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Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

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Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#41

Post by travisporter »

teh_infallible wrote: post #24
oefrha wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It won’t happen here.” “It could happen here, but it’s not a big concern.” “It’s happening here, and it’s a big concern, but we don’t have reliable data so let’s do nothing.” “We have reliable data now, but it’s too late to do anything.”

Are you quoting people from an actual conversation, or setting up a straw man to justify draconian actions based on limited data?

While data is limited, the basic premise of viral spread and quarantine is nothing new or ineffective. There is no doubt there is exponential growth, and limiting that would be effective sooner than later health and economy wise.

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#42

Post by thda »

mns wrote: post #26
secretsatan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people dying is acceptable to you?

I'm afraid that on the long term, the social unrest and the economic consequences will far outweigh the damage done by the virus. There is no plan on how long you can shut down whole countries. Europe, for example is not like China, you are just locking down everything, you don't have any other regions to support you. Sure, some people can work from home now, but by having the economy run at minimum level, work will…

> I'm afraid that on the long term, the social unrest and the economic consequences will far outweigh the damage done by the virus.

I'm french. I have italian friends. I don't care about the economy. It will be back up. As long as there are humans they will need goods.

> there will be no more projects even for IT people.

Sure. But let's put it in balance for France:

- less work for IT people

- 350K deaths

I vote for number one. I can't believe I'm reading that on this forum, where people are supposed to be educated. This is insane.

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#43

Post by travisporter »

parineum wrote: post #20
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without any real data The trouble is we can only get "real data" by testing more people. If we test more people we will almost certainly discover the numbers are worse than they appear now. All that is to say that the situation can only be worse than we already know. I'm not sure more data would lead us to isolate less at all. You might be right that there could be large numbers of people with the virus who are doi…

>You might be right that there could be large numbers of people with the virus who are doing just fine right now, but we know from nearly 200,000 cases (that's plenty) that a non-trivial portion of cases require hospitalization. That's the whole problem, right there. You're not applying the logic all the way through. If a great number of people are already infected and do not require hospitalization it grossly affect…

I was wondering if there’s an efficient way to screen a large population with low prevalence with limited tests. I’m thinking of the 1000 prisoner wine riddle with one drop of poison if that rings a bell

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#44

Post by thda »

mokarma wrote: post #35
Ancalagon wrote: post #6

This article fails to make a single mention of Italy's case-load and its effect on Italy's healthcare system.

Italy seems to be an outlier. They're hit significantly harder then any other country.

Not true. France is hit, eastern France's hospitals are at full capacity. Doctors are starting to consider letting people over 70 die without access to an ICU.

Also, it's kind of strange that on this forum people do not get the notion of exponential increase. It's twice worst every 72 hours. Time runs out really fast.

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#45

Post by beatgammit »

currymj wrote: post #29
zw123456 wrote: post #2

Are we sure that the economic damage of the shutdown of the world economy out weighs the heath risks of the virus. Are we in group think here? A major recession/depression means a lot of people go hungry, lose access to medical care etc. Does anyone know of studies or research that looks at the health impacts of a shutdown vs. the health risk of the virus ? Just asking questions. I keep asking this question and I get…

it seems like this is the response from most people everywhere about until their region hits the knee of the exponential curve. this pattern played out in Italy, Spain, France, and now the US. the Imperial College paper estimates 2 million dead in the US with no response and ~1 million dead with a limited response that doesn’t involve a full shutdown. That paper explicitly doesn’t consider the very severe economic im…

~1 million is the current annual death rate in the US (~0.8% last I checked), and the disease kills older people much more than younger people. How many of those 2 million would have died anyway in the next couple of years? How many would have contributed to the economy over the next few years? How many of those who will die from a recession would have contributed to the economy?

These are tough questions, but I think they're worth answering so we know what we're really gaining by shutting down the economy. I know we want to save as many lives as possible, but we should also know the cost too.

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#46

Post by jjeaff »

beatgammit wrote: post #45
currymj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it seems like this is the response from most people everywhere about until their region hits the knee of the exponential curve. this pattern played out in Italy, Spain, France, and now the US. the Imperial College paper estimates 2 million dead in the US with no response and ~1 million dead with a limited response that doesn’t involve a full shutdown. That paper explicitly doesn’t consider the very severe economic im…

~1 million is the current annual death rate in the US (~0.8% last I checked), and the disease kills older people much more than younger people. How many of those 2 million would have died anyway in the next couple of years? How many would have contributed to the economy over the next few years? How many of those who will die from a recession would have contributed to the economy? These are tough questions, but I thin…

Another thing to note is that the virus will overwhelm emergency rooms world wide and deprive many other patients of adequate care that will cause some unnecessary death.

So it isn't just virus deaths you have to factor in.

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#47

Post by spookthesunset »

hatenberg wrote: post #31
lowdose wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this it seems more and more like massa hysteria. 8.000 people died on 7.7 billion people. Its crazy to pull the handbrake on the economy. 99% of the people that died were going to be death in a year or 2 anyway. Have you heard about that school class full of 6 years old kids in Italy that died last a week? Didn't happen but when it happens we do not have this options anymore. Old people die and thats life.

This talk at the start of an exponential curve is exactly the problem

I wonder how many people are fitting the “how many people are tested” to the same exponential curve? If there is exponential growth in the number of tests given, it follows there would be an exponential growth in number of cases detected.

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#48

Post by spookthesunset »

travisporter wrote: post #41
teh_infallible wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you quoting people from an actual conversation, or setting up a straw man to justify draconian actions based on limited data?

While data is limited, the basic premise of viral spread and quarantine is nothing new or ineffective. There is no doubt there is exponential growth, and limiting that would be effective sooner than later health and economy wise.

Is the growth of testing also exponential? Cause if it is, than it follows the confirmed infected will also look exponential even if the underlying actual growth number is totally different.

You can make anything fit an exponential curve if you try hard enough.

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#49

Post by spookthesunset »

currymj wrote: post #29
zw123456 wrote: post #2

Are we sure that the economic damage of the shutdown of the world economy out weighs the heath risks of the virus. Are we in group think here? A major recession/depression means a lot of people go hungry, lose access to medical care etc. Does anyone know of studies or research that looks at the health impacts of a shutdown vs. the health risk of the virus ? Just asking questions. I keep asking this question and I get…

it seems like this is the response from most people everywhere about until their region hits the knee of the exponential curve. this pattern played out in Italy, Spain, France, and now the US. the Imperial College paper estimates 2 million dead in the US with no response and ~1 million dead with a limited response that doesn’t involve a full shutdown. That paper explicitly doesn’t consider the very severe economic im…

Those estimates are based on constantly changing data. And “exponential curve” means a lot of things. We are just now starting very limited testing in the US... what do you want to bet the number of tests given follow an exponential pattern just by nature of how they are deployed? If your test deployment is exponential your infections is gonna look exponential even if the underlying data isn’t... at least for a little while.

You can curve fit anything if you forget about the bias in your data.

Re: Coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

#50

Post by oldgradstudent »

neurocline wrote: post #12

I’m sure it wasn’t the author’s intention, but the article has a lot of the patterns and phrasing I see in denialist literature (global warming, for example). I agree with the author that we need more data. But he nerfed the urgency of his plea by using wording that downplays the problem, and seems to only be talking about the situation in the U.S. and U.K. No mention of the data points collected at great cost by Chi…

> I’m confused. What does the author expect from publishing this piece?

The gathering of reliable data by random testing of the general population.

I thought he made it quite clear.

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