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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

#291

Post by rapidslowness »

amiga_500 wrote: post #82
rootusrootus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm becoming considerably more afraid of the social and economic consequences from the pandemic countermeasures than of the virus itself.

My main fears: 1. They find it does effect kids, it just takes longer 2. They find reinfection is common

Do not fear.

1. All evidence shows children have very low risk of severe illness. It can happen but is very very unlikely.

2. Immunity for corona viruses lasts months or years. Why should it be different for this one? Opposing news stories are mixtures of early discharges from hospitals and false negatives test results.

Studies that test also asymptotic cases from Italy and Heinsberg (Germany) (e.g. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/gesundheit/coronavi...) indicate a R0 much higher than 2 or 3 (more between 5 and 10). We do not know infected people(!!!). We just know cases. My belief and hope is that virus is so infectious live can return to normal in weeks not months because almost everybody already has or had it (in areas with community spreading). Don't panic. Distance and wait.

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

#292

Post by 2008guy »

alkonaut wrote: post #272
2008guy wrote: post #267

The answer seems so obvious. Do a hard, air tight quarantine of people of advanced age. People who are borderline or sick are told to stay inside. Encourage the rest of society to go about business as usual. Provide government support for all of it. Some people will die but probably less than if we have to do this over and over again without ever gaining herd immunity. And few enough to massively ease the burden on h…

Those most at risk are those requiring care. An 80+ person with some illness with typical assistance at home might meet 20+ working age people in a week. That can probably be scaled down in the name of caution to say 5, but it's unlikely to be the same 5 every week because of staff turnover, illness. It's the same whether you receive care at home or in an assisted living facility. Even without such care, a lot of the…

But prove that this matters. How many people are in that group? Is it not possible to quarantine the workers?

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

#293

Post by giantDinosaur »

kgwgk wrote: post #290
giantDinosaur wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to be particularly fit or healthy to go on a cruise. Yes, sure, you can't be on life support, but generally 'healthy enough' to travel on a cruise is exactly what I'd expect from any random sample of the overall population.

You may not understand what "random sample of the overall population" means if you would expect every single person in the sample to be healthy enough to travel on a cruise. Almost 1% of the population in the US has Alzheimer disease or other dementias, for example.

I noted exactly that in my comment. Yes, not all the population can go on a cruise. No, it's not like it's only the healthiest 20% of the population that can. If I randomly sampled the population I'd expect the majority to be capable of a cruise. What do you think cruises are like?

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

#294

Post by phaemon »

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…

> a total of 10k (by say the end of the year)

Two weeks ago Italy had 463 deaths, and it now has 6000. I'm not convinced the US containment measures have been quick enough or effective enough to be significantly better than Italy, so I'd expect 10k deaths in under 3 weeks.

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

#295

Post by kevingadd »

vixen99 wrote: post #264
cycrutchfield wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an argument for letting this disease burn through our entire population. That's an argument for the government to step up and assist people during this time. Edit: and who gives a shit about your retirement account.

People who for whatever reason are utterly dependent on support from the state might well give a shit about the state's decreased capacity to provide aid thanks to additional demand on the part of those whose retirement funds (which allowed them to be self-sufficient) have been destroyed.

At least in my country a big chunk of grandma and grandpa's retirement is subsidized by government programs, if not directly provided by government programs. The same way we provide disability coverage for people who end up out of work through no mistake of their own due to on-the-job injury, etc. You might have your own 401k you deposited salary into or have extra private disability insurance but a big chunk of your safety net here is a government program that you pay into while you're able-bodied and working and then draw out of when you're disabled and/or retired.

It's not as if a disease mitigation shutdown is the only thing that's going to crater grandpa's 401k. His stock holdings took a big hit during the 2008 crash too (as did mine).

Acting to preserve the economy first and foremost will not help those people. You have to keep them alive first while coming up with effective strategies to look after them later in the event that their retirement funds somehow evaporated. What good is protecting their retirement funds if the retiree isn't around to spend them?

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

#296

Post by kevingadd »

ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #48
yurlungur wrote: post #46

It's easy to point at others for imperfect data and imperfect science when the situation is evolving so fast and data is so hard to come by. It seems to me that papers being retracted due to inaccurate evidence is not a sign of sensationalism but of sound science. Once can argue that more diligence should be practiced in the review process, but I assume everyone is trying their best to get the information out there A…

The response will have it consequences too, lost lives, destroyed businesses, ruined families, lost requirement savings.

What ruins families more, a breadwinner losing their job due to a shutdown or spending a month in the hospital?

P.S. You're probably not getting paid wages during that month in the hospital. Have fun paying off those ICU medical bills when you get back if you still have a job somehow and weren't replaced by someone who wasn't on a ventilator.

Unemployed parents are at least around to look after the kids. A parent sick in the hospital with COVID-19 isn't working or looking after anyone.

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

#297

Post by [deleted] »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #234
cma wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#298

Post by kgwgk »

giantDinosaur wrote: post #293
kgwgk wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not understand what "random sample of the overall population" means if you would expect every single person in the sample to be healthy enough to travel on a cruise. Almost 1% of the population in the US has Alzheimer disease or other dementias, for example.

I noted exactly that in my comment. Yes, not all the population can go on a cruise. No, it's not like it's only the healthiest 20% of the population that can. If I randomly sampled the population I'd expect the majority to be capable of a cruise. What do you think cruises are like?

If you agree that they are not a random sample of the population - they are healthy enough to be fit for travel (like the majority of the population) you are not trying to contradict ant6n's comment as I thought. I misunderstood, my apologies.

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

#299

Post by alkonaut »

2008guy wrote: post #292
alkonaut wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those most at risk are those requiring care. An 80+ person with some illness with typical assistance at home might meet 20+ working age people in a week. That can probably be scaled down in the name of caution to say 5, but it's unlikely to be the same 5 every week because of staff turnover, illness. It's the same whether you receive care at home or in an assisted living facility. Even without such care, a lot of the…

But prove that this matters. How many people are in that group? Is it not possible to quarantine the workers?

Prove that what matters? That they meet tons of working age people?

As you say you can expand the circle of isolation. All the at-risk patients (Say people over 65 and all adults with preexisting conditions). Then you isolate those people that they have to interact with. For example all staff at all nursing homes where any such person lives. But you quickly end up where you started. All the people who work in all the nursing homes have kids and spouses. They can't see those people when they aren't working, and then return to work with the risk group. They'd need to take their kids out of school for example (remember the point of all this is to make the rest of society work normally, schools are open). It's hard.

It's probably easier then to designate people as high risk "patients" and treat them with full protective clothing, move them to special homes where care can be given with more protection and so on. But that also requires 3 things: lots of staff, lots of protective gear, lots of time to set up. I don't think there is a surplus of any of those things. It might be something to consider for the long term.

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

#300

Post by irq11 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #184
jamilbk wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree with you, but I want to see more data. Without broad testing it’s difficult to ascertain the true death rate of the virus (many infected are asymptomatic). But my hope is we can come up with similarly effective measures (e.g. require n95 masks in public, keeping the elderly at home, offer voluntary isolated infection to low-risk individuals to increase herd immunity, etc) that can achieve both.

South Korea did extensive testing when they successfully eradicated the virus. As user rramach points out, Ioannidis cherry picks the data in many ways, including ignoring the extensive data of South Korea. Not did was Koreans' testing program extensively documented (by Korean scientific institutions, The Western press, and etc), we know they found most or the larger portion of cases because they were able to bring n…

”Most young people survive but many of those surviving suffer permanent lung damage.”

This is not true. You are repeating misinformation.

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