The Twitter punditry class should realize that there are too many confounders to draw the simple #Covid19 conclusions that we're seeing ad nauseum right now based on correlation. These confounders can be offsetting or compounding. Right now, they're compounding.
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Only two tend to matter to the technocratic class: vaccinations and masks. But I suspect pounding these two factors + a heavy focus on "swab positives" above most other Covid data will yield quite a bit of confusion in 4-6 weeks—and potentially increase vax hesitancy. 4/x
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Does anyone remember this past spring? Alpha raged in the UK, then made its way to our shores to mixed effect. Michigan got smacked in the teeth, and other Mid-Atlantic/Northeast/Upper Midwest states took a harder hit than the southern states. 5/x
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Vaccinations were still comparatively low, but the states getting hit had masking requirements and "good" behavior on their side. This is the effect of offsetting confounders though. Seasonality/regional differences & infection naivety hurt more than other factors helped. 6/x
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If cases in the southern states decline throughout September despite a largely open, mask-free school existence and lower vax numbers and we instead see an increase that starts in the upper Midwest, then Midwest and Northeast like last year...then what? 7/x
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Covid + summer + southern = trouble. It was trouble last summer. Most expected some level of trouble this summer, but Delta put it on steroids. Low vax & poorer health add to the trouble. But what if Covid + northern + autumn = trouble regardless of offsetting factors? 8/x
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That's the kind of trouble that will move the political/media/Twitter discourse from garbage to absolute dumpster fire in a heartbeat. I don't want that. So I'd love to see us pivot on a couple things... 9/x
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Move from "swab positives" to outcomes. Don't blast every semi-notable person who has a PCR-positive test. Get back to not mass testing all asymptomatic people, especially those vaccinated or who know/show prior infection. 10/x
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I've put off work long enough today, so I can't get as fine-grained as I'd like to regarding cloth masks (esp. for kids) and outdoors and vaccination passports and prior infection and decency and medical treatment of unvaccinated and a bunch of other shit that's on my mind. 11/x
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But the upshot at this point probably should be something like: vaccination protects you from the worst outcomes on your path to (almost certainly) getting infected with this endemic virus, for which you will not be made to feel like a failure or bad person no matter what. 12/x
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Can you take over Dr Fauci’s job please?
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