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Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

stamfordadvocate.com

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Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#51

Post by bonzini »

saagarjha wrote: post #42
bonzini wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would be in bad taste if it's clearly hyperbolic and perhaps it is coupled with informational messages. PornHub is famous for doing this. There's also a funeral services company in Rome whose death-themed ads have become a meme ("don't worry antivaxers, we will always be ready to help if you die"), we love it. :-)

Antivaxxers are generally not liked very much; it’s fairly “safe” to make fun of them. Doing so for coronavirus when people have family members who may have it is significantly less so.

Too late: https://www.facebook.com/onoranzefunebritaffo/photos/a.79642...

(translation: "stay at home or we will all end up in a box")

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#52

Post by cafard »

mumblemumble wrote: post #34
psk76 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern media is really doing more harm than good. Elevating threat perception for everything has become a daily occurance. One day it's North Korea nukes. Another day it's Russians. Another it's Iran. Another day it's climate, #metoo, immigrants, shooters etc etc. I grew up at a time where the threats were even worse but we weren't surrounded by unqualified people falling over each other inducing anxiety in everyone…

Cable TV news was a massive experiment to try and find out if there is actually 24 hours' worth of news that happens every day. One which failed to reject the null hypothesis. Social media journalism is merely a replication study.

The best comment I have seen in a while...

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#53

Post by mrb »

svara wrote: post #43
mrb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lockdown has worked in only one place: China. And it worked because the measures were extreme: not allowing people to leave their homes (except once a week to go shopping), banning cars on the roads, closing workplaces, etc. No country is implementing measures nearly as extreme as China, so they won't be as successful in slowing down the epidemic. Before someone mentions South Korea: Korean CDC explained their epid…

The crucial thing is that the daily growth rate in South Korea averaged over the last 7 days is 1.05 and sinking, a far cry from the stable ~1.33 average in European countries with significant outbreaks. It's outrageous to me that you are still commenting on this after so many people here debunked you (and were thoroughly proven right by now) when you were claiming apocalyptic CFR numbers.

The growth rate in South Korea is low (1.05) because they are doing fewer tests, as they are finishing testing the sect members, as KCDC explained. IOW it does not reflect the true growth of the outbreak, but is an artifact of testing slowing down.

"so many people here debunked you"

I was criticized, but the criticism was invalid. My estimates turned out correct according to published studies (note that the high CFR >9% is not the same as the IFR which takes into account underascertainment and is lower around 0.5-1.6%):

A CFR of 18% was estimated by https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

A CFR of 33% was estimated by https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV-public/an...

A CFR of 5.3 or 8.4% (depending on two scenarios) was estimated by https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523

(These reports have been quoted by the WHO in situation report 30 (references 10, 11 and 12) and report 31: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... and https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... )

For reference I have always claimed a WIDE range for the CFR: between 9% and 56% (see https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/) So two of the three studies support me, and the third one is slightly outside my range (with one scenario where they calculated 8.4% being close to my lower bound of 9%.)

Note that these are NOT "apocalyptic estimates", as these three published estimates and my estimate only claim to be valid for one particular case: the CFR (1) for China, (2) as of January/early February, (3) not accounting for underreporting of cases. The CFR does change significantly over time, depending on countries, and depending on the ascertainment rate. The biggest factor is underascertainment, and if we correct for this in China, we calculate a much lower fatality closer to 0.5-1.6%, we call this the Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR). See the last section in my blog post "Updates & Validation": https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/#updates--...

Perhaps you thought or assumed I was calculating the IFR, not CFR.

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#54

Post by svara »

mrb wrote: post #53
svara wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crucial thing is that the daily growth rate in South Korea averaged over the last 7 days is 1.05 and sinking, a far cry from the stable ~1.33 average in European countries with significant outbreaks. It's outrageous to me that you are still commenting on this after so many people here debunked you (and were thoroughly proven right by now) when you were claiming apocalyptic CFR numbers.

The growth rate in South Korea is low (1.05) because they are doing fewer tests, as they are finishing testing the sect members, as KCDC explained. IOW it does not reflect the true growth of the outbreak, but is an artifact of testing slowing down. " so many people here debunked you " I was criticized, but the criticism was invalid. My estimates turned out correct according to published studies (note that the high CF…

I'm well aware of the difference between IFR and CFR. CFR is nowhere in the range you quoted. Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about.

Re South Korea: You are presenting a hypothesis as fact. For lots of reasons the hypothesis appears unlikely. Time will tell, but I'm confident you'll be proven wrong again, if I see another comment by you then I'll gladly point it out.

Why are you doing this? I think that's a question for yourself...

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#56

Post by chupa-chups »

scaglio wrote: post #8

Italian here, north-west. Media are really exaggerating with the situation with daily life and routine, we are allowed to take a walk and go to bars or restaurants if there is one meter of distance between people. The real problem is in the hospitals, and for some enterprises who will really have a loss in these weeks (everything about tourism, for example). One of the biggest downsides is that people are not allowed…

Tbh, i think we should employ wuhan-style lockdowns globally as early as possible to reduce the rate of infection as low as possible for some defined time span (e.g. for 2 weeks). After this the number of people requiring ICU should be known and stable, and then lift the lockdowns appropriately according to the percentage of people requiring intensive care.

I live in germany and currently it seems we're approaching that. The US still seems to be in denial.

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#57

Post by mrb »

svara wrote: post #54
mrb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The growth rate in South Korea is low (1.05) because they are doing fewer tests, as they are finishing testing the sect members, as KCDC explained. IOW it does not reflect the true growth of the outbreak, but is an artifact of testing slowing down. " so many people here debunked you " I was criticized, but the criticism was invalid. My estimates turned out correct according to published studies (note that the high CF…

I'm well aware of the difference between IFR and CFR. CFR is nowhere in the range you quoted. Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about. Re South Korea: You are presenting a hypothesis as fact. For lots of reasons the hypothesis appears unlikely. Time will tell, but I'm confident you'll be proven wrong again, if I see another comment by you then I'll gladly point it out. Why are you doing this?…

"Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about.”

So ALL(!) the studies referenced in WHO situation reports are "incorrect"? The WHO couldn't/didn't find any other studies that were "correct"? Don't you think it is a little improbable that 4 entities (WHO + 3 teams behind the 3 studies) are all wrong?

You say the CFR is nowhere in the range but that's because you, like all media, look at the so-called naïve CFR (deaths/cases) which is known to severely underestimate the true CFR in the initial rapid growth phase of an epidemic, because deaths lag cases. The naïve CFR gives accurate results only when calculated across a cohort of patients who all either recovered or died, with none left hospitalized. Epidemiologists are very aware of this bias; my post at https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/ covers this topic and presents various links including 4-5 peer-reviewed papers documenting it. This bias is why none of the proper CFR estimates employ the naïve CFR calculation.

Also you need to be aware that CFR evolves over time. Initially the most severe cases are the ones that are detected first, so CFR among these initial cohorts is higher.

In fact the high CFR is confirmed by observations of these cohorts. For example 11 of the first 99 patients died[1]. That's a CFR of 11% right there. And some of these patients were still hospitalized at the time of publication, some additional ones may have died since then.

My CFR estimate and the 3 studies referenced by the WHO were all based on such early data when the detected cases were more severe. If we were to redo the estimate today with current data from China, we would find a lower CFR because today they can run many more lab tests on larger swath of population so they detect a larger proportion of mild cases.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#58

Post by svara »

mrb wrote: post #57
svara wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm well aware of the difference between IFR and CFR. CFR is nowhere in the range you quoted. Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about. Re South Korea: You are presenting a hypothesis as fact. For lots of reasons the hypothesis appears unlikely. Time will tell, but I'm confident you'll be proven wrong again, if I see another comment by you then I'll gladly point it out. Why are you doing this?…

" Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about. ” So ALL(!) the studies referenced in WHO situation reports are "incorrect"? The WHO couldn't/didn't find any other studies that were "correct"? Don't you think it is a little improbable that 4 entities (WHO + 3 teams behind the 3 studies) are all wrong? You say the CFR is nowhere in the range but that's because you, like all media, look at the so-ca…

The problem with what you are doing is you are taking in a lot of information, and then you come here and to Twitter to repeat the most disturbing sounding factoids without any critical thinking and without any consideration for context, all for attention. This is really offensive to me, which is why I react so strongly to it.

Re CFR: If you are allowed to cherry pick a narrowly defined set of cases, you can make this value look any way you want. If that's the argument you are retreating to, you simply have nothing to say, because it is grossly misleading.

Re South Korea: numbers of people tested is on a stable exponential trajectory since the very beginning, unaffected by how many church members are tested. The exponential growth factor for the number of confirmed cases has been stably decaying since the very beginning. There is simply nothing to indicate that the artifact you suggest exists, yet you take a single sentence you found online to claim South Korean growth isn't actually slowing. What the fuck dude?

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#59

Post by ColanR »

svara wrote: post #58
mrb wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about. ” So ALL(!) the studies referenced in WHO situation reports are "incorrect"? The WHO couldn't/didn't find any other studies that were "correct"? Don't you think it is a little improbable that 4 entities (WHO + 3 teams behind the 3 studies) are all wrong? You say the CFR is nowhere in the range but that's because you, like all media, look at the so-ca…

The problem with what you are doing is you are taking in a lot of information, and then you come here and to Twitter to repeat the most disturbing sounding factoids without any critical thinking and without any consideration for context, all for attention. This is really offensive to me, which is why I react so strongly to it. Re CFR: If you are allowed to cherry pick a narrowly defined set of cases, you can make thi…

To an outside reader, you haven't presented any research and are making unfounded claims. I don't see why you're in any sense credible.

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#60

Post by svara »

ColanR wrote: post #59
svara wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with what you are doing is you are taking in a lot of information, and then you come here and to Twitter to repeat the most disturbing sounding factoids without any critical thinking and without any consideration for context, all for attention. This is really offensive to me, which is why I react so strongly to it. Re CFR: If you are allowed to cherry pick a narrowly defined set of cases, you can make thi…

To an outside reader, you haven't presented any research and are making unfounded claims. I don't see why you're in any sense credible.

Sorry, in my mind I was addressing mrb directly who surely knows the relevant data already. But you're right I should have included citations for other readers.

The most detailed analysis of Chinese(!) CFR numbers I am aware of, including discussions of all the issues that mrb likes to quote to sow confusion: Riou et al. [0]

Cumulative number of tests performed in South Korea: See the table at [1]; ideally plot the "Total Tested" column logarithmically to see sustained exponential growth clearly.

Confirmed cases in South Korea over time [2]. Plot South Korea alone to see the continuous decay (pretty much from day 1 to right now) of the exponential growth rate clearly.

[0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031104v...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...

[2] https://studylib.net/coronavirus-growth

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