when stuff like this hits INTERNET i feel kinda bad for whichever rando GS-11 with a title like 'Public Health Analyst' was basically just told to cook up these scenarios with these assumptions & throw them on a slide

what i really wanted to ask tho is what's the y-axis?
no seriously what's the y-axis

it reads, 'Probability Of Increase'. slide seems to be inviting reader to see p>.5 as bad and p<.5 as good. but increase of what?

i think, increase in 'incidence'? like, from this hypothetical baseline (50/100k/wk)?
then here's my story of this slide:

Under ballpark assumptions we like about Delta's R0, vax rate, & mask effectiveness, it's likely (p~1) that incidence will increase, unless all mask. (And it's not enough - p>.5 still - if only unvax mask)

This is the 'bottom right' graph
so the story/flow of the slide seems pretty clearly inviting onlookers to have the takeaway, We should recommend masks, and for vax'd too

and then that's what they did (so I guess my interpretation is right?)

but then I have a question: so what, bottom-right? who cares?
slide headline is: NPIs are 'needed' 'to reduce' Delta

this punchline is driven home by bottom-right which shows, unless all mask, 'incidence' will probably increase

maybe that's all true (given assumptions)!

but so what? why is it absolutely imperative to reduce incidence?
don't get me wrong. all else equal, do i wanna reduce incidence? sure

is reducing incidence positive-utility? of course

but it's not *infinite* utility. you don't just get to say: this goal is good, and we 'need to' do XYZ to get to the goal, so therefore XYZ
It just seems CDC now thinks that any policy, any action, any command is justified if it 'reduces incidence' of one particular virus. And on those grounds.

Or if that's not what they explicitly think, they're acting on such a principle. (which is a value judgment)
and that's before we even get into whether the mask effectiveness parameters they plug in here make any sense. obviously, if they're off, these graphs change a lot. my guess: p>0.5 no matter what, for a while. delta wave will rise, then break.

so that's reality. so what?

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More from @soncharm

1 Aug
This is one of the (many) problems with CDC’s ‘guidelines’. They make up all these thresholds out of their butts (to throw in some color-coded table) and then *link guidance to them*.

That isn’t a scientific exercise. It’s not science. I don’t even know what it is
Defenders will say ‘well, they had to draw the line somewhere?’ No, they really didn’t. *Policymakers* have to draw the line somewhere; people in *executive roles* where they are (theoretically) accountable to the community & must balance competing concerns.
The narrow version of CDC ‘having to draw the line somewhere’ is if they want to characterize these risk factors as lo/medium/high, green/yellow/red or whatever. Hey, be my guest

But stop turning them into mechanical triggers for suggested actions
Read 9 tweets
31 Jul
Was turning right at a stop onto 25mph street Bicycle Guys like to use pretending they’re as fast as cars. Waited for car, was 150-200ft gap after it (Bicycle Guy behind), so i turned. BG got all miffed.

I like to take bike rides too and all, but I frick’n hate you Bicycle Guys
Keep in mind I 100% saw the guy. It was just my judgment that ‘yes this is a perfectly normal gap where I can make this turn now’. Would’ve made that same turn if the Bicycle Guy was a car.

He started middle-road-riding & speeding up & wanted me to wait for him I guess. Psycho
I know you got padded bike shorts but it’s not a race Bicycle Guy. You’re not doing the Tour de France. You’re on a 25mph suburb street with stop signs. It’s ok if you end up behind me instead of in front of me. For crying out loud
Read 4 tweets
30 Jul
I know this guy's graphs (which I always love) aren't definitive 'proof' - don't control for all confounds, don't 'know' counterfactual etc.

Still though. If you're one of these people who still thinks 'masks help a little?' how do you look at his graphs and not get a stroke?
Look, I was like you Smart People once. I was a 'masks might help?' person. I was a 'worth a shot?' person. But come ON. Where's the REAL-WORLD, EMPIRICAL indication that keeps you believing that these mandates do anything of *significance*?
Is the Smart position that they 'help' it's just that 'help' is so tiny you gotta delicately tease it out from 101 other variables using a STATA regression package?

Cuz if that's what it is, it's a bad policy! Period! Policies should have material effects not infinitesemal ones
Read 4 tweets
30 Jul
Million dollar newspaper daily black & white one-panel comic strip idea: "Mott & Bailey"

It could be about the funny hi-jinks and quips of two guys, one name of Mott the other Bailey.

You know, like it's a play on words? But I don't wanna just give away the whole idea here
Like, maybe they work together in a office setting of some sort. Cubicle mates. And, they make humourous quips about office life.

(This is just an example - just brainstorming)
OH i know. It’s a judge and his bailiff. Judge Mott and his pal Bailey the Bailiff. Next case! Bam goes the gavel. Mott’s the straight man, then Bailey says something silly.

These things are gonna just write themselves
Read 4 tweets
30 Jul
one more thing about the local Schoolmom Karens is that schools/masks/etc. is all just reflexively linked up with 'kids getting vaccinated' in their heads. so jarring when i first encountered couple months idea that any stuff had to 'wait' for this. ppl just take it as given?
all thru this i'd thought this was about schools being a) outbreak hotspots that would b) bleed to local community and kill grandmas and also c) put teachers in danger

'gotta vaccinate teachers', i heard. ok, we did that (presumably). we did it first! cool?

no, not cool
what i hadn't realized is how many parents believe this virus has a 100% death rate for children hence it's a maximal disaster if any transmission occurs amongst any children and so, 'not until my little one is vaccinated'.
Read 9 tweets
28 Jul
vaccine-pushing I see in covid-cult circles seems to really miss the point to me. Once the vax rate is 60 or 70 then pulling out all the stops to get it to 70 or 80 or whatever just seems obtuse and diminishing marginal returns esp if protection doesn’t last, breakthroughs, etc.
constantly running around in circles trying to solve yesterday’s problem. I don’t know what the vax-pushers think their endgame reward from it will be. eradication? it’s not gonna be eradicated guys. not via this
in a context of breakthrough delta and waning protection anyway, there is no Problem that gets magically Solved from nagging/goading/lawfaring some marginal cohort of Holdouts into getting the vaccine, too

that way doesn’t lie your paradise, guys
Read 5 tweets

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