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Speculating about how the virus works on the internet, especially in the confident kind of tone I'm seeing in this comment section, leads people to take that sp

by cowpig 7y ago

Speculating about how the virus works on the internet, especially in the confident kind of tone I'm seeing in this comment section, leads people to take that speculation as fact, repeat it, and then you have misinformation spreading on an ongoing health crisis that people use to inform decisions they make in their lives which affect themselves and others. I am not a doctor myself, but I am dating one, and helped her prepare for her (likely endless) shift in the COVID-19 unit at the hospital two weekends ago. I was shocked at how much more serious the health effects were than the internet had led me to believe, and I don't use facebook avoid low-quality journalism.

jpxw 7y ago
There’s definitely some danger in people downplaying this virus, I totally agree. But I don’t see that happening in this comment section. I see people discussing how the virus might work, and trying to explain why these examples have been observed.
- cowpig 7y ago
  That is the HN-equivalent of the same thing. I've heard multiple doctors tell me their worst patients are the smartest ones, because they're used to thinking for themselves and then make dangerous modifications to their advice without understanding all of the reasoning and context behind it (which they cannot explain in a sitting).
- claytongulick 7y ago
  There's a possibly equal danger of exaggerating the severity of the virus, which we may be experiencing right now. Bias towards either direction is still bias. Educated discussion and critical thought are all we can rely on. If that leads us to the conclusion (as it has led me) that the severity of this disease has been inflated, I think that's a worthy topic of debate and evaluation. Not a taboo subject to be avoided "because someone somewhere might not take it seriously enough and then do something stupid".
saiya-jin 7y ago
This could be said about any time, any disease, or well... anything ever on internet. I for one am glad folks share their opinions here, if one can't distinguish between speculations, opinions and facts then problem lies elsewhere. I too have my wife a doctor, and I was shocked how little and behind-the-curve their covid infection information is. Most specialist doctors here treated covid in 'what the heck are people worried about, just another flu, right' fashion till maybe 2 weeks ago. Mind you, we talk about Switzerland here with northern italy 50-100km from here, and experts in their (non-virology) fields like urology surgeon, nephrologist, radiologist, emergency doctor(!) and so on. For once, thank you internet and (also) HN users!
- cowpig 7y ago
  > Most specialist doctors here treated covid in 'what the heck are people worried about, just another flu, right' fashion till maybe 2 weeks ago. I consider statements about what "most specialist doctors" were doing, especially without citation, to be a form of the misinformation I'm talking about. If there were people who didn't take the oncoming pandemic seriously enough, they should probably revisit their priors and processes by which they come to conclusions. But it doesn't mean we should start posting about it on the internet as justification for speculating on things we don't understand, and simultaneously casting doubt on the expertise or authority of an entire group of professionals.
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    Dude you are so out of touch here - I was talking about our friends - if your wife is indeed a doctor, then you have tons of those in your inner circle. This is first hand experience, nothing less, in biggest Swiss hospital, nothing less. There you have it, a citation from person directly talking to those mentioned. An update - just learned that 1 year old daughter of our friends, both are doctors, is tested positive, probably from her nursery/child carer. The poor little thing is sick for more than a week. They still think they are OK to continue to work and not being sick since only one of them shows mild symptoms which could be anything. How the fuck is that possible? With doctors? En Suisse? Some doctors, while experts in their narrow field, are just doing what they are told and don't do much research outside of their field. Please don't tell everybody to just blindly trust appointed experts, that can be a dangerous advice in these times.
sergiosgc 7y ago
HN is peculiar. It's one of the few forums where you can find rocket scientists talking about rocket science. Much more important, when talking about rocket science, non rocket scientists often state their experience is from playing KSP. I mean, people often declare their ignorance when writing a comment, without being afraid of any negative consequence. This is good. It means its an educated audience -- uneducated audiences rarely assume incompetence. An educated audience does not require as much of "nanny" moderation, for lack of a better term. I hope HN mantains this profile, and I hope this profile applies to medical science as much as it applies to rocket science. I've learnt a lot about rocket science from discussions here, and I hope to learn a lot about medical science from discussions here. All without any danger of assembling and flying my own rockets, or cooking my own medication. I am very aware that Dunning-Kruger applies to everyone, myself included.

by cowpig 7y ago

jpxw 7y ago

There’s definitely some danger in people downplaying this virus, I totally agree. But I don’t see that happening in this comment section. I see people discussing how the virus might work, and trying to explain why these examples have been observed.

cowpig 7y ago
That is the HN-equivalent of the same thing. I've heard multiple doctors tell me their worst patients are the smartest ones, because they're used to thinking for themselves and then make dangerous modifications to their advice without understanding all of the reasoning and context behind it (which they cannot explain in a sitting).
claytongulick 7y ago
There's a possibly equal danger of exaggerating the severity of the virus, which we may be experiencing right now. Bias towards either direction is still bias. Educated discussion and critical thought are all we can rely on. If that leads us to the conclusion (as it has led me) that the severity of this disease has been inflated, I think that's a worthy topic of debate and evaluation. Not a taboo subject to be avoided "because someone somewhere might not take it seriously enough and then do something stupid".

saiya-jin 7y ago

This could be said about any time, any disease, or well... anything ever on internet. I for one am glad folks share their opinions here, if one can't distinguish between speculations, opinions and facts then problem lies elsewhere. I too have my wife a doctor, and I was shocked how little and behind-the-curve their covid infection information is. Most specialist doctors here treated covid in 'what the heck are people worried about, just another flu, right' fashion till maybe 2 weeks ago. Mind you, we talk about Switzerland here with northern italy 50-100km from here, and experts in their (non-virology) fields like urology surgeon, nephrologist, radiologist, emergency doctor(!) and so on. For once, thank you internet and (also) HN users!

cowpig 7y ago
> Most specialist doctors here treated covid in 'what the heck are people worried about, just another flu, right' fashion till maybe 2 weeks ago. I consider statements about what "most specialist doctors" were doing, especially without citation, to be a form of the misinformation I'm talking about. If there were people who didn't take the oncoming pandemic seriously enough, they should probably revisit their priors and processes by which they come to conclusions. But it doesn't mean we should start posting about it on the internet as justification for speculating on things we don't understand, and simultaneously casting doubt on the expertise or authority of an entire group of professionals.
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  Dude you are so out of touch here - I was talking about our friends - if your wife is indeed a doctor, then you have tons of those in your inner circle. This is first hand experience, nothing less, in biggest Swiss hospital, nothing less. There you have it, a citation from person directly talking to those mentioned. An update - just learned that 1 year old daughter of our friends, both are doctors, is tested positive, probably from her nursery/child carer. The poor little thing is sick for more than a week. They still think they are OK to continue to work and not being sick since only one of them shows mild symptoms which could be anything. How the fuck is that possible? With doctors? En Suisse? Some doctors, while experts in their narrow field, are just doing what they are told and don't do much research outside of their field. Please don't tell everybody to just blindly trust appointed experts, that can be a dangerous advice in these times.

sergiosgc 7y ago

HN is peculiar. It's one of the few forums where you can find rocket scientists talking about rocket science. Much more important, when talking about rocket science, non rocket scientists often state their experience is from playing KSP. I mean, people often declare their ignorance when writing a comment, without being afraid of any negative consequence. This is good. It means its an educated audience -- uneducated audiences rarely assume incompetence. An educated audience does not require as much of "nanny" moderation, for lack of a better term. I hope HN mantains this profile, and I hope this profile applies to medical science as much as it applies to rocket science. I've learnt a lot about rocket science from discussions here, and I hope to learn a lot about medical science from discussions here. All without any danger of assembling and flying my own rockets, or cooking my own medication. I am very aware that Dunning-Kruger applies to everyone, myself included.