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The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming

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

#241

Post by yotamoron »

greedo wrote: post #215
yotamoron wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not. Until we get the hard data regarding what is happening in London, we can't say anything definite. Look at Italy - it was a horrible pandemic - until we got the data, which made it much more reasonable.

So now Italy's pandemic has gone from "horrible" to "reasonable?" It's CFR is increasing, not decreasing. The number of cases is increasing exponentially, not flattening, and the death rate in human terms is approaching 1K per day. I don't know what world you live in, but here in reality, this is horrible.

In the US, 1 person dies of cardiovascular disease every 37 seconds. Since no body cries in the media 'Pandemic!!' (although it is a very real one), I guess that its not the total number of deaths per day that is shocking, its the exponential growth. The growth is indeed exponential, there is no doubt about that, but what is its potential? Judging from the data we now have from Italy and the rest of the world, it has a very small overall potential - the very old and very sick (obviously we have to take care of them, but a global hysteria??). What is the equivalent? Say you started a new web service, that is wonderful and very attractive and cost effective and what-have-you - but only for people who's name start with the letter K. The media is exploding with compliments, subscriptions are going through the roof, all the celebs who's name start with the letter K subscribe and praise etc etc, and you indeed get an exponential growth - for just a few days. Then the source dries up. No new subscribers. All the potential market is exhausted. You end up with a few million subscribers - and no more growth what-so-ever, exponential or linear.

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

#242

Post by masonic »

DennisP wrote: post #179
DoreenMichele wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think testing mostly matters to prove to people this is real, but tests don't actually stop the disease. They aren't a cure. I don't know how to get there from here, but I would like to see a great deal more focus on best practices and cultural change. That's how this pandemic will be stopped and prevented from recurring. Tests will only elucidate how bad it is, but aren't actual treatment. Stop touching your face.…

Testing helps a lot more than that, because it helps you catch infected people before they spread it further. This was a key factor in China and South Korea getting the disease under control.

   it helps you catch infected people
It helps you know that infected people exist, but in a "free" state, that's all. Unless you both require verifiable ID and have the power to quarantine someone against her will, you haven't "caught" anybody.

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

#243

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

ethbro wrote: post #237
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Original poster here. > and fitting ke^x to data doesn't make us informed Well, yours is an interesting post but let me ask if curve fitting doesn't make us more informed then what does? There's an update to the data for the US in the past few hours and it doesn't improve things. I very carefully stated out my limitations, and then pointed them out again when someone critiqued my approach (see edit on https://news.yc…

> I strongly get the impression that much criticism isn't based on my admittedly trite analysis but because a lot of people just don't know how to handle really bad news and are trying to blank a nasty reality. No, you just made a large number of flaws in your initial analysis, and it made people despair of going to the effort to point out where you went wrong. E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22648730 You'r…

> No, you just made a large number of flaws in your initial analysis

Seeing as you don't have access to my analysis, you can't say that.

> You're producing a future estimate, assuming that all properties of your dataset are consistent (they aren't) and will continue to hold (they won't).

This is just vague stuff to put me down. I worked by confirmed cases in publicly available data.

> varying ratio of confirmed cases to actual total

I'm not sure what this mean but I went by the total confirmed cases, day by day. As for your 'increased testing', I'm fully aware the US is finally getting going.

> varying time offset according to disease progression and symptoms presentation (aka testing).

Why would the progress at different rates at different times in different individuals make any difference? I'm going by confirmed cases anyways so unless you know of a new strain with different characteristics that's starting to distort the figures (and there are possibly 2) then it makes no difference.

No, save your slapdowns for the people who push garlic as treatment. You are objecting to me for psychological reasons, not logical ones. You can go to the wiki page and see the growth day by day but you don't want to because it's bad news and you don't like that. Well, get used to it. Your life is going to change, nothing will stop that and the sooner you face it the safer you and your country will be. Hard times ahead. Good luck.

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

#244

Post by watwut »

irq11 wrote: post #238
watwut wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be shocking to epidemiologists. All their confidence intervals are well above influenza. They are fully aware of all caveats amateur people talk about here and don't think it is like normal flu. In italy in hard hit city, they were unable to cremate people fast enough and army had to move bodies. Influenza does not cause that.

Everything I said above was directly taken from non-amateur epidemiologists. I have invented nothing. The error bars on CFR estimates run from fractions of a percent to a few percent. In countries that have tested large numbers of people who are not severely ill, the case fatality rates have been at the low end of that range. This isn’t “shocking to epidemiologists”, it’s shocking only to people who dismiss basic fac…

Epidemiologists say that influenza is easier to control. Irrelevant distraction relevant to topic says that only school here and there has to be closed to contain it. Epidemiologists say on that that one infected person with influenza infects less people then one infected with corona.

Epidemiologists do count with overwhelmed hospitals and services, excess deaths due that that, excess deaths on unrelated heath problems. It not just something they talk about, they have it in their models too. This does not happen with influenza, because it is easier to control. Irrelevant distraction there is Italy or Spain lately.

Epidemiologists do talk also about costs after epidemic ends, in treatment of people who will need care for long.

What amateurs do is to ignore all the above, pick up case fatality ration in well run non-overwhelmed health care system and pretend that is situation same as influenza to feel good.

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

#245

Post by andrepd »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #243
ethbro wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I strongly get the impression that much criticism isn't based on my admittedly trite analysis but because a lot of people just don't know how to handle really bad news and are trying to blank a nasty reality. No, you just made a large number of flaws in your initial analysis, and it made people despair of going to the effort to point out where you went wrong. E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22648730 You'r…

> No, you just made a large number of flaws in your initial analysis Seeing as you don't have access to my analysis, you can't say that. > You're producing a future estimate, assuming that all properties of your dataset are consistent (they aren't) and will continue to hold (they won't). This is just vague stuff to put me down. I worked by confirmed cases in publicly available data. > varying ratio of confirmed cases…

This conversation can serve no useful purpose anymore. It's clear that you will never admit that there's anything wrong with your "analysis" (too big a word for pasting data in a spreadsheet), as far as you are concerned, you are a bloody genius (and helping people!) by plotting a bunch of points in a log scale. And of course any criticism of your methods can only be persecution and for "psychological reasons"... I wonder why anybody would post in a discussion forum if they are going to completely ignore any feedback or criticism (and in a very Trump manner say they're victims of personal persecution). Maybe just validation? I don't know, I'm not a psychologist.

Like other people have said through this thread, it's rather simple: you don't know what you are doing, and at this time bad information is worse than no information, and it will hurt people. And reiterating my remarks on my first post: stop being so arrogant, this is really the only word to describe your attitude as far as I'm concerned.

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

#246

Post by andrepd »

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.

It's likely that epidemiologists already use those tools. They are, after all, a sort of applied statisticians.

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

#247

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

andrepd wrote: post #245
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you just made a large number of flaws in your initial analysis Seeing as you don't have access to my analysis, you can't say that. > You're producing a future estimate, assuming that all properties of your dataset are consistent (they aren't) and will continue to hold (they won't). This is just vague stuff to put me down. I worked by confirmed cases in publicly available data. > varying ratio of confirmed cases…

This conversation can serve no useful purpose anymore. It's clear that you will never admit that there's anything wrong with your "analysis" (too big a word for pasting data in a spreadsheet), as far as you are concerned, you are a bloody genius (and helping people!) by plotting a bunch of points in a log scale. And of course any criticism of your methods can only be persecution and for "psychological reasons"... I w…

It does seem to serve no good purpose when we are talking across each other. For example I clearly and immediately modified my original post to state there was a risk of error because I was using the wrong curve (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22645793).

And "I am a bloody genius [...] by plotting a bunch of points in a log scale" - I actually used the words 'admittedly trite' about what I did.

Whatever. This gets us nowhere. Your profile says you have a background in physics and logic/automated reasoning. I'm just a general purpose back-end dev. We're facing something that may kill more people than WW2, let's concentrate on that. Can we work together to do something useful? Thoughts?

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

#248

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #247
andrepd wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conversation can serve no useful purpose anymore. It's clear that you will never admit that there's anything wrong with your "analysis" (too big a word for pasting data in a spreadsheet), as far as you are concerned, you are a bloody genius (and helping people!) by plotting a bunch of points in a log scale. And of course any criticism of your methods can only be persecution and for "psychological reasons"... I w…

It does seem to serve no good purpose when we are talking across each other. For example I clearly and immediately modified my original post to state there was a risk of error because I was using the wrong curve ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22645793 ). And "I am a bloody genius [...] by plotting a bunch of points in a log scale" - I actually used the words 'admittedly trite' about what I did. Whatever. This…

aaaand silence. I should have known better than to ask.

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

#249

Post by shalmanese »

sp332 wrote: post #182
tonetheman wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not have tests. https://covidtracking.com/data/ We have tested 150K people. We have 327M people in the US, we have tested 0.00046% of the population. We do not have tests.

Yeah but about HALF of those tests were done in the last TWO days! Capacity is coming online very rapidly now and while we are starting from behind, we will not be so short on tests for long. Roche alone is shipping 400,000 tests per week and Abbot Labs is on track to perform one million tests per week in the next couple of weeks. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/america-is-final...

The important number is the ratio of tests:true case count. You need ~1000 - 10,000X tests/case to do true contact tracing because you want to a) blanket the country with tests and test every single suspected case even if 99% of them end up not being COVID 19 and b) proactively quarantine every person that a positive person has come into contact with and then test each of those people every single day for 14 days until they come up negative. If a single of those people come up positive, then you want to proactively quarantine all the people THAT person came into contact with, rinse and repeat.

It's great that tests are finally ramping up but the growth in testing can never exceed the growth in cases if cases are doubling every finite number of days. The choices are a severe lockdown where R Once you get your true case load down below your test load, then you can think about using non-pharmaceutical interventions (universal masking, universal temperature screening, mandatory hand washing when entering into a gathering space etc.) along with rigorous contact tracing to ensure that any future outbreaks remain small and contained.

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

#250

Post by mnl »

mnl wrote: post #235
pfdietz wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A logistic curve is indistinguishable from an exponential when you're "early". The earlier you are, the closer they are.

Yes, I found out that later, but while we were in the low hundreds fitting to an exponential didn't seem to work very well in comparison to a polynomial (it was overestimating). It wasn't a quadratic either. There it jumped and I remembered I should try population growth models. I started with Gompertz, which is pretty much indistinguishable from logistic at this stage. Then I found out that logistic was more stable…

Nursing home, obviously.
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