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Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

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Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#301

Post by hef19898 »

hadrien01 wrote: post #181
keiferski wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a useless comment? If you want to compare the actions of Denmark to France, it's more relevant to compare it to a particular region. Grand Est, for example has a similar population as Denmark. This is almost common sense in the business world. No one thinks BigCo and LittleStartup are capable of the same things or that one's ability or inability to do something is equivalent.

Well, in that case, let's compare: the Grand Est region has about the same population as Denmark, slightly more COVID-19 cases than Denmark (587 vs 514), and more deaths (9 vs 0). And yet, most schools and the administration are still open.

For now. In business, people deciding on the very weak data basis we have to discuss we have, would rightfully be have their asses kicked. Yet, here we are, doing exactly this.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#302

Post by maest »

lazyier wrote: post #20
varjag wrote: post #2

Doesn't seem very well thought out. The economic cost of the first scenario (numerous deaths in peak period) would likely be the highest with the impact both on workforce and market sentiment. The impact of long tail scenarios lower because death toll would not be just redistributed but also reduced by likely an order of magnitude.

No it's not. It's just one guy making up random shit on a blog and is pretending that governments think like him. The reality is probably closer to the fact that there isn't anything governments can do about it. They can try to shut down the borders of the country, but that is going to a lot worse and probably won't stop it anyways. Just because governments can do something and do do something doesn't mean that that…

This is blatanly false.

> there isn't anything governments can do about it.

Banning public events, locking down geographical areas, closing schools, pulling in retired medical workforce etc.

> doesn't mean that that something is meaningful or will have a positive impact

You can see the impact of measures such as enforcing lockdowns (e.g. Wuhan cases) and you can compare the spread of the virus in countries which take measures vs those that do not.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#303

Post by ericol »

PaulHoule wrote: post #274
ericol wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Treating you in emergency now might involve kicking someone else off respiratory support. This has been my standard reply to the "It's just a flu" concept for some time now. Aside from all this, it's incredible how difficult it is for people to think about this using all the info available (long onset of symptoms, asymptomatic spread, high % of hospitalizations / intensive care, etc) plus thinking in the long term.…

I think we're out of N95 masks in the U.S. and we have to wait a month or so to get them from China.

Good luck getting them off China.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#304

Post by koonsolo »

samastur wrote: post #246
koonsolo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, politicians choose (1), no action, as the most likely winning scenario. I'm from Belgium myself, so I can chime in. Our minister of health is a docter herself, and is advised by a panel of experts including a professor of virology. They know very well what they are doing with the current 400 known infections. Closing schools makes no sense currently because of following factors: - kids are not the main factor i…

Maybe, but this is not linear growth. It's still exponential, albeit not as steep as ours (Slovenia), but you are still on course to double number of cases every 5 days. Linear growth would have a declining rate for daily percentage change (adding 10 cases when you have 100 is 10% change, adding 10 when you have 400 is 2.5%).

Yeah the last day (12th) indicates that it is exponential.

But if you look at the curve before that, it gave indication that the growth rate was slowing down.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#305

Post by maest »

duckMuppet wrote: post #87
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark did close every school and most administrations. France did not. Many decisions can be taken, but are not (for various reasons). Most experts recommend to limit contacts rather than closing down borders, and no one is pretending to stop the virus but they all should try to flatten the curve. You don't seem to pay attention to the current situation.

The fact that they refuse to do things like closing borders and immediately ceasing all travel by foreigners or citizens who've traveled traveled abroad meanwhile ending arbitrary social events is the reason you know it's hype up media nonsense. Most of the actions taken are those most likely not affecting those in the target older or immuno-compromised demographic likely to have the serious consequences. https://omn…

Shutting down borders helps if the virus hasn't reached your country.

If it has, there's no point in banning incoming people (maybe you can stop people from leaving so other regions don't get infected, but that's a less strong incentive). If you already have the virus in your country, the best thing you can do is slow its spreading, by banning large groups of people from congregating.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#306

Post by alfromspace »

XorNot wrote: post #206
alfromspace wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, been I've been told "you can't just shut down travel", and that closing borders doesn't work, for reasons that are completely self-evident. So I'm utterly mystified that there are virtually no cases and 0 deaths in countries like Russia and Mongolia that closed their borders.

Two countries doing minimal or no testing are not reporting any cases? Shocking.

I'm sure they have just as many cases as we do here in the US, where we're extremely diligent about testing. History will prove you correct.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#307

Post by hef19898 »

Udik wrote: post #66
matwood wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the Netherlands, seasonal influenza has ~1% mortality rate Yikes! If true, do you know why that is?

I don't know, but I live in the Netherlands (as an expat) and their approach to healthcare is legendary for its sloppiness. The most common joke is about doctors responding to any health complaint by handing some paracetamol and saying "come back in two weeks if you don't feel better". Three days ago the government held a special meeting about the coronavirus, in which they deliberated that people should stop shaking…

The German perspective is, that their hospital system, especially regarding infections and diseases, is the best practice everyone should follow.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#308

Post by hef19898 »

Udik wrote: post #138
mtsr wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nevertheless health care outcomes on average are pretty good, if you look at things like life expectancy...

I'm not saying healthcare is bad ("sloppiness" wasn't a good choice of a term). In fact it's very well organised. It's more that the Dutch seem to be extremely... relaxed, maybe a bit fatalistic, about illness. It's a "suck it up" attitude. The fact that they're so slow in taking action now doesn't surprise me.

Maybe cultural. One of the reasons I love working with the Dutch is their calm professional approach to things. Not the worst trait to have in times of crisis.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#309

Post by cperciva »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #264
hef19898 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this! I kind of understand the WHO, the broad public, including media, doesn't care about models and such things. Providing to much details can have the opposite effect, instead of calming things down it could spark more fear. On the other hand, online stuff like said growth hacker can draw a lot of attention. This will end up in the mainstream. That diseases aren't exponential, who cares when exponential cur…

> That diseases aren't exponential, who cares when exponential curves fit so nicely early on. Shouting this point does more bad than good. Outbreaks are exponential in their initial stage, to an extremely good level of approximation. Sure, they're ultimately s-shaped, but we're far from the bend point. That the growth starts to deviate from the exponent a tiny bit when half of your country is sick isn't a useful obse…

You don't have to wait until half the country is sick, though. If you restrict movement, you see a sharp reduction in transmission when you start getting neighborhoods hitting 50%. Some will get there faster than others.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#310

Post by harrier »

ericol wrote: post #265
XorNot wrote: post #247

The graph this blog draws doesn't work that way. The whole point of not overloading the medical system - and definitely not getting it at 100% capacity, is that once you're at capacity, it's not just COVID-19 treatment which stops (which means, all those people who would otherwise survive die) - it's all treatment. Get appendicitis? Routine surgery, can be done in a few hours. And will definitely kill you without tre…

> Treating you in emergency now might involve kicking someone else off respiratory support. This has been my standard reply to the "It's just a flu" concept for some time now. Aside from all this, it's incredible how difficult it is for people to think about this using all the info available (long onset of symptoms, asymptomatic spread, high % of hospitalizations / intensive care, etc) plus thinking in the long term.…

It's people didn't think it was as serious then they wouldn't be overloading the hospitals. Most people can probably stay home.
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