Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Corona Simulator

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 81 posts

Re: Corona Simulator

#41

Post by timcederman »

raynguyen wrote: post #3

The thing is, with these models. Everyone will eventually catch the virus and either dies off or recovers. If this happens in real life, the consequences are dire and catastrophic. Social distancing and avoiding large groups will obviously save lives and we flatten the curve to allow for treatment of individuals that will require hospitalization. But once the novelty of social distancing wears off. Will the number of…

Influenza A started as the Spanish Flu. It likely won't go away - instead either vaccination will control it to much smaller levels, but more likely a less virulent form will evolve and join the other 4 common coronaviruses as another endemic virus.

Re: Corona Simulator

#42

Post by Leary »

I think this pandemic will reveal many facets on the effectiveness of quarantines/lock downs.

These measures always have a political meaning, because they effectively create a separation between those included and those excluded from the quarantine. Such a political move will pressure some politicians toward implementing these lockdowns if they are targeted toward foreigners and away from them if implemented toward a domestic subgroup.

It may be easy to ban travel from Europe, but very hard to ban travel from Washington state.

Re: Corona Simulator

#43

Post by azinman2 »

maxerickson wrote: post #38
azinman2 wrote: post #12

What I don’t get is that we keep hearing quarantine isn’t effective, yet it seems to be in China and South Korea: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-lockdowns-work-s...

Who is saying quarantine isn't effective?

This article, to start, for multiple paragraphs:

As Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, put it: “The truth is those kinds of lockdowns are very rare and never effective.”

Re: Corona Simulator

#44

Post by qalmakka »

jdietrich wrote: post #37
nyolfen wrote: post #15

> “As Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, put it: “The truth is those kinds of lockdowns are very rare and never effective.”” uh, except... the one we all just watched be successfully implemented in wuhan?

>uh, except... the one we all just watched be successfully implemented in Wuhan? China have successfully paused the epidemic, but they haven't stopped it. Unless we fully eradicate the disease globally (highly unlikely given the presence of asymptomatic carriers and the spread of the disease to low-income countries), they'll be back to the beginning of the exponential curve as soon as the lockdown is lifted. That's b…

It's not about stopping the pandemic altogether - it's about reducing the number of people in critical condition at a given time. Italy it's already at peak capacity in it's ICUs, and only thorough social distancing it's possible to reduce the number of people at risk getting infected and clogging an health system that is already short on ventilators and hospital beds.

Re: Corona Simulator

#45

Post by inportb »

pvinis wrote: post #4

Can I just comment on the (IMO bad) choice of colors? It's hard to see the difference of sick and recovered, especially in the big square. Other than that, nice simulations. :)

Especially for the color-blind; specifically, those with tritanopia would find it difficult to distinguish the violet recovered balls from the brown sick balls.

Re: Corona Simulator

#46

Post by hackandtrip »

nyolfen wrote: post #15

> “As Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, put it: “The truth is those kinds of lockdowns are very rare and never effective.”” uh, except... the one we all just watched be successfully implemented in wuhan?

We'll need to wait 10 days to see if it was effective in Italy too, but other countries should start implementing it ASAP.

Lot of EU countries / USA are already late with respect to our timeline, aka they may have it worst if they don't act fast.

Re: Corona Simulator

#47

Post by hackandtrip »

The comparison between social distancing and quarantine has 0 sense. In Italy, we tried distancing, but without strict measures, people won't listen and the virus kept spreading. You can't enforce something like that without police action

Re: Corona Simulator

#48

Post by maxerickson »

azinman2 wrote: post #43
maxerickson wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is saying quarantine isn't effective?

This article, to start, for multiple paragraphs: As Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, put it: “The truth is those kinds of lockdowns are very rare and never effective.”

It's a language problem. Things like self quarantine of infected (and potentially infected) people have a big impact on how fast a disease spreads (meeting the bar for "effective" in my mind).

What they don't do is completely stop it.

Re: Corona Simulator

#49

Post by darkerside »

mantap wrote: post #24
darkerside wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of, quarantine isn't economically feasible. But then, things that aren't feasible can often become feasible in different circumstances.

Economically it doesn't make much difference. You can either isolate people now or later. The period of isolation will be roughly the same because you have to wait for the virus to exhaust its pool of hosts (in a household). Definitely politically it makes a big difference.

Now and later make a HUGE difference economically. Time value of money. Business cash flow. Not to mention, if it turns out to be unnecessary later, later becomes never.

Re: Corona Simulator

#50

Post by rdtwo »

The problem we’re seeing is that too many people are moving. Seattle was maybe 25% slower Sunday than normal. That’s not enough, people aren’t respecting social distancing or even the 250 gathering limits. Seattle pd is failing to enforce as well.
Post reply on HN