Maybe it's not a good idea to upvote these layman ramblings and influencer opinions.
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Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#32The trouble with an article like this is that it mixes well reasoned arguments with nonsense. The economic cost of closing schools and shutting borders is real, especially as the epidemic continues for months. The trouble is that the article downplays the seriousness of covid-19. A mortality rate of 0.6% means nearly one million deaths if covid-19 spreads to half all Americans.
The article points to South Korea as an example of a success story in the fight against covid-19. South Korea immediately began widespread testing for covid-19 as soon as infections were detected. They trace cases and isolate people suspected of having become infected. South Korea has universal healthcare, ranking first among OECD countries for access. All of this is pretty much the opposite of we've been doing in the US, which is why a lot of people here are worried about what's going to happen in the next few months.
It's reasonable to ask whether school closings or shutting borders are the right policies. But we should be discussing alternative means of containing the virus and we need to be clear what we're up against.
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#33Now is the time for extreme caution. We can laugh about how it was an overreaction later.
When people are losing jobs at a higher rate than the worst recession in the modern era, while kids miss out on critical education time, and everyone is basically self-imprisoned in homes I think it’s fine to constantly question if we are overreacting. Even if that answer is mostly no, we’re not. Emergency funding will only go so far and once we get past a month of extraordinary measures the serious pain hitting mill…
In Canada right now jobs are being lost at a higher rate than the worst recession of all-time...
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#34The trouble with an article like this is that it mixes well reasoned arguments with nonsense. The economic cost of closing schools and shutting borders is real, especially as the epidemic continues for months. The trouble is that the article downplays the seriousness of covid-19. A mortality rate of 0.6% means nearly one million deaths if covid-19 spreads to half all Americans. The article points to South Korea as an…
On the other hand, the problem with your argument is that there is absolutely no way to be sure, today, that the mortality rate is even within an order of magnitude of 0.6%. And as more evidence comes out that this thing is spreading faster and more stealthily than expected, one consequence is that the true mortality rate may be much lower than those estimates.
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#35Half of the article is about making numbers relative (active/total cases, cases/population, etc). But death toll is counted in absolute numbers. No one will think 1M deaths is victory just because this is 1% of whatever. People are right to be hysterical, we have tough times ahead.
By that logic, with those numbers (and if 1M is the total globally), then we “lose” almost as badly to the seasonal flu, every year. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about deadly illnesses. But the world is a dangerous place, and we’ve been pretty bad about changing that, historically. Also, if we ruin 5 million lives to save (some percent of) 1 million, is that worth it? How about ruining 50 million lives? We can sa…
What's the name of this fallacy?
1. "New thing X puts us at risk of losing Y lives every day."
2. "We lose Y lives to car accidents every day".
3. "Ergo, X is harmless!"
You now have 2Y lives lost every day.
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#36The trouble with an article like this is that it mixes well reasoned arguments with nonsense. The economic cost of closing schools and shutting borders is real, especially as the epidemic continues for months. The trouble is that the article downplays the seriousness of covid-19. A mortality rate of 0.6% means nearly one million deaths if covid-19 spreads to half all Americans. The article points to South Korea as an…
On the other hand, the problem with your argument is that there is absolutely no way to be sure, today, that the mortality rate is even within an order of magnitude of 0.6%. And as more evidence comes out that this thing is spreading faster and more stealthily than expected, one consequence is that the true mortality rate may be much lower than those estimates.
> even within an order of magnitude of 0.6%
Have previous estimates for other diseases been off by that much? A whole order of magnitude, at this level of study? Citations please. Yes, the number is probably not perfectly accurate, but it's also converging toward what is very likely to be a correct figure. Also, how much does it have to change to affect the broader point? A hundred thousand deaths (i.e. one order of magnitude) is still nothing to take lightly. Such aggressive minimization of danger is still a worse problem than the "hysteria" the OP is supposedly trying to address.
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#37The trouble with an article like this is that it mixes well reasoned arguments with nonsense. The economic cost of closing schools and shutting borders is real, especially as the epidemic continues for months. The trouble is that the article downplays the seriousness of covid-19. A mortality rate of 0.6% means nearly one million deaths if covid-19 spreads to half all Americans. The article points to South Korea as an…
On the other hand, the problem with your argument is that there is absolutely no way to be sure, today, that the mortality rate is even within an order of magnitude of 0.6%. And as more evidence comes out that this thing is spreading faster and more stealthily than expected, one consequence is that the true mortality rate may be much lower than those estimates.
As of right now, Italy’s fatality rate is almost 9% [0], so saying “it might not be within an order of magnitude of 0.6%!” is optimistic to the point of delusional.
[0]: https://mobile.twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/12414116867...
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, the problem with your argument is that there is absolutely no way to be sure, today, that the mortality rate is even within an order of magnitude of 0.6%. And as more evidence comes out that this thing is spreading faster and more stealthily than expected, one consequence is that the true mortality rate may be much lower than those estimates.
> even within an order of magnitude of 0.6% Have previous estimates for other diseases been off by that much ? A whole order of magnitude, at this level of study? Citations please. Yes, the number is probably not perfectly accurate, but it's also converging toward what is very likely to be a correct figure. Also, how much does it have to change to affect the broader point? A hundred thousand deaths (i.e. one order of…
In most parts of the world, we have absolutely no idea how far the infection spread from about the end of October to at least February, so we can’t conclusively rule out that kind of error until we can test lots of people for antibodies (this is the only way to confirm a case in a person who has already recovered).
It would require the infection to be very contagious, and it probably would require us to have been pretty unlucky with the timing, but as far as I know none of that is contradicted by the available evidence.
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#39This is a bad article.
Re: Evidence over Hysteria – Covid-19
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, the problem with your argument is that there is absolutely no way to be sure, today, that the mortality rate is even within an order of magnitude of 0.6%. And as more evidence comes out that this thing is spreading faster and more stealthily than expected, one consequence is that the true mortality rate may be much lower than those estimates.
As of right now, Italy’s fatality rate is almost 9% [0], so saying “it might not be within an order of magnitude of 0.6%!” is optimistic to the point of delusional. [0]: https://mobile.twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/12414116867...
Italy is looking like a “perfect storm” tragedy no matter what. The older population, combined with rapid, widespread transmission, to the point where critical cases completely overwhelm the health infrastructure, is absolutely a recipe for horrible CFR numbers like that. The fear that healthcare infrastructure elsewhere could be overwhelmed by another sudden outbreak is really the only reason experts are freaking out, as far as I know.
Also just reported today, apparently over 99% of fatalities in Italy were folks who had existing medical conditions, but I have no idea what that really tells us.
Anyway, you could be right too, maybe it’s unreasonable to guess that true IFR is an order of magnitude lower.