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Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

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Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#271

Post by downerending »

TomMckenny wrote: post #122

Judging from the comments, explaining the severity of the epidemic is now politically charged. Epidemiologists and the medical field have made it clear we are _under_ reacting. But apparently some politicians want to down play the problem and their obfuscation is echoed in every corner of the web with great zeal and again drowning out reality. It's like the climate change denial phenomenon but at high speed.

Epidemiologists know a lot about epidemics, but they're not necessarily as good at figuring out the total effect of pandemic in the long term (for example, how economic effects could kill large numbers via suicide and general want). It's very important to have people looking at the total picture.

Beyond that, even the politics is not falling in predictable lines. There was a report this morning that the mayor of New York wants to reopen the schools in a few weeks.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#272

Post by simonh »

StrangeDoctor wrote: post #240
simonh wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The serious problem with the comment is that it's saying these reports are annoying, however it is not the job of the providers of these reports to provide hard statistics, it's not as if any of them have the option to do that themselves instead. So it's basically just saying, shut up. I don't want to hear your annoying report of actual effects on human beings.

A more charitable reading of the comment would be an annoyance of anecdotes without underlying prevalence data to contextualize the info. It would be all too easy for the media to pick a healthy senior with a mild case and tout “it sucks but it’s not so bad” or find cases of healthy 18yo dying in horrific conditions to fit their overall narrative.

Data by itself doesn't cut it. That nurse in London didn't commit suicide because of data. She did is because she couldn't face the reality of treating so many patients dying in agony.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#273

Post by Gibbon1 »

yters wrote: post #209
Gibbon1 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea stockpiled enough supplies to do mass testing and contact tracing right out of the gate. And they have a functional government and a public that knows when to obey.

doesnt sound like what the OP was proposing also, sk only tested people with significant ailments

Far as I understand sk tested and quarantined contacts ill or not.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#274

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

slazaro wrote: post #253
dreen wrote: post #24

Judging by the history of most pandemics, I am currently more worried about the capacity of morgues than hospitals. Maybe this one will be different though.

Really? You're more worried about lifeless atoms piling up than actual humans dying?

Improper corpse disposal can itself help spread disease.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#275

Post by [deleted] »

seph-reed wrote: post #242
thomascgalvin wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we're more likely to listen to a politician (or a media figure) rather than someone who has spent the better portion of four decades studying a topic is one of the most existential threats we face. We need to figure out a way to get through the tribal mentality. Right now, a significant plurality (if not an actual majority) of people are more concerned about their side winning points than about effectiv…

Seriously, what is the analogous computer science problem to this? Why is it that a lifetime of experiences, and I still draw blanks every time I try to figure out what to do about this stuff. I mean... everything minus scenarios which include massive amounts of death. Surely there's a better way though.

[deleted]

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#276

Post by jhanschoo »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #194
TomMckenny wrote: post #122

Judging from the comments, explaining the severity of the epidemic is now politically charged. Epidemiologists and the medical field have made it clear we are _under_ reacting. But apparently some politicians want to down play the problem and their obfuscation is echoed in every corner of the web with great zeal and again drowning out reality. It's like the climate change denial phenomenon but at high speed.

The fact that we're more likely to listen to a politician (or a media figure) rather than someone who has spent the better portion of four decades studying a topic is one of the most existential threats we face. We need to figure out a way to get through the tribal mentality. Right now, a significant plurality (if not an actual majority) of people are more concerned about their side winning points than about effectiv…

You can't do anything about this stuff without a lot of power. It's a very deep-rooted problem in US society. One aspect of this that I was thinking about yesterday is that everyone can spout all kinds of hogwash and opinion without fear of repercussion, because this is socially tolerated in US society more than some others.

But with today's amazing communication technology this means that strong opinions without evidence in support of ideological action for causes and reasons not grounded in reality gets broadcasted; low-quality opinion masquerading as facts.

But I think it may be possible to "hack" this lack of repercussion by a platform/institution where reporters/publishers can artificially promise repercussions for themselves that so-and-so statement is true. e.g. betting that a claim is true, and allowing anyone to challenge your claim with contrary evidence by posting a higher stake, that if the challenge meets some platform/institution-wide threshold for rules of evidence, allows the challenger to pocket up to half of the prior claim's stake (the remaining becomes the stake for the new claim), else the challenger loses their stake and the prior claim stands. Of course, the evidence needs to meet a certain standard.

The hope is that non-bogus rules of evidence end up supporting only a theory of very sane and reasonable facts, whereas bogus rules of evidence end up allowing a lot of bogus claims to stand unchallenged that are not falsifiable, or that claims are too easily contradicted, so that it becomes easy for people to tell real information from ideological polemic, and also invites challenge from fact-checkers and competing interests.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#277

Post by viklove »

jai_ wrote: post #247
Someone wrote: post #238

”The state is home to more than 6% of the world's confirmed cases so far” World population: 7½ billion. 6% of that: 450 million. Population of New York State: 20 million. ⇒ overrepresentation factor: 22½. Open question: how much of that is due to more testing being done in New York State, compared to, say, India or Pakistan (large, less wealthy countries that may skew the statistics)

They claim 6% of confirmed cases not 6% of the world's population.

Yes, so 6%/22.5 is the percentage of cases NY should have, given a uniform distribution. They're overrepresented by 22.5x.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#278

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

dingaling wrote: post #260
viklove wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Loyola University Health System in Chicago—which set a hospital flu-activity record of 190 confirmed cases between January 7 and 13 It's not even close to what we saw just this week from coronavirus. Stop making a comparison where there isn't one to be made, this is much worse than the flu.

> this is much worse than the flu. The CDC estimates that up to 710,000 Americans have been hospitalised by the flu in the past six months out of 54 million infected. Up to 59,000 of them died. IN SIX MONTHS. In the USA alone. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e... Stop trivialising influenza.

59k deaths out of 54 million infections is a 0.1% fatality rate. While the average fatality rate for COVID19 using global statistics is around 4%, let's use South Korea as an example because they have been testing much more frequently than other countries. The South Korea fatality rate is about 1%, so we'd see 540k fatalities in the US for similar infection rates.

Also, initial R0 transmission statistics for COVID19 look to be in the 2.5 range, where the R0 for seasonal flu is around 1.3.

So COVID19 is 2x as transmissible, and 10x as deadly. I don't think the conversation is around dismissing the seriousness of the flu, and more around emphasizing the risk of COVID19.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#279

Post by gnulinux »

TomMckenny wrote: post #122

Judging from the comments, explaining the severity of the epidemic is now politically charged. Epidemiologists and the medical field have made it clear we are _under_ reacting. But apparently some politicians want to down play the problem and their obfuscation is echoed in every corner of the web with great zeal and again drowning out reality. It's like the climate change denial phenomenon but at high speed.

Everything is political in the US. Can't you tell? A scientific fact such as global warming has been political for decades now. It's not surprising a global pandemic can be politicized as well.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#280

Post by gnulinux »

dingaling wrote: post #260
viklove wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Loyola University Health System in Chicago—which set a hospital flu-activity record of 190 confirmed cases between January 7 and 13 It's not even close to what we saw just this week from coronavirus. Stop making a comparison where there isn't one to be made, this is much worse than the flu.

> this is much worse than the flu. The CDC estimates that up to 710,000 Americans have been hospitalised by the flu in the past six months out of 54 million infected. Up to 59,000 of them died. IN SIX MONTHS. In the USA alone. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e... Stop trivialising influenza.

What a disappointing reply. We're trying to express that this is much worse than flu. Nobody is trivializing flu; flu is bad enough, the entire point is this is WORSE than flu, so our reaction should be more comprehensive than flu.
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