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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

#711

Post by sdkaufman »

joshstrange wrote: post #710
sdkaufman wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't say these things to whip people up in a panic, I say them because we are about to get hit hard here in the US. The average person in the US rightly did not have much reason to be concerned a few weeks ago, but that's not the case anymore. It's important to understand that the situation has evolved rapidly for the worse here, and our response ("panic level" if you will) must escalate accordingly. In particul…

100% agree with what you are saying. I really meant more so that I don't want to encourage hoarding or panic buying to the level where other people can't get what they need. You should be worried, you should be preparing in anyway you can (2 weeks+ food, isolate yourself as much as possible, discourage gatherings of any size).

Yep, 100% agree. No reason to go rob-a-hand-sanitizer-factory crazy. But as you said, everyone one of us should be worried enough to go prep and do our part to slow the spread (WFH if possible etc).

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#713

Post by chu4n »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #128
Animats wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the most useful graph on this subject so far. Go look at it now. Most countries have exactly the same growth trajectory measured from 100 cases. That's solid data about how this behaves. Singapore and Hong Kong have been able to slow things down by strong measures, but it's still a straight line on a log graph, just with 1/3 of the growth rate. Italy is on the same line, just 8 days ahead of Europe and 13 day…

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.

Because of normalcy bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias

"Normalcy bias can cause people to drastically underestimate the effects of the disaster. Therefore, people think that they will be safe even though information from the radio, television, or neighbors gives them reasons to believe there is a risk."

People just don't want to believe a disaster is about to happen. They will grasp at straws to explain why everything is going to be fine.

That's usually not a problem because disasters are rare, but it will catch us under-prepped when an actual disaster happens.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#714

Post by mleonhard »

Mike Pence is not the right person to manage US response to the virus. We needs someone with different skills. If you live in US, please call your congresspeople and ask them to make a change:

https://www.house.gov/representatives

https://www.senate.gov/senators

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#715

Post by dependenttypes »

sdkaufman wrote: post #697
dependenttypes wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grandma and the CEO can quarantine themselves at home if they so wish.

Older people cannot just wall themselves off from the rest of society. What if they live with or are cared for by other family members? How will they get health care for existing conditions? Hospitals have been shown to be a major vector for transmission [1]. And how do they even get to the hospital if they can't drive? What about grocery shopping over the next few months? The National Guard is stepping in to help de…

> Hospitals have been shown to be a major vector for transmission

Not sure how this is relevant to my post.

> What if they live in a nursing home in close proximity to other elderly people?

The nursing home could stock up and ban people from coming in or out of it.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#716

Post by bsaul »

trashtester wrote: post #705
bsaul wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder if it's really true that "few people" have it. We do observe a huge amount of people going to the hospital in italy, but that could very well be because we reached the peak of the epidemie, where almost all of the population have been infected and remain asymptomatic. in this hypothesis, you implement a lockdown and see number drops over two week but what you're really seing is a population reaching herd imm…

When we are getting close to the peak of the epidemic, the growth will no longer be exponential, but close to linear. A logistic curve looks exponential for about the first 3rd, close to linear for the second third, and then approaching the asymptote with a negative exponential growth for the last third. Increasing social distancing will naturally lower the exponential growth rate, but unless the growth becomes linea…

That would be for a homogeneous spread inside a country.

However if the epidemic spreads from region to region, you could reach a local herd immunity in the first regions infected way before seing the country-wide curve becoming linear.

But thanks, trying to find a counter-argument to your post made me realize a single-curve model probably doesn't make a lot of sense to try and understand accurately the spread of an epidemic.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#717

Post by fuzzfactor »

hatenberg wrote: post #362
kilroy_jones wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan's leadership, ahem. Only 50 or so cases and their approval rating has soared.

Same in Singapore. Helps having well paid experts run your government and a PM who definitely understands Math (Cambridge Senior Wrangler)

Does help when an effective leader is filling an otherwise poorly-occupied leadership position.

I guess anything less would be a dummy.

You don't have to be a mainstream follower to appreciate a high-performance leader

>who definitely understands Math

>who definitely understands Math

In future centuries we will look back and recognize this leadership characteristic is what has always been most advanced compared to all other outstanding choices.

Especially at times when the stakes get unusually high.

Organizations, communities, citizens, civilizations, and populations have always gone by the numbers.

And there's always a mainstream of some kind, with attitude being a thing among the moving weighted moving averages.

Seems like those furthest from the mainstream can also be most sensitive by nature to an _idiot-in-charge_ across various types of idiocy, and multiple levels of government, corporations, and other organizations.

Strongarm conformance and/or manipulated populism are some things that can give rise to a mainstream with ineffective recognition & response to dummy leaders and their destructive outcomes.

Since even a slightly above average problem-solving ability can make relatively genius moves compared to a slightly below average performer, it's tragic when there's not enough mainstream force to elevate the most mathematically competent leaders to handle high-stakes responsibilities.

Even more tragic when the mainstream is less-aware, and settles on preference for the dummy ones.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#718

Post by fuzzfactor »

adrianN wrote: post #532
NullPrefix wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, but for some people it might be worse if you also take into account the probability of catching the virus at this stage. Even in the worst-affected areas at most single-digit percentages of the population have the virus.

And quarantine restricts unexposed confinees to locations having these single-digit percentages which are overwhelmingly higher than the least-affected areas.

It is expected that even with thorough reliable testing and rapid clearance of the non-contagious from confinement, the spread among previously unexposed confinees would be vastly greater than among the unconfined, or further the _isolated clean_.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#719

Post by nostrademons »

WA wrote: post #594
nostrademons wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trevor Bedford had a tweet that indicated a 25% reduction in social contacts results in a 50% reduction in cases after 1 month: https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1237934525281259521 I think it's very likely that Wuhan or Italy style lockdowns will bring r0 under 1, based on the experience in Wuhan and Italy. That means the disease eventually dies out. Because it's endemic elsewhere in the world, it'll eventually be re…

- For how long do you have to keep your containment measures up? - Do you have to introduce new containment measures with every wave of reinfection? - How many waves / months of total are required to achieve enough herd immunity while keeping the hospitals within capacity?

Presumably the answers to these are:

- Until a vaccine is developed.

- Yes

- Until a vaccine is developed.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#720

Post by fuzzfactor »

joe_the_user wrote: post #259
troughway wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>6 days later, we're at over 6000 infections, the country is in total lock down. Similar anecdote here. My SO texted me earlier this week saying how she will be taking the train from Madrid to Barcelona to go back to her family. She figured it will be empty on Sunday at 6 am. I have been following the situation evolve in Italy and told her to get on the train right away and leave immediately before it gets worse. Luc…

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…

>Fleeing the lockdown now is just going to another area that is going to be on lockdown later on anyway.

This is readily recognized.

And this can be motivation enough to relocate to a chosen area for upcoming lockdown, while some choice is still possible.

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