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> The lifetime risk of death being involved in a car accident is 1%. You're off by a factor of 100. It's .01%. > The lifetime risk of dying of an opioid overd

> The lifetime risk of death being involved in a car accident is 1%. You're off by a factor of 100. It's .01%. > The lifetime risk of dying of an opioid overdose is 2%. For who? Someone who uses opioids? Maybe, on average, again you're off by a factor of 100 or more. > We do not know how deadly it is, all we know is that of people who go to the hospital No, of people who test positive, which includes people with relatively mild symptoms that don't go to the hospital, but had reason or ability to get tested. South Korea is probably the best current testbed here, they had very widespread testing and they've had very, very slow growth recently so the CFR numbers are probably relatively accurate. They see a 3% CFR. > Which is why Sweden remains open for business. And you know what? They're doing just fine [1]. Normalized by population, Sweden has seen more deaths and more infections than California, by about 50%, and it will likely continue to grow at a similar rate. The problem with exponential growth is that things look like they're doing just fine until suddenly they aren't and there's no way to fix things.

arcticbull 7y ago
> You're off by a factor of 100. It's .01%. > For who? Someone who uses opioids? Maybe, on average, again you're off by a factor of 100 or more. No, lol, it's not. Those are averages across the US population. Your lifetime odds in the US of dying in an automotive accident is 1:103 [1]. I should have said accidental poisoning which is 1:64 [2] but half of that is actually opioids (1:96) so you're still more likely to die of an opioid overdose than being a party to a car accident. Most people don't set out to get hooked on Oxy, they get hurt or undergo surgery, are prescribed them, and that's that. There's 40,000 deaths per year related to car accidents, which if you multiply out by the average lifetime (78.69 years) is right around 3.2 million, or 1%. This is fair to compare against COVID because due to its extremely limited propensity for mutation, the COVID mortality rate does represent what approximates lifetime risk. (i.e. unlike the flu, you won't get it again). > South Korea is probably the best current testbed here... I argue the best testbed is the German study I cited where they actually tested... everyone. CFR is not mortality rate, its about an order of magnitude higher, again, I cited my data. And in my intuitive explanation that you're not factoring out adverse selection risk of only very sick people going to the hospital in the first place. > Normalized by population, Sweden has seen more deaths and more infections than California. Because everyone in California is inside. I'm sure they've seen an order of magnitude more flu deaths too because nothing spreads when you're inside. They're probably seeing infinitely more car accident deaths, too. Life's risky, and you're not comparing honestly. [1] https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-mortality-risk https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-mortalit...
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  > Your lifetime odds in the US of dying in an automotive accident is 1:103 [1]. No they're not. The lifetime odds for the average American are. For opioids as an example, as someone who doesn't use opioids, my lifetime odds of dying from an overdose are essentially nil. The distribution is bimodal. > This is fair to compare against COVID because due to its extremely limited propensity for mutation, the COVID mortality rate does represent what approximates lifetime risk. (i.e. unlike the flu, you won't get it again). You claim this with great certainty, but it hasn't been around long enough to know that it won't mutate in annoying ways. Further, it's still not fair to compare that way. In the past 2 decades, we've had 4 or more dangerous flus that aren't seasonal (SARS, MERS, H1N1, H5N1, COVID-19). Of these, most weren't infectious enough to be super dangerous, but two were (H1N1, COVID-19), each of which killed at least 100K people worldwide, and COVID-19 is on the path to claim a million lives worldwide this year. That's not a once-in-a-lifetime event, it's once a decade or even once every few years. > I argue the best testbed is the German study I cited where they actually tested... everyone. And the flaws in that study have been noted elsewhere. SK is a better testbed since they also tested huge swaths of people, even those not showing symptoms, and > CFR is not mortality rate The CFR of the flu is .1%, which would make COVID more contagious, and 30x more deadly. I'm not sure why the mortality rate matters since given the higher infection rate, COVID would have an even higher mortality rate. > Life's risky, and you're not comparing honestly. And the risk from COVID goes up if everyone catches it simultaneously. The CFR goes up even further if hospitals are overwhelmed.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    > No they're not. The lifetime odds for the average American are. For opioids as an example, as someone who doesn't use opioids, my lifetime odds of dying from an overdose are essentially nil. The distribution is bimodal. So now you accept that I wasn't off by 2 orders of magnitude, but are pedantically calling out that I wrote "your" even though I specifically wrote "Your lifetime odds in the US" -- which, if we're going to be entirely pedantic, applies to everyone on earth. Maybe look up your numbers and share them? You're ignoring how people end up addicted to opioids. The shape of the distribution is both entirely irrelevant and you haven't cited your source. This makes me think your goal is to win an argument instead of having a genuine discussion. > You claim this with great certainty, but it hasn't been around long enough to know that it won't mutate in annoying ways. I'm citing data from experts [1]. > ...we've had 4 or more dangerous flus that aren't seasonal (SARS, MERS, H1N1, H5N1, COVID-19). SARS, MERS and COVID are not flu viruses, they're coronaviridae. H1N1 and H5N1 are mutations/subtypes of the Influenza A virus. The coronaviridae are different. > And the flaws in that study have been noted elsewhere. SK is a better testbed since they also tested huge swaths of people, even those not showing symptoms... SK has not tested huge swaths of the population, they've tested around 1%. [2] They may have tested more than most people, but that's not what you claimed. They've tested some not showing symptoms. Huge difference as compared to testing 100% of the population. > The CFR of the flu is .1%, which would make COVID more contagious, and 30x more deadly. The study I referenced mentioned 0.1% for the flu vs 0.37% for COVID. Feel free to read it. That would make it 3.7X not 30X. Because the flu has been around so long the fatality rates are largely determined by mathematical modeling, and are very close to the actual fatality rate. On the other hand, we're still figuring it out for COVID. Yes, its is more contagious. Nobody's argued that. > And the risk from COVID goes up if everyone catches it simultaneously. The CFR goes up even further if hospitals are overwhelmed. Which is why, scroll back up, we isolate the vulnerable. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-coronavirus-isnt-mutating-quickly-suggesting-a-vaccine-would-offer-lasting-protection/2020/03/24/406522d6-6dfd-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-coronavirus-isnt-m... [2] https://www.barrons.com/articles/south-korea-coronavirus-covid-19-testing-cases-deaths-51586265433 https://www.barrons.com/articles/south-korea-coronavirus-cov...

arcticbull 7y ago

> You're off by a factor of 100. It's .01%. > For who? Someone who uses opioids? Maybe, on average, again you're off by a factor of 100 or more. No, lol, it's not. Those are averages across the US population. Your lifetime odds in the US of dying in an automotive accident is 1:103 [1]. I should have said accidental poisoning which is 1:64 [2] but half of that is actually opioids (1:96) so you're still more likely to die of an opioid overdose than being a party to a car accident. Most people don't set out to get hooked on Oxy, they get hurt or undergo surgery, are prescribed them, and that's that. There's 40,000 deaths per year related to car accidents, which if you multiply out by the average lifetime (78.69 years) is right around 3.2 million, or 1%. This is fair to compare against COVID because due to its extremely limited propensity for mutation, the COVID mortality rate does represent what approximates lifetime risk. (i.e. unlike the flu, you won't get it again). > South Korea is probably the best current testbed here... I argue the best testbed is the German study I cited where they actually tested... everyone. CFR is not mortality rate, its about an order of magnitude higher, again, I cited my data. And in my intuitive explanation that you're not factoring out adverse selection risk of only very sick people going to the hospital in the first place. > Normalized by population, Sweden has seen more deaths and more infections than California. Because everyone in California is inside. I'm sure they've seen an order of magnitude more flu deaths too because nothing spreads when you're inside. They're probably seeing infinitely more car accident deaths, too. Life's risky, and you're not comparing honestly. [1] https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-mortality-risk https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-mortalit...

joshuamorton 7y ago
> Your lifetime odds in the US of dying in an automotive accident is 1:103 [1]. No they're not. The lifetime odds for the average American are. For opioids as an example, as someone who doesn't use opioids, my lifetime odds of dying from an overdose are essentially nil. The distribution is bimodal. > This is fair to compare against COVID because due to its extremely limited propensity for mutation, the COVID mortality rate does represent what approximates lifetime risk. (i.e. unlike the flu, you won't get it again). You claim this with great certainty, but it hasn't been around long enough to know that it won't mutate in annoying ways. Further, it's still not fair to compare that way. In the past 2 decades, we've had 4 or more dangerous flus that aren't seasonal (SARS, MERS, H1N1, H5N1, COVID-19). Of these, most weren't infectious enough to be super dangerous, but two were (H1N1, COVID-19), each of which killed at least 100K people worldwide, and COVID-19 is on the path to claim a million lives worldwide this year. That's not a once-in-a-lifetime event, it's once a decade or even once every few years. > I argue the best testbed is the German study I cited where they actually tested... everyone. And the flaws in that study have been noted elsewhere. SK is a better testbed since they also tested huge swaths of people, even those not showing symptoms, and > CFR is not mortality rate The CFR of the flu is .1%, which would make COVID more contagious, and 30x more deadly. I'm not sure why the mortality rate matters since given the higher infection rate, COVID would have an even higher mortality rate. > Life's risky, and you're not comparing honestly. And the risk from COVID goes up if everyone catches it simultaneously. The CFR goes up even further if hospitals are overwhelmed.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  > No they're not. The lifetime odds for the average American are. For opioids as an example, as someone who doesn't use opioids, my lifetime odds of dying from an overdose are essentially nil. The distribution is bimodal. So now you accept that I wasn't off by 2 orders of magnitude, but are pedantically calling out that I wrote "your" even though I specifically wrote "Your lifetime odds in the US" -- which, if we're going to be entirely pedantic, applies to everyone on earth. Maybe look up your numbers and share them? You're ignoring how people end up addicted to opioids. The shape of the distribution is both entirely irrelevant and you haven't cited your source. This makes me think your goal is to win an argument instead of having a genuine discussion. > You claim this with great certainty, but it hasn't been around long enough to know that it won't mutate in annoying ways. I'm citing data from experts [1]. > ...we've had 4 or more dangerous flus that aren't seasonal (SARS, MERS, H1N1, H5N1, COVID-19). SARS, MERS and COVID are not flu viruses, they're coronaviridae. H1N1 and H5N1 are mutations/subtypes of the Influenza A virus. The coronaviridae are different. > And the flaws in that study have been noted elsewhere. SK is a better testbed since they also tested huge swaths of people, even those not showing symptoms... SK has not tested huge swaths of the population, they've tested around 1%. [2] They may have tested more than most people, but that's not what you claimed. They've tested some not showing symptoms. Huge difference as compared to testing 100% of the population. > The CFR of the flu is .1%, which would make COVID more contagious, and 30x more deadly. The study I referenced mentioned 0.1% for the flu vs 0.37% for COVID. Feel free to read it. That would make it 3.7X not 30X. Because the flu has been around so long the fatality rates are largely determined by mathematical modeling, and are very close to the actual fatality rate. On the other hand, we're still figuring it out for COVID. Yes, its is more contagious. Nobody's argued that. > And the risk from COVID goes up if everyone catches it simultaneously. The CFR goes up even further if hospitals are overwhelmed. Which is why, scroll back up, we isolate the vulnerable. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-coronavirus-isnt-mutating-quickly-suggesting-a-vaccine-would-offer-lasting-protection/2020/03/24/406522d6-6dfd-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-coronavirus-isnt-m... [2] https://www.barrons.com/articles/south-korea-coronavirus-covid-19-testing-cases-deaths-51586265433 https://www.barrons.com/articles/south-korea-coronavirus-cov...