On Fri, 29 May 2020 21:58:39 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Fri, 29 May 2020 20:42:32 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Fri, 29 May 2020 12:56:00 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 5/28/2020 8:32 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 28 May 2020 15:40:36 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/28/2020 3:00 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
AMuzi writes:

On 5/27/2020 7:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:42:30 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/27/2020 11:29 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/27/2020 11:42 AM, wrote:
On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 7:17:19 PM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 15:18:53 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 10:46:36 AM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 08:30:38 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

I have a very low respect for doctors because so few
of them
want to be competent. Top of the list in that category
is Dr. Fauci
of the CDC who has continually acted an expert at
things he knows
very little about.

Dr Fauci has been director of the NIAID (National
Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases) since 1984. He does NOT work
for the CDC.
NIAID is part of the NIH (National Institute of
Health). He's has
been involved with controlling several previous
epidemics, which I
presume qualifies as experience:
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/anthony-s-fauci-md-bio
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/niaid-history

Can you provide the name of someone in the US who is
better qualified
to discuss pandemics than Dr Fauci?

There is a place for those who sit around, think and
read papers.
I do not deny Fauci that much. But he is not working in
the real world
as many other epidemiologists are and they often
interview them on
FOX and they ALL say what I've been saying. There isn't
much you can
do about a pandemic with a linear growth rate.

I see. You want to be advised on how to protect yourself
from a viral
epidemic by an epidemiologist via Fox News. I don't
think that's what
you intended to say, but that's what you wrote. You also
seem to have
changed your position on Dr Fauci from:

"Dr. Fauci of the CDC(sic) who has continually acted an
expert at things he knows very little about."

to:

"I do not deny Fauci that much."

That's quite a change from calling the leading expert on
infectious
diseases in the US an incompetent, to not denying him
something you
didn't bother to specify. Of course, you're entitled to
have an
opinion about anyone and anything, but I'm also entitled
to discount
your opinion as rubbish. Anyway, kindly stabilize your
opinion about
Dr Fauci. If it's critical, please provide the name of
someone in the
US that is equally or more qualified to advise on how to
handle a
pandemic. Incidentally, I could probably provide some
names in China
that are substantially more qualified and equally
experienced, but
such experts would not be considered as candidates for
advising our
president, who knows more than any or all of them,
Here's one
candidate that might have qualified had he not resigned
for having is
bureau eliminated by the Trump administration:
"A top pandemic expert is leaving the Trump
administration amid the
coronavirus crisis"
https://www.businessinsider.com/top-pandemic-expert-leaving-the-trump-administration-amid-coronavirus-2020-5



No bicycle related content this time. Sorry(tm).

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

The leading expert? Jeff, that is about the most foolish
thing that you could say. Fauci is NOT an expert. Sitting
around in hallowed halls of government does NOT make you
an expert. The epidemiologists in the field say the
opposite and that you like some sort of moron deny that
they know anything for the simple reason that they are
interviewed on FOX shows that you are nothing more than
some stupid biased punk.

Your homework, Tom:

!) Find or assemble a CV for Dr. Anthony Fauci. I say that
because you obviously know very, very little about him.

2) Find or assemble a CV for the guy you allude to whom Faux
News managed to dig up.

Analyze and compare those to prove to us that your guy with
his predictable complaints is more qualified than Fauci.

We'll even give bonus points for a little more work:

3) Give us your own CV. Show us why we should listen to your
opinions on epidemiology... and history, genetics, theology,
ballistics, human anatomy, politics, engineering, medicine,
sociology, geology, meteorology, technology, etc. You know -
all the other things about which you, as a high school
dropout, claim to be much smarter than hundreds of trained,
experienced, and recognized experts.


Fauci is probably a successful agency administrator and
political survivor who knows something but surely not
everything. Dr John Ionnidis who's no slouch in the area has
different opinions but gets no media traction:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ge-establishm/

And yet, countries that did institute a lock down, in a timely manner,
have noticeably lower cases and deaths.
(please note the phrase "timely manner")


Italy did and lost many. Japan did not and lost few.
Sweden is not out of line to her neighbors and yet still has some GDP
remaining.

There's no correlation. You can imply one as you will but it's not
clear at all that such relationship exists.

You might like this article from the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0

They show excess mortality statistics for countries where they are
available, and plot versus infections per million on "lockdown day". In
the absence of a legal lockdown, they use the day when transit usage
fell to 50% of pre-pandemic levels. It's not clear to me how comparable
the "infections per million" figures are, given the wide variation of
testing capabilities over space and time.

They claim to find a correlation between early lockdown and lower excess
deaths, but their points are very widely scattered.

Spain comes off worst in excess mortality, followed by the UK, and then
Italy.

Food for thought:
https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0


Regarding testing, I read a report yesterday interviewing
RNs who have tested both positive and negative on different
days, back and forth, for weeks.

I don't know but I'm reasonably certain that any conclusion
based on large population testing is inaccurate.

BTW I'm not disagreeing with you generally, just stopping
short of accepting ratios dependent on current testing.

I have read several news articles stating that some of the testing
does not give accurate results.
https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...u-have-illness
https://abc7.com/covid-19-coronaviru...-core/6112137/
https://www.11alive.com/article/news...4-2297526c0cc0

Yes, as at least one of the articles stated, all lab tests give some
false positives and some false negatives. And interpreting those
results can be mathematically surprising, as the computation known as
Bayes Theorem shows. The less common the disease, the weirder the
math.

Accuracy of the tests is the least of the problem; the big issue is
sampling bias. As far as I can tell, in the US only people that go out
of their way to be tested are -- this is not a random sample at all, and
not representative of the population. There have been a few studies
that tried to sample deliberately, eg on all residents of a Boston
homeless shelter. That one showed a very high number of asymptomatic
cases.


This article has an example:
https://math.hmc.edu/funfacts/medica...bayes-theorem/

But from what I read the U.S. has conducted nearly 17 million tests,
at least 4 times that of any other country except Russia.

Was it all a waste of time and money?

Depends on what you want to do. If you want a good estimate of the
proportion of the total population that is infected, then yes, mostly a
waste of time and money.

Oh! and I thought that the U.S. was, well, bragging about all the
tests. More than any other country in the world.

Here (Thailand) they will only test those who exhibit some symptoms of
the disease. Elevated temperature usually.

In either Thailand or the US estimating the total number of cases is not
the first object of testing.

I don't know about the U.S. but here is used to determine whether you
will be admitted to the hospital.
--
cheers,

John B.