Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is • Hacker News Board

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#41

Post by scottlocklin » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

seanieb wrote: post #25

Anyone who doesn’t think this has the potential to be a big deal and worth worrying about doesn’t understand numbers. Couching this in some facts about the seasonal flu is all you need to reveal those that are ignorant. I’m not even going explain why. The comparisons to the flu have been eviscerated so many times in the month or more.

On the contrary: his points were exactly correct. We're dealing with extremely biased estimators due to the cost and supply chain for the Covid virus test which is basically only given to very sick people, radically biasing the estimator high. At the very least, the estimator is extremely uncertain, and anyone who works with numbers should be acutely aware of this.

We're also dealing with people who completely forgot how hysterical people were over the swine flu, SARS, MERS and so on, which ultimately turned out to be nothingburgers. And a completely broken mass media system where pretty much all sources of news are about as reliable as the National Enquirer, and significantly more politically biased.

Flagging this was foolish and a further contribution to the mass hysteria.

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#42

Post by DyslexicAtheist » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #15

I don't know - a 15% mortality rate for 80+ year olds is pretty bad. Or do their lives not count? Or are we not responsible for trying to slow the spread?

and it's up to around ~6% - 10.5% risk for those with a precondition. If this estimate[0] turns out to be correct, everyone will either have been directly affected by loss of somebody, know somebody who lost someone, or are dead themselves.

[0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...

  PRE-EXISTING CONDITION | DEATH RATE confirmed cases | DEATH RATE all cases

  Cardiovascular disease | 13.2%                      | 10.5%
  Diabetes               | 9.2%                       | 7.3%
  Chronic respiratory    | 8.0%                       | 6.3%
  Hypertension           | 8.4%                       | 6.0%
  Cancer                 | 7.6%                       | 5.6%
  no pre-existing        |                            | 0.9%

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#43

Post by fruffy » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #5

Mass hysteria ? I don't think that's the case, people are carefull, but don't seem to be scared. ( Belgium)

I do not think I have ever witnessed a reaction so extreme to a disease that is comparably mild (I understand that the elderly and immunocompromised are at higher risk, I am referring to young, able-bodied people). This applies to Germany as well as the US. I notice the effect it has on co-workers who tend to follow social media and are constantly panicking. Constantly discussing rumours from Twitter and even staying home because they are too afraid to leave the house. The unchecked spreading of news definitely seems to have an impact on the population's behaviour and I find it somewhat concerning to observe how easy it is to push people into a frenzy.

Maybe the perspective is also a bit skewed because people that post online often tend towards the paranoid and fearful type (somewhat of a conjecture), so there might be a self-perpetuating bias. Users that are not concerned do not bother to post so everyone just reads panicky posts.

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#44

Post by oliwarner » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #17

moultano wrote: post #9

The author is not an epidemiologist, and does not appear to have any other relevant expertise to assess the situation. The people who do have that expertise consistently say that it is very serious. Cases have declined in China only because of the extreme measures they undertook to stop it. (In other words, "hysteria.")

There is a difference between an epidemiologist doing their job and the media over-hyping the situation to deal with a slow news week. The medical community should absolutely be in high gear right now. That doesn't mean the rest of us need to act like its an end of the world situation.

And who are you to say if the media are "over-hyping" the situation?

The medical community can call for calm if they think that's important, but from where I sit, isolating cases is paramount to stop the spread and getting a population ready for local quarantine situations seems fairly important too. You don't get there by sticking your head in the sand.

It's not nice to hear, but perhaps we do have to hear it.

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#45

Post by Jwarder » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

scottlocklin wrote: post #41

seanieb wrote: post #25

Anyone who doesn’t think this has the potential to be a big deal and worth worrying about doesn’t understand numbers. Couching this in some facts about the seasonal flu is all you need to reveal those that are ignorant. I’m not even going explain why. The comparisons to the flu have been eviscerated so many times in the month or more.

On the contrary: his points were exactly correct. We're dealing with extremely biased estimators due to the cost and supply chain for the Covid virus test which is basically only given to very sick people, radically biasing the estimator high. At the very least, the estimator is extremely uncertain, and anyone who works with numbers should be acutely aware of this. We're also dealing with people who completely forgot…

> SARS, MERS and so on, which ultimately turned out to be nothingburgers

As a reminder, SARS and MERS were contained thanks to massive international effort to identify the spreaders, quarantines (including whole hospitals), and restrictions on air travel.

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#46

Post by bjourne » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #16

Anecdotally, I see attitudes among friends and family towards Coronavirus split along the same lines as whether they support or despise Trump.

But didn't Trump say it was an hoax? If so, are the Trump supporters the ones that are least worried?

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#47

Post by bjourne » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

moultano wrote: post #24

Loughla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cases have declined in China only because of the extreme measures they undertook to stop it. I mean, you can't really say the author can't assess the situation because of a lack of expertise, and then immediately assess the situation with a lack of expertise. I'm assuming that the quarantine helped, but also it might not have helped. That might have just been the natural progression of this disease. We don't know, a…

> I mean, you can't really say the author can't assess the situation because of a lack of expertise, and then immediately assess the situation with a lack of expertise. This is the assessment of the WHO, not mine. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-chi...

Where in the report does it say that "cases have declined in China ONLY BECAUSE OF the extreme measures"?

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#48

Post by scottlocklin » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

Jwarder wrote: post #45

scottlocklin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary: his points were exactly correct. We're dealing with extremely biased estimators due to the cost and supply chain for the Covid virus test which is basically only given to very sick people, radically biasing the estimator high. At the very least, the estimator is extremely uncertain, and anyone who works with numbers should be acutely aware of this. We're also dealing with people who completely forgot…

> SARS, MERS and so on, which ultimately turned out to be nothingburgers As a reminder, SARS and MERS were contained thanks to massive international effort to identify the spreaders, quarantines (including whole hospitals), and restrictions on air travel.

There's no question that quarantines prevent the spread of disease: there is plenty of question as to whether the disease justifies it; including in the cases of SARS and MERS.

For example: most new flus come out of China due to their agricultural practices; building a wall around China until they change the practices and isolating people in the rest of the world population who get it would actually remove the flu from the human experience. I believe flu killed 60,000 people in America last year. Are we ready to do that? Should only take a couple of years!

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#49

Post by bjourne » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

m23khan wrote: post #4

I will counter: How can you not feel bit of panic when you see coronavirus cases being reported daily from all parts of the World where travel is common or where there is large population? Then you have excellent leadership in Iran which knowingly hides their coronavirus situation and thus have exported the virus to poor and incapable places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq? Heck, compared to Iran, even Pakistan is b…

Because generally, if a disease spreads rapidly it means that the fatality rate is low. Because if it wasn't, the disease wouldn't spread rapidly. I don't think there's anything to do about it. Sooner or later the virus will spread and infect all parts of the world just like the flu.

Re: Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is

#50

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

scottlocklin wrote: post #48

Jwarder wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SARS, MERS and so on, which ultimately turned out to be nothingburgers As a reminder, SARS and MERS were contained thanks to massive international effort to identify the spreaders, quarantines (including whole hospitals), and restrictions on air travel.

There's no question that quarantines prevent the spread of disease: there is plenty of question as to whether the disease justifies it; including in the cases of SARS and MERS. For example: most new flus come out of China due to their agricultural practices; building a wall around China until they change the practices and isolating people in the rest of the world population who get it would actually remove the flu fr…

[deleted]