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Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

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Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#61

Post by xboxnolifes »

pupppet wrote: post #48
hbn wrote: post #13

> The Spanish flu was previously the disease event that caused the biggest loss of life in the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 pandemic, in waves of illness that stretched out over roughly two years in this country. > According to STAT’s Covid-19 Tracker, Covid deaths stand at more than 675,400. Why are we comparing raw numbers? If one…

You’re arguing that as population increases, individual lives become less important?

No, he's arguing that if you randomly shoot a gun a few times into a room, you'll probably hit more people if it has 100 people inside rather than 5. And that the gun didn't become more deadly just because the number of targets increased.

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#62

Post by pupppet »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #61
pupppet wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re arguing that as population increases, individual lives become less important?

No, he's arguing that if you randomly shoot a gun a few times into a room, you'll probably hit more people if it has 100 people inside rather than 5. And that the gun didn't become more deadly just because the number of targets increased.

That's fair.

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#63

Post by pwinnski »

happy_path wrote: post #51
jasonlotito wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way we name these things was in fact recently changed for precisely this reason. I forget where I read this, but yes, this is why it’s COVID 19 and not any of the other bad names that people tried to give it. Unfortunately, names for things in the past are harder to change, because people know it as the Spanish Flu, so even if you said the 1918 flu pandemic, you’d still have to clarify which one at this point in…

Like the Cleveland Indians (founded in 1894)? If your thesis is true, why are they changing their name?

Effective communication is a negotiation between speaker and listener. You are welcome to refer to the 1918 flu epidemic by any name you wish. In doing so, you will be causing confusion in some number of your listeners who do not recognize that name in the way they would the more traditional "Spanish Flu."

That might be worth it to you, and over a long enough period of time, perhaps your preferred name will be more widely known, but make no mistake: it's not what most people know today.

And to your point, I already can't remember the new name of the Cleveland team. I think it started with a V?

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#64

Post by pwinnski »

mrfinn wrote: post #38
TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first post, the lab alert from 7/21/21, withdraws the request for Emergency Use Authorization for the PCR test. The second clarification post explains why, in that the "CDC began distributing the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCOV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel to fill a gap. The wide availability of other SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests means that the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Di…

From the first post: "In preparation for this change, CDC recommends clinical laboratories and testing sites that have been using the CDC 2019-nCoV RT-PCR assay select and begin their transition to another FDA-authorized COVID-19 test. CDC encourages laboratories to consider adoption of a multiplexed method that can facilitate detection and differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses." TL;DR "Move on from the…

I am discontinuing the ingestion of Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero. I will need to begin my transition to another calorie-free carbonated beverage. I have been encouraged to consider adoption of a calorie-free carbonated beverage that quenches my thirst.

Am I saying that Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero does not quench my thirst? Because it does. No, the statements above only suggest that when evaluating replacements for Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero, I should choose a replacement that meets all of the same requirements.

You are clearly not the only person confused by the language, which is why they published a clarification. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether such confusion is natural or should have been anticipated.

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#65

Post by refurb »

vmception wrote: post #58
refurb wrote: post #12

Deadliest if you ignore the fact the US population 3 times bigger. But it made you click! And that’s what’s important at the end of the day.

wow, nobody thought of that, you are a genius and a scholar, perceiving so many variables simultaneously! (the article mentions this)

But you clicked! And that’s what’s important.

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#66

Post by happy_path »

CountDrewku wrote: post #59
happy_path wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way that Native-Americans are not called redskins anymore, I'd expect more empathy towards Spaniards.

Are you suggesting the word Spanish is a slur? Would you like the word Redskins wiped from all history? Can I flag your comment for removal then? Stuff like this is such a waste of time for everyone. Do you really think any significant amount of people are holding prejudice towards Spaniards because they attached a disease to their name over a century ago? I mean really, you must have better things to worry about.

I'm suggesting that calling a disease with the name of a nationality is as bad as a slur. The same can be said by calling Syphilis "the French disease".

You can flag my comment if you want, I simply don't care.

I have many things to do. However, I think that naming things in a better way is important. Calling a disease by a nationality is disgraceful.

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#67

Post by happy_path »

pwinnski wrote: post #63
happy_path wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the Cleveland Indians (founded in 1894)? If your thesis is true, why are they changing their name?

Effective communication is a negotiation between speaker and listener. You are welcome to refer to the 1918 flu epidemic by any name you wish. In doing so, you will be causing confusion in some number of your listeners who do not recognize that name in the way they would the more traditional "Spanish Flu." That might be worth it to you, and over a long enough period of time, perhaps your preferred name will be more w…

You have to start somewhere. If a name is not a good name, society should be pushing for a change of that name. It doesn't matter if it's because racism (Cleveland Indians case) or bad taste (Spanish Flu).

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#68

Post by rich_sasha »

gruez wrote: post #45
rich_sasha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World population in 1920 was presumably somewhere between 1.6bn and 2bn: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-populat... so 4-5x smaller than now.

Right, but that's not small enough to make a difference. To go to the extreme, if your population size was 100, and some guy died of the flu, that's a 1% death rate! That doesn't actually mean the death rate of the flu is actually 1%, because you don't know whether that guy just happened to die because your group was unlucky, or that the death rate is 1%. As your population size gets bigger this becomes less of a pro…

Ah if it’s just about significance (I thought you were arguing about rate of death being negligibly different) then agreed, little difference. In this kind of scenario, errors decrease like 1/sqrt(sample size) so quadrupling the sample size leads to halving the error (which was tiny to start off with).

If 1 out of 20 die of flu, the frequentist 1 sigma error is roughly 5% too, so same order of magnitude as the probability estimate. Different story with a hierarchical Bayesian model etc.

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#69

Post by CodeGlitch »

happy_path wrote: post #55
CodeGlitch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have a relationship with Spain - because Spain was the 1st country to widely report it. Other countries were too busy fighting over trenches in France.

No, Spain was the only country that did not censor the press. The virus did not have origin in Spanish territory. USA, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France and UK all had a strong grip on the news.

.. Yes, what I said. Spain where the only ones to report on it.

Re: Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

#70

Post by CountDrewku »

happy_path wrote: post #66
CountDrewku wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting the word Spanish is a slur? Would you like the word Redskins wiped from all history? Can I flag your comment for removal then? Stuff like this is such a waste of time for everyone. Do you really think any significant amount of people are holding prejudice towards Spaniards because they attached a disease to their name over a century ago? I mean really, you must have better things to worry about.

I'm suggesting that calling a disease with the name of a nationality is as bad as a slur. The same can be said by calling Syphilis "the French disease". You can flag my comment if you want, I simply don't care. I have many things to do. However, I think that naming things in a better way is important. Calling a disease by a nationality is disgraceful.

>You can flag my comment if you want, I simply don't care.

You care enough to want the term Spanish Flu removed but you don't care about throwing the word Redskins around? At least keep the logic of your stances straight. Otherwise, people might assume you're just trying to appear progressive for social credit and you don't really care about the empathy you're claiming too.

Empathy is overrated anyway. I kinda don't care how you feel and I'm not going to base my beliefs on whether it upsets someone.

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