Hmm. Not seeing it. pic.twitter.com/qezy88TTBi
— Mark Virag (@MarkVirag) April 13, 2020
ADDED: I clicked through on the link to see what counts as "Germanic," and the answer made me laugh: "'Germans' are defined as people who marked their ethnic origin as 'German' on the Census survey in 1990 and/or 2000."
Posts
85 comments:
OK Wisconsin. Time to start sharing your Germans. #shareyourgermans
I don’t know the ethnic distribution well enough to tell. Minnesota has a lot of Swedes, right? But a colored map is a poor way to judge I think.
Ein folk + kein spike = ein furor
Several years ago, I speculated about Wisconsin voting patterns and ethnic identity. One of the underlying graphics was deleted so, no link.
BTW, aren't the WI election results supposed to be released today?
Yea, I'm not seeing any correlation (or inverse correlation, which is the theory Adams is suggesting) in that scatter plot.
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-probability/describing-relationships-quantitative-data/introduction-to-scatterplots/a/scatterplots-and-correlation-review
I didn't see it either.
People in the midwest naturally avoid others. It's the culture.
Yeah this attempt to look at the data is meaningless, but the hypothesis itself is worth considering.
Different ethnic groups differ in their genetic expression of ACE 1 and ACE 2 receptors, and that variation is likely to make some groups of people more susceptible to contraction SARS2 infection and also more likely to die if they get it.
This study determined that 38% of the variation of severity of the outbreak in different European countries can be attributed to that effect:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7102561/
The takeaway point is that we should be careful about assumptions when trying to compare the results of policies adopted in different countries.
CStanley
I agree, and thanks for the information about the study.
Chickelit
Your clever joke has not gone unappreciated!
Relatively speaking, Sweden is not doing great. They are better than some, but no worse than many similar places with much more severe responses and lock downs.
Might there be correlation between German ancestry and population density?
"but beware other factors such as density"
Uh, d'ya think?
So what's up in Blaine County Idaho?
Looks like a strong correlation with the political party of the governor :)
My family history has German immigrants coming to the Texas in the 1880's, but I don't think there is enough connection to that and my family's ability to avoid the virus to date.
However, I did do a sort of deaths per million by state:
1) NY
2) NJ
3) LA
4) CT
5) MI
6) MA
7) WA
All are above the national average of 67 per million. DC would be in that top list too, above Washington if DC was a state. Continuing the top 10 states:
8) RI
9) IL
10) IN
Only Indiana has a Republican Governor. Democrats out number Republicans 6 to 4 in the 11-20 states. And below the top 20, the deaths per million by state is 22 or less.
This would be laughable if it wasn’t so troubling in its racist implications.
The test of how a state is doing against Coronavirus is a function not just of the outcome but the threat. The states with the biggest threats are urban and portals of entry or closely connected to national and international business travel. Judged by this measure by far the most effective state is California, which faced the largest threat by far, cumulatively dwarfing that of all the Midwest and Plains state in Adams graph. California is fantastically diverse, and not known as a German enclave. After that Washington. Based on this I’d say Adams is a creep, and that’s being kind.
"'Germans' are defined as people who marked their ethnic origin as 'German' on the Census survey in 1990 and/or 2000."
Every Census category of race and ancestry is based on self-reporting.
Here's a nice map of US ancestry based on the 2000 Census.
Unfortunately it was typical of the "dailymail.co.uk" to start the article with a false statement...so take the rest of the article with a shaker of salt.
So you're saying the ethnic data from the censuses (censi?) are of no value?
Why would you laugh at that? Do you not know your ethnic heritage?
CV is correlated almost 100% to population density. The Metro areas are having the highest death rates. The only exceptions are Seattle, Portland, LA and SF.
As a Scots-Irish German, French-Canadian Swiss, I shouldn't even leave the house.
White Southerners are doing pretty well too, except the ones that live in New Orleans and Atalanta.
I'm sorry, the Dutch, English (but not Irish), French, and Belgians are also in that mix, thanks to the Angles, Saxons, Franks, and whatever German tribes settled Holland
I got to mark my ethnic ancestry on this year's census. Scotch, Irish, Dutch, Slovak, with a mother from Pittsburgh and a father from Charlotte, made for an interestingly mixed up lifetime of family meals and holiday feasts. Who says pirojis don't go with grits?
A few months ago Adams said over and over on his podcast that he believed that only Asians could die from this virus.
Then...hmmm...he stopped saying that.
He's an insightful guy, but when it comes to this issue and medicine, he'd be better off saying nothing.
Based on this I’d say Adams is a creep, and that’s being kind.
Varies. This was shaping up to be one of his "I'm going to wildly speculate about things I have no information about" days, aka brainstorm, so I clicked away. The other common reason I'll click away is when he goes into "persuasion/manipulation" mode. He does good interviews and can be interesting when analysing events from his perspective.
So you're saying the ethnic data from the censuses (censi?) are of no value?
Censuses.
She said she laughed at it, which is irrelevant.
Scott Adams is always looking for the “one weird trick” that explains everything. Clickbait as insight.
There are 12 states that report 25% German heritage- all but one of those have fewer than 90 cases/100K- the US average is 170. Virag seems to think you can just "look" at a plot and see or not see the trend- you have to do more than just "look". However, it is Adam's qualification that is the real problem- it probably has far more to do with population density and how that density is distributed within a state, plus the use of mass transportation and high density apartment complexes.
However, I did do a sort of deaths per million by state:
1) NY
2) NJ
3) LA
4) CT
5) MI
6) MA
7) WA
Blue state failure. Isn't that the standard? But you won't hear about it in the "newz"
Self reporting on ancestry is obviously pretty imperfect. People believe all sorts of things about their family that turn out to be untrue, and people also lie for various reasons. Just look at Elizabeth Warren.
Unless we were to actually sequence pretty much everyone's genome in the entire US (which thanks to all those genetic ancestry sites like "23 and Me" may actually eventually happen to one extent or another) and examine the polymorphisms in ACE2 expression and how they may correlate with the spread of this virus, I would be hesitant to conclude much of anything.
Adams is interesting because he often comes up with ideas I don’t see elsewhere and hadn’t thought of. He can surprise me. Sometimes he is right on target. But I more often feel like he must be punking me. He’s a useful stimulus, not a reliable guide.
So what's up in Blaine County Idaho?
Blaine County, home to skiing, live music, conferences and other ever-popular events in Sun Valley, Hailey and Ketchum" From The Idaho Statesman.
Blogger Bob Boyd said...
So what's up in Blaine County Idaho?
Blaine = Sun Valley = ski resort w/ many worldwide travelers....
People from Seattle went to ski in Blaine County and brought the virus with them?
“ Virag seems to think you can just "look" at a plot and see or not see the trend- you have to do more than just "look".”
Wow. That almost sounds like you have to have a statistical model, you cannot just “go on gut”. I agree anyway.
There is a point of importance lurking here. Adams is ignoring that the virus is and has been spreading. He is doing equilibrium analysis in a far from equilibrium situation.
To make Adam's point solid, he would have to go a lot deeper into the data- compare ethnic Germans to ethnic Italians within the same city, same county, and then same state. However, that data can't be found easily, or at all for COVID infections.
People from Seattle went to ski in Blaine County and brought the virus with them?
Seattle has plenty of nearby ski opportunities. Sun Valley and the like are more popular with the east-coasters and the international set.
Darn. I wanted to blame Seattleites.
“Different ethnic groups differ in their genetic expression of ACE 1 and ACE 2 receptors, and that variation is likely to make some groups of people more susceptible to contraction SARS2 infection and also more likely to die if they get it.
This study determined that 38% of the variation of severity of the outbreak in different European countries can be attributed to that effect:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7102561/“
I agree. Thanks for sharing the link to this study, it stands to reason that the ACE receptors has to do with who gets a severe case and those who don’t.
Guessing: Germanic is a proxy for relatively prosperous.
The ski shop didn't spray enough Lysol in the rental boots.
the answer made me laugh: "'Germans' are defined as people who marked their ethnic origin as 'German' on the Census survey in 1990 and/or 2000."
Shirley you know that objectivity has NOTHING to do with it. Subjective self-designation is the ONLY factor. Just as "women" are defined as people who mark their identity as "female." What a person says is the ultimate criteria of truth.
'Germans' are defined as people who marked their ethnic origin as 'German' on the Census survey in 1990 and/or 2000.
Elizabeth Warren is sweating bullets now.
The virus passes over people who marked their ethnic origin as 'German' on the Census survey in 1990 and/or 2000.
But how does it know?
I'll tell you how. Two words, Fucking Chinese Hackers.
I know. With so many Teutons packed together so tightly in North Dakota, it's a wonder they haven't invaded Manitoba already ...
(1) If you ski, then you are more likely to get COVID-19 than someone who doesn't.
(2) If you speak with a New York accent, you are more likely to get COVID-19 than somone who doesn't.
(3) If you are a Democrat, you are more likely to get COVID-19 than someone who isn't.
(4) If you live in Europe, you are more likely to get COVID-19 than someone who doesn't.
(5) If you live in a city, you are more likely to get COVID-19 than someone who doesn't.
Which of these are true, and which are false based on the data?
This is pointless. Adams started out with a "reasonable" hypothesis that the virus was only deadly to Asians, reasonable until it was quickly proven false. Since then, people of all races have died from it, with the hot spot switching from China to Iran, on to Italy, and then to the USA. There may be differing genetic/racial susceptibilities to the virus, but if so, they don't seem to matter much.
This could put an end to the theory that the more Germans settled in a part of the US the fatter the people there are.
Unless the German-Americans are "healthy fat," and the other overweight people are "dangerously obese."
From the graph, it appears that once you get above a critical mass (about 25% Germanic population), there is a pretty big decrease.
Or the underlying data could be BS.
Blogger bagoh20 said...
Relatively speaking, Sweden is not doing great. They are better than some, but no worse than many similar places with much more severe responses and lock downs.
Today’s Johns Hopkins number show following confirmed cases per million population.
US 1,702
Austria 1,574
Germany 1,539
So not a huge difference. Sweden is at 1,063 cases/million, but has 89.2 deaths/million (which exceeds the US’s 67.5 deaths/million).
This is garbage. All of it.
Millions of people have had COVID-19 in the US and billions in the world. They have admitted this was spreading widely in December.
The mortality rates and "confirmed deaths" are a complete fabrication.
This event has as much truth behind it as the Russian Collusion hoax and it was perpetrated for the same reasons.
"Blue state failure. Isn't that the standard? But you won't hear about it in the "newz""
Nobody deserves it, (except maybe the Chinese goverment) and I certainly don't want to taunt those hurt just becuase they didn't vote for Trump, but there were those in the media claiming that Trump voters were going to be hardest hit becuase they didn't trust "experts". Can you imagine the coverage if it was mostly red states with the big problem? Can you imagine them not running with that daily reminder to voters? I can't, and I bet it would have a nice helping of cruelty added.
Yancey Ward @ 11:14 aptly demonstrates that correlation does not mean cause and effect. And yet our media continue to believe it does and report things like, If you are [fill in the blank] you have a 50% greater chance of [fill in the blank]. Technically and statistically true, perhaps, but misleading.
RobinGoodfellow,
Case numbers are not real comparable since they are highly dependent on testing. Sweden only tests those likely to have it. and is doing less testing than many places. Deaths per million is the only good number out there for comparison, despite it being suspect by how agencies are classify deaths. Still the best numbers to use.
By deaths per million, Sweden is 12th from the worst, and better than similar populations like Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, France, and Switzerland. The U.S. is the very next country after Sweden on the list. Better, but just ahead of Sweden, and Sweden started out much worse than the U.S. a month ago.
Adams also gets into weird raps about how he is a trained hypnotist. In other words, I'm going to mesmerize you to make you believe me. And he brags about his pre-Dilbert days when he supposedly briefed senior execs on all manner of things to tell them how to be better communicators. Or something.
If you are [fill in the blank] you have a 50% greater chance of [fill in the blank]. Technically and statistically true, perhaps, but misleading.
People are usually terrible at estimating risks - here's an interesting way to think about the dangers of WuFlu, from Ioannidis:
"The COVID-19 death risk in people <65 years old during the period of fatalities from the epidemic was equivalent to the death risk from driving between 9 miles per day (Germany) and 415 miles per day (New York City)."
More equivalences in the paper.
I liked Dilbert but this Adams fetish puzzles me.
I had never heard the German-ancestry/obesity theory before!
Narr
Or maybe I just forgot it
Why is it not controversial to claim that blacks are hardest hit by the virus but controversial to speculate that maybe other groups are not hit so hard? In any event, population density rather than ethnicity of any kind seems the more determinative factor.
Reminds me of the Milton Friedman quote when asked why welfare statism works well in Scandinavia and he responded it also works well in the scandinavian states like Minnesota or something to that effect.
Before you start focusing on racial issues, you should certainly begin by subtracting off socioeconomic class. We in Baltimore are seeing very clearly that poor people have a lot harder time sheltering in place.
Once you've done that, all the heavily correlated racial stuff might go away.
"The COVID-19 death risk in people <65 years old during the period of fatalities from the epidemic was equivalent to the death risk from driving between 9 miles per day (Germany) and 415 miles per day (New York City)."
The total U.S. risk is about twice that of Germany's, so it's equivalent to driving 18 mikes a day, which I do every single day without much fear of death.
Wisconsin is actually lower risk than Germany and equates to driving 6 miles a day. Anybody terrified of doing that? Would you do it to keep your income, and your life worth living.
Michigan has lots of German and Dutch ancestry, and some Scandinavian in the north.
We're getting a lot of cases, but to be fair many are in the city of Detroit, not exactly Germanic.
But I kind of doubt that such a fine-scale distinction--Germanic versus other European--is likely to be relevant here anyway.
There was a study that showed Medicare patients in Minnesota used medical services at a significantly lower rate than Medicare residents in Florida. That finding considered the possibility that contributing factors included: there were fewer doctors per capita in Minnesota [so there were fewer docs advertising to drum up business] and also that Minnesotans, on average, were possibly sturdier, healthier and maybe even less willing to go to the doctor for every little ache and pain.
"'Germans' are defined as people who marked their ethnic origin as 'German' on the Census survey in 1990 and/or 2000."
"Germans are people who feel German" is about as Progressive as it gets in 2020.
A rather spurious correlation, ya think?
The Germans are "different" or "superior" stuff is for stupid people. What's more interesting is European v. Asians v. Sub-Saharan Africans. And let's say some people have pre-existing immunity to Covid 19. Since this virus is "novel," this immunity must come from killer T-cells. Killer T-cells search out and destroy other cells that have been infected by the virus. To do this, T-cells must only destroy infected cells that are displaying bits of the viruses on their membranes. And HLA genes play a critical role in displaying the virus to the killer T-cells. About five or six years ago, research into the bird flu known as H7N9, found that 57% of Caucasians and about 37% of Asian and Africans carried a protective set of HLA uniform genes. But among Alaskan natives and Australian aborigines, only 16% carried the protective uniform. So maybe our immune systems are just a bit different and that is the reason for the dreadful results in the Black community?
It is laughable.
Even in the best case this would be a correlation between a disease and Americans who think of themselves as being ethnically German.
What in the world does that mean?
The only time people of German descent come within 6 feet of one another in the winter and early spring months is to wrestle, and except for procreative activities that pretty much ends with high school graduation.
Large numbers of people have "German" blood in them but probably don't identify as Krauts. You not only have German speaking Swiss, Austrians, Alsace-Lorraine, Volga germans, and Ost Germans (pretty much eliminated after WW2). Germans have always assimilated rather easily into the American mainstream. Who thinks of Admiral Nimitz Herbert Hoover, Clark Gable or General Eisenhower as a "german"? Even George marshall's family was "German" if you go back far enough.
A lot of "Smiths" started out as "Schmidts"
There seems to be a genetic component with the Virus, hitting people with hypertension and obesity the hardest. And that means, African Americans. Per the stats, more than 40 percent of non-Hispanic African-American men and women have high blood pressure - that's almost the highest in the world.
As for obeisty, there only "Fat Gap" between white women and black women. Black men and White men have almost equal rates. With women its 29% white females are Obese vs. 44% of blacks. Even there, I wonder if that's more to do with body type. I see a lot of strong, stoutly built young black women and they are not fat, just athletic.
As for diabetes, its 11% for blacks, 8% for whites. Not much of a gap.
but there were those in the media claiming that Trump voters were going to be hardest hit because they didn't trust "experts". Can you imagine the coverage if it was mostly red states with the big problem? Can you imagine them not running with that daily reminder to voters?
That's pretty much the reason I did that analysis. I agree somewhat rcocean that there is a stronger correlation with population density, although I'm not sure about his exception (either as exception or the only ones). Every time someone posts one of those colored maps of the US by county; I suspect you could very well fit the bluest counties with the worst of the outbreaks. Yet Democrats tend to do better in areas with denser populations. It is really two different factors that are unrelated, but if the virus was more prevalent in more rural areas; I suspect the media would suggest correlation is causation and then laugh about it.
Rcocean, it's being "very obese" that is the problem.
chickelit said...
Ein folk + kein spike = ein furor
4/13/20, 9:51 AM
You win the thread.
Germans have always assimilated rather easily into the American mainstream. Who thinks of Admiral Nimitz Herbert Hoover, Clark Gable or General Eisenhower as a "german"?
Or Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig? And I believe their parents were immigrants, so they weren't that far removed from Der Vaterland.
Spiros said...
The Germans are "different" or "superior" stuff is for stupid people."
I don't see anybody making that argument, including Adams.
I agree his argument is spurious, but it's silly to call it racist.
Most of my lineage is English, going back to Virginia and Massachusetts, with one recent Irish ancestor (my father's mother). But the English people have a high dosage of Germanic, or if you prefer, Saxon lineage. Does that make me German?
The census question is actually the right one. If you *identify* as German you are German. That's how it works now.
The best plan is to identify as a young, slender, non diabetic German.
Adams seems to me to becoming something of a racist. He may not know it, but still......
Yancey Ward: Why would you laugh at that? Do you not know your ethnic heritage?
I don't get the laughter, either, other than that the whole "I identify as..." thing is inherently laughable.
Obviously, anyone can mark whatever box they want to mark on the census. However, there's no reason to believe that a significant number of ethnic Germans choose to mark something else, nor for non-Germans choosing to mark German. Absent those reasons, it seems to me to be a pretty reasonable proxy to use for statistical analysis of this sort.
Post a Comment