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

Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 462 posts

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#441

Post by sharken »

Kye wrote: post #397
defen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “If we assume that case fatality rate among individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2 is 0.3% in the general population — a mid-range guess from my Diamond Princess analysis — and that 1% of the U.S. population gets infected (about 3.3 million people), this would translate to about 10,000 deaths.” Why would we use the Diamond Princess CFR instead of China's, or Italy's, or South Korea's? Where does the idea of 1% come fro…

One possible outcome for survivors is losing up to 30% of their lung capacity.

Keep in mind this number is just as certain as saying 5% at this time.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#442

Post by bitL »

nopinsight wrote: post #359
seppel wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>South Korea's naive case fatality rate (CFR) is already 120 deaths/9037 cases But the denominator in this formula strongly depends on who and how often you test. In other words: You don't know the number of cases. Obviously, people who are severely affected are tested more often. People with mild or no symptoms might never be tested, even if they want to (I'm not sure about South Korea but for sure this is happening…

Yes, all my figures above are Case Fatality Rate (CFR) and not Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), which includes people with mild or no symptoms. It's much harder to estimate the latter unless one conducts antibody tests on a sufficient sample of a population. South Korea's extensive testing program should bring their two figures closer than those of other countries. Credible estimates of IFR from noted epidemiologists I…

IFR early estimates from Wuhan are at 0.04-0.12%:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022434v...

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#443

Post by bitL »

nopinsight wrote: post #307
Barrin92 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would we use the Diamond Princess CFR instead of China's, or Italy's, or South Korea's? because everyone on the diamond princess was tested. So we know for sure how many cases we are dealing within the sample. ~0.3 and ~0.9% are also not optimistic guesses but the current numbers for Germany and SK. Italy sits at 9%. So the situation is either that Italy is vastly underestimating cases, or Germany and South Kore…

0.3% & 0.9% are optimistic. South Korea's naive case fatality rate (CFR) is already 120 deaths/9037 cases = ~1.3% today, gradually going up from ~0.5-0.6% a few weeks ago. Why? People in a functioning healthcare system take time to die and these people were infected during an expansion phase of spread which rapidly increases #cases (denominator). SK's cohort CFR is even higher. More properly, we should use the infect…

> it takes 3-4+ weeks from exposure to death

Up to 8 weeks though I haven't found typical distribution/median. The increase in deaths might exponentially grow for a while after new patient load stabilizes.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#444

Post by sharken »

robocat wrote: post #84

Firstly, there is 10 weeks of evidence on what other countries have done to avoid transmission. Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, China, and Japan all show a variety of strategies and have some successes under their belts. Sure, it’s messy social data, and they have systematic differences from other countries, but it’s real data about what is working. Ioannidis says: “If we assume that case fatality rate among individual…

What makes it very likely that the US will not see a situation similar to the one in Italy is the following:

  * Lower amount of population with High blood pressure.
  * Lower median age.
  * Not having the same one big family model as in Italy.
  * Seeing how bad it can get in Italy and having a better response as a result.
It will still get quite bad in the US, but not like in Italy due to the above factors.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#445

Post by nopinsight »

bitL wrote: post #442
nopinsight wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, all my figures above are Case Fatality Rate (CFR) and not Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), which includes people with mild or no symptoms. It's much harder to estimate the latter unless one conducts antibody tests on a sufficient sample of a population. South Korea's extensive testing program should bring their two figures closer than those of other countries. Credible estimates of IFR from noted epidemiologists I…

IFR early estimates from Wuhan are at 0.04-0.12%: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022434v...

There is no real consensus regarding IFR yet. I think the best data we have is from Diamond Princess, which is at least 10/712 or ~1.4% and may go up a bit from unresolved 15 serious/critical cases and 100 more active cases. The population there is older, but also have good care.

If the Diamond Princess age group represents just 20% of a population (they are not all elderly), population IFR must be >= 1.4%/5 = 0.28% and likely higher. 0.28% is above the IFR upper range from the paper in your comment.

“Estimated fatality ratio for infections 1%

Estimated CFR for travellers outside mainland China (mix severe & milder cases) 1%-5%

Estimated CFR for detected cases in Hubei (severe cases) 18%”

By the MRC center at Imperial College: https://twitter.com/MRC_Outbreak/status/1226765905306234881?...

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#446

Post by admax88q »

binaryone wrote: post #214
admax88q wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, the entire economy has been shut down, and the solution? The hospitals are being overrun. Your whole comments just reads like you're upset that you can't go out with your friends anymore. "Why should I have to stay at home, its the old people that are in danger, they should have to stay home." The hospitals are being overrun. That means that if left unchecked the virus overwhelms healthcare. Just yesterday…

>The hospitals are being overrun. Which hospitals in the US are being overrun by Covid cases? Close friend works at a large hospital just north of Sacramento (near the first Covid death in California)... not a single Covid patient in their hospital. Heard a guy from NYU Lagone on the radio earlier - said they're nowhere near capacity. I'm not saying this isn't serious, but a lot of the rhetoric is alarmism with no ba…

"Were not overwhelmed yet so its fine"

Cases are still growing exponentially. The hospitals in Italy are being overrun. They were being overrun in China.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#447

Post by sudosysgen »

user_50123890 wrote: post #422
sudosysgen wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China outside of Hubei has a CFR under 1%, actually. And they sure as hell didn't test everyone or even 10% of those infected in Hubei.

They tested every single person in the country who showed up to a doctor with a fever.

No, they absolutely have not anywhere closed to the peak in Hubei. People with grave respiratory difficulties were given Kelatra and sent home.

Outside of Hubei and after the peak, sure.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#448

Post by Klinky »

usaar333 wrote: post #418
Klinky wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare cases per million residents and reconsider.

in what way? King County, WA is at 605 and growth has flatlined (without an SIP in place). Manhattan is 2.5x that at 1500+ and probably growing much faster (very high testing rate true positives compared to WA). Westchester is the worst in the country at 3k. (realistically, well over 1% of the population has been infected). The Bay Area (known to be an outbreak) is a blip comparatively - around 200 with sub-exponenti…

Where are you getting your numbers from? King County has 1277[1] confirmed cases. Whatever you were looking at 9 hours ago must be out of date.

1. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/coronavirus...

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#449

Post by odkamkfn »

acqq wrote: post #273
odkamkfn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not have all the data we need. Just for starters, we don't know why the situation is so much worse in Italy than in Japan.

> we don't know why the situation is so much worse in Italy than in Japan. So... because we don't know why just Asian countries are better than Western in controlling the outbreak, the Western countries should just... do nothing to control the outbreak? In spite already being in disadvantage? And having the examples that we know worked? Seriously?

Please don't do this. I didn't say anything thing about what Western countries should or shouldn't do. You are putting words in my mouth and it's just plain rude.

Re: Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

#450

Post by jhanschoo »

sdenton4 wrote: post #81
jhanschoo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taleb's note was probably more relevant back when it was published. It's clear that current measures are measures devised against epidemics, and not "conventional risk-management approaches" for everyday business, which he seems to be criticizing. There's a lot to criticize about the note [1] but its conclusion was appropriate in that a response tailored to the particular epidemic based on conventional risk-assessmen…

/You also have a misreading of what Ioannidis is trying to push for. He isn't advocating against taking action before good evidence comes out. Rather, he is highlighting that our current lack of good evidence about the epidemic is necessitating a greater reaction than may actually be necessary if we had better evidence./ This is kinda the core problem, though: We don't have access to the full evidence (yet) and thing…

Read that quote more closely. I'm of the impression that the article acknowledges that until better evidence comes in, "taking [drastic] action" is the right decision. But researchers should gather evidence quickly to see if the drastic action is an overreaction, and loosen measures once there is evidence that it is safe to do so.
Post reply on HN