Unexpected political stories

 Today I saw two news stories which are the opposite of what I'd expect based on simple political stereotypes.

First a story about a US Education Department civil rights investigation of Denver Public Schools. The schools are accused of giving preference to minority membership on a district committee. Given the usual left / right divide over affirmative action type policies I was surprised the Biden administration is doing this.

Then I saw a story that NIH has stopped investigating health effects of cell phone radiation. Again, this seems the opposite of what I'd expect. Though this might be explained by the fact that cell phone companies give money on a bipartisan basis to avoid problems of this sort.

Aristotle was right (sort of)?

 

Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, argued that things fall because they have a natural tendency to move toward the center of the universe (center of the Earth). Rather than a force of gravity causing downward acceleration there is instead a force which holds pushes upwards to prevent things from falling. Galileo and others argued instead that bodies are naturally at rest and there is a force that causes them to fall.

It turns out in one sense modern physics, relativity, is in agreement with Aristotle. According to general relativity gravity is not a force (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3LjJeeae68) but instead a side effect of the geometry of spacetime. Things fall because the mass of the Earth warps the geometry of space such that the the object will move toward the center of the Earth. And it is the force produced by the whatever is holding an object up which actually exists.

Abortion as birth control

 Throughout the abortion argument there has been a fairly consistent statement that abortion is not being used as birth control. Yet the reaction to reversing Roe v Wade shows this appears to not be the case.

With the decision there are reports of an upswing in men seeking vasectomies -- apparently some proportion of men assumed that their partner would get an abortion if they got pregnant. And there are women saying they'll only sleep with men who've had a vasectomy.

This also explains the prevalence of STDs, appears these people never heard of using a condom both for contraception and disease prevention.

OSHA COVID lives saved?

 The Supreme Court decision striking down the OSHA vaccine mandate was struck down. Reading about the decision I came across an interesting factor in the government's justification for the mandate.

The government argued (and OSHA's summary) that the mandate would conservatively save over 6,500 lives. This when over 800,000 have died in the pandemic. 6,500 lives is less than the one week death count from COVID for about the last 5 months. If that's all the lives they expect the mandate to save then it really doesn't seem that significant.

Of course, 6,500 is labeled a conservative minimum, still I would have expected a nationwide mandate of large employers to be able to save more than a week's worth (or 3 days worth lately) of deaths.

Playing with numbers

 I was scanning blogs I follow and found one which quoted an insurance company employee as saying "the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people." This blog is very anti-vaccine and argues (without detailed numbers of analysis) that the cause of this increase is the COVID vaccine.

So I decided to look at the numbers and see what I could deduce. I did this using the CDC Wonder database, which provides number of deaths by age, date, race, cause of death, etc. So I chose by year and age in 5 year groups. Complete data is available for 2018-2020, provisional data for 2021 through November 20 (41 days short of the full year).

To analyze I took the average for 2018-2019 as a baseline and compared them against 2020 and against the partial 2021 data. I compared death rates (number per 100,000). I also compared absolute deaths (raw numbers) because population data is not available for those 85 and over, so death rates aren't available.

2021 data is fairly error prone since 1) population data is not present, 2020 numbers are used and 2) incomplete partial year data must be extrapolated to a full year. To estimate full year 2021 data I took the 41 missing days, added 3 more days (to estimate late reported deaths, a number I picked without any real basis), so added 44 days more to 2021 numbers.

The basic results were interesting:

• Death rates for children under 10 went down about 5% in 2020 and 2021. I can't say why but would guess a reduction in accidents (kids kept indoors? parents at home more?) and poorer medical care (non-emergency care shut down part of the year).
• Death rates for those 15-29 are up about 20% in 2020 vs 2018-19. It's likely most of this is COVID, part may be differences in accident rates, the primary cause of death at this age. In 2021 the increase might be 25% from 2018-19 (but the numbers are much more uncertain).
• For those 30-49 the death rate is up about 25% in 2020 and extrapolated 2021 numbers do show a 40% increase. So the blog insurance employee comment may very well be true.
• Over age 50 the increase in the death rate declines to 15-20% for older adults. This lower increase is even though the vast majority (around 3/4) of COVID deaths are those over 50. I'd guess two reasons for this. One is the absolute number of deaths in these age ranges is higher (so excess COVID deaths aren't as high a percentage) but the primary reason is likely that COVID affects those already sick more than those who are healthy. So a significant percentage of older adults who died of COVID would have died in the year anyway (though not as soon). Obviously this is a guess, it would take a much more detailed analysis of deaths and cause of death to make an absolute statement. And this is an area where statistics can easily be manipulated to generate a pre-determined result.
• For 2021 the extrapolated increased death rate for those 50-74 appears to be a bit higher than 2020, but not significantly so. For age 80 and up death rates appear to be going down from 2020. Without population data part of this could be an effect of a significant number of deaths in this age range having reduced the population. But part of it is likely due to a lower rate of COVID deaths. That lower rate could be people taking better precautions or it could be vaccines since vaccination rates are very high in older adults.

So are vaccines causing huge increases in deaths among adults? I don't think so for the following reasons:

• For those over 80 death rates are going down if anything. With higher vaccination rates it implies vaccines don't cause excess deaths in this age group.
• For those 30-49 (where excess rates appear to be 40%) most of the increase was in 2020 (up 25%). As there was no vaccine in 2020 and subtracting off the first 2-3 months of 2020 (pre-COVID) the excess death rate in 2020 and 2021 is probably comparable. This could be shown using monthly data but I don't have the time or inclination to pursue it.
• As vaccination rates are lower for the 30-49 age group and vaccines were not available until later in the year it isn't clear if the vaccines have reduced the absolute death rate in this age group. But there is a good argument vaccines have not caused the huge number of deaths anti-vaxxers claim (note my analysis doesn't look at cause of death, so is not biased by conspiracy claims that officials are misclassifying vaccine deaths).

So no, it doesn't appear COVID vaccines are dangerous, while COVID itself is clearly dangerous.

The politics of mask mandates?

 Colorado is experiencing another surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. The health care system is reportedly becoming overwhelmed, and a lot of health care workers are experiencing burnout after the last 1 1/2 years.

In this environment Colorado's governor has refused to impose a statewide mask mandate. Instead he says county and local health authorities should decide any mandates. Two counties, Boulder and Larimer, have re-imposed mandates.

Other counties have not imposed mandates, yet many of them are actively lobbying the governor to impose a statewide mandate. If masks are so important one wonders why the county doesn't impose its own mandate independent of the state. While a mandate by one county in the Denver Metro area will do less than a metro area wide mandate (given the number of people who cross county lines daily) a county mandate ought to do some good and say that officials are serious about it. Yet most counties aren't putting their own mandates into place.

Could this be politics? Mask mandates are unpopular, especially among conservatives. One place actively lobbying for masks is Jefferson County. It is in suburban Denver and generally conservative politically. Are they lobbying the governor so that with a statewide mandate the (democratic) governor will get any negative political fallout from a new mandate?

"Defund the police" Justice Department Style?

Immediately after the verdict in the Derek Chauvin case the Justice Department announced an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department looking for a pattern of racial bias or excessive force.

Now today the Justice Department announced a similar investigation into the Louisville, KY police department over the death of Breona Taylor.

One wonders if the Justice Department is going to investigate any police department where an event hits the national news or prompts protests. There are plenty of other cases of questionable police behavior which have not hit the national news, have not prompted protests, and apparently for this reason will not prompt a Federal investigation.