3 ms·

Doesn't this page answer all those questions? https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.

Doesn't this page answer all those questions? https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm

marcell 6y ago
No! I dug through that page and the cited papers, and it absolutely does not have any of the answers to those questions. If you find the answers on that page, I'd love to read them. For example, they say: > The numbers of influenza illnesses were estimated from hospitalizations based on how many illnesses there are for every hospitalization, which was measured previously (5). Ok... "estimated from hospitalizations"? What does that mean? How are you deriving that estimate? If you read the study linked, they say this: > Multipliers were calculated as the simple inverses of the proportions at each step. We accounted for variability and uncertainty in model parameters by using a probabilistic (Monte Carlo) approach Ok... so it's a Monte Carlo simulation? What does that even mean in this context? Compare this to the Coronavirus IFR estimates. They are easy to understand. They test random samples of people in a population for antibodies, and use that to estimate the spread of the virus.
- argonaut 6y ago
  I looked at the linked study. It's not very complicated. In fact one could argue their method was too simple. They estimated the number of illnesses by dividing the number of hospitalizations by a series of probabilities (the probabilities constitute a funnel from someone getting an infection to someone being hospitalized - for example the probability you actually seek hospital attention, the probability your test accurately detects influenza, etc). The probabilities were uniformly sampled from a range of plausible values (derived from their survey data). They did this process 10k times to arrive at an distribution over the number of illnesses (this is a Monte Carlo simulation).

Doesn't this page answer all those questions? https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm

marcell 6y ago

No! I dug through that page and the cited papers, and it absolutely does not have any of the answers to those questions. If you find the answers on that page, I'd love to read them. For example, they say: > The numbers of influenza illnesses were estimated from hospitalizations based on how many illnesses there are for every hospitalization, which was measured previously (5). Ok... "estimated from hospitalizations"? What does that mean? How are you deriving that estimate? If you read the study linked, they say this: > Multipliers were calculated as the simple inverses of the proportions at each step. We accounted for variability and uncertainty in model parameters by using a probabilistic (Monte Carlo) approach Ok... so it's a Monte Carlo simulation? What does that even mean in this context? Compare this to the Coronavirus IFR estimates. They are easy to understand. They test random samples of people in a population for antibodies, and use that to estimate the spread of the virus.

argonaut 6y ago
I looked at the linked study. It's not very complicated. In fact one could argue their method was too simple. They estimated the number of illnesses by dividing the number of hospitalizations by a series of probabilities (the probabilities constitute a funnel from someone getting an infection to someone being hospitalized - for example the probability you actually seek hospital attention, the probability your test accurately detects influenza, etc). The probabilities were uniformly sampled from a range of plausible values (derived from their survey data). They did this process 10k times to arrive at an distribution over the number of illnesses (this is a Monte Carlo simulation).