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An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

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Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#41

Post by jldugger »

joebot123 wrote: post #29
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps that's on purpose. Perhaps he wants to avoid being sued, or similar things. Patrick has a ton of credibility and I would give him the benefit of the doubt here.

The purpose of the overall evasiveness could be to prevent personal retaliation of some kind - that would be understandable. But why avoid mentioning the word Olympics and instead call it "the sporting event" repeatedly? Especially now when your connection to the white paper is public.

Probably because you could end up losing your visa and get sued by the Olympic Committee if you say 'Shinzo Abe is suppressing covid-19 research because of the Olympics.' Maybe even jail time.

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#42

Post by aikinai »

EE84M3i wrote: post #31
m_mueller wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find confusing though is Japan's low death numbers. I was assuming that spikes in mortality couldn't be hidden, but recent comments from inside sources in Japanese hospitals are starting to make me doubt this assumption. Still, there is not a crisis on Lombardia-level going on, which one would expect given the relative inaction of Japanese government. I'm guessing the truth is somewhere in the middle - Japan's…

One theory is that people are dying but it hasn't been discovered yet because of people staying inside. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodokushi Having just ridden the Yamanote today though, it's unreal how empty it is.

I doubt there's much overlap in people who have so little human contact that no one knows they're dead and people who catch viruses that are still present in only a tiny fraction of the population.

Oh, and a third condition that these people be such recluses that they don't even call a doctor when deathly ill.

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#43

Post by ceejayoz »

akavi wrote: post #35
ceejayoz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that Japan's official count is ~11k, is there reason to believe 1/4 of all official cases are "severe"? Yes. That fits data out thus far. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm > Although the majority of reported COVID-19 cases in China were mild (81%) Combine the 19% severe cases number out of China with Japan's aging population (which COVID-19 hits substantially harder), and 1/4 is entirely rea…

Is "mild" vs. "severe" dichotomous? I feel like I've usually seen the trichotomy of "mild" => not needing hospitalization, "moderate" => needing hospitalization, "severe" => needing ICU treatment.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-guida...

> The largest cohort of >44,000 persons with COVID-19 from China showed that illness severity can range from mild to critical38:

> * Mild to moderate (mild symptoms up to mild pneumonia): 81%

> * Severe (dyspnea, hypoxia, or >50% lung involvement on imaging): 14%

> * Critical (respiratory failure, shock, or multiorgan system dysfunction): 5%

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#44

Post by seemslegit »

There is no way Japan's faux-success is due solely or even dominantly to asymptomatic cases, they had to be turning a blind eye to symptomatic ones as well and attributing them to pneumonia, flu etc. The fact that the reported rates began rising only after the Tokyo Olympics were announced cancelled is almost a USSR-era farce.

Japan has a leading hospital-bed-per-capita capacity in the OECD which could help them conceal this but I believe if occupancy of those beds was graphed for the last two months we'd see a curve indicating an epidemic comparable with US and Europe.

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#45

Post by lalaland1125 »

This article frankly sounds like the rambling of a crazy person with all of the attempts of secrecy and defensiveness.

> A distant secondary consideration, but a real one, was that choosing to publish could bring down heavy sanctions, through predictable pathways.

Why is the author afraid of "sanctions" in a first world democracy with strong freedom of speech protections? A much more interesting and useful article would be an examination of the authors exact fears and why he feels afraid of publishing publically in Japan.

> Some have advanced a theory which starts from the observed timeline and assumes the behavior of very many people was motivated by a sporting event.

Normal people simply directly state their arguments about what is obviously the Olympics. Why is the author playing a game by pretending to be circumspect?

> I will broadly refrain from comment regarding that organization, for predictable reasons.

Oh please.

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#46

Post by dahdum »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #6

I usually like patio11's writing style, but this is super verbose even by his standards and oddly evasive/defensive to boot. There's a number of important messages here, but they make up perhaps 10% of the content, and I still don't really fully understand the rationale behind the cloak and dagger "hash of report" business.

I thought the same, like he's walking on eggshells? Maybe it's his assocation with Stripe or due to someone else in the working group? The memo doesn't read as particularly controversial nor did it recommend much concrete action.

I left Japan in early March, by personal anecdote masks seemed pretty ubiquitious (and all public facing employees were wearing them), hotels were screening guest temperatures, warning signs everywhere, etc.. Time will tell, but I still think I'd have been better of staying there than returning to the US.

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#47

Post by btilly »

m_mueller wrote: post #27
grosales wrote: post #21

This is just my 2 cents but according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries Japan has only done 923 tests for 1M of their population. That's much lower than any developed nation. One thing the article claims is the spread of the virus by asymptomatic infected people. Given this low level of testing - it's hard to gauge the true level of infection in the country - although the continuous decrease on…

What I find confusing though is Japan's low death numbers. I was assuming that spikes in mortality couldn't be hidden, but recent comments from inside sources in Japanese hospitals are starting to make me doubt this assumption. Still, there is not a crisis on Lombardia-level going on, which one would expect given the relative inaction of Japanese government. I'm guessing the truth is somewhere in the middle - Japan's…

Japan is a country where at the best of times, a lot of people die at home and are not discovered for some time. If you remove social contacts thanks to lockdown, this is going to become more common.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodokushi for more.

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#48

Post by aikinai »

jldugger wrote: post #41
joebot123 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of the overall evasiveness could be to prevent personal retaliation of some kind - that would be understandable. But why avoid mentioning the word Olympics and instead call it "the sporting event" repeatedly? Especially now when your connection to the white paper is public.

Probably because you could end up losing your visa and get sued by the Olympic Committee if you say 'Shinzo Abe is suppressing covid-19 research because of the Olympics.' Maybe even jail time.

That's not how Japanese immigration or prosecution work. What law or immigration requirement would he be breaking?

Also, tons of people have been saying that for months, both native and foreign.

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#49

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

cortesoft wrote: post #25
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone with disastrous predictions about the coronavirus can and does make that claim. If my predictions aren't true, give it a few weeks and exponential growth will make them true. If they still aren't true, then they would have been true, but whatever we did a few weeks ago must have been the correct reaction to my predictions. The very general thrust - that Japan surely had community spread - I agree was true an…

I understand the problem with some of the claims people make about things being really bad being unfalsifiable. At the same time, the expected outcome of social distancing is for the outcome to be not as bad... so people will always be able to make this complaint. What exactly do you expect from people who are advocating social distancing?

I expect a degree of epistemic humility. "We don't know how bad it's going to get, but we know that the worst case is very bad, so let's go to extreme lengths to make sure we don't hit it" - no objections to that message. But in my local area, and from what I understand many others, people were saying in mid-March that it was already too late and there would surely be bodies in the streets.

Which hasn't been that bad until now, but it's going to be an increasingly large problem as most countries pass the peak and try to reopen. A lot of people have been convinced that reopening can never happen, that if people are allowed to go to school or restaurants that'll be what tips the health care system over.

Re: An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

#50

Post by barry-cotter »

panarky wrote: post #37
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #2

>We project a true count of over 500,000 infections, including more than 5,000 severe cases, and a breakdown in provision of care (“overshoot”) in Nagoya, Osaka, and Tokyo, before the end of April. The current count is ~21,000 with the number of confirmed daily cases declining for 6 days straight, from 741 to 338 yesterday. So... not only wrong on the numbers themselves, but also on the scale, trajectory and impact o…

One might argue that a "true count of infections" is not falsifiable -- people aren't getting tested, causes of deaths aren't properly attributed, officials are juking the stats. A more falsifiable claim is "a breakdown of provision of care in Nagoya, Osaka, and Tokyo, before the end of April". If patients are in parking lots or bodies are in refrigerated trucks and mass graves, that evidence is harder to hide. There…

Refusing to test, secret testing locations, over two hours on hold on the COVID hotline. Things aren’t looking great.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/524159784940511/permalink/52...

> 4/17 Friday: At noon my friend wakes up and asks if I can call her ward's 保健所 and make a PCR test appointment for her. I call them at 12:30.

> It took 2 HOURS to set up a PCR test.

> As I expected, the staff was INCREDIBLY resistant to offer a test, and spent 2 hours asking me 100 questions about her symptoms, what treatment she had received so far, what hospital she went to the night before, name of the doctor who recommended her a test etc. I'm put on hold for an extra hour as they sort their things out. They finally call me back and tell me all of the information for her test. But here's the kicker. It's a secret location. It's a medical facility that's currently closed, but is being used as a corona testing site on the downlow. To enter the building, she'll have to walk through the parking lot and use the staff entrance. The woman on the phone makes me promise not to tell ANYONE other than my friend the name of the place where she is being tested. Because if people knew they were doing testing there it would "cause a commotion." I really wish I was making that last part up. It's absolutely horrific how much they are trying to cover this up and keep the official numbers low. I am currently waiting for them to call again with her test results. Getting her tested required 1 ambulance ride, two visits to the hospital and 5+ hours on the phone. This is ridiculous and something needs to change."

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