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Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

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101–110 of 141 posts

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#101

I don't have the background to answer your questions, but even if I steelman and assume the worst outcome here (issues with the test, issues with epidemiology, that we're crowding out hospitals, that we're infecting via hospitals), I would argue that we are still not overreacting: In the original outbreak of wuhan, there could not have been overpreparation because there was no preparation, the outbreak simply happene…

1% to 5% of what? This is the kind of statement that raises suspicions of over-reaction.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/health/wuhan-coronavirus-...

As of yesterday the best data suggests a 1% fatality rate amongst confirmed cases in Wuhan. Wuhan has 2169 confirmed deaths in a population of 11 million, so if we speak of the casuality rate for the population it would be 0.019%. Is that a lot? Well, it's the sort of level that's lost in the noise of regular influenza.

Thus, we can conclude 1-5% of that 30-60% of the infected population would die

No, we can't conclude that. You're taking a death rate of a very selectively chosen sample and then projecting it onto the entire population, which isn't statistically valid. People keep making basic logic errors like this one, which is what triggers questions like the OPs about possible over-reactions.

All the data we have is useless. Not a single stat has a level of accuracy that would normally be accepted for scientific use. We don't know what the infection rate is, which means we don't know how many people get sick and die, we don't know even what the mortality rate is because in fact we don't even have a globally agreed definition of COVID-19 mortality.

Italy examined their own death records and discovered that of all deaths marked as caused by CV, only 2 appeared to have no pre-existing or underlying health conditions. If that's true then SARS-CoV-2 is sort of like HIV. That makes it very hard to establish precise definitions. If someone has been battling a severe health problem for months, is very likely to die anyway, they die, and then their blood showed they got SARS-CoV-2 two days before dying - what was the cause of death? Health systems don't agree on how to answer this question which makes comparing numbers between locations very tricky. This is being floated as a possible explanation for the divergent death rates between Germany and Italy.

who staffs grocery stores if 60% of the population is home?

Here you're not using temporal reasoning. Why would 60% of the population be at home simultaneously except via forced government fiat? Even if you assume everyone has to stay at home until they get the disease (worst case scenario, not implemented anywhere) people don't all get sick instantaneously, and once recovered people can go back to work as they aren't a threat to anyone. Most people recover within a week. So, to ask a question about how many people will be out of the workforce requires discussion of timeframes and curve slopes.

Something to be aware of is that the "60-70% of the population will get it" figures are based on a form of modelling that assumes everyone in the population interacts with everyone else. That simplifies the maths but clearly isn't close to being true.

Thus, I would conclude that the penalties for unabated spread of the disease are so horrific that the only reasonable response is something that looks like an overreaction

And yet your post contains statistical and logical errors, which is why the number of people questioning that sort of conclusion is going to be non-trivial for the foreseeable future.

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#102

Says "Note that I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories so I will focus only on non-political information." Spreads youtube Video of a guy who didn't even realize that he made an impostor his second in command leading a public health office in Germany. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel Article: Why Wolfgang Wodarg's Statements have little to do with science. By a well respected fact checking and inve…

this is the same guy who voted against a Child Predator law in Germany

What does that have to do with anything? It's really better to leave stuff like that out if you're attacking someone's credibility. Bringing in unrelated political points phrased on obviously inflammatory ways just makes it sound like you're got a partisan axe to grind and would criticise the guy no matter what he did.

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#103

I've found this thread useful in trying to answer this very question: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html

That study is actually quite myopic, and focuses entirely on non-pharmapseutical treatment. It specifucally ignores most of the findings we have now: - 25-50% infected show no symptoms - herd immunity is ignored - Non-vaccine treatments are ignored - Reinfection is assumed, yet we have no data yet because there havent been any reinfections yet - It flatly assumes full quarantine is possible at home Definitely read th…

The Imperial 'study' has other problems too. It assumes NHS capacity is absolutely constant and won't change at all, not even in an entire year. Yet apparently the NHS already doubled the number of available beds.

What kind of study assumes capacity won't change at all in response to the sort of actions now being seen?

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#104
post #99

I'm from Spain, one of the most exposed countries right now. At first you see this as something distant, something that was happening in China as Ebola was happening years ago on Africa. It can't touch me. A few days ago the state of alarm began over here. Remain at home, minimal movement (just to go for groceries, pharma, the rest of retail businesses are closed now). It felt closer, but still you feel safe. You're…

This whole crisis is a test of healthcare systems.

Germany got hit very hard with infections, but also has a really low fatality count. Spain only got 8% more infections but over a maginitude more deaths

Edit: Spain also has only half of the population of Germany, so it's probably more like 16% more infections in relation to population.

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#105
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel offended as a Chinese when you call it 'Chinese virus'. I think you were blaming Chinese people for whatever reason, even you didn't mean to. You don't want to lose your family or friends, or suffering in economic recession. We don't want it too.

That's ridiculous, we call it the chinese virus just like the spanish flu was called "spanish flu". It's called that because of it's place of origin.

That would be an excellent point if the Spanish flu actually started in Spain. It didn't.

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#106

I mean, some people are overreacting about some aspects of this, but the main thing is: - the fatality rate for covid is high. People make a valid point about how we don’t know the “actual” (unbiased) fatality rate, that may be hard to estimate, but at this point it’s more or less irrelevant —- we already know for a fact that it is high enough to overwhelm the healthcare system, as is already happening elsewhere. We’…

I'm not so sure about the out of business part of it. Temporary closing sure. They may have to take on additional debt to get started again, but there will be huge demand once restrictions are lifted.

Yea agree about a demand surge when this is over, but I don’t think most businesses will be able to weather this well. Margins are usually pretty tight. A business already struggling will simply close rather than take out more debt amounting to the cost of months of revenue that they will have to figure out how to repay (even when rates are very low). It will hurt and it will hurt big time if this goes on for longer. So politicians are faced with an impossible choice: tank the economy with social restrictions or don’t and millions of people die and the hospitals are overrun, which will likely have its own economic impact.

That’s a ramble, but basically I sincerely hope your optimism is correct here, but I am much more pessimistic. I think we will get through this but at a huge economic cost.

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's hard to call anything an overreaction when a "proper" reaction will in hindsight look like an overreaction simply because it was effective.

As exactly happened with Y2K

There are many Y2K deniers, even though people that have actually seen the code says it would have crashed and burned without all the hard work.

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#108
post #91

Yes we are. I want you to keep this fact in mind: We don't know how many people are infected. We only the number from people who go in to get checked. For all you know there's a ton of people with a slight flu that are now fine. My son and myself had a pretty rough cough and fever Feb 30. Could that have been the chinese virus? We don't know. Extrapolate. Based on everything I've read there's two schools of thought:…

I feel offended as a Chinese when you call it 'Chinese virus'. I think you were blaming Chinese people for whatever reason, even you didn't mean to. You don't want to lose your family or friends, or suffering in economic recession. We don't want it too.

How about wuhan corona virus? I like that one. Spanish flu chinese flu, only a racist sees that as racist. Stop looking at skin color ok.

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#109
post #73
post #19

No. Very simply, an extreme response is required here. The most recent UCL study demonstrates that given everything we know about the virus, extreme social distancing may not even be enough [1]. Worse, if we are successful, it will look like we overreacted because the nature of exponential spread is that if you act when you’re on the steep part of the curve you’re too late. If you act beforehand, you never get to the…

Italian ICU capacity is completely overwhelmed, if not this virus, why? Being a truly evil Devil's advocate for a moment: 1. Because it's not actually overwhelmed. See this discussion from 2 days ago about a Reuters report where the head of ICU for Lombardy says nobody has been turned away due to lack of beds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22605144 2. Because ICU demand expands to meet available capacity as no…

Thank your god you don't live in Bergamo (Italy) [1] right now and stop writing about things you don't know, you are just disrespectful to those who know better who won't write you here because they are either busy 14h/day saving lives or just trying to survive.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/video-tour-coronavirus-icu-w...

Re: Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

#110
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italian ICU capacity is completely overwhelmed, if not this virus, why? Being a truly evil Devil's advocate for a moment: 1. Because it's not actually overwhelmed. See this discussion from 2 days ago about a Reuters report where the head of ICU for Lombardy says nobody has been turned away due to lack of beds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22605144 2. Because ICU demand expands to meet available capacity as no…

Thank your god you don't live in Bergamo (Italy) [1] right now and stop writing about things you don't know, you are just disrespectful to those who know better who won't write you here because they are either busy 14h/day saving lives or just trying to survive. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/video-tour-coronavirus-icu-w...

I live a few hours from Bergamo. I'm writing these things anyway. Please don't try and shut people down who are posting factual information by claiming it's "disrespectful" - disrespectful to whom? The medics I quoted?

The Business Insider article you link to is saying exactly the same things as the articles I cite about what happened in the USA in 2018: makeshift wards, extraordinary measures, more and more patients needing ventilation. That's what it looks like when a lot of patients turn up sick with pneumonia at once.

Videos are dramatic but not enough to understand what's going on by themselves. You realise that, I hope?

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