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MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

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Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#111

Post by thaumaturgy »

akiselev wrote: post #62
merqurio wrote: post #9

It doesn't make sense from a medical point of view. China, and specifically Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, suffer an epidemic that they are trying to control with titanic efforts. 99% of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, today more than 40,000 with a thousand deaths, have been registered in China. Of them, almost 70% in Hubei. Only 1% of cases have been registered outside China, in 24 countries (inclu…

From what I understand, the medical community is treating this outbreak with such extreme measures because this virus is a perfect storm of factors that could lead to a new annual disease emerging, just like the flu and cold. It's deadly enough to become a major global concern and transmissible enough that it can continue spreading via asymptomatic hosts and other viral reservoirs between outbreaks. The jury is still…

For anyone that wants to read more about this or any other aspect of 2019-nCoV, there's a very good /r/askscience thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ewwmem/have_a_q...

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#113

Post by CydeWeys »

baddox wrote: post #64
CydeWeys wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet there are actually suicide clusters, with people essentially "catching it" from their friends or loved ones who've committed suicide.

This seems like equivocation on the meaning of "catching it." Isolating yourself so that you either have no close relationships or somehow never hear about any suicides among your close relationships is a fairly nonsensical proposal, and probably wouldn't in fact decrease your chances of committing suicide.

You're attacking a strawman here. I never proposed any of that and of course no one is suggesting that you use the exact same airborne infectious disease quarantine procedures for suicide too.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#114

Post by core-questions »

sub7 wrote: post #73
justinzollars wrote: post #2

I just can't understand why the stock market keeps going up.

There's been a grand fiscal policy experiment over the last 12 years unlike anytime before. It has resulted in every asset class losing price discovery mechanisms and basically becoming untethered from fundamentals. Nobody knows how this will end, or when. Could be months, could be decades.

Relax and enjoy the MMT, friend. Worked for the Romans!

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5386693ce4b05d183bf2d...

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#115

Post by Filligree »

retsibsi wrote: post #77
Filligree wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, but that's a known factor which all medical professionals are aware of. The true number is unknowable until the epidemic is over, so they give the best number we've got in full knowledge that the numerical value will be wrong.

This seems dangerous, if it leads to unwarranted complacency among those who take the number seriously. Do you know the rationale behind reporting a number known to be skewed in this way -- is the idea that it is roughly canceled out by other factors (e.g. the number of undiagnosed mild cases) that push toward an overestimate?

That is a factor, but bluntly put, the ones who are reporting this single number aren't medical professionals.

Those might still use it in conversation amongst each other, sure, but any actual analysis will be based on far more data than a single number. Fundamentally this is the press trying to boil things down to a double soundbite. As usual.

The case fatality ratio is literally defined as deaths over cases, and that's not useless, but it isn't something you should spend much time thinking about either. Reality is always more complex than any single number. Probably you want to know something like "What are the odds of dying if I'm infected" -- that's a different parameter entirely.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#116

Post by robjan »

justinzollars wrote: post #2

I just can't understand why the stock market keeps going up.

Stock prices are (generally speaking) about the sentiment of the long term performance of a company. The coronavirus has caused a lot of setbacks but it's only a short term problem. As long as a company can survive this short term loss of productivity there is no need for the stock valuation to be lowered.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#117

Post by whoevercares »

jnurmine wrote: post #87
downerending wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hadn't looked for a few days. It does appear to be attenuating--hope that holds up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Wuhan_coronavi...

Not sure of attenuation since according to the Wikipedia page they are now excluding asymptomatic infections from the statistics, which lowers the number of confirmed. The Wikipedia page says: "On 6 February, the Chinese National Health Commission started to change how cases were reported – asymptomatic carriers, who tested positive for the virus but did not show clinical symptoms, would no longer be included in the…

I think the reporting criteria changed again. Now it’s based on CT/other clinical symptoms and the number increased 15000+ In a single day!

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#118

Post by retsibsi »

Filligree wrote: post #115
retsibsi wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems dangerous, if it leads to unwarranted complacency among those who take the number seriously. Do you know the rationale behind reporting a number known to be skewed in this way -- is the idea that it is roughly canceled out by other factors (e.g. the number of undiagnosed mild cases) that push toward an overestimate?

That is a factor, but bluntly put, the ones who are reporting this single number aren't medical professionals. Those might still use it in conversation amongst each other, sure, but any actual analysis will be based on far more data than a single number. Fundamentally this is the press trying to boil things down to a double soundbite. As usual. The case fatality ratio is literally defined as deaths over cases, and th…

I'm not so much worried about how the experts interpret this number behind closed doors, but how everyone else reacts to it. This thread began with someone confidently saying that the 2% death rate will decline as we get better data, and using that to argue against the cancellation of the MWC. I've also seen about a million thinkpieces and social media posts telling us that we're crazy to worry about this virus because the flu is so much worse -- and while they're mostly focusing on the fact that the current number of cases is small compared to seasonal flu, they might not be so dismissive if they knew that 2% could be a significant underestimate of the mortality rate. And I suspect that many (most?) countries' quarantine and related policies are affected by public opinion, rather than being a pure function of expert advice.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#119

Post by ineedasername »

merqurio wrote: post #9

It doesn't make sense from a medical point of view. China, and specifically Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, suffer an epidemic that they are trying to control with titanic efforts. 99% of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, today more than 40,000 with a thousand deaths, have been registered in China. Of them, almost 70% in Hubei. Only 1% of cases have been registered outside China, in 24 countries (inclu…

It does not logically follow from the low infection rates outside of China that these extreme measures are not warranted, quite possibly it's the opposite: low infections follow from strong containment measures.

As for comparisons to the Flu, I see this so often and it always misses the point: it's not one or the other, so why would the medical establishment not fight in the extreme to stop many thousands of deaths that would result if another flu-like disease came along? Second, there is an entire industrial complex complete with seasonal ramp up in staffing to deal with Flu season, and we still see non-negligible fatality rates. Without that support network, which again we don't have for COVID-19, how much worse would things be with the flu? So we should all stop using the flu as some type of benchmark for what a reasonable COVID-19 response looks like.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#120

Post by dredmorbius »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #111
akiselev wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, the medical community is treating this outbreak with such extreme measures because this virus is a perfect storm of factors that could lead to a new annual disease emerging, just like the flu and cold. It's deadly enough to become a major global concern and transmissible enough that it can continue spreading via asymptomatic hosts and other viral reservoirs between outbreaks. The jury is still…

For anyone that wants to read more about this or any other aspect of 2019-nCoV, there's a very good /r/askscience thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ewwmem/have_a_q...

https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ewwmem/have_a_q...
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