Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Then tell me the mitigation or restriction you think New York City should have been implementing the past month to prevent what is happening to them today? You know…the mitigation that is working…?

This question is open to anyone and everyone…

There has to be some demonstrated truth that mitigations ARE working in New York City…if what I’m debating/saying is “demonstrably false!”

What am I missing?

Aamilj said:

There has to be some demonstrated truth that mitigations ARE working in New York City…if what I’m debating/saying is “demonstrably false!”

You cannot conclude that NY is proof that mitigations don't work unless you have a control group to compare it to. And unless you have another NY somewhere, identical in all ways other than their lack of mitigations, you have no such control group.

So to answer what are you missing? An elementary-level understanding of science.

What is your control group to conclude New York’s mitigations are working?

You have no such control group. We can however, observe New York is having a rough go of it…even with all their mitigations.

Funny how elementary science works both ways.

I don’t even understand the snark. It is like we are arguing religion here. I ask YOU a third time.

Tell me the mitigation or restriction you think New York City should have been implementing the past month to prevent what is happening to them today?

It is not my fault that the person or people arguing that “mitigations work” can’t provide a single example to defend their hypothesis.

You've been given countless examples, you just ignore them because you choose to be willfully ignorant.

You cannot conclude that NY is proof that mitigations don't work unless you have a control group to compare it to. And unless you have another NY somewhere, identical in all ways other than their lack of mitigations, you have no such control group.

And for future reference…this line of debating is an offshoot of the moving goalpost fallacy. You can NEVER control for EVERY variable in all but the most simple lab experiments. By this impossible standard ALL (99.99%) science falls short…and we couldn’t/wouldn’t learn a thing.

They won’t teach you, “you can’t control for all variables” until high school science though…they are called extraneous variables.

Out in the real world we can learn a lot by observing “New York versus Florida”, etc.

This is exciting news, from a small study started in late 2020, that shows potential for vaccines that target the internal proteins of all coronaviruses, not just Covid, but those that cause common colds. That would be pretty amazing if they can make it work.

djDaemon said:

I think it's equally ridiculous to argue that things should be 100% back to normal under the circumstances we find ourselves in today.

I'm not necessarily directing this at you, but using your quote to ask the next question to the room. Which is...

So when are we done? What is the endgame? When does risk become acceptable? When are we just "living with COVID"? At what point am I unable to distinguish my day-to-day from the same in 2019? What will it take for someone (anyone, all of you, one of you, some of you, you personally, whatever) to say, "Call it."

The problem is we'll all personally put that...slider...yes, I said it....in different places. (and now I'm back to the no 'correct' answer thing and wondering why I continue to do this)

All we've done for two years is tell each other where we'd put the slider, why we'd put it there and why we disagree with where others would put it. It continues to go round and round (expecting a Ratt gif reply) exactly because it's an opinion-based discussion.

We're all stupid.

If anyone else is like me and can't resist clicking on this topic but hates when they do I made a CSS rule to hide it.

tr[data-topicid="65992"] {
display: none;
}

Lord Gonchar said:

All we've done for two years is tell each other where we'd put the slider, why we'd put it there and why we disagree with where others would put it.

That's demonstrably false.

Bingo!

It continues to go round and round (expecting a Ratt gif reply) exactly because it's an opinion-based discussion.

We're all stupid.

This is true.

Demonstrably.

Lord Gonchar said:

All we've done for two years is tell each other where we'd put the slider, why we'd put it there and why we disagree with where others would put it.

Is that what the kids call it these days?

Lord Gonchar said:

When does risk become acceptable? When are we just "living with COVID"? At what point am I unable to distinguish my day-to-day from the same in 2019?

We were, at least in many places, there in the summer, but the situation is dynamic. Things have measurably changed since then, and given that we're nearing the point of people getting turned away from hospitals, I would think we wouldn't say "well, if this happened during the first year, I'd take some precautions, but due to the fact that we've exceeded an arbitrary amount of time since this all started, it doesn't make sense to do that."

In other words, I there's not one correct slider setting, but there are incorrect slider settings depending on the circumstances.

The problem all along, in my opinion only, has been that everyone wants to know when it's over, and a non-trivial number of people either didn't help get us to over, or simply ignored the reality of what's going on.

This is super annoying now, because 1) healthcare, transportation and in some cases even retail systems are failing, not necessarily because of death, but because people are out sick in record numbers and can't do the jobs. I've noticed entire sections of empty shelves at Publix, and I doubt it's because there's a run on cream cheese. And 2) no one is really being asked to do anything hard right now other than wear a mask indoors in public and stay home if you're sick. Some folks are acting like it's March 2020 when we had little good information, no vaccines, and we have to shut down the world because we don't know what else to do, presumably just so they can be outraged about something. It's exhausting.

The manifestation of what happens if we declare it over now is actually happening, because we declared it over.

djDaemon said:

In other words, I there's not one correct slider setting, but there are incorrect slider settings depending on the circumstances.

The only incorrect slider settings are ones that don't match our individual sensibilities.

In my mind it is over when the hospitals don't have to cancel elective procedures. To me they are really the key indicator. When they decide to forego revenue because of the state of things then that tells me all I really need to know. You can claim this media outlet is hyping for ratings or that politician is positioning for votes...but when a business decides that there is a greater priority than making money then we should all be collectively paying attention.

News flash: that is happening.

Omicron spreads like wildfire. In 3 weeks it choked Delta out. It has already unleashed throughout the entire country…the masked and vaccinated areas (i.e. our most vigilant areas) are among the FIRST to report they are overwhelmed.

I’ll type slower (not as snark but as sincere attempt to discern what the heck we are talking about)… The areas with the MOST “restrictions/mitigations/mask wearers/vaccinated humans/etc.” are the areas that are HARDEST HIT right now!

Now everyone seems to agree that we don’t want to go back to 2020 level restrictions…assuming those would even work NOW anyhow.

So what is the magic **insert mitigation here** that is going to stop SOME of our hospitals and stores from temporary work shortages?

I assume that everyone is talking in good faith here. But I’m simply amazed at how vague and non-specific we appear to be…

Pretend it isn’t me asking it. Take personality out of it.

What is the missing intervention that will get us out of this mess Omicron has unleashed?

What intervention worked in New York City? What intervention weren’t they doing that would/should have worked?

It seems abundantly clear to me that Omicron is quickly and easily bypassing all of our tried and true non-pharmaceutical-interventions.

Heck I was skeptical that NPI’s worked during the pre-Delta phase. Omicron has quickly removed all doubt.

The inability from ANYONE participating in this thread to specifically and succinctly state *THIS (magic intervention)* will work to thwart Omicron is eye-opening.

Why are you upset at me for stating the obvious? NPIs have not worked.

I’m sorry if that hurts feelings, But NPIs have not and are not currently working…else we wouldn’t have sick hospital workers along with an infected surrounding public in NYC. Hospitals are where the N-95’s are… The smart vaccinated people using the best NPI’s are catching the Cron.

The prior paragraph is not me being a dick. It isn’t meant as snark. It is simply the OBSERVABLE reality.

Even if you’ve championed NPI’s with all your heart up until this very moment…and STILL…against all evidence…believe NPI’s work… The simple truth is they aren’t working in NYC today. You want to kill the messenger and continue believing in unicorns…be my guest. But it isn’t the messenger’s fault that New York’s extensive non-pharmaceutical intervention policies are failing.

So what do we do besides let this thing run its course?

Should we all wear scuba gear for 3 weeks? And if scuba gear is the answer…isn’t that a bit more restrictive than 2020?

Someone has to go to work, sick or not, to prepare the food supply, treat sick people, etc. I got word, within the hour, that I am now to show up and work whether I have covid symptoms or not…. The worker shortage is obviously scarier than Cron to my bosses.

Luckily…Omicron seems to burn out as fast as it came along…so hopefully New York et al will see the worst behind them in a couple weeks so we can get back to blaming Ron Desantis and Florida…😂

Aamilj said:

So what is the magic **insert mitigation here** that is going to stop SOME of our hospitals and stores from temporary work shortages?

So, much like potential hotels in New Jersey, if there was a magical mitigation to prevent the spread of COVID, we’d already be doing it.

I haven't seen per capita numbers and I'm not trying to play gotcha...but is it possible that the hardest hit areas, and the areas with the most restrictions, also happen to be some of the most populated areas?

Lord Gonchar said:

We should all be more like Ozzy.

Somehow he has outlived Bob Saget.

wahoo skipper said:

I haven't seen per capita numbers and I'm not trying to play gotcha...but is it possible that the hardest hit areas, and the areas with the most restrictions, also happen to be some of the most populated areas?

Or is it the unvaccinated and unmasked folks in those areas who are having the big numbers? It could be that they themselves are enough to overwhelm the system.

Aamilj said:

The inability from ANYONE participating in this thread to specifically and succinctly state *THIS (magic intervention)* will work to thwart Omicron is eye-opening.

Seems like pretty black and white thinking to me.

Masks help some non-zero amount. Quarantines help some non-zero amount. Meeting people outdoors instead of indoors helps some non-zero amount. Vaccines help some much larger amount. If you really want me to google "peer reviewed mask study" just so I have something to respond to you with, I can, but I'm pretty sure you can do that yourself.