Coronavirus Outbreak

[Sudsy]

Right. The only “knowable facts” are Jesus and the Bible. Everything else is opinions.

It might be interesting to know what Christians here believe is meant by 'ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free'. What all might 'the truth' set us free from ? I likely have quite a different understanding of this than others here as I think there are many areas of concerns and anxieties we hold unto and do not allow the Holy Spirit to really set us free.

Well, time for my afternoon ride in the country. What a beautiful sun shining day we are having. Wouldn't it be great if while there is this Coronavirus outbreak there would be an outbreak of revival in the Church and the attention of the world would be turned toward Jesus and the change He makes in lives. The disease of sin is the real killer.

[Soloist]

Well, time for my afternoon ride in the country. What a beautiful sun shining day we are having. Wouldn't it be great if while there is this Coronavirus outbreak there would be an outbreak of revival in the Church and the attention of the world would be turned toward Jesus and the change He makes in lives. The disease of sin is the real killer.

Seems like the disease of sin is accepted and promoted in many churches... it would be amazing if people in churches would repent of their sins and start obeying Jesus.

[JimFoxvog]

Our local hospital chain's report:

[JimFoxvog]

Keep in kind that Bootstrap’s “knowable facts” happen to coincide 100% with whatever CNN says is true

I doubt CNN gets things 100% right.

[GaryK]

Abstract
This systematic review and meta-analysis are designed to determine whether there is empirical
evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality. Lockdowns are
defined as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI).
NPIs are any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that
limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel. This study
employed a systematic search and screening procedure in which 18,590 studies are identified
that could potentially address the belief posed. After three levels of screening, 34 studies
ultimately qualified. Of those 34 eligible studies, 24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis.
They were separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-placeorder
(SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies. An analysis of each of these three groups support
the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More
specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only
reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average. SIPOs were also ineffective, only reducing
COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence
of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects,
they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In
consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy
instrument.

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files ... tality.pdf

According to this, the pandemic lockdowns did much more harm than good. Hopefully lessons have been learned for future pandemics.

[Dan Z]

Abstract
This systematic review and meta-analysis are designed to determine whether there is empirical
evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality. Lockdowns are
defined as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI).
NPIs are any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that
limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel. This study
employed a systematic search and screening procedure in which 18,590 studies are identified
that could potentially address the belief posed. After three levels of screening, 34 studies
ultimately qualified. Of those 34 eligible studies, 24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis.
They were separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-placeorder
(SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies. An analysis of each of these three groups support
the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More
specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only
reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average. SIPOs were also ineffective, only reducing
COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence
of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects,
they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In
consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy
instrument.

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files ... tality.pdf

According to this, the pandemic lockdowns did much more harm than good. Hopefully lessons have been learned for future pandemics.

Excellent find Gary!

At first glance, this looks like a high-quality meta-analysis with good design. I look forward to digging into it further.

It will be interesting to see how holds up against other research and the results of its review by other economists and public health folks (I suspect it's going to get A LOt of attention). Its conclusion - that lockdowns don't save many lives - challenges much of the conventional wisdom out there. If the research holds up, it could be an important guide going forward.

This pandemic certainly has taken us all to school - I agree with your hope that we learn for the future.

[Robert]

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/coming-t ... bout-masks

Allegations that “masks work” and “don’t cause harm” have been enforced by governments and corporations around the world for more than 18 months through arrests, firings, censorship, fines, and denial of access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, streets, and other public spaces. This has made it virtually impossible for many people to live without complying with mask mandates.

In recent weeks, however, more medical scholars and media outlets are coming to grips with facts about masks that Just Facts has been documenting for more than a year and painstakingly compiled in a September 2021 article sourced with more than 50 peer-reviewed science journals. Here’s a sample of people who are speaking up about the facts and their implications:

Dr. Vinay Prasad—an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco—has written an article that examines the scientific evidence for masking children and concludes that:

“most of the masks worn by most kids for most of the pandemic have likely done nothing to change the velocity or trajectory of the virus.”
“there are downsides to face coverings for pupils and students, including detrimental impacts on communication in the classroom.”
“masking is now little more than an appealing delusion.”
decisions to mask schoolchildren are “ignorant, cruel, fearful, and cowardly.”
Dr. Chad Roy, who specializes in airborne infectious diseases and is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane University School of Medicine, has told the Washington Examiner that:

“cloth and surgical masks do absolutely nothing for protection from ambient virus.”
“all this song and dance of wearing cloth masks with some presumption that you’re being protected from ambient virus is completely and positively 100% counter to how masks and respirators work.”

The Atlantic has published an analysis of school masking policies by three medical scholars—including Dr. Margery Smelkinson, a specialist in infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health—in which they wrote:

“We reviewed a variety of studies—some conducted by the CDC itself, some cited by the CDC as evidence of masking effectiveness in a school setting, and others touted by media to the same end—to try to find evidence that would justify the CDC’s no-end-in-sight mask guidance for the very-low-risk pediatric population, particularly post-vaccination. We came up empty-handed.”
The “overall takeaway from these studies—that schools with mask mandates have lower Covid-19 transmission rates than schools without mask mandates—is not justified by the data that have been gathered.”
“As with our existing school-mask policies, no real-world data indicate that these [N95] masks decrease transmission in school settings—data that matter greatly, as these masks require a very tight fit to function effectively, and that may not be possible for many kids.”
“Over the past 21 months, slowly and with much resistance, the layers of mythology around Covid-19 mitigation in schools have been peeled away, each time without producing the much-ballyhooed increases in Covid-19. Schools did not become hot spots when they reopened, nor when they reduced physical distancing, nor when they eliminated deep-cleaning protocols. These layers were peeled away because the evidence supporting them was weak, and they all had substantial downsides for children’s education and health.”
“Covid-19 hospitalizations have “remained extremely low among children, on par with pediatric flu hospitalizations during a typical season.”
“Imposing on millions of children an intervention that provides little discernible benefit, on the grounds that we have not yet gathered solid evidence of its negative effects, violates the most basic tenet of medicine: First, do no harm.”

[RZehr]

Uh-oh, sound like it’s time we veer away from following the science again.

[nett]

Uh-oh, sound like it’s time we veer away from following the science again.

What does that mean?

[RZehr]

Uh-oh, sound like it’s time we veer away from following the science again.

What does that mean?

A bit sarcastic. It means that we just follow science when it is agrees with our politics and/or worldview. The pro-maskers were for masking science as long as it supported masks, while the anti-maskers pooh-poohed it all. Now, when science indicates that masks aren't doing any good, we see the anti-maskers using science, while the pro-maskers probably will pooh-pooh these results.

I think we shouldn't become so wrapped up in the politics of the matter that it blinds us to new knowledge and new discoveries. If our position on these things become part of our "identity" then something is really wrong. We should be delighted to be enlightened. We should be happy to learn that what we thought was incorrect, because now we have better knowledge, and possessing that better knowledge should be a good thing. But when our identity is that position, we are way to invested in that position being "right" because it is the same as us. "We" are right or wrong.
I was impressed a bit substitute teaching on Friday, how the students did not seem to care much at all when they got a problem wrong. They didn't argue. They just didn't care. Their identity was not the math answer. They simply shrugged and accepted that the answer was incorrect, and pursued the correct answer. It was an amazingly refreshing attitude towards being wrong.
That is how we should be. We should pursue facts, accept new facts, not plant our flag in the ground and defend the position no matter what. We should freely and easily accept that new knowledge is being discovered, and more that just accept the evolution of knowledge, we should fully expect to see more knowledge discovered.

Ocean tides go in and out. Knowledge changes by discoveries. Watching this whole vaccination, Ivermectin, mask arguments, are like watching some people argue about the waterline. Some yell about how right they are when the tide is in. Then soon the next side yells about how right they are when the tide is out. I think with time, there will be more nuanced knowledge on these things, and the extremes will simply ignore the nuance in favor of broad brush strokes.

We should have no problem admitting that the tide is in at sometime, and when the tide is out, we shouldn't feel threatened by that either.

You know, I like Temporal1's signature. Imagine we are walking along a forest path looking for mushrooms for dinner together. Neither of us are going to argue that the mushrooms on one side are better or worse. Or that one side has more. We simply wouldn't care about that, because the goal is simply to gather them wherever we find them. In that sense, would ought to approach science. It really shouldn't matter who makes the discover, or on which side of that path it is on. We should be happy that the discovery was made.