My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio • Hacker News Board

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#61

Post by _bxg1 » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

tomerico wrote: post #31

Looking at countries with wide community spread[1] the spread is very clearly tied to cold weather (Europe, Korea, and Iran). This pattern is similar to other air transmitted viruses such as the Flu. Warmer countries seem to be resilient despite some having higher density and lower hygiene standards (e.g. India). Given that the default assumption should be the COVID-19 will follow the flu pattern of diminishing rapid…

I wonder if this is also the reason it's been mostly concentrated on the United States' west coast so far, seemingly to the north end

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#62

Post by Leary » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

tomerico wrote: post #31

Looking at countries with wide community spread[1] the spread is very clearly tied to cold weather (Europe, Korea, and Iran). This pattern is similar to other air transmitted viruses such as the Flu. Warmer countries seem to be resilient despite some having higher density and lower hygiene standards (e.g. India). Given that the default assumption should be the COVID-19 will follow the flu pattern of diminishing rapid…

While i think you are right about that the coronavirus will most likely decline as the weather heats up, I think a better comparison to look at would be the Sars epidemic in 2003 rather than the flu.

In that case, rather than diminishing rapidly in March, it diminished in May. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...

In either case, any step at delaying the spread of the virus will have a dramatic effect on the ultimate death toll.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#63

Post by creaghpatr » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

rmolin88 wrote: post #36

tomerico wrote: post #31

Looking at countries with wide community spread[1] the spread is very clearly tied to cold weather (Europe, Korea, and Iran). This pattern is similar to other air transmitted viruses such as the Flu. Warmer countries seem to be resilient despite some having higher density and lower hygiene standards (e.g. India). Given that the default assumption should be the COVID-19 will follow the flu pattern of diminishing rapid…

Very true! But the second wave, when winter returns in October, hit even harder [0] See Deadly second wave section in the Spanish Flu [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

More time to prepare and possibly ship a vaccine for a second wave.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#64

Post by dougmwne » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #26

It's very hard to have an informed opinion on the virus. Different actors have different incentives. Medias try to sell ads, politicians want to be elected (or not held responsible), institutions like WHO are political (I don't really trust them after seeing their treatment of Taiwan) and have their own agendd, even experts have their own biases and are selected by medias. And we are all deeply biased, and tend to lo…

It would be great if you could share your reasoning and information as to why you think this is just a bad flu. I have been seeing information from China that says the death rate is 20-30 times higher than the flu and that the hospitalization rate could be up to 20%. Other than China, most countries haven't been infected long enough to do studies on the final fatality or hospitalization rate.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#65

Post by justinzollars » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #23

justinzollars wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it sounds like we didn’t learn much from 2008. Will we learn from 2020? We learned a lot from 2008. This is a different ball game. There is plenty of credit today. This is a supply shock. There are not applicable lessons from a credit crunch to a panic/virus induced supply shortage.

Aren’t there at least applicable lessons for dealing with an economic crisis regardless of the direct causes? Or preventative measures to take during a boom time? Because it sounds like once again irrational exuberance has caught up with us and we’re about to reap the whirlwind of lack of protection.

I think this is different than irrational exuberance. Maybe one could look to the 1970's oil embargo for clues on how this will play out. I really do not know. But I do know 2008 is not a good comparison because the circumstances are just so different.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#66

Post by bob33212 » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #59

bob33212 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the death rate was 10% across the board we would know how far it has spread. But this cold may have a 0.001% hospitalization or death rate for people in great health. There could already be 100,000 people infected in the states. We may be close to the point of saying "fuck it. False alarm this is just a cold. Carry on". Hard to know for sure though until a couple weeks go by

From another comment, in Italy the numbers are worse than previously reported rather than better. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22476675 I did not check their source. Just saying that "we may be close to saying `false alarm`" seems almost certainly ill-informed.

How can you be "almost certain" of the future based on numbers from 1 article you didn't even read?

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#67

Post by mgolawala » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

yulaow wrote: post #30

katmannthree wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a terrific example of normalcy bias, a "tendency for people to believe that things will always function the way they normally have functioned and therefore to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects"[0]. China has provided roughly a month's advance warning on how this virus plays out in terms of infectivity and severity (~20% of cases are serious / require medical atte…

In Italy at the moment the data is far worse. We have a total of 2263 currently infected people of which 1000 with few symptoms, 1034 hospitalized and another 229 under emergency treatments [0] If the number of infected keeps growing (+400 today) and the percentage of hospitalized remains the same, hospitals will have serious problems very soon [0] https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cronaca/2020/03/03/coronavi...

The virus is certainly quite concerning, but those numbers are misleading. Italy almost certainly has far more than 2263 infected cases of covid-19. 2263 is just the number of individuals that sought medical attention, were given the test, and tested positive.

The big unknown is how many of those that are infected do not even seek medical attention (or were not administered the test). For instance, children appear to show either mild or no symptoms when infected.

Additionaly, speaking for myself, if I came down with something, with mild flu like symptoms, I wouldn't really be going to the hospital. I'd just take some over the counter medicine and power through. I would only seek medical attention if symptoms became severe. It stands to reason that this is how most people would be expected to behave. Therefore, people with severe symptoms would be much more likely to get medical attention, and therefore be tested, and to be hospitalized, or require emergency treatments.. making the stats look a lot worse than they are.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#68

Post by vsareto » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

lbj wrote: post #46

Only thing interesting about this virus is 1) It fully stopped all the PR coverage of the Hong Kong protests, and 2) We learned how poorly we are prepared for a pandemic

>We learned how poorly we are prepared for a pandemic

I've heard mixed things about China's reporting on it. It's more difficult to trust authoritarian regimes by default, but even good preparation can falter if there isn't honest information. Everything sort of followed China's information in the initial stages.

Everyday citizen preparation could be affected by social media manipulation (political manipulation tactics repurposed), but democratic government agencies wouldn't likely trust those sources, although they have to make sure their voice is the authority for citizens and not social media.

So can you effectively prepare for an outbreak when communication is deceptive/less effective/manipulated? I think it's very difficult.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#69

Post by natalyarostova » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

crystaldev wrote: post #27

Coronavirus has been circulating for months now. Many of us have already beaten it. That's why spread is linear and not gripping the world like it should be at this point: The "spread" is a measurement of panic and vigilant diagnosis. This is most carefully observed cold of all time. I was stocking up on dry goods and such like everybody else. After the past few days I feel like a panicked fool. Almost every single d…

You know, some of us have family with underlying health conditions.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#70

Post by gruez » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

lbj wrote: post #46

Only thing interesting about this virus is 1) It fully stopped all the PR coverage of the Hong Kong protests, and 2) We learned how poorly we are prepared for a pandemic

>1) It fully stopped all the PR coverage of the Hong Kong protests

Did they stop protesting? Going into protest (crowded spaces, close contact with others) seems like a bad idea during a pandemic.