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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

#231

Post by listsfrin »

fbn79 wrote: post #213

"And yet it moves" Galileo Galilei https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_yet_it_moves?wprov=sfla1 . I agree that in many axpects the situation is exagerated, in primis by general panic. But If the Covid is not much worse than flu why in Italy we have military trucks convoy that transport death to southern regions because the wait line for crematory in North is becomed too long?

In normal times Italy has a death rate of 10 deaths/1000 people. Which translates to ~1500 daily for a population of 60 millions. What were they doing previously with the dead?

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

#232

Post by antpls »

robocat wrote: post #222
antpls wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, in March 2018, 58 000 people died in Italy. We will see how many died this March 2020 : http://demo.istat.it/index_e.html (see green section on the right, By Month) Also the following study from August 2019 (before covid19) shows that Italy has more deaths due to influenza every year than any other EU country : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197121...

> shows that Italy has more deaths due to influenza every year than any other EU country I’ve read that if an elderly person dies in Italy while they have the flu or coronavirus, then that is recorded as the cause of death. Some other countries put down other reasons like diabetes complications, or heart failure. Possibly due to pressure from insurance, or avoiding liability for iatrogenic diseases, or avoiding KPIs…

What proves me that you understand them better than I do?

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

#233

Post by [deleted] »

antpls wrote: post #210
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Even in Italy, the National Health Institute said that 88% of the declared "dead by covid19" had in fact at least 1 or 2 other pre-morbidities. If a 80 years old dies from heart attack and is tested positive by covid19, it will count as "dead by covid19". The numbers we see in the news of "CFR" for the covid19 are, in my opinion, inaccurate. The number only shows the spread of the infection, not its actual fatality r…

[deleted]

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

#234

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

cma wrote: post #223
robocat wrote: post #84

Firstly, there is 10 weeks of evidence on what other countries have done to avoid transmission. Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, China, and Japan all show a variety of strategies and have some successes under their belts. Sure, it’s messy social data, and they have systematic differences from other countries, but it’s real data about what is working. Ioannidis says: “If we assume that case fatality rate among individual…

Ioannidis even questions if ventilators are helping. He basically says without evidence to the contrary, they may be a placebo (the part about ICU beds). And all the low CFRs he cherry picked have now increased dramatically.

That's not exactly a ridiculous hypothesis. A ventilator is life support; you're put on it when you're in the process of dying in hopes that something will happen before you finish.

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

#235

Post by watwut »

postalrat wrote: post #178

http://www.euromomo.eu/ Mortality across Europe has drastically declined in the past few months. Seems like everyone sitting at home is saving a ton of lives. Fewer accidents, fewer sicknesses, maybe even people eating a bit healthier. Why stop locking yourselves indoors when so many lives are being saved by not leaving home?

Europe was not sitting at home for months. Few weeks basically, including most of Itally.

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

#236

Post by watwut »

hyperbovine wrote: post #185
jsnell wrote: post #35

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 ca…

Weirdly enough, just yesterday I took all available sequence data currently on GISAID, used it to estimate R0, and got ... 1.3.

The imperial college had it estimated 2.1 - 3.3 before "stay at home" measures. Obligatory influenza is 1.5.

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

#237

Post by _y5hn »

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.

Mitigation is not "panicking". The earlier you do it, the less costly.

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

#238

Post by johnohara »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #196
johnohara wrote: post #171

The acid test for this article will take place towards the end of this week and into next according to the Surgeon General. Honestly, we're all holding our collective breath and waiting to see whether or not the U.S. begins to approach the same values associated with the Diamond Princess. So far, the mortality rate of those testing positive, asymptomatic and symtomatic, published by the CDC today, is 0.0119 compared…

>So far, the mortality rate of those testing positive, asymptomatic and symtomatic, published by the CDC today, is 0.0119 compared to the DP's 0.013. This is completely meaningless. Fatalities lag the start of cases by several weeks. Many people from the existing set of active cases will die in the next few weeks. You really should not use this number to draw any conclusions.

Not drawing any conclusions. Just watching the CDC's number approach the DP's number as a point of comparison.

The DP provides an accurate percentage of asymptomatic positives based upon real testing.

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

#239

Post by watwut »

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?

They are being shared daily.

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

#240

Post by op03 »

robocat wrote: post #206
op03 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but sometimes you have to make decisions without enough data and change your game How orgs mess up handling complex problems, which they are not prepared for, or have the capacities, or time to handle has been studied ever since the second world war scientifically. And science comes up with the concept of Bounded Rationality. Which says if an org doesnt have the mental capacities, time, resources or the problem fal…

> Bounded Rationality and more modern iterations of such theories suggest a simple solution - Pick simpler problems. Reality and emergent behaviour throws us complex problemS (like a novel virus), so how does that advice help?

With more data and info flowing its getting more and more obvious how bad we are at handling complexity. That evidence is going to keep accumulating.

How people deal with that fact (or dont) is important.

The current response/reaction to that, is to blame/replace leaders/find false messiahs/feel good narratives/distractions etc but all that doesn't reduce complexity.

It doesn't require everyone to agree on what our collective and individual limitations are but just to focus on limitations of those we don't like.

Its a trap and what the theory says is it wont matter what people do in response to crisis when they are stuck in that trap.

Orgs do a bunch of things to create conditions where groups/factions don't get carried away by blindness to their own limitations. If you are interested in the subject start with Herbert Simon's books.

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