3 ms·

You have to bear in mind when doing any analysis of this that you shouldn’t treat the US as one country when comparing to Italy. The number of distinct outbreak

by Lewton 7y ago

You have to bear in mind when doing any analysis of this that you shouldn’t treat the US as one country when comparing to Italy. The number of distinct outbreaks happening at once makes a big difference in the steepness of the curve in the beginning. Italy might have been 5-20 distinct outbreaks while what’s happening in the US looks much more like 50-100 separate outbreaks developing at once

acqq 7y ago
> The number of distinct outbreaks happening at once makes a big difference in the steepness of the curve in the beginning. How come? "Distinct outbreaks" just means the older state was underdiagnosed, not that the characteristics of the pandemics change.
- Lewton 7y ago
  "Beginning" might be the wrong term, as it's a bit into the beginning that it starts to make a difference. Local saturation happens fairly quickly. Having 100 infected in one place is very much different to having 1 infection happening 100 different places when you look at it after a week When you're looking at the "country" view, the "older state" gets lost in the transmissions happening from people crossing borders. So what I mean is, people have been flying back to the states with infections spread out over the entire country while cross-border spread has been much more localized in italy
  - throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
    Oh my. Thanks for that explanation. Given the indifference of the US administration it suggests things may be spreading even faster over there than I realised. We'll know in a week or so.
  - acqq 7y ago
    > people have been flying back to the states with infections spread out over the entire country while cross-border spread has been much more localized in italy I still don't see the difference? Why do you think that the cross-border movement of the disease should be different in Europe compared to the US? Why do you think that the US should be worse off, if that is your point? Do you think people more fly back to the US compared to the people moving from country to country recently in Europe in the last period (including Italy)? Are you aware of how Europe functioned up to now? Many people worked in other countries, and they typically don't even have to fly to achieve that, especially not across the ocean.
    - Lewton 7y ago
      I didn’t say anything about comparing the US to Europe? I was explicitly saying to keep it in mind when comparing the numbers from the US to Italy!

by Lewton 7y ago

acqq 7y ago

> The number of distinct outbreaks happening at once makes a big difference in the steepness of the curve in the beginning. How come? "Distinct outbreaks" just means the older state was underdiagnosed, not that the characteristics of the pandemics change.

Lewton 7y ago
"Beginning" might be the wrong term, as it's a bit into the beginning that it starts to make a difference. Local saturation happens fairly quickly. Having 100 infected in one place is very much different to having 1 infection happening 100 different places when you look at it after a week When you're looking at the "country" view, the "older state" gets lost in the transmissions happening from people crossing borders. So what I mean is, people have been flying back to the states with infections spread out over the entire country while cross-border spread has been much more localized in italy
- throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  Oh my. Thanks for that explanation. Given the indifference of the US administration it suggests things may be spreading even faster over there than I realised. We'll know in a week or so.
- acqq 7y ago
  > people have been flying back to the states with infections spread out over the entire country while cross-border spread has been much more localized in italy I still don't see the difference? Why do you think that the cross-border movement of the disease should be different in Europe compared to the US? Why do you think that the US should be worse off, if that is your point? Do you think people more fly back to the US compared to the people moving from country to country recently in Europe in the last period (including Italy)? Are you aware of how Europe functioned up to now? Many people worked in other countries, and they typically don't even have to fly to achieve that, especially not across the ocean.
  - Lewton 7y ago
    I didn’t say anything about comparing the US to Europe? I was explicitly saying to keep it in mind when comparing the numbers from the US to Italy!