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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

#511

Post by inferiorhuman »

newtoday wrote: post #394
res0nat0r wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is going to be in terrible shape very soon, just look at this as of tonight: https://twitter.com/davidenrich/status/1239004689338970113

I'm in the US, no one cared about this until a few days ago. Now, some stores are getting low on food supplies, and people are posting about it. But, I was at a store today where they were completely stocked, and the only empty shelf was the toilet paper supply! It's insane.

I've commented elsewhere on this, but in the Bay Area I saw evidence of people panic buying as far back as March 2nd.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#512

Post by inferiorhuman »

gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #432
Retric wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s far from clear how accurate those numbers for Italy and China are. China essentially gave up on testing the general population in Wuhan and their numbers mostly represent the most serious cases. Italy’s infections seem to be mostly centered around the elderly with 40% of infections in the 70+ age range despite 65+ year olds only representing 21.53% of their population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavi…

The WHO has verified China's numbers.

The WHO has verified China's numbers.

Source?

China plainly lied about the outcomes of the SARS epidemic and reported about half the fatality rate of nearly every other country. Hell, no Chinese person I've talked with recently believes the official numbers.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#513

Post by moriturius »

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…

This post is exactly the essence of why I don't like politics.

It's super easy to retrospectively say "they should've done something else". You might think that even you would do the right choice, but you are wrong.

Such decision is hard for any authority. You may vote for any person in the whole world and the result would probably be similar. Lockdown delivered too early could send whole country into chaos.

Also China managed this so well that it actually could work counterproductive for other countries.

What I'm trying to say is: Don't judge others. You have little idea of the situation they are in, and saying retrospectively "you should've known better" is just childish. Just learn from their mistakes.

With your attitude, you can choose any party and will always be unhappy about the choice.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#514

Post by inferiorhuman »

terramex wrote: post #273
joe_the_user wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shame on her People should stay where they are. Lockdown is not a disaster. People fleeing lockdown are literally the carriers of this disaster. Stay where you are, wait. Don't travel. Don't fight the locdown. Lockdown is the current, appropriate course of action. A very effective lockdown can eliminate the infection in, well, however long it took to eliminate it in Wuhan. Fleeing the lockdown now is just going to an…

People should stay where they are. Lockdown is not a disaster. People fleeing lockdown are literally the carriers of this disaster. There will be test of this thesis in Poland soon. As government closed down universities, some of them told students that they have to vacate their dormitories and go back home (dormitories are usually occupied by students from countryside and smaller cities), and it caused massive migra…

Universities in the United States are doing the same thing. Stanford, for instance, is evicting its dorm population.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#515

Post by VladimirGolovin »

jamesrcole wrote: post #213
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.

In part, because they think they already understand the situation, and the nature of that understanding precludes taking things like that seriously. “It’s just the flu” “It only kills 2% of people” “The flu, cancer, car accidents, malnutrition, etc have killed far more people” “People were worried about SARS, Swine Flu, and H1N1, and they turned out to be hardly kill anyone.” “There number of cases here is small. Why…

> I imagine that most people aren’t aware of the graphs.

And even if they are, they aren't aware of log scale.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#516

Post by inferiorhuman »

caseysoftware wrote: post #242
fma wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can give China the benefit of the doubt that not everything was known. Or even blame them for suppressing info. But we (the world, US) knew the severity 2 months ago and Trump was still trying to downplay it. Fox News is still downplaying it. They called a "Democratic Hoax". I live in a conservative area and residents are cursing out local leaders for canceling events, canceling school...

I live in Austin where people are still lamenting SXSW being canceled and the Democrat Mayor was still encouraging people to go out to concerts after he canceled SXSW. And the tech press mocked "no handshakes" until less than a month ago. Stupid knows no political party.

Stupid knows no political party.

It's a spectrum of stupid. Moscow Mitch is holding up financial relief because it's a good opportunity to stick it to Planned Parenthood.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#517

Post by NullPrefix »

adrianN wrote: post #506
riquito wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no "luckily". It's the exact behaviour that spread the virus all over Italy. If you love your family and you have some sense of responsibility your duty is to stay where you are for a while. You can embrace your family in the near future.

"For a while" is likely until we have a vaccine and produced enough of it to build up herd immunity. That probably takes a year or more.

Is it worse than catching the virus during your trip and bringing it to the family?

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#518

Post by _jal »

dmitriy_ko wrote: post #453
nodamage wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Go read HN comments from weeks and months ago, and see the posters encouraging prompt measures getting called paranoids. Exactly. Two weeks ago every coronavirus thread on Hacker News was full of deniers claiming this was no worse than the flu and this was all just media hysteria. Some probably still hold that opinion. I don't think they will be convinced until the hospitals start overflowing.

Elon Musk was one of the deniers. You would think someone who "always starts with physics" would know better.

Wealthy people have a habit of doing this. Being good at something doesn't necessarily make you good at something else, and the hero-worship the wealthy get in the US (not to mention his fan club) can't help but go to one's head.

(Engineers to, too. I try hard to watch it and I still arrogantly show my ignorance sometimes.)

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#519

Post by sdkaufman »

solidasparagus wrote: post #472
fattire wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a risk vs. benefit calculation where the risk is very very high. And not only risk to yourself but risk to others...

The risks of large portions of the economy shutting down and millions of people losing their jobs is also very significant, particularly in a country where so many live so close to the edge of disaster. It's a difficult balance, but it feels like the economic fallout is sometimes lost on the readers of HN, most of who would quite comfortably live through a period of complete lockdown.

Forget losing jobs - without a lockdown, millions of people will lose their lives. Including many of our loved ones. We already know this from Italy and Wuhan, where entire families have died one by one in their homes. The only way to save some of these lives is to flatten the curve to avoid overrunning hospitals, and reduce deaths before a cure or vaccination is widely available.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#520

Post by Too »

loeg wrote: post #53
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...

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... Start reading at "2. What Will Happen When These Coronavirus Cases Materialize?"

Thank you. Recommend everybody to read this.
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