[dragontamer]

The number of deer who've caught COVID19 in Ohio seems to suggest otherwise.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/12/third-oh...

COVID19 is _effectively_ spreading to the entire Ohio deer population.

> The investigators said the prevalence of infection varied from 13.5% to 70% across the nine sites, with the highest prevalence observed in four sites that were surrounded by more densely populated neighborhoods.

Furthermore, it seems like we humans are spreading it to deer, with the deer in higher-density human neighborhoods reaching ~70% infection.

-------

I don't think we humans are sitting around talking to deer indoors. Any reasonable application of Occam's Razor is that humans are spreading COVID19 to deer through some kind of outdoor setting.

[throw10920]

> The number of deer who've caught COVID19 in Ohio seems to suggest otherwise.

It doesn't suggest anything.

You're conflating two uses of the English word "effectively". One means "efficiently", which is the only one in use in the thread above, and the only one under debate. The other means "functionally" or "the effects are the same as", which is what you used in this single comment - but not even correctly. 1/3 of the deer population is not "effectively" the entire Ohio deer population in the sense that you meant it.

Furthermore, COVID19 does not spread effectively (in the sense of "efficiently") outside, as a comment that you've already read has pointed out[1]. 18 to 25 times less likely to spread to co-workers in an "open-air environment" (which kind of implicitly is still not like being in a park) fulfills the definition of "ineffective".

> Any reasonable application of Occam's Razor is that humans are spreading COVID19 to deer through some kind of outdoor setting.

Nobody claimed that there were no cases of outdoor human-to-deer infection - you were suggesting that the virus spread effectively outdoors in [2], which Occam's Razor does not support in the slightest.

You also moved the goalposts from "The fact that there's a bunch of infected deer means that covid effectively transmits outside" to "There's some outdoor transmission", and those two positions are completely different.

So, yes, Occam's Razor does support your (silently) revised claim in this comment, but definitely not the comment you originally invoked the Razor in.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29883621

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29880284

[dragontamer]

> You also moved the goalposts from "The fact that there's a bunch of infected deer means that covid effectively transmits outside" to "There's some outdoor transmission", and those two positions are completely different.

The deer samples were anywhere from 14% to 70% COVID19 infected.

You're grossly underestimating the amount of COVID19 we have spread to the deer population (and likely, that deer have spread to each other). All of which happened outdoors.

[throw10920]

> The deer samples were anywhere from 14% to 70% COVID19 infected.

...with an overall rate of 36%, which is given in that very article that you linked. It doesn't matter if 70% of the deer at one site were infected, if the average is significantly lower than that.

...which isn't even relevant, because again, you're moving the goalposts, as stated above.

> You're grossly underestimating the amount of COVID19 we have spread to the deer population

I'm not underestimating anything, as one of the researchers said: "there is no documentation of deer transmitting the virus to humans or vice versa"[1] (another article which you have linked but apparently failed to read).

...and, as a previous study found[2], the virus does not spread effectively outdoors.

You're literally fabricating claims from thin air. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever for effective human-deer or deer-deer COVID transmission.

[1] https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/01/07/deer-ohio-inf...

[2] https://medical.mit.edu/covid-19-updates/2021/08/how-safe-ou...

[disgruntledphd2]

I mean, I can't really imagine a world where the deer have mostly be infected by humans. It would seem more likely to me at least that there were a few human-deer transmissions, but way way more deer-deer transmissions.

[throw10920]

The GP isn't really arguing in good faith - they didn't even fully read (or purposefully omitted sections from) one of the articles that they linked, in which one of the authors of the study says that there is no documentation of deer transmitting the virus to humans or vice versa[1].

[1] https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/01/07/deer-ohio-inf...