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

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

#201

Post by throwaway_pdp09 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

NateEag wrote: post #191

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no "actual data" in your comment above There is in http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/#w which I said matches what I've found rather well. > The other poster doesn't have any responsibility to tell you "how to model the data better". Yes he does,

> There is in http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/#w which I said matches what I've found rather well There may be data there, but if I understand you correctly you did not have it when you made your first post. It is therefore inadmissible evidence as to whether your first post was a reasonable thing to write. > Yes he does, If you have decided you want to be an epidemiologist, or at least to learn their skillset, w…

> but if I understand you correctly you did not have it when you made your first post

correct

> It is therefore inadmissible evidence as to whether your first post was a reasonable thing to write.

Completely wrong. I approximated the lowest part of a logistic function with e^x, which is reasonable for small values. Given it matched well with professional epidemiologists' graphs, it suggests I'm getting it approximately right.

> whose responsibility is it to fulfill that desire?

Mine and yours. Don't stick 'reasonable' on your replies and suppose it insures you in any way cos it doesn't.

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

#202

Post by xienze » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

mynegation wrote: post #188

xienze wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if that were true (which almost certainly it is not) What are you referring to? You don’t think the virus is already much more widespread in the US than currently reported numbers? I’m just making the observation that perhaps the large increases in US cases are more indicative of confirmation of already existing cases rather than necessarily being _new_ cases.

I am not arguing that virus is more widespread than the reported numbers, that much is obvious. I was replying to the idea that virus has been circulating “for months” undetected. With a doubling time of 5 days or so, with “for months” circulation we would be in a totally different territory right now.

> I was replying to the idea that virus has been circulating “for months” undetected.

I don’t think that’s crazy at all. We had our first case sometime in January, and only until very very recently have we had any significant travel restrictions. It’s very contagious and for a significant number of people there are no real symptoms, or if there are, nothing life threatening. I don’t think it’s crazy at all that it’s been working it’s way around the US population for months.

Maybe to put it another way, if we could instantly test al 300+M Americans right this instant, would you be surprised if say 20M or so tested positive or had had it?

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

#203

Post by throwaway_pdp09 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #187

andrepd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Epidemiologist are working, and they are saying the same as throwaway_pdp09 - that this is bad. If throwaway_pdp09 were claiming otherwise then it would be a different story. No country is going to change their country's healthcare response plan based on some random conjecturing on HN, and regardless of any numbers that pop out here, the instructions are the same - self-isolate until mid-April, at the soonest. throwa…

Thank you, I appreciate this a a lot.

I'm just trying to make sense of things, same as anybody else. I don't think anybody's fucked either in 9 or 11 days, I actually have a great deal of faith in the United States and yes, I mean it, but bad decisions from high will cause a terrible amount of pain too soon. I just want to wish the US the best because they'll need it now more than any other time, probably in all it's history. I don't think WW2 stressed you as much as you are about to be now. Buckle up yanks and pull together, I believe in you! You will get through this.

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

#204

Post by hanche » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #150

takeda wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am worried that we are choosing the second route with articles like this one: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-20/coronavi...

If I understand article right, it is not about choosing. It is about not having resources and ability to do the other route.

The situation is exactly the same in Norway now, for the same reason: Lack of resources.

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

#205

Post by flyinglizard » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #42

flyinglizard wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true only when hospitals are functioning. Corona spread saturates hospitals and then mortality goes up to near 10%, from the virus itself as well as other unrelated causes which get no ICU treatment.

>Corona spread saturates hospitals and then mortality goes up to near 10% Some evidence of this? Hospitals were completely overrun in Wuhan initially, but the mortality rate didn't get anywhere near 10%.

Italy: 47000 cases, 4000 deaths. This does not include the collapse of the ICU system, meaning people with stroke, heart attacks and other life threatening conditions do not get optimal (or any) treatment.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

I’ll respectfully disregard Wuhan numbers - no one knows for sure what’s the count other than the Chinese government.

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

#206

Post by hanche » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

snewman wrote: post #109

w1ntermute wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death curve is also deceptive - there were likely many patients who were recorded as dying of the flu, or of influenza-like illness, that actually died of COVID-19, due to a lack of testing. The bottom line is that it’s very difficult to make a conclusive statement based on the data collected prior to widespread testing. As for that Medium article, it’s written by a tech exec with zero education or professional e…

Fivethirtyeight has been surveying epidemiologists: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/infectious-disease-expe... Responding on March 16 and 17 to the question, "how many cases will the US report by March 29", their median prediction was 19,000. As of this moment, early on the 21st, that figure has ALREADY been exceeded (per Worldometer). Based on current growth rates, it appears virtually certain that the actual f…

Here is a report from a team of epidemiologists at Imperial College, led by Neil Ferguson. The title speaks for itself: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID- 19 mortality and healthcare demand. The paper is sobering reading. But of course, all the numbers plugged into the model are saddled with huge uncertainty.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

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

#207

Post by hanche » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #104

andrepd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

And I am having serious misgivings about posting it, nonetheless, many people have expressed deep concerned, and I'm doing the same, only with actual data. I made it clear the limits of my knowledge - which may still not excuse me, however I have to ask if you are an epidemiologist and if so, please tell me how to model the data better. And I don't mean randomly google up some papers to dump here and pretend you are…

You are absolutely right that the early phase of logistic growth is practically indistinguishable from exponential growth. As to what extent this observation is useful when applied to the current situation, I don't know – I am a mathematician, not an epidemiologist. But as a rough guide to aid understanding, I think it probably has some merit.

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

#208

Post by supportlocal4h » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

snewman wrote: post #85

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…

This site shows the number of tests performed in each state in the US: https://covidtracking.com/data/

That site demonstrates the erratic nature of current data. For instance, their source data for Nevada is https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiMjA2ZThiOWUtM2FlNS0...

At the moment of this comment that data says that ~2500 tests have been performed and ~2700 people have been tested. Perhaps those numbers were transposed. Maybe there is a simple, explainable mistake. But all the numbers everywhere are so full of errors, it makes casual statistical analysis just a fancy form of home entertainment at the moment.

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

#209

Post by hanche » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

elorant wrote: post #107

mnl wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's just frustration. You have to expect this from a novel disease once you realize its R0 has been characterized, it's greater than 2, it's airborne and asymptomatic patients can transmit it. What have been people expecting? I'm a physicist, I've seen this kind of growth. We also have this totalitarian principle which states that "Everything not forbidden is compulsory", I see no fundamental difference, it…

OK but how much larger than 2? Is it 2,5 or is it something like 5? Because the narrative so far doesn't fit the reality.

Nobody knows for sure, of course, but my understanding is that it is thought to be between 2.0 and 2.6 in the “do nothing” scenario. Which is scary big: See the Ferguson paper that I referenced in a different comment.

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

#210

Post by mynegation » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #202

mynegation wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not arguing that virus is more widespread than the reported numbers, that much is obvious. I was replying to the idea that virus has been circulating “for months” undetected. With a doubling time of 5 days or so, with “for months” circulation we would be in a totally different territory right now.

> I was replying to the idea that virus has been circulating “for months” undetected. I don’t think that’s crazy at all. We had our first case sometime in January, and only until very very recently have we had any significant travel restrictions. It’s very contagious and for a significant number of people there are no real symptoms, or if there are, nothing life threatening. I don’t think it’s crazy at all that it’s…

> would you be surprised

Yes, I would be very surprised. Given what we know about severity distribution that means 2M hospitalizations and ~200K-1M ICU cases that we somehow missed.