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> it was doubling so fast it was hard to keep count of the cases and the hospital system came close to breaking under the stress? In the majority of the count

> it was doubling so fast it was hard to keep count of the cases and the hospital system came close to breaking under the stress? In the majority of the country hospitals did not come any where close to breaking. Please don't spread fake news.

vikramkr 6y ago
I'm referring to New York, not the rest of the country. I'm not talking about the majority of the country. The comment I'm replying to is apparently [flagged] [dead], so maybe it's not visible? For context, my comment is responding to a comment that is regarding the projections for NY and "Furher Cuomo's" response to it. My reply is discussing what was happening in new york. certainly the response we had here would not have made sense in another area that wasnt on the edge of hospital system collapse, but that's not what this comment chain and thread is discussing, it's discussing New York.
- bsder 6y ago
  The problem is that exponential growth looks flat until it looks vertical. People either get this or they don't or they choose not to. New York was going vertical. The rest of the country went "Oh, hell, no" and locked down to prevent that from even starting. But, it's okay. We're running a nice set of experiments right now with the experimental group (red states reopening) vs control group (blue states staying locked down until criteria are met). We'll get lots of nice data in about 3 weeks.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    Exponential growth is never vertical. Why must we resort to hyperbole when the truth is scary enough?
    - bsder 6y ago
      To a first order approximation it is. And the reason we need to try analogies and hyperbole is because even people who are arguing in good faith don't get exponential growth. Normal people look at 2 on day 1, 4 on day 4, 8 on day 7 and think "Oh, about 4 every 3 days. Shrug. No big deal." Horizontal. Epidemiologists look at that and go "AHHHHH! Doubling every 3 days. Shut everything down or we'll have a million in 2 months and 10 million a week later." They're looking at the vertical section of the curve. This is similar to people misunderstanding fire. Most people have experienced a campfire. The energy drops off like 1/r^3, so it's no big deal. Most people haven't experienced a wind driven wall of flame where the energy drops off like 1/r so things simply spontaneously combust next to the flamefront. And that's just cubic vs linear.
      - tathougies 6y ago
        > Normal people look at 2 on day 1, 4 on day 4, 8 on day 7 and think "Oh, about 4 every 3 days. Shrug. No big deal." Horizontal. Yeah well HN is mostly a bunch of software engineers who spend most of their day relying on the fundamental that at the end of 32 days in your example, there'll be 4 billion, so... On the other hand your example is extremely contrived, because exponential growth in epidemiology is mostly not possible except for short periods.
- tathougies 6y ago
  I see. Yes, the comment didn't appear and I thought this was a reply to the main article.

vikramkr 6y ago

I'm referring to New York, not the rest of the country. I'm not talking about the majority of the country. The comment I'm replying to is apparently [flagged] [dead], so maybe it's not visible? For context, my comment is responding to a comment that is regarding the projections for NY and "Furher Cuomo's" response to it. My reply is discussing what was happening in new york. certainly the response we had here would not have made sense in another area that wasnt on the edge of hospital system collapse, but that's not what this comment chain and thread is discussing, it's discussing New York.

bsder 6y ago
The problem is that exponential growth looks flat until it looks vertical. People either get this or they don't or they choose not to. New York was going vertical. The rest of the country went "Oh, hell, no" and locked down to prevent that from even starting. But, it's okay. We're running a nice set of experiments right now with the experimental group (red states reopening) vs control group (blue states staying locked down until criteria are met). We'll get lots of nice data in about 3 weeks.
- tathougies 6y ago
  Exponential growth is never vertical. Why must we resort to hyperbole when the truth is scary enough?
  - bsder 6y ago
    To a first order approximation it is. And the reason we need to try analogies and hyperbole is because even people who are arguing in good faith don't get exponential growth. Normal people look at 2 on day 1, 4 on day 4, 8 on day 7 and think "Oh, about 4 every 3 days. Shrug. No big deal." Horizontal. Epidemiologists look at that and go "AHHHHH! Doubling every 3 days. Shut everything down or we'll have a million in 2 months and 10 million a week later." They're looking at the vertical section of the curve. This is similar to people misunderstanding fire. Most people have experienced a campfire. The energy drops off like 1/r^3, so it's no big deal. Most people haven't experienced a wind driven wall of flame where the energy drops off like 1/r so things simply spontaneously combust next to the flamefront. And that's just cubic vs linear.
    - tathougies 6y ago
      > Normal people look at 2 on day 1, 4 on day 4, 8 on day 7 and think "Oh, about 4 every 3 days. Shrug. No big deal." Horizontal. Yeah well HN is mostly a bunch of software engineers who spend most of their day relying on the fundamental that at the end of 32 days in your example, there'll be 4 billion, so... On the other hand your example is extremely contrived, because exponential growth in epidemiology is mostly not possible except for short periods.
tathougies 6y ago
I see. Yes, the comment didn't appear and I thought this was a reply to the main article.