Coronavirus (sports edition) thread

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

The funny thing about this comment is I was going to say the exact same thing about your 'only 1 side comment' and chose not to because it would not enhance anything.

Sorry if 6 graphs showing the deaths over time in relation to the 5 countries vax rates I mentioned in the text is indecipherable to you - though I am as positive it wasn't really indecipherable, or spamming, as I am that you would be never bogged down by 6 graphs given the work in statistical analysis and cap number sheets you have done on this site alone.

To be clear, my point in showing the graphs, was to show that regardless of country policy, or vax rate, this virus has a course to run.

A side point is that the NFL setting different standards for vax vs unvax'd will have 0 effect on the course of the virus. They do it for political purposes, and more importantly, they do it to give the general public an enhanced feeling of security so that they can fill up the stadiums for revenue purposes.

But you're missing oodles of context CRed, and it's causing you to misinterpret the graphs. Three very important things you're missing:

1) You need to overlay the dates on which various measures were put into place. Take the US graph, and draw a vertical line on the date when our social distancing measures were instituted. And draw another vertical line on the dates when the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were approved for emergency use authorization. The context you're missing is what the numbers would have been if no social distancing or masking measures were put in place, and what they would have been more recently if the vaccines weren't rolled out.

2) Trying to trend total COVID cases and expecting a meaningful visual trend to emerge is a fool's errand. We weren't testing for the illness consistently in the early going.

3) If you think coronaviruses need to run a course, as if they have a lifecycle, shows you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how viruses like these replicate themselves. The flu does not run its course, the flu follows this same peak and valley pattern and comes back every year, hence we are vaccinated every year. The common cold, another coronavirus, does the same thing, with more frequent peaks and valleys throughout the year, but peaking highest in colder weather when everyone spends more time indoors.
This coronavirus is no different and will not peter out on its own. It is well understood throughout the scientific community that it is here to stay and will require annual vaccination just like the flu does. Maybe you choose not to get the annual flu shot, after all it doesn't represent the same grave threat to life that COVID does. But it's here to stay like the cold and the flu. You'll need a booster every year, or you'll face this threat every winter in particular.

And before you go in on me about Australia, they've had closed borders since the pandemic began. So overlay that line on your little chart, too.