Coronavirus

2.5m doses yesterday (7 day average). Achieved before 60 days of Biden admin. Which means it’s all to Trump’s credit.
 
mb227 said:
uh-oh...guess Bubba will be departing soon. He is in a State that just opened up 100%...
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Eastern OK has been "open" almost the whole time. Remember we are as deep red as dumb Louie Gohmert country. I'm fully vaccinated and I had it back in October. Where will I be going?

Funny, our Gov was just trying to keep up with Texas. Hell, he bought 2 million doses of that miracle drug to bow down to the orange god. Only Matt Gaetz tries harder to be a Trump sycophant.
 
bystander said:
LIBERALISM:

Kroger to close 3 stores in Los Angeles over a $5-per-hour hazard pay mandate
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Kroger's CEO made $21M in compensation in 2020. Last quarter Kroger's operating profit was $792M, up ~33% year over year, since people haven't been able to eat out as easily. If there was ever a time a Grocery chain could afford to pay it's employees more this is it. It's the income disparity that is fueling any socialist tendencies. We need more Costco-like companies, less Walmart/Kroger's.

$5/hr seems a bit extreme but I don't know what Kroger's average pay is either. Costco recently announced their own $16/hr minimum.
 
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Seattle Husker said:
Kroger's CEO made $21M in compensation in 2020. Last quarter Kroger's operating profit was $792M, up ~33% year over year, since people haven't been able to eat out as easily. If there was ever a time a Grocery chain could afford to pay it's employees more this is it. It's the income disparity that is fueling any socialist tendencies. We need more Costco-like companies, less Walmart/Kroger's.

$5/hr seems a bit extreme but I don't know what Kroger's average pay is either. Costco recently announced their own $16/hr minimum.
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Local Kroger has been showing a starting wage of $14. Their meatcutters make even more due to the union bullcrap (which also makes the useless two at that location next to impossible to terminate).

The fact that a corporation is up in a given quarter, no matter whether net or gross, does NOT mean they have the reasonable expectations going forward to capitulate to the demands of the radical left to pay mostly high school kids even more than they are already receiving. And yes, at least here in Texas, a substantial majority of their hourly staff ARE high school/college kids...
 
Seattle Husker said:
Kroger's CEO made $21M in compensation in 2020. Last quarter Kroger's operating profit was $792M, up ~33% year over year, since people haven't been able to eat out as easily. If there was ever a time a Grocery chain could afford to pay it's employees more this is it. It's the income disparity that is fueling any socialist tendencies. We need more Costco-like companies, less Walmart/Kroger's.

$5/hr seems a bit extreme but I don't know what Kroger's average pay is either. Costco recently announced their own $16/hr minimum.
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Kroger's stock is up 30% per year for each of the last three years. 84% of the CEO's compensation is tied to stock value. The employees negotiate their own pay via collective bargaining agreements, which they freely agree to. They are also free to go work elsewhere. How about we let the employees, management and owners of the company run their own fu*king company rather than a middle management Lib in the IT world.
  • Reached agreement with 20 local UFCW unions to invest $1 billion to improve security of future retirement benefits for 33,000 associates. Agreement ratified in the 4th quarter and will incur a charge to net earnings of approximately $0.98 per diluted share on a GAAP basis in Q4
  • Continued investment in Kroger associates with average hourly rate now over $20 with comprehensive benefits factored in
The "income disparity" is not fueling socialist tendencies. Liberals are fueling it with identity politics. Under Trump all incomes were increasing. Let's see how the Biden administration handles the economy. They're already talking about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
 
Let's take this article apart, starting with the ******** headline:

CDC: Mask Mandates Made No Statistical Difference
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This is not true. Read the actual CDC paper. On page 351 under Discussion the paper clearly states: Mask mandates were associated with statistically significant decreases in county-level daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days of implementation.

"Daily case and death growth rates before implementation of mask mandates were not statistically different from the reference period.”
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This is true, but doesn't support the point that the author thinks it does. The author of this article clearly doesn't understand what this statement from the paper means.

The reference period is 1-20 days BEFORE the mask mandates were started. So of course it's logical that case/death rates from 20-60 days before the reference period were not statistically different from the reference period itself (which is day 20 to 1 before the mandate).

In fact, this pre-mask vs reference period data comparison is evidence that hurts the author's case instead. Since the pre-mask and reference data were not stastically different, it indicates that there are unlikely to be confounding variables that were decreasing the case/death rates before the mask mandates.

"Changes in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates were not statistically significant 1–20 and 21–40 days after restrictions were lifted"
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This quote is completely out of context. I'm going to quote the paragraph it came from which is on page 351, 2nd column, 1st full paragraph:

"During the study period, states allowed restaurants to reopen for on-premises dining in 3,076 (97.9%) U.S. counties. Changes in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates were not statistically significant 1–20 and 21–40 days after restrictions were lifted. Allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with 0.9 (p = 0.02), 1.2 (p<0.01), and 1.1 (p = 0.04) percentage point increases in the case growth rate 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after restrictions were lifted (Table 2) (Figure)."

This statement refers to ON-PREMISES DINING, NOT MASK MANDATES. The author of the hit piece took that single sentence out of context and implied that the CDC authors were making a statement about masks instead.

I've seen some sloppy journalism before, but the author of the article clearly was trying to mislead people and misquote the CDC research study.

Next time, read the actual study people instead swallowing whole the nonsense some guy whose bio is that he is "A former filmmaker, University of North Texas graduate, and one-time Assistant Language Teacher"






 
AustinHorn24 said:
Based on the ridiculous responses like this, it's obvious that I'm the ONLY ONE who actually read the study.
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If you read the study you would have seen this.

"The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, although models controlled for mask mandates, restaurant and bar closures, stay-at-home orders, and gathering bans, the models did not control for other policies that might affect case and death rates, including other types of business closures, physical distancing recommendations, policies issued by localities, and variances granted by states to certain counties if variances were not made publicly available. Second, compliance with and enforcement of policies were not measured. Finally, the analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining, adequacy of ventilation, and adherence to physical distancing and occupancy requirements."

This makes the study pretty much useless.
 
AustinHorn24 said:
Based on the ridiculous responses like this, it's obvious that I'm the ONLY ONE who actually read the study.
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Nope, I read it too. Thanks for saving me the job of drafting a deconstruction -- yours was excellent. Here's my TLDR:

Article:

Mask mandates make a statistically significant difference in case growth and death rates.
​
Summary of Article:

Mask mandates make no statistically significant difference in case growth or death rates.​


*edited to replace "significantly significant" with "statistically significant". Oops.


​
 
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Garmel said:
If you read the study you would have seen this.

"The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, although models controlled for mask mandates, restaurant and bar closures, stay-at-home orders, and gathering bans, the models did not control for other policies that might affect case and death rates, including other types of business closures, physical distancing recommendations, policies issued by localities, and variances granted by states to certain counties if variances were not made publicly available. Second, compliance with and enforcement of policies were not measured. Finally, the analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining, adequacy of ventilation, and adherence to physical distancing and occupancy requirements."

This makes the study pretty much useless.
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Nice job moving the goal posts. You went from "it is not a lie" to "even this author acknowledges the limitations of the study" in a nanosecond.

Of course the study has limitations. But it's the best evidence we have, or can ever expect to have, because it is impossible to control for everything. That doesn't mean we should just ignore the data.
 
NJlonghorn said:
Nice job moving the goal posts. You went from "it is not a lie" to "even this author acknowledges the limitations of the study" in a nanosecond.

Of course the study has limitations. But it's the best evidence we have, or can ever expect to have, because it is impossible to control for everything. That doesn't mean we should just ignore the data.
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It's not actually a lie. Just because they say it's a significant difference doesn't mean that it actually is. I'm seeing minor percentage points that could easily be swayed by unaccounted variables that the study just pointed out. Nice try though.
 
By the way, just so that I'm on the record on this point -- the vaccine research and rollout efforts (spearheaded by the scientific community but with significant support from both the Trump and Biden administrations) have put a significant dent into the dangers of COVID, and will continue to do so. Thus, I think the restrictions that made sense through most of 2020 make less sense now, and will make even less sense in the coming months. Imho, the Democrats (and especially the teachers' unions) are being too hyper-careful in this regard. But I think it is too early for full reopening, especially in urban and dense suburban areas.
 
NJlonghorn said:
Imho, the Democrats (and especially the teachers' unions) are being too hyper-careful in this regard.
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Ole Joe wants to make it all about "giving us our freedoms back" on Independence Day. I posted almost two weeks ago that our Johns Hopkins virologist advisor said we are in the middle of herd immunity but we should be completely safe by the end of May or June. You watch, he'll hold out to have a July 4th announcement. It matters not to me. I had a big July 4th shindig last year and popped off about $500 worth of fireworks and will probably do it again this year with or without his "permission"
 
Garmel said:
It's not actually a lie. Just because they say it's a significant difference doesn't mean that it actually is. I'm seeing minor percentage points that could easily be swayed by unaccounted variables that the study just pointed out. Nice try though.
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It's absolutely a lie. The headline of the BS article that was posted was exactly the OPPOSITE of what the CDC study said.

At a more reputable publication, that author would be fired but at that rag of a publication, they just throw **** to a wall and see what sticks so I'm sure they don't give a damn that he falsified statements from the CDC.
 
AustinHorn24 said:
It's absolutely a lie. The headline of the BS article that was posted was exactly the OPPOSITE of what the CDC study said.

At a more reputable publication, that author would be fired but at that rag of a publication, they just throw **** to a wall and see what sticks so I'm sure they don't give a damn that he falsified statements from the CDC.
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The CDC is wrong. What they did was not "statistically significant" regardless of what they say. If there are numerous variables not properly factored into the P value then it's garbage. Sorry, but the study is crap.
 
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Garmel said:
The CDC is wrong. What they did was not "statistically significant" regardless of what they say. If there are numerous variables not properly factored into the P value then it's garbage. Sorry, but the study is crap.
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You don't know what you're talking about. The pre-mask interval vs reference range P value equivalence is at least some evidence of a lack of confounding variables, although it's impossible to eliminate the possibility completely. If your stance is that a study has to statistically eliminate every confounder or else its "garbage" then there's not any study published in the history of science that will meet your criteria.

I get it, you think you're smarter than the MDs and PhDs who do science for a living. I've got a newsflash for you -- you're not as smart as you think you are.
 
AustinHorn24 said:
You don't know what you're talking about. The pre-mask interval vs reference range P value equivalence is at least some evidence of a lack of confounding variables, although it's impossible to eliminate the possibility completely. If your stance is that a study has to statistically eliminate every confounder or else its "garbage" then there's not any study published in the history of science that will meet your criteria.

I get it, you think you're smarter than the MDs and PhDs who do science for a living. I've got a newsflash for you -- you're not as smart as you think you are.
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You can't account for every variable. That's true. However, you can't have large ones looming over your head like this and claim statistically significant. This study seems to me that it was set up to give a desired result. I've got a newsflash for you as well - perhaps I'm not as smart as I think I am but I sure seem to be smarter than you.
 
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