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An update on a pre-registered result about the coronavirus

kalzumeus.com

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

#51

Post by ForHackernews »

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…

Yeah, I don't understand at all what the purpose of publishing this hash was supposed to be. Is it just to be able to say "I told you so!" (or in this case, I didn't tell you so, but I really did think this) at some later date?

> In a world where I was wrong, people who trust me professionally would likely think less of me. That was an acceptable risk.

Yeah, what a hero taking an extremely slight risk to his reputation in the middle of a pandemic.

Sorry, I normally generally like things patio11 writes on here (he's the bingo card guy, right?) but this whole thing reads like a lengthy ego-stroke.

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

#52

Post by ceejayoz »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #45

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 wo…

> Why is the author afraid of "sanctions" in a first world democracy with strong freedom of speech protections?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...

"Many Western human rights organizations alleged that the high conviction rate is due to rampant use of conviction solely based on confession. Confessions are often obtained after long periods of questioning by police as those arrested may be held for up to 23 days. This can at times take weeks, during which the suspect is in detention and can be prevented from contacting a lawyer or family."

https://www.tofugu.com/japan/sued-in-japan/ alleges truth isn't an affirmative defense in a libel/defamation suit like it would be in the US.

I'm pretty suspicious of any system with a 99% conviction rate.

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

#53

Post by gpderetta »

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.

reverse SEO?

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

#54

Post by jeffreyrogers »

This seems a bit over-the-top. Sure, maybe Japan isn't testing and is just treating pneumonia cases as pneumonia cases instead of the cornavirus cases they actually are, but if that is allowing society to function mostly normally and isn't changing death rates all that much I don't see the harm. Arguably that is a better response than shutting down your economy and creating massive debt problems that will need to be resolved later.

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

#55

Post by OJFord »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #12
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.

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.

> This is a very different essay than my typical work. It may be judged to very different standards in very different quarters than usual. Please excuse my need to write more reservedly and participate less in subsequent commentary than I usually would. Some truths have social consequences, acknowledged or not.

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

#57

Post by aikinai »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #45

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 wo…

> 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.

I completely agree. Where is all this weird expectation of political persecution in Japan coming from? Both from Patrick and a lot of comments in this thread.

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

#58

Post by philwelch »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #45

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 wo…

I strongly suspect your mental model of “a first world democracy with strong freedom of speech protections” is based on your experience living in a Western country, quite possibly as a citizen of that country. I wouldn’t presume to understand how that differs from the experience of living in Japan as an American. Patrick should have earned enough good faith in this community for us to trust his ability to navigate this kind of situation appropriately.

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

#59

Post by PeterisP »

sdffdsfdsfsddsf wrote: post #32

Assuming the ratio of cases with symptoms to cases without symptoms usually remains the same, I must admit I don't immediately understand why it would be important to determine the amount of asymptomatic cases to determine the risk. It seems to me the growth rate of (symptomatic) cases would be the major indicator for that. (Obviously it would be of general interest, but I mean specifically with respect to gauging th…

It's not important to determine the amount of asymptomatic cases, but it's important to detect asymtomatic individuals so that their contacts can be traced and tested as well.

This was not done, and "strategy A" failed because of that.

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

#60

Post by nostromo »

btilly wrote: post #47
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…

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.

Yes, that happens sometimes, but no, there are not thousands of unnoticed dead people in their apartments in Japan.

Occam’s razor in this case is that the pandemic in Japan isn’t as bad as the author projected. It’s not a conspiracy or coverup and there aren’t dead bodies hiding everywhere, the author was just wrong.

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