@Pat Looks like that article is from 2020. It's far from succesful nowadays. Kinda funny how that turns out.
What's the current infection rate and death rate in China? What's the death rate in the US and Europe? How many people have died in total in China versus other countries? Who is more free to go where they want, a Chinese citizen living in a relatively virus-free country, or someone in the US who can't walk across the room without losing their breath?
How do you measure success?
🇳🇱
As a pro statistician I can say this is a very common failing people apply to tons of subjects... You can **not** compare absolute rates between countries and presume it is the result of a policy, thats considered invalid analysis.
When we analyze policy we look at the rate of change in the background incident rate immediately following a change in policy. You must compare the country to itself at an earlier period before the policy was adopted. It is the only way to reasonably hold most other factors constant.
@Pat @freemo @trinsec Not easy to take a stance here - it would take quite some time to get enough information.
I know nothing about the relevant factors.
What disappoints me, really, is that our gouvernment in germany does not even try.
They took the bad part of china at times, with curfews (that i still have not heard any reasonable explanation about in how that would be helpful), but now just... give up.
A bit of masking indoors, maybe invest in some tech for hotspots like schools for distance learning (haha, as if they would invest in schools ever). Testing is not perfect, but can help some.
They do none of that anymore. 100% populism, no regard for scientific recommendations.
Weather, genetics, access to water, food, nutrition, physical fitness of the population, age distributions, insularity, there are hundreds if not thousands of factors.
More over it is the factors we dont know.. there is a raeson experts in tthe field do it the way they do and reject the analysis approach you did.. just because you cant think of the hidden confounding variables doesnt mean they arent there.
The quality studies on the effectiveness of respirators show that they are more effective than the vaccine. And unless you have evidence for transmission via some quantum nonlocality mechinism, isolation prevents spread of the disease. Those techniques are proven effective. China used them, we didn't. And the results show it.
@Pat I never made any claim in this thread that respirators **arent** effective... or even that japan didnt make good choices... all im saying is the evidence you presented to back this up is invalid.. perhaps good evidence would support your conclusion though.
You're right, I'm not a statistician. What set me off on all this is an interview that Dr. Jha did on ABC's This Week (he's the guy currently heading the US response to the pandemic). So, in this interview, the guy running the group that is responsible for more than a million dead Americans, says that China (who's death rate <1% of the US rate) is doing it wrong. These people are evil, absolute evil.
There may be some validity to that depending on how you look at it. But I'd have to do more research to say.
Generally when you use masks excessively for any disease the number of cases go down but the mortality rate goes up, particularly over the long term. In fact if you wear respirators too much or are excessive about wiping germs you have a much higher chance of autoimmune disorders too.
So it is reasonable to think china may have fewer overall cases, but more people are dying either directly of COVID or of developed auto immune diseases.
I know off hand the morality rate of covid in China is twice that of the USA, without a proper study I cant say what the real death toll is, but there is enough to suggest there may be some validity here, MAYBE... need to see a proper study.
@admitsWrongIfProven
excess mortality is much harder to measure and is very case specific. No what i mean is the chance of you dying directly from the disease, if all else remains the same, is higher from excessive mask usage over time.
Obviously this is an over simplification and the actual details are rather complex. But when you have a disease like covid that mutates rapidly and has a limited period of immunity, and when you have vaccines that are many generations behind (and really cant keep up due to mutation rate).. then yea, masks lead to a better chance youll die.
The reasoning makes sense when you think about it.. If you take the 1st gen vaccine, then dont wear a mask, you are constantly exposed to the virus and its mutations.. so you are constantly catching the virus but you are also constantly asymptomatic since your natural defenses are constantly being exposed and learning.
@Pat