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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

#141

Post by guscost »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #98
guscost wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you must see that now we're having a moral/ethical/political/religious argument, very far removed from anything resembling science? This is exactly my point. You may believe that you have identified all of "the real nonsense" perfectly well, and your suggestions might be better or worse than mine. But good luck becoming any more certain than you are right now, or proving your case to anyone else. Put another w…

> Put another way: If you believe that X is a "serious enough" risk and I do not, but I believe that Y is a "serious enough" risk and you do not, how do we resolve that disagreement? Who gets the money? Worst possible outcome for overreacting could be severe economic hardship and domestic unrest. Worst possible outcome for under-reacting could be millions dead, leading to severe economic hardship and domestic unrest.…

Let's not be naive here, the worst possible consequence of overreaction is a war.

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

#142

Post by jamilbk »

It’s much easier to quantify the harms of allowing business as usual and letting the infection spread (namely # of deaths) than it is quantifying the cascading repercussions of a massive global economic meltdown.

Accordingly, world leaders are being judged based on their ability to contain the spread rather than prevent economic devastation.

As a society we are faced with navigating the delicate balance between how many lives we put to risk vs how much economic turmoil we can tolerate.

With so little data on the latter (economic crashes absolutely can lead to deaths as well), it feels like we aren’t equipped to make educated policy decisions on how far we should go to limit the spread.

I hope after all this we can create a more cohesive playbook for navigating these tradeoffs in the future. Many of these public health orders feel like knee jerk reactions lacking evidence.

Better to err on the side of caution I suppose.

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

#143

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #104
wwweston wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we under-react and 20 million people die, then another harm would have been caused And it's worth noting if anything on the order of millions of people die, then there going to be economic impacts -- that's a hell of a demand crater and productivity shock.

Worst case. Instead of quickly developing herd immunity, the US ends up with persistent low level outbreaks over two to three years like the 1918 flu. If that happens the rest of the world will quarantine us.

What are you trying to say? If the rest of the world would develop hard immunity, they would have no need to quarantine you.

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

#144

Post by scarmig »

Barrin92 wrote: post #129
joe_the_user wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unanswered question of the GP is why you'd expect only 1% of the US population to be infect? I can't see the slightest basis for such an assumption. This an extremely infectious, quickly spreading disease. 30% of the US population seem like a more likely estimate. SK has a 1.3% fatality rate at the end but that was with a functioning health case system. If even 1% of the US population get infect, the health syste…

>The unanswered question of the GP is why you'd expect only 1% of the US population to be infect? Ioannidis addresses this in the article. Extensive community spread is actually unlikely to be the case for this virus, epidemic development is hard to discern from simply increasing rates in testing and sensitive populations seeking testing, and maybe most importantly there is little evidence that lockdowns and other ex…

His own numbers predict fewer deaths in Italy than it's already reported.

The lockdown in Italy has, thankfully, seemed to limit the virus to sublinear growth, using the very small sample of the past three days.

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

#145

Post by ClumsyPilot »

jamilbk wrote: post #142

It’s much easier to quantify the harms of allowing business as usual and letting the infection spread (namely # of deaths) than it is quantifying the cascading repercussions of a massive global economic meltdown. Accordingly, world leaders are being judged based on their ability to contain the spread rather than prevent economic devastation. As a society we are faced with navigating the delicate balance between how m…

If 10% of the population needs ICU and dies because they cant get it, then there is no business as usual.

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

#146

Post by Barrin92 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #139
Barrin92 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The unanswered question of the GP is why you'd expect only 1% of the US population to be infect? Ioannidis addresses this in the article. Extensive community spread is actually unlikely to be the case for this virus, epidemic development is hard to discern from simply increasing rates in testing and sensitive populations seeking testing, and maybe most importantly there is little evidence that lockdowns and other ex…

But talk about lack of data. This is looking at the spread of a different virus - a virus that certainly does not have the infectiousness of the Covid virus. So the this pure speculation.

It's a meta-study looking at over 67 papers that address the question of the spread of respiratory viruses. Obviously, every virus is a new virus, that is always a problem.

The question remains however why we ought to treat concerns about data about the virus different than concerns about data about the response to the virus. Why do we treat the virus like a black swan event, but not the unprecedented response of shutting economic and civil liberty down to a degree maybe not seen in 100 years?

It seems ironic that people critize Ioannidis for a sort of first-order error in thinking by not considering uncertainty. Yet causing damage and applying first-order thinking to disruption of global supply chains that likely will drive entire nations into deep recession and instability is apparently adequate.

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

#147

Post by joe_the_user »

usaar333 wrote: post #127
joe_the_user wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington state doesn't have a statewide lockdown, I don't know if even Seattle has a lockdown. California is doing the best but there are still crowds defying the lockdown at beaches and parks. Just as much, grocery stores are open as usual and even with most people trying to do social distancing, I'm doubtful you're clamping that hard on the infection, unfortunately. I think the best is that when fatalities spike…

The measures that have in place in both states have drastically clamped down on infection rates - the growth in WA is barely above linear at this point (and remember you are always looking 10 days backward). CA is also sub-exponential. Look at the data (in the presence of high testing): https://covid-19.direct/state/WA If you look at thermometer data (less accurate, but a good predictor), there's little problem going…

To my eyes, California just looks slower exponential and Washington is ambiguous. A few days of non-growth can be randomness or reporting problems.

But I hope you're right! We all need to do our parts.

I'd also note that things are getting "hot" in other states and each has it's problems.

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

#148

Post by ClumsyPilot »

hartator wrote: post #137
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

Well deaths in the US only for flu were 50,000 last year. Still 5x less.

Corvid 19 deaths are doubling every 3 days in US and a few other countries. Do the extrapolation.

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

#149

Post by joe_the_user »

cma wrote: post #122
usaar333 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That rate is highly unlikely to hold. There's enough stay in place restrictions in effect to drive it down after about a week or so. FWIW, at this point, it looks like NYC is going to take a huge hit and the other outbreaks (Seattle, California) will look mild comparitively.

Deaths lag measures by more than that. We might see Washington’s measures kicking in strong by then but NY will probably be some time.

Yes, death lags and testing is inaccurate. We're flying blind.

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

#150

Post by Zombieball »

usaar333 wrote: post #108
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

That rate is highly unlikely to hold. There's enough stay in place restrictions in effect to drive it down after about a week or so. FWIW, at this point, it looks like NYC is going to take a huge hit and the other outbreaks (Seattle, California) will look mild comparitively.

> There's enough stay in place restrictions in effect to drive it down after about a week or so.

Why do you think that?

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