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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

#301

Post by bitL »

jacquesm wrote: post #247
nate_meurer wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not even close. Those wet markets are a fucking nightmare. There are truly optimized for pulling new diseases into the human population. Thousands of animals, hundreds of different species, many known to be reservoirs of potential human pathogens, crammed together in close proximity with each other and with humans who eat them. In his interview with Joe Rogan, Michael Osterholm called it "the perfect experiment t…

You are missing the point of my comment. A bat infecting a pig or some other two step is a pre-cursor to many Zoonotic events. Those wet markets are indeed a huge accelerator. But the pre-conditions exist in many places and all it takes is one butcher that isn't paying attention and you've got the ball rolling. Africa and Asia have a lot of this and so are a recurring theme in these very unfortunate stories. But it c…

Bushmeat gave us Ebola as well. Deer hunting might give us CWD soon (we observed transmission to human-model mice already) and that one is basically disinfectable only by using high heat and pressure together.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#302

Post by sk5t »

__s wrote: post #166
thedance wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could present them with the classic cognitive reflection question: A lake has one lily pad. Every day the number of lily pads doubles. After fifty days the lake is completely covered by lily pads. How many days did it take to cover half the lake with lily pads?

That's a big lake to have room for 1125899906842624 lily pads

Fortunately, it will only require space for 1125899906842623 pads.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#303

Post by fattire »

zozbot234 wrote: post #293
fattire wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside the fact that here in the US tests are literally not happening on an epic scale that will be the subject of numerous investigations, hearings (, and prosecutions?) in the years to come. And forget that even if we had legit numbers, those numbers we can see are a tip of the iceberg, representing at most 20% of the actual more-serious cases. Put that all aside. Remember-- the numbers we see now are a look…

> Don't forget-- the numbers we see now are a look at the PAST. The infection incubates silently for a median 5 days. Then symptoms present. Then a week goes by with relatively mild illness. THEN shit gets real. And the "shit gets real" part only occurs 20% of the time, give or take - which means the virus might spread quite a bit while showing symptoms no more severe than a common cold. That also introduces some fur…

Yes, exactly. I said 14 days but again, that's the median. The US is flying blind right now.

We're using a cracked, dirty camera lens to film a small fraction of the tip of a rapidly growing iceberg.... And the photo processing time is two weeks.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#304

Post by epicureanideal »

spacephysics wrote: post #3

We don’t need military patrolling our streets just yet. Not saying it won’t come down to it, but the sentiment in the US is less, uh... flexible, towards being heavily locked down as compared to the aforementioned countries.

There's a large population of Americans that have conservative views, and vigorously fight against perceived encroachment on their liberties. However, these people are not stupid, despite how they're painted in the media.

I suspect if we called up a militia leader from the back woods of Michigan or Kentucky, even they would consent to very temporary quarantines. Even if it meant US army troops patrolling their residential areas.

In fact, I suspect more conservative people would even be more in favor of stricter lockdowns, on average. While progressives are now following the advice of the medical establishment, the initial instinct is to not do things that "sound conservative" like shutting down borders and so on.

(Similarly, while many conservatives would agree with the idea of quarantines, they would remain very cautious of any unnecessary restrictions on their liberties, watchful of the government taking advantage of the situation to pass laws the conservatives oppose. If for example, the military patrols said they wanted to knock on every door and collect all the guns, their support would rapidly reverse itself.)

No offense meant to either side. I don't strongly identify with either of these labels. Just my honest opinion based on my personal observations.

(Also, I'm aware that particular conservatives and particular liberals may have expressed opposite views to those above, but I'm talking about my perception of the group average, not particular high profile examples. Also, particular individuals may take unusual stances due to personal business or financial interests.)

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#305

Post by mcbits »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #38
freepor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The CDC effectively dictated who could be tested and what test would be used. But those tests were faulty and now there are supply chain issues with the new tests. That was the point when they gave up and admitted failure. "Mitigation" and "flattening the curve" are admissions of failure. The only hope now is that summer blunts the spread, which is possible but by no means guaranteed.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#306

Post by jacquesm »

hatenberg wrote: post #292
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…

There is really no excuse for this happening in Europe. There was ample warning and no, not just from China. The math was very clear by early/mid February. We have to face the truth that the quality of people we vote for government is not where it needs to be and that science has too long been discredited and ignored. Some of asia learned from SARS but that's it. Madrid was hosting marches, political rallies and socc…

The post-mortem (for want of a better term) on this will be pretty bad for some people in leadership positions. Assuming they survive. Very precious time was squandered with half-assed measures and uninformed decisions.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#307

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

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 gotta say this but I don't think we should put forward the position that total lockdown is an irrational position. Total lockdown seems fully rational, not a product of mere panic at all. Total lockdown worked in Wuhan. Absolute and complete isolation inherently results in exponential decline in the fashion that exposure result in exponential growh. It's a drag but it doesn't seem as much of a drag as millions of dead people.

And that is the bizarre thing I'm saying and hearing in the US - "Uh, just let it infect everyone" - "you know that promises to the largest loss of life on US soil ever" - "well, try to slow it down a bit". Jeesh.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#308

Post by fogleman »

js2 wrote: post #243
RivieraKid wrote: post #229

Please also read this, I believe it's the right approach: https://medium.com/@jb_89278/the-11-day-plan-to-contain-covi... The guy is tech enterpreneur and VC investor who has been advising our (Czech) PM.

It would be impossible to do this in the U.S. I'm not sure he appreciates the size of the U.S., the resistance among many Americans who don't like being told what to do, the denial by Fox et al, the distributed nature of our government and on and on. I can't even imagine it working in my county.

It also doesn't consider that many of the infected are asymptomatic, so they won't be "revealed" within the 11 day period.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#309

Post by jacquesm »

xnyan wrote: post #297
solotronics wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Dallas and two of my friends who work at hospitals both have multiple corona patients. It's everywhere, the official numbers are lying.

I wish people were lying, that implies that officials know the reality and are hiding it. That is too optimistic I’m afraid.

Indeed, the reality is probably that they have no clue so there is nothing to hide. And that's a lot scarier.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#310

Post by RivieraKid »

"Flattening the Curve" is a deadly delusion

https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-dea...

"Flatten the curve" scenario requires r0 to between 1.0 and a small number above 1.0, like 1.1. In other words, it's not happening, you either contain the virus or let it explode.

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