Tuesday Open Thread

60
  by: Colorado Pols January 17, 2022 at 10:30 PM MST

“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”

–Saint Augustine

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60 Community Comments, Facebook Comments

  1. Powerful Pear says:
    January 18, 2022 at 6:19 AM MST

    BREAKING NEWS: Everything does depend on GOD.

  2. ParkHill says:
    January 18, 2022 at 7:27 AM MST

    Covid Deaths By State Ranked:

    Wyoming, West Virginia, Montana, Florida, Tennessee,  Missouri, Idaho, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia top the list.

    Colorado has half the deaths per-capita as Wyoming.

    • kwtree says:
      January 18, 2022 at 7:30 AM MST

      Sheesh. If Pear is right, God must really be pissed at those red states.

    • notaskinnycook says:
      January 18, 2022 at 7:39 AM MST

      Wyoming and Montana? They're liable to run out of people before they run out of virus.

       

    • Negev says:
      January 18, 2022 at 9:01 AM MST

      Am I reading that chart correctly? Colorado had 3,960 deaths when no vaccine existed and 3,851 deaths when available. A difference of 109 deaths. Does that equate to a 2.75% decrease in deaths due to the vaccine? 

      • Diogenesdemar says:
        January 18, 2022 at 9:28 AM MST

        No.

        But, it does mean that even with Pfruit’s god calling all the shots, the vaccinations don’t help nearly as much as they could if you choose to depend on not getting them . . .

        . . . and that you could probably use some help from Pfruit on your ABCs and reading.

        • Negev says:
          January 18, 2022 at 9:41 AM MST

          I think numbers refer to math, not ABCs….Help me understand. I would think with a 75% vaccination rate we would reduce deaths by more than 2.75%. I did this by dividing the lower death rate of 3,851 by the higher of 3,960 (3851/3960=.9725) and subtracted 1 to get .0275, which, I think, when converted to a percentage you would move the decimal 2 spaces right (right?) to result in 2.75%. Or is it 27.5%? 

          • Diogenesdemar says:
            January 18, 2022 at 11:11 AM MST

            You did ask if you were reading the chart correctly.  Your team’s numbers guy is Fluffy — GLWT . . .

            . . . https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

            Notice the chart down below the summary — overall US, not Colorado specific, however — for the most recent period for which data is currently available, the unvaccinated had 5x the risk of testing positive, and 14x the risk of death from Covid, as compared to the vaccinated.

            Divide whatever you want by whatever you want and then multiply it by whatever you want — and then think about it however you manage to think — it’s not on point.

            The best protection from Covid for any individual is for that individual to be vaccinated.  (Shots into your neighbors’ arms won’t vaccinate you any better than their guzzling dewormer will deworm you.)

             

            • Negev says:
              January 18, 2022 at 11:32 AM MST

              I am not sure your response is on point, with all due respect. I asked if I was reading the chart correctly and your response is "squirrel!"? Providing a nationwide chart of risk? Not sure how you manage to think that is relevent but much further off point that my inquiry….

              I agree, the best protection from Covid is to be vaccinated. No doubt. My question is, in Colorado, does the vaccine decrease the death rate by 2.75%?

              • Diogenesdemar says:
                January 18, 2022 at 11:45 AM MST

                That is a good question.

                I don’t know if Colorado gathers that data, and if it does, I haven’t found where it reports such.

                But, the chart you are reading (deaths in time periods) does not supply the data to answer your question.  So, no, you are not reading the chart correctly — you are misreading the information it provides, none of which has anything to do with causality/mortality and reductions related to the vaccinations.

              • kwtree says:
                January 18, 2022 at 12:00 PM MST

                What you’re seeing in Colorado are the ups and downs with the Delta and Omicron variants.

                When we read Colorado‘s column straight across, you see a high death rate ( 3,969 /100K) at the beginning of the pandemic with no vaccinations available. Then, with the start of vaccinations you see the death rate greatly decrease, to 2,232/ 100K

                 Then you see Delta and Omacron variants kicking in and vaccine denialism rampaging through the red counties, filling up the ERs with MAGA minions on ventilators.. The death rate goes back up to 3,851/100K

                When you get granular with the data by county, you can see that the red anti vax counties, like Mesa and Weld, also have much higher per capita death rates.

                https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view

                You can see basically the same pattern in every state except for the very solid , populous blue states like New York and California which have decreased their death rate rhrough vaccinations and it has stayed down. You could probably zoom in on the effects of mask mandates, shutdowns and “draconian” measures, as well as very high vax rates, in states where the death rate has stayed low.

                • Negev says:
                  January 18, 2022 at 3:57 PM MST

                  Mama what would you consider a pro vax, blue county in CO to compare to Weld and Mesa Counties?

                • Diogenesdemar says:
                  January 18, 2022 at 4:14 PM MST

                  Well, not that either.  The numbers 3,969; 2,232; and 3,851 are not per-100,000 numbers.  They’re total deaths (in Colorado in those three time frames indicated at the top of the chart),

                  The only per-100,000 number for Colorado is that 65-per-100,000 number (for after April 19, 2021).

          • Diogenesdemar says:
            January 18, 2022 at 4:25 PM MST

            And, when was that “75% vaccination rate” for the entire eligible population in Colorado achieved?

            Hint #1, it did not happen on the day that persons first became eligible for vaccination.

            Hint #2, Colorado is currently right now at 67% of vaccinating its currently eligible population:  

            See How Vaccinations Are Going in Your County and State

            https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html

            The information in the chart which began all this, is useful for showing a comparison of states (by overall death rates per 100,000 since April 19, 2021), and that’s pretty much it. Any “analysis” beyond that one purpose is likely to be highly flawed, because the data are not for any of those other purposes.

            • Negev says:
              January 18, 2022 at 5:25 PM MST

              Agreed. However you cannot determine the total death rate per 100k without the data being accurate. Wyoming has a population of 576,000 people, or a divider of 5.76 to determine the total deaths per 100k. The death count after vaccine (the black in the graph) shows 823 deaths. 823 divided by 5.76 equals the 142 total deaths per 100k, which is exactly how it sits on the chart. So if the data provided is "flawed" so are the results. If the data is accurate, more people died in Colorado since the vaccine was available than when it was not. 

               

               

              • Diogenesdemar says:
                January 18, 2022 at 5:41 PM MST

                If the data is accurate, more people died in Colorado since the vaccine was available than when it was not. 

                OK.  And, what do you take that to mean?  Or, rather, what are you trying to make that mean?

                If it’s a statement about vaccine efficacy, or inefficacy, you’re not looking at the kinds of data needed to examine that question.

                Which was the point, I was trying to make to you earlier — that the vaccinations can’t be effective if persons don’t get them?

                Many states (not quite half by my quick count) are showing more deaths since the date when the vaccinations became available for all adults, than before vaccinations were available for anyone. Do you think that means something?

                I’m pretty sure, although not certain, that more folks have died in automobile accidents since seat belts became mandatory in vehicles, than had died before they did?  (That’s not, however, how I or most folks would choose to examine any question of seat belt efficacy.)

                I would not be surprised to find that same datametric phenomenon for numbers of lung cancer deaths, pre and post cigarette and tobacco warnings on packaging?

      • ParkHill says:
        January 18, 2022 at 9:30 AM MST

        The most obvious way to read this chart is to notice that states with Republican Governors dominate at the top with extremely high death rates.

        Red states tend to have other well-known tragedy correlations. For example, Republican dominated states have high gun ownership which results in high death rates from suicides. 

      • JohnInDenver says:
        January 18, 2022 at 11:37 AM MST

        May need to check what chart you are reading. The stat page I go to, http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/, shows Colorado’s cumulative numbers as

        Dec 31,2020…..334,097 cases …..4,814 deaths — case fatality rate 0.0144

        Dec 31, 2021…..929,275 cases…..10,271 deaths

        difference ……..595,178 cases ……5,457 deaths — case fatality rate 0.0092

        difference in case fatality rates is 63%.  Which, given that not everyone was vaccinated at the start of 2021, means vaccinations cut deaths by MORE than 63%.

        Current estimation by Co Dept of Public Health & Environment, based on statewide deaths in November, 2021:  fully vaccinated are 12.9 times less likely to die than the unvaccinated. 54.8 deaths per million among the vaccinated, 704.7 per million among the unvaccinated.

        https://covid19.colorado.gov/vaccine-breakthrough

        In all situations, the disease is much, MUCH worse than the flu. “CDC estimates that, from 2010- to 2020, flu-related deaths in the United States ranged from a low of 12,000 (during 2011-2012) to a high of 52,000 (during 2017-2018).”

  3. ParkHill says:
    January 18, 2022 at 7:38 AM MST

    Heather Cox-Richardson provides a context-ful summary of the campaign to overthrow Biden’s election.

    This is a great read. I didn’t realize that ex UC Boulder Conservative scholar John Eastman was Justice Thomas’s law clerk. 

    In this moment of struggle over voting rights in America, it is important to distinguish between voter fraud, which is vanishingly rare and has not affected the outcome of elections, and election fraud, which is coming to characterize a number of our important elections. 

    Voter fraud is about an individual breaking the law and is almost always caught. It is not a threat to democracy.

    Election fraud means that people in power have rigged the system so that the will of the voters is overturned. When it happens, it threatens to destroy our nation. 

    Now, as the contours of what happened on January 6, 2021, are becoming clearer, they appear to show a number of different schemes to overturn the election through fraud. At least one of those schemes appears to have been a coordinated attempt by members of the Trump administration and sympathizers around the country to overturn our government by committing election fraud. 

    • ParkHill says:
      January 18, 2022 at 7:51 AM MST

      Read the whole thing, but here is a quote that shows how HCR concisely and clearly lays out the connections:

      On December 1, 2020, then–Attorney General William Barr undercut Trump’s claims of voter fraud by telling the Associated Press: “[W]e have not seen fraud on a scale that could have [caused] a different outcome in the election.”

      The true electors met in the states on Monday, December 14, 2020, and cast their ballots for Biden’s victory. Their states certified those ballots. 

      On the same day, on Fox & Friends, Trump advisor Stephen Miller announced that the campaign would overturn the election results and certify Trump as the winner. “As we speak today,” he said, “an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote, and we’re going to send those results up to Congress.” Ultimately, fake electors in seven states—New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin—sent fake ballots to Washington. Election law experts dismissed the possibility that these fake electors could accomplish anything; the certified ballots were the true ones. 

      That same day, December 14, 2020, Trump announced that Attorney General William Barr was resigning. His last day at work was December 23, 2020. 

    • Denver Yankee says:
      January 18, 2022 at 8:56 AM MST

      Your link doesn't work for me, but a Goggle search turned up this.

      https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-17-2022

      You're right about a great read.  Thanks.

  4. notaskinnycook says:
    January 18, 2022 at 9:24 AM MST

    Treatment of COVID with horse dewormer may be bad medicine, but it seems to be a Republican article of faith: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/us/ivermectin-covid-arkansas-jail.html

  5. itlduso says:
    January 18, 2022 at 9:58 AM MST

    One year ago I drafted this letter to the Denver Post editor that was not selected for publication.  It still resonates today:

    Editor,

    The Big Lie that motivated the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol is that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. Congress should introduce a resolution simply stating that Joe Biden won the election fair and square. Such a resolution would remove the fig leaf from some members who did not want to vote for impeachment. Such a resolution would be the most consequential action that Congress would take in its history. This Big Lie must be confronted head on for the country to unite and to save our democracy.

  6. Powerful Pear says:
    January 18, 2022 at 11:37 AM MST

    You people are so easily triggered. You need to make it a little more challenging…….. come on man!

  7. Genghis says:
    January 18, 2022 at 5:41 PM MST

    Get your commie socialist Antifa BLM welfare beast COVID tests right here.

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