(2021-06-17) ZviM Covid 6/17 One Last Scare

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 6/17 : One Last Scare. The one last scare, from America’s perspective, is the Delta variant. If we can remain stable or improving once Delta takes over, then barring another even more infectious variant, we’ve won. If and where we can’t do that, it’s not over.

The Numbers

Vaccinations

Compared to what I expected, this continues to be good news. First doses do not appear to be declining much

If we can sustain this pace indefinitely, with an additional 1% vaccinated every week, we will be home free soon in most places, regardless of how bad Delta is

Delta Variant

if you are fully vaccinated, you should not be personally worried.

Given we are already 50%+ vaccinated if you discount children, and what vaccines we are using, that’s something like a 2% improvement each week. If we can keep that up as a share of the remaining population, that will be cumulative.

Thus, it looks clear to me that most places in America are going to make it given the additional vaccinations that will take place, but some places with low vaccination rates will fall short.

Please Stop Asking Me About That Guy

That guy’s name is Bret Weinstein.

Bret has made a huge number of overlapping extraordinary claims, with an extraordinary degree of both confidence and magnitude

It’s a variety of different theories about how everyone’s covering up The Truth Which Is Out There

Some of his claims such as the lab leak are plausibly correct, but are stated with absurd levels of confidence. Others, stated with similarly absurd confidence, are… less plausible.

Look. I totally get it. After everything that’s happened, in the words of one commenter, if it’s a choice between the people who claimed masks didn’t work handing verdicts out from on high or ‘those three guys on that podcast’ and the podcast guys seem to have models containing gears, why wouldn’t you go with the podcast guys?

Except that one can decline to take either side’s word for it, and think about the proposed gears, including the other gears and claims coming from the same sources, derive your guess as to what algorithms both are using to decide what to claim, and decide that neither of these options is going to be much of a source.

I finally unfollowed him when I noticed that every time I saw his tweets my mood got worse in anticipation, yet I wasn’t learning anything useful except how to answer people asking about his claims.

That does not mean that all of Bret’s claims are implausible or wrong. Some aren’t. It simply means that the whole thing is exhausting and exasperating, many of the claims being made are obvious nonsense

It definitely does not mean I agree with the decision by some platforms to censor his claims. While I do think many of his censored claims are wrong, it would be a better world if such claims were not censored

In Other News

Not Covid

Dominic Cummings wants to know the probability China will take over Taiwan in the next five years, because private conversations suggest 50%+, and asks what he should read. A relevant Metaculus market is here, but the right answer is of course a prediction market with actual money involved