Quite a lot of deaths got reported by quite a lot of different states this week. Case numbers did not spike, and instead actively declined. What’s going on? It is right after Christmas and New Years, which means the least reliable reporting of the year, and no one cares much anymore - Indiana and Illinois didn’t bother reporting anything on either front - so the obvious explanation is this is a lot of backlog dumping with the new year. It could however also be that XBB.1 is doing its thing and no one is bothering to test anymore. Error bars are very high for next week.
On ACA signups, I don't understand the last comment by Medlock who said his "client" could have signed up for a Silver plan with CSR if only he had been below 200% FPL. I don't think any such restriction exists. Anyone can sign up for any "metal" plan, as long as they meet the minimum of 100% FPL income required for the law (below that, or approximately 139% if the state expanded medicaid, they should be on that instead). The premium subsidy does vary but that is purely based on income, not on the plan selected. KFF even has a subsidy estimator web site and they don't even ask you what type of plan you want.
I also don't understand why he couldn't get a subsidy if he was filing individually on 40K income. If he is shopping for a _family_ plan then yes their combined income possibly exceeded 400% FPL and therefore no subsidy (excluding the 8.5% covid exception). But as an individual shopping for an individual plan and filing taxes individually, 40K is by my calculation 294% of the 2023 FPL so there is a subsidy.
That is my understanding. I've been on ACA multiple years and have had to juggle the subsidy calculations multiple times (including paying back some of the subsidy because I got it wrong) because I have variable income.
I'm also puzzled by the opening tweet in that thread where he states this uninsured guy just "goes to the emergency room" whenever he needs care. Ok, but they must bill him for that, and even uninsured I'm guessing that is at least 5K per visit. Being uninsured and going to the ER is not like, some weird trick for free healthcare that hospitals HATE. They will bill you and if you don't pay it goes to collections and all that fun stuff. Doesn't seem smart to me and how does he afford that on 40K of income? Unless he never actually goes.
On Gottlieb/ Giroir, I think "it's now clear" isn't false or misleading.
It's expected that surviving a viral infection should confer immunity, otherwise how was the virus defeated? It would also be very weird if exposing someone to fewer instances of the virus, which are actually only a subset of the virus geometry, conferred greater immunity than exposing them to lots of complete viruses. Biology is weird though, so it's prudent to test that assumption. But our threshold for going from "very much expected" to "now clear" could be as low as a single preprint.
I think it's also clear that Gottlieb asked Twitter to suppress another doctor who wasn't arguing that no one should get vaccinated, but that those with prior infection needn't show proof of vaccination to freely move about society.
I think his attempt to have the Tweet referencing "~0% child mortality," taken together with Giroir, is decent evidence that Gottlieb wants to censor things contrary to The Narrative, irrespective of whether they're true or not.
"I am sad he is not still running the FDA." Me too. The counterfactual of how different the course of the pandemic would have been with Gottlieb at FDA....
I am getting the sense that you are primarily looking at the weakest possible evidence for vaccines being unsafe and then rightly discrediting it. But have you seen the leaked Israeli safety data video? Looked at life insurance company death rates in young age groups during the time of the vaccine rollout? Looked at workforce disability rates during vaccine rollout? Looked at age-stratified cost-benefit analyses for vaccination? I'm curious if you've factored all of this in already and still think there's nothing there, or are just operating off of a strong prior in favor of safety until proven otherwise.
“Masks partly disguise your level of attractiveness… Solve for the equilibrium” okay, I will! I will assume they completely disguise your attractiveness, just for simplicity.
Suppose only more attractive people wear masks, down to some cut point. Then the most attractive non-mask-wearer will switch to wearing a mask, in order to pool with the more attractive group of mask wearers. Hence this isn’t an equilibrium.
Suppose only less attractive people wear masks, up to some cutpoint. Then again, the most attractive non-mask-wearer will switch to not wearing a mask - this time to avoid pooling with the unattractive group of mask wearers. Again, not an equilibrium.
I don’t know, I have the same intuition as you, but I don’t think the game theory is that simple!
Weird to me that you read ~"people who think they are attractive" as exclusively ~"people who are attractive" in the masking observation. Narcissism strikes me as a lot more relevant to whether a person would do something inconvenient to help others than attractiveness.
On ACA signups, I don't understand the last comment by Medlock who said his "client" could have signed up for a Silver plan with CSR if only he had been below 200% FPL. I don't think any such restriction exists. Anyone can sign up for any "metal" plan, as long as they meet the minimum of 100% FPL income required for the law (below that, or approximately 139% if the state expanded medicaid, they should be on that instead). The premium subsidy does vary but that is purely based on income, not on the plan selected. KFF even has a subsidy estimator web site and they don't even ask you what type of plan you want.
I also don't understand why he couldn't get a subsidy if he was filing individually on 40K income. If he is shopping for a _family_ plan then yes their combined income possibly exceeded 400% FPL and therefore no subsidy (excluding the 8.5% covid exception). But as an individual shopping for an individual plan and filing taxes individually, 40K is by my calculation 294% of the 2023 FPL so there is a subsidy.
That is my understanding. I've been on ACA multiple years and have had to juggle the subsidy calculations multiple times (including paying back some of the subsidy because I got it wrong) because I have variable income.
I'm also puzzled by the opening tweet in that thread where he states this uninsured guy just "goes to the emergency room" whenever he needs care. Ok, but they must bill him for that, and even uninsured I'm guessing that is at least 5K per visit. Being uninsured and going to the ER is not like, some weird trick for free healthcare that hospitals HATE. They will bill you and if you don't pay it goes to collections and all that fun stuff. Doesn't seem smart to me and how does he afford that on 40K of income? Unless he never actually goes.
On Gottlieb/ Giroir, I think "it's now clear" isn't false or misleading.
It's expected that surviving a viral infection should confer immunity, otherwise how was the virus defeated? It would also be very weird if exposing someone to fewer instances of the virus, which are actually only a subset of the virus geometry, conferred greater immunity than exposing them to lots of complete viruses. Biology is weird though, so it's prudent to test that assumption. But our threshold for going from "very much expected" to "now clear" could be as low as a single preprint.
I think it's also clear that Gottlieb asked Twitter to suppress another doctor who wasn't arguing that no one should get vaccinated, but that those with prior infection needn't show proof of vaccination to freely move about society.
I think his attempt to have the Tweet referencing "~0% child mortality," taken together with Giroir, is decent evidence that Gottlieb wants to censor things contrary to The Narrative, irrespective of whether they're true or not.
"I am sad he is not still running the FDA." Me too. The counterfactual of how different the course of the pandemic would have been with Gottlieb at FDA....
I am getting the sense that you are primarily looking at the weakest possible evidence for vaccines being unsafe and then rightly discrediting it. But have you seen the leaked Israeli safety data video? Looked at life insurance company death rates in young age groups during the time of the vaccine rollout? Looked at workforce disability rates during vaccine rollout? Looked at age-stratified cost-benefit analyses for vaccination? I'm curious if you've factored all of this in already and still think there's nothing there, or are just operating off of a strong prior in favor of safety until proven otherwise.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01374597
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4206070
https://twitter.com/YaffaRaz/status/1565395051374592001?t=JS4n-Md3sUqVCktBCCZ9RA&s=08
https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2110345/suppl_file/nejmoa2110345_appendix.pdf
https://archive.ph/ZtEcw
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34420869/
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7117e1.htm
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22275411-group-life-covid-19-mortality-03-2022-report (page 23)
“Masks partly disguise your level of attractiveness… Solve for the equilibrium” okay, I will! I will assume they completely disguise your attractiveness, just for simplicity.
Suppose only more attractive people wear masks, down to some cut point. Then the most attractive non-mask-wearer will switch to wearing a mask, in order to pool with the more attractive group of mask wearers. Hence this isn’t an equilibrium.
Suppose only less attractive people wear masks, up to some cutpoint. Then again, the most attractive non-mask-wearer will switch to not wearing a mask - this time to avoid pooling with the unattractive group of mask wearers. Again, not an equilibrium.
I don’t know, I have the same intuition as you, but I don’t think the game theory is that simple!
Weird to me that you read ~"people who think they are attractive" as exclusively ~"people who are attractive" in the masking observation. Narcissism strikes me as a lot more relevant to whether a person would do something inconvenient to help others than attractiveness.