4 ms·

Ro is the spread without mitigating factors, so Ro is more or less assumed constant. That said, there's no reason to think the particular places you're naming

Ro is the spread without mitigating factors, so Ro is more or less assumed constant. That said, there's no reason to think the particular places you're naming are either doing effective testing or mitigating factors. People tossing around the statistics of a given country without looking deeply at the testing process have been confusing the situation for a while here. Moreover, a lot of these quotes wind-up wrong as they're stated. "Look at Eastern Europe". I can see fast exponential in Romania, maybe other parts of the area are still in "don't ask, don't tell" but doesn't prove anything.

glofish 7y ago
we will see, but it is just hard to fathom that with all these social distancing measures in place you still have 400K in the US and seemingly very few in Brazil and all these other places where for large swaths of the population social distancing is not an option. It might be that the R0 is far more variable than assumed.
- dragontamer 7y ago
  > social distancing measures in place R0 is the measurement of what will happen WITHOUT social distancing. In effect, researchers calculate R0 to determine if social distancing / lockdowns / etc. etc. would be worthwhile. ------ The virus's real reproductive rate is called "R" (which is obviously lower now, due to social distancing / masks / etc. etc.). R0 is the "if we did nothing" variable.
  - Cpoll 7y ago
    What's the correct way to say 'R0 with social distancing?' That is to say, R0 in a hypothetical place that was always practicing social distancing? Because as I understand it, R0 is used to calculate herd immunity, but a lot of people are curious about what the herd immunity numbers would look like if we continued to take measures such as 6ft/2m distancing and wearing masks (efficacy debated, I know) and face shields.
dragontamer 7y ago
R0 changes from location-to-location and from culture to culture. Case in point: the Flu is affected by temperature. Its R0 is lower in the summer (when the Flu dies) and higher in the winter, aka Flu season. COVID19 does not seem to be affected by the heat, but its almost certainly affected by population density. The R0 of COVID19 will be higher in cities (ie: Wuhan China or New York City), and lower in rural areas. But its good to see estimates for R0. We need a number to base our decisions upon, to get a rough gauge of how bad this virus could get. Whether or not all of these measures we're doing matters, or if its worth the tradeoff of harming the economy.

glofish 7y ago

we will see, but it is just hard to fathom that with all these social distancing measures in place you still have 400K in the US and seemingly very few in Brazil and all these other places where for large swaths of the population social distancing is not an option. It might be that the R0 is far more variable than assumed.

dragontamer 7y ago
> social distancing measures in place R0 is the measurement of what will happen WITHOUT social distancing. In effect, researchers calculate R0 to determine if social distancing / lockdowns / etc. etc. would be worthwhile. ------ The virus's real reproductive rate is called "R" (which is obviously lower now, due to social distancing / masks / etc. etc.). R0 is the "if we did nothing" variable.
- Cpoll 7y ago
  What's the correct way to say 'R0 with social distancing?' That is to say, R0 in a hypothetical place that was always practicing social distancing? Because as I understand it, R0 is used to calculate herd immunity, but a lot of people are curious about what the herd immunity numbers would look like if we continued to take measures such as 6ft/2m distancing and wearing masks (efficacy debated, I know) and face shields.

dragontamer 7y ago

R0 changes from location-to-location and from culture to culture. Case in point: the Flu is affected by temperature. Its R0 is lower in the summer (when the Flu dies) and higher in the winter, aka Flu season. COVID19 does not seem to be affected by the heat, but its almost certainly affected by population density. The R0 of COVID19 will be higher in cities (ie: Wuhan China or New York City), and lower in rural areas. But its good to see estimates for R0. We need a number to base our decisions upon, to get a rough gauge of how bad this virus could get. Whether or not all of these measures we're doing matters, or if its worth the tradeoff of harming the economy.