6 ms·

Airplanes can crash sometimes. The result is horrible. Usually all lives lost. But we still fly. Why? It all comes down to the numbers. The crashes are rare.

Airplanes can crash sometimes. The result is horrible. Usually all lives lost. But we still fly. Why? It all comes down to the numbers. The crashes are rare. What are the numbers here?

lghh 6y ago
Airplane crashes are not contagious.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  Just to clarify, you’re saying because airplane crashes aren’t contagious, numbers don’t help us reason about COVID risks? I for one would like to know if brain damage is a 5% risk or a .0005% risk. You wouldn’t?
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    Sure, but it's not just your own personal risk tolerance. Getting on a plane involves accepting risk for yourself; taking covid risks involves risk to yourself and also imposing risks on others.
    - mrfusion 6y ago
      I sort of disagree. Unfortunately many things we do put other people at risk. Driving for one. I think people with especially high risk need to be looking out for themselves at this point. It’s not reasonable to ask the entire world to put their lives on hold. (I know this is an unpopular opinion but it’s something we all have to address at some point)
    - Marsymars 6y ago
      I expect a hefty number of people would be willing to undergo controlled variolation for covid, where they'd be of no risk to others.
  - makomk 6y ago
    This has become a standard, widespread talking point for why it's obviously immoral to accept any Covid-19 risk whatsoever as a trade-off for anything else, even though we don't treat other death or injury risks this way.
- api 6y ago
  Silicon valley and its larger orbit are all about exponential growth curves. It's weird to me that so many people dont get the concern about COVID. "But the numbers are so small!" Elon is the most puzzling to me. He was one of the PayPal crew. I'm sure their initial numbers were small. I recall Thiel talking about how in the beginning they didn't understand what a rocket ship PayPal was. Well... this thing spreads quite exponentially too if distancing measures and masks are not used, and lethality is at least 1% (higher among older people) not to mention potential lung and brain damage. You exponential curve junkies need to do some math. Personally I think it will take a million deaths for Americans to notice what an exponential curve is. We are at about 140k right now. Given that its exponential that could be by October. "But we can't afford to close any more!" Other countries with competent leaders and a population that doesn't live entirely in a social media bubble fantasy world have slowed the virus to the point that they can now reopen cautiously. Canada recently had a huge hiring boom. China is back in business. We can't reopen because we failed the first time. We are incompetent from the top all the way down to the street level.
  - acdha 6y ago
    It’s not that they don’t get it as much as they have a financial incentive to pretend otherwise. Elon Musk is not an engineer dispassionately analyzing a problem but a factory owner whose business is facing both a downturn in demand and substantial costs to redesign business operations to be safe under current conditions. The more he can promote re-opening as workers having to take on additional uncompensated risk, the more he stands to personally profit. You see this all the way up to the top: nobody pushing for schools to have normal in-person classes has children or grandchildren who need to go to public school rather than being tutored but their business interests need you to have a place to send your kids so you can go to work.
    - api 6y ago
      That isn't rational. What does he think will happen to demand when millions are dying and the government instituted mandatory curfew under a national state of emergency? I could see short sighted pointy haired bosses doing that but he seems like a systems level thinker. It would have made sense for him to advocate a strong response early some we can really get back to business. Maybe he realizes that America is too dysfunctional to stop the virus so the whole thing is futile. But he's not saying that, and his Twitter history doesn't suggest someone who is afraid to say whatever he thinks. He's publicly blunt to a fault. To me it appears he's drunk some bad kool aid. The fact that he's a brilliant engineer and a great businessman doesn't make him immune to being irrational in other contexts. Another possibility is that he's trying to win a big SpaceX contract and must publicly echo the Trump line to do so. Trump is quite well known to personally go after anyone who does not echo his party line and feed his ego. Also possible that he does not want to risk Trump interference via the FCC with the Starlink launch. It has to be one of the two things I listed. It's just too irrational and he's too smart.
javiermares 6y ago
i'd love to know, too. do we even know, yet?
throwaway5752 6y ago
What an interesting thing! I can comment in a somewhat informed way about both. In flying, you file flight plans. Air traffic controllers make sure they are followed and orderly. All passengers are highly screened before entering secure areas and employees/food is similarly screened before making it to a terminal. Some flight officers need thousands of hours of experience. When planes are repaired the procedures are exhaustively documented, need to be done by qualified staff, and the replacement parts need to be traceable. In the case of neurological side effects of COVID , it's largely an unknown and it can be reduced immensely by wearing a $0.10 piece of cloth, modified social interactions, and contact tracing (see most developed nations outside of the US and Sweden). COVID risk mitigation is much easier. To quantify it a little: the article indicates a roughly 4x increase in a particular severe neurological condition (ADEM) over background incidence rate, and serology indicates < 5% of population exposure in most places. The 4x rate is on adult ADEM cases, and is very likely just [a subset of] cases that pass a threshold on a distribution. It's reasonable to spitball a 50-100x increased risk of neurological side effects. It's probably much higher because of the well documented clotting disregulation and the spectrum of mild to lethal strokes, and the structural damage strokes cause beyond that. Ultimately, since the scientists in question are experts, I trust them instead of thinking I know better. I was wrong about mask efficacy early in the year, and that was humbling. Most of the scientists have studied this stuff for decades and the best strategy is to just listen.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  There's a lot of unknowns in those numbers - and a 50-100x increase in a somewhat rare condition isn't particularly helpful. We need solid number to make informed decisions about risk. This isn't about whether to wear a mask or not (anyone with a brain wears a mask) - this is more about whether to shut down schools and the economy. > the scientists in question are experts, I trust them Agreed, but they still aren't giving us NUMBERS.
  - throwaway5752 6y ago
    I don't know what you expect. This disease is about 8 months old and everyone is still learning a lot. First of all, you're being kind of demanding. Why don't you collect the numbers? The authors, in many cases, are busy on the side treating waves of critically ill covid-19 patients. Also, this is from the journal "Brain". It's not in a epidemiology journal. They are just neurologists describing a possible tie between a new virus and a constellation of neurological symptoms. https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awaa240/5868408 https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awa... They call for further study in their abstract. This is a new discovery and you want population statistics? They want population statistics, too. The NUMBERS don't exist yet, because they published this on THURSDAY.

Airplanes can crash sometimes. The result is horrible. Usually all lives lost. But we still fly. Why? It all comes down to the numbers. The crashes are rare. What are the numbers here?

lghh 6y ago

Airplane crashes are not contagious.

mrfusion 6y ago
Just to clarify, you’re saying because airplane crashes aren’t contagious, numbers don’t help us reason about COVID risks? I for one would like to know if brain damage is a 5% risk or a .0005% risk. You wouldn’t?
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Sure, but it's not just your own personal risk tolerance. Getting on a plane involves accepting risk for yourself; taking covid risks involves risk to yourself and also imposing risks on others.
  - mrfusion 6y ago
    I sort of disagree. Unfortunately many things we do put other people at risk. Driving for one. I think people with especially high risk need to be looking out for themselves at this point. It’s not reasonable to ask the entire world to put their lives on hold. (I know this is an unpopular opinion but it’s something we all have to address at some point)
  - Marsymars 6y ago
    I expect a hefty number of people would be willing to undergo controlled variolation for covid, where they'd be of no risk to others.
- makomk 6y ago
  This has become a standard, widespread talking point for why it's obviously immoral to accept any Covid-19 risk whatsoever as a trade-off for anything else, even though we don't treat other death or injury risks this way.
api 6y ago
Silicon valley and its larger orbit are all about exponential growth curves. It's weird to me that so many people dont get the concern about COVID. "But the numbers are so small!" Elon is the most puzzling to me. He was one of the PayPal crew. I'm sure their initial numbers were small. I recall Thiel talking about how in the beginning they didn't understand what a rocket ship PayPal was. Well... this thing spreads quite exponentially too if distancing measures and masks are not used, and lethality is at least 1% (higher among older people) not to mention potential lung and brain damage. You exponential curve junkies need to do some math. Personally I think it will take a million deaths for Americans to notice what an exponential curve is. We are at about 140k right now. Given that its exponential that could be by October. "But we can't afford to close any more!" Other countries with competent leaders and a population that doesn't live entirely in a social media bubble fantasy world have slowed the virus to the point that they can now reopen cautiously. Canada recently had a huge hiring boom. China is back in business. We can't reopen because we failed the first time. We are incompetent from the top all the way down to the street level.
- acdha 6y ago
  It’s not that they don’t get it as much as they have a financial incentive to pretend otherwise. Elon Musk is not an engineer dispassionately analyzing a problem but a factory owner whose business is facing both a downturn in demand and substantial costs to redesign business operations to be safe under current conditions. The more he can promote re-opening as workers having to take on additional uncompensated risk, the more he stands to personally profit. You see this all the way up to the top: nobody pushing for schools to have normal in-person classes has children or grandchildren who need to go to public school rather than being tutored but their business interests need you to have a place to send your kids so you can go to work.
  - api 6y ago
    That isn't rational. What does he think will happen to demand when millions are dying and the government instituted mandatory curfew under a national state of emergency? I could see short sighted pointy haired bosses doing that but he seems like a systems level thinker. It would have made sense for him to advocate a strong response early some we can really get back to business. Maybe he realizes that America is too dysfunctional to stop the virus so the whole thing is futile. But he's not saying that, and his Twitter history doesn't suggest someone who is afraid to say whatever he thinks. He's publicly blunt to a fault. To me it appears he's drunk some bad kool aid. The fact that he's a brilliant engineer and a great businessman doesn't make him immune to being irrational in other contexts. Another possibility is that he's trying to win a big SpaceX contract and must publicly echo the Trump line to do so. Trump is quite well known to personally go after anyone who does not echo his party line and feed his ego. Also possible that he does not want to risk Trump interference via the FCC with the Starlink launch. It has to be one of the two things I listed. It's just too irrational and he's too smart.

javiermares 6y ago

i'd love to know, too. do we even know, yet?

throwaway5752 6y ago

What an interesting thing! I can comment in a somewhat informed way about both. In flying, you file flight plans. Air traffic controllers make sure they are followed and orderly. All passengers are highly screened before entering secure areas and employees/food is similarly screened before making it to a terminal. Some flight officers need thousands of hours of experience. When planes are repaired the procedures are exhaustively documented, need to be done by qualified staff, and the replacement parts need to be traceable. In the case of neurological side effects of COVID , it's largely an unknown and it can be reduced immensely by wearing a $0.10 piece of cloth, modified social interactions, and contact tracing (see most developed nations outside of the US and Sweden). COVID risk mitigation is much easier. To quantify it a little: the article indicates a roughly 4x increase in a particular severe neurological condition (ADEM) over background incidence rate, and serology indicates < 5% of population exposure in most places. The 4x rate is on adult ADEM cases, and is very likely just [a subset of] cases that pass a threshold on a distribution. It's reasonable to spitball a 50-100x increased risk of neurological side effects. It's probably much higher because of the well documented clotting disregulation and the spectrum of mild to lethal strokes, and the structural damage strokes cause beyond that. Ultimately, since the scientists in question are experts, I trust them instead of thinking I know better. I was wrong about mask efficacy early in the year, and that was humbling. Most of the scientists have studied this stuff for decades and the best strategy is to just listen.

koheripbal 6y ago
There's a lot of unknowns in those numbers - and a 50-100x increase in a somewhat rare condition isn't particularly helpful. We need solid number to make informed decisions about risk. This isn't about whether to wear a mask or not (anyone with a brain wears a mask) - this is more about whether to shut down schools and the economy. > the scientists in question are experts, I trust them Agreed, but they still aren't giving us NUMBERS.
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  I don't know what you expect. This disease is about 8 months old and everyone is still learning a lot. First of all, you're being kind of demanding. Why don't you collect the numbers? The authors, in many cases, are busy on the side treating waves of critically ill covid-19 patients. Also, this is from the journal "Brain". It's not in a epidemiology journal. They are just neurologists describing a possible tie between a new virus and a constellation of neurological symptoms. https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awaa240/5868408 https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/doi/10.1093/brain/awa... They call for further study in their abstract. This is a new discovery and you want population statistics? They want population statistics, too. The NUMBERS don't exist yet, because they published this on THURSDAY.