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

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

#151

Post by kazagistar » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #117

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

counter points: Many doctors lack training in epidemiology. Many epidemiologists aren't actual doctors. Healthcare in general is horrible with generating accurate raw data (JHU data comes often from scraping websites and the CDC itself has stopped publishing number of daily tests weeks ago). You don't have to be a Dr. med in order to see gaps and problems with statistics and a large part of the conjecturing actually…

>> Many doctors lack training in epidemiology. Many epidemiologists aren't actual doctors. Yes, and this is why doctors aren't being asked to do epidemiology and epidemiologists aren't being asked to care for patients. And (likely) sofware engineers are not asked to do either.

I would suggest epidemiologists provide some set of problems all this useless but willing pile of software engineers could apply themselves to. For example, scraping data from mismatched data sources or implementing specific hypothetical models. Even if it's only marginally useful, it would give them something to do other then misinformation.

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

#152

Post by nkrisc » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #15

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.

Not cancelling or postponing the Olympics is massively irresponsible. That said, those who would still choose to attend are beyond help and a risk to their communities.

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

#153

Post by ComputerGuru » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:54 PM 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 numbers mean nothing. All your seeing is the availability of testing kits, which has nothing to do with the number of infections. Don’t bother graphing a thing.

For the numbers to have meaning, a stochastic sample of the population should be tested at random, not people coming forward because they think they’re sick.

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

#154

Post by paganel » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #27

cowsandmilk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pol…

Yep. Ventilator usage [if available] and deaths are more reliable indicators, but they're also lagging ones [and even deaths aren't entirely consistently measured since many of the most severely affected patients exhibit comorbities, and many nations don't test the dead]

> deaths are more reliable indicators

They are more reliable than the simple number of cases but in the Italian province of Bergamo (and I suppose in neighbouring Brescia, too) lots of people have started dying before the ambulance even arrives at their homes. Those people will not show up on the official statistics of covid victims, at least not now.

A similar thing had started happening in Wuhan once the situation had become really dire, and the closest valid indicator people could find was to look at the number of incinerators and how busy they were (mostly looking at the number, because the incinerators were busy 24/7 anyway).

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

#155

Post by gdubs » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #69

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…

>I've been graphing the exp curve As you can imagine, there's more to epidemiology than this. I'm a big fan of letting the qualified people do their work, while we do ours: shut up and do not spread misinformation. In fact, at the risk of being rude ill even go so far and say that it's quite arrogant to pretend to pontificate about this when your knowledge about this issue is 0, and also when one major problem in com…

I get that your comment is coming from a good place, because the threat of misinformation is real. But this is an “Appeal to Authority” argument. I’d rather have an informed discussion among smart people, even if they’re not experts in the specific field. I’d rather be able to weigh the input of many people. Especially in a case where the experts haven’t done a great job at communicating or understanding the severity of this.

Rather than admonish people to shut up, it would be more constructive to point out the flaws in their methods, so we could all learn and make better judgements.

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

#156

Post by watwut » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #96

monkeynotes wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think there would not be widespread panic if we just let the health system melt down? What do you think a world without a health system would look like? Unemployment is going to be very hard to deal with, but it really feels like the best option out of the very difficult choices we have in front of us. Fact is, shit is seriously bad whichever way you look at it.

If we look at the Spanish flu, which was worse than this, there wasn't much panic and the economy recovered fairly quickly. Here's a random article I found online arguing that we'd get better results (both for public health and the economy) by testing more and isolating the at-risk populations than by quaranting everyone: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pande...

Spanish flu was right after WWI. That affected economy and its recovery quite a lot.

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

#157

Post by watwut » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #151

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Many doctors lack training in epidemiology. Many epidemiologists aren't actual doctors. Yes, and this is why doctors aren't being asked to do epidemiology and epidemiologists aren't being asked to care for patients. And (likely) sofware engineers are not asked to do either.

I would suggest epidemiologists provide some set of problems all this useless but willing pile of software engineers could apply themselves to. For example, scraping data from mismatched data sources or implementing specific hypothetical models. Even if it's only marginally useful, it would give them something to do other then misinformation.

That is what epidemiologists do nowdays and did from the beginning. They don't calculate models on paper anymore.

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

#158

Post by rasz » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:01 PM 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…

Stop repeating German propaganda :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M4kbPDHGR0&feature=youtu.be... turn on google auto translate

TLDR: Any comorbidities present at the time of death are reported as the main culprit. In other news https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736(20)3... Table 2: Treatments and outcomes. Sepsis 100%, Respiratory failure 98%. There you go, nobody dies from the virus alone, problem solved, 20x less deaths than comparable Spain.

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

#159

Post by icegreentea2 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

ksrm wrote: post #70

Amygaz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a question of cost at this point. It's a question of availability of reagents and consumables, materials to make those, and time it takes to ramp up. The supply chain is like a supertanker. At first we didn't have enough test, but that ramped up quickly, then we didn't have enough RNA extraction reagent, now we don't have enough swabs, and soon is the collection media that will be missing. There has been a c…

> At first we didn't have enough test, but that ramped up quickly, then we didn't have enough RNA extraction reagent, now we don't have enough swabs, and soon is the collection media that will be missing. Where are you getting this information from?

For RNA extraction: https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/diagnostics/Shortag... for an example.

For swabs - here's an example in action up in Ontario Canada: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/ontario-limits-who...

No one is out trying to actively hide this information, but its spread does seem a little uneven.

I also don't want this to be fearmongering. Capacity and supply will grow (hopefully fast enough). Alternative solutions will be validated. We will keep bumping into problems, and we'll keep solving them (cause we'll need to).

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

#160

Post by detaro » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

rasz wrote: post #158

simonh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Stop repeating German propaganda :( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M4kbPDHGR0&feature=youtu.be... turn on google auto translate TLDR: Any comorbidities present at the time of death are reported as the main culprit. In other news https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736(20)3... Table 2: Treatments and outcomes. Sepsis 100%, Respiratory failure 98%. There you go, nobody dies from the virus alone, probl…

Then why are basically all Corona deaths in Germany reported as having other illnesses too? If this claim were true, none of these deaths of sick old people would have been reported as being due to Corona. Do you have any evidence this is more than speculation (at least the english translation also makes it sound like it is worded speculation, not a claim of fact), and that someone who was known to be infected and died was not reported?

I keep asking people about this because I'd for sure would like to know if it were happening, but the only two sources I've seen sounded like speculation by Italian officials that at least as absolute as it is reported in other languages does not match the actual reporting here as far as I can tell.