Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by skipmac

This is the information given to the ER doctors in my daughters hospital in their weekly Covid briefings.

That's how I heard about the questionable efficacy of hand hygiene with regard to this particular virus. My stepmother is a retired professor of nursing who has been helping out during the crush, with formulating hospital protocols. She said that it's generally accepted now that surfaces are not a significant vector of transmission of this particular virus; the Lancet article I linked to is a mainstream view. That being said, I don't think it's definitely proven.

Originally Posted by skipmac

. . . As is this and the hospital still mandates frequent and thorough hand washing by all employees and strongly recommends the same outside work. As you say, costs almost nothing, is a very small burden to the individual, it can't hurt and most likely will help at least some and in this situation, eveBst information and research indicates this to be of great benefit and is also a very cheap, easy thing to do.

Yes, I think we have more and more evidence of the efficacy of masking. But there is no broad scientific consensus.


I think most professionals agree that masking is a good idea -- that does NOT mean that they think that there is a scientific consensus about the efficacy. It just means that the possible or probable benefits of masking vs. the very small cost is a strong argument in favor of masking.


So I think we all agree that good hand hygiene and masking are very good ideas. We don't need to overstate the scientific case for them, to make this point.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Yes because we have a 5km lockdown that’s lifting next week. Christmas will be fun !!

I read more "papers" from the Irish Island than I do from the US. In one of the lock down articles in Ireland they listed what you could and could not do. But what was missing was going to the grocery store if it was more than 5KM from the house. The 5KM rule would work for many in towns and cities but what about the rural areas?

Surely people in rural areas are driving to get groceries and maybe crossing a border. I assumed the article just missed something.

Hopefully, the will reopen the pubs. I don't see how the pubs are going to be able to stay in business much longer.

As I remember it, a law had to be recently passed to allow the Garda to arrest/cite people for not wearing a mask.

Our state governor just mandated mask wearing even though the vast majority of people I have seen are wearing masks. He pushed enforcement of mask wearing on to the business owner. I know of at least one major city in the state, that early in the pandemic, said no one would be cited for failure to wear a mask... It is a Democratic controlled city and county. I would assume the other cities are the same. If one looked at the various mandates pushed out in my state, they all sound really tough and hard a...ss, until you actually read the document which stated there is no enforcement. It is all voluntary.

At a national level, the President has no authority to cite people for not wearing a mask. Even if there was said authority, the Federal government has no way to enforce such a mandate. None. Even if they swore in every local and state law enforcement officer all across the US to enforce Federal law, there is no way for those enforcement actions to go through the Federal courts.

We have done a bit of traveling to go sailing. When away, we do the same things at home, avoid being in closed spaces with people as best as one can. Course, one has to get groceries and we do some take out, as we do at home, and we have seen very few people without masks. I was in our local grocery store a week or two ago and the place was packed. At least 100 people and maybe 200. I only saw four people without masks.

Later,
Dan

[Singularity]

Denialism: What is it and How Scientists Should Respond
European Journal of Public Health, Volume 19, Issue 1, January 2009
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/19/1/2/463780
-------------------
Below cut/pasted/edited from the link; where [[_____]] contains my commentary.
-------------------
Denialism is a process that employs some or all of five characteristic elements in a concerted way:

1) The first is the identification of conspiracies. When the overwhelming body of scientific opinion believes that something is true, it is argued (by the denier) that this is not because those scientists have independently studied the evidence and reached the same conclusion....There is also a variant of conspiracy theory, inversionism, in which some of one's own [[the denier's]] characteristics and motivations are attributed to others [[akin to classic Freudian projection]]....

2) The second is the use of fake experts. These are individuals who purport to be experts in a particular area but whose views are entirely inconsistent with established knowledge. [[fake expert does not mean per se un-credentialed, rather, is (when effective anyhow) an outlier with an outlier's perspective used to support a denier's outlier hypothesis]]

3) The third characteristic is selectivity, drawing on isolated papers that challenge the dominant consensus or highlighting the flaws in the weakest papers among those that support it as a means of discrediting the entire field. [["Is the denier really unaware of what they are talking about, thus myopic from natural ignorance, or, has the denier genuinely studied as much as the experts and drawn a different conclusion; the latter isn't so much a denier, the former is]]

4) The fourth is the creation of impossible expectations of what research can deliver. [[it's functionally impossible (otherwise unethical) to create a Covid specific study to support the wishy-washy hypothesis here in post #1192. I don't think that the poster even understands this.]]

5) The fifth is the use of misrepresentation and logical fallacies...[[where the argument of ignorance is the most generally applicable logic fallacy where the "perfect data set" that the denier claims is gold standard cannot exist in the real world, see #4, #3, #2]]

Responding to denialism

Denialists are driven by a range of motivations. For some it is greed...[f]or others it is ideology or faith, causing them to reject anything incompatible with their fundamental beliefs. Finally there is eccentricity and idiosyncrasy, sometimes encouraged by the celebrity status conferred on the maverick...

...it would be wrong to prevent the denialists having a voice. Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are [[as attempted herein]]. An understanding of the five tactics listed above provides a useful framework for doing so.

[Exile]

In my view, any article -- and from an academic journal of all places -- that uses a pejorative term that associates differing expert and laymen opinions to hateful nutbags who deny the Holocaust is not to be taken seriously. If such contrary opinions are so devoid of merit then it should be easy to dispel them without resorting to such divisive and simpleton arguments. This sort of approach creates more detractors than converts from the very people you are trying to convince. Cloaking it in terms of academia in an attempt to validate is merely an exercise in self-indulgent gratification, and does nothing to move the discussion along in a productive manner.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by skipmac

Perhaps I put things a bit harshly and agree that generalities are generally wrong but it generally I see this as accurate and certainly accurately reflects my personal experience, that of a friend that owns a coffee shop who has had to deal with aggressive, MAGA hat wearing anti masker customers and as well documented news in the US.

When camouflage wearing militants are marching in the streets carrying AR15s then I see that as a serious problem and cannot justify that kind of action in any way. Later verified when members of one of those gun rights, militia groups planned to kidnap the governor of Michigan.

I am not anti gun, grew up hunting and shooting but that kind of activity to me is way, way over the top and unacceptable.

When I point out to store clerks that masks are required by local ordinance I have been verbally assaulted by customers who had a certain bumper sticker on their car. My friend with the coffee shop has had customers wearing the red hat scream, literally, that his request that they wear a mask violates that persons rights.

You may call this stereotyping but unfortunately the US has become very polarized and from what I see a lot of those on either side match the stereotypes quite well.

Your avatar suggests you reside in one of the more conservative areas of the US (north central FL). And yes, I've heard many references to it being "Trump Country." I don't doubt that this behavior and the militia groups you reference obviously exist, but attempting to generalize it to the entire US and/or using it for stereotyping to advance your personal politics does a huge disservice to all the Americans -- liberal & conservative alike -- who are making efforts to be compliant and in some cases making huge sacrifices for others. I'm not just picking on you, these sorts of comments have been infecting many threads, Covid-related and not. I've spent time in 3 different states (incl. FL) since this all started and have seen nothing like you describe.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Exile

In my view, any article -- and from an academic journal of all places -- that uses a pejorative term that associates differing expert and laymen opinions to hateful nutbags who deny the Holocaust is not to be taken seriously. If such contrary opinions are so devoid of merit then it should be easy to dispel them without resorting to such divisive and simpleton arguments. This sort of approach creates more detractors than converts from the very people you are trying to convince. Cloaking it in terms of academia in an attempt to validate is merely an exercise in self-indulgent gratification, and does nothing to move the discussion along in a productive manner.

A very astute post.

I'm afraid that it really characterizes the public dialogue in the U.S. You almost never read this kind of stuff in Europe.

What characterizes it is the -- typical -- focus on the person, rather than the idea. The person is a -- "denialist", is ignorant, whatever. When confronted by ideas you don't like, you dismiss the person expressing them, and that's all you need -- you don't need to go on to the much harder work of engaging the actual ideas. It's the way to keep a closed mind and a smug sense of superiority. It avoids any uncomfortable self-criticism, or challenging of any of one's own beliefs. In Europe you would never get away with the pseudo-intellectual irrelevant references, which are just a pose, to dissociate oneself culturally from those who hold some different idea. Or even just to baffle the "ignorant rednecks", with bullsh*t.

In fact there are always two sides to any argument. That doesn't mean that no side to any argument is never wrong -- but there is always something more to any question, than what one person understands. So it's always worthwhile to listen. Always. And if you can treat your interlocuter with respect, if you can separate the ideas from the person, if you can engage the ideas, and leave the person out of it -- lo and behold, you might even learn something from each other.


Precious little of that takes place in my native land these days, alas.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I'm not giving a "mixed message" -- I'm being HONEST ...
... If you want to achieve anything in questions like this:
1. Don't overstate your case
2. Don't lie
3. Treat your audience with respect
4. Don't talk down to your audience.

I admire your honesty, and balance, and your 4 point guidance.

The following is not specifically directed at Dockhead. His post just presented the opportunity to segue to this subject.
I would, though, caution against False Balance, sometimes called “false equivalency”, referring to the practice of people, who in their zeal to be fair, present each side of a debate, as equally credible, even when the factual evidence is stacked heavily on one side.
When an issue is genuinely controversial, the burden of proof is shared between opposing views. The burden of proof, regarding the truthfulness of any claim, lies with the one who makes that claim

When a view is not mainstream (an outlier), say that scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the public, I believe that the burden of proof, sits with those promoting that outlying view.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by GordMay

....I would, though, caution against False Balance, sometimes called “false equivalency”, referring to the practice of people, who in their zeal to be fair, present each side of a debate, as equally credible, even when the factual evidence is stacked heavily on one side.....

When I was a kid, there were public service announcements (PSAs) over the airwaves "wash your hands after going to the bathroom to prevent hepatitis spread." Until reading this thread it never occured to me (in recalling the old hepatitis PSAs) that back in the early 1970s there were people who, after hearing the jingle would...if they had the means:

1) go to a medical library and look for contrasting evidence against germ theory, science norms
2) find a virologists correspondence letter in a professional journal (never intended for general public consumption)
3) buy air-time on TV/radio reporting "the health department has not conducted a place-controlled double-blinded study where, specifically, acute-phase Hepatitis B patients were (unethically) locked up with uninfected individuals to see what the transmission rates with/without handwashing would be."

Who indeed would do all of that? Go to that effort to run ads on the airwaves "providing a more balanced view of handwashing science?" Just what does such a person believe is the public good?

In the pre-social media era there were much higher hurdles between a person's arguably irrational desires and the capacity to carry them out. But the underlying compulsion to do so has ~always been there, while the deleterious consequences of the behavior are coming to fruition and only getting (exponentially) worse.

[Exile]

These last two posts leave me wondering what could possibly be so controversial about the proposition that washing your hands and wearing masks are really good ideas, even though there is some controversy within the science as to their effectiveness in preventing the spread of Covid?

Where are the "outliers" in this discussion that are providing "false equivalency" to their particular version of the "facts"? If someone presents a nutty conspiracy theory, or walks around wearing camo, carrying an AR-15, and claims his "right" not to wear a mask, then doesn't that speak for itself? Are these internet discussions courts of law, subject to a right of appeal when one side believes a jury has "unfairly weighted" a minority view of the facts? I don't understand how any of the facts being presented justifies talk of "denialism," repeated attacks on one poster's profession, bizarro attempts to analogize, or stereotyping an entire nation on the basis of a small group of loony-tunes who happen to support a political leader that others don't.

I suppose it just means that CF has regrettably become much like mainstream social media, with people feeling they have the liberty to attack other people as opposed to rationally taking on their ideas. It's not like citations and links to the science that some object to haven't been made available. Surely if it's worthy of such personal derision it's also worth some thoughtful study and constructive critique. Or is it like the climate change "debates" where whoever comes up with the most Google-derived "studies" that favor their side must be "smarter" and therefore "wins".

[capn_billl]

What are the actual Covid deaths per day?

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Exile

Your avatar suggests you reside in one of the more conservative areas of the US (north central FL). And yes, I've heard many references to it being "Trump Country." I don't doubt that this behavior and the militia groups you reference obviously exist, but attempting to generalize it to the entire US and/or using it for stereotyping to advance your personal politics does a huge disservice to all the Americans -- liberal & conservative alike -- who are making efforts to be compliant and in some cases making huge sacrifices for others. I'm not just picking on you, these sorts of comments have been infecting many threads, Covid-related and not. I've spent time in 3 different states (incl. FL) since this all started and have seen nothing like you describe.

I completely agree and said before generalizations can be true in general but very, very true that they are not true for all.

And yes, I am currently in a very politically conservative area. Perhaps you can excuse my vehemence due to my total burnout dealing with those that deny the virus is a problem, believe it is a liberal hoax, claim it's a free country and violates their rights to wear a mask and asking them to do so will result in a confrontation. I might add that this includes the great majority of my very large, extended family.

I have been in places where I was the only one wearing a mask and drew a lot of very negative attention, occasionally aggressive attention, even though masks are required by local ordiance. In an state and town that has one of the highest rates of infection in the country, and that country has one of the highest rates of infection in the world the refusal to take even the simplest, least intrusive safety measures is just beyond belief.

Add to this I have family, friends and neighbors that have completely bought in to the full alt right conspiracy theories. They are firmly convinced that the liberals are running a global child sex ring to gather funds for a military coup to take over the country. Something like 40% of the voters really belief the election was stolen. I have a neighbor that has a houseful of guns and is ready to barricade himself inside and shoot all comers when (not if) the communist takeover begins.

This is real. I am reporting first hand what I see around me every day.

No not everyone is quite that radical but there are very many that are and their refusal to take this pandemic seriously is costing thousands of lives.

So perhaps you might understand some of my frustration.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

What are the actual Covid deaths per day?

Reports show over 2,000 per day the last several days in the US. The average over the last couple of weeks is around 1,500, so more or less one death every minute.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I admire your honesty, and balance, and your 4 point guidance.

The following is not specifically directed at Dockhead. His post just presented the opportunity to segue to this subject.
I would, though, caution against False Balance, sometimes called “false equivalency”, referring to the practice of people, who in their zeal to be fair, present each side of a debate, as equally credible, even when the factual evidence is stacked heavily on one side.
When an issue is genuinely controversial, the burden of proof is shared between opposing views. The burden of proof, regarding the truthfulness of any claim, lies with the one who makes that claim

When a view is not mainstream (an outlier), say that scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the public, I believe that the burden of proof, sits with those promoting that outlying view.

I agree. Of course not every opinion has equal validity. Truth is truth. Truth is often complicated and not easily accessible, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

But there is a lot of daylight between "false equivalency", on the one hand, and on the other hand our polarized, politicized style of "debate" where no one listens to anyone, where the whole exercise is about scoring points, where the main focus is in discrediting the opponent, not so much engaging the actual ideas. It's basically a form of tribal warfare carried out via name-calling. "Denialist"; "Socialist"; "Fascist"; "Kind of person who has never heard of x"; "Libtard"; "Deplorable" etc. etc. etc. -- it all goes to the person, NOT to any idea.



And this carries with it all kinds of awful consequences. People don't listen to each other, so no one learns anything from each other, and compromise and consensus on anything becomes difficult. But what even more degrades the public discourse is that when you are focused on discrediting (or ridiculing) your tribal enemies, you forget about ideas anyway -- they are just tools, and nuanced ones inherently won't do -- the best ones for this purpose are just slogans. So you stop thinking; you lose any capacity for critical thought. And that's how polarized societies end up being led by demagogues. Our outgoing president is just the tip of the iceberg -- just wait.


Even believers in conspiracy theories deserve respect, however crackpot their ideas seem to us. They are wrong, but it's not hard to understand how they come to such beliefs (gives apparent order to chaotic or inscrutable events). It's possible to talk some people out of such beliefs if you can manage to have a respectful and logical conversation, gently separating the ideas from the person. Maybe rather few, but it's worth it.

Funny we should be talking about this; I rode in a taxi this morning with yet another (!) taxi driver trying to convince me that the virus is "fake".

[Dockhead]

The situation today in Northern Europe:



An even less pretty picture than yesterday. Sweden is working on 500 daily cases per million even as the European average has fallen to 331. Lithuania is exploding; with 1600 (!) new cases per million yesterday (unaveraged), bringing the 7 day rolling average to 811. A very sharp, exponential growth curve. I was just in a Latvian town near the Lithuanian border today; 40 people out of 2000 are sick. It's really bad. And so the daily infection rate in Latvia also increases, up to 280 today.

Estonia rather better but nevertheless 241 -- just a couple of months ago it was below 25 in Estonia.

The increase in Finland continues, but fortunately at a fairly low rate; 78 today.

Denmark has levelled off at just over 200, and Germany is doing very well with the slow decline in cases, which has been going on since 12 November, continues. Now down to 214.

As far as daily deaths are concerned:




Germany and Latvia continue to rise, both around 3.5 per million. Estonia has risen sharply to about 3. Denmark, Norway, Finland all below 1.

All of these are pretty low rates; the European average is 7.8 and Italy is presently at 12. Switzerland is at 11. The only country in the Nordic and Baltic Region which has more than about 3 is Lithuania, with the worst outbreak -- the daily death rate today is 6.6 and rising.

Sure hope these curves start to turn down soon.

[goboatingnow]

Mine contains a few more “ Northern European countries “ !!