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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><div><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">> The 469 infectees were essentially self-reported </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">people, concerned enough to get PCR-tested. </span></div><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">It's also probable that people who were vaxed were more likely than un-vaxed to also get tested and report the results.</div><div><br></div>
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On Friday, August 13, 2021, 07:29:25 PM PDT, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
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<div>Forwarding a thread here because I had some fun with it. I cross-posted <br clear="none">my invite to the Bay Area Science Fiction Association mailing list, <br clear="none">where the somewhat infamous Jon del Arroz of Danville, notorious for<br clear="none">trolling behaviour that got him disinvited from the 2018 San Jose Worldcon<br clear="none">and _then_ suing the Worldcon claiming various sorts of alleged victimhood <br clear="none">saw my invitation, and...<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">From: Jonathan Del Arroz <br clear="none">To: Rick Moen <<a shape="rect" href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>><br clear="none">Cc: <a shape="rect" href="mailto:basfa@lists.basfa.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">basfa@lists.basfa.org</a><br clear="none">Subject: Re: [Basfa] BBQ party for the vaccinated, West Menlo, Saturday, Aug. 14, 4pm-12m<br clear="none">X-Mailer: iPhone Mail (18F72)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Would love to, but definitely not at the expense of getting an<br clear="none">experimental injection. I'll just host a party for the unvaccinated<br clear="none">instead, since studies are showing we spread the new variants less,<br clear="none">anyway. Mine should be safer! Feel free to join.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">He probably had no actual intention of hosting anything, for lots of<br clear="none">reasons including unpopularity by his own hand -- and also Danville,<br clear="none">in August being like an oven. I looked up a couple of things, and fired back:<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 03:05:31 -0700<br clear="none">From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com><br clear="none">To: basfa at lists.basfa.org<br clear="none">Subject: Re: [Basfa] BBQ party for the vaccinated, West Menlo, Saturday, Aug. 14, 4pm-12m<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Quoting Jonathan Del Arroz:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> I'll just host a party for the unvaccinated instead, since studies are<br clear="none">> showing we spread the new variants less, anyway. Mine should be<br clear="none">> safer!<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Nope. Your knowledge of epidemiology needs repair, Jon, as you've<br clear="none">been misinformed.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">There _aren't_ "studies" showing that unvaxed spread Delta and<br clear="none">successors less. That is wrong twice over: Unvaxed are massively more<br clear="none">likely to get infected at all, and also massively more likely to remain<br clear="none">infectious for longer periods, lengthening potential exposure.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">What actually came out wasn't a study, but rather a brief item in the<br clear="none">Aug. 6 edition of CDC's _Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report_<br clear="none">(MMWR) covering a Delta outbreak at Provincetown, tip of Cape Cod, after<br clear="none">Independence Day. Social media glommed onto _one_ figure: Among 469<br clear="none">PCR-confirmed COVID-19 infections found among seaside party-goers, 346<br clear="none">(74%) occurred in vaccinated persons. Also, breakthrough (vaxed) infectees<br clear="none">during their period of infectiousness carried about the same viral load<br clear="none">as did the unvaxed infectees (the same "cycle threshold" aka Ct, during<br clear="none">operational cycles of the machine that does PCR testing to detect and<br clear="none">duplicate viral genetic material). So, whoa! Being vaxed means you<br clear="none">spread Delta _more_, right?<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Nope. This falls haplessly into Base Rate Fallacy, where you flub<br clear="none">estimating probability by ignoring context.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">To understand that, imagine a slightly inattentive researcher studying<br clear="none">alcoholism in Dad's hometown of Kristiansund, population ~25,000.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Say (not real numbers here, but credible ones) results note that out of<br clear="none">550 identified alcoholics, 542, were blond. Whoa, says he! If you're<br clear="none">blond and resident of Kristiansund, you've 97% chance of alcoholism.<br clear="none">We must search for genetic links.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Does this researcher get a Nobel? Nope, he gets indulgent chuckles,<br clear="none">as he forgot Kristiansund (north of Bergen) has wall-to-wall blonds,<br clear="none">about as many blonds as herrings. Call that, in round figures, 22,000.<br clear="none">So, more like a 542 / 22000 * 100 = 2% chance, not 97%.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Getting back to Provincetown: That 74% is just wildly devoid of base<br clear="none">rate context, in that the study of the outbreak made no estimate of how<br clear="none">many persons got exposed, nor even what percentage of those present<br clear="none">in total were vaxed. The 469 infectees were essentially self-reported<br clear="none">people, concerned enough to get PCR-tested. Nobody got told "We need to<br clear="none">test you if you were in any Provincetown bar between July 10th and 18th":<br clear="none">Thus, there's an automatic "detection bias". Second, as vaxed<br clear="none">population has increased, especially among people like Cape Cod<br clear="none">holidayers, you get the Kristiansund-blonds problem: Vaxed persons<br clear="none">necessarily will then constitute a rising portion of cases.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">For all of the above reasons plus others I don't even get into, _MMWR_<br clear="none">warned the info was "insufficient to draw conclusions about the<br clear="none">effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against SARS-CoV-2". But social<br clear="none">media ignored that, and stumbled straight into the Base Rate Fallacy<br clear="none">trap. <a shape="rect" href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cdc-provincetown-covid-event/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cdc-provincetown-covid-event/</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/07/30/study-vaccinated-people-can-carry-as-much-virus-as-others/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/07/30/study-vaccinated-people-can-carry-as-much-virus-as-others/</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">As a statistics guy and a Bayesian, that kind of thing makes me sad.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Also, with Delta as with prior variants, vaxed infectees clear virus faster.<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-variant.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-variant.html</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/09/1031292/questions-delta-variant-contagious-tranmission-vaccination/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/09/1031292/questions-delta-variant-contagious-tranmission-vaccination/</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">--<br clear="none">Cheers, "Orthodoxy is my doxy. Heterodoxy is someone else's doxy."<br clear="none">Rick Moen -- William Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester (1698-1779)<br clear="none">rick at linuxmafia.com<br clear="none">McQ! (4x80)<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">From: Bryan Houser<br clear="none">Date: Thu Aug 12 13:22:53 PDT 2021<br clear="none">Subject: Re: [Basfa] BBQ party for the vaccinated, West Menlo, Saturday, Aug. 14, 4pm-12m<br clear="none">To: <a shape="rect" href="mailto:basfa@lists.basfa.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">basfa@lists.basfa.org</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">…then Rick drops the mic :-)<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 17:29:21 -0700<br clear="none">From: Rick Moen <<a shape="rect" href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>><br clear="none">To: <a shape="rect" href="mailto:basfa@lists.basfa.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">basfa@lists.basfa.org</a><br clear="none">Subject: Re: [Basfa] BBQ party for the vaccinated, West Menlo, Saturday, Aug. 14, 4pm-12m<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Quoting Bryan Houser:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> …then Rick drops the mic :-)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">You've been a great audience. I'll be here all week.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">But I learn from the best, e.g.,<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/category/vaccines/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/category/vaccines/</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/category/epidemiology-2/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/category/epidemiology-2/</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">(Their "Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine" series, under category<br clear="none">"Science and Medicine", is also enlightening reading. That's up to five<br clear="none">pieces, because the entertaining special-pleading never stops.)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">And Jon, you may remember I'm never hostile to you, wish you well, and<br clear="none">enjoy chatting with you. Best wishes to you and your family, to keep<br clear="none">them safe. For their sake, if nothing else, I'm glad your notion of an<br clear="none">outdoor(?) party in August _in Danville_ was most likely imaginary. My<br clear="none">Uncle Joe and Aunt Bjorg lived for decades at the top of Clipper Hill Road,<br clear="none">near Eugene O'Neill's Taos House. Lovely place to visit and hang out at<br clear="none">the pool, but _never in August_, when as you know it's beastly outdoors.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">--<br clear="none">Cheers, Grammarian's bar joke #22: The past, present,<br clear="none">Rick Moen and future walked into a bar. It was tense.<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rick@linuxmafia.com</a><br clear="none">McQ! (4x80)<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 10:43:20 -0700<br clear="none">From: Rick Moen <<a shape="rect" href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>><br clear="none">To: <a shape="rect" href="mailto:basfa@lists.basfa.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">basfa@lists.basfa.org</a><br clear="none">Subject: Re: [Basfa] BBQ party for the vaccinated, West Menlo, Saturday, Aug. 14, 4pm-12m<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Quoting Jonathan Del Arroz:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> Would love to but definitely not at the expense of getting an<br clear="none">> experimental injection. I'll just host a party for the unvaccinated<br clear="none">> instead since studies are showing we spread the new variants less<br clear="none">> anyway mine should be safer! Feel free to join.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Jon, despite the unfortunate science error in your thoughtful<br clear="none">invitation, I do appreciate it, but have a few simple questions that<br clear="none">are still bothering me.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">1. When and where will your party for the unvaccinated be, then?<br clear="none"><br clear="none">2. Can you explain why you would specifically invite a vaccinated<br clear="none"> SF fan (me), given your premise that avoiding the vaccine is<br clear="none"> safer, and your desire to gather only the unvaccinated?<br clear="none"><br clear="none">3. By what method will you be verifing unvaccinated status of<br clear="none"> arriving guests (other than me)?<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Looking forward to those answers, with utmost anticipation -- but also<br clear="none">with well-trained adaptive immune system B cells, about which you can<br clear="none">read here:<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/anatomy-of-a-vaccine-breakthrough/619562/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/anatomy-of-a-vaccine-breakthrough/619562/</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">--<br clear="none">Cheers, The Astley Paradox: If you ask Rick Astley for his copy<br clear="none">Rick Moen of the movie "Up", he cannot give it to you, as he will<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rick@linuxmafia.com</a> never give you up. However, in doing so, he lets you down.<br clear="none">McQ! (4x80)<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">[crickets]<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 19:13:20 -0700<br clear="none">From: Deirdre Saoirse Moen <<a shape="rect" href="mailto:deirdre@deirdre.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">deirdre@deirdre.net</a>><br clear="none">To: <a shape="rect" href="mailto:basfa@lists.basfa.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">basfa@lists.basfa.org</a><br clear="none">Subject: Re: [Basfa] BBQ party for the vaccinated, West Menlo, Saturday, Aug. 14, 4pm-12m<br clear="none"><br clear="none">First, I want to acknowledge that you are genuinely trying to have your<br clear="none">family’s best interests at heart.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I was one of the “lucky” West Coast people who got COVID last year, but<br clear="none">a pre-pandemic strain (that came to the Bay Area directly from China in<br clear="none">January; The pandemic strain came to the US via Europe a bit later) from<br clear="none">an asymptomatic person who’d just returned from China. I’d just had a<br clear="none">tooth removed leaving a big gaping hole for COVID to have easy access.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">By the end of May 2020, I had no antibodies even though I had the<br clear="none">“sequelae” of long COVID, i.e., the collateral damage it did. After six<br clear="none">solid months of being ill, I had to go to the ER as I greyed out. We<br clear="none">figured out what I had (postural orthostatic tachycardia), and got<br clear="none">treated for it, but it took months and months to feel better even then,<br clear="none">I’m still not back to where I was 19 months ago, and I probably never<br clear="none">will be.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">During that time, I read more than 3,000 pages of science papers about<br clear="none">COVID (and also some about dengue, Ebola, MERS, and SARS) to try to<br clear="none">update my understanding of virology and how it had changed since I took<br clear="none">immunology. Some of them are just horrifying, e.g., the “just put the<br clear="none">Internet away for the rest of the day” paper about the poor guy (and not<br clear="none">the only person!) who got autoimmune encephalitis from COVID.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">“Autoimmune Encephalitis Presenting With Malignant Catatonia in a<br clear="none">40-Year-Old Male Patient With Covid-19”<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160770v1 " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160770v1 </a> (Link is<br clear="none">to the preprint. It was later published. However, that text is not free.)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Personally, I’m glad for the vaccine. A vaccine, even an experimental<br clear="none">one, is like being snuck the answers to the test before the final. Sure,<br clear="none">there’s a chance the teacher will add a surprise question, but! You’ll<br clear="none">still almost certainly pass the test.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">To put that into a chart, here’s one from Houston:<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://twitter.com/kavitapmd/status/1425265615468699652 " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/kavitapmd/status/1425265615468699652 </a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">The ICU and ventilators are needed for the unvaccinated, not the<br clear="none">vaccinated, and only a few vaccinated people are in the hospital (about<br clear="none">11% of the total COVID patients in those two hospitals; Houston’s<br clear="none">overall fully vaccinated rate is 47.2%:<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://data.citizen-times.com/covid-19-vaccine-tracker/texas/harris-county/48201/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://data.citizen-times.com/covid-19-vaccine-tracker/texas/harris-county/48201/</a>).<br clear="none">Make of that what you will.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I would not have an unvaccinated party at this point in time,<br clear="none">personally. If you wish to offer the best outcome for all attending, I’d<br clear="none">suggest reviewing the calculations at <a shape="rect" href="https://www.microcovid.org/ " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.microcovid.org/ </a>and<br clear="none">model possible scenarios to fit your risk comfort level. (They do show<br clear="none">the math; they have read many of the same papers as I have.)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Also, while I’m on the topic, a friend of mine is an intensivist (ICU<br clear="none">physician) in Guangzhou, so I got to hear about the ground preparation<br clear="none">and all the day-to-day upheavals there. Lots of people have suspected<br clear="none">they’re under-reporting, but, after the last conversation we had about it<br clear="none">(last week), I think their numbers aren’t fudged nearly as much as many<br clear="none">assume.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Here’s why:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">WeChat is not only a chat app and a cash exchange app and a photos app<br clear="none">and Facebook. It also has a ton of other functions… one of which is<br clear="none">reaching out to contacts of people who’ve tested positive for COVID,<br clear="none">*whether you know them or not*. If you stood on the same room in the<br clear="none">same building at the same time, they’re notified.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Also, all tests are reported to the user directly on WeChat.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">There’s a *huge* social stigma with testing positive, and therefore I<br clear="none">think people are just super careful.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">My friend was being sent to help manage a small outbreak, and some of<br clear="none">the hospital staff got wind of it and resigned rather than risk testing<br clear="none">positive. So: Upside to authoritarianism for once?<div class="ydp93306d44yqt7793272604" id="ydp93306d44yqtfd86018"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Deirdre<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">conspire mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="mailto:conspire@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">conspire@linuxmafia.com</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire</a><br clear="none"></div></div>
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