This is fascinating. What else is interesting is that Florida who has had ZERO Covid restrictions this entire time, has the lowest levels of new cases per Capita in the lower 48.
I never understand why people try to make this point. It’s pretty obvious covid comes in waves. Florida is now on the downswing of the delta wave. At its peak it had more than twice deaths per capita than California (arguably the most restrictive state).
No one really seemed to care about these fine points when they were comparing case rates between the southern states in the peak of their regular late-summer wave and the rest of the country and attributing the difference to vaccination rates.
I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. Florida had more than double the per capita deaths than California during the delta wave. It also has lower vaccination rates.
> > Florida had more than double the per capita deaths than California during the delta wave.
> Florida has way more older people per Capita which are more vulnerable to Covid.
> So that accounts for the deaths.
No, it doesn't. Florida has less than a time and a half the 65+ population share that California has; while it might account for a higher death rate, it doesn't account for a more than double death rate, and it especially doesn’t explain an even greater discrepancy in the death:case rate than the death:population rate.
> But why are new cases so low in a place with very few vaccinated and no Covid restrictions?
Because COVID precautions (vaccination, voluntary testing without hospitalization, etc.) are mutually correlated, and so Florida has less likelihood of detecting cases that don't involve hospitalization; it also means cases that eventually require hospitalization are detected later with less early intervention. Which explains why Florida has, compared to other states, a low detected case rate, but a middle of the road hospitalization rate, and a very high death rate.
Florida has the second highest per Capita number of old people in the country. California is one of the lowest at number 45. So while you're right...by not using per Capita numbers... you're presenting your data in a very disengenuous and truth distorting way.
You claim less testing is the reason? That's a simple fix..look at positivity rate. Should be sky high if all the testing is coming from FL hospitals and eliminates variations in testing numbers.
Guess what STILL less than California. Guess what positivity rate at the BOTTOM of all states.
Here's actual references instead of just whatever feels good to say.
Could the natural immune system not be an Alex Jones conspiracy after all???!!!!!
> Florida has the second highest per Capita number of old people in the country
This isn’t a great excuse for Florida’s death rate. Maine has the highest per capita elderly population in the US and the 3rd lowest COVID death rate. Sure it’s got a lower population density, however: 25% of elderly (65+) Americans live in Florida, Texas and California. California had 1/2 the death rate of Florida and 3/4 that of Texas. All warm climates, all high population density. The only difference was California’s restrictions and higher vaccination rate.
It’s hard to see how Florida’s policy was more effective, particularly with regard to protecting its elderly.
>>The only difference was California’s restrictions and higher vaccination rate
False.
We literally just went over this...
Florida is the second oldest state in the country and the oldest with a high population density which means it's old people stacked on old people.
California is the fifth youngest state in the country, so there's a level of herd immunity already existing there as young people under 55 are virtually untouched by Covid.(more people died of car accidents in 2019 than under 55 age group in the entire pandemic)
Its been clear from the start that this disease is bimodal and kills old people at a shockingly high rate and the under 55 at a shockingly low rate.
Old people are the difference... not vaccinations (which don't work that well,see Colin Powell/ Ireland/this paper) or restrictions.
But it's better to avoid this fact because it calls your narrative under question and makes it less certain why you injected experimental substances in your body in the first place.
"About 52 million Americans are age 65 or older, according to the Census Bureau’s 2018 population estimates. One quarter of these older Americans live in one of three states: California, Florida, and Texas."
There are large elderly populations in all three states. Florida may have more elderly per capita than California, but not 2X more. However they did have twice the death rate. Elderly population alone does not explain the poor performance of Florida's COVID policy.
>California is the fifth youngest state in the country, so there's a level of herd immunity already existing there as young people under 55 are virtually untouched by Covid.
Again, this point doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Texas is the 3rd youngest state in the US, with a median age of 35 (California is 5th, with a median age of 37). California had <3/4 the death rate of Texas.
>more people died of car accidents in 2019 than under 55 age group in the entire pandemic
I don't know what point you are making here. Accidents are the 3rd leading cause of death for Americans after heart disease and cancer. Certainly not an insignificant amount, and all 50 state governments go to great lengths to reduce them.
>All of this was to save Granny remember?
If that's true then Florida has clearly failed. Common sense dictates that the state which takes more precautions against COVID will have fewer cases and deaths. If you believe that the inconvenience of the restrictions is not worth the lives saved just say that. You've not made the case that they are ineffective.
>> Florida may have more elderly per capita than California, but not 2X more. However they did have twice the death rate.
Maybe herd immunity is exponential? Oh wait it is!!!!
You're eliminating many possibilities with nothing to support it.
>> Accidents are the 3rd leading cause of death
I said car accidents.
Talking with you is disengenuous and continually truth distorting, so my choice is to spend more time correcting your factual inaccuracies in that wall of text or play with the dog.
> Maybe herd immunity is exponential? Oh wait it is!!!!
Ok, so why does Texas have a higher death rate than California? They have a younger average population, lots of elderly people and basically zero covid restrictions since day 1. Shouldn’t they have exponentially more herd immunity?
>I said car accidents
As I understand your point, You claim COVID death rates among young people are comparable to car accident deaths, therefore we shouldn’t bother trying to reduce them. This makes no sense. Governments go to great lengths and enact regulations to reduce deaths from auto accidents, as well as far less frequent causes of death (eg plane crashes). Few people would say it’s not worth preventing these deaths.
>You win this debate by pure stubborn stupidity
I’ve reviewed your claims and provided facts in good faith that challenge your positions. You’ve responded with name calling. It seems like you simply believe what you believe and aren’t interested in any facts that don’t support your position. That is the definition of bad faith.
The data on elderly populations is taken from an article that you originally shared [1]. Perhaps you did not read it, or do not believe your own data, but it clearly states that Florida, Texas and California have the largest elderly populations in the US. It also clearly states that the median age in Texas and % of the population over 65 are lower than in California.
The data on covid death rates (per 100,000 people) is publicly available [2]. Even in a state with a younger population (Texas), death rates are still higher than in California.
I don't need to distort the truth because it is obvious to anyone with common sense.
> So while you're right...by not using per Capita numbers... you're presenting your data in a very disengenuous and truth distorting way.
GP actually did speak in terms of per capita numbers (hence "population share"). In absolute numbers, California would exceed Florida in old people; as shares of the population, California has (according to your second link) 14.3% of their population over age 65, while Florida has 20.5%. This works out to be Florida having about 43% more old people per capita than California. If the claim upthread that deaths per capita in Florida more than doubled that in California is accurate, then 43% more people 65 or older per capita does not explain more than 100% more deaths per capita.
> Guess what STILL less than California. Guess what positivity rate at the BOTTOM of all states.
As to your positivity rate point, I can't confidently speak to whether your argument would be valid if the data was as you said, but your data is not accurate: your link lists Florida at the bottom of all states, but it also lists them as having a 0.0% positivity rate. The latter is, unsurprisingly, not correct, and neither is the former. Going through to its listed data source [1], I calculated positivity rates (number of positive results / number of total results) for each state using the data as of October 11 [2] (filtering for "date" equal to October 11 of this year).
Using cumulative numbers ("total_results_reported"), Florida has a positivity rate of 10.4% (18th highest), California has 5.7% (44th highest). Using new results with a date of October 11 ("new_results_reported"), Florida is doing better than earlier: only 4.6% positive (42th highest). Still twice California's 2.1% (53rd, below every other state and every US territory, but ahead of the District of Columbia).
>> then 43% more people 65 or older per capita does not explain more than 100% more deaths per capita
Why doesn't it? Is there some evidence that it does or doesn't.... or is this more of a claim?
Is there direct evidence that it's masks and not the density and quantity of old people?
Old people makes way more sense to me than our current mask policy of wearing a dirty cloth on your face until you sit down at the restaurant.
Thank you for looking into that, in a hurry I just looked at the ranking.
>>Florida is doing better than earlier: only 4.6% positive (42th highest). Still twice California's 2.1%
Still shockingly close, considering they have no Covid restrictions, whatsoever. And Cali has been extremely strict.
I guess it's subjective levels or risk. Is two percent lower infection rate worth it to require everyone to wear masks?
>Why doesn't it? Is there some evidence that it does or doesn't.... or is this more of a claim?
For the difference to be explained solely by there being more old people because old people are more vulnerable to COVID, I would interpret that to mean that any particular individual is not more or less likely to die depending on whether they live in California or Florida and the overall difference is determined by the difference in age distribution. But, as a limiting case, if all COVID deaths were among elderly people, then a 100%+ higher overall death rate in Florida which has only a 43% larger share of its population who are elderly compared to California would require that deaths per capita among the elderly population would have to be ~40% higher in Florida than in California (2 / 1.43). It's possible that my intuition is making an error here, but I think that the situation with only elderly people dying is the upper bound on how much effect the age distribution can directly have. So, something further is necessary to explain the additional (at least) 40%.
> Is there direct evidence that it's masks and not the density and quantity of old people?
I don't know whether masks explain the cited difference (I haven't seen convincing evidence but I also haven't really examined the matter), just that age distribution cannot explain the entirety of the difference. At least some age groups must have been more likely to die due to COVID-19 if they lived in Florida than in California during the cited period. It's certainly possible that some portion of that additional difference can be explained through downstream effects of the age distribution, but demonstrating that would require some additional evidence beyond the bare fact of the age distribution differences.
My understanding is there were also other policy differences between the two states besides mask requirements, but I do not have any specific reason to believe them to have had a significant (or any) effect, just like I don't have any specific reason to believe that downstream consequences of the age distribution to have had a significant (or any) effect.
> I guess it's subjective levels or risk. Is two percent lower infection rate worth it to require everyone to wear masks?
I couldn't say, although it's also worth remembering that the positivity rate data in question doesn't tell you anything about the infection rate. It doesn't even tell you what proportion of people who got tested received positive results, since the data in question is about samples rather than patients.
As common sense would dictate, it’s because enough people have either gotten delta or gotten the vaccine. Florida had the highest per capita death rate during Delta. Hard to see how their approach was a success.
The creators of Ivermectin won the Nobel for its applications in treating parasites, not COVID-19.
The Caly et al paper you cite is based on a cell culture (in vitro) experiment, not a clinical trial. No human subjects were tested, and subsequent researchers have had difficulty recreating the observed result. Virtually all other studies supporting ivermectin's use against COVID-19 have been shown to have serious flaws. To quote a review,"Research related to ivermectin in COVID-19 has serious methodological limitations resulting in very low certainty of the evidence, and continues to grow." [1]
If the Ivermectin crowd were really interested in finding an effective oral treatment for COVID-19, and not just manipulating a political prop, why are they silent on Molnupiravir, which has been shown to be effective in clinical trials [2]?
>> the creators of Ivermectin won the Nobel for its applications in treating parasites, not COVID-19.
I'm assuming it's safe if it won the Nobel price and has many years of usage backing it.
That's more than can be said for these Covid vaccines.
In Vitro is a good sign that it may also be effective in vivo and worth trying especially in a drug that has proved to be safe and efficacious in other diseases.
Molnupiravir does that have many years of usage?
I think you get my point. people don't trust corporations to look out for their best interests especially drug companies.. and therefore aren't going to try medicine based on the company's promise that it's safe.
>In Vitro is a good sign that it may also be effective in vivo
My understanding is that the In Vitro study required massive dosages of Ivermectin to achieve the reported tissue concentration and antiviral effect. That's why clinical trails are so important to see if the effect is observed at a safe dosage.
>people don't trust corporations to look out for their best interests especially drug companies
I completely get that, but it seems equally dangerous to trust random people on the internet writing about ivermectin.
Yes, at least the companies that run clinical trials are not the same companies making the drugs. They won’t get paid more if a drug is successful. Randos on the internet have a direct financial interest in getting people to take their snake oil.
> What else is interesting is that Florida who has had ZERO Covid restrictions this entire time, has the lowest levels of new cases per Capita in the lower 48.
Yes, but its just doing bad in identification of non-severe cases—and maybe severe cases, before its too late, too, given how much higher ranked it is in deaths compared to hospitalizations. It is more middling in recent per-capita COVID hospitalizations and near the top (#8 of all states and territories) in recent per capita COVID deaths. [0]
Florida embodies Trump's observation that the COVID case rate was driven by testing, and cases would be much lower if testing was.
[0] FL recent cases are 22/100K population (US overall is 25/100K), FL hospitalizations in the same time frame are 15/100K population (US overall is 18/100K), FL recent COVID death rate is 0.79/100K (US overall is 0.46/100K) from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
Florida has more old people than any other state 20% of the state pop, of course it's going to have more deaths with more of the age group that dies more of Covid.
That doesn't explain why new cases are at rock bottom in a state with basically zero covid restrictions and basically no one has a vaccine...
The natural immune system might not be an Alex Jones conspiracy theory after all !!!
From the study: "For instance, in a report released from the Ministry of Health in Israel, the effectiveness of 2 doses of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine against preventing COVID-19 infection was reported to be 39% [6], substantially lower than the trial efficacy of 96% [7]." Those are not the numbers I've been getting from the media. I'm quite shocked and surprised.
This has been the commonly reported number for quite some time. This paper is literally just repeating a number that's been widely reported for months.
The way its been reported for some time is that vaccines provide moderate reduction in transmissibility, but significant reduction in hospitalization or death (severe infection).
Also wow this is misleading:
> Of the top 5 counties that have the highest percentage
of population fully vaccinated (99.9–84.3%), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifes 4
of them as “High” Transmission counties. Chattahoochee
(Georgia), McKinley (New Mexico), and Arecibo (Puerto
Rico) counties have above 90% of their population fully vaccinated with all three being classifed as “High” transmission. Conversely, of the 57 counties that have been classifed
as “low” transmission counties by the CDC, 26.3% (15) have
percentage of population fully vaccinated below 20%.
You can't compare things in this way. When you do it the "right way", you'll see a correlation, weak but extant (much as you see in their diagrams) which contradicts the central claim of the paper.
What you're seeing is two factors combined, first delta being more infectious. But delta only became widespread in many places in ~July, so solid data on how it affected infectiousness took until August or September. And second, the vaccine's effectiveness wanes over time, but again, this takes time to detect. So it is simultaneously true that in January of this year, the vaccines were in some cases 90% effective at reducing infection, but are now 40-60% effective (note that this still *halves the r0, which is significant).
And those numbers have been communicated in the mainstream media and via official channels like the CDC (although the CDC has never posted efficiency numbers: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective..., see that this was last updated in May). Perhaps you weren't paying attention though.
"this takes time to detect" -- It's almost like these vaccines were experimental from the jump despite all the protestation and insistence to the contrary.
Aside from that the main problem is that the vaccines were rendered far less effective by a variant which appeared on the scene around the same time they were being rolled out. Check out the more recent article from Nature I posted in another comment, for Pfizer it suggests a peak effectiveness against transmission of Delta of 39% which falls to 13% after 3 months. Why we are continuing to boost with these shots targeting the original wild-type spike protein is beyond me.
> "this takes time to detect" -- It's almost like these vaccines were experimental from the jump despite all the protestation and insistence to the contrary.
No more than the flu vaccine for any given year (which also wanes over time and requires boosters).
> Why we are continuing to boost with these shots targeting the original wild-type spike protein is beyond me.
They continue to have 70-95% efficacy in reducing severe (hospitalization/death) covid, which is the priority, and importantly, they can do that now without additional approvals. But both Pfizer and Moderna have delta specific boosters in clinical trials, which reduce transmission more effectively.
> No more than the flu vaccine for any given year (which also wanes over time and requires boosters).
This gaslighting is silly. Did public health officials not disclose during the initial rollout that the vaccines would wane over time because they were telling yet another noble lie, or because they simply didn't know because their effects had not yet been observed in people for that length of time?
After decades of studies on coronaviruses and vaccines they knew exactly how these vaccines would work. The alternative is incompetence. Choose one, incompetence or deliberate.
> Did public health officials not disclose during the initial rollout that the vaccines would wane over time
I mean I'm not quite sure what you're getting at discussions about the possible need for covid boosters were happening before I was able to get my first dose. (all of these are from January or February):
> because they simply didn't know because their effects had not yet been observed in people for that length of time?
You're doing a subtle rhetorical badness here. It's worth clarifying that there are two distinct things that we care about with a vaccine: efficacy and safety. Due to the vaccine mechanisms, we had and continue to have fairly high confidence that they don't have negative side effects. They're safe. So when you say "their effects", you could mean "both their efficacy and safety" or just "their efficacy". But saying
> Did public health officials not disclose during the initial rollout that the vaccines would wane over time...because they simply didn't know [they would get weaker over time]"
is far less ominous, and honestly I don't see a reason to worry about that. Especially given that they were straightforward that there might be decreases in efficacy, but that none had been seen so far. I'd appreciate it if you were precise with your complaint, because I'm having a difficult time telling if you actually have one, or if you're being vaguely contrarian.
Since we have two different types of immunity, natural and vaccine, we can compare. Natural immunity is still 99% against all variants even for those infected early with the Wuhan variant. So we have a standard that vaccine efficacy should be compared to, 99% efficacy. That´s where we see how badly these vaccines perform. If natural immunity is 99% over 18 months in, and ongoing, then vaccines are really bad in comparison.
Does anyone think it´s a coincidence? The vaccine manufacturers have studied coronaviruses and corona-vaccines for decades, it´s extremely unlikely that they didn´t know exactly how this would play out. 1-2 boosters yearly forever was the plan, and covid is the storm. Trump made the vaccines possible with operation warp speed, Fauci restarted gain of function research under his watch and the virus "escaped", and now Biden the tyrant enforces mass vaccination by excluding everyone from the economy who doesn´t comply. Biden and Trump are not enemies, they´re two vaccine salesmen working together. Welcome to the future, medical apartheid.
One of many subsequent alternate-site (but identical substantive content; just different hosts for the same study) links that have been submitted for a story that was discussed at some length before being flagged off:
Headline at odds with data. Data suggests higher Vax rate = higher Covid.
Study never had a chance to causate, so headline is propoganda.
"In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people. Notably, Israel with over 60% of their population fully vaccinated had the highest COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in the last 7 days. The lack of a meaningful association between percentage population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases is further exemplified, for instance, by comparison of Iceland and Portugal. Both countries have over 75% of their population fully vaccinated and have more COVID-19 cases per 1 million people than countries such as Vietnam and South Africa that have around 10% of their population fully vaccinated."
Their seven day measurement time window choice is a bit suspect. I'd like to see a much longer time horizon. I'd also like to see it analyzed by population density.
They chose a time window where the Northern well-vaccinated states are rising as everyone moves indoors and school starts [1]. The southern, less-vaccinated states generally were over the initial school class initial cross exposure spike.
I don't see this study as by any means the last word on the effectiveness of the vaccines, and I see that people are pointing out flaws or concerns that probably need addressing. That is normal. What is not normal is that major and life altering policy decisions are being made because "the science is settled", mainstream news outlets are editorializing about the "unvaccinated" as an evil class to be looked down on and held responsible for all our problems, and personal privacy is being invaded under the guise of how important it is "I have a right to know if the person sitting next to me is vaccinated".
It was clear from the beginning that the reaction was a religious one, so I dont expect to see anyone's mind changed, but its still not right to see the kinds of injustices that are being done in the name of something that has so much uncertainty around it.
(Even if the effectiveness was more cut and dried to still don't believe it justifies the government mandating people prove they are vaccinated wherever they go, but we're not even at point to have that debate)
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