Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community • Hacker News Board

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#661

Post by gpderetta » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

c789a123 wrote: post #639

SZJX wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is a parody or not. So in your logic anything good being said about CCP is surely their propaganda, and they can do nothing else but being evil and destroying the world? Well I have bad news for you: the world is probably not as black-and-white, good vs. evil as you think. They do some stuffs wrong or at least controversial, and also some others right, or effective, just like every other political en…

WHO? Italy lockdown its cities on Mar 9, and WHO declares wuhan virus pandemic on Mar 11. Before that, WHO discourages country to take effective measures and cut out traffic with China. Luckily, not all countries are fooled by this idiotic org and take its own measures. Taiwan, who is not even a member of WHO, took good measures and protected itself. Unfortunately Italy and other European countries are fooled and cut…

Italy was one of the first countries to cut down traffic from China months ago. Didn't do any good.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#662

Post by bradleyjg » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #343

jrumbut wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that there wasn't a credible free press to report responsibly on an emerging illness or a free vote to hold officials accountable are not at all unrelated to the authoritarian system that allowed them to build a hospital fast or close a city or whatever they did well on. I'll admit, though, that I wouldn't trade my right to vote for a cure for the common cold, coronavirus, or anything else.

> authoritarian system that allowed them to build a hospital fast or close a city or whatever they did well on. Look, this is a dangerous meme in more ways than one. Italy and Spain managed to lock down entire cities, and those are countries with a strong tradition of democracy. Emergency powers, martial law etc. are a thing, and there's even quite a bit of precedent for using them to deal w/ disease outbreaks. Even…

Anglo-American law was strongly influenced by the repeated waves of bubonic plague in England during the middle ages. Though the powers have been rarely used to their full extent, they continue to exist.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Post by adventured » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #657

fock wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, Spain is still a monarchy (and has been since the caliphate was pushed back), had a Civil war, where fascists won and then ruled for 40 years... Then the king declared that he would like democracy more than autoritarian rule (without him). So much to a strong tradition of democracy...

Spain has a _constitutional monarch_ the same approach as the United Kingdom. This is actually a more stable choice than America's. In constitutional monarchy the monarch is Head of State, a figurehead role with no real personal power. Because monarchs are born not elected this figurehead has no semblance of democratic legitimacy, it's obvious to everyone that they shouldn't get any power, yet as a symbol they are lo…

> This is actually a more stable choice than America's.

You can't support that claim. Historically - all of recorded history - there are less than half a dozen examples that can be argued to be comparable to or to have systems that are more stable than the US over two centuries of time.

Go ahead and list all the constitutional + democratic systems that have lasted for more than two centuries. The European region barely had any democracies as recently as WW1. Here is what that looks like:

https://i.imgur.com/fnJNjIn.png

Now go back to 1850 or 1900. How many were there? So where do you plan to get your data from, to support your premise on stability?

There is long-term instability inherent in all functioning monarchy systems: the source of that instability is that people frequently don't like them, which is why nations have spent the last few hundred years gradually abandoning or neutering monarchy systems. Most of what remains is a cultural trinket. It's why the monarchy in the UK is little more than a facade, a figurehead; it has no real governing power or position, it is of relatively little political consequence and probably never will be again. Even including the UK in this, is a questionable data point because of that. What does the Queen do? Answer: not much, she is nothing more than a quaint cultural nod to the past at this point.

In fact the US has the opposite problem. Its system of government tends to produce too much stability and not enough dynamism (which is what the argument for many political parties is arguing in favor of). That stability often means the US moves slower on reforms and its system is highly resistant to change. Those are the trade-offs inherent in having greater stability.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Post by gvjddbnvdrbv » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

zhte415 wrote: post #593

gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I flagged this because it was published in January nearly a month earlier than the WHO's verification. Essentially this was not in bad faith when it was published but it is now so out of date and misleading and sharing it now is dangerous in that it may cause people to ignore safety advice.

It was a nowcast. It's intended to be out of date after a while. And provide an estimation at the time. I don't understand how it is dangerous, could you explain that?... earlier action would have been better.

You are claiming that a study published in January supercedes a study in February.

Given that people are making difficult choices right now that will impact the course of the epidemic we should be very careful sharing outdated information that could lead to people becoming infected.

China's numbers are a minimum. Many people are saying online they are a maximum. I.e. claiming that there are lots of hidden mild infections when there are not.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Post by caseysoftware » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #516

caseysoftware wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your anti-Russia, nationalist rhetoric is not welcome here.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Post by dependenttypes » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

SZJX wrote: post #590

garmaine wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, Chinese markets generally don't sell such things. I know, I'm Chinese ;) But this particular part of China does . It's more a subculture derived from one of the minority groups in that province, but it's there.

Never heard about such a thing. Sounds like some sort of conspiracy theory unless you have concrete proof of that. The original hypothesis was that some other animal sold at the market acted as an intermediate host between bat and human, just like the case in 2003 SARS, but this is also not proven.

Conspiracy theory has a specific meaning. Their claim might be false but even if this is the case they are not implying the existence of any conspiracy.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Post by disgruntledphd2 » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

psychlops wrote: post #637

sdkaufman wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is an inacurrate estimation. Sure, the actual number will likely be different for each country / state / city, but doesn't really matter for the sake of the argument. I was using 1% as a lowball number. Official mortality rate from the WHO is 3-4%; some studies say 2%, Italy is reporting 7%. And for those 80+, current data suggests a mortality rate of 1/7 - not far off from a round of Russian roulette. So if y…

Here's a quote from the first link you have: "That means the total number of reported cases is very likely an underestimate—and by not counting many mild or asymptomatic cases, we’re likely overestimating the disease’s overall mortality rate." It is not possible to know the mortality rate with the information we have. Extrapolating that dubious number into a prediction of deaths is not a meaningful exercise.

To be fair, they are using 1% which is an underestimate given what we know right now.

In general, with exponential growth the best time to act was yesterday.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Post by syshum » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

sdkaufman wrote: post #617

syshum wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Personally I'd much rather take the Chinese model for the next few months than risk me and my family dying or going bankrupt over the next few months. Always makes me sad when Americans willing give up essential liberty to purchase perceived safety. Personally I would much rather look the situation rational, may the assessment of risk for myself, then choose on my own what course of action(s) I will take. Not have…

It's not just about your health or your life. This is what R0 means - even if you end up fine after getting the disease, you're going to transmit it to other people who may end up dying because of you. In other words, it's also your liberty vs other people's lives. Are you going to be the grandson who kills his grandma? Or the employee who kills the CEO? Or the Trump supporter who ends up helping elect Biden?

>>Are you going to be the grandson who kills his grandma?

My grandparents are long long dead

>>Or the employee who kills the CEO?

Maybe the CEO should have thought about that and given his employees a work from home, or other policies to allow themselves to self quarantine.

I also find it telling you talk about the employees giving it to the CEO and not the other way around... I am sure there is a Parable in there about unwashed masses

>Or the Trump supporter who ends up helping elect Biden?

Not a Trump supporter, but I do find it amusing you believe only Trump supporters support liberty, and only Biden supporters support authoritarianism

Though I dont think anything will help Biden win, he less electable than Clinton was in 2016

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Post by sgc » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #569

Animats wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

FWIW, at the moment it's only lombardy's health system which is collapsing, because most of the victims are concentrated there and the growth rate there was _much_ faster because the lock down was only imposed late. The growth rate is the same in other regions but delayed, and there is some hope that the rest of the country might be able to cope with it better if the lock down measures are effective.

Hopefully. But the health care system in Lombardia has to be the best or at the top of entire the country. Southern Italy will struggle with fewer cases.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Post by theseadroid » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 1:56 PM UTC

theseadroid wrote: post #316

lbeltrame wrote: post #36

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 w…

> 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. I don't understand this logic. Because China made a mess at the beginning of the pandemic, so we shouldn't copy the mode…

Nah scratch that. At this point it's hard to tell who are the baddies[1].

1. https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1879190/us-germany-battle-...