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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

#171

Post by pbourke »

on_and_off wrote: post #151
delegate wrote: post #46

I've seen comments here trying to play down the message or discredit the signatories of this letter. Don't. Please take it seriously. This is not sensationalism. What the letter means is that if your country is not there yet, you might be DAYS away from widespread panic and total lock down. I'm writing this from Barcelona, Spain. This last Sunday, 6 days ago, I went on a walk with my girlfriend, had a nice lunch, too…

I fear that the situation is already at that state in the USA. There are 1600 confirmed cases but the lack of tests hides how many real infections there are.

> There are 1600 confirmed cases but the lack of tests hides how many real infections there are.

2,695 at the moment, per the NYT tracker

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-m...

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#172

Post by teknologist »

jacquesm wrote: post #137
teknologist wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit facetious I know but I don't feel that bat soup or pangolin pie would ever be an element of Italian cuisine

A bat infecting a pig could easily happen in Italy. Or anywhere else for that matter.

What we know so far is that it's likely to have started at a wet market in Wuhan where people lived with bats and other wild animals. Chances of cross-infection are much higher in that scenario.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#173

Post by pedrocr »

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.

Everyone except the UK and the US notably.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#174

Post by TeMPOraL »

nostromo wrote: post #161
TeMPOraL wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something something 20% hospitalization rate * number of infected people >> healthcare capacity of any country -> a lot more than 0.5% of fatalities, + all the other deaths for all other kinds of medical emergencies, which only happen because doctors have to aggressively triage patients.

Obviously we should try and slow it down. But there's a fine line between slowing it down and overreacting.

Overreacting would be nuking the affected cities. Locking down a country to give healthcare a chance to cope will have some unpleasant economic consequences, but it won't "burn down the modern world and suspend all civil rights".

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#175

Post by TeMPOraL »

Animats wrote: post #170
TeMPOraL wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't get how people - including apparently some governments - don't get or don't believe it. Getting this graph is as simple as 1) taking the daily measurements, and 2) plotting them on log scale (and technically 3) shifting the lines to overlap, but that's just cosmetics). The trajectory of the entire West being the same as Italy's is immediately apparent.

It's much worse than that. Italy's health system is already collapsing at 20,000 victims. The population of Italy is 60 million. That has to level off at some point due to saturation, but that's at somewhere in the millions or tens of millions.

Worse still, Italy has one of the better healthcare systems. This doesn't bode well for the rest of Europe.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#176

Post by tim333 »

lazyjones wrote: post #160

The fact that growth rates seem very similar in all affected countries, baffles me. Surely lifestyles, social structure (number of families/kids etc.), hygiene habits differ slightly and testing rates/effectiveness of the health system varies greatly among them. If these factors aren't important, does social life even matter? The effectiveness of China's lockdown is a good argument for it, but perhaps they were just…

It's not true that they are similar in all affected countries. The ones in that graph are cherry picked for similarity. If you look at China, Taiwan, Singapore etc there are differences.

eg Fujian https://mackuba.eu/corona/#fujian_china

Taiwan https://mackuba.eu/corona/#taiwan

HK https://mackuba.eu/corona/#hong_kong

Taiwan is impressive in that they had thousands of flights a month to China, have only 30 active cases and no lockdowns. They had people ride on the planes from Wuhan to identify sick passengers during the flight and quarantine them on landing.

As a Brit I'm embarrassed by our performance in comparison.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#177

Post by everybodyknows »

baby wrote: post #95
delegate wrote: post #46

I've seen comments here trying to play down the message or discredit the signatories of this letter. Don't. Please take it seriously. This is not sensationalism. What the letter means is that if your country is not there yet, you might be DAYS away from widespread panic and total lock down. I'm writing this from Barcelona, Spain. This last Sunday, 6 days ago, I went on a walk with my girlfriend, had a nice lunch, too…

Can we make sure we’re reading this kind of information when given by people who actually study and work in a relevant field? Now more than ever we should look at the source of every information. I know I'm going to get downvoted for saying this, but I think it is important enough.

It is fair to observe that the expertise here is math rather than medicine. However, epidemiologists have already made these predictions. Don't see any harm in signalling broader academic support.

Particularly not since none of the signatories could plausibly be accused of exaggerating the danger, in order to extract grant money. As goes the usual cynical claim of innumerate science-deniers.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#178

Post by adinobro »

garmaine wrote: post #136
zozbot234 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. China dropped the ball for a full 10 days back when the disease was nicely contained to a small part of Wuhan, and then largely to Wuhan itself and Hubei - they didn't let the population know about the danger, so for quite some time no one was thinking about protecting themselves by wearing m…

> China dropped the ball for a full 10 days back when the disease was nicely contained to a small part of Wuhan... Uh, China dropped the ball for a full 3 months since the first reports of a novel respiratory disease started back in November . First denying it, then jailing the doctors who tried to raise the alarm. Not to mention not enforcing their own laws regarding food hygiene put in place after SARS which would…

New viruses come out all the time. This viruses wasn't isolated as different till the end of December.

The Doctor wasn't jailed ...

The virus was spread at the market. It didn't start at the market.

Until we know where it started we don't know if it would have stopped the virus or not.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#179

Post by jrandm »

trashtester wrote: post #74
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...

As a physicist, you are familiar with formulas similar to this: N_obs = p_detect * 2^( n_days / T_double ) N_obs : The number of observed cases p_detect : The fraction of actual cases that are detected (assumed to be constant) n_days : number of days T_double : The number of days it takes for the number of real cases to double If you examine the formula, the p_detect constant is almost insignificant. If T_double = 2,…

I believe you're focusing on the days aspect of that equation without considering what a lower T_double/p_detect could mean relative to hospitalizations.

If the real number of cases is doubling significantly faster than those detected -- say due to not testing them because their symptoms are mild enough to be missed entirely or to not seek treatment -- the calculations around things like mortality rate and severity of illness may yet change. As I understand it, scientists have already identified mutations of the virus that may also impact its ability to spread or injure infected hosts. I should note that these changes can swing both good and bad, I'm simply pointing out that there are more variables and that these variables changing may represent something not obvious from the equation.

I'm not an expert; I have fun reading about medical statistics. Most papers I've read take the time to examine these various confounding factors and what unexpected variations in their proposed equations might mean.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#180

Post by nostromo »

furyofantares wrote: post #154
cknoxrun wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first case only just made its way to our city a couple of days ago. We have been rather distracted of course by getting signatures and cheques. For context, our schools and daycares are still open, as are city rec centers, gyms, and public transit. Only yesterday did the province recommend no gatherings over 250 people. Perhaps we should have been quicker, but here we are.

Only 150 cases in AU at the time Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson got it. Only a thousand in the US when two NBA players got it. Only 150 in Canada when the Prime Minister's wife got it. Only 150 cases in Brazil when the press secretary got it. These people certainly have more exposure to other humans than most people do. But not so much that they should be making up whole percentages of the infected population. I believe t…

There are two sides of that coin.

One side: it's much more widespread than we realize.

Other side: it's much more mild and less fatal than we first thought.

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