Things that went whizzing by that I want to remember: First: We are a half-vaxxed country. And a country that looks like it is going to stay half-vaxxed: there is just too much money to be made by media grifters and too much political hay to be made by right-wing politicians seeking to win the Trump base for vaccination rates in the country as a whole to get above 50% before the Delta Variant sweeps through. This is a catastrophe...
My Central valley county's public health doctor at the end of last week was interviewed and said it looks like there will be no surge of cases in the county. Yet just a day later, bay Area and a neighboring county all declared masking up requirements. I don't know if this is wilful stupidity or not.
California (and I assume the US) is looking purely inward and in the mirror. The UK is the country to watch - higher vax rate, more compliance with government orders, yet the infection rate is already approaching the last winter's rates, and "freedom day" starts tomorrow on the 19th. The scientists are saying this is a highly risky move....
While the hospitalizations and deaths are largely disconnected from the previous wave, this looks to me due to a different demographic - it is largely younger people getting infected now. But they are subject to "Long Covid".
Lastly, even if the vaccinated are largely safe from the current variants, there is no reason to assume that this situation will continue. The unvaccinated populations are a Petri-dish for new variants to emerge, which may make the vaccine far less effective. Pfizer is already pushing for a 3rd jab. I suppose a new deadly variant can be sequenced and a new vaccine made very quickly, but having to go through the whole rigamarole of mass vaccine centers will be tedious, to say the least. Do we want to be doing this every 6 months or so?
I think we may be in for a "phony peace" regarding the virus and that it is possible we might be experiencing "war" by late fall, and winter. Just as with the Spanish Flu, the economic agents have again won the battle with public health agents. Worse, there are "leaders" intent on ensuring that public health measures are minimized or ignored for the "protection of the economy". [The conflicting articles on remote vs office work look like part of this campaign to me.) The result will be no protection and a longer-term decline in business profits.
Is it any wonder why we are likely to succumb to the greater existential threat of global heating?
[@Graydon - I am already reading about agriculture being unsustainable. I may have to correct my Pollyanna-ish view on this after all.]
I think Brads thinking is missing a couple of important details/effects, although I am in roaring agreement with his excoriation of the Risk to Me is the only thing that matters ethic.
(1) Transmission efficacy is not a single number, at a minimum we should use four R values.
Rvv is the number of new cases a new infection would create if he/she were surrounded only
by vaccinated people. Clearly Rvv is pretty low, most likely below one. Then Rvn would be
the number of new infections if the vaccinated infected person were surrounded only by
unvaccinated. This is very likely much lower than Rnn, which is the the number of new infections from an initial unvaxed infected surrounded only by other unvaxed people. This is Brad's R, to which he assigns the value of 8. Finally there is Rnv, how many new infections would be caused
by a single unvaxed infection surrounded by vaxed people only. If we take the efficacy number of .64 from Israel as correct, then a first guess for Rnv would be .36*Rnn or 3. I don't know of any data that can be used to pin down Rvn or Rvv, however they are likely lower still.
(2) There is somewhat of an adaptive response -as infections spread and people become more aware of the danger they are more likely to take preventive measures -more social distancing and/or getting the vaccine. This adaptive response, to the extent that is real damps out the effect of the initial infection as time goes by. Now I heard a report that in Southwest Missouri, an epicenter of the growing Delta wave, a church sponsored vax clinic got something like 150 vaxed in one day, so the combination of fear and a trusted messenger can make a sizable dent in
vaccine-hesitancy.
So, there is reason to hope, that things aren't quite as dire as Brad's picture, nevertheless the almost complete absence of appeals to systems thinking is more than depressing. I have been surprised by the extent that smart well-meaning people have been surprised when I make the argument to them. This is undoubtedly caused by the almost complete absence of the argument in public discussion. I think officials are afraid that the argument would fall on deaf ears, so make an argument solely on self risk.
Why do we assume that the unvaccinated are all ignorant, selfish anti-vaxxers? What's the economic class distribution in the Red states? Do we imagine the unvaccinated poor are the aggressive political rebels or the victims of not so benign governmental neglect?
I think you're missing something important about the response to COVID-19 and vaccination.
We are not going back to the status quo ante pestis; 2020 is a year which divides all human history, much as 1912 does. (The year the Royal Navy went to all-oil propulsion as a policy.)
If we -- collectively, in the public square -- admit it; that there is absolutely no recoverable normal, that all of us old enough to remember the last years of the Holocene are going to go forward into a future where we are strangers to every place, for every place has become strange, then the question of "what should the future look like?" gets asked, as it must be asked.
The "everything is normal normal normal" vaccination falsehood is the panic of people who (mostly) absolutely know better but, obviously and evidently, fear death less than they fear the future.
The experiment has been done; the mammonist policy of "live with it", "protect the economy", "bulldoze the corpses", costs more in purely mammonite terms than the more humane "extirpate it" policy. If that doesn't falsify mammonism (of course it doesn't) you have to admit that you're ruled by an apocalyptic death cult which absolutely wants you to die. (Arguably, wants you to suffer eternally.)
The people not getting vaccinated are doing it out of allegiance to a thing. That thing is not Donald Trump; that thing is not, precisely, the Republican Party. Donald Trump didn't take over the GOP; white evangelicals took over the GOP. They were just willing to accept Trump as a messiah.
Much as modern Christianity became an imperial religion post-Constantine and became something unrecognizable to its prior existence (this has happened repeatedly; Charlemagne, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, the British Empire, and the American Empire missionary culture in the mid-20th are all previous examples), American Evangelicalism is a further imperial reimagining, only instead of a discernable state it's about the necessary and inescapable rule of white americans, over everything, forever.
They think that includes viruses; they are determined that it must include viruses. One or two facts admitted and the whole edifice collapses.
Some combination of addressing the (admittedly terrifying) future combined with a relentless introduction of facts will do fine as policy. Feels make terrible policy; much regard for the feels of the people doing their dead level best to sacrifice you to some god as is not yours would seem to approximate an entire madness.
Wilful stupidity continues.
My Central valley county's public health doctor at the end of last week was interviewed and said it looks like there will be no surge of cases in the county. Yet just a day later, bay Area and a neighboring county all declared masking up requirements. I don't know if this is wilful stupidity or not.
California (and I assume the US) is looking purely inward and in the mirror. The UK is the country to watch - higher vax rate, more compliance with government orders, yet the infection rate is already approaching the last winter's rates, and "freedom day" starts tomorrow on the 19th. The scientists are saying this is a highly risky move....
While the hospitalizations and deaths are largely disconnected from the previous wave, this looks to me due to a different demographic - it is largely younger people getting infected now. But they are subject to "Long Covid".
Lastly, even if the vaccinated are largely safe from the current variants, there is no reason to assume that this situation will continue. The unvaccinated populations are a Petri-dish for new variants to emerge, which may make the vaccine far less effective. Pfizer is already pushing for a 3rd jab. I suppose a new deadly variant can be sequenced and a new vaccine made very quickly, but having to go through the whole rigamarole of mass vaccine centers will be tedious, to say the least. Do we want to be doing this every 6 months or so?
I think we may be in for a "phony peace" regarding the virus and that it is possible we might be experiencing "war" by late fall, and winter. Just as with the Spanish Flu, the economic agents have again won the battle with public health agents. Worse, there are "leaders" intent on ensuring that public health measures are minimized or ignored for the "protection of the economy". [The conflicting articles on remote vs office work look like part of this campaign to me.) The result will be no protection and a longer-term decline in business profits.
Is it any wonder why we are likely to succumb to the greater existential threat of global heating?
[@Graydon - I am already reading about agriculture being unsustainable. I may have to correct my Pollyanna-ish view on this after all.]
I think Brads thinking is missing a couple of important details/effects, although I am in roaring agreement with his excoriation of the Risk to Me is the only thing that matters ethic.
(1) Transmission efficacy is not a single number, at a minimum we should use four R values.
Rvv is the number of new cases a new infection would create if he/she were surrounded only
by vaccinated people. Clearly Rvv is pretty low, most likely below one. Then Rvn would be
the number of new infections if the vaccinated infected person were surrounded only by
unvaccinated. This is very likely much lower than Rnn, which is the the number of new infections from an initial unvaxed infected surrounded only by other unvaxed people. This is Brad's R, to which he assigns the value of 8. Finally there is Rnv, how many new infections would be caused
by a single unvaxed infection surrounded by vaxed people only. If we take the efficacy number of .64 from Israel as correct, then a first guess for Rnv would be .36*Rnn or 3. I don't know of any data that can be used to pin down Rvn or Rvv, however they are likely lower still.
(2) There is somewhat of an adaptive response -as infections spread and people become more aware of the danger they are more likely to take preventive measures -more social distancing and/or getting the vaccine. This adaptive response, to the extent that is real damps out the effect of the initial infection as time goes by. Now I heard a report that in Southwest Missouri, an epicenter of the growing Delta wave, a church sponsored vax clinic got something like 150 vaxed in one day, so the combination of fear and a trusted messenger can make a sizable dent in
vaccine-hesitancy.
So, there is reason to hope, that things aren't quite as dire as Brad's picture, nevertheless the almost complete absence of appeals to systems thinking is more than depressing. I have been surprised by the extent that smart well-meaning people have been surprised when I make the argument to them. This is undoubtedly caused by the almost complete absence of the argument in public discussion. I think officials are afraid that the argument would fall on deaf ears, so make an argument solely on self risk.
Why do we assume that the unvaccinated are all ignorant, selfish anti-vaxxers? What's the economic class distribution in the Red states? Do we imagine the unvaccinated poor are the aggressive political rebels or the victims of not so benign governmental neglect?
I think you're missing something important about the response to COVID-19 and vaccination.
We are not going back to the status quo ante pestis; 2020 is a year which divides all human history, much as 1912 does. (The year the Royal Navy went to all-oil propulsion as a policy.)
If we -- collectively, in the public square -- admit it; that there is absolutely no recoverable normal, that all of us old enough to remember the last years of the Holocene are going to go forward into a future where we are strangers to every place, for every place has become strange, then the question of "what should the future look like?" gets asked, as it must be asked.
The "everything is normal normal normal" vaccination falsehood is the panic of people who (mostly) absolutely know better but, obviously and evidently, fear death less than they fear the future.
The experiment has been done; the mammonist policy of "live with it", "protect the economy", "bulldoze the corpses", costs more in purely mammonite terms than the more humane "extirpate it" policy. If that doesn't falsify mammonism (of course it doesn't) you have to admit that you're ruled by an apocalyptic death cult which absolutely wants you to die. (Arguably, wants you to suffer eternally.)
The people not getting vaccinated are doing it out of allegiance to a thing. That thing is not Donald Trump; that thing is not, precisely, the Republican Party. Donald Trump didn't take over the GOP; white evangelicals took over the GOP. They were just willing to accept Trump as a messiah.
Much as modern Christianity became an imperial religion post-Constantine and became something unrecognizable to its prior existence (this has happened repeatedly; Charlemagne, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, the British Empire, and the American Empire missionary culture in the mid-20th are all previous examples), American Evangelicalism is a further imperial reimagining, only instead of a discernable state it's about the necessary and inescapable rule of white americans, over everything, forever.
They think that includes viruses; they are determined that it must include viruses. One or two facts admitted and the whole edifice collapses.
Some combination of addressing the (admittedly terrifying) future combined with a relentless introduction of facts will do fine as policy. Feels make terrible policy; much regard for the feels of the people doing their dead level best to sacrifice you to some god as is not yours would seem to approximate an entire madness.