever employed as an epidemiologist grant this title?). I'm not one to seek credentials, but that's an error nonetheless.
2) The NEBR paper presents only in relative percents not sharing the absolute (miniscule) differences, nor does it examine the obvious question - why were deaths so high in people over 65 when 95% of them - regardless of party - were vaccinated? The people not vaccinated (young republicans) were not dying in those counties, it was still the vaccinated elderly dying.
3) Peter Hotez cited. I hate to de-credentialize, but that guys a crank. That graph he shared is ridiculous. Scale of .5 to 1.3 per 100000. Hilarious. Hint - Excess is still zero!
4) The paper said "During last fallтАЩs Delta wave, the mortality rate in Spokane County was 20 times that of the King County which includes Seattle. "
I would love to see all cause mortality by age, month, year, for those two counties going back 5 years.
You're impugning Francis Collins? So you're claiming Republicans are vaccinating more than Democrats? Actually, I believe masks matter more than vaccinations. Florida had a catastrophic death toll in the Delta wave compared to New York State, and I believe it was masks more than vaccines. https://politicsofthelastage.blogspot.com/2022/08/floridas-covid-19-catastrophe.html
Fauci has now publicly admitted that masks made very little or no difference. The virus is so microscopically small, it easily permeates a medical mask. A cloth mask even more so.
Tell that to Asians who wear masks every year and who have a fraction of our death toll.
Of course masks don't stop all of the virus but it does reduce it, and it is important that everyone is wearing them. The one worn by an infected person reduces it, and the one worn by the uninfected person reduces it more to a point the immune system can handle it. Studies looking only at individuals will not be able to measure the effect. It is important to analyze groups. For example, here is a study showing masks are effective by comparing schools. https://time.com/6231516/universal-masking-in-school-works-new-data-shows-how-well/?xid=homepage
Dr. Fauci has flip-flopped a couple of times on masks. I wouldn't trust his opinion on masks. He certainly wouldn't urge health workers to stop wearing them. Cloth masks are definitely not good, but most everyone I know wear N95's.
Ok, so here you have made yet another demonstrably false claim - that Asians wear masks every year and have a fraction of our death toll.
South Korea has 14% more deaths than expected through the pandemic [1], placing them among the highest death tolls in the world, far higher than largely unmasked Nordic countries which hovered around 4%. China of course, had a devastating Covid toll as well - despite masks - but they aren't as transparent with data.
So that claim is false.
Next, you cite Time which cites the horribly flawed Boston Mask Study, let me quickly run through the problems of the shoddy study:
1) The authors are on record pushing for masks in Boston even starting a Change.org petition before the study, demonstrating they weren't neutral [2]
2) Uses statistical tricks [3]
3) Wasn't aware that several of the schools they counted as "masked" had exemptions to unmask [4]
4) And faced strong critiques which went unanswered [5]
5) It should just be obvious how poor this study is. Seriously man, just look at the main graph - don't you wonder how it was that all schools WITH mask mandates before dropping them had such high infection rates? I thought they worked? And why did the study not include the before rates of infection to get a baseline?
__________
[1] https://imgur.com/a/m71NgFD
you can replicate this for 30 additional companies at mortality.org
[2] https://archive.ph/TPOOt
https://twitter.com/EpiEllie/status/1429102872470433795
[3] https://twitter.com/excel_wang/status/1591208415204085760 how to abuse "difference of difference"
[4] Compare the list in appendix
to these exemption lists:
https://www.kingphilip.org/important-mask-update-2/
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/massachusetts-schools-mask-mandate-lifted-list-dese/
5) https://emilyburns.substack.com/p/another-day-another-terrible-mask
https://sensiblemed.substack.com/p/nejms-disappointing-decision-to-publish
https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/a-new-mask-study-is-poised-to-affect
New York Times Feb. 21, 2023 Oxford Epidemiologist Tom Jefferson "There is no evidence that they - masks - make any difference. Full stop."
Jefferson and 11 colleagues based their conclusions on 78 randomized controlled trials, with a total of 610,872 participants in multiple countries.
According to the article, " ...when it comes to the population level benefits of masking, the verdict is in: Mask mandates were a bust."
Collins and Fauci colluded early on to use their authority to suppress any lab leak questions from colleagues, notably Kristian Andersen, who suspected a lab origin for the virus. Collins and Fauci also moved to suppress any consideration of the Great Barrington Declaration. Why were Fauci and Collins so adamant about not allowing any consideration of a lab leak? Did they know something nefarious that would impact them personally?
I have no idea whether Republicans vaccinated more than Democrats. And neither do you. And neither do the authors of the NEBR discussion paper you cited.
"The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?" New York Times Feb. 21, 2023
What we do know, is that regardless of party affiliation, 95%+ of everyone over 65 got vaccinated, and 80% of the Covid deaths continued in that age cohort regardless of vaccination.
Which shouldn't surprise us as we have never made an effective vaccine for any ILI. Not Covid, Not the Flu, not MERS, or any of the other two hundred upper respiratory viruses.
To think that after trying and failing for 80 years we could suddenly do it was wishful thinking.
You are factually wrong Ronsch. Completely and utterly wrong. But I'm not expecting that you will accept that. Your kind are so deluded, that a brick could fall on your head and you'd think it was raining.
Often when I wish to counter an argument, especially one with attached citings, I usually prepare some facts for the rebuttal, or I challenge what the other is citing. Perhaps I should try the "No, you're wrong dummy!!" approach. Is it effective?
Nothing is effective with these folks. I've tried for 2 years to debate them, many times. It's impossible to break through. So now I just insult them. Yeah, it 'aint gonna change their mind. But it makes me feel better. And for all the shit they've dumped on our heads, a little fighting back seems appropriate.
Might work as well as facts. See my response to Michael DeAmbrosio, above for details on why facts don't work.
So your argument is all insults and no data analysis? You certainly have presented nothing resembling a fact, while I present data analysis in support of my claims.
Sorry, but any Covid excess deaths analysis that doesn't factor in age and health is worthless and it is completely disingenuous for the author to present it as if it has value. Republicans skew older and in poorer health and you would expect excess deaths to be greater in that population. Sometimes insults are warranted.
Couldn't have said it better myself Mforti.
Insults and ad hominem arguments are NOT appropriate responses to your clearly good faith position. To be equally charitable to your opponents, though, they are obviously (and with good reason) frustrated by bad faith arguments on COVID that are represented in the data you cite. I have taught research methods and design in graduate programs and can tell you some of the "studies" you reference would never pass muster. For example, I'm sure you've heard the old aphorism, "Correlation is not causation." The relationship between Trump voting and incidence or death from COVID is a textbook example of that fallacious reasoning. Honestly, it wreaks of confirmation bias. Obviously, voting for Trump did not cause bad COVID results...it is a proxy variable, presumably for not getting vaccinated or wearing a mask or social distancing. There are reams of data showing that the dispositive variables in bad COVID outcomes are age (as one of the commentators observed, Trump voters skew old), co-morbidities, class/education level (a proxy for access to quality medical care and for the ability to work from home & Trump voters skew lower on these measures). As one of your critics observed, only a multi-causal model would be appropriate for analyzing a complex social phenomenon like this. The study you cite would have to control for all these obvious variables to be taken seriously. Here is a more professional and unbiased analysis: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-major-study-argues-floridas-covid-death-rate-compares-favorably-to-californias/
Rich, I would agree with your thorough and thoughtful response here. I'ver recited many of these points numerous times on these platforms. However, I would not agree that ad hominem attacks are not appropriate here. I think there's room for both, and we are all free to express ourselves as long as we're not threatening violence. 1st amendment don'tcha know!! No, my comments won't change the mind of someone like Ronsch or their ilk. But It is cathartic. We've been demonized for 3 years. It is appropriate, at times, to fight fire with fire. Let it roar.
You should make a distinction. Insults are fine where warranted ie calling someone stupid for doing something stupid can be ok, but ad hominem ie saying someone's argument is wrong because they are stupid is always wrong. Arguments are never wrong because of someone's characteristics, they are correct or incorrect on their own.
I appreciate your view and of course you are 100% correct that folks have a 1st amendment right to be insulting or ad hominem...hard to imagine a lot of great comedy without that latitude. But that's a different argument than "appropriateness," and we'll just have to agree to disagree on that score. I would reserve the fire option for the malefactors of misinformation and power abuse (looking at you Cuomo, Biden, Trudeau, Fauci, Daszak, Weingarten, etc.).
Don't want to beat a dead horse BC we're both on the same page Rich. I will still say that it is appropriate because if these pontificators on social media are not getting a taste of their own medicine, they'll believe that it's OK to attack us. You're recitations are more important, I agree. But after three years of this nonsense, I think we need to put them down every once and a while. Kind of like a rabid dog that's foaming at the mouth. Peace brother. Keep up the good fight.
You just waste everyone's time.
Okay, Mr. Silly. Anecdotally in my own real life, there was no correlation between political affiliation and vaccine/mask choices. And as an FYI segue, the majority of total anti vaxxers for themselves and their children are far left liberals.
Yes, but you need to look at the data analysis. For example, an epidemiologist collected data on U.S. counties, the 2020 vote for President, and Covid death rates. You can find the plot of the death rate against the Trump vote in one of the links I provided above. The correlation of the death rate with the Trump vote is very strong. Please explore the studies I cite in the links above.
Sorry but single factor analyses are worthless and are as bad as straight out lying. You have to do a multi-factor analysis with age and health along with political affiliation. No one should ever quote that "study" ever again.
This is absurd. It probably has more to do with geographical location and population density. End of convo.
As a primary care doctor practicing throughout the pandemic, I think the truth, on vaccines at least, falls somewhere between the highly polarized narratives put out by the two sides.
I recall when the vaccines were first made available that they were advertised to us physicians not as a means of preventing infection but as a means of preventing severe illness and death. In this regard, I would say they seem to have been highly successful, at least in our clinic. I ended up having about four times as many patients vaccinated as unvaccinated on my panel, but all of the five patients I lost to Covid were in the unvaccinated group as were all of the hospitalizations for severe illness aside from one. Anecdotal, true, but the numbers are so markedly divergent between those two groups - there should after all have been about 20 deaths in the vaccinated group if there was really no vaccine effect - that itтАЩs hard to imagine this occurred by chance. Even more so given that my four colleagues with similar panel sizes had identical outcomes.
The problem, of course, is that it wasnтАЩt very long before the vaccines were advertised in ways that turned out to be misleading. We were told theyтАЩd prevent actual infection and hence also transmission, which paved the way for тАЬexpertsтАЭ to insist on universal vaccination, including children and enforced by punitive job-loss mandates, in the quest for that elusive high level of тАЬherd immunityтАЭ that would allegedly end the pandemic. We were also assured that they were really no significant vaccine side effects whatsoever, even though I saw a few episodes that, although not lethal, would definitely prompt most MDтАЩs to withhold future vaccination based on the general medical principle of тАЬdo no harmтАЭ.
Bottom line, we were told so much that was untrue that itтАЩs hard to dissect out the parts that were true. My ultimate take is:
1. Yes, the vaccines do reduce death and serious illness in that group of people prone to more severe respiratory complications.
2. No, they arenтАЩt particularly useful for reducing transmission, possibly in part because (ironically) by reducing symptoms they allow some subclinically ill people to wander around and infect others.
3. Because of this there was never any good rationale for giving them to children, in whom the risks of serious illness are quite low.
4. Like many vaccines, they are NOT entirely safe, and although serious side effect seem to be uncommon, there are certain groups (such as young males) in whom the small but real risk of side effects may actually surpass the small risk of serious illness from Covid infection, which is pretty much definitionally the point when one withholds rather than mandates a vaccine.
That is a nuanced, balanced, and logical response. What are you doing on the Internet?
This is exactly right and thank you for the balanced take. We should have been able to discuss this openly two years ago when there was sufficient anecdotal evidence.
You are correct about anecdotal stories; you can find an abundance on both sides of the vax/Covid issue. I have to say your story resonates with me as my views have evolved in conjunction with my cynicism. Will the lab leak story be a case of the coverup is worse than the crime? Or is Gain of Function research the original sin?
Given the high proportion of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases, and the fairly high unreliability of rapid tests in asymptomatic cases, unless you have had a blood test you simply can't say that you never had it. In my experience most of the people that claim not to have caught it have never had a blood test confirmation of that, and almost certainly they did get it and were simply asymptomatic.