COVID Get Vaccinated Against the Covid Delta Variant

[fresh_42]

I cleaned up the thread in the sense that I deleted what could be seen as politics (on both sides), and the responses on deleted posts, as well as insufficiently referenced posts.

The problem is the following:

With my mentor's hat on, mentioning that vaccine hesitancy is pure insanity is not against forum rules. Discussing political reasons why is.

Unfortunately, it says that in practice stating the statistic is allowed, but almost certain every follow-up post is forbidden. Each time someone quotes a statistic, they show us apparently(!) a correlation, implicitly claim causation and suggest to follow their political view on it.

A statistic alone says nothing at all. It doesn't even prove correlation. I am aware that this is mainly due to the subject Covid, but we are in a technical forum, so statistical evidence is not automatically scientific evidence.

Please think about this when I re-open the thread.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I see my post has been removed - I was likely researching it while you were typing.

It's certainly true that correlation doesn't prove causation. I think I posted a clear test (well, as clear as you get in the social sciences) to whether there is even correlation. Obviously the right thing to do is a Principal Component Analysis of all 3000 counties in the US.

That said, the state to state vaccination rate varies by about 50%. The age (among adults) variation is almost a factor of 2. The racial differences are also a factor of 2. Focusing on state vaccination rates and inferring things about our political tribe and their opponents while ignoring larger variations across other variables is not science.

 

[fresh_42]

I see my post has been removed

I established a personal moderation rule. One report with the heading "politics" is the usual suspects complaining, two reports with the heading "politics" count.

I have done a lot of deletions today. None of which I would have deleted by my own judgment. Believe it or not, but I made a politics test prior to our recent general elections, and the outcome was: libertarian. So any censorship is deeply against my political opinion. But as soon as someone shouts "politics" I have no options left.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

Pure insanity.

Yep. Alabama has some major issues going on. Imagine running PCR for COVID-19 for 70 hours a week for weeks during a surge and witnessing verbal altercations occur between coworkers on both sides on a frequent basis. People cannot even understand the situation when the proof is literally in their faces daily. Even when they are close to swimming in specimens of it, they still make the decision to get emotional about someone telling them what to do and refuse to even listen to what’s being said. I have had a heck of a time getting my family vaccinated. This surge has had me alarmed and seems worse than last year. It’s difficult to predict whether it will take another surge upwards, maintain, or level down for a longer period. I’m very worried about people around me.

When I went to my daughters open house at the beginning of this surge, most of the other parents were not wearing masks. Some teachers had theirs pulled down under their nose. One teacher felt compelled to give me a long opinionated speech against vaccinations, when I just wanted information about the school. Mind-blowing.

Many companies are taking drastic measures in response. Many people have been terminated for it already. An AT & T repairman was in my home the other day and told me that he has a short period of time to get vaccinated or else he will be terminated. Is this happening in the other states? People are also going around with the same strawman on their backs; seemingly, waiting to parrot this same old rehearsed speech to anyone they suspect may have been vaccinated. One look at them and they start whining and winding up to work their way up to the speech. They’ll start it at stations, grocery stores, anywhere. They especially love to find an agreeable party to loudly start the speech with so that the outlier knows to shut up. “I got my backpack on today man, I’m feeling it, let’s start the show for this person who is probably vaccinated.” I observe this same behavior repeatedly. It’s ridiculous. Ready to argue and fight with anyone who they even think may have decided to vaccinate themselves. I have had people blow up at me with the craziest accusations. Had this one guy, who owns numerous companies in healthcare, straight out tell me that I was horrible for “putting money in a felons pocket” and demanded to know why I chose to “take a drug” that caused harmful mutations in my DNA. I must not care about my health. Then he disappeared. These are the kinds of accusations and reasons flying around. Not facts, they aren’t reasonable enough to them. They have actual information in their minds already about people they know or indirectly know dying from it and even that isn’t reason to them. It doesn’t occur to them that the reason most people want everyone vaccinationed is because they care about them. If people didn’t care then they wouldn’t be worried about them getting vaccinated. It’s like there’s a sort of default defensive reaction that occurs and science cannot reason against it nor can concern and care.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I'm not complaining about removal. Just stating a fact.

I may have also quoted a more "political" message as well. But I wanted to make the point that focusing on state vaccination rates and inferring things about our political tribe and their opponents while ignoring larger variations across other variables is not science.

 

[PeroK]

I'm not complaining about removal. Just stating a fact.

I may have also quoted a more "political" message as well. But I wanted to make the point that focusing on state vaccination rates and inferring things about our political tribe and their opponents while ignoring larger variations across other variables is not science.

The difficulty is that no particular political position can be justified scientifically. There's too much data that can be interpreted in too many ways. Otherwise, almost everyone scientifically minded would come to the same political conclusions. We don't. In many cases, we come to diametrically opposite conclusions about the way our societies should be run.

You may think you can prove your position scientifically, but someone of the opposite political persuasion is going to believe they can see the flaws in your argument before you have even begun. And, inevitably, they may produce data that appears to contradict your position.

Scientific consensus can be established by scientifically mature thinking, but no such political consensus is possible. That's why we need to avoid this whole line of debate.

 

[pinball1970]

Delta cases in UK are still high and the roll out to school kids has just got going.
The below is not helpful
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...news/anti-vax-protesters-target-kids-21801183

 

[Vanadium 50]

You may think you can prove your position scientifically, but someone of the opposite political persuasion is going to believe they can see the flaws in your argument before you have even begun. And, inevitably, they may produce data that appears to contradict your position.

Actually, while I think that's exactly what will happen, I don't think it's sound scientific thinking.

If one has the hypothesis that A is the primary cause of B, this should be at some level scale invariant. If I demonstrate a correlation (a necessary but not sufficient condition for causation) when I break down the population by US State, I should also see it if I break it down by county or congressional district (the advantage here is that they are closer in size than counties) or some other variable.

 

[PeroK]

Actually, while I think that's exactly what will happen, I don't think it's sound scientific thinking.

If one has the hypothesis that A is the primary cause of B, this should be at some level scale invariant. If I demonstrate a correlation (a necessary but not sufficient condition for causation) when I break down the population by US State, I should also see it if I break it down by county or congressional district (the advantage here is that they are closer in size than counties) or some other variable.

If you were to produce some reliable data that related, say, vaccination status with voting at the previous round of elections, then that would be interesting and, in itself, apolitical.

I had a quick look for data and the two sources I found claim that 88% and 90% of Democrats have been vaccinated against 55% and 58% of Republicans. These are from August and October.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/me...demographic-breakdown-vaccinated-u-s-n1277514

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixg...liation-matters-more-than-race-and-ethnicity/

I can't vouch for the reliability of either source, but that's what I found.

 

[phinds]

Delta cases in UK are still high and the roll out to school kids has just got going.
The below is not helpful
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...news/anti-vax-protesters-target-kids-21801183

We've had the same thing here in the US. Protesters have LOUDLY shouted in parents' faces that they were guilty of child abuse for having their kids wearing masks on their way to school.

 

[Vanadium 50]

If you were to produce some reliable data that related, say, vaccination status with voting at the previous round of elections, then that would be interesting and, in itself, apolitical.

I did.
It was pulled. Apparently, not because it was wrong, but because it continued in a direction the Mentors didn't want it to go.
I'm not reposting it.

 

[fresh_42]

It was pulled. Apparently, not because it was wrong, but because it continued in a direction the Mentors didn't want it to go.

The readers of this thread, the readers, not the mentors! (2 reports claiming "politics".)

 

[Vanadium 50]

I'm still not reposting it.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Actually, while I think that's exactly what will happen, I don't think it's sound scientific thinking.

If one has the hypothesis that A is the primary cause of B, this should be at some level scale invariant. If I demonstrate a correlation (a necessary but not sufficient condition for causation) when I break down the population by US State, I should also see it if I break it down by county or congressional district (the advantage here is that they are closer in size than counties) or some other variable.

This view ignores the fact that the federalist system of the US places a lot of control over these measures into the hands of governors and state legislatures (especially because in many cases state governments have been able to override or limit local regulations). Blue congressional districts within red states will be different from blue congressional districts in blue states because they have different state-level policies and regulations governing them. For example, many blue vs red states have different regulations regarding vaccine mandates (e.g. at public schools and universities) and allocate different amounts of funding and effort to promote vaccination.

 

[Vanadium 50]

This view ignores the fact

If B is an attitude ("vaccine reluctance" or its converse) it is hard to see how differences in policies dominantly driver this.

 

[russ_watters]

Closed for additional moderation...

 

[berkeman]

After a Mentor discussion and some cleanup, the thread will stay closed. Thanks for a useful discussion, folks.