Therapeutics and Vaccines 4.0 Discuss

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

And because the universe is an infinite recursion:

https://www.union-bulletin.com/news/nat ... 9f29b.html

MIAMI — Florida on Thursday reported 27,533 additional COVID-19 cases and 628 more deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Miami Herald calculations of CDC data.

In the past seven days, the state has added 152 deaths, the highest seven-day death average since Oct. 18, according to Herald calculations of CDC data. In the past seven days, the state has added 29,415 cases per day on average.

In all, Florida has recorded at least 5,448,288 confirmed COVID cases and 64,635 deaths.

Of the deaths added, all but 26 — about 96% — occurred since Dec. 30, and about 71% died in the last two weeks, according to Herald calculations of CDC data.

The CDC backlogs cases and deaths for Florida on Mondays and Thursdays, when multiple days in the past have their totals changed. In August, Florida began reporting cases and deaths by the “case date” and “death date” rather than the date they were logged into the system.

There were 10,287 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services report Thursday. This data is reported from 256 Florida hospitals. The number of people hospitalized across the state is 742 fewer than the day prior, when 236 hospitals reported.

COVID-19 patients take up 17.66% of all inpatient beds in the latest report, compared to 19.71% among Wednesday’s reporting hospitals.

Omicron, so far, is not as deadly as delta’s surge last summer. Hospitalizations have not approached records set during delta’s wave from July through September.

At delta’s August peak, more than 15,000 patients were hospitalized in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Of the people hospitalized across the state, 1,464 were in intensive-care units, a decrease of 78 from Wednesday. That represents about 22.85% of the state’s ICU beds, compared to 24.01% the previous day.

One thing is clear from the Florida Department of Health’s cause-of-deaths data — far more Floridians than normal are dying during the pandemic. Top two are still heart disease and cancer, by the way.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

And because the universe is an infinite recursion:

https://www.union-bulletin.com/news/nat ... 9f29b.html

MIAMI — Florida on Thursday reported 27,533 additional COVID-19 cases and 628 more deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Miami Herald calculations of CDC data.

In the past seven days, the state has added 152 deaths, the highest seven-day death average since Oct. 18, according to Herald calculations of CDC data. In the past seven days, the state has added 29,415 cases per day on average.

In all, Florida has recorded at least 5,448,288 confirmed COVID cases and 64,635 deaths.

Of the deaths added, all but 26 — about 96% — occurred since Dec. 30, and about 71% died in the last two weeks, according to Herald calculations of CDC data.

The CDC backlogs cases and deaths for Florida on Mondays and Thursdays, when multiple days in the past have their totals changed. In August, Florida began reporting cases and deaths by the “case date” and “death date” rather than the date they were logged into the system.

There were 10,287 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services report Thursday. This data is reported from 256 Florida hospitals. The number of people hospitalized across the state is 742 fewer than the day prior, when 236 hospitals reported.

COVID-19 patients take up 17.66% of all inpatient beds in the latest report, compared to 19.71% among Wednesday’s reporting hospitals.

Omicron, so far, is not as deadly as delta’s surge last summer. Hospitalizations have not approached records set during delta’s wave from July through September.

At delta’s August peak, more than 15,000 patients were hospitalized in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Of the people hospitalized across the state, 1,464 were in intensive-care units, a decrease of 78 from Wednesday. That represents about 22.85% of the state’s ICU beds, compared to 24.01% the previous day.

One thing is clear from the Florida Department of Health’s cause-of-deaths data — far more Floridians than normal are dying during the pandemic. Top two are still heart disease and cancer, by the way.

- Doc

There's something (or at least one something) that is weird in that story. As I understand it, it's standard practice to compile data about cases, hospitalization, death, etc. into epi-curves. Cases are arranged by date of first symptoms, hospitalizations by date of admission, deaths by date of death. That gives a representative picture of the disease and its effects over time. Using the date logged into the system is both non-standard and unhelpful in terms of understand what a disease does, the rate of spread, etc. We're two years into the pandemic and Florida only just now started using standard disease reporting? I need to stop using the term "public health system" because there's no damn system.

[Binger]

This is a meme with a purpose.

The point of this meme is to show just how the headlines change and are framed. Life on the ground is changing all the time. The information is changing. It is fine to feel confused. I it if fine to not trust anyone if they have been wrong for years about important stuff, intentionally or not. I mean damn, looks like the Washington Post is confused AF.

[Res Ipsa]

This is a meme with a purpose.

The point of this meme is to show just how the headlines change and are framed. Life on the ground is changing all the time. The information is changing. It is fine to feel confused. I it if fine to not trust anyone if they have been wrong for years about important stuff, intentionally or not. I mean damn, looks like the Washington Post is confused AF.

Great example for discussion. I think about most memes as an argument, starting from a premise out premises and using logic to reach a conclusion. But the target of the argument is not reason; it is emotion. That allows the meme to be effective in terms of persuading the viewer despite the weakness off the logic. Let’s call that RI’s meme model and test it out on the meme.

In this case, the premises are the two tweets. If I understand correctly, you reached the conclusion: the Washington Post appears extremely confused. Had I seen the meme in isolation, I would have described the meme’s conclusion as: DeSantis is right about the Pandemic and the Washington Post is wrong. Trust DeSantis and not the Post. Memes rarely explicitly state the creator’s intended conclusion.

So, we start out with with:

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say P1 DeSantis’ claim is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C: The WP appears extremely confused.

That chain of reasoning looks incomplete. Nothing explains how we get from the three premises to the conclusion. That’s not necessarily bad: it just means the logic part of the argument is implicit rather than explicit. It’s up to us to fill in the steps that get us from the Ps to the Cs. Unless we do that, we don’t have any basis to evaluate the strength of the argument.

Does this approach sound reasonable? If so, what could we add to make the meme’s argument complete?

[Binger]

This is a meme with a purpose.

The point of this meme is to show just how the headlines change and are framed. Life on the ground is changing all the time. The information is changing. It is fine to feel confused. I it if fine to not trust anyone if they have been wrong for years about important stuff, intentionally or not. I mean damn, looks like the Washington Post is confused AF.

Great example for discussion. I think about most memes as an argument, starting from a premise out premises and using logic to reach a conclusion. But the target of the argument is not reason; it is emotion. That allows the meme to be effective in terms of persuading the viewer despite the weakness off the logic. Let’s call that RI’s meme model and test it out on the meme.

In this case, the premises are the two tweets. If I understand correctly, you reached the conclusion: the Washington Post appears extremely confused. Had I seen the meme in isolation, I would have described the meme’s conclusion as: DeSantis is right about the Pandemic and the Washington Post is wrong. Trust DeSantis and not the Post. Memes rarely explicitly state the creator’s intended conclusion.

So, we start out with with:

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say P1 DeSantis’ claim is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C: The WP appears extremely confused.

That chain of reasoning looks incomplete. Nothing explains how we get from the three premises to the conclusion. That’s not necessarily bad: it just means the logic part of the argument is implicit rather than explicit. It’s up to us to fill in the steps that get us from the Ps to the Cs. Unless we do that, we don’t have any basis to evaluate the strength of the argument.

Does this approach sound reasonable? If so, what could we add to make the meme’s argument complete?

That approach sounds totally reasonable to me. Hell yes, it sounds reasonable. So does this.

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say P1 DeSantis’ claim is misleading. (DeSantis is a damn liar)
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C 1.2: Information changes, choose accordingly.

I would agree that this meme, like others, is meant to get a reaction. Here is what is interesting to me about this image in particular - the original tweets from the Washington Post, were also meant to get a reaction. They were meant to imply that the governor in Florida is blaming rather than taking responsibility or dealing with facts. It also is suggesting he is wrong, based on these so-called experts, who know that he is wrong.

Without even getting into the facts of the situation we immediately have a situation where blame is being assigned and wrongness is being assigned and rightness is being assigned. A headline about the possibility of seasonality being addressed by the Florida governor could have been written without the same provocation, which may not have gotten a big giant reaction.

The second version of the meme is doing the same thing as the original tweet - stirring the crap to get a reaction. And it did. I used it. I posted it. It obviously worked. Triggers get reactions, that is the point.

[Marcus]

That approach sounds totally reasonable to me. Hell yes, it sounds reasonable. So does this.

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say P1 DeSantis’ claim is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C 1.2: Information changes, choose accordingly.

I would agree that this meme, like others, is meant to get a reaction. Here is what is interesting to me about this image in particular - the original tweets from the Washington Post, were also meant to get a reaction. They were meant to imply that the governor in Florida is blaming rather than taking responsibility or dealing with facts. It also is suggesting he is wrong, based on these so-called experts, who know that he is wrong.

Without even getting into the facts of the situation we immediately have a situation where blame is being assigned and wrongness is being assigned and rightness is being assigned.

This is where I disagree with the effect of this model of meming.

The 'reaction' from me was not to think "the governor in Florida is blaming rather than taking responsibility or dealing with facts." Nor was my 'reaction to think "he is wrong, based on these so-called experts, who know that he is wrong."

Your next sentence points out my issue quite clearly with this 'reaction' model:

"Without even getting into the facts of the situation we immediately have a situation where blame is being assigned and wrongness is being assigned and rightness is being assigned."

The 'reaction' model states we "immediately" have that situation, "without getting the facts." Not for some. When I read the meme, I thought, "the Post says experts say claim is misleading. Just because the post says it doesn't make it true, so, we need more information. Let's go look."

And so on. To immediately jump to reactionary extremes is to ignore that another, fairly common approach-- at least in my sphere of interaction-- is to read something in the press and then look for additional information before reacting immediately and inflammatorily.

This reactionary modeling emphasizes the inflammatory nature of the immediately reactive response that doesn't first put thought into situations. It may be more rare and get less press to do that, rather than jump to the instantaneous internet paroxysms of fanatical reaction, but it does exist.

The second version of the meme is doing the same thing as the original tweet - stirring the crap to get a reaction. And it did. I used it. I posted it. It obviously worked. Triggers get reactions, that is the point.

actual communication is well beyond "triggers get[ting] reactions," and "stirring the crap." Emphasizing those parts as though that fully models communication is severely limited in its ability to capture human interaction. It's only one part, and not a very healthy part at that. Many have moved past that stage.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Is the Florida Department of Health being allowed to report on Covid statistics accurately?

- Doc

[Binger]

The second version of the meme is doing the same thing as the original tweet - stirring the crap to get a reaction. And it did. I used it. I posted it. It obviously worked. Triggers get reactions, that is the point.

actual communication is well beyond "triggers get[ting] reactions," and "stirring the crap." Emphasizing those parts as though that fully models communication is severely limited in its ability to capture human interaction. It's only one part, and not a very healthy part at that. Many have moved past that stage.

Elsewhere on this forum, there is an ongoing discussion about this exact point.

Getting a reaction is easy. Being a trigger is easy. Being triggered is easy. Reacting is easy. The trigger/reaction is as reptilian-brained is it gets. A reaction can happen as naturally as jumping back when you hear the rattles of a diamondback. I think we agree on that. I think.

Getting beyond the reptile-brained reaction ain't natural for everyone.

[Res Ipsa]

More later, but good stuff. Two things:

After discussing memes and meme culture with my kids, I realize that saying all memes are arguments is an overgeneralization. RI's meme model addresses a subset of memes. I think it applies to the meme we're discussing, but not other memes that I think are something else.

Second: In Binger's model, I would describe the intent of the tweet to cause the viewer to read the article.

[Binger]

More later, but good stuff. Two things:

After discussing memes and meme culture with my kids, I realize that saying all memes are arguments is an overgeneralization. RI's meme model addresses a subset of memes. I think it applies to the meme we're discussing, but not other memes that I think are something else.

Second: In Binger's model, I would describe the intent of the tweet to cause the viewer to read the article.

I feel busted.

Yes. The intent must include getting clicks/views/readers. Even with snark or triggering words, that is an obvious intent.