Live data from Hacker News

A Third Solution

paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

491–500 of 535 posts

Re: A Third Solution

#491
post #479

Quotes from the article: “It’s easy to fall into dystopian visions of the future — a world shut down by one virus after another” “It doesn’t have to be that way. ..... Ubiquitous screening is the key.” The approach is interesting and the possibility of eliminating large scale spread of covid, flu and others is attractive. However the idea of requiring a saliva swab from every visitor to an office or event has the pot…

The swab could be ok, but I’d get really annoyed if entering any place required me to wait around for 10 minutes.

My Millennium Prize challenge for those clamoring to reopen the economy is: How do you reopen Disneyland? (I think Disneyland was even referenced in the article.)

That's a giant social space people would be clamoring to go to. But given Disneyland's mystique and raison d'etre, the logistics right now are impossible.

I don't know how viable the solution proposed here actually is. The skeptics here raise some good points.

But if this solution turned out to be proven, I expect Disneyland would be one of the first places where it was deployed at scale. If we trusted the technology, I'm pretty sure both you and I would be happy to wait 10 minutes to get in. A free COVID screen as part of your price of admission. (It's interesting to consider how they would handle people who failed the screening. A balloon and hauled away in a cheerful corporate van? Maybe Disney starts running COVID resort sanitoriums?)

I also imagine Disney is one of the few organizations out there that could get the queuing sorted out. And I suspect that would be as important as anything. Once perfected, it could serve as a model for others.

Re: A Third Solution

#492
"First of all, it’s not “just the flu”. It is something much more dangerous. Catching this virus is a bit like playing a round of Russian roulette. You’ll probably be fine, but you could end up dead."

Whether this virus is more or less dangerous than the flu depends on who you are. For a child it's much less dangerous. This virus is not like Russian Roulette, the outcome of which is random and impossible to predict. It has a much greater likelihood of affecting certain groups than others. Flu is much more random. Like covid and most other respiratory illnesses, the flu is also transmitted by asymptomatic individuals.

Most of the motivating factoids presented in this article are false or misleading. Since the author's stated goal is to never become infected he should hide in a closet until the vaccine is ready.

Re: A Third Solution

#493
post #474

> Catching this virus is a bit like playing a round of Russian roulette. Well, the comparison is a bit unfair, recent studies [1] give : P(death | infected) = 0.05% overall which is order of magnitude less than Russian's roulette where P(death | play) = 16% [1] https://death-proba-website.appspot.com/

Russian roulette might be an unfair comparison, but it may only be one order of magnitude different to this virus IFR.

With probability a number between 0 and 1, percentage is between 0 and 100.

From the study in your source [1] the P(death|infected) = 0.005 And Russian roulette P(death | play) = 0.16

In percentages:

Covid19 - IFR = 0.5%, Russian roulette = 16%

From this calculation based on the recent New York antibody study [2] the average IFR across all age groups is 1.31%. (0 + 0.017 + 0.067 + 0.13 + 0.45 + 1.26 + 3.16 + 5.4)/8 = 1.31%

This is a much higher IFR than flu or H1N1 (IFR was 0.02% in 2009, 65 times less).

[1] https://hal-pasteur.archives-ouvertes.fr/pasteur-02548181 "We find 2.6% of infected individuals are hospitalized and 0.53% die"

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/g6pqsr/nysnyc_anti... 0-19 ~= 0%; 20-29 = 0.017%; 30-39 = 0.067%.; 40-49 = 0.13%; 50-59 = 0.45%; 60-69 = 1.26%; 70-79 = 3.16%; 80+ = 5.4%;

Re: A Third Solution

#494
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious to know how you are getting power of 2 exactly. Are you just saying it's some sort of power law growth and approximately 2, or is there an actual way of deriving it?

If you have N nodes and completely connect the nodes, there are O(N^2) edges. This comes from the formula for the sum(1...N). Edit: I’m not sure I interpreted the original statement correctly.

That's what I was about to answer. That's where squaring comes from, in this case. However, as others have noted, you could just sort by # of people contacted, since squaring just gives you larger numbers for no benefit in analysis here.

Re: A Third Solution

#495
Ah, of course. We create a new type of [patentable] ubiquitous technology and sell our way out of this. Leave it to the entrepreneurial mind...

Sorry for being cynical -- I just feel suspicious of this particular tired mindset to addressing complex public health and social issues, ones that intersect with (and aggravate) many other pre-existing social dilemmas. There are a thousand other ways to look at this that don't involve a small cornered market, I just doubt the entrepreneurial mind knows how to parse for it on its own. When you have a hammer...

Wake me up when someone's talking about this sort of thing amongst members of a consortium building open patents, not from some guy with plain-as-day zero-to-one ambitions. I'll root for someone who sees the interlocking opportunities, not someone who speaks about personal aspirations to "wipe out COVID-19" in 2020

Re: A Third Solution

#496
A lot of fear mongering and FUD in this article.

They say COVID is like Russian roulette.

LIFE is Russian roulette.

In the under 54 crowd Covid is no more deadly than the flu.

So any time you go outside during flu season you're playing Russian roulette?

The only people who need fear this bug are the over 54 crowd.

They need to remain quarantined until the vaccine is released or herd immunity is built up.

Re: A Third Solution

#497
post #151

I really hope this works. Without some new testing technology, I just don't see how we can stop the spread of this disease. A month ago, the US did about 100,000 tests per day. Yesterday, the US did about 200,000 tests. Growth in testing started off as exponential but now it looks linear.[1] Even if testing capability doubled every month, it would take 8 months before we could test every American once a week. (200,00…

Making this worse, the final size of an epidemic can be estimated as not p=1-1/R0, but rather p=1-e^-R0 [1]. With this, those R0 estimates give a final infected population of 95%-~100%... we can't let herd immunity be the solution.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3506030/

Re: A Third Solution

#498
post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The swab could be ok, but I’d get really annoyed if entering any place required me to wait around for 10 minutes.

My Millennium Prize challenge for those clamoring to reopen the economy is: How do you reopen Disneyland? (I think Disneyland was even referenced in the article.) That's a giant social space people would be clamoring to go to. But given Disneyland's mystique and raison d'etre, the logistics right now are impossible. I don't know how viable the solution proposed here actually is. The skeptics here raise some good poin…

Waiting in line for a venue can easily take 20-30 minutes. So why not deploy this to places like this. You get the test done while waiting in line at no extra time cost to you. So you wouldn't even be waiting 10 min to get in. That's already something you do.

Re: A Third Solution

#499
I’m sure this is the last of their concerns, but the word “disposable” and “daily” immediately made me think, “great, more garbage.”

It would be nice if they could figure out a recycling system — or at least make sure the vials are made of somewhat environmentally neutral glass — out of the gate, rather than have another problem to solve after there are millions of these out there

Re: A Third Solution

#500
post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The swab could be ok, but I’d get really annoyed if entering any place required me to wait around for 10 minutes.

My Millennium Prize challenge for those clamoring to reopen the economy is: How do you reopen Disneyland? (I think Disneyland was even referenced in the article.) That's a giant social space people would be clamoring to go to. But given Disneyland's mystique and raison d'etre, the logistics right now are impossible. I don't know how viable the solution proposed here actually is. The skeptics here raise some good poin…

At attractions and large events, maybe an app (or just a database linked to some sort of ID) to prove a person has passed the screening that day (or recently enough), so it doesn't all need to be done at the attraction/event itself?

For this purpose the screening would probably have to be carried out at locations that could confirm the sample came from the right person at the right time.

Post reply on HN