Pre-judgement of this kind by “them” isn’t helpful.
“They” don’t want to be guilty of supporting ineffective measures when it is about life and death
I think that Fauci has an open mind and will listen to others in his team, who, collectively, will make decisions. I’m sure that’s how he works as leader of his Institute. I don’t think he’ll make decisions without the counsel of the others. And, yes, he is a very good person to present the thinking of the group to Biden and act as a spokesman to the country.
In a pandemic (and many other parts of life) nothing happens in isolation and so even if you think you make your own right decisions you still won’t go anywhere without some general “ground rules” by the government (or are you one of those people who also thinks that health insurance or food stamps are bad because everybody should make their own decisions and don’t care for support of less well people)
He will make decisions in a group but he is also a person who clearly knows that ultimately the leader (him) of that group will make the final call (yes, Biden will make the last call but he won’t be invoked in the day-to-day discussions and will follow the advice from the group which Fauci will lead)
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We all know that it’s about life and death. You don’t have to keep hammering on that point. We all get it. But assuming that measures will be ineffective in advance of assessment is not good science.
And do you really, honestly believe that a nationally enforced lockdown with criminal penalties would work in the US? Really?
Yes.
Do you really believe these experts haven’t looked over the last 7-8 months at many different possible solutions and what does it tell you that they still strongly recommend lockdowns ? (You can be sure they have assessed many options before calling them ineffective)
I don’t believe that they’ve seriously considered feedback control. Point me to one peer-reviewed paper that shows that any of them have done so and found it to be an ineffective potential solution.
The IEEE paper that I’ve pointed to frequently has shown that feedback control can be effective against covid spread.
Scientists tend to not write papers about things which don’t work (in epidemiology or any other science field) but they present many talks about many different thoughts about those things (which I have seen many)
Honk, don’t tell me what scientists do and don’t do. I’ve been a faculty engineering professor and scientist for my entire career, with a great many publications, and having attended and presented at an infinite number of meetings, nationally and internationally, including at the National Academy of Sciences in WDC.
Even the IEEE paper that I referred to here talks about things that “don’t work”.
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Not sure what you mean by that - it’s obvious what the vaccine is about and there is only a certain additional risk associated regarding long-term tox with the short timelines but otherwise we would be in the current situation for 8-9 more years - it’s always a risk-benefit calculation.
I find it telling that you only said that food stamps are good but nothing about health insurance.
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Don’t tell me anything about biomedical/pharma/biotech research in industry or academia which I have done for me whole career. Nobody writes in these different fields whole manuscripts about ideas which are not working as the reviewers wouldn’t accept them.
In addition, in the moment all biomedical research journals have extremely long waiting times (because there are so many submitted manuscripts) that people have to wait many months to get reviews (when it has previously taken 3-4 weeks). This leads to scientists being even more careful what they are submitting if you have to wait for 3-4 months to get a review (which is way too long in a fast moving field as Covid-19). As consequence a lot of biomedical Covid-19 research is now presented in talks (and there are many to attend if you work with the right organizations) including those covering topics you might be interested.
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@Emglow101 take your pandemic misinformation elsewhere. Do not post about Covid-19 on this site.
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That is indeed an unfortunate situation.
So I guess it’s scientist to scientist here – just different fields.
Robert, where did you find the plot in post 496 on this thread? Could you provide a link, please? I can’t find it and would be interested in following updates to it. Does it apply just to LA or is it more regional? The State website gives percent excess ICU in each of the 5 new regions, but not a plot vs. time.
I made it from the daily ICU data on
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Thanks. So, is it correct that there were about 525 staffed ICU beds in use by covid patients in LA county at the beginning of the period you plotted? (The total number of ICU beds in LA county is about 2500, IIRC.) I’m just trying to understand.
I would assume that staffed ICU beds for covid patients would have to be in the infectious diseases ward, with their special ventilation and PPE requirements, so not all ICU beds can be used for covid patients.
Number jumped 20% in four days. “Other” jumped almost as much.
I think I read somewhere that some hospitals have upgraded all of their ICU units’ ventilation to be usable for Covid if necessary.
This is an informed, intelligent preemptive action that should be encouraged broadly wherever hospital budgets permit.
Any hospitals that have already managed to budget and accomplish these upgrades should be both congratulated and recognized. If ICU for covid patients must be increased, this kind of flexibility is essential.