10 ms·

FTA "But a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic is a far less severe problem than one that kills two million." Meanwhile, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

by kator 7y ago

FTA "But a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic is a far less severe problem than one that kills two million." Meanwhile, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ shows Deaths: 19,603 I'm not an epidemiologist but how can we barely at the mid-point of the spread and say things like the above, while the hard facts already show we're at 20k deaths? While I agree the actual rates are hard to know until we have robust antibody assay in larger populations, it seems a bit hand-wavy to say "oh it's just not that bad, here look at these random samples we looked at it and it'll be ok."

brobdingnagians 7y ago
I believe they are talking about numbers in the context of the US population and arguing about magnitude of deaths in those terms. I agree that there is room to disagree, but it is best to interpret the argument in the context in which they are making it. Part of the reason they are doing it in the context of the US is because of the political and economic nature of the current measures, which are drawn along national lines, even though the total magnitude on the world ignores national lines.
dredmorbius 7y ago
The US alone could concievably see over 1 million deaths before the end of April: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/6b0f5a00507f013830be002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/6b0f5a00507f013830be002590d8e... The specific number based on a projection from 11 days' data on March 6 would exceed all deaths in all wars in all US history. The deaths projection specifically has run high (by about six days), though case counts remain surprisingly consistent with reported data. There are plenty of reasons to be cautious about the data and trends. And there's no necessary reason this possibility must come to pass. But if the US continues down the path it's chosen to date, that is what is in store.
- H8crilA 7y ago
  I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, but the hard facts are that the volatility of the situation is very high - by that I mean that a large range of outcomes is possible. And the long tail is both possible and daunting.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    As my initial projection post makes clear, I'd fully expected the trend to have fallen well below projection by. now. It hasn't.
csomar 7y ago
According to his math, there should be 100million cases instead of the 0.5m currently confirmed. That's x200 more than what we were able to detect. I think the answer lies in between, which is the reason for the unraveling of this panic.
xscott 7y ago
Let's compare apples to apples and stick to the US for a minute, which is what I believe the WSJ was doing. The winter of 2017-2018 was a bad flu year, and there were about 61,000 deaths from it in the US (uncertainty interval: 46K to 95K) [0]. According to the worldometers site, there are 785 deaths so far in the US from corona virus [1]. It's probably a poor estimate, but if we could extrapolate from the US population to the world population, 1.28 million died from the flu that year (61e3*7.8e9/372e6). [0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ EDIT: I found another link with a better estimate for world deaths from the flu. According to the World Health Organization, between 290,000 and 650,000 die from the flu each year [2]. So my estimate above was off by a factor of two. [2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal) https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(...
- DanBC 7y ago
  The death rate in the US is doubling every 3 days. (A bit less than 3 days.) What will it look like in 21 days? 0 785 3 1570 6 3140 9 6280 12 12560 15 25120 18 50240 21 100480
  - xscott 7y ago
    Yes, exponential curves are scary. So are logistics curves. We should know in 21 days if your prediction is right.
    - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
      The only things that will bend the curve downward are: 1. The virus begins to exhaust the available fuel (i.e., something approaching 60-70% of the population gets sick), or 2. Strict social distancing measures are implemented. Option 1 means that ~200 million Americans contract the virus, ~20 million need hospitalization, and ~2 million die. At that level of hospitalization, though, the healthcare system will collapse, and the death rate (not only for coronavirus patients) may well go up significantly. That's the logistic curve you'll get if you leave things to run their course.

by kator 7y ago

brobdingnagians 7y ago

I believe they are talking about numbers in the context of the US population and arguing about magnitude of deaths in those terms. I agree that there is room to disagree, but it is best to interpret the argument in the context in which they are making it. Part of the reason they are doing it in the context of the US is because of the political and economic nature of the current measures, which are drawn along national lines, even though the total magnitude on the world ignores national lines.

dredmorbius 7y ago

The US alone could concievably see over 1 million deaths before the end of April: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/6b0f5a00507f013830be002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/6b0f5a00507f013830be002590d8e... The specific number based on a projection from 11 days' data on March 6 would exceed all deaths in all wars in all US history. The deaths projection specifically has run high (by about six days), though case counts remain surprisingly consistent with reported data. There are plenty of reasons to be cautious about the data and trends. And there's no necessary reason this possibility must come to pass. But if the US continues down the path it's chosen to date, that is what is in store.

H8crilA 7y ago
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, but the hard facts are that the volatility of the situation is very high - by that I mean that a large range of outcomes is possible. And the long tail is both possible and daunting.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  As my initial projection post makes clear, I'd fully expected the trend to have fallen well below projection by. now. It hasn't.

csomar 7y ago

According to his math, there should be 100million cases instead of the 0.5m currently confirmed. That's x200 more than what we were able to detect. I think the answer lies in between, which is the reason for the unraveling of this panic.

xscott 7y ago

Let's compare apples to apples and stick to the US for a minute, which is what I believe the WSJ was doing. The winter of 2017-2018 was a bad flu year, and there were about 61,000 deaths from it in the US (uncertainty interval: 46K to 95K) [0]. According to the worldometers site, there are 785 deaths so far in the US from corona virus [1]. It's probably a poor estimate, but if we could extrapolate from the US population to the world population, 1.28 million died from the flu that year (61e3*7.8e9/372e6). [0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ EDIT: I found another link with a better estimate for world deaths from the flu. According to the World Health Organization, between 290,000 and 650,000 die from the flu each year [2]. So my estimate above was off by a factor of two. [2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal) https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(...

DanBC 7y ago
The death rate in the US is doubling every 3 days. (A bit less than 3 days.) What will it look like in 21 days? 0 785 3 1570 6 3140 9 6280 12 12560 15 25120 18 50240 21 100480
- xscott 7y ago
  Yes, exponential curves are scary. So are logistics curves. We should know in 21 days if your prediction is right.
  - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
    The only things that will bend the curve downward are: 1. The virus begins to exhaust the available fuel (i.e., something approaching 60-70% of the population gets sick), or 2. Strict social distancing measures are implemented. Option 1 means that ~200 million Americans contract the virus, ~20 million need hospitalization, and ~2 million die. At that level of hospitalization, though, the healthcare system will collapse, and the death rate (not only for coronavirus patients) may well go up significantly. That's the logistic curve you'll get if you leave things to run their course.