3 ms·
It's such a shame that COVID-19 has become so politicized, it's hard to even find scientific sources that are being wholeheartedly honest. Here's a few statemen
by dvt 7y ago
It's such a shame that COVID-19 has become so politicized, it's hard to even find scientific sources that are being wholeheartedly honest. Here's a few statements that are blatantly misleading:
> Around 1 in 20 people infected with COVID-19 need to go to an ICU (Intensive Care Unit).
That statistic is contingent on infection rates. No one has these due to lack of testing. Therefore, the statistic is misleading at best, and wrong at worst.
> However, pandemics are like poker. Make bets only when you're 95% sure, and you'll lose everything at stake.
This is highly alarmist. Pandemics aren't like poker because you're not going "all-in" on a 95% bet. Awful analogy, and just bad rhetoric.
> (Rant about the confusion about pre-symptomatic vs "true" asymptomatic. "True" asymptomatics are rare.)
Let's be real. In the study cited, N was like 900 (with asymptomatics = 4; 1.9%). We have no idea how "rare" asymptomatics are, and citing this study is just bad science. I don't understand why not just be honest.
- Symmetry 7y agoFor the hospitalization ratio we don't have enough testing in many places but for those countries that are successfully pursuing test and trace strategies we can be pretty sure they're at least discovering the majority of contagious infections. So we can guess at the rough number even if we don't have it nailed down precisely.
- dvt 7y agoIceland is leading testing rates at almost 146 per 1,000 people[1]. This is extremely low for a hyper-contagious pathogen like COVID-19. No one is "pretty sure they're at least discovering the majority of contagious infections" -- let's call a spade a spade and build models that actually make sense. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing
- Symmetry 7y agoIf you use contact tracing to find out who sick people interacted with you only need to test those people rather than everyone and you can get by with far less testing overall. Then it's about the number of tests per case rather than the number of tests per capita. The percent positive rate on tests is a very important metric there as well and it seems that countries that control the spread get that down far enough that false positives outnumber true positives.
- dvt 7y agoThis kind of mental gymnastics just muddies the waters. My original point was that hospitalization (and/or ICU) rates are contingent on infection rates and that no one has reliable (and/or accurate) infection rates. Exactly how you calculate infection rates (testing, contact tracing, self-reporting) is immaterial.