46th President of the United States, Joe Biden

[rscott]

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

Oh bugger off with your bad faith nonsense.

We disagree that case numbers are a valid comparator because for some reason you are desperate for California to have done the 'right' thing and Florida the 'wrong' thing. Almost certainly because in your mind democrat good and republican bad. The death figures don't support you, so you have to cling on to something else.

Death rates alone don't tell you much about how well a state is dealing with it though. They're influenced by the by infection rates, population demographics and quality of care.

[rscott]

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

paulguitar said:

Senate bill has been passed.

Good proof the system can work; finely balanced votes on each side meaning bills get proper scrutiny rather than rammed through irrespective. Doesn't appear to have been blocked in the way others suggested was likely.

Apart from the 11 hours wasted by having the entire bill read out you mean? That had zero impact on the debate/amendments and was just a stupid, childish gesture by a Republican.

[HM-2]

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

Oh bugger off with your bad faith nonsense.

If you don't want to get accused of discussing in bad faith, don't pen a response that's clearly a product of not fking reading my post. It's not rocket science.

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

We disagree that case numbers are a valid comparator because for some reason you are desperate for California to have done the 'right' thing and Florida the 'wrong' thing.

So what you're actually saying here is no, you don't actually have the data that's required to make a determination as to whether they constitute viable points of comparison, but you're going to assert they don't because it's convenient for your arguments to do so.

I have used current infection rate data to show that Florida currently reports a little under double the infections per 100,000 of California. If you have data that indicates that comparison is not a valid one because of significant differences in either methodology or tests administered per capita, then cite it and I will happily concede that it doesn't provide a good point of comparison. Until then, your pleading that it's "useless" holds no merit.

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

The death figures don't support you

Which I readily acknowledge, but also point out poses its own challenges from the perspective of determining impact of Covid-19 from other factors. Unlike you, I'm not asserting one is valid and the other invalid based on zero presented evidence.

[anonymous-user]

rscott said:

Apart from the 11 hours wasted by having the entire bill read out you mean? That had zero impact on the debate/amendments and was just a stupid, childish gesture by a Republican

And if it was roles reversed you'd be saying it was important the Dems properly scrutinised it.

If you're complaining that Republicans are wasting valuable Senate time, they could have had more time to look at this if the Dems hadn't wasted days on a vengeance motivated impeachment that was doomed to fail and achieved pricisely nothing.

[JeffreyD]

Interesting that every single republican voted against it.

What's in there that they object to on such a fundamental level?

[Noah EV]

Letitia James, New York AG, gunning for Trumpy Trump and Cuomo.

Go get em, ma'am!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/06/le...

[Crafty_]

JeffreyD said:

Interesting that every single republican voted against it.

What's in there that they object to on such a fundamental level?

It helps americans, not them.

[gumshoe]

HM-2 said:

gumshoe said:

Ok great to see someone backing up their assertions. Might have been more helpful to do that before assuredly claiming Florida performed worse than California.

I did. I provided the current case rates which show Florida having a higher day-by-day cases, and higher case rate per 100,000.

You already agreed the excess deaths in CA was worse than FL. Why are you now going back to cases? Make your mind up on which metric you want to examine.

Your post seems riddled with confusion. Maybe you realise you were hasty to call out a Republican state as having performed worse than a Democrat state.

HM-2 said:

For the last day we have data for, Florida shows 5,975 cases which equates to around 21.8 new cases per 100,000. California saw 5,064 cases which equates to 12.8 new cases per 100,000.

How many times does this need to be explained? Cases are problematic. First off, the PCR is predictive. It is no guarantee that the person has covid. Wasn’t the LFT test shown to be under reporting? Further there is no standardised way to test and report for covid. In the UK it is possible to double count a case. The various states may have differing methods. This seems to be continuously ignored (not just by you). I know why you're doing it and it does not reflect well. You cling on to the cases argument because otherwise you'll have to admit the overall picture is incredibly negative on California.

HM-2 said:

My assertion was that Florida is currently performing worse than California at controlling Covid-19. The statistics support this. A current comparison based on mortality rates doesn't work, because mortality lags around eight to nine weeks behind infection, so current mortality is a reflection of infection rates two months ago.

Err, no that was not your assertion. This is one of many times you change history. You replied to a post I made in relation to the overall performance of FL vs CA. Here it is:

gumshoe said:

HM-2 said:

gumshoe said:

So explain why you think Florida has performed worse than California?

Right now, Florida is performing significantly worse than California.

On what measure? And provide your working.

It could come across as you being disingenuous because it is fairly easy to go back and read what you wrote. And it isn’t the only time you have done it.

HM-2 said:

gumshoe said:

Reporting can be lagged so why would you strip out something that will distort figures? The CDC data is not weighted at all. What weighting did you think it had? It also has no repeated data sets besides United States being the aggregate of all the states, which isn't relevant as we are concentrating on Florida and California.

There are three data sets within the same spreadsheets I linked. One which is the "unweighted" figures. The other two are weighted, and weighted excluding Covid-19 deaths.

You never linked to anything. With all respect, why can't you go back to your posts and be more accurate? It is not difficult. Show me where you linked to any data? You mention it in one post saying on the previous page, but there is no link.

For your info, this is the data I refer to is the CDC weekly count of deaths by state (2014 to 2021)

HM-2 said:

gumshoe said:

Exactly why you should not strip out anything. You create an arbitery set of filters and then have problems trying to compare.

Unfortunately, you have to in order to create a workable data set.

We have no clue what data you are looking at. You haven't posted it. But you’re likely doing it wrong and don’t need to filter. Certainly from the clues you’ve provided so far, your methodology seems confused.

HM-2 said:

The spreadsheets have three columns of relevance for each reporting period;

1) A Boolean "true" or "false" flag as to whether that reporting period saw excess deaths.
2) An "estimate excess deaths low" figure, which provides the low-end estimate for the total excess deaths within that reporting period. In the case of those flagged as "false", this is not a negative number, but zero (IE there is no representation of a dearth).
3) An "estimate excess deaths high" which provides the high-end estimate. Even in the cases of months that are flagged as "false" for excess deaths this is still frequently a positive number.

Which spreadsheets? I don't know what flags you are seeing or what is being recorded as "excess death". You're not telling us the definition of your excess death. Have no visibility on the columns or what is or is not relevant.

HM-2 said:

If you don't exclude reporting periods that don't see excess deaths, then you end up overestimating the totals as when you come to average the highs and lows of reporting periods that didn't see excess deaths they inflate rather than deflate the figures.

Again, explain this. How did you define excess death? We cannot see what data you are using. How would you end up overestimating the totals? It’s not clear how you are modelling your comparison. You are missing out weeks, but ignoring that reporting can be lagged. It’s completely convoluted, and without seeing the data you are using it is impossible to help you with this.

HM-2 said:

The caveat was simply there to illustrate that the numbers of weeks within the analysis period that saw excess deaths was not the same between Florida and California. That doesn't render the statistical comparison flawed, it simply means California had one more week in which it reported excess deaths.

gumshoe said:

What are you actually defining here with the excess death toll "their total excess death toll as an average of low and high excess"? What does that sentence actually mean?

As noted above, the cited CDC data contains both high and low estimates of excess deaths per reporting period. The data itself doesn't give an average of these highs or lows, so I've done so myself as a point of comparison. You could equally use the high, or the low, and get a broadly similar comparative result, but using the average of these produced figures that are most likely more accurate. They certainly pair up well with, say, public reporting on Californian excess death through to the end of 2020.

Your entire analysis seems flawed. You use terms like "total excess death toll as an average of low and high excess". What does that actually mean? I see no high or low excess death in the CDC data. Link to your data please. And it would be helpful to understand how the excess death was calculated. What is the measure?

You need to draw a line on how far you model. For example, are you going to compare age groups for excess deaths? We are limited in the amount and quality of data available so you have to be sensible.

HM-2 said:

gumshoe said:

So even using your own calculation of excess deaths, you are now telling us that California did fare worse than Florida? So you are now contradicting what you said earlier and agreeing Florida did better.

Er, you might want to go back and reread my previous posts. At no point did I say that Florida had fared worse than California, I said Florida was currently doing worse in terms of cases per capita. Not the same thing.

Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you didn't say that? Can I point you to this again:

gumshoe said:

HM-2 said:

gumshoe said:

So explain why you think Florida has performed worse than California?

Right now, Florida is performing significantly worse than California.

On what measure? And provide your working.

Are you still sure?

HM-2 said:

gumshoe said:

This is not relevant and really is a desperate grasp at straws. The wildfires are insignificant in their deathtoll. You will note I said earlier that I am ignoring additional deaths as a consequence of additional suicides, untreated cancer or other treatable illnesses that have been ignored.

There are two data points in play here- the total excess deaths and the excess deaths minus reported Covid-19 deaths. Total excess mortality is a useful way of accounting for intentional or unintentional underreporting (and most academic studies suggest occured, particularly in the earlier phases of the pandemic), but you need to address other influencing factors when considering it. If you look at just the covid deaths in isolation, you implicitly assume that the statistical reporting is accurate.

I made it abundantly clear, to give you and others on this thread the advantage in terms of your derision of Florida, that I use ALL deaths as excess deaths. Because we cannot accurately say what is definitely related to covid and what is not. The surveillance on deaths has been woefully inadequate in many countries, with later autopsies in some countries (Slovakia for example) finding that some 1/3 of apparent covid deaths never even had covid, let alone die of it. That's statistically significant. So, despite all that, we say just categorise ALL excess deaths as covid. Ultimately, it matters how many people died, so let's err on the side of caution and say they all died of covid.

HM-2 said:

I'm a little confused as to what figures you're referencing. You say "excess mortality" in your earlier posts, but now say you're excluding excess mortality which isn't Covid-19 related. The inference here is that "covid-19 excess mortality" is accurate even if the actual reported Covid-19 death totals aren't (as has been alleged is the case in Florida), but I don't know where you're getting the figures from.

Again you misquote or misremember. You quote me incorrectly. You change what you say you said, you change what I said or quote something I absolutely never said. You say you posted links to your data source, but you haven’t.

I never said anything about "excluding excess mortality" which isn’t covid 19 related. Where have I said any of that? Quote me where I said that.

I specifically said all excess deaths. See my text above explaining the reasons why. And I told you how I worked them out. I used a 5 year rolling of monthly deaths

HM-2 said:

If we consider excess mortality in general- which is what I've been doing- then the wildfires are indeed extremely important. The interplay between elevated particulate pollution and pre-existing respiratory conditions resulting in significant increases in mortality really isn't up for debate. Adding Covid-19 into the equation will likely only accentuate the impact, but mortality figures don't discern between someone who died of Covid-19 induced respiratory failure from someone who died of a fatal respiratory condition triggered by particulate pollution who was also infected with Covid-19. I suspect there are a statistically significant number of cases in which covid-positive people died during the wildfire season of respiratory conditions, who would not have died if either air pollution was at normal levels, or if they hadn't been suffering from Covid

That is incredible. You are SERIOUSLY clutching at straws here. You think 31 deaths out of tens of thousands is statistically significant? Have you considered that in a time ranged excess death calculation (I'm working on 5 year range) it includes deaths from wildfires? 2018 had at least 90 deaths from wildfires. 2017 had at least 30. So in effect the 2020 figures for wildfire deaths are not all "excess" over the 5 year period.

What experience do you have of statistics or modelling? You move from pillar to post. Now you’re an expert telling us that there are short term fatal implications from the wildfires that did not directly kill anyone. Think about this for a moment. It is absurd and completely inaccurate.

You say you are considering excess mortality in general, but then you say your data set is excess mortality in relation to covid 19? Make your mind up.

HM-2 said:

Don't mistake this as me arguing categorically that Florida did worse than California, but none of the recording methodologies account for the interplay of complex influencing factors. Pointing out that the wildfires likely increased mortality amongst Covid-19 infected citizens in California isn't 'grasping at straws", its common sense.

I’m really quite surprised. See above and please take a moment to understand the excess death calculation. You have not explained your methodology so I have no visibility on your numbers. But what is obvious is your methodology is completely confused. It makes no sense at all. I have explained to you above why you are so wrong on your inclusion of a ridiculously small number of deaths, which are less than other years in the 5 year range and will have been factored against excess death already.

HM-2 said:

gumshoe said:

You discredit yourself when you seek to skew the figures to suit your narrative by including the 31 deaths as a result of wildfires, claiming "thousands more died indrectly as a result". You cannot run a statistical analysis on unverified claims like that.

You misinterpret my intent here. I'm not trying to "skew figures", I'm pointing out that factors not directly related to Covid-19 can significantly impact what is recorded as Covid-19 mortality. Nor am I doing any kind of "statistical analysis", I'm simply citing an academic study which shows statistically significant impacts of wildfires in increasing mortality.

You think 31 deaths out of tens of thousands excess is a significant? I’m shocked you even suggest it.

HM-2 said:

There are multiple ways you can try and compare states or countries performance but all of them have their own flaws. I could point out that Covid-19 mortality as a percentage of reported infections us power on California (1.44%) than Florida (1.62%) but that's heavily influenced by testing rates. Whatever comparative method you choose, there's usually an obvious flaw in it- typically falsely assuming that states record cases and fatalities in the same way and test at the same rates, which they don't.

The notion that one particular chosen measurement of comparison (reported cases) is worthless, but another (excess deaths attributed to Covid-19) is infallible, doesn't hold water.

It was made very clear the reasons why excess deaths was the best measure we have. The cases measure is flawed and not a good comparative. So it comes back round to the fact that Florida did better than California. You have clearly run out of excuses. Florida fared better than California. Accept that.

[JeffreyD]

So do we think that acknowledging that the virus is a reall thing and that something needs to be done about it is a good thing or a bad thing?

[Noah EV]

Never been in question on here.

[gumshoe]

JeffreyD said:

So do we think that acknowledging that the virus is a reall thing and that something needs to be done about it is a good thing or a bad thing?

And that's the level of questioning you're capable of mustering up?

[HM-2]

gumshoe said:

You already agreed the excess deaths in CA was worse than FL. Why are you now going back to cases? Make your mind up on which metric you want to examine.

What's your point here? There are a multitude of metrics, all of which individually pose challenges and have inherent flaws.You seem to be taking issue with a rounded approach that considers multiple data sets...why, exactly?

gumshoe said:

Maybe you realise you were hasty to call out a Republican state as having performed worse than a Democrat state.

I'll have "things that never happened" for ten points, please.

gumshoe said:

I know why you're doing it and it does not reflect well.

I really don't think you do, otherwise you wouldn't have spent this entire post completely missing the point.

gumshoe said:

Err, no that was not your assertion. This is one of many times you change history

I assume you didn't actually mean to cite me saying exactly the thing that I said I'd said here? Because that's what you did. "Right now, Florida is performing significantly worse than California" is exactly what is present in the figures I cited, both today and when I initially made this post.

I'm not sure how you're misconstruing this as me saying "overall, Florida has performed significantly worse than California", but I can assure you that it's categorically not what I've said, and the post you've quoted literally affirms that for all to see.

gumshoe said:

It could come across as you being disingenuous

What's disingenuous is you blatantly pretending I said something I didn't.

gumshoe said:

You never linked to anything.

Are you sure you don't have me confused with someone else?



Which leads to


Which exports as

gumshoe said:

Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you didn't say that?

Yes, as the post you've quoted, yet again, categorically affirms.

gumshoe said:

I made it abundantly clear, to give you and others on this thread the advantage in terms of your derision of Florida, that I use ALL deaths as excess deaths.

Then what measures have you implemented to address other factors that may also elevate death toll but which aren't directly related to Covid-19?

gumshoe said:

I never said anything about "excluding excess mortality" which isn’t covid 19 related.

Except you did:

gumshoe said:

You will note I said earlier that I am ignoring additional deaths as a consequence of additional suicides, untreated cancer or other treatable illnesses that have been ignored.

You literally said you are ignored excess deaths that are consequences of other causes. Now you're pretending you didn't?

gumshoe said:

You think 31 deaths out of tens of thousands is statistically significant?

...no, that's absolutely not what I said. Go back and read again. Properly, this time. Follow the citation to the study.

gumshoe said:

What experience do you have of statistics or modelling?

I sense an appeal to authority coming on, in which you make some bold claims about your own qualification on the subject.

gumshoe said:

You have not explained your methodology

Er, I have, in great detail. I don't really think your inability to notice external links embedded within text, or your apparent inability to comprehend fairly rudimentary English, is my problem.

gumshoe said:

It was made very clear the reasons why excess deaths was the best measure we have

Excess deaths is the best measure to people who want to argue excess deaths is the best measure. That doesn't make it the best measure for assessing the efficacy of responses in objective terms, especially if you decide to ignore any and all other contributory factors affecting excess deaths. From a purely empirical perspective, the best approach would be to blend multiple data sets to create a holistic picture, but you seem unduly hostile to that idea.

[JeffreyD]

gumshoe said:

JeffreyD said:

So do we think that acknowledging that the virus is a reall thing and that something needs to be done about it is a good thing or a bad thing?

And that's the level of questioning you're capable of mustering up?

Well I do have other questions but I'll wait until this one is answered before I ask any others if that's ok with you.

[AW111]

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

rscott said:

Apart from the 11 hours wasted by having the entire bill read out you mean? That had zero impact on the debate/amendments and was just a stupid, childish gesture by a Republican

And if it was roles reversed you'd be saying it was important the Dems properly scrutinised it.

If you're complaining that Republicans are wasting valuable Senate time, they could have had more time to look at this if the Dems hadn't wasted days on a vengeance motivated impeachment that was doomed to fail and achieved pricisely nothing.

More irrelevent tripe.

This childish time-wasting on the bill is nothing remotely like an impeachment.

Do you believe the stuff you post on here?

[anonymous-user]

AW111 said:

More irrelevent tripe.

This childish time-wasting on the bill is nothing remotely like an impeachment.

Do you believe the stuff you post on here?

And why was this latest bill held up until today? One democrat didn't support $400 dollars a week.

[paulguitar]

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

if the Dems hadn't wasted days on a vengeance motivated impeachment that was doomed to fail and achieved pricisely nothing.

They had to do it, you must be able to see that? It was not inconceivable that enough Republicans may have grown/located their spines, although sadly that did not happen. They actually appear to be heading even further into trump lunatic land.

[rscott]

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

AW111 said:

More irrelevent tripe.

This childish time-wasting on the bill is nothing remotely like an impeachment.

Do you believe the stuff you post on here?

And why was this latest bill held up until today? One democrat didn't support $400 dollars a week.

One Democrat disagreed with part of the bill - so he didn't support it. Do you really think that's in any way equivalent to wasting 11 hours reading out every word of the bill?

[kowalski655]

Can't find the link but last night I saw a report that Johnson was the only person in the senate to listen to the reading,and because of the delay it meant LESS time for the GOP to argue against it
Cheers Ron

[KingNothing]

kowalski655 said:

Seven (!) Democrats voted against Bernie's amendment to give a $15 minimum wage. With his own party backstabbing him, Bidens job might be somewhat tricky

Edited by kowalski655 on Friday 5th March 22:08

Saw this, which I thought was rather humorous:

https://youtu.be/u9qk8dZsjzU

[Crafty_]

kowalski655 said:

Can't find the link but last night I saw a report that Johnson was the only person in the senate to listen to the reading,and because of the delay it meant LESS time for the GOP to argue against it
Cheers Ron

He had to listen to the reading, if the floor was empty of republicans the democrats could have curtailed the reading. Johnson had no choice but to stay or get a colleague to.

He clearly thought trying to obstruct the process with petty moves was far mroe important than helping people who can't afford rent and food.