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Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

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Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#31

Post by rglullis »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #2

Common sense needs to prevail over mania, numbers over hyperbole and science over conjecture. But even then, this is hard if our data is collected poorly and then poorly disseminated. So what is the answer then? Maybe a strengthening of resolve against all forms of panic? Is there a single event in history has been solved by panic?

This line of thinking is backwards. Usually the problems that we don't solve are the ones where we should have taken stronger measures (i.e, "panicked") earlier instead of waiting for evidence of a threat.

We did listen to the ones crying (i.e, "panicking") over Y2K bug and a lot of money was spent on it before January 1st, 2000, so that got solved swiftly. On the other hand:

- Had we listened to the ones crying (i.e, "panicking") over the excess of the dot-com era, we wouldn't have pets.com and WebVan.

- Had we listened to the ones crying (i.e, "panicking") about the mortgage crisis, we wouldn't have gone through the 2008 recession.

- Had we listened to the ones warning about the need of controlling flights to China in January (i.e, "panicking"), half of Europe wouldn't be in lockdown.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#32

Post by ineedasername »

empath75 wrote: post #4
RobertRoberts wrote: post #2

Common sense needs to prevail over mania, numbers over hyperbole and science over conjecture. But even then, this is hard if our data is collected poorly and then poorly disseminated. So what is the answer then? Maybe a strengthening of resolve against all forms of panic? Is there a single event in history has been solved by panic?

What is panic and why do you think this is a panic? If anything, the lack of concern by policy makers and the public has turned this into a catastrophe. If they had “panicked” three months ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation now.

Unfortunately, if we had panicked 3 months ago and prevented all of this, we'd never know it. People would just look and say, "see it was no big deal, we panicked for nothing".

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#33

Post by catalogia »

ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #27

There was a comment on HN a few days ago basically saying, "what's wrong with panic, maybe we should be panicking" and I just found that comment frightening. We mock all the "idiots" buying up the toilet paper, but panic clouds the clear thinking of even the "intelligent". It can absolutely effect our leaders and medical professionals.

Reading that comment charitably, I guess they meant something about fear sometimes being a productive motivating emotion. In my view, panic is fear strong enough to override rationality. Cool-headed fear might be a good thing, but panic usually isn't.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#34

Post by xienze »

partiallypro wrote: post #7
RobertRoberts wrote: post #2

Common sense needs to prevail over mania, numbers over hyperbole and science over conjecture. But even then, this is hard if our data is collected poorly and then poorly disseminated. So what is the answer then? Maybe a strengthening of resolve against all forms of panic? Is there a single event in history has been solved by panic?

The craziest stat I heard today was on my local news, and it was about COVID19 in the county, Davidson County (Nashville, TN,) they said of all the active cases in the county only 2 had been hospitalized. That's out of 163. The others were sent home to be quarantined and medicated. I was floored. Why are stats like that not shared? That seems like very valuable information. Hospitalization rates should be one of the…

> Why are stats like that not shared? That seems like very valuable information. Hospitalization rates should be one of the main stats being shared, imo.

Because it’s in the neighborhood of 15% worst case needing hospitalization. You’ve already got enough people blowing off quarantine measures, so no one is terribly eager to share that of the people who DO get the virus, 85% don’t require hospitalization. I get the reasoning from a public policy perspective, but I agree that information should be made a bit more easily accessible.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#35

Post by jsnell »

The title is funny, since Ioannidis is actually the one proposing measures ("do nothing") based on no evidence and exaggeration. Basically every number in the paper is tainted by him cherry-picking the most optimistic number possible, and then trying to twist it further into something even better.

Like his argument for the R0 being near 1.3 is just that it's "probably" the case.

At some point we need to be able to call the data we have good enough for making decisions.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#36

Post by tobyjsullivan »

Klinky wrote: post #6

Is this paper basically saying China and Italy's troubles with COVID-19 "ain't no big deal", and that New York and Washington are not struggling? >"Leaving the well-known and highly lethal SARS and MERS coronaviruses aside, other coronaviruses probably have infected millions of people and have killed thousands" This is not cited, and seems like potentially exaggerated non-evidence based information.

For what it's worth, the US CDC has said this about (H1N1)pdm09. I'm not sure if H1N1 is a coronavirus though and I don't know if there's any published research supporting this. But the author's statement seems reasonable enough given it was qualified with "probably".

> From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemi...

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#37

Post by clouddrover »

dannykwells wrote: post #20

Let's check back on this piece in...2 weeks, say, when there are 10,000+ Corona deaths in the US. Well see how it ages then. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/corona... 427× 16 =11102

The number of coronavirus deaths is already over 10,000:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#38

Post by guscost »

lubesGordi wrote: post #28

If this is exaggerated, then surely there have been other epidemics that have gone through the world and had similar effects numbers wise (with cfr for example), and he would be able to refer to them as par for the course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_pneumonia

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#39

Post by treyfitty »

Medicalidiot wrote: post #29
dannykwells wrote: post #20

Let's check back on this piece in...2 weeks, say, when there are 10,000+ Corona deaths in the US. Well see how it ages then. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/corona... 427× 16 =11102

China quarantined 700 million of its citizens for fun and it still killed thousands. I'm sure that they regret the policies they implemented right now as they've finally gotten a hold of the outbreak. Edit: I was being sarcastic here. China messed up the initial response but their draconian tactics worked well.

Why would they regret it? I don’t follow your reasoning. They got a hold of the outbreak precisely because they ramped up quarantining

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#40

Post by ropiwqefjnpoa »

catalogia wrote: post #33
ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #27

There was a comment on HN a few days ago basically saying, "what's wrong with panic, maybe we should be panicking" and I just found that comment frightening. We mock all the "idiots" buying up the toilet paper, but panic clouds the clear thinking of even the "intelligent". It can absolutely effect our leaders and medical professionals.

Reading that comment charitably, I guess they meant something about fear sometimes being a productive motivating emotion. In my view, panic is fear strong enough to override rationality. Cool-headed fear might be a good thing, but panic usually isn't.

Right, panic is pure emotion, fight or flight, hard be rational in that state. Covid19 is "sobering". 100 years since the 1918 flu and we still aren't ready. Even with the billions we spend on health care.
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