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Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

bbc.com

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Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of yesterday, Berlin is no way a risk zone as of now. So why should they? Doesnt mean you can't change your behaviour, so.

"Most turkeys in farms are super happy, healthy and fat until some days before Thanksgiving. Why should they act like they could be slaughtered?"

Because turkeys are always fat. Happy and healthy is a diiferent story. And they get slaughtered, becasue that is the reason the are at the farm in the first place. Using that analogy for a disease is jst plain wrong.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#662
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am extremely disappointed in the American government on this. We have had a significant warning and we've seen the virus in multiple countries and the response has been so lackluster. Why should we wait 20 days for things to get terrible before going to quarantines and lock down? Surely China and Italy have shown us our future. I partly think the problem is political. If you quarantine and the virus is controlled,…

> If you quarantine and the virus is controlled, then it looks like you panicked over nothing, because you took this huge reaction and nothing much happened. Nails it. You could be so good at your job that people think your job isn’t even necessary; or you could be putting out fires caused by your incompetence all day every day and people think you’re a hero.

Trump isn’t looking like a hero.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even fewer realize that a 2.1% growth rate is itself exponentially faster than a 2% growth rate. If something grows by 2% per day, vs 2.1% per day, after a year the second one is >20x bigger.

What you say is true in principle, but your numbers are wrong. I got a rather less dramatic 50% difference after a year: >>> 1.02**365 1377.4082919660768 >>> 1.021**365 1969.6808462403098 >>>

Thanks for the correction, I didn't actually do the math for that, just remembered something I've read a while back, but the numbers where different 20% vs 21%.

Apparently I don't understand exponential growth either cause I assumed a 5% difference scales linearly (as in the difference between 20% vs 21% growth rates for a given period should be the same as between 2% and 2.1%).

Silly me.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#664
post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not denying that. I am simply worried when I see alarmist posts, uncorborated, that have the tendency to spread panic. That's why call out every twitter thread like that when I come accross them. In this case it was a guy you referenced a friend of his. So uncorborated. Bad reporting, plain and simple.

What you are doing is very dangerous. People need to be aware of what is about to hit them so that they can prepare. Calling into question second-hand reports as "unreliable", even though this particular twitter thread is completely unremarkable and in line with many other reports, makes people wonder if this whole Corona thing is nothing more than hot air. It's just super irresponsible to give people that impression…

News is basically just about Coronavirus by now, whether it is print, online, TV, radio... People are aware, unless you are living in a bunker since last smmer, in which case you would be safe anyway.

If people refuse to take it seriously, no amount of reporting will change these individuals behaviour. What it does so, is causing overreaction of others which can have kind of side effects. Ranging from funny to plain dangerous.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only to catch the very first sentence? "From a well respected friend and intensivist/A&E consultant who is currently in northern Italy:" Basically, that make this twitter thread uncorborated news unless someone reached out to the Italian doctor referenced in it.

There's hundreds of similar recounts on social media at the moment, this is not an isolated case

Social media really seems to be the bane of the 21st century...

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Berlin and people are making zero effort to alter their usual patterns.

As of yesterday, Berlin is no way a risk zone as of now. So why should they? Doesnt mean you can't change your behaviour, so.

Because it's only a matter of time before the virus will be in Berlin (if it's not already).

Nobody is suggesting people should quarantine themselves in Berlin, but avoiding crowded spaces, not touching your face and frequently washing your hands doesn't seem at all unreasonable.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have this impression. Many nations are trying to find a cure or a vaccine. Nobody knows the long term development of this virus. You could lock up everything, the economy collapses and it would hurt people even more than the virus might have. It is a gamble at this point. Political games come into play if people demand answers that nobody can give. If some presume to be able to do that, they are lying to your…

> If this is over in June and 100,000 people died, what would we call this? It would just be another disease probably. More like few millions in US alone, based on what happened in Italy which is more representative than China. Italy has >4% mortality rate last time I checked. And we talk about very well equipped and highly rated healthcare. I can't imagine this not having brutal effects on global economy. Another po…

This is completely debased. You don't have reliable info on recoveries, infections or death rate. Currently around > so re-infection is probable.

I have the info the virus is not inclined to mutate. But it is just too early to tell.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is true in principle, but your numbers are wrong. I got a rather less dramatic 50% difference after a year: >>> 1.02**365 1377.4082919660768 >>> 1.021**365 1969.6808462403098 >>>

Thanks for the correction, I didn't actually do the math for that, just remembered something I've read a while back, but the numbers where different 20% vs 21%. Apparently I don't understand exponential growth either cause I assumed a 5% difference scales linearly (as in the difference between 20% vs 21% growth rates for a given period should be the same as between 2% and 2.1%). Silly me.

But a good exmple showing why numbers are so important. A 50% difference is an order of magnitude away from a factor 20. Thing is, once out there the wrong factor 20 is impossible to correct.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#669
post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

The "U.S. pandemic response team" that article is talking about were White House staff, part of the Trump administration rather than the non-partisan bureaucracy. The actual, on-the-ground organisations and bureaucracy involved in pandemic response - the stuff most people would probably think of as the pandemic response team and that the comment I'm replying to seems to suggest should be in charge - is still there. T…

So you're saying that the administration which refuses to admit Coronavirus is a problem, which a year ago let go its entire pandemic coordination staff, which has proposed a 16% cut to CDC funding, and which today ordered immigration judges to remove CDC posters aimed at slowing the outbreak has nothing to do with the terrible response, and it should all instead be blamed on the officials at the CDC?

The executive and administrative branches together respond to a crisis like this - for example by coordinating actions, providing more funding for health services or in extremis ordering quarantine in affected areas. None of that has been done. I don't think you can effectively separate the two responses, nor do I think this outbreak is somehow Trump's fault, but he and his administration are responding remarkably badly to it.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually the hardest to believe. The virus has run it course in Wuhan and it is likely dieing down as a significant number of people having developed immunity to it. But outside of Wuhan, there is likely a number of infected persons in the population still transmitting it and waiting to resurface into more serious cases after people get back to work.

I have family in China outside Hubei province. If COVID-19 really did spread widely to the rest of China then I would have known it, and hospitals would have absolutely been overwhelmed. There are even multiple foreigners in China who can confirm the situation. Checkout the Youtube videos by Daniel Dumbrill in February. Might there still be hidden carriers in the population? Absolutely. China must remain vigilant. Th…

That's expected based on data from South Korea - the hospitalisation rate is lower than in China with more widespread testing. The virus is both more transmissible and less virulent than the Chinese data suggests. The outcome is the same - hospital bed and ICUs swamped.

As such, we'll know when life resumes and people go back to work en masse.

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