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They’re both right. We are in a phase of exponential growth. If we don’t check it it will absolutely overwhelm the medical system. But eventually we will have c

by erentz 7y ago

They’re both right. We are in a phase of exponential growth. If we don’t check it it will absolutely overwhelm the medical system. But eventually we will have crossed the peak and reach a level more like a base rate. I don’t get the “base raters” position here, it seems they’re living two years in the future rather than concerning themselves about what happens on the way to that point.

tuna-piano 7y ago
If I understand "base raters" correctly, they are not saying anything in particular about this virus, just that in general due to all available factors (including human+government intervention), the world generally stays close to the same. A month ago, if you asked a base rater and an exponentialist to make guesses on how many cases in China there would be today, I think the base rater would be much closer to actuality than the exponentialist (after all, their new daily case volume stopped growing almost a month ago!). China was able to pause this outbreak, maybe they can hold it, maybe the rest of the world can too. I'm not holding my breath but it does seem like a possibility.
- erentz 7y ago
  I see. That seems useless then isn't it? I mean its fine if you're looking at the longer term picture. But its completely useless for informing how to handle an emerging situation. E.g. if China's decision making was informed by base rater thinking, which amounts here to "eventually things will return to normal" then they would not have taken the measures they took which are leading to that.
  - tuna-piano 7y ago
    I'm just guessing too on what base rater is, but if I'm correct on what a base rater is, then the thinking has use for how normal citizens should prepare (maybe don't sell all your investments to buy rice and beans and N95 masks) rather than what those fighting the virus should do. If my understanding is correct, the base raters don't say that nothing extreme ever happens, they only say that things usually turn out close to how they have been. I suspect that is true.

by erentz 7y ago

tuna-piano 7y ago

If I understand "base raters" correctly, they are not saying anything in particular about this virus, just that in general due to all available factors (including human+government intervention), the world generally stays close to the same. A month ago, if you asked a base rater and an exponentialist to make guesses on how many cases in China there would be today, I think the base rater would be much closer to actuality than the exponentialist (after all, their new daily case volume stopped growing almost a month ago!). China was able to pause this outbreak, maybe they can hold it, maybe the rest of the world can too. I'm not holding my breath but it does seem like a possibility.

erentz 7y ago
I see. That seems useless then isn't it? I mean its fine if you're looking at the longer term picture. But its completely useless for informing how to handle an emerging situation. E.g. if China's decision making was informed by base rater thinking, which amounts here to "eventually things will return to normal" then they would not have taken the measures they took which are leading to that.
- tuna-piano 7y ago
  I'm just guessing too on what base rater is, but if I'm correct on what a base rater is, then the thinking has use for how normal citizens should prepare (maybe don't sell all your investments to buy rice and beans and N95 masks) rather than what those fighting the virus should do. If my understanding is correct, the base raters don't say that nothing extreme ever happens, they only say that things usually turn out close to how they have been. I suspect that is true.