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Fundamentally, decision-making is what predictions are for. We mainly care about information to guide our actions. There are some interesting implications of th

Fundamentally, decision-making is what predictions are for. We mainly care about information to guide our actions. There are some interesting implications of this for how we should do research. https://www.gwern.net/Research-criticism#beliefs-are-for-actions https://www.gwern.net/Research-criticism#beliefs-are-for-act... A recent example: people have been talking about clinical trials for coronavirus vaccine candidates. In those you want to minimize the bad things that happen to the people in the study, and also get a working vaccine rolled out to the world as quickly as possible. Therefore you might want to accept unusually low levels of certainty that the vaccine is safe, or ramp up trial size faster than usual, because the world is on fire and every day of delay is terrible. For other vaccines with smaller expected benefits, slow-and-cautious might be the way to go. In both cases it's a matter of balancing expected risks with rewards as your probability estimates change over time.

bo1024 7y ago
Yes, exactly. For example, I would think there would be immense value right now in sampling totally random subsets of the population and testing whether they've had COVID-19 in the past. This is the kind of information that could radically change decisions about when to release stay-at-home orders.
- btilly 7y ago
  I disagree on that. The purposes of sampling are to find out how deadly the disease is, and to find out if herd immunity exists. But we have good evidence that it is likely to be deadly enough to justify stay-at-home orders while community spread exists. And have strong circumstantial evidence that only a small fraction of the population has had it. Therefore breaking quarantine for a random subset of the population is unlikely to change actionable decisions. But it will be likely to spread the disease. I would love to know the answer to the question raised. But it isn't worth human lives to answer it sooner than it will otherwise be answered.
  - csomar 7y ago
    > But we have good evidence that it is likely to be deadly enough to justify stay-at-home orders while community spread exists. I don't think we agree on that and it's relative. Not all people agree on stay-at-home/confinement orders. I personally see them as an authoritarian measure and I think everyone should judge for himself whether he wants to expose himself to COVID-19 risks or not. As to the point of determining if COVID-19 is deadly enough or not, I don't see how we can do that without sampling the society. It's not clear, right now, if the only cases are the ones that are diagnosed or 50% of society.
    - btilly 7y ago
      I don't think we agree on that and it's relative. Not all people agree on stay-at-home/confinement orders. I personally see them as an authoritarian measure and I think everyone should judge for himself whether he wants to expose himself to COVID-19 risks or not. It is in the nature of public health that "everyone should judge for himself" guarantees epidemics. Because like it or not, the choices that you make for yourself affect me. You may decide that you'll survive so you don't alter your behavior. But that spreads the disease and makes it more likely that my immunocompromised sister dies. The result is that public health provides the most clear-cut cases where we have to choose between individual rights and the public good. But we are loathe to make that choice. Therefore it presents us with a series of easily debated moral quandaries. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267241/ for some of the relevant history. As to the point of determining if COVID-19 is deadly enough or not, I don't see how we can do that without sampling the society. It's not clear, right now, if the only cases are the ones that are diagnosed or 50% of society. Both extreme statements are exceedingly unlikely. I had based my comment on published articles estimating an infection fatality rate of 0.4%-1.4% with a best estimate around 0.66%. But the full story is complicated. Work your way through https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-... to understand the current data, estimates, limitations of various research and so on. It is..messy.

bo1024 7y ago

Yes, exactly. For example, I would think there would be immense value right now in sampling totally random subsets of the population and testing whether they've had COVID-19 in the past. This is the kind of information that could radically change decisions about when to release stay-at-home orders.

btilly 7y ago
I disagree on that. The purposes of sampling are to find out how deadly the disease is, and to find out if herd immunity exists. But we have good evidence that it is likely to be deadly enough to justify stay-at-home orders while community spread exists. And have strong circumstantial evidence that only a small fraction of the population has had it. Therefore breaking quarantine for a random subset of the population is unlikely to change actionable decisions. But it will be likely to spread the disease. I would love to know the answer to the question raised. But it isn't worth human lives to answer it sooner than it will otherwise be answered.
- csomar 7y ago
  > But we have good evidence that it is likely to be deadly enough to justify stay-at-home orders while community spread exists. I don't think we agree on that and it's relative. Not all people agree on stay-at-home/confinement orders. I personally see them as an authoritarian measure and I think everyone should judge for himself whether he wants to expose himself to COVID-19 risks or not. As to the point of determining if COVID-19 is deadly enough or not, I don't see how we can do that without sampling the society. It's not clear, right now, if the only cases are the ones that are diagnosed or 50% of society.
  - btilly 7y ago
    I don't think we agree on that and it's relative. Not all people agree on stay-at-home/confinement orders. I personally see them as an authoritarian measure and I think everyone should judge for himself whether he wants to expose himself to COVID-19 risks or not. It is in the nature of public health that "everyone should judge for himself" guarantees epidemics. Because like it or not, the choices that you make for yourself affect me. You may decide that you'll survive so you don't alter your behavior. But that spreads the disease and makes it more likely that my immunocompromised sister dies. The result is that public health provides the most clear-cut cases where we have to choose between individual rights and the public good. But we are loathe to make that choice. Therefore it presents us with a series of easily debated moral quandaries. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267241/ for some of the relevant history. As to the point of determining if COVID-19 is deadly enough or not, I don't see how we can do that without sampling the society. It's not clear, right now, if the only cases are the ones that are diagnosed or 50% of society. Both extreme statements are exceedingly unlikely. I had based my comment on published articles estimating an infection fatality rate of 0.4%-1.4% with a best estimate around 0.66%. But the full story is complicated. Work your way through https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-... to understand the current data, estimates, limitations of various research and so on. It is..messy.