Comment by nickthemagicman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nickthemagicman | Hacker News Reader

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nickthemagicman

>>The only difference was California’s restrictions and higher vaccination rate

False.

We literally just went over this...

Florida is the second oldest state in the country and the oldest with a high population density which means it's old people stacked on old people.

California is the fifth youngest state in the country, so there's a level of herd immunity already existing there as young people under 55 are virtually untouched by Covid.(more people died of car accidents in 2019 than under 55 age group in the entire pandemic)

Its been clear from the start that this disease is bimodal and kills old people at a shockingly high rate and the under 55 at a shockingly low rate.

Old people are the difference... not vaccinations (which don't work that well,see Colin Powell/ Ireland/this paper) or restrictions.

But it's better to avoid this fact because it calls your narrative under question and makes it less certain why you injected experimental substances in your body in the first place.

All of this was to save Granny remember?

>False

To quote the article you shared above:

"About 52 million Americans are age 65 or older, according to the Census Bureau’s 2018 population estimates. One quarter of these older Americans live in one of three states: California, Florida, and Texas."

There are large elderly populations in all three states. Florida may have more elderly per capita than California, but not 2X more. However they did have twice the death rate. Elderly population alone does not explain the poor performance of Florida's COVID policy.

>California is the fifth youngest state in the country, so there's a level of herd immunity already existing there as young people under 55 are virtually untouched by Covid.

Again, this point doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Texas is the 3rd youngest state in the US, with a median age of 35 (California is 5th, with a median age of 37). California had <3/4 the death rate of Texas.

>more people died of car accidents in 2019 than under 55 age group in the entire pandemic

I don't know what point you are making here. Accidents are the 3rd leading cause of death for Americans after heart disease and cancer. Certainly not an insignificant amount, and all 50 state governments go to great lengths to reduce them.

> Colin Powell

It is widely known that Gen. Powell had multiple myeloma, which hobbles the immune system and makes all vaccines less effective. Why omit this? It is almost as though you are trying to cherry pick anecdotal evidence to support a deeply-held, quasi-religious belief that people are overreacting about COVID.

>All of this was to save Granny remember?

If that's true then Florida has clearly failed. Common sense dictates that the state which takes more precautions against COVID will have fewer cases and deaths. If you believe that the inconvenience of the restrictions is not worth the lives saved just say that. You've not made the case that they are ineffective.

>> Florida may have more elderly per capita than California, but not 2X more. However they did have twice the death rate.

Maybe herd immunity is exponential? Oh wait it is!!!!

You're eliminating many possibilities with nothing to support it.

>> Accidents are the 3rd leading cause of death

I said car accidents.

Talking with you is disengenuous and continually truth distorting, so my choice is to spend more time correcting your factual inaccuracies in that wall of text or play with the dog.

You win this debate by pure stubborn stupidity.

> Maybe herd immunity is exponential? Oh wait it is!!!!

Ok, so why does Texas have a higher death rate than California? They have a younger average population, lots of elderly people and basically zero covid restrictions since day 1. Shouldn’t they have exponentially more herd immunity?

>I said car accidents

As I understand your point, You claim COVID death rates among young people are comparable to car accident deaths, therefore we shouldn’t bother trying to reduce them. This makes no sense. Governments go to great lengths and enact regulations to reduce deaths from auto accidents, as well as far less frequent causes of death (eg plane crashes). Few people would say it’s not worth preventing these deaths.

>You win this debate by pure stubborn stupidity

I’ve reviewed your claims and provided facts in good faith that challenge your positions. You’ve responded with name calling. It seems like you simply believe what you believe and aren’t interested in any facts that don’t support your position. That is the definition of bad faith.

>>provided facts in good faith that challenge your positions

False. You have provided CLAIMS. Claims without a single supporting reference, and claimed those to be facts.

Even your claim about providing facts is false! lol

Claims that have been proven to be false or distorted numerous times.

You seem to be thriving in the post-truth era.

It's not worth it to engage with someone who distorts the truth so readily.

But best of luck to you anyhow!

The data on elderly populations is taken from an article that you originally shared [1]. Perhaps you did not read it, or do not believe your own data, but it clearly states that Florida, Texas and California have the largest elderly populations in the US. It also clearly states that the median age in Texas and % of the population over 65 are lower than in California.

The data on covid death rates (per 100,000 people) is publicly available [2]. Even in a state with a younger population (Texas), overall death rates are still higher than in California.

I don't need to distort the truth because it is obvious to anyone with common sense.

But let's look at it another way just for fun. 40,689 Floridians over age 65 have died of COVID [3]. If Florida had the same % of over 65 residents as California does (14.3%), we would expect to see 28,245 >age 65 deaths in Florida. This would give Florida an overall COVID death rate of 201 deaths per 100,000 people. This is still higher than the actual overall death rate in California (179 deaths per 100,00 people). And in this hypothetical exercise, we are likely still undercounting deaths in Florida.

My point is that you can't only cite age as a confounder when you compare Florida and California. You have to take into account different policies, and there is no way to argue that Florida's policy has saved lives.

[1] https://www.prb.org/resources/which-us-states-are-the-oldest... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... [3] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Se...

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