Yesterday I noted that, 18 months after the start of the pandemic, a sizeable chunk of Americans still dramatically overestimate the risks of Covid. In a recent poll, more than one third said the risk of being hospitalised if you’re not vaccinated is at least 50%.
Of course, you’d expect some people to get the answer wrong just because we’re dealing with a small quantity, and there’s always going to be some degree of overestimation. But many people were off by a factor more than 10. What accounts for this?
Interestingly, Democrat voters’ guesses were much higher than Republican voters’ – about twice as many Democrats said the risk of being hospitalised if you’re not vaccinated is at least 50%. This suggests a role for ideology.
Throughout the pandemic, the ‘Democrat position’ has been to support restrictions and mandates, whereas the ‘Republican position’ has been to oppose such measures. This is clearly visible in a plot of U.S. states by average stringency index. Almost all the ‘red’ states are on the left-hand side, while almost all the ‘blue’ states are on the right.
Given that partisans (on all sides) like to avoid cognitive dissonance, they tend to adopt beliefs that are consistent with their party’s platform. Since Democrat politicians have been busy imposing all sorts of restrictions and mandates, Democrat voters have adopted beliefs that imply those measures were justified.
Most survey respondents don’t know numbers like ‘the risk of hospitalisation for people who aren’t vaccinated’ off the top of their head. Instead, they probably make a guess based on all the relevant information they can recall.
Democrat voters, who’ve spent the pandemic consuming media like MSNBC, CNN and NPR, will recall numerous incidents of pundits saying that Covid is extremely dangerous, and we have to do whatever we can to stop the spread.
They will also recall that they were locked down for months, that their kids’ schools were closed, and that they had to wear a mask whenever they went to the grocery store.
Putting all this information together, they will tend to assume that the risk of being hospitalised from Covid is extremely high. ‘Why else,’ they might ask, ‘would there have been so many restrictions?’
Note: Republicans also overestimated the risk of being hospitalised from Covid, albeit to a lesser extent than Democrats. This indicates that people’s skewed risk perceptions cannot be blamed solely on the content of left-wing media (or the policies implemented in ‘blue’ states).
The psychological quirk that may account for people’s skewed risk perceptions has a name in psychology: the availability heuristic. As Steven Pinker notes, “people estimate the probability of an event or the frequency of a kind of thing by the ease with which instances come to mind”.
Because plane crashes always make the news, people tend to overestimate the risks of air travel. And they may overestimate the risks of Covid for the same reason.
Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve been treated to morbid ‘daily death numbers’ – but for only one cause of death. Perhaps if these figures had been reported for all causes of death, people’s risk perceptions would be slightly less skewed. (Or perhaps they’d just be terrified of everything…)
During a pandemic, we obviously do want people to take precautions; we don’t want them nonchalantly walking into a care home when they have a high fever and a nasty cough. Yet – contrary to what some in government seem to believe – we don’t want people to be utterly terrified either.
There’s been so much attention on people claiming Covid is “just the flu” that the media has largely ignored the other end of the spectrum: people who believe Covid is the bubonic plague!
We can agree it’s bad if people underestimate the risks. But it’s also bad if they overestimate the risks. We want them to have the right risk perceptions. That way, they can make informed decisions.
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Then add in issues with the hospital infrastructure and questions about the performance/competence of one of the consultants and it suits all (except her) to blame on a single nurse doing it all
A substack account of the trial that I read some weeks ago convinced me that Lucy Letby was innocent. In fact the evidence pointed directly to Doctor incompetence. Now where have I come across that before?
To convict on circumstantial evidence alone is deeply unjust and the judge in the original hearing was biased in the extreme.
The judges at the Appeal hearing were incompetent and lazy and admitted to not having read all the evidence.
British justice?
I agree that the evidence was not “proof beyond reasonable doubt”. In fact there was zero “hard evidence” she did anything wrong, and her notes could be the writings of someone who was very sad that any babies had died, thinking she should have done more. There was a claim that the hospital also had an infection problem in the unit during this time, and if true effectively there is zero evidence of anything, because that could have caused the unusual number of deaths. Let her free NOW! Any SPMs want to comment?
There’s mass resignations of staff within neonatal departments as staff worried about being accused of similar offences.
It’s hardly surprising considering the life sentence this poor imo innocent woman got.
Who are the main people responsible?
IMHO they are the same people who prosecuted and found the Post Office workers guilty – barristers and judges.
There is more corruption in the British justice system than people realise.
The Letby case stank from the beginning and historically there are precedents for women being the patsies in criminal cases – like Lucia de Berk – the Dutch nurse who was wrongfully imprisoned for six years. Mirror image of the Letby case.
For the judges and barristers in the Post Office scandal it is more difficult to escape questions which need to be asked and answered.
The Post Office would be likely to have instructed the same firms of solicitors and in turn the same barristers would likely have been hired to prosecute. And judges familiar with that particular kind of case may be more likely to be appointed to hear them.
So the main question is – can any of them honestly say they did not notice anything wrong with the cases?
And there is no organisation responsible for rooting out corruption in the legal system.
The Office for Judicial Complaints can entertain only complaints about judges outside of their judicial roles and not in their execution of their office.
The Bar Standards Board sadly IMHO appears established to protect the good ole boys in the English Bar from complaints than vice versa – so IMHO the chances of a successful complaint against a barrister are pretty poor in the first place – unless of course it is against someone who is not one of the good ole boys.
They don’t even keep a record of the outcomes of complaints against barristers so no one can tell which barristers have been the subject of complaints and the outcomes.
Even if found guilty after two years they also have a free pass from the disciplinary tribunal:
It is all very smelly.
But then again so many aspects of British government bodies are also.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman service seems IMHO to be established to reject complaints in their droves.
The Department for Work and Pensions industrial injuries compensation scheme is IMHO root and branch corrupt and established IMHO to reject as many claims as possible. There is even an independent report on how they go about it and all the ruses they use.
Of course no MPs have done a thing about any of this and successive governments have stood aside and let it go on all the time.
One can list all the Ministers of the DWP over decades who have said and done nothing about that institutionalised corruption which is the child of senior civil servants,
Off topic but this just happened in London. No wonder the Khant doesn’t feel safe and was on about leaving the country. He’s largely responsible for these unsafe conditions ordinary, decent citizens are having to live in. The city’s full of blade-wielding crazies and thieves;
”Officers are at the scene of a stabbing in Leicester Square.
A man has been arrested & is in custody.
We don’t believe there are any outstanding suspects.
Two victims, an 11-yr-old girl & a 34-yr-old woman, have been taken to hospital & we await an update on their condition.
Update: The 11-year-old girl will require hospital treatment but her injuries are not life threatening. The second victim suffered more minor injuries.
At this stage, there is no suggestion that the incident is terror-related.”
https://x.com/MPSWestminster/status/1822963658374177192
No mention of ethnicity so definitely religion of peace.
Christ, look at this. What on earth they going to do with a kid this age? Will he be made an example of as well?
”A 12-year-old boy has become the youngest person to be charged over the riots that broke out in the wake of the killing of three young girls in Southport.
The youth, who cannot be named because of his age, has been charged with violent disorder in the Merseyside town on 30 July.
Another 12-year-old boy pleaded guilty to two charges of violent disorder at Manchester City Magistrates Court on Monday over two separate incidents in the city.
The court heard he kicked a bus and was seen handing a rock to another youth as a group gathered July 31 outside a Holiday Inn hotel housing asylum seekers.
He was also filmed by police kicking the window of a vape shop and throwing a missile at a police van during the disorder in the city centre on 3 August.”
https://news.sky.com/story/boy-12-becomes-youngest-to-be-charged-over-riots-after-southport-killings-13195990
And a Rumanian stabber in Leicester square yesterday, illegal?
As the culprit was caught red handed, pinned to the ground and taken away by police I would have thought he could be tried tomorrow morning.
reports said a team of forensic investigators combed the area. What for. What might they find. The culprit was caught bang to rights!
Is I’ve said before, only Letby knows whether she’s innocent or guilty. All I’ll say is that there’s a whole bucket load of ‘coincidences’, and I’m always very wary of such catalogues of misfortune.
There are a lot of ‘coincidences’ on both sides, when one would expect all the resources of the Justice System to be available, so you might as well toss a coin.
Well, perhaps that isn’t how we expect justice to be delivered.
She has claimed to be innocent several times. The “proof” of guilt is unsafe and inadequate.
I think I will pass on this one.—– I will say though that her being on duty when every death occurred doesn’t look good. If she had even been on a different shift one of the times it would have gave more beef to the idea that there was no foul play.
But was she on duty when every death occurred?
It isn’t clear. Why wasn’t she charged for the ‘six other deaths’? Was it because she wasn’t there? If not, why not? It’s very strange, for such a serious case.
“Every other nurse had a handful of crosses showing that they were on duty during incidents, but Letby had an unbroken row of crosses beside her name, putting her at the scene for every death and collapse.
However, the table did not include six other deaths during that period, for which Letby was not charged. If it had, the results would have appeared more mixed and the evidence against Letby less damning.”
Is this disclosure failure by the prosecution again? Probably.
They failed to tell you about those, there were several.
A culture prevails of covering your own ass. I go out of my way to avoid this. If I advise something I make it clear that I have done so. Most people don’t even have the spunk to advise jack shit. This is the real issue. People without backbone or so fearful that they never express themselves. This is 99 percent it is no joke.People are cowards which would be fine if they just died a thousand deaths but it is worse because they create the landscape that all of us have to live in.
I know not whether she is innocent or guilty but I am positive that the evidence against her is not sufficient to convict her or anyone else. Much of it seems to have been speculation and circumstance.
One thing in particular concerns me; the shifts. Why were so many deaths not included? That is a deliberate attempt to convince the Jury that children only died on her shift. Also, why does there appear to be no evidence of what time of day she mostly worked? Children and old people mostly die during the night or very early morning. If she was predominantly on those shifts then the odds are she had more deaths than she would on a different shift.
Given what I have read in various articles I could not have convicted her even if convinced, by gut feeling, she did it. The evidence must prove without doubt the guilt of a person. The evidence in this case was not sufficient to do so. The Jury being to assume she did all of the murders if they think she did one is absurd.
The letter is also pure speculation and is clearly written by a traumatised woman who is being blamed by everyone. It is in effect saying “Everyone says I did it, I must have done? Did I?”. If everyone says you did something it is natural to end up questioning yourself especially when suffering from stress and depression – hell, I should know.
The Times article is out of date, the news about the infection levels in the hospital and the neo nate unit is not there, see MD in Private Eye, each and every death was far more explicable by this factor, a plumber testified to sewage bubbling up in the unit sinks from time to time, that’s why the unit was demolished swiftly. The case was a house of speculative cards,each card of no substance, plus the rambling notes of a woman under the cosh for months, ground down by the police. She had been cleared at a hospital hearing.
For top level scientific analyses see eg https://jameganx.notepin.co and the Mephitis website as well as Mr Lawhealthandtech, and of course Prof Richard Gill, statiscian on X
The Times is far weaker than the Guardian, Telegraph and NewYorker essays, more the establishment closing ranks. The ‘reasonable doubt’ for Letby is huge and should have cleared her by a countryr mile. I fear she will be kept inside, the case is too big to allowed to fail, too many agencies would be deeply undermined, so the scapegoat will have her life removed. The MSM monstering of the woman of course meant the second trial could not be remotely fair.
ps just to be precise, from a report leaked to the DTel that at the time when infant mortality rates spiked in the CoCC Hospital, between 2015 and 2016, when LL was alleged to have killed neonates, the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa has colonised taps in the nurseries of the neonatal unit. QED. That closes the case.
All hidden from the Jury. Unsafe, let her go.
I have never thought this young woman is guilty as charged; the whole thing is riddled with doubt and ambiguity and is characterized by the witch-hunt mentality. However, I am not in a position to prove her innocence and it is a relief to see in people with influence a most commendable refusal simply to accept the verdict. It actually restores my faith in humanity and that’s pretty thin on the ground these days. I hope genuine answers will be found.
Normally I wouldn’t question such a verdict, but these days?
Maybe she she’s responsible for part and they’ve just offloaded a whole load of potential malpractice cases into her.
We might never know – all records will be lost in the civil war.