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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

#401

Post by hef19898 »

Certhas wrote: post #398
hef19898 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The initial exponential growth rate" Key word, initial. Later on, not so much. Which is the whole point, pandemics aren't exponential over the complete run time. So, why not using these formulas at least in the models instead of using exponential equation limited by world population? Edit: "It will have an exponentially growing phase, and then an exponentially shrinking phase" Confirming the point above. Math is a p…

Okay you're just trolling now. We are very much in the initial exponential phase of Covid-19. As I derived above, once you get to 10% you might start seeing deviations from exponential in the SIR model. The bump that you saw in China is not due to this deviation from exponential growth behaviour. We luckily never got close to 10% infection. It's due to getting to negative exponential growth. The beta(t) part of my an…

See my comment above. I don't think we really disagree.

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

#402

Post by s1artibartfast »

hef19898 wrote: post #340
s1artibartfast wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. People keep turning to the media because our institutional outlets provide inadequate information for the majority of the population. The institutions default to saying nothing useful because they are scared of blow-back. I check my city, county, state, and world health sites and there is simply inadequate for my needs. I want to know what closures are in place in my community. I want to know if asymptoma…

That's the problem, yes. I still ignore the media, others don't. Both approaches are fine. The thing is, the media doesn't have any other sources, do they? But the have to produce content, so they do. Not very helpfull in the quality department if you ask me.

I would say that broadly speaking, media is better than the institutional outlets for providing information.

You have to sift through the garbage, but the content exits. to use the topics I listed above as an examples, I can find more details on local closures and outbreaks in the local news the local department of public health. Similarly, I have found coverage and links to medical journal publications embedded in articles. Lastly, the institutions are avoiding disclosure of next steps or plans like the plague ( no pun intended). Either they have no plan for the days to come, or they are intentionally withholding information. On the other hand, there are a number of media outlets, mostly non-traditional, that are providing projections based on other counties.

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

#403

Post by hef19898 »

whatshisface wrote: post #371
hef19898 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second that, I would love to hear from the frontline guys. But I don't. It is either elected officials (fair enough, that's part of their job) using input from said experts. You don't hear from the frontline people / orgs, I assume because the are simply too busy right now. Which brings me back to the professor acting basically as a free agent. That should change.

The professor is the front-line guy. I'm talking about epidemiologists, not physicists. If he wasn't acting as a "free agent," then you would be back to hearing from elected officials, who are mired in compromises and not entirely trustworthy.

Which is true as well. Just realized I am more worried about the communications part of the crisis than about COVID-19 itself.

Communications are beast.

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

#404

Post by bronzeage »

This is all dumb. saying this is unstoppable is a misconception. China reduced cases. South Korea and Singapore and Hong Kong and Taiwan have it under control. This is a statistics game, if you manage to reduce infection rate below 1 you win. the faster you respond, less time it takes. it's also clear, that if you could respond patient 0, that would be ideal, and you can prove by induction from here it's always better to act sooner. There is no reason whatsoever that makes it better to stop the spread after it reached 1000 people versus when it reached 10. What works when you have 1000 cases works just as well for 10.

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

#405

Post by arpa »

zaroth wrote: post #379
goatlover wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries that implemented extreme measures to slow the spread of the virus. It will be different for countries which haven't. The WHO and other health officials around the world are saying the same thing. This will spread to a large number of people. It's too late for containment, you can only hope to flatten the curve. That's why it's now a pandemic.

> This will spread to a large number of people. It's too late for containment, you can only hope to flatten the curve. Follow the logic through. South Korea is detecting ~100 cases per day on top of a total of 7,700 and 66 deaths. Total population is 50 million people. How long do you shut down the economy over a disease where you are detecting 100 cases per day with a CFR of 0.8%? Seems like this is a perfect exampl…

Unless you simultaneously ramp up your healthcare resources (what China did), even as "low" as 100 cases/day still has very real potential to go exponential (R0=2.5), overwhelm your healthcare, and kill 10% of our population if not more (especially if your population is aged).

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

#406

Post by angry_octet »

apexalpha wrote: post #399
silvestrov wrote: post #152

Denmark did act yesterday evening & today: - events with more than 100 people forbidden. - all schools will close - all non-critical employees must stay home. - all private employees off-job as much as possible. - stay in your home. - don't travel to [many] countries, more restricts will come. - All indoor cultural institutions, libraries, leisure facilities, etc. are closed. And today they made a temporary law which…

We have just had an announcement in the Netherlands with pretty much the same, except for one notable differnce. The Dutch government keeps schools open. They say closing schools would also force many parents to stay at home and that many of them are much needed in health care, police etc..

In Switzerland they decided to let schools stay open for the moment, because otherwise grandparents may have been looking after the children, which could have boosted an otherwise intermittent infection vector. Quite sensible I would say.

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

#407

Post by zaroth »

arpa wrote: post #405
zaroth wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This will spread to a large number of people. It's too late for containment, you can only hope to flatten the curve. Follow the logic through. South Korea is detecting ~100 cases per day on top of a total of 7,700 and 66 deaths. Total population is 50 million people. How long do you shut down the economy over a disease where you are detecting 100 cases per day with a CFR of 0.8%? Seems like this is a perfect exampl…

Unless you simultaneously ramp up your healthcare resources (what China did), even as "low" as 100 cases/day still has very real potential to go exponential (R0=2.5), overwhelm your healthcare, and kill 10% of our population if not more (especially if your population is aged).

I hear that, what I'm saying is, follow that logic through... If it's crucial to maintain strict protocols even during a rate of only 100 new cases/day, that means these protocols stay in place roughly... indefinitely.

Counting individual cases and deaths in a country of 300 million is nonsensical. You could do the same thing with the flu and you'd hit 20,000 deaths a year and you'd destroy the economy in the process.

IMO, the solution is best preparing to treat the number of people who do become severely ill from it, and getting the rest of the country fully back to work as quickly as possible.

Although I disagree strongly on the "kill 10% of your population" bit, which is just fear-mongering, it's kind of besides the point.

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

#408

Post by ebrenes »

imustbeevil wrote: post #163
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.

France has 11x Denmark's population and 4x it's confirmed cases, so it seems like doing nothing worked better.

France just closed down all schools and universities...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-12/france-cl...

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

#409

Post by mercutio2 »

MperorM wrote: post #386
lm28469 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you trying to express ?

If I understand him right he's pointing out freedom of assembly is just as significant a right for Americans as Danish citizens. I would go a step further and argue it is much more significant to American culture than Danish, and I feel my opinion carries at least some weight given I am a Danish person living in California.

Yes, thanks for clarifying.

I was trying to avoid making a comparative statement about the importance of freedom of assembly between cultures; I have no idea if freedom of assembly is important to Danish people!

But I suspect I obscured my meaning by trying to avoid making a statement about people I don't know.

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

#410

Post by whatshisface »

zaroth wrote: post #407
arpa wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you simultaneously ramp up your healthcare resources (what China did), even as "low" as 100 cases/day still has very real potential to go exponential (R0=2.5), overwhelm your healthcare, and kill 10% of our population if not more (especially if your population is aged).

I hear that, what I'm saying is, follow that logic through... If it's crucial to maintain strict protocols even during a rate of only 100 new cases/day, that means these protocols stay in place roughly... indefinitely. Counting individual cases and deaths in a country of 300 million is nonsensical. You could do the same thing with the flu and you'd hit 20,000 deaths a year and you'd destroy the economy in the process…

>Although I disagree strongly on the "kill 10% of your population" bit, which is just fear-mongering, it's kind of besides the point.

If every case went untreated, 10% is a reasonable guess about what the death rate would be. Unchecked growth would lead to almost every case going untreated. That's the penalty for allowing the number of active cases to rise above five times the number of open beds/ventilators.

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