the whole episode was fairly benign and not something to get worked up about but it’s funny to me to think that anyone could post a study that was written by a trumper while asking the forum if they were giving the proper emotional weight to suicides and not be given any side eye
Even if there is a rise in such deaths in the US, you’d have to look at other countries to see if they had lower such increases. If so, it’s possible that some of these “deaths of despair” were preventable by having a better social safety net.
There is going to be a lot of number-crunching that will keep social scientists busy for years to come.
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I’ve seen a lot of randoms citing dramatically increased suicides and overdoses as evidence that we should end COVID-related restrictions, and I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find any good source for these numbers. I’m willing to believe that COVID and the related consequences have led to an increase in suicides and overdoses. But from what I’ve seen so far (despite loud claims on Facebook), those tragic outcomes are unlikely to make up a material number of excess deaths in 2020. The excess deaths are just too highly correlated with reported COVID cases and deaths at the state level to believe they’re from entirely unrelated causes (like lockdowns), rather than the disease itself.
The marketwatch article can be read if you open the link in a private window. As others have mentioned, the author is super opionated and (in my opinion) hasn’t been well-regarded as an academic economist in forever. Let alone someone well-equipped to speak on medical issues.
Even if you accept the conclusion - that “deaths of despair” have significantly increased in 2020 - I still don’t think that it’s reasonable to use that conclusion as evidence that we should life COVID-related restrictions (which is what the people making these claims usually try to do). It seems very plausible that these (assumed) despair-related outcomes are driven by the outcome of the disease - the deaths, hospitalizations, and chosen self-isolation - rather than government-imposed restrictions. If so, then the existence of these suicides/overdoses, while tragic, offers little argument for ending restrictions.
I appreciate that I’ve been an economist-defender in the past, but it’s because I’m pretty familiar with the ones I’ve defended - I know a lot of these people either personally or by reputation (particularly the ones at or formerly at Chicago, like Mulligan and Oster). So I feel pretty ok completely ignoring Casey Mulligan and John Cochrane at the same time that I might listen to what some other economists say.
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I’m sure most of you guys are too, but I’m like 99 for 100 calling out sources that are complete bullshit before I know what the source is when discussing coronavirus with other people.
It’s infuriating how much garbage there is out there on every subject. And how the garbage is intentionally funneled to people so they can just get pumped full of misinformation.
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The problem is that that genuine questions from sincere people are indistinguishable from the much more common JAQing off. And it’s really difficult as savvy internet discussion veterans to not be immediately dismissive.
That it is justifiable for us to behave dismissively when some people really are trying to learn is how successfully the assholes have poisoned online discourse. Defensive derision/mocking is an appropriate development in this environment, but it does have penalties. You lose some people who didn’t have to be lost.
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I don’t really know Formula72, but he’s been posting here and on 2p2 for a long time. He’s not a random from Facebook. And we’re not a bunch of strangers on twitter. He’s one of your partners in the ownership of this site.
Yeah, totally fair. I think people responded to him mostly appropriately and gave him the benefit of the doubt. And he handled it well and didn’t get defensive when he was challenged.
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It’s a question worth considering, even if I don’t think this particular author is one to consider it in a thoughtful, fair, and empathetic fashion. I also have nothing but respect for anyone reconsidering their argument in the face of new information, a rare quality these days. It’s easy for anyone, even me, to dig in when met with opposition, and doing the opposite openly and quickly is admirable.
To add, I also think the commentary on the subject here was worthwhile, even if the particulars of the article were not, so it’s a net positive post.
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Dude - do you even Ethical Skeptic?
Because you know - most skeptics are unethical. So it’s important to stipulate that.
Just call me ethical suzzer from now on.
I do like the Socratic method for engaging other people in discussions, so I hate that trolls have ruined it with JAQing off. It usually becomes apparent after a few questions whether or not someone is a participant in good faith and sometimes it turns out that a person has certain areas where they can be engaged in meaningful discussion and others where they are hopeless, so they aren’t 100% bad faith.
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What do you do after you take a frivolous trip during a pandemic and the brand suffers? Change the name
Also even if deaths of despair are up it’s hard to pinpoint what the causes were. I know people who’ve taken deaths in the family very badly especially if they’ve had previous depression or substance abuse issues and right now this country is experiencing a LOT of people dying from covid so I can see the actual covid deaths being a possible cause of some added deaths of despair
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Also regarding the slow pace of vaccination I randomly came across this article about how NY administered 6.5 million* smallpox vaccines in a month back in 1947!
Some of the differences cited in the article as to what could make it harder this time around:
-no unified message today, Truman and the government were clear on what needed to be done
-this country has hollowed out public health infrastructure a lot since then
-more trust in doctors and health officials
-easier media landscape to navigate
The situation is also different because it was one city and it was less of a bureaucratic mess to get things done but still pretty wild how well we did back then
*It does seem like the number could be inflated based on old nytimes articles but it seems like it was at least 2 million in a short time
So it seems like yes we can do better but based on all the factors above its tough to guess how much better we could do today compared to 1947
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But whom are they going to distribute it to to get it out? Are there not millions of doses sitting around? Idk. Like Cuomo saying he’s going to fine hospitals if they don’t give them all out by xxxx but that’s not legal.
It doesn’t matter what the feds do when Joey votes takes office if the actual entities in possession of of the vaccines are only jabbing on a Dunder Mifflin time frame. From what I’ve read there is no sense of urgency to do this.
I guess the feds could fleece the tax payers and pay grants or incentives to hospitals to go 24/7. The big private hospitals would prolly get 10x what they are supposed to. Maybe park some military hospital ships by major cities and do it that way.
FYI, my apologies if I came off snarky. That’s not my intention. I had just finished grocery shopping and watched a maskless women give some oranges and apples more touching than l got at Spearmint Rhino on my last trip. ( which now feels like years ago.). I’m not sure I can buy fresh Fs&Vs until this is over in 2023.
If masks save one life they worked but man wtf .
Neck mask guy
Mustard stained mask guy ( I can picture some tool shoving a hot dog into his drunkin face)
My nose is too pretty to cover it girl
Boomer reliving his 1961 high school football season w chin strap mask
I’m guessing 98% reuse and have had the same 3 for 6 months
This thread has other examples of this happening. Some in the thread are guessing the nurse on the floor in shock was probably caring for all these patients (since she was the only one in full PPE), then had to watch them die when the oxygen ran out. That shot of her on the floor is absolutely heartbreaking.
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The fact that the Czech Republic is giving out antigen tests for free has dramatically reduced the number of PCR tests taken.
When you look at the recent numbers, it appears that there have been fewer cases and things are better. This is because the government conveniently doesn’t record the number of positives among the antigen tests. After all, just because you turn up positive doesn’t necessarily mean that you have it at this moment.
It’s a really shady move that is designed not to make things convenient for people but to get everything open as quickly as possible.
Despite that, the numbers in the Czech Republic per capita are the worst in the world. For the second time, the anti-epidemic system is being adjusted to “more accurately represent the situation” when the reality is that it’s being done because the score is once again nearing the maximum 100 score and getting it to that point makes the scoring system (which of course has not made its methodology public) useless.
Agreed. To echo and reinforce other prior good posts better than this one, the fact that 2020 features perhaps the lowest aggregate levels of mental health in at least a generation is not especially controversial. If that includes high levels of alcoholism and suicide, that’s not at all shocking. But anyone coming out to conclusively say that this is proof that we should not have locked down at all is a charlatan. Lockdowns are trying, sure, but so are mass deaths. Australia almost certainly has better mental health numbers than we do, and that’s precisely because of their lockdowns.
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Seems like a 900 pack could fetch up to 10 million on black market.
Yeah good thing regular health insurance never experiences any fraud