5 ms·

What frustrates me is how hard it is to make people understand this is a very serious matter. R0 = 2.2 and CFR = 2.5% It only takes ten minutes on Excel to un

What frustrates me is how hard it is to make people understand this is a very serious matter. R0 = 2.2 and CFR = 2.5% It only takes ten minutes on Excel to understand the potential horror those numbers represent. How do you communicate this to an audience that is mathematically inept to the point that calculating tip at the restaurant is hard work? The best I’ve come up with is to say that, starting with one person, under ideal conditions, this could infect the entire world population in a month. OK, yes, ideal conditions, I know. How else do you drive the point about exponential/geometric growth? I’ve had the conversation with a few people. It’s amazing to me how many of them were completely dismissive. Is it that hard for average folks to understand? Ignorance is bliss?

sky_rw 7y ago
I've been trying with earnest to wrap my head around the answer to your last question. I saw the writing on the wall 4 weeks ago when the initial numbers started coming out and the cell phone videos of the CCPs response leaked through the firewall. I've been telling my friends and family what these numbers mean and what the implications of this are both medically and economically. The response I get is either "Stop watching fox news", "if it was really that bad big companies would be freaking out", "its just a flu", etc. I've come to the conclusion that, at least in the suburban USA, our lives are just so routine and comfortable that most of us cannot fathom any circumstance that would change it. We relegate such thoughts to the realm of fantasy with zombie movies and the like. It's either business as normal, or a situation you have no hope to prepare for so why bother. Not a mindset I share, likely because I didn't grow up with the guarantee of core needs. 4 weeks ago people would say "why would I keep a stock of n95 masks" like we used to all say "why would you bother locking a cockpit door".
- bamboozled 7y ago
  In an Asian mega-city right now. Most people also don't seemed panicked, so I don't think it has much to do with suburban life. Which does seem way safer anyway because it's much less population dense. Not sure I follow your sentiment really?
  - robomartin 7y ago
    And they have ONE case: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/02/coronavirus-queues-at-supermarkets-as-panic-buying-ramps-up.html https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/02/coronavir... Panic is one of these binary things. A group of people can go from normal to freaked-the-hell-out-panicked at the flip of a switch. Pulling them back to normal is nearly impossible. That's why you want to get ready before the switch flips. Because, if you don't, you might just have to be out there with them, and things can get ugly fast. I have zero interest in that, less than zero, actually.
    - bamboozled 7y ago
      There is some times during this thing where I have actually panicked for sure. Its the first time in a while I could feel myself teetering on the edge of losing control and succumbing to a full blown panic attack. Reading the news is actually pretty scary. Even the way individual cases are being reported is freaky. I wonder how I'd feel if the same thing happened for every freak accident, flu death etc. Not trying to down play the severity of the virus, just amusing how much we can be influenced by the media.
      - robomartin 7y ago
        Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I don't know what might be available to you. I would urge you not to watch CNN, they are in full destroy-Trump fear mongering mode. It's sick. We are in the US. We watch BBC World News most of the time. Aside from that, the CDC (cdc.gov) is covering this well. Basically, if you can absorb reasonably scientific material the science news providers are a million times better than any news organization. Here's an interesting YouTube resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quDYb_x54DM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quDYb_x54DM
- robomartin 7y ago
  > "its just a flu" Yup, that's what they are saying. And it clearly isn't. I was at the store a couple of weeks ago and had this mental frame of reference where you are kind of watching from the outside while thinking "I wonder if these people understand what could happen here in a few weeks". I've talked to very well educated friends, some in the medical field, who are very dismissive and even think it is paranoid to think getting ready is a good idea. I don't get it. The point isn't to be paranoid. As I've put it in various conversations: I'd rather be wrong about making the assumption than discover the hard way I was wrong about not having made it. The assumption I made is that we might need to quarantine at home for 30 to 45 days. I made this decision about a month ago. I went out and got enough supplies for that as well as supplies relevant to the issue at hand (masks, gloves, disinfectants, etc.). I would say 95% of what I purchased (food and household items) are things we consume on a normal basis. So, we have a two month supply of food. It just means that, if I am wrong, we don't have to go to the market for a couple of months. No big deal. I've always had N95 masks around for work around the house and shop. This isn't a biohazard item, it's a normal industrial product. So even that isn't an out of the norm purchase. OK, so I have a bit more Clorox than we would normally stock. That's about the size of my "paranoid" purchases, more Clorox. Not sure why this is weird to some. Getting ready isn't that hard.
Bombthecat 7y ago
It's the same response to climate change. Talk shit until its too late.
- robomartin 7y ago
  The problem with climate change is that it has been politicized so far that both sides are wrong and both sides are making stuff up to support their religion. In this case I think it might be a very weird scenario where the battling factions are causing slow action, which might lead to the right approach in the long term. When you have a situation where scientists can't speak the truth for fear of losing their jobs, grants, standing, etc. nothing good comes out of it. The real story goes something like this: Human-aided atmospheric CO2 accumulation is very real and, yes, it is a problem. And we can't do a thing about it because the natural rate of change for atmospheric CO2 is in the order of 100 ppm per 50,000 years if, and only if, all of humanity, our toys and technology left the planet at once. No partial measure (renewable energy, no planes|cars|trains, carbon capture, etc.) can improve the rate of change when the baseline is 100 ppm per 50,000 years if humanity left the planet. This is based on and supported by 800,000 years of ice core atmospheric data that tells us how the atmosphere behaved before humanity gained the ability to make a difference. The data makes it impossible to claim we can fix it, because the amount of energy and resources needed to affect planetary-scale changes at a rate of change 1,000 times that corresponding humanity leaving the planet is so massively large it would likely kill all life on this planet. We can't fix it. But we can make better choices and clean-up our act. The only way that happens is if we discuss facts rather than fantasies at both ends of the scale.
pintxo 7y ago
The NYT has a really good chart [1], comparing R0 and CFR of the current virus to various historical epidemics. I use it to explain friends and family the potential significance. [1] https://nyti.ms/38Xc1ho https://nyti.ms/38Xc1ho
- robomartin 7y ago
  Darn. Pay-walled.
tpmx 7y ago
CFR numbers vary wildly.
- robomartin 7y ago
  Of course. The point is to get a sense of proportion and to understand that this isn't "just the flu". People should take it far more seriously in general. My gut feeling is that the world might just owe China a huge debt. They contained this thing in ways that few other countries could have managed. They gave the world time to wake up to it and get ready. Had they not done that it is very likely we would have had thousands of cases in most nations of the world and, given R0, that could have been horrific. I hope one day we'll know just how close to the precipice we walked.
  - tpmx 7y ago
    I think very few countries woke up to take things seriously enough/quick enough. Really, it seems like most (western) countries just started taking it seriously this past week. Meanwhile, it was kind of obvious what was going to happen already a month ago. It's such a tragic missed opportunity.
    - robomartin 7y ago
      So, about a month ago Trump launched his travel bans against various affected nations. He was eviscerated for it in the media and by political rivals. While his approach to public relations inspires projectile vomiting (seriously, a 12 year old can give better speeches) it is hard to fault the results of his policies and actions. Anyone intelligent enough to step away from politics long enough understands that Trump and Pence (particularly that guy) don't know a friggin thing about epidemiology and all of the related sciences. The case would have been the same with Hilary, Bernie, Bush, Clinton...anyone, really. We don't elect multidisciplinary scientists to office, we elect beauty contest winners. The same is true of any governor or city mayor. Their jobs, from the top down, is to put-up a pretty face, communicate well with the public (this is where Trump just blows it...sounding like a four year old), facilitate funding, meetings, resources and give whatever orders might be required legally. I think that, for the most part, as soon as things became obvious in China, Trump and company started to execute. The leaders of the CDC and NIH pretty much said so, explaining, for example, that if he had not taken the lead with travel bans we would be dealing with thousands of cases in the US. Which stands to reason, leave entry open and you have no idea who might come in, particularly when our healthcare system might be better able to deal with the situation. Our politicians need to stop using a world-wide healthcare crisis to dethrone Trump, join ranks, shut the F up, provide funding, resources and whatever might be necessary and do their job. I truly find what's going on with the media and Democrats to be absolutely disgusting. It's nothing less than opportunistic fear mongering. One has to know that the less sophisticated sections of society, with is the majority and permeates Democrat and Republican camps equally, can easily be driven into panic through these actions. It's irresponsible, at a minimum. To add to this, this morning I watched Trump's conference (where they discussed the death of that patient in Seattle). Aside from wanting him to get off the microphone to let those with better diction speak, I thought it was good and is something that needs to be done every day. What was interesting is, after that, I switched back and forth between CNN and FOX News. The difference was notable. FOX reported factually and did not engage in stoking flames at all. CNN was full-on fear mongering, using any and all possible distortions of reality to blame Trump for the phase of the moon and everything else as well as everything related to COVID-19. In that very conference, the director of NIH and CDC explained how Trump's travel ban from a month ago likely saved thousands of lives in the US. CNN ignored all of that and pretty much blamed Trump for this death. It's just crazy, these people needs to get spanked. Enough is enough. We watch BBC World News most of the time. While every network has bias, we find their coverage to be far more encompassing, reasonable and useful. You watch BBC World News and walk away informed. Watch most US networks and walk away ignorant, confused, biased, angry and without anything useful. It's a shame.
satya71 7y ago
I can't imagine the simulation is simple enough to do in Excel. The R0 is good measure in the beginning when almost no one is infected, and there are no quarantines. Quarantines are happening and once a cluster is infected and can be isolated, R0 doesn't matter. Simulating all this is extremely hard. Yes, the disease has potential to be devastation. Whether devastation actually happens is still very much an open question.
- robomartin 7y ago
  > I can't imagine the simulation is simple enough to do in Excel. Yes, of course, you are absolutely correct. I did qualify it with "under ideal conditions". The Excel exercise is a simple tool to get a sense of proportion, to understand what these numbers mean as a worst case. From there you can, if you have the time and knowledge, add real-life factors (such as percentage quarantined, diagnose failure rates, etc.) and improve the model. The way I tend to use these super simplistic models is to look at it as an impossible scenario yet one that educates me as to the potential rate of change. Then, to keep it simple, you add a multiplier or margin of error. In this case, say, 10x or 20x, pick a number. So, if the model is off by an order of magnitude it means the entire world is infected in 300 days. Something like that. The idea isn't to have a crystal ball, but rather to use it to explain that, no, this isn't H1N1 (the common flu), take it seriously.
askafriend 7y ago
I mean, we're humans. Not machines. Welcome to the grand experiment - buckle up for the ride!

sky_rw 7y ago

I've been trying with earnest to wrap my head around the answer to your last question. I saw the writing on the wall 4 weeks ago when the initial numbers started coming out and the cell phone videos of the CCPs response leaked through the firewall. I've been telling my friends and family what these numbers mean and what the implications of this are both medically and economically. The response I get is either "Stop watching fox news", "if it was really that bad big companies would be freaking out", "its just a flu", etc. I've come to the conclusion that, at least in the suburban USA, our lives are just so routine and comfortable that most of us cannot fathom any circumstance that would change it. We relegate such thoughts to the realm of fantasy with zombie movies and the like. It's either business as normal, or a situation you have no hope to prepare for so why bother. Not a mindset I share, likely because I didn't grow up with the guarantee of core needs. 4 weeks ago people would say "why would I keep a stock of n95 masks" like we used to all say "why would you bother locking a cockpit door".

bamboozled 7y ago
In an Asian mega-city right now. Most people also don't seemed panicked, so I don't think it has much to do with suburban life. Which does seem way safer anyway because it's much less population dense. Not sure I follow your sentiment really?
- robomartin 7y ago
  And they have ONE case: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/02/coronavirus-queues-at-supermarkets-as-panic-buying-ramps-up.html https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/02/coronavir... Panic is one of these binary things. A group of people can go from normal to freaked-the-hell-out-panicked at the flip of a switch. Pulling them back to normal is nearly impossible. That's why you want to get ready before the switch flips. Because, if you don't, you might just have to be out there with them, and things can get ugly fast. I have zero interest in that, less than zero, actually.
  - bamboozled 7y ago
    There is some times during this thing where I have actually panicked for sure. Its the first time in a while I could feel myself teetering on the edge of losing control and succumbing to a full blown panic attack. Reading the news is actually pretty scary. Even the way individual cases are being reported is freaky. I wonder how I'd feel if the same thing happened for every freak accident, flu death etc. Not trying to down play the severity of the virus, just amusing how much we can be influenced by the media.
    - robomartin 7y ago
      Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I don't know what might be available to you. I would urge you not to watch CNN, they are in full destroy-Trump fear mongering mode. It's sick. We are in the US. We watch BBC World News most of the time. Aside from that, the CDC (cdc.gov) is covering this well. Basically, if you can absorb reasonably scientific material the science news providers are a million times better than any news organization. Here's an interesting YouTube resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quDYb_x54DM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quDYb_x54DM
robomartin 7y ago
> "its just a flu" Yup, that's what they are saying. And it clearly isn't. I was at the store a couple of weeks ago and had this mental frame of reference where you are kind of watching from the outside while thinking "I wonder if these people understand what could happen here in a few weeks". I've talked to very well educated friends, some in the medical field, who are very dismissive and even think it is paranoid to think getting ready is a good idea. I don't get it. The point isn't to be paranoid. As I've put it in various conversations: I'd rather be wrong about making the assumption than discover the hard way I was wrong about not having made it. The assumption I made is that we might need to quarantine at home for 30 to 45 days. I made this decision about a month ago. I went out and got enough supplies for that as well as supplies relevant to the issue at hand (masks, gloves, disinfectants, etc.). I would say 95% of what I purchased (food and household items) are things we consume on a normal basis. So, we have a two month supply of food. It just means that, if I am wrong, we don't have to go to the market for a couple of months. No big deal. I've always had N95 masks around for work around the house and shop. This isn't a biohazard item, it's a normal industrial product. So even that isn't an out of the norm purchase. OK, so I have a bit more Clorox than we would normally stock. That's about the size of my "paranoid" purchases, more Clorox. Not sure why this is weird to some. Getting ready isn't that hard.

Bombthecat 7y ago

It's the same response to climate change. Talk shit until its too late.

robomartin 7y ago
The problem with climate change is that it has been politicized so far that both sides are wrong and both sides are making stuff up to support their religion. In this case I think it might be a very weird scenario where the battling factions are causing slow action, which might lead to the right approach in the long term. When you have a situation where scientists can't speak the truth for fear of losing their jobs, grants, standing, etc. nothing good comes out of it. The real story goes something like this: Human-aided atmospheric CO2 accumulation is very real and, yes, it is a problem. And we can't do a thing about it because the natural rate of change for atmospheric CO2 is in the order of 100 ppm per 50,000 years if, and only if, all of humanity, our toys and technology left the planet at once. No partial measure (renewable energy, no planes|cars|trains, carbon capture, etc.) can improve the rate of change when the baseline is 100 ppm per 50,000 years if humanity left the planet. This is based on and supported by 800,000 years of ice core atmospheric data that tells us how the atmosphere behaved before humanity gained the ability to make a difference. The data makes it impossible to claim we can fix it, because the amount of energy and resources needed to affect planetary-scale changes at a rate of change 1,000 times that corresponding humanity leaving the planet is so massively large it would likely kill all life on this planet. We can't fix it. But we can make better choices and clean-up our act. The only way that happens is if we discuss facts rather than fantasies at both ends of the scale.

pintxo 7y ago

The NYT has a really good chart [1], comparing R0 and CFR of the current virus to various historical epidemics. I use it to explain friends and family the potential significance. [1] https://nyti.ms/38Xc1ho https://nyti.ms/38Xc1ho

robomartin 7y ago
Darn. Pay-walled.

tpmx 7y ago

CFR numbers vary wildly.

robomartin 7y ago
Of course. The point is to get a sense of proportion and to understand that this isn't "just the flu". People should take it far more seriously in general. My gut feeling is that the world might just owe China a huge debt. They contained this thing in ways that few other countries could have managed. They gave the world time to wake up to it and get ready. Had they not done that it is very likely we would have had thousands of cases in most nations of the world and, given R0, that could have been horrific. I hope one day we'll know just how close to the precipice we walked.
- tpmx 7y ago
  I think very few countries woke up to take things seriously enough/quick enough. Really, it seems like most (western) countries just started taking it seriously this past week. Meanwhile, it was kind of obvious what was going to happen already a month ago. It's such a tragic missed opportunity.
  - robomartin 7y ago
    So, about a month ago Trump launched his travel bans against various affected nations. He was eviscerated for it in the media and by political rivals. While his approach to public relations inspires projectile vomiting (seriously, a 12 year old can give better speeches) it is hard to fault the results of his policies and actions. Anyone intelligent enough to step away from politics long enough understands that Trump and Pence (particularly that guy) don't know a friggin thing about epidemiology and all of the related sciences. The case would have been the same with Hilary, Bernie, Bush, Clinton...anyone, really. We don't elect multidisciplinary scientists to office, we elect beauty contest winners. The same is true of any governor or city mayor. Their jobs, from the top down, is to put-up a pretty face, communicate well with the public (this is where Trump just blows it...sounding like a four year old), facilitate funding, meetings, resources and give whatever orders might be required legally. I think that, for the most part, as soon as things became obvious in China, Trump and company started to execute. The leaders of the CDC and NIH pretty much said so, explaining, for example, that if he had not taken the lead with travel bans we would be dealing with thousands of cases in the US. Which stands to reason, leave entry open and you have no idea who might come in, particularly when our healthcare system might be better able to deal with the situation. Our politicians need to stop using a world-wide healthcare crisis to dethrone Trump, join ranks, shut the F up, provide funding, resources and whatever might be necessary and do their job. I truly find what's going on with the media and Democrats to be absolutely disgusting. It's nothing less than opportunistic fear mongering. One has to know that the less sophisticated sections of society, with is the majority and permeates Democrat and Republican camps equally, can easily be driven into panic through these actions. It's irresponsible, at a minimum. To add to this, this morning I watched Trump's conference (where they discussed the death of that patient in Seattle). Aside from wanting him to get off the microphone to let those with better diction speak, I thought it was good and is something that needs to be done every day. What was interesting is, after that, I switched back and forth between CNN and FOX News. The difference was notable. FOX reported factually and did not engage in stoking flames at all. CNN was full-on fear mongering, using any and all possible distortions of reality to blame Trump for the phase of the moon and everything else as well as everything related to COVID-19. In that very conference, the director of NIH and CDC explained how Trump's travel ban from a month ago likely saved thousands of lives in the US. CNN ignored all of that and pretty much blamed Trump for this death. It's just crazy, these people needs to get spanked. Enough is enough. We watch BBC World News most of the time. While every network has bias, we find their coverage to be far more encompassing, reasonable and useful. You watch BBC World News and walk away informed. Watch most US networks and walk away ignorant, confused, biased, angry and without anything useful. It's a shame.

satya71 7y ago

I can't imagine the simulation is simple enough to do in Excel. The R0 is good measure in the beginning when almost no one is infected, and there are no quarantines. Quarantines are happening and once a cluster is infected and can be isolated, R0 doesn't matter. Simulating all this is extremely hard. Yes, the disease has potential to be devastation. Whether devastation actually happens is still very much an open question.

robomartin 7y ago
> I can't imagine the simulation is simple enough to do in Excel. Yes, of course, you are absolutely correct. I did qualify it with "under ideal conditions". The Excel exercise is a simple tool to get a sense of proportion, to understand what these numbers mean as a worst case. From there you can, if you have the time and knowledge, add real-life factors (such as percentage quarantined, diagnose failure rates, etc.) and improve the model. The way I tend to use these super simplistic models is to look at it as an impossible scenario yet one that educates me as to the potential rate of change. Then, to keep it simple, you add a multiplier or margin of error. In this case, say, 10x or 20x, pick a number. So, if the model is off by an order of magnitude it means the entire world is infected in 300 days. Something like that. The idea isn't to have a crystal ball, but rather to use it to explain that, no, this isn't H1N1 (the common flu), take it seriously.

askafriend 7y ago

I mean, we're humans. Not machines. Welcome to the grand experiment - buckle up for the ride!