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> Our public health organizations (and the media) have adopted the following belief: It is worth it to either mislead the public or to outright lie in order to
by lbeltrame 6y ago
> Our public health organizations (and the media) have adopted the following belief: It is worth it to either mislead the public or to outright lie in order to achieve compliance. If it's not clear from the article, I find such a position detestable, not only on ideological grounds but also because functionally it causes people to endanger their health by engaging in superstition.
In Italy it's pretty evident from the communication from the government, the experts (which released a "disaster story" of possible 150,000 ICU cases in a month, a number so high that should have been at least explained) and the media (including tabloids).
Since Germany has started reopening, media here (but, according to what I read - but please correct me if need be - not the case with the major German papers) started saying that "infections are accelerating elsewhere! See? Our model of
lockdown is the only one that works!"
It might be true, but it should be grounded in facts and not in misrepresentation of them.
P.S.: Since you mentioned a critique of the widely-used model for this epidemic, do you have any more links to dig further? I simply do not know enough and I want to inform myself more.
- ryankemper 6y agohttps://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QuzAwSTND6N4k7yNj/seemingly-popular-covid-19-model-is-obvious-nonsense https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QuzAwSTND6N4k7yNj/seemingly-... is the critique (it's in the article but easy to miss) The most important point of criticism is this section: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QuzAwSTND6N4k7yNj/seemingly-popular-covid-19-model-is-obvious-nonsense#A_Simpler_Version_of_the_Same_Model https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QuzAwSTND6N4k7yNj/seemingly-...
- lbeltrame 6y agoI've read it, but (perhaps I'm wrong, I'm a biologist turned to computational biology so not expert on epidemiological models ;) didn't the author (and similar Stats News post) argue that it is too optimistic, IOW the opposite that you were arguing in the post? I don't mean this is as a criticism, but it struck me as some dissonance as I was reading. I've also heard that there might be criticism to other models like the Imperial College one, but so far I've never found anything with some substance.
- ryankemper 6y agoGood question. I should have proactively addressed that: The IMHE model, after re-estimating, _was_ too optimistic. My argument does not hinge on the IMHE model being too pessimistic; but rather simply that the IMHE model is basically useless and thus we shouldn't base policy on it. I expect us to have well over 100,000 COVID-19 deaths - indeed probably 3x that but I admit I haven't sat down and done the age-bracket-weighted mortality napkin math. (Basically, take each age group's IFR and multiply by that age group's population in the US, after multiplying by some constant <1 which represnts the sum of herd immunity threshold plus overshoot) So basically, I think that COVID-19 mortality is going to be way worse than the model predicts, but given the way I view the cost of lockdown, etc, I still think the approach I am proposing is superior to locking down. Does that make sense?
- lbeltrame 6y agoYes, I understand your point now. Thanks a lot for clarifying.
- lbeltrame 6y agoAnswering above for the same reason of the nesting limit. Some models (not published) from our expert panel in Italy are instead, in my ignorant view, very pessimistic (they say they elaborated 90 of them). The lockdown will be "eased" (quotes, for most people it's the same as before) on May 4th and one of the predictions said we'd get 150K ICU cases (as I wrote in the parent post). This looks very hyperbolic, at least on paper, because there are many measures still in place, so it's not the same as "no social distancing, no protection, everyone free".