3 ms·

Exactly. I liken it to multiple layers of security. Almost no single layer is 100%, so you stack. In covids case, masks, distancing, and hygiene are the layers.

Exactly. I liken it to multiple layers of security. Almost no single layer is 100%, so you stack. In covids case, masks, distancing, and hygiene are the layers. None are 100% on their own (unless you live alone and have zero interaction), but taken together on a population level they can work to lower R0 below 1. Side note, I recently read a good book that addressed why people have such a hard time with percentages. People tend to take numbers like 20% and think 0 and 80% and think certainty.

acqq 6y ago
Yes, I agree, only it's not about the percentages alone. I'll quote from my post from April (1) which was already in the context of Covid-19, where I quote the start of the presentation by Al Bartlett: https://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_transcript_english.html https://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_populati... "It's a great pleasure to be here, and to have a chance just to share with you some very simple ideas about the problems we're facing. Some of these problems are local, some are national, some are global. They're all tied together. They're tied together by arithmetic, and the arithmetic isn't very difficult. What I hope to do is, I hope to be able to convince you that the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." That's why when some hear that R=1.2 can be catastrophic and R=1 can be fine they just switch off. And there is exactly that "only 20% percent" difference. But many developments in nature that work against humans have exponential behavior, including the stuff that humans do. Somebody once named the video of that Bartlett's presentation "The Most Important Video You'll Ever See" and in this case it's not a clickbait. Edit: What's the name of the book you mention? 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22655785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22655785

acqq 6y ago

Yes, I agree, only it's not about the percentages alone. I'll quote from my post from April (1) which was already in the context of Covid-19, where I quote the start of the presentation by Al Bartlett: https://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_transcript_english.html https://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_populati... "It's a great pleasure to be here, and to have a chance just to share with you some very simple ideas about the problems we're facing. Some of these problems are local, some are national, some are global. They're all tied together. They're tied together by arithmetic, and the arithmetic isn't very difficult. What I hope to do is, I hope to be able to convince you that the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." That's why when some hear that R=1.2 can be catastrophic and R=1 can be fine they just switch off. And there is exactly that "only 20% percent" difference. But many developments in nature that work against humans have exponential behavior, including the stuff that humans do. Somebody once named the video of that Bartlett's presentation "The Most Important Video You'll Ever See" and in this case it's not a clickbait. Edit: What's the name of the book you mention? 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22655785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22655785