Important note, fleshed out a bit more in Omicron Post #14: From various sources, I have become convinced that rapid tests taken from nose swabs are likely to often be several days slower at detecting infections than rapid tests that use throat swabs.
They're part of the bigger picture, and I'm sure I'll revisit them when/if I do my review of events when the time comes for that. For now, such things enrich my models but aren't that big a part of the explicit ongoing story.
> So if the mean time between infections is about three days, and your first day is mostly safe since the virus has to multiply first, then how many cases can happen more than five days after your symptoms start, which is also at least one or two days after you get infected? Assuming any reasonable distribution, only a very small number.
Here is an explanation that fits that data:
Pretend you are very infectious starting at day 2 and stay infectious for 10 more days.
You are going to infect everyone in your social circle in a few days. But that doesn't mean you are no longer infectious. I can't go visit grandma "safely" on day 6 in this model, even though I've infected most of the people I'm going to infect already.
I don't get this business about dehumanization. I can still see your eyes and a lot of your expression. I can see your body language. I can see your clothes (we say a lot through our clothing choices, whether we intend to or not.) I feel like I can go to the grocery store and interact with someone in the produce section by gesturing to say "you first" or "oh, sorry, didn't see you there." I do not have the sensation that I am grocery shopping with a lot of Daleks or something.
Do you an idea how likely it is to be infectious before you test positive? I.e., if I had exposure to a positive case, but don’t myself test positive (yet), how many days should I wait until I test negative and can visit grandma.
The link to my comment seems to be broken. It's linking to my (currently inactive) blog instead of the comment. Not that I don't appreciate the boost in my ongoing attempts to become a rationalist micro-celebrity, but it's probably not what you were going for.
On the object level of whether my stance is reasonable, has the Chinese government ever come out and said "The Great Leap Forward didn't work out that well"? Because I'm pretty sure they haven't. Xi's China does not seem so different from Mao's that they'd be more forthcoming about potential national embarrassment. More directly relevant are China's efforts to cover up the Uighur enslavement and genocide in Xinjiang, or their handling of the Peng Shuai rape allegations. The thing to remember is that Chinese state media has much more to do with signaling the strength and control of the CCP to the Chinese than it has to do with persuading any foreigners of anything (look up "wolf warrior diplomacy" for this in its crudest form). Thus, even if it was obvious to the world that China's COVID Zero policy had failed, it seems to me that there would be good reasons related to avoiding motive ambiguity to continue denying the existence of a war in Ba Sing Se. You get many more "China doesn't take any shit from anyone for any reason" for denying obviously true things than you do for putting out official communications which might actually convey information about the state of COVID in China.
"On the object level of whether my stance is reasonable, has the Chinese government ever come out and said "The Great Leap Forward didn't work out that well"? Because I'm pretty sure they haven't."
"Regrettably, the correct line adopted at the Party’s Eighth National Congress was not fully upheld. Mistakes were made such as the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune movement, and the scope of the struggle against Rightists was also made far too broad. Confronted with a grave and complex external environment at the time, the Party was extremely concerned about consolidating China’s socialist state power, and made a wide range of efforts in this regard. However, Comrade Mao Zedong’s theoretical and practical errors concerning class struggle in a socialist society became increasingly serious, and the Central Committee failed to rectify these mistakes in good time. Under a completely erroneous appraisal of the prevailing class relations and the political situation in the Party and the country, Comrade Mao Zedong launched and led the Cultural Revolution. The counter-revolutionary cliques of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing took advantage of Comrade Mao Zedong’s mistakes, and committed many crimes that brought disaster to the country and the people, resulting in ten years of domestic turmoil which caused the Party, the country, and the people to suffer the most serious losses and setbacks since the founding of the People’s Republic. This was an extremely bitter lesson. Acting on the will of the Party and the people, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee resolutely smashed the Gang of Four in October 1976, putting an end to the catastrophic Cultural Revolution."
Good to know, thanks! I have thoughts, but just noticed that Zvi deleted the passage under discussion from the latest post, so I suspect he doesn't want us to have this sort of discussion here and now.
Did you cover the FDA officials resignations and Offut’s booster hesitancy? I just learned about these and thought these were major turning points.
I did at the times they happened.
Oh interesting. For you is it a theme worth revisiting or just a one off?
FWIW, I see the revolt within the public health Orthodoxy and the China stuff as the two under reported themes right now.
They're part of the bigger picture, and I'm sure I'll revisit them when/if I do my review of events when the time comes for that. For now, such things enrich my models but aren't that big a part of the explicit ongoing story.
> So if the mean time between infections is about three days, and your first day is mostly safe since the virus has to multiply first, then how many cases can happen more than five days after your symptoms start, which is also at least one or two days after you get infected? Assuming any reasonable distribution, only a very small number.
Here is an explanation that fits that data:
Pretend you are very infectious starting at day 2 and stay infectious for 10 more days.
You are going to infect everyone in your social circle in a few days. But that doesn't mean you are no longer infectious. I can't go visit grandma "safely" on day 6 in this model, even though I've infected most of the people I'm going to infect already.
Ad schools, not sure if you noticed national teacher strike in France today. They are protesting essentially against government´s attempt to keep schools open through omicron: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220113-teachers-in-france-stage-massive-walk-out-over-covid-confusion
I don't get this business about dehumanization. I can still see your eyes and a lot of your expression. I can see your body language. I can see your clothes (we say a lot through our clothing choices, whether we intend to or not.) I feel like I can go to the grocery store and interact with someone in the produce section by gesturing to say "you first" or "oh, sorry, didn't see you there." I do not have the sensation that I am grocery shopping with a lot of Daleks or something.
Do you an idea how likely it is to be infectious before you test positive? I.e., if I had exposure to a positive case, but don’t myself test positive (yet), how many days should I wait until I test negative and can visit grandma.
Depends how sure you need to be. Five to be certain. Three with a throat swab mostly fine but there is always risk.
The link to my comment seems to be broken. It's linking to my (currently inactive) blog instead of the comment. Not that I don't appreciate the boost in my ongoing attempts to become a rationalist micro-celebrity, but it's probably not what you were going for.
On the object level of whether my stance is reasonable, has the Chinese government ever come out and said "The Great Leap Forward didn't work out that well"? Because I'm pretty sure they haven't. Xi's China does not seem so different from Mao's that they'd be more forthcoming about potential national embarrassment. More directly relevant are China's efforts to cover up the Uighur enslavement and genocide in Xinjiang, or their handling of the Peng Shuai rape allegations. The thing to remember is that Chinese state media has much more to do with signaling the strength and control of the CCP to the Chinese than it has to do with persuading any foreigners of anything (look up "wolf warrior diplomacy" for this in its crudest form). Thus, even if it was obvious to the world that China's COVID Zero policy had failed, it seems to me that there would be good reasons related to avoiding motive ambiguity to continue denying the existence of a war in Ba Sing Se. You get many more "China doesn't take any shit from anyone for any reason" for denying obviously true things than you do for putting out official communications which might actually convey information about the state of COVID in China.
"On the object level of whether my stance is reasonable, has the Chinese government ever come out and said "The Great Leap Forward didn't work out that well"? Because I'm pretty sure they haven't."
This is factually wrong. Here (https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Full-text-of-the-Chinese-Communist-Party-s-new-resolution-on-history) is a resolution of Central Comittee of Chinese Communist Party from 11 November 2021, acknowledging past "mistakes" including Great Leap Forward. Relevant passage:
"Regrettably, the correct line adopted at the Party’s Eighth National Congress was not fully upheld. Mistakes were made such as the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune movement, and the scope of the struggle against Rightists was also made far too broad. Confronted with a grave and complex external environment at the time, the Party was extremely concerned about consolidating China’s socialist state power, and made a wide range of efforts in this regard. However, Comrade Mao Zedong’s theoretical and practical errors concerning class struggle in a socialist society became increasingly serious, and the Central Committee failed to rectify these mistakes in good time. Under a completely erroneous appraisal of the prevailing class relations and the political situation in the Party and the country, Comrade Mao Zedong launched and led the Cultural Revolution. The counter-revolutionary cliques of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing took advantage of Comrade Mao Zedong’s mistakes, and committed many crimes that brought disaster to the country and the people, resulting in ten years of domestic turmoil which caused the Party, the country, and the people to suffer the most serious losses and setbacks since the founding of the People’s Republic. This was an extremely bitter lesson. Acting on the will of the Party and the people, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee resolutely smashed the Gang of Four in October 1976, putting an end to the catastrophic Cultural Revolution."
Good to know, thanks! I have thoughts, but just noticed that Zvi deleted the passage under discussion from the latest post, so I suspect he doesn't want us to have this sort of discussion here and now.
Djokovich has had his visa cancelled again at the Immigration Minister's personal discretion. He's going to appeal again.
There's a Federal election coming up in a few months, so there's more riding on this than there might appear.