Mixed messaging or balanced reporting?
Mixed messaging or balanced reporting?
Lt. Gov Josh Green (also emergency room doc on Big Isle), re: COVID surge, says, “We are two to four weeks at this rate from seeing major adjustments in what we’re able to do. It’s a small minority (of unvaccinated people) that is otherwise condemning society to a lockdown and potentially large-scale death.”
That interview is on the front page of the 8/17 issue of “The Garden Island.” On page 4, a picture titled “MAKING THEIR VOICES HEARD” shows folks protesting vaccines and vaccine mandates.
Talk about mixed messaging! Or is it balanced reporting?
Regardless, let’s imagine the future, when, logically, we all live in biospheres because the Earth is ravaged by climate changes, pestilence and disease. When a person then, feeling stifled, wants to open a window or door to “breathe free” — at whatever risk to himself or others — he will likely be able to find a way, but that doesn’t make him a hero, or a freedom fighter, or right. It makes him wrong in every way imaginable.
Rich Ragland, Koloa
Subscribe today for unlimited access.
Already a subscriber?
Login
Not ready to subscribe?
Register for limited access.
If you have a print subscription but require digital access,
activate your account.
And whilecwe re at it, Our newspaper would do us all benefit of knowledge, if they would monthly list in 5 year categories, the ages, sex, and whether or not those who have passed away have been vaccinated or not, and how many booster shots theyʻve had with Covid or Delta.
In these critical times it is important to all of our survival that we are educated to the information surrounding our fellow residents passing away.
I mean wouldn’t you want to know?
What purpose does it serve to keep it a secret?
Mahalo, keep the information open and truthful.
And as to the Lt. . Gov, , he is the least healthiest people speajing abiut the diseases going around, he needs to sace himsekf first.
It’s true Rich, Kauai has a very active antivaccination movement. These people have a lot of incorrect fears about vaccines in general and specifically about the Covid 19 vaccines. They are getting their information from other non medical antivaccination movements. They are accounting for 90% of cases now and 90% of ICU admissions. They are also accounting for 90% of the transmission because they can transmit the disease, especially the Delta variant, before they even have symptoms at a time when they may not even be masking. Responsible retail, restaurant, and hotel managers and owners will require workers to be vaccinated so that the epidemic does not continue to spread endlessly.
I concur, Dr.
It’s become extremely difficult for me not to see the rebels against common sense and science as not worthy of medicine when they come demanding life support…. I have been taking a much needed pause for reflection on my views that keep reinforcing the fact that we have terrorists in our community…. hell bent on speaking lies and spreading divisions even to the extent that the most humanitarian amongst us have to dig extremely deep to stay benevolent and true to our oath to serve and do no harm!
Kapu Aloha is a concept that is helping we who are beyond burnt out from the wages of war crimes in so many levels….
I pray for Hawai’i Independence in our near future…. only this can restore true Health.
Please join the RESTORATION of sanity today @….
HAWAIIANKINGDOM.ORG
Rev Malaya, You sound a lot like Debra K…..
They’re the same. Hawaiian. Race. They were for Fight. Now they are not.
Sorry Doc- Stanford’s statistics don’t jive with what you quote…..
Khgrad??? I rest my case, smh.
Dr. Weiner, what you say is false you’re doing a great disservice to yourself and credibility. You still push the narrative, you are a medical doctor that doesn’t acknowledge the most simple statistics. 99.98% will be fine. Delta is actually far less deadly speaking from the numbers. You mention nothing about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. You would say that the vaccine is the main deciding factor. When it’s not. I know people who have been vaccinated in poor health who still got covid. 70-80% of hospitalized regardless of vaccine status have been overweight. It’s not anti vaccination movement or misinformation. It’s healthy mostly intelligent people who are genuinely concerned about forced/compelled vaccination with a never before used mRNA therapeutic. These are people who aren’t on a mess of prescription drugs who don’t take flu shots every season because for the same reason. I know people who have had reactions, shingles, brain fog, bad headaches, autoimmune disorders. Stay out of the comment section giving bad medical advice DR. There are far more qualified medical professionals, with virology, epidemiologist, and evolutionary biologists who actually talk about both sides of the argument and make a case for either. Bad science will create bad protocols, and is corrupted by profit driven solutions.
“Brett” (please have the guts to give your full name?). I am sure you are right about Dr. Weiner, who has provided excellent health care to the citizens of Kauai for over 40 years. Yes, he knows nothing about health care, unlike you whose credentials are what (outside of reading the internet? I will admit that I am not an M.D., only a lowly Ph. D. with 45 years in medical research, but I have a feeling that the good Dr. Weiner just might be onto something. Perhaps if you paid attention to the current situations in Florida, Texas and Mississippi you might think twice about the situation. Or are you in the business of refrigerated morgue trucks which are currently in high demand in those states?
Dr. Clark, with 45yrs of medical research all you offer is a facetious response and do not confirm or deny any of the fore mentioned documented and widely available information. Based on your expertise in the field do you agree with only pushing an EUA mRNA therapeutic. That has no long term studies. Rather than acknowledging the risks of both taking or not taking the vaccine. Do you agree with the notion that you can vaccinate this virus out of existence? Even with the fact that no virus with an animal reservoir has ever been eradicated? You do a great disservice to the community by not presenting all the evidence and allowing a person to make an informed decision. By Withholding factual evidence when it’s widely available doesnt foster trust in what is being suggested.
Agreed. But, the reality is that almost 75% of Americans are obese or overweight. Could not agree more….the focus should be a healthy lifestyle, exercise, etc.
I absolutely concur with Dr. Weiner – I know of business owners who are just now finally concerned as to what may happen to our economy once again with the increase in cases yet they are still not vaccinated. All I can say is set the example if you want Kaua’i to stay safe and thrive. Please get the vaccine if medically able, protect your community and your Ohana.
The mess of the method of the withdrawal is the focus. You and other Biden supporters own this.
The spin put on this to deflect is shameful.
Green: “It’s a small minority (of unvaccinated people) that is otherwise condemning society to a lockdown and potentially large-scale death.”
“large scale death”? Sorry Josh but that is a blatant & huge exaggeration intended to scare people. Across all age groups which includes elderly and those with co-morbidities all rolled up, the fatality rate is .2%. So if those most susceptibility protect themselves we’re looking at nothing more severe than a bad flu season. Survival all rolled up is 99.8%. Note also that REAL excess mortality across the world is much lower even than these figures – as PCR-tagged deaths greatly exceed actual excess deaths in general.
Enough already,
RG DeSoto
Think you missed a decimal point or you don’t know how percentages work.
The average mortality rate is 2%.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
Where do you get your numbers?
And its not just about live or die. There are still a lot of side effects even for survivors. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects.html
Its easy to say “odds are you are going to survive covid, what’s the worry?” when you don’t have basic math skills. Going off of Hawaii’s population of 1.416 million in 2019, 2% would be 28,320. If you are fine with around 30k people (just in Hawaii) being dead just because you are too lazy to wear a mask or because you just have to go on that vegas trip, that might say a little something about you.
We seem to be talking about two different rates. (BTW: have graduate degree in econ & statistics, with minor in mathematics. So your snide remark is baseless.)
You cite case fatality ratio data showing 2% for the US. In other words, covid deaths/covid cases. This is, in my opinion, an invalid or useless ratio. (and it’s higher because the denominator is smaller than the overall population number I used) The number of deaths assigned to covid are exaggerated. Why? the CDC and people like Josh Green fail to clarify & account for the difference between those who died with covid and those who died from covid. This helps them with their fear mongering. There are numerous accounts of people who die from heart attacks, cancer, T2 diabetes, COPD etc. & even car accidents being lumped in with “covid” deaths. This inflates the numerator in the case-fatality ratio. You do know what that does to the ratio, right?
In contrast, I was referring to the population excess mortality rate rolled up (all age groups). It is .2% to .26% This is a much more telling statistic because it conveys the relative probability of anyone in the overall population dying. In other words the fear mongering serves no purpose because the probability of any one of us contracting covid and then dying is on the order of being struck by lighting and certainly no worse than a bad flu epidemic. Pointedly there is no statistically significant number of excess deaths from covid year over year from 2017 through mid 2021.
RG DeSoto
DeSoto- just where do you get your statistics? The ones I have seen indicate that “excess deaths” track very closely to those from Covid. And please, don’t tell us that traffic fatalities are listed as Covid deaths. Please check Florida, Mississippi and Texas this week. Either a lot of accidents or rampant Covid and people on increasingly scarce respirators.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about and demonstrate a total lack of fundamental dexterity with statistical computation–something you’ve erroneously accused RGD of.
You’ve taken the case-fatality ratio which is:
fatalities/cases (the CDC shows this as 2% which is questionable)
You then incorrectly extrapolate/assume that the entire population will be fatally infected at the rate of 2%. That’s just plain innumerate & wrong. It proves the validity of your chosen pen name–“Bad at maff”. Wipe the egg off your face.
RSW
Let it go. The Soto just uses what knowledge he has to distort things (damn statistics) and make false arguments. A mortality rate for Covid doesn’t include people who don’t get infected by it.
Mr DS: I’m afraid your “if” meets reality at the nation’s IC units. If you think it’d be like a “bad flu” IF only ppl followed your sage advice, why don’t you talk to some of the doctors & nurses working in overwhelmed ICU’s ? The disease here is ignorance. Since you are one of the susceptible ones, kindly protect us and keep to yourself.