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

Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

thelocal.dk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 165 posts

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#151

Post by [deleted] »

hef19898 wrote: post #98
bitL wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Reddit thread over at /r/europe has pretty compelling visualizations: https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/fguile/germany_vs_i... Germany lags 8 days behind Italy, Spain 7 days.

It is not the most popular opinion, but unless the modeling is coming from legit experts, as compared to some people playing with numbers, I prefer to ignore them. I stick with sources like the WHO and local health authorities, simply becasue they have the knowledge, expertie, man power and data basis to come up with reliable numbers. That being said, Austria is closing schools starting next week, Bavaria is discussi…

[deleted]

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#152

Post by thomasahle »

ksec wrote: post #44

Only days ago, a Denmark university professor openly claimed ( actually more like lashed out ) at Hong Kong people /students over-reacting with CoronaVirus and there is no need to wear masks. I guess that didn't age well. Still wish more people have trusted the advice from HK from our experiences with SARS and how to handle information from CCP.

Denmark still recommends that people don't get masks.

Gje cultural difference between Asia and Europe regarding masks is interesting.

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#153

Post by greedo »

phillipseamore wrote: post #116

Interestingly Iceland, which has most of it's infections from Italy (and the other Alpine countries), designated those countries as areas with high risk of infection long before those countries would admit it, is not looking into these kinds of closures. I understand that they request people not to gather in large groups, on a completely voluntary basis and anyone is free to self-quarantine with pay or benefits. The…

This seems like an insane policy based on what we know about sars2-cov and the demographics of Iceland. Over 25% of the population (95K) is in the most vulnerable age group. If just 1% of that cohort becomes sick, you'll swamp the entire healthcare system. And that's excluding the effect on the other 75%. Just because they're risk is lower doesn't mean they won't need hospital care.

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#154

Post by greedo »

phillipseamore wrote: post #139
kgwgk wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 intensive care beds may prove insufficient if there is widespread infection. Not only the elderly need intensive care: in Italy 40% of the patients in intensive care are below 60.

It's expected that about 550-600 people would have to be sick (not just infected) before their 29 ICU bed's are at capacity.

29 ICU beds will not be able to handle the oncoming wave of patients. My city is roughly the same size population as Iceland and only has 900 hospital beds. I don't know how many of those are ICU, or could be converted to makeshift ICU as Italy has been doing.

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#155

Post by greedo »

arcticbull wrote: post #137
dplavery92 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generate a random int from [0,199]. If you generated a 0, you die. Rationally, you pretty confident that you won't die? Sure. But what behavior changes are you willing to tolerate not to have to take the chance? I sure wouldn't take the bet on a lark, even though the expectation is that I live. Now think about extending that same game to your family and friends, to the school down the street, to the shopping mall, an…

There's a 1% lifetime chance you die in a car accident and 2% you die of an opioid overdose. Roll a die between [0,199] and get a 0,1 you die in a car wreck. Roll a 2,3,4 or a 5, and you die of an opioid overdose. I'd be willing to bet somewhere around the 6-10 range represents your risk of dying of a climate related change. Rationally, you pretty confident that you won't die? Sure. But what behavior changes are you…

You're comparing lifetime risks with an annual risk. And your third paragraph is so full of misinformation, I almost believe you're intentionally trolling.

And Bruce isn't discussing a failure to assess the risk of COVID-19 (the article is from 2013). He's criticizing the fetish of expect technology to solve social problems. I've interviewed Bruce and I think he'd be appalled to think his essay was being misconstrued in this manner.

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#156

Post by solstice »

dv_dt wrote: post #72
JPKab wrote: post #12

Something that I heard from an epidemiologist the other day is how shutting down schools and daycares can be incredibly counterproductive, because such a high percentage of health care workers have children which suddenly are at home and need to be supervised, pulling these workers out of their duties. I suppose its ok early on, but seems problematic if enough people eventually get infected. Understood that schools a…

This is an analysis if you just shutdown schools, if you send all but critical for food/power/utilities workers home and pay them, then the assumptions are completely different. I wonder what basically a 2-4 week vacation for an entire nation looks like.

Do you not have long vacations in the country you live/grew up in? (Sorry for sounding kind of snarky.)

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#157

Post by arcticbull »

greedo wrote: post #155
arcticbull wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a 1% lifetime chance you die in a car accident and 2% you die of an opioid overdose. Roll a die between [0,199] and get a 0,1 you die in a car wreck. Roll a 2,3,4 or a 5, and you die of an opioid overdose. I'd be willing to bet somewhere around the 6-10 range represents your risk of dying of a climate related change. Rationally, you pretty confident that you won't die? Sure. But what behavior changes are you…

You're comparing lifetime risks with an annual risk. And your third paragraph is so full of misinformation, I almost believe you're intentionally trolling. And Bruce isn't discussing a failure to assess the risk of COVID-19 (the article is from 2013). He's criticizing the fetish of expect technology to solve social problems. I've interviewed Bruce and I think he'd be appalled to think his essay was being misconstrued…

> You're comparing lifetime risks with an annual risk.

And? People tend to develop immunity to diseases the've had in the past (although this is TBD in this specific case) so lifetime risk could easily be a reasonable comparison metric. My point is we do very dangerous things regularly, but because we're used to them, we largely ignore them.

Cigarettes kill 480,000 people in the US alone each year [0]. The flu kills 61,000 people in the US alone each year. Alcohol kills 88,000 people in the US alone each year. Opioids kill 77,000 people in the US alone each year.

There are 6 million car accidents in the US each year of which 2 million people receive permanent injuries and 36,000 die.

nCoV-19 is on track to kill 100 in the US.

> And your third paragraph is so full of misinformation, I almost believe you're intentionally trolling.

How so? The mortality rates are clear: under 10, 0% chance of death. 11-39, 0.2% chance of death. 40-49, 0.4% chance of death. [1] Older folks, higher rates, but of course, H1N1 kills 10% of elderly folks that get it too. And these are CFRs -- numbers which go down, sometimes dramatically, over time as we gain a fuller perspective on the situation.

If you're young you are fine. Children are basically unaffected, that is, they catch it, and it goes away. Often they don't even notice they had it.

> And Bruce isn't discussing a failure to assess the risk of COVID-19 (the article is from 2013).

I never said he was. The quote was pretty clear and free-standing: people are bad at assessing risk of unlikely or one-off events. It terrifies them.

In my opinion the essay evaluates one set of strategies people use to avoid risk at all costs: technological, but it's the realization of the underlying that is relevant here.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#158

Post by tomjen3 »

JPKab wrote: post #12

Something that I heard from an epidemiologist the other day is how shutting down schools and daycares can be incredibly counterproductive, because such a high percentage of health care workers have children which suddenly are at home and need to be supervised, pulling these workers out of their duties. I suppose its ok early on, but seems problematic if enough people eventually get infected. Understood that schools a…

Dane here. Those who can't get child care otherwise will be able to have them cared for in the system.

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#159

Post by roenxi »

dcolkitt wrote: post #148
roenxi wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be a cheerful economics standpoint that treats accounting as having primacy over physical supply of goods. It is good if they have a neat legal mechanism to stop companies going bankrupt but the economy is going to tank if everyone stays home and does nothing (or less than normal; in some roles that can work from home). Any economy that doesn't report that it is tanking is an economy built of lies and c…

I disagree. The interest rate is not entirely divorced from tangible reality. Rather it's the emergent manifestation of the aggregate behavior and preferences of investors, savers, and foreign traders across the entire economy. A low interest rate is the direct result of indifference to inter-temporal substitution. It indicates that households are willing to shift consumption from the present to the future, that firm…

> Rather it's the emergent manifestation of the aggregate behavior and preferences of investors, savers, and foreign traders across the entire economy.

I'm no expert in Danish monetary policies; but I'm 80% confident their interest rates are set by these people:

https://www.nationalbanken.dk/en/marketinfo/official_interes...

It isn't an emergent phenomenon if a 25 person committee declares what the phenomenon will emerge to.

> A low interest rate is the direct result of indifference to inter-temporal substitution.

It is a direct response to government removing anyone who cares about the future from the market by buying them out.

> Chinese and Russian exporters have very high faith in the Danish Krona, and will sell goods today for the promise of Danish goods in the distant future.

I mean sure, but Denmark is maintaining a currency peg. None of this is reassuring free market singalling; this is all the largely the government declaring that the numbers must not look bad.

Re: Denmarks shuts down all schools, daycare facilities, universities, highschools

#160

Post by rasz »

unexpected wrote: post #37
JPKab wrote: post #12

Something that I heard from an epidemiologist the other day is how shutting down schools and daycares can be incredibly counterproductive, because such a high percentage of health care workers have children which suddenly are at home and need to be supervised, pulling these workers out of their duties. I suppose its ok early on, but seems problematic if enough people eventually get infected. Understood that schools a…

I disagree here. Denmark is acting proactively and shutting down schools for 2 weeks. This is a "rip the band aid off early" type of move. By shutting down everything for 2 weeks, they effectively self-quarantine during the entire incubation period and will dramatically slow the rate of the virus. China, on the other hand, did not do this, and they were forced to shut down schools for 6 months. These moves are HARD a…

>effectively self-quarantine

no such thing

>China, on the other hand, did not do this, and they were forced to shut down schools for 6 months.

where did you get that 6 months number from? considering Virus started in January and its March now.

>These moves are HARD and painful, but the key to stopping a pandemic is acting overly aggressive and far-reaching.

there is nothing aggressive or far-reaching in those moves, Poland enacted similar measures yesterday and every expert agrees its not enough and too late.

Post reply on HN