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Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#31

Post by ISL »

cknoxrun wrote: post #10

My co-founder and I are really struggling with the decisions ahead of us. We feel we should act quickly, and enforce our team to work from home, but the spread in our city is quite low for now. We also wonder how long this can go on, are we going to be isolated for months? We are at a critical point where we have just closed our seed round this past week. We have both put so much energy and time into this moment and…

WFH. Do it now. Individual actions have outsized impact in the face of exponential growth.

The problem is twice as hard every time the number of cases doubles. If you don't want to work from home for many months, start working from home now.

Working from home isn't as bad as it seems. Modern collaboration tools are great. Our research group and wider laboratory have gotten into the swing of things within a week.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#32

Post by komali2 »

cknoxrun wrote: post #10

My co-founder and I are really struggling with the decisions ahead of us. We feel we should act quickly, and enforce our team to work from home, but the spread in our city is quite low for now. We also wonder how long this can go on, are we going to be isolated for months? We are at a critical point where we have just closed our seed round this past week. We have both put so much energy and time into this moment and…

Why not work from home? Are your employees not able to get their job done remotely?

The right thing to do from every perspective is close your office. If any of your employees is has a risk factor and dies of covid you will spend the rest of your life wondering if you could have prevented it - trust me I know.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#33

Post by ComputerGuru »

tomp wrote: post #20
itcrowd wrote: post #4

Not sure why this is on the number 1 spot currently. This is a letter signed by non-experts (albeit sometimes scientists/engineers). To me, it comes off as the climate-change denier letters or 9/11 "truthers" letters. Please let the experts do their job. Don't spread uninformed opinions backed up by Facebook posts and panicked researchers with expertise "relevant to virus spreading" such as electronics, architecture…

By "experts" you mean the WHO who delayed declaring it an pandemic for more than a month? I think we're beyond experts already... it's time for leadership, decisive action after experts have failed across the board.

They declared it a global emergency because it would turn into a pandemic (which has an actual definition and criteria that weren’t met) in January. People ignored them and they were right and were forced to declare it a pandemic a month later.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#34

Post by ISL »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #2

As a physicist, it still feels odd to me they are talking about statistics with such confidence here. It seems only SK has earned that right and has tested enough people to get reliable statistics. If you only measure the sick in the hospital...

If they're making this statement based only on the cases they know about, then the argument is even stronger if there are more cases.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#35

Post by bsaul »

davidw wrote: post #24
mensetmanusman wrote: post #2

As a physicist, it still feels odd to me they are talking about statistics with such confidence here. It seems only SK has earned that right and has tested enough people to get reliable statistics. If you only measure the sick in the hospital...

No one is 'confident' about a lot of things. But everyone who has seen what is happening in Italy is confident that taking a 'wait and see' attitude will cost lives.

i wish more countries did randomized testing over its whole population, or extensive testing, like SK.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#36

Post by lbeltrame »

As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus.

It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.

Why on Earth is this a good model?

Undoubtedly for the safety of citizens, but even with all the people shouting about a "fascist revolution" going on with the previous government, it only took three orders to strip everyone of most of their freedoms without anyone batting an eye (especially since no one knows for how long, the April 3rd date is a joke).

Quarantining is probably inevitable (although it won't help the overloaded ICUs until two weeks from now, so more capacity will always be needed), but following rules in place in an outbreak does not mean one should not question their principles.

And this letter should be sent to the media and the government, since both can't even understand an exponential, or basic statistics (even with the so-called "peak" reached, cases will keep on increasing until recoveries are due).

Personally I'd like fast-tracking of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs instead (those are the ones which will get out of this mess, quarantining is just flattening the curve, although immensely beneficial), along with setting up place for non-intensive care COVID-19 patients. Every ICU bed freed is a victory.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#37

Post by mirimir »

Maybe Italy is a worst case, both because it didn't quarantine early enough, and because greater population inversion.

> It's now a well-established fact that older people and those with underlying health issues are more susceptible to succumbing to Covid-19. With 23 percent Italians aged 65 or above and a median age of 47.3, the Italian population is the oldest in Europe. This is chiefly responsible for the high fatality rate in Italy.[0]

Also these articles.[1,2] And similar to the age effect in China.

0) https://www.ibtimes.sg/fatality-rate-7-16-why-coronavirus-de...

1) https://nypost.com/2020/03/12/heres-why-the-coronavirus-deat...

2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/03/italy-elderly-...

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#38

Post by ComputerGuru »

freepor wrote: post #11
itcrowd wrote: post #4

Not sure why this is on the number 1 spot currently. This is a letter signed by non-experts (albeit sometimes scientists/engineers). To me, it comes off as the climate-change denier letters or 9/11 "truthers" letters. Please let the experts do their job. Don't spread uninformed opinions backed up by Facebook posts and panicked researchers with expertise "relevant to virus spreading" such as electronics, architecture…

The “experts” are not doing their jobs! In the US you would have expected the CDC under the President’s leadership to act decisively and promptly. Obviously this did not happen. The randos are providing much more value than the experts in the US. Other countries like South Korea and Singapore have experts who are doing quite well.

The CDC can’t dictate state policies. These are executive decisions that the CDC can only strongly advise on.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#39

Post by LeoNatan25 »

davidw wrote: post #27
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #12

Here in Israel, ministry of health wanted a full lockdown. But business won, so only a partial lockdown is enforced, and they are shutting down only clubs and restaurants. People will still be able to visit parks, roam freely, etc. Today there was an article [1] that some idiot that was in quarantine left it and was arrested on the street. There is no discipline. A hard lockdown is likely the best option everywhere.…

That lasted for a few days in Italy and then they shut it all down anyway. But more people got infected in the meantime!

Exactly, they should have gone all-in and shut it down.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#40

Post by StudentStuff »

cknoxrun wrote: post #10

My co-founder and I are really struggling with the decisions ahead of us. We feel we should act quickly, and enforce our team to work from home, but the spread in our city is quite low for now. We also wonder how long this can go on, are we going to be isolated for months? We are at a critical point where we have just closed our seed round this past week. We have both put so much energy and time into this moment and…

The spread may appear low in your city, but how much of that is from lack of testing? If your employees can work from home, it is best for you to implement work from home ASAP.

Businesses in Washington State have shuttered or gone to work from home over the last 3 weeks, had most businesses made this change earlier(eg: at the beginning of those 3 weeks) we would see much less spread and quicker easing of restrictions.

Is Alberta doing widespread Covid-19 testing yet? We had cases of teens with no international travel getting Covid-19 in February according to the Seattle Flu Study, there are likely more cases in Edmonton that exhibit minimal symptoms currently.

Seattle Flu Study: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-de...

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