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

I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

blogmaverick.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 157 posts

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#141

Post by Izkata »

JPKab wrote: post #120
ceejayoz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got it backwards. New York's curve has flattened, and is trending downwards. When you remove New York from the US numbers, the trends look much worse. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/06/opinion/coron...

The detected cases are increasing due to an increase in testing. Nate Silver has a great post the other day where he broke down the fact that the ratio of new cases per test administered has gone down. I'm not saying we should all just act as normal, but I am saying that the media is creating a more pessimistic picture than is warranted by talking about positive cases without the context of an increase in tests admin…

> The detected cases are increasing due to an increase in testing.

People keep saying this, but at least for Illinois the numbers don't fit. The growth rate has been almost completely steady since the results of the shelter-in-place were seen.

> Nate Silver has a great post the other day where he broke down the fact that the ratio of new cases per test administered has gone down.

I think this is what's happening instead of finding new cases. We're just identifying more uninfected people.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#142

Post by abathur »

JamesBarney wrote: post #97
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would mean it's safe for Dallas to open up, since the state is doing test/trace/isolate and the city requires masks in enclosed spaces.

I don't know if its similar in Dallas but in Houston when I drive by gas stations, bars, and restaurants most people aren't wearing masks.

Just anecdata about ~Houston but:

- At ~7:00am Sunday, May 3, I only saw one "customer" not wearing a mask at a grocery store inside the inner loop. (Quotes because this person got caught trying to walk out the front door with a 40 of something while I was still waiting outside for a cart; not inclined to count them.) All employees that I saw were masked, though I did see one pull their mask down under their chin for a minute or so to speak to a coworker standing next to them.

- Friday evening (May 9) we needed gas on the way back from bringing in a package for a relative who is out of town. The League City Buc-ees was bustling when we stopped by around 6:30pm; employees were masked, but I didn't see any masked customers. My spouse noticed an additional masked customer that I didn't see.

- On the way back in, I also noticed that the Twin Peaks in Webster had a pretty full parking lot. I saw a few people leaving who were not masked, but I wasn't close enough to get any sense of things like what fraction were wearing a mask, what fraction were seated outside, and how well-spaced the tables were.

Sample's too small to even try to reason from, but I've been wondering how much (if any) of the difference is accounted for by the type of establishment/patron demographics, proximity to downtown, and change over time.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#143

Post by ModernMech »

fastball wrote: post #95
claudeganon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would we know the statistical significance of the harm to these children in the case of novel symptom presentation, when we don’t know the rate of overall infection, the duration of immunity, or any myriad other things about the disease path at this point? Instead of admitting our ignorance of the situation and embracing precaution, you’re painting that ignorance as strength and hiding behind appeals to decorum.…

> Instead of admitting our ignorance of the situation and embracing precaution, you’re painting that ignorance as strength and hiding behind appeals to decorum. Where in the world are you getting that? This is not something we are totally ignorant about. Even if the syndrome you decided to tout is 100% COVID-19s fault, it has still only killed 3 children. That is the definition of statistically insignificant. Again –…

> Even if the syndrome you decided to tout is 100% COVID-19s fault, it has still only killed 3 children. That is the definition of statistically insignificant.

This is literally not true. I think you're trying to claim it's not a big deal because most children who contract covid will not die in this way. But this doesn't have any relationship to the statistical analysis of significance that tries to determine causality. In your hypothetical you've stipulated that covid19 is 100% at fault. There's no need for statistics in this case because the confidence at 100% i.e. somehow science has proved the mechanism in your hypothetical.

> Again – statistically, with our current knowledge, children in general do not have much to fear from this virus.

You could have said the same thing about AIDS. Statistically with current knowledge circa 1981 straight people had nothing to fear from AIDS. Statistically in 1983, years after the initial outbreak the proportion of people dying from AIDS as opposed to those who were living with HIV was infinitesimal. And then people started dying at higher, alarming rates. That took over a decade. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_the_United_States#...)

I'm not saying covid is AIDS, but we're mere months into this thing and noticing strange syndromes in children. To blanket claim that "statics show us" anything with the certainty you're projecting is shortsighted.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#144

Post by dawnerd »

economicslol wrote: post #110
dawnerd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just America... You have anti-5G/anti vaccine nuts in Canada and Europe too. We just seem to be louder.

Is it really on the same scale though? It's quite hard getting a sense of what's normal from Social Media sites since they are so US-centric. It certainly seems like a large portion of the population here misunderstand basic science, statistics, biology, economics, etc. Having been educated in the US public school system it's not that surprising that people are so poorly informed.

I'm not sure, like you said it's kind of hard to tell with the US bias social media and the media in general.

From recently memory though, I don't think there was cases of this in the States https://apnews.com/4ac3679b6f39e8bd2561c1c8eeafd855

(But we're definitely more radical in other areas like protesters with guns).

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#145

Post by klmadfejno »

mywittyname wrote: post #112
klmadfejno wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I see many people arguing appeals to the party line. I'm probably posting more about it because I'm frustrated that, while I despise the current white house admin, I do think the lockdowns as implemented are likely to do more harm than good, especially as time goes on. I hate getting lumped in with the president, or having it be assumed that the president's line of rhetoric is representative of my think…

> I do think the lockdowns as implemented are likely to do more harm than good, especially as time goes on. I completely disagree. Places are very likely to be shutdown regardless, whether due to government authority or the virus rampaging the workforce. One of those is more permanent than the other. We could send people back to work, but doing so safely requires effective testing & equipment. The USA bungled their r…

> The entire point of the lockdown was to buy enough time to put into place the stuff we need to safely reopen. And clearly that didn't happen.

That sounds like a pretty good argument supporting the idea that lockdowns as implemented are likely to do more harm than good?

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#146

Post by fastball »

ModernMech wrote: post #143
fastball wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of admitting our ignorance of the situation and embracing precaution, you’re painting that ignorance as strength and hiding behind appeals to decorum. Where in the world are you getting that? This is not something we are totally ignorant about. Even if the syndrome you decided to tout is 100% COVID-19s fault, it has still only killed 3 children. That is the definition of statistically insignificant. Again –…

> Even if the syndrome you decided to tout is 100% COVID-19s fault, it has still only killed 3 children. That is the definition of statistically insignificant. This is literally not true. I think you're trying to claim it's not a big deal because most children who contract covid will not die in this way. But this doesn't have any relationship to the statistical analysis of significance that tries to determine causali…

You seem misinformed.

https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/news/coronavirus-covid-19-informatio...

Please stop with all the FUD and actually read up on what we know.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#147

Post by ModernMech »

fastball wrote: post #146
ModernMech wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if the syndrome you decided to tout is 100% COVID-19s fault, it has still only killed 3 children. That is the definition of statistically insignificant. This is literally not true. I think you're trying to claim it's not a big deal because most children who contract covid will not die in this way. But this doesn't have any relationship to the statistical analysis of significance that tries to determine causali…

You seem misinformed. https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/news/coronavirus-covid-19-informatio... Please stop with all the FUD and actually read up on what we know.

Not really seeing anything in this link that has any bearing on what I said in my post.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#148

Post by economicslol »

Press2forEN wrote: post #109
economicslol wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't do anything even remotely invasive. If they want to go back to crowded restaurants full of people without masks sitting too close together they are going to discover pretty quickly how big of a mistake that is.

He hired a team of secret snitches. If physical distancing and masks hadn't damaged social trust enough already, now Texans in Dallas have to worry about a billionaire's ability to place hidden tattle tales in their midst. Even if they had publicly made themselves known, which they should have, you can't seriously argue that what Cuban did wasn't invasive.

Secret Snitches? You are aware this was all reported anonymously so no one knows what stores were or weren't operating withing guidelines. So who exactly does this affect?

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#149

Post by JamesBarney »

abathur wrote: post #142
JamesBarney wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if its similar in Dallas but in Houston when I drive by gas stations, bars, and restaurants most people aren't wearing masks.

Just anecdata about ~Houston but: - At ~7:00am Sunday, May 3, I only saw one "customer" not wearing a mask at a grocery store inside the inner loop. (Quotes because this person got caught trying to walk out the front door with a 40 of something while I was still waiting outside for a cart; not inclined to count them.) All employees that I saw were masked, though I did see one pull their mask down under their chin for…

I live in the heights but I haven't been to the grocery store since March. I wonder if the distinction is grocery store vs corner store/bar/restaurant. I imagine cautious poeple are much more likely to go to the grocery store than to a corner store/bar/restaurant.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#150

Post by panpanna »

kube-system wrote: post #123
panpanna wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the discussions are extremely polarized in the US right now. No other country is even close.

Do you have any data supporting this? I'd like to think I could be an accurate judge of this myself, but given that my consumption of media is extremely biased by my location and languages of literacy, I don't think my anecdotal data is worth anything.

Consider the situation in Michigan.

Has anything like that happened in any other country?

Post reply on HN