The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming • Hacker News Board

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#11

Post by throwaway_pdp09 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:42 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #7

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #3

This is bad. I've been graphing the exp curve for Italy, UK and USA and the USA curve is fearsomely steep. Italy has more cases now but the USA is growing fastest and looks like it will match Italy's on ~March 28th (looking at the most recent 10 points, see below) The rate of growth in the USA, extrapolated, is just huge. Looking at the whole curve it does not match an exponential well, I think the early part is skew…

Yes - absolute criminal negligence in the US and UK. Possibly Australia too. The problem isn't just that a lot of people will die because the health system is swamped. That's hardly good news, but when you have a high peak you have a lot of people ill at the same time. And that means you run the risk of losing a significant percentage of critical workers in essential services including food, utilities, logistics, and…

Original poster. I'm from the UK. Looking at the curves only and leaving out politics completely, the UK curve is by far the slowest growing of the 3, for whatever reason. It's the US that has the most to fear at this point, of the 3 countries.

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#12

Post by hef19898 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:42 AM UTC

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #3

This is bad. I've been graphing the exp curve for Italy, UK and USA and the USA curve is fearsomely steep. Italy has more cases now but the USA is growing fastest and looks like it will match Italy's on ~March 28th (looking at the most recent 10 points, see below) The rate of growth in the USA, extrapolated, is just huge. Looking at the whole curve it does not match an exponential well, I think the early part is skew…

To answer your last question, yes it is irresponsible.

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#13

Post by simonh » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:44 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #5

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #3

This is bad. I've been graphing the exp curve for Italy, UK and USA and the USA curve is fearsomely steep. Italy has more cases now but the USA is growing fastest and looks like it will match Italy's on ~March 28th (looking at the most recent 10 points, see below) The rate of growth in the USA, extrapolated, is just huge. Looking at the whole curve it does not match an exponential well, I think the early part is skew…

But how much of the US’s growth is due to us finally having some (albeit not enough) testing?

This is key. We really can't compare countries confirmed case numbers directly because they are operating very different testing programmes. Just look at Germany. More confirmed cases than the USA, but a quarter of the deaths. Germany also has 80% as many cases as Spain, but about 5% as many deaths. All that, without a severe lockdown.

Clearly something completely different is going on there than in many other countries, and it seems they have an extremely effective and well organised testing system. They're testing about 160,000 people a week. In comparison, the UK to date has only tested around 50,000 people in total so no wonder our case numbers are far lower, even though we have double the number of deaths.

So Germany is an outlier, but it just goes to show even for other countries you can't just compare the curves and draw any definitive conclusions without also looking at the testing regime. This is where the experts with their detailed population models and simulation tools come in.

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#14

Post by bamboozled » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:46 AM UTC

Dahoon wrote: post #4

Most people (and most people who advice the public in the US) doesn't take this serious enough. One of the foremost experts in epidemiology in the US Michael T. Osterholm said on Joe Rogan (AFAIKR) 6-12 months for the virus to go away, up to 5 years for a vaccine and that it would return in China when people start behaving normally again. This isn't something that will go away in a few weeks or months. In "Deadliest…

If you read the article, Dr Brilliant [sic] says 12-18 months most likely for a vaccine?

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#15

Post by bamboozled » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:46 AM UTC

no_gravity wrote: post #6

From what I read in this article and other sources, performing more tests seems to be a very promising approach to get this pandemic under control. The number of positive tests and death rates are published every day on all channels. I wish the number of performed tests would be also published daily. What gets measured gets managed. I wonder what limits the number of tests that can be performed. How much would it cos…

Which is scary because Japan seems to have had the virus for a long time and is hardly testing at all. Really makes me wonder how the Olympics will or won't look.

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#16

Post by okareaman » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:48 AM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #12

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #3

This is bad. I've been graphing the exp curve for Italy, UK and USA and the USA curve is fearsomely steep. Italy has more cases now but the USA is growing fastest and looks like it will match Italy's on ~March 28th (looking at the most recent 10 points, see below) The rate of growth in the USA, extrapolated, is just huge. Looking at the whole curve it does not match an exponential well, I think the early part is skew…

To answer your last question, yes it is irresponsible.

It would be irresponsible of him to show us his math?

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#17

Post by cowsandmilk » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:49 AM UTC

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #3

This is bad. I've been graphing the exp curve for Italy, UK and USA and the USA curve is fearsomely steep. Italy has more cases now but the USA is growing fastest and looks like it will match Italy's on ~March 28th (looking at the most recent 10 points, see below) The rate of growth in the USA, extrapolated, is just huge. Looking at the whole curve it does not match an exponential well, I think the early part is skew…

> the USA curve is fearsomely steep

This analysis is difficult because it is related to testing capacity. We all know testing capacity was limited early on. It remains limited, but is growing. The faster capacity grows, the steeper the curve will be. Want to have a less steep curve? Lower the amount of testing.

In another comment, you claim looking at the curves leaves out politics completely, but it doesn't. Any politician can make the situation look worse on the curve, but better serve their people, by increasing testing. They can also make their curve look better, but do worse for their people, by claiming their state is unable to purchase tests. This can be a very political game.

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#18

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:50 AM UTC

mft_ wrote: post #9

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #3

This is bad. I've been graphing the exp curve for Italy, UK and USA and the USA curve is fearsomely steep. Italy has more cases now but the USA is growing fastest and looks like it will match Italy's on ~March 28th (looking at the most recent 10 points, see below) The rate of growth in the USA, extrapolated, is just huge. Looking at the whole curve it does not match an exponential well, I think the early part is skew…

Worth linking to this page, which is regularly updated with the sort of analyses you refer to: http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/ Scary that the US (especially some areas) and Switzerland are starting to track above Italy: http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/20mar2020/covid-us-norm....

[deleted]

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#19

Post by acqq » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:51 AM UTC

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #3

This is bad. I've been graphing the exp curve for Italy, UK and USA and the USA curve is fearsomely steep. Italy has more cases now but the USA is growing fastest and looks like it will match Italy's on ~March 28th (looking at the most recent 10 points, see below) The rate of growth in the USA, extrapolated, is just huge. Looking at the whole curve it does not match an exponential well, I think the early part is skew…

If you want to have better comparable values, you should account that US have had too little testing and it just starts to increase. The US also has such health care system that it doesn't treat most potential patients the same, also potentially missing the cases completely. So the numbers of the "confirmed cases" in the US aren't to be trusted at the moment.

What's more sure, in most of the countries in the world, is that if the tests are available at all, and the patients happen to be admitted to the hospitals with the symptoms, they will be tested, and the percentage of deaths will be comparable in all countries, and we should be able to assume that the hospitals will report the deaths of the patients tested positive.

In short, now that the numbers of deaths increase, these numbers reflect better the issues we are facing than just the reported cases.

We should estimate the number of "comparable" cases across the countries or areas with different capabilities from the numbers of deaths, at least for the countries and areas which have at least enough tests to test those admitted with symptoms and report the dead, and once these numbers aren't too low to be too noisy.

I've demonstrated some of my simple calculations in my other messages, so you can check these too.

Re: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

#20

Post by hallohallohallo » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 11:54 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #13

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how much of the US’s growth is due to us finally having some (albeit not enough) testing?

This is key. We really can't compare countries confirmed case numbers directly because they are operating very different testing programmes. Just look at Germany. More confirmed cases than the USA, but a quarter of the deaths. Germany also has 80% as many cases as Spain, but about 5% as many deaths. All that, without a severe lockdown. Clearly something completely different is going on there than in many other countr…

It is the health care system like number of ICUs, training of doctors and stuff like not being able to get antibiotics simply over the counter like in Italy. If my memory serves me right e.g. in Italy 29% have a resistance to antibiotics, in Germany only 0.4%.