I'm genuinely puzzled as to why those in positions of authority would permit conditions that lead to these outbreaks. These not only generate negative publicity but also result in significant financial and public health costs. Is this a case where ideological beliefs are overriding common sense ? Would appreciate insights from those with experience in public health policy or leadership.
> Is this a case where ideological beliefs are overriding common sense ?
It's more like ethical thought vs ideology. Ethically, generally medicine is against the concept of forcing some treatment upon a person against their will. For example, such a person might then hate doctors forever, and thus will come to further harm, which is an aspect of the thinking. Here, a forced vaccine would such a forced treatment.
The government HAS pushed vaccines very hard. For example during COVID, a person would be highly, painfully limited in terms of employment, travel, and socialization without receiving a vaccine. Or children/teens are required to be vaccinated for school or college. Do you want to go to college, or do you want to be not vaccinated, that's the choice people have to make. That seems to me a perfectly serious consequence to no vaccination, without tying people down and forcing vaccines upon them.
Note that the situation would have exploded already in the last 5 years but the COVID pandemic stamped down on all infectious diseases.
Now we have active spread, antivax messaging at the highest levels of government, and repeated COVID infections that has certainly damaged everyone's immune system - adults and babies alike:
>Sickness levels in people working for the NHS is pretty specific and is very likely not to generalise.
"The canary in the coalmine just fainted, but this is pretty specific to canaries and very likely not to generalise to us human coal miners."
Your fundamental mistake is that you think "correlation does not imply causation" when the correct sentence is "correlation does not prove causation" - but it does certainly imply it. That is the job of statistics and experiments to prove it beyond doubt, but it always starts with a correlation that the researchers then dig into.
Perhaps unfortunately, math and computer science have redefined "imply" and the "=>" implication operator to mean "certainly follows", which does means "prove".
The OP is probably using those fields terminology, rather than casual commonplace meaning of imply, which is as you were arguing, merely "suggests".
Also, "beyond (a reasonable) doubt" is a legal standard, not a scientific one. Science almost always maintain some doubt :)
(The alt text: Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.)
"Make America Great Again" by reliving the vaccine-less past again.
I'm genuinely puzzled as to why those in positions of authority would permit conditions that lead to these outbreaks. These not only generate negative publicity but also result in significant financial and public health costs. Is this a case where ideological beliefs are overriding common sense ? Would appreciate insights from those with experience in public health policy or leadership.
> Is this a case where ideological beliefs are overriding common sense ?
It's more like ethical thought vs ideology. Ethically, generally medicine is against the concept of forcing some treatment upon a person against their will. For example, such a person might then hate doctors forever, and thus will come to further harm, which is an aspect of the thinking. Here, a forced vaccine would such a forced treatment.
The government HAS pushed vaccines very hard. For example during COVID, a person would be highly, painfully limited in terms of employment, travel, and socialization without receiving a vaccine. Or children/teens are required to be vaccinated for school or college. Do you want to go to college, or do you want to be not vaccinated, that's the choice people have to make. That seems to me a perfectly serious consequence to no vaccination, without tying people down and forcing vaccines upon them.
Useful graphics in this NY Times article on the numbers and geography of the outbreak:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/well/us-measles-record-ou...
Now as many cases as the 2019 outbreak, and the year is only half-way:
https://archive.ph/Qltl3
Note that the situation would have exploded already in the last 5 years but the COVID pandemic stamped down on all infectious diseases.
Now we have active spread, antivax messaging at the highest levels of government, and repeated COVID infections that has certainly damaged everyone's immune system - adults and babies alike:
https://nitter.net/1goodtern/status/1928177827750265259
https://nitter.net/1goodtern/status/1942296270854344998
https://nitter.net/1goodtern/status/1935394752918110367
The most damning thread of all:
https://nitter.net/1goodtern/status/1918723962701312389#m
Sickness levels in people working for the NHS is pretty specific and is very likely not to generalise.
Also, correlation does not imply causation, even more so with something like Covid where there were a lot of other changes as indirect results.
With this kind of argument, nothing ever happens!
>Sickness levels in people working for the NHS is pretty specific and is very likely not to generalise.
"The canary in the coalmine just fainted, but this is pretty specific to canaries and very likely not to generalise to us human coal miners."
Your fundamental mistake is that you think "correlation does not imply causation" when the correct sentence is "correlation does not prove causation" - but it does certainly imply it. That is the job of statistics and experiments to prove it beyond doubt, but it always starts with a correlation that the researchers then dig into.
Perhaps unfortunately, math and computer science have redefined "imply" and the "=>" implication operator to mean "certainly follows", which does means "prove".
The OP is probably using those fields terminology, rather than casual commonplace meaning of imply, which is as you were arguing, merely "suggests".
Also, "beyond (a reasonable) doubt" is a legal standard, not a scientific one. Science almost always maintain some doubt :)
Yes, exactly how I was using it, because it is a widely used phrase in discussing statistics, and especially when teaching statistics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...
It is also of particular importance when discussing time series statistics because spurious correlations are extremely common.
Oh, sorry, French is my first language and I am more used to "imply" in sentences like "what do you imply?"
In French, that saying is much more direct: "correlation is not causation".
https://xkcd.com/552/
(The alt text: Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.)