One of the arguments the branch covidians and mad maskers make that infuriates me is that deaths like his do not matter. They argue against excess deaths after vaxxination are not from the clot shot but from cases such as this where people were denied care cuz covid. Both deaths from the shots and deaths from medical neglect are from the idiotic anticovid policies.
We used to say that the purpose of the inspector general’s office was to go out on the battlefield after the battle was fought and to shoot the wounded.
That is not as cruel or as ridiculous as it seems. Before modern medicine, it was frequently a mercy to shoot wounded soldiers who were suffering and who could not receive medical attention before they died. It was putting them out of their misery.
The story you told is tragic, and I hope that the family receives compensation for the errors made at the hospital. But I am not yet persuaded that the vaccination program was in error. Like an inspector general, you are using statistics that were not available at the time to “shoot” a program that did not have that information. Therefore, your headline is misleading.
1. Where do I talk about the vaccination program in my post?
2. The IFR and R-naught for COVID-19 were both widely known among the scientific community by May 30, 2021, the date that Kai presented to the hospital.
As with all medical interventions prior to covid, there is always those for and those against certain actions at any given time. However, there has long been those who adamantly oppose vaccination during an epidemic or pandemic as they believe that doin so causes unnatural evolution of the virus they are trying to defeat. The constant need to get recurring booster shots when we were told, at least in the US, that once you got the shot (or 2 as with at least Pf’s) you were done, indicates strongly that these people were correct. There are many other reasons to dispute any and all claims that the way to go, the precautionary principle being one. There never was any of the customary cost benefits analysis done for any of the covid mitigation measures. None.
The Lancet article you reference has this finding:
"State governments' uses of protective mandates were associated with lower infection rates, as were mask use, lower mobility, and higher vaccination rate, while vaccination rates were associated with lower death rates"
Yes, vaccine mandates were associated with lower deaths. None of the other pandemic measures were, which is what the article was about. Infection rates are a proxy for what we really care about: deaths. Infection rates are more susceptible to confounding than deaths are.
1. Higher protective mandates -> lower infection rates, and also higher vaccination rates
"The states that implemented and maintained more mandates were statistically associated, on average, with higher mask use and greater vaccine coverage rates, which in turn were associated with fewer infections."
2. Higher vaccination rates -> lower death rates
Note that there were no general purpose vaccination mandates. The Federal Government attempted it for service members, certain contractors, etc. which was set aside by courts.
States had vaccine mandates for state employees (which the article also refers to).
Any vaccine mandates (such as they were) for people were per their terms of employment/in-office work.
Why does vaccination rate (which significantly affects death rate) correlate with protective mandates?
"The greater association of mandates with infections than with deaths highlights that factors beyond infection influenced death rates in this pandemic. Poverty rates, access to quality health care, time in education, and proportion of people with health insurance were all associated with deaths and independently affected the infection-fatality rate. At-risk, older, and less healthy individuals might still have adopted behaviours to avoid infection, such as mask use, or avoiding gatherings—even without states requiring them to do so—obscuring the effects of mandates on deaths."
i.e. the most at-risk (and perhaps those around them) practiced various protective measure even in the absence of mandates. Ultimately, its (voluntary) compliance that matters - mandate or no mandate.
So we need to ask, where did the "At-risk, older, and less healthy individuals" get this idea to protect themselves? From the institutions putting protective mandates in place or from the skeptics of such mandates?
I will flesh out and respond to two arguments you have made.
Your first point: Other factors are much more important than infections in determining deaths from Covid, thus making it impossible to determine the impact of mandates on deaths, since they are overwhelmed by the impact of other factors.
Response: I am sorry, but do you not realize that you are agreeing with me that mandates had no meaningful impact on deaths?
Your second point: People adhered too well to recommendations, causing mandates to have no discernible impact above following the recommendations.
Response: Does this not prove that mandates are not necessary, and have no impact above following recommendations?
In short I am confused. Are you agreeing with me while trying to sound like you disagree with me?
If people behave almost exactly the same way in accordance with mandates in the absence of mandates, then indeed they are not necessary.
If people pay taxes almost exactly the same way without the requirement to pay taxes then tax mandates are not necessary.
i.e. it's behavior that matters, absolutely, not the existence of a mandate on paper.
If your contention is that what would otherwise have been mandated was followed anyway then yes, there's agreement!
On the other hand if it's "the behaviors that the mandates were encouraging were useless when it came to protecting lives", then that's not what this paper is saying.
The harms of lockdowns depend on the vulnerabilities of the countries in which they are applied. I will make the case that the United States was uniquely vulnerable due to social problems that pre-existed the pandemic and use hard data to make that case in future posts. Some countries were much less vulnerable. New Zealand was one of these.
You’ve said that before. That’s one island compared to the disaster still unfolding in the rest of the world. I don’t know N Zealand but according to their illegally released vaccine medical records it was not looking too good.
You talk as if that is the only metric to consider when applying a lockdown. How about since then and at what cost? And Kevin doesn’t seem to cart Blanche writing off lockdowns. This is about the overzealous irrational application of it through this case study.
And yet they would do it all again if they could.
One of the arguments the branch covidians and mad maskers make that infuriates me is that deaths like his do not matter. They argue against excess deaths after vaxxination are not from the clot shot but from cases such as this where people were denied care cuz covid. Both deaths from the shots and deaths from medical neglect are from the idiotic anticovid policies.
We used to say that the purpose of the inspector general’s office was to go out on the battlefield after the battle was fought and to shoot the wounded.
That is not as cruel or as ridiculous as it seems. Before modern medicine, it was frequently a mercy to shoot wounded soldiers who were suffering and who could not receive medical attention before they died. It was putting them out of their misery.
The story you told is tragic, and I hope that the family receives compensation for the errors made at the hospital. But I am not yet persuaded that the vaccination program was in error. Like an inspector general, you are using statistics that were not available at the time to “shoot” a program that did not have that information. Therefore, your headline is misleading.
1. Where do I talk about the vaccination program in my post?
2. The IFR and R-naught for COVID-19 were both widely known among the scientific community by May 30, 2021, the date that Kai presented to the hospital.
As with all medical interventions prior to covid, there is always those for and those against certain actions at any given time. However, there has long been those who adamantly oppose vaccination during an epidemic or pandemic as they believe that doin so causes unnatural evolution of the virus they are trying to defeat. The constant need to get recurring booster shots when we were told, at least in the US, that once you got the shot (or 2 as with at least Pf’s) you were done, indicates strongly that these people were correct. There are many other reasons to dispute any and all claims that the way to go, the precautionary principle being one. There never was any of the customary cost benefits analysis done for any of the covid mitigation measures. None.
The Lancet article you reference has this finding:
"State governments' uses of protective mandates were associated with lower infection rates, as were mask use, lower mobility, and higher vaccination rate, while vaccination rates were associated with lower death rates"
Yes, vaccine mandates were associated with lower deaths. None of the other pandemic measures were, which is what the article was about. Infection rates are a proxy for what we really care about: deaths. Infection rates are more susceptible to confounding than deaths are.
So we have:
1. Higher protective mandates -> lower infection rates, and also higher vaccination rates
"The states that implemented and maintained more mandates were statistically associated, on average, with higher mask use and greater vaccine coverage rates, which in turn were associated with fewer infections."
2. Higher vaccination rates -> lower death rates
Note that there were no general purpose vaccination mandates. The Federal Government attempted it for service members, certain contractors, etc. which was set aside by courts.
States had vaccine mandates for state employees (which the article also refers to).
Any vaccine mandates (such as they were) for people were per their terms of employment/in-office work.
Why does vaccination rate (which significantly affects death rate) correlate with protective mandates?
Am I reading this right?
Ah, and this is important too yes?
"The greater association of mandates with infections than with deaths highlights that factors beyond infection influenced death rates in this pandemic. Poverty rates, access to quality health care, time in education, and proportion of people with health insurance were all associated with deaths and independently affected the infection-fatality rate. At-risk, older, and less healthy individuals might still have adopted behaviours to avoid infection, such as mask use, or avoiding gatherings—even without states requiring them to do so—obscuring the effects of mandates on deaths."
i.e. the most at-risk (and perhaps those around them) practiced various protective measure even in the absence of mandates. Ultimately, its (voluntary) compliance that matters - mandate or no mandate.
So we need to ask, where did the "At-risk, older, and less healthy individuals" get this idea to protect themselves? From the institutions putting protective mandates in place or from the skeptics of such mandates?
I will flesh out and respond to two arguments you have made.
Your first point: Other factors are much more important than infections in determining deaths from Covid, thus making it impossible to determine the impact of mandates on deaths, since they are overwhelmed by the impact of other factors.
Response: I am sorry, but do you not realize that you are agreeing with me that mandates had no meaningful impact on deaths?
Your second point: People adhered too well to recommendations, causing mandates to have no discernible impact above following the recommendations.
Response: Does this not prove that mandates are not necessary, and have no impact above following recommendations?
In short I am confused. Are you agreeing with me while trying to sound like you disagree with me?
If people behave almost exactly the same way in accordance with mandates in the absence of mandates, then indeed they are not necessary.
If people pay taxes almost exactly the same way without the requirement to pay taxes then tax mandates are not necessary.
i.e. it's behavior that matters, absolutely, not the existence of a mandate on paper.
If your contention is that what would otherwise have been mandated was followed anyway then yes, there's agreement!
On the other hand if it's "the behaviors that the mandates were encouraging were useless when it came to protecting lives", then that's not what this paper is saying.
As a lay person reading it, of course.
"The infection-fatality rate at the time in Canada was 0.26%"
Looking at the paper, this is true because the elderly were successfully shielded from the virus.
Why do you say that? The age-standardized IFR rapidly fell in all countries.
"Many people lost their lives due to pandemic policies."
In New Zealand, the lockdown period was actually associated with lower deaths than usual.
The harms of lockdowns depend on the vulnerabilities of the countries in which they are applied. I will make the case that the United States was uniquely vulnerable due to social problems that pre-existed the pandemic and use hard data to make that case in future posts. Some countries were much less vulnerable. New Zealand was one of these.
You’ve said that before. That’s one island compared to the disaster still unfolding in the rest of the world. I don’t know N Zealand but according to their illegally released vaccine medical records it was not looking too good.
You talk as if that is the only metric to consider when applying a lockdown. How about since then and at what cost? And Kevin doesn’t seem to cart Blanche writing off lockdowns. This is about the overzealous irrational application of it through this case study.