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Coronavirus Real Time Map

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Re: Coronavirus Real Time Map

#141

Post by ta999999171 »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #129
ta999999171 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can outsmart a traffic accident. Tough for most to outrun/outsmart an epidemic. Read/watch some of the Twitter whistleblowers. Govs have no reason to tell everyone the true risks - and every reason to hide them.

> You can outsmart a traffic accident. That's absurd considering how many people are unwilling victims of accidents, how exactly would you outsmart it? Never leave home?

No, be an above-average professional driver that can predict accidents based on driving behavior.

It's a thing.

Re: Coronavirus Real Time Map

#142

Post by ShorsHammer »

ta999999171 wrote: post #141
ShorsHammer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can outsmart a traffic accident. That's absurd considering how many people are unwilling victims of accidents, how exactly would you outsmart it? Never leave home?

No, be an above-average professional driver that can predict accidents based on driving behavior. It's a thing.

So everyone can simply just be above-average? Given how that is the cognitive bias most widely associated with driving it's a tad ironic.

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

Regardless, let's turn that comment around: could it not similarly apply to hygiene and risk of infection? Just be an above-average smart citizen and you'll be fine, yes?

Re: Coronavirus Real Time Map

#143

Post by infinity0 »

brigandish wrote: post #135
infinity0 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally thousands of other people have the same qualifications as him and are also not freaking out over Twitter. I'd say the data leans more heavily in the other direction.

> As a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher, He was ranked in 2018 as among the Top 1% of all scientists worldwide. Let's cut that down to hundreds.

If 1% of all (medical) scientists is 500 then that means there are 50k (medical) scientists in the whole world. With some basic web searching, that would appear to be an underestimate; "thousands" would be a better estimate.

Re: Coronavirus Real Time Map

#144

Post by xdarnold »

gdfasfklshg4 wrote: post #139
xdarnold wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replying myself to add reference, here: https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(19)30354-6/pdf This is all well understood, and studied in considerable depth. The media overreaction is typical, but here at HN we are better than that and we should strive to rely on established science (where available). No need to throw out extreme or unreasonable numbers!

See my other comment. I was comparing to one of the viruses that causes a COLD not influenza. Colds are quite different to flues.

Of course in many ways they are different, but not in the important ones for this discussion.

I used influenza because it was convenient in terms of available research, I could grab in a minute or two, but I'm sure if you care to look you can find similar data for rhinovirus.

Rhinovirus and influenza have very comparable R0's. R0 is the epidemiological measure of the "contagion" factor of a pathogen.

Re: Coronavirus Real Time Map

#145

Post by xdarnold »

gdfasfklshg4 wrote: post #138
xdarnold wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over any time frame, it's still quite extreme. To use influenza as a proxy, which has virulence comparable to the cold, the yearly incidence rate in China is <35 per 100,000. Even if this is a full 100x worse, we aren't even getting close to 50% infection rate over the season or a 6 month time frame.

I was comparing with a cold not with influenza. We could try to make the comparison you are suggesting instead. But to make a valid comparison we need to consider: Is influenza infectious for 10 days before any symptoms show? How many people get the influenza vaccine each year? I.e. is there some herd immunity built up? The symptoms of influenza are universally nasty for everyone infected. No one with the flu is walk…

I'm not making anecdotal conclusions or assumptions about whether people walk around or go into work, I'm simply stating the facts here based on considerable research.

Influenza is a useful proxy for the cold, because we have plenty of data on influenza strains with R0 very close to the cold.

Perhaps the most contagious disease we've ever encountered, the measles, has an R0 around 18. Before the 1960's, when the vaccine was licensed, we saw incidence rates as high as the .8% range yearly for measles. That is 20x more than influenza, but still orders of magnitude short of the 50% number you threw out there.

The cold and influenza both range from R0=1.3, to perhaps 6 on the very high end of estimates. 50% just isn't reasonable by any measure.

As for comparisons to this nCoV, it's still very early days and there are many unknowns. Still, there is no evidence to support an R0 even remotely close to the measles. 50% simply isn't plausible or reasonable, based on everything we know about viruses and epidemics.

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