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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

#311

Post by orwin »

mr_toad wrote: post #212
RobertRoberts wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But didn't the French revolution have highly intellectual leaders that sought to create an entirely new government? I doubt they decided their rules of law while feeling panic. It was likely done over a long period of time with careful thought and consideration.

That ‘careful thought and consideration’ let to the Reign of Terror. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror The road to hell, & etc.

This "Reign of Terror" (La Terreur) is becoming highly controversial amongst academic historians. Don't believe everything on wikipedia, even if it fits your views.

Furret and Soboul are most likely the cause of those, but better, or at least more descriptivist/scientific historians like https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Biard or https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Cl%C3%A9ment_Martin are probably closer to the truth.

I'm not saying that Furret is a bad historian: he is the reason why we can be closer to the truth, now. By disproving some of the marxist interpretation claims and advancing his own interpretation, he allowed younger historian to do the same to his own, finding proofs through legislative archives that some "French revolution facts" were not really facts, and especially, the legend about the assembly: "La Terreur est a l'ordre du jour".

French textbook still have not been updated, and neither was wikipedia :/

Sorry, i'm an history nerd.

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

#312

Post by rsynnott »

Barrin92 wrote: post #103
defen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “If we assume that case fatality rate among individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2 is 0.3% in the general population — a mid-range guess from my Diamond Princess analysis — and that 1% of the U.S. population gets infected (about 3.3 million people), this would translate to about 10,000 deaths.” Why would we use the Diamond Princess CFR instead of China's, or Italy's, or South Korea's? Where does the idea of 1% come fro…

>Why would we use the Diamond Princess CFR instead of China's, or Italy's, or South Korea's? because everyone on the diamond princess was tested. So we know for sure how many cases we are dealing within the sample. ~0.3 and ~0.9% are also not optimistic guesses but the current numbers for Germany and SK. Italy sits at 9%. So the situation is either that Italy is vastly underestimating cases, or Germany and South Kore…

Italy is a very elderly population. If, as seems to be the case, death rate ramps up dramatically over 70 and especially over 80, then this may explain part of it (though clearly testing in Germany and SK has been more effective than in Italy, too).

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

#313

Post by rsynnott »

giantDinosaur wrote: post #287
cycrutchfield wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out the generic reason was being human

No, the generic reason is age. This is presumably the oldest we've been on average as a species, let alone in certain countries.

While age is probably a factor in Italy, it's less of a factor in China, Iran and Spain, which also have high death rates (though the Chinese high death rate was mostly in the early stages). What these cases have in common is a very large surge which overwhelmed local health services.

If it was entirely based on age, you'd expect higher rates of death in Japan and Germany (both very elderly populations), lower in China (less elderly population) and much lower in Iran (young population).

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

#314

Post by rsynnott »

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?

Mortality _always_ falls at this time of year. As you can clearly see on the chart.

From your own link:

> Pooled estimates of all-cause mortality show normal expected levels of mortality in the participating countries.

The issue isn't that COVID is killing a lot of people right now on a continental level; in the scheme of things it's a statistical blip. The issue is the _potential_ deaths if it gets broadly out of control. If all Europe had rates similar to Northern Italy, this graph would look very, very different.

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

#315

Post by Retric »

rramach wrote: post #174
Barrin92 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would we use the Diamond Princess CFR instead of China's, or Italy's, or South Korea's? because everyone on the diamond princess was tested. So we know for sure how many cases we are dealing within the sample. ~0.3 and ~0.9% are also not optimistic guesses but the current numbers for Germany and SK. Italy sits at 9%. So the situation is either that Italy is vastly underestimating cases, or Germany and South Kore…

John's analysis is cherry picking in many ways. Death rate in Diamond Princess is 1.1% today and 2% is listed as severe. Assuming 50% of severe make it, final fatality rate for the ship may end up closer to 2%. John then adds a 50% discount factor but it is not clear how he picked that number. Also, the 1% of population infected seems to be another number pulled out of a hat. If we are basing our figures based only o…

The Dimond Princess was evacuated. It’s passengers where unusually healthy for their age range, and while older than the general population had few people over 85 which is the most at risk population. Further, these people got world class care from experts and whatever minimal care an overworked heath system could provide.

Given all that they still had 9 deaths out of 712 infected with many still in critical condition.

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

#316

Post by rsynnott »

rglullis wrote: post #31
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…

Another example that people seem to have basically forgotten about is the ozone hole. That could have been extremely nasty, had action not been taken.

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

#317

Post by listsfrin »

gpderetta wrote: post #280
listsfrin wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Those people haven't stopped dying. As a comparison, 700 people have been dying every day for covid-19 in Italy. Also deaths are not (yet) evenly distributed but greatly concentated in the north.

You are building the world around your arguments. You have no proof but still talk, talk, talk.

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

#318

Post by Retric »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #306
ant6n wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Diamond Princess is also likely not a random sample of the population - they are healthy enough to be fit for travel.

Isn't the average age on a cruise ship far older than in the general population? I would've thought the people on board would on average be far more vulnerable.

It’s a narrow band excluding the young and oldest so, the average is older but the maximum is younger. With a very sharp decline in their 80’s, which is when things really get bad.

Considering how quickly the numbers get worse with age and ill heath many countries are at higher risk.

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

#319

Post by rsynnott »

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…

That doesn't seem abnormal? The majority of cases don't need hospitalisation. Some countries have hospitalised most cases while numbers are small, but mostly as a precaution, and they'll be kicked out once numbers rise. I thought that was fairly well known.

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

#320

Post by rsynnott »

int_19h wrote: post #200
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of which, before the revolution in which Soviets came to power, we had serfdom in russia - basically our version of a feudal system

Serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861.

Eh... _kind of_. It was abolished in such a way that in practice it kept more or less functioning for a very long time afterwards.
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