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It has been horribly fascinating watching the (coordinated?) campaign to downplay either the fatality rate or just write off a percentage off the population dyi

It has been horribly fascinating watching the (coordinated?) campaign to downplay either the fatality rate or just write off a percentage off the population dying as the "cost of doing business".

meowface 7y ago
People should care about the facts, whatever they may be. If the fatality rate really is lower than what was previously reported, it's a disservice to the public to not report that. These are objective data and statistics, if they're accurate and put in the proper context (e.g. grouped by ages and pre-existing conditions). The exchanging deaths vs. economic health thing is a subjective policy position, which is different, and doesn't necessarily change even if the fatality rate is lower than reported. If it still appears to be more contagious and more fatal than the flu, I think most people will continue to support the lockdowns.
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  "If it still appears to be more contagious and more fatal than the flu" If? The amount of magical thinking required to still have some doubt about this is undefinable. Spain is converting ice-rinks into morgues to store the freaking bodies. NYC has run out of ventilators and the federal response is something like: NY could have had some at a good price in 2015.
  - meowface 7y ago
    I'm just speaking in a neutral way. As in "if it remains the case that...". Of course, I do think it is the case, and am not doubtful at all. It seems to be incontrovertible. I'm talking about how I expect the population to react based on their perception of the situation.
GuB-42 7y ago
Optimist: the fatality rate is lower than expected Pessimist: there are more cases than expected They both mean the same thing. And for now, it is pure speculation.
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  Cute. But wrong. In order for them to mean the same thing, the pessimist would have to be "there are more recovered cases than expected" Of course, that is not a pessimistic stance, that is optimistic. The pessimistic (and I believe realistic viewpoint) is that it is exceedingly likely there are more cases than we know, and a SURGE of these people will be hitting the ER in about 5-15 days.
H8crilA 7y ago
Should we save the economy or the old people? Should the economy be powered by literal human sacrifice? Isn't that what the "barbarians" do, human sacrifice? People like that truly disgust me. Wouldn't shake hand.
rgifford 7y ago
I don't really know what you mean, but I'm assuming it's something along the lines of a recent tweet I saw by Cuomo: "My mother is not expendable. Your mother is not expendable. We will not put a dollar figure on human life. We can have a public health strategy that is consistent with an economic one. No one should be talking about social darwinism for the sake of the stock market." The statistical value of human life is a figure somewhere between $6 - $10M used to weigh social and economic policy. Using it to write off a percentage of the population dying as the "cost of doing business" is standard practice in social and economic policymaking. Non-existent testing infrastructure and late/poorly enforced lockdowns have me convinced the approach to covid-19 being taken by the states completely ignores our reality. We don't have China's population control, South Korea's testing infrastructure, or Italy's population density.
- altoidaltoid 7y ago
  So your suggestion is...
  - rgifford 7y ago
    Selectively quarantine at risk populations, segment the population and share non-overlapping access to public spaces and workspaces, work with large employers (esp. state run) to define new workplace procedures that limit transmission, run government programs to collect used N95 masks for sterilization and re-distribution, install checkpoints to prevent personal vehicles from traveling between cities... There's lots of nuanced strategies we could've taken. We settled on the simplest, most hysterical, least sustainable one.
    - totony 7y ago
      Very much agreed with your stance. As far as I understand the hysteria surrounding the covid, people seem to forget that saving people is a cost analysis. Ideally the virus could be annihilated in a authoritarian regime with very heavy lock-downs. We should aim for a policy that fits with our society and not try to imitate regimes where other courses of actions are more viable (e.g. China has very good population control and thus can afford lock-downs, whereas Western nations have more emphasis on personal and civic responsibility and may have better ways of dealing with it). I would love to say I trust our government and the decision they made, but I'm afraid I don't. Imo we should prioritize helping at-risk population and allowing them to quarantine if needed, and let each person assess their own risk (with help) w/r to that virus and act accordingly, while making sure they have access to the resources they need. As a side note, this follows a trend I notice in society to treat people as sheep that cannot think for themselves and must be protected (which is warranted for some people in view of the latest hysteria).
James_Henry 7y ago
This article isn't trying to downplay the fatality rate and isn't trying to justify letting people die for the sake of the economy/business. This article is pointing out that the fatality rate may be rather low and that nationwide quarantining may not be that useful in saving lives, instead we may need to focus on supporting hospitals and the elderly in other ways than mass quarantining. They make some good points: >First, the test used to identify cases doesn’t catch people who were infected and recovered. Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill. Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections. Epidemiological modelers haven’t adequately adapted their estimates to account for these factors. There is a lot of work being done here and there are already antibody tests being used in research so I'm expecting to see some better modeling soon. They also make some less good points: >An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. I get the feeling that everyone who came from Wuhan to the US was incredibly aware of the state of their health and were ready to quarantine at the slightest snivel. At least the ones I knew were. It could very well be that the Jan. 15 case was the first or very close to the first to show symptoms. Also, the doubling rate of every 3 days is less accurate for the first several days of the disease which probably messes up this estimate even more. What I guess I'm getting at is that this is a messy back of the envelope calculation that is less useful than it is foolish.
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  "They make some good points: >First, the test used to identify cases doesn’t catch people who were infected and recovered. Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill. Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections. Epidemiological modelers haven’t adequately adapted their estimates to account for these factors." Those are NOT good points. Those are lousy points. The article strains credulity at every logical assumption required to reach their final guestimate. Each assumption is deliberately taken to arrive at a comically low number for CFR and a comically high number for how many have already been infected AND recovered. Moreover, the author is NOT even qualified enough to understand that he is not qualified to offer an informed opinion on this matter.

It has been horribly fascinating watching the (coordinated?) campaign to downplay either the fatality rate or just write off a percentage off the population dying as the "cost of doing business".

meowface 7y ago

People should care about the facts, whatever they may be. If the fatality rate really is lower than what was previously reported, it's a disservice to the public to not report that. These are objective data and statistics, if they're accurate and put in the proper context (e.g. grouped by ages and pre-existing conditions). The exchanging deaths vs. economic health thing is a subjective policy position, which is different, and doesn't necessarily change even if the fatality rate is lower than reported. If it still appears to be more contagious and more fatal than the flu, I think most people will continue to support the lockdowns.

hcknwscommenter 7y ago
"If it still appears to be more contagious and more fatal than the flu" If? The amount of magical thinking required to still have some doubt about this is undefinable. Spain is converting ice-rinks into morgues to store the freaking bodies. NYC has run out of ventilators and the federal response is something like: NY could have had some at a good price in 2015.
- meowface 7y ago
  I'm just speaking in a neutral way. As in "if it remains the case that...". Of course, I do think it is the case, and am not doubtful at all. It seems to be incontrovertible. I'm talking about how I expect the population to react based on their perception of the situation.

GuB-42 7y ago

Optimist: the fatality rate is lower than expected Pessimist: there are more cases than expected They both mean the same thing. And for now, it is pure speculation.

hcknwscommenter 7y ago
Cute. But wrong. In order for them to mean the same thing, the pessimist would have to be "there are more recovered cases than expected" Of course, that is not a pessimistic stance, that is optimistic. The pessimistic (and I believe realistic viewpoint) is that it is exceedingly likely there are more cases than we know, and a SURGE of these people will be hitting the ER in about 5-15 days.

H8crilA 7y ago

Should we save the economy or the old people? Should the economy be powered by literal human sacrifice? Isn't that what the "barbarians" do, human sacrifice? People like that truly disgust me. Wouldn't shake hand.

rgifford 7y ago

I don't really know what you mean, but I'm assuming it's something along the lines of a recent tweet I saw by Cuomo: "My mother is not expendable. Your mother is not expendable. We will not put a dollar figure on human life. We can have a public health strategy that is consistent with an economic one. No one should be talking about social darwinism for the sake of the stock market." The statistical value of human life is a figure somewhere between $6 - $10M used to weigh social and economic policy. Using it to write off a percentage of the population dying as the "cost of doing business" is standard practice in social and economic policymaking. Non-existent testing infrastructure and late/poorly enforced lockdowns have me convinced the approach to covid-19 being taken by the states completely ignores our reality. We don't have China's population control, South Korea's testing infrastructure, or Italy's population density.

altoidaltoid 7y ago
So your suggestion is...
- rgifford 7y ago
  Selectively quarantine at risk populations, segment the population and share non-overlapping access to public spaces and workspaces, work with large employers (esp. state run) to define new workplace procedures that limit transmission, run government programs to collect used N95 masks for sterilization and re-distribution, install checkpoints to prevent personal vehicles from traveling between cities... There's lots of nuanced strategies we could've taken. We settled on the simplest, most hysterical, least sustainable one.
  - totony 7y ago
    Very much agreed with your stance. As far as I understand the hysteria surrounding the covid, people seem to forget that saving people is a cost analysis. Ideally the virus could be annihilated in a authoritarian regime with very heavy lock-downs. We should aim for a policy that fits with our society and not try to imitate regimes where other courses of actions are more viable (e.g. China has very good population control and thus can afford lock-downs, whereas Western nations have more emphasis on personal and civic responsibility and may have better ways of dealing with it). I would love to say I trust our government and the decision they made, but I'm afraid I don't. Imo we should prioritize helping at-risk population and allowing them to quarantine if needed, and let each person assess their own risk (with help) w/r to that virus and act accordingly, while making sure they have access to the resources they need. As a side note, this follows a trend I notice in society to treat people as sheep that cannot think for themselves and must be protected (which is warranted for some people in view of the latest hysteria).

James_Henry 7y ago

This article isn't trying to downplay the fatality rate and isn't trying to justify letting people die for the sake of the economy/business. This article is pointing out that the fatality rate may be rather low and that nationwide quarantining may not be that useful in saving lives, instead we may need to focus on supporting hospitals and the elderly in other ways than mass quarantining. They make some good points: >First, the test used to identify cases doesn’t catch people who were infected and recovered. Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill. Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections. Epidemiological modelers haven’t adequately adapted their estimates to account for these factors. There is a lot of work being done here and there are already antibody tests being used in research so I'm expecting to see some better modeling soon. They also make some less good points: >An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. I get the feeling that everyone who came from Wuhan to the US was incredibly aware of the state of their health and were ready to quarantine at the slightest snivel. At least the ones I knew were. It could very well be that the Jan. 15 case was the first or very close to the first to show symptoms. Also, the doubling rate of every 3 days is less accurate for the first several days of the disease which probably messes up this estimate even more. What I guess I'm getting at is that this is a messy back of the envelope calculation that is less useful than it is foolish.

hcknwscommenter 7y ago
"They make some good points: >First, the test used to identify cases doesn’t catch people who were infected and recovered. Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill. Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections. Epidemiological modelers haven’t adequately adapted their estimates to account for these factors." Those are NOT good points. Those are lousy points. The article strains credulity at every logical assumption required to reach their final guestimate. Each assumption is deliberately taken to arrive at a comically low number for CFR and a comically high number for how many have already been infected AND recovered. Moreover, the author is NOT even qualified enough to understand that he is not qualified to offer an informed opinion on this matter.