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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

#51

Post by oldgradstudent »

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…

> 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.

The paper points that all these estimates are based on extremely biased data.

Testing a random sample of the population to get a reliable estimate of the scale of the epidemic is dirt cheap compared to the drastic measures currently being taken.

It's incomprehensible to me that this wasn't one of first steps taken.

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

#52

Post by oldgradstudent »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #10
vondur wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem that we have blindly followed the Chinese's government's response to the outbreak without any real data. I'm guessing there may be large numbers of people who are affected who aren't really showing any symptoms other than typical cold/flu symptoms.

> 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…

> The trouble is we can only get "real data" by testing more people.

We get "real data" by properly testing, not necessarily by testing more people.

Currently we are mainly testing people arriving with symptoms.

This results in underestimate of the number of infected and an overestimate of mortality and morbidity rates.

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

#53

Post by anotheryou »

At what point do randomly sampled tests make sense?

I guess now you'd test too many negative and would need too many tests to get reliable results. (you need to have a decent sample of sick people for statistical significance).

Than again the infections also cluster locally a lot, so you can't extrapolate for a country well..

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

#54

Post by steve_adams_86 »

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 thought that, but then how do you explain situations like Italy? Such a tremendous number of people are suffering.

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

#55

Post by sershe »

naner wrote: post #4
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…

The problem is not so much the health risk but the overwhelming of healthcare systems and lack of supplies. This isn't a theory, we already know the outcome of not slowing down infection rates fast enough (China, Italy, etc).

That doesn't answer the question though. Ioannidis addresses the worst case scenario. Lack of supplies, also, is made much worse by closing factories and tanking economy in general, as well as e.g. cancelling blood drives (a real case from King County), none of which are caused by the virus.

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

#56

Post by sershe »

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…

What is the average age of death, and life-years lost compared to the severe economic impact? The article explicitly asks this question.

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

#57

Post by sershe »

aaron695 wrote: post #27
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…

What is the value of a human life in the West? My figure is $2 million. Then a billion $ is 500 lives. A trillion $ is 500,000 lives. This is how I rate it. What is your figure on a life? And how would you relate loss and gain of $ to buying / destroying lives? The discussion changes when you leave the West, so start there.

Don't forget about the age of deaths here. Divide the above by life expectancy at birth, then multiply by life expectancy at death from the virus. And possibly weigh by decade, I'd probably trade another decade of my 20ies over e.g. 80ies (not that I've been there). AFAIK /the average/ age in Italy is pushing 70.

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

#58

Post by sershe »

thda wrote: post #42
mns wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"I don't care about economy" I didn't know I'd ever say this, hate these words, but this is privilege talking.

Look at life expectancy chart for Russia in the 90ies. This was mere economic mismanagement, and it's far worse than the worst case virus scenario. In some countries, unemployment and economic mismanagement leads to civil wars, revolutions and dictatorships.

Sure, techies in democratic/democratic-socialist first world countries will be probably fine in bad economy, if my experience in the great recession is any indication. A chance to buy cheaper stocks, too! However, even in a mild recession hundreds of millions (at least) will suffer. I'd choose 350k deaths.

EDIT: Come think of it, if you could completely mitigate one historical event in Europe, would you go for Spanish flu (millions of deaths!) or Great Depression (mere economy, of no consequence)?

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

#59

Post by sershe »

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.

There is no data as far as the latter is concerned. The current data (Fed actions, pronouncements of 18mo shutdowns, recession worse than 2008, etc.) is to the contrary. What, really, is the economic impact of virus deaths after exponential growth quickly bumps into population size and lots of mostly non-working people die? Nobody even tries to answer this.

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

#60

Post by sershe »

thda wrote: post #44
mokarma wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People totally get exponential increase. I agree it's really bad given that we have infinite population! Oh wait, we don't. The exponential increase will go on for 3-4 weeks after which there will be no more people to infect; the time in ICU is 2-3 week, there's overlap, so in say a month we will be done. Recessions last years; in case of Great Depression, a decade. Remember how Great Depression ended in Europe?
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