Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 968 posts

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#341

Post by mapgrep »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #335
enraged_camel wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> CNN/Fox/MSNBC One of those is not like the other two. CNN and MSNBC may not be as high quality as WaPo/NYTimes in terms of depth and quality of journalism, but they also don't maliciously and cynically and shamelessly lie to their viewers.

I'm not an American and far from Trumps target audience but the CNN is bad as Fox. I have them both on TV. It truly is a kettle and pot situation, I believe so many Americans have grown so deeply into either culture that unfortunately you can't comprehend it anymore.

Every single journalist in the video Paul Graham linked was on Fox News/Fox Business.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#342

Post by jsnell »

taipan100 wrote: post #140
jpxw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Oxford study is based on blatantly, and easily demonstrably, bad data. For example it relies on only 1 out of every 1000 infections needing hospitalisation. This is not supported by any current evidence. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coronavirus-infections-oxfor...

To call the Oxford study "utter rubbish" is foolish. Your "example" of bad data is the only quoted data in that article and it doesn't even mean anything since the implicit assumption of the Gupta model is that we do not know how many asymptomatic cases of COVID exist (even WIRED concede this point). Testing in Italy is insufficient to tell us this. 1 in 1000 infections requiring hospitalisation could be a realistic…

1/1000 was not realistic when the preprint was published, let alone now. It showed that one could fit a bunch of curves onto 14 days of data on deaths. Which is true, but also utterly unintersting. The reason that sorry excuse of a model got so much attention is that the authors did not stop there.

They also made the totally unsupported assumption that one of the lower end curves matched reality. (That's right. They actually made exactly the kind of assumptions you're accusing others of, rather than just argue for antibody testing).

The problem is that when the study was made, there was a lot more data available than just that 14 days of deaths from two countries. And a ton of it was totally incompatible with their modeling.

Here's some of the conflicting data points as of ten days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22698584

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#343

Post by jimbokun »

bsaul wrote: post #10
djaychela wrote: post #5

From what I'm reading, I think there are still a significant minority of people who think this isn't an issue. I've had to learn to just walk away from comments on a variety of media where comments such as 'psychosomatic', 'less dangerous than the flu that kills 50,000 each year', 'patented by the illuminati', 'caused by 5G masts', and so on. I ended up deleting my twitter account as I dared try to engage with one UK…

i've been saying "not more dangerous than the flu" before it started really going to shxt in europe, because to be honest, the epidemic doesn't look that dangerous if you're in general good health, just by looking at the numbers from a distance. The fact that most people seem to not have anything worse than a few days of fever (some having even nothing at all), while at the same time others simply die very quickly to…

The differences with this coronavirus, as I understand it:

1. People are often contagious well before showing symptoms, making it much harder to track and isolate the people who have it.

2. It is about 10x more deadly than the flu. Could be more than that, as it's difficult to extrapolate from the current messy data. But I think it's safe to say it is much more deadly than the seasonal flu.

So far more people getting it, in a very short period of time, and a much higher percentage dying or requiring hospitalization, giving us the results we see. Overwhelmed health care systems, and death counts that will be much higher than seasonal flu without large scale mitigations in place.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#345

Post by jshevek »

avip wrote: post #336
jshevek wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. The original conversation was regarding all public statements, not scientists. This is more about journalists than scientists. > ...and consider how it applies to all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming.

Who cares what journalists say? IPCC and nasa reports are publicly available and use plain language anyone can read.

> Who cares what journalists say? IPCC and nasa reports are publicly available and use plain language anyone can read.

Investigating geological or ecological truth is one thing, investigating causes and consequences for widespread ignorance and bad policy decisions is another. You and I are approaching this from different angles. Unfortunately, journalists have power to shape our society. I would argue that as a group, they have more power than scientists.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#346

Post by chvid »

"No worse than the flu." How could they feel safe saying such things?

Because in most health scares historically this has been correct. That the danger had been wildly overestimated.

And even now, it is not clear that "we" have a correct estimation of the danger.

Recently I read an estimate that 50% of the infected have no symptons. I even read another estimate that 90% have no symptons. Should the latter be correct then we are overestimating the danger and wildly overreacting.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#347

Post by DanBC »

thu2111 wrote: post #187
DanBC wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hospitalization rates of young people _because of_ (instead of just _with_) corona virus? What do you think the mechanism is here? Why are people being hospitalised with covid-19, if it's not covid-19 causing the hospitalisation? People under 50 don't spend much time in ITUs on ventilators, until covid-19 happens and now the ITUs are full of people with covid-19 having air pumped into their lungs to push the fluid…

That's already well understood. People are counted in the stats produced by hospitals if they have the virus, not if they've been hospitalised because of the virus. Literally if someone breaks their arm and they're tested positive, that goes into the stats for "COVID-19 cases". This is also true if someone dies of anything whilst having the virus; they're recorded as a "COVID-19 death". The statistics here don't tell…

To answer your question ("do people die with covid-19, or of it?") with data you might want to read this twitter thread. https://twitter.com/ActuaryByDay/status/1246866119597621248

It links to a document from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre.

The evidence from actual covid treatment doesn't support the "they die with, not of, covid" argument.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#348

Post by jrd259 »

Kaiyou wrote: post #139
TechBro8615 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's amusing to be is how anyone can look at the incompetence of governments across the world, and conclude they'd be capable of any kind of organized conspiracy against the general population.

It's always about benefits. Incompetence doesn't cost government benefits, so nobody cares. However, if there are benefits to be had by organizing a conspiracy against whomever, you can bet your money that this will be done. Nobody cares for "the greater good" or whatever. It's always about personal benefits.

I only wish it was only about benefits, because then it would be rational agent. What (economic) benefit does the Republican party of the US gain by suppressing gay rights or abortion? I can understand wanting to quash unions, prevent minorities from voting, remove environmental controls (in the short run anyway), or cast doubt on opposition media. But who actually gains when e.g. a gay couple can't buy a cake?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#350

Post by fourmyle »

dragonwriter wrote: post #331
AndrewBissell wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The equivalency being drawn by the parent may be wrong, but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus and helped push the "it's not a big deal" perception that we are all now rowing against.

> but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus That's true, I guess, if you consider OANN to have reached the status of “mainstream” with the boost they've gotten with their attachment to the current US administration. But, otherwise, show me some specific examples.

You can look on Youtube yourself and see countless examples o MSNBC and CNN criticizing the travel ban on China because the virus wasn't any more dangerous than the flu.
Post reply on HN