Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

I've been noodling around on this since you posted it, and while it's undoubtedly true that some people paid with their lives for not being boosted, I don't think the good doctor's case is that strong. If you assume that the two states had boosted exactly the same proportions of people in the especially vulnerable age brackets, Florida's "per capita" death rate would nevertheless have been 30%-ish higher. The combination of the states' different age profiles* and the striking difference in how Covid hits the different age groups ... per the CDC a boosted 65+ person is still more than 2X as likely to die as a completely unvaccinated 18-49YO ... overwhelms his "See! Florida! Boosters!" case.

*I had to do some ciphering to get the age brackets to work, but California's about 15% heavier in the 18-49 bracket and Florida's about 42% heavier in the 65+ bracket.

 

Yeah, he basically acknowledged the "Yeah, Florida does have an older population" elephant in the room so he couldn't be accused of ignoring it . . . and then he basically ignored it.

For all of the blaming and hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing and Governor So-and-So's a killer and restrictions and crappy cloth masks and everything . . . we're a nation of 330 million humans who, when you get down to it, basically behave the same way. Some do window dressing to make themselves feel better; some avoid it. Everybody "cheats" vis a vis living the most COVID-avoidance life possible. Just like everybody cheats vis a vis living the most healthy life possible in other ways.

Bottom line: In a diverse, sizable nation like this with 300+ international points of entry, you can science your way out of these things, but you really can't behave your way out of them. Not unless you're truly prepared for an honest-to-goodness shelter-in-place or Boy in the Plastic Bubble existence. Other than that, do what YOU feel is necessary for YOU, and quit worrying what Bubba in Trumpistan County is doing.

 

Understood. I think his tweets acknowledge the imprecision of the comparison, and are sort of looking to explain the sentence I bolded above. What number of deaths did that 11% discrepancy in boosted elderly contribute?

 

Some number greater than 0. Not exactly the stuff of "Twitter Stunner!"

His thread is a great example of the kind of Science-by-Twitter that irritates the shit out of me. He says that "Florida is older, but that's not the full explanation!" which is undoubtedly true. Then again, hardly anything is ever the full explanation. But in the Journal of Science-by-Twitter, the ne-plus-ultra mic drop is when the factor that explains 95% of some difference is casually dismissed so we can focus on some other factor that may, just may, account for a significant proportion of the remaining 5%!

P.S. The discrepancy is actually more substantial than 11%. If Florida is at 59% boosted and California is at 70%, Florida's vulnerable population is, proportionally speaking, 36.67% larger.

 

Lots of follow up along these lines on the original Twitter thread, too.

 

Another contentious issue here:

Do masks really harm kids? Here's what the science says.

 

Queen Elizabeth II tests positive for COVID-19, Buckingham Palace announces

Buckingham Palace has announced that the 95-year-old monarch tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing “mild cold-like symptoms.” She is expected to continue “light duties at Windsor over the coming week,” according to the palace’s official statement.

 

“She queens … and vacuums.”

 

Look up the definition of 'queening".

 

Just saw this, too:

The COVID Strategy America Hasn’t Really Tried

The unvaccinated elderly have been dying at incredibly high rates, but even the vaccinated and unboosted elderly are still dying of COVID at four times the rate of unvaccinated adults under 49.

* * *

“Our vaccination rates, as well as booster use, in people aged 60- or 65-plus are woefully low and expose a tremendous amount of vulnerability to severe disease, hospitalizations, and deaths,” says Eric Topol, the director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “This has been one of the most serious disappointments in our performance.”

 

I translate the whole thing as “Florida looks worse than California even with age adjustments and I think Florida is worse than California, but this is a newsletter and not a full-on story, so I’m not going to invest any more time in proving my supposition.”

 

Given the energy California has spent trying to fend off COVID and the, uh, lack of energy displayed by Florida, the difference in the two states should be Bears-Patriots SB XX. Instead, it's Chiefs-Broncos Divisional round.