3 ms·

Lots of things are "effortless tactics". If they don't work, it's just superstition. People will figure it out, and they'll stop believing you. If you have indo

by timr 6y ago

Lots of things are "effortless tactics". If they don't work, it's just superstition. People will figure it out, and they'll stop believing you. If you have indoor mask mandates, and outside mask mandates, and shut down restaurants, and curfews, etc., and your cases are still shooting up, you're going to have a hard time getting faith in your actions. So much of what governments are doing in response to this are just cargo cult science. We've had ample time to run proper controlled trials for much of this stuff -- the Danes were able to do so with masks [1], and there was a big study of gyms out of Norway [2] -- it's simply pathetic that our governments mostly haven't bothered. [1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.24.20138768v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.24.20138768v...

Retric 6y ago
Masks can make a significant difference when new cases per infection is near 1. Dropping it from 3 to 2 doesn’t matter has that’s still heavy exponential growth, dropping it from 0.5 to 0.25 again doesn’t matter because it’s dropping fast. However dropping from 1.05 to even 0.95 is huge.
- makomk 6y ago
  In theory, any tiny reduction in infection rate can make the decisive difference when the number of new infections from each existing infection is close enough to one. In practice, this is extremely unlikely to work in the real world because in reality, this is not some universal constant that is fixed at a particular value everywhere by some physical law - it varies from place to place, from job to job, from community to community, and the ones where it's below 1 will end up representing an exponentially smaller fraction of cases compared to the ones where it's above 1 meaning that the overall average won't stay below 1 for long. Treating R, the number of infections from each case, as though it was the same everywhere is just a way of simplifying the model, but the map is not the territory and we need to be a lot more careful about whether our simplifying assumptions change the overall behaviour of the system being modelled than we have been.
  - Retric 6y ago
    It’s not about an abstract model, there are feedback loops involved. Shutdowns and people’s behavior responds to the number of new infections. Globally across the last 6 months, new infections are close to 1:1 because you don’t exponential growth. Just look at the three waves in the US. In effect masks buy you a more open environment where people can leave their homes and do more stuff. Further, when locations decide to shutdown that shutdown is more effective.
- timr 6y ago
  Nothing I wrote was an argument about masks. I linked to the one RCT on masks (as PPE) done in 2020, to illustrate that it's possible to do high-quality studies of these kinds of interventions, and underline the point that politicians are mostly just guessing, and people can see this. You're grinding an axe here, but it has little to do with what I wrote.

by timr 6y ago

Retric 6y ago

Masks can make a significant difference when new cases per infection is near 1. Dropping it from 3 to 2 doesn’t matter has that’s still heavy exponential growth, dropping it from 0.5 to 0.25 again doesn’t matter because it’s dropping fast. However dropping from 1.05 to even 0.95 is huge.

makomk 6y ago
In theory, any tiny reduction in infection rate can make the decisive difference when the number of new infections from each existing infection is close enough to one. In practice, this is extremely unlikely to work in the real world because in reality, this is not some universal constant that is fixed at a particular value everywhere by some physical law - it varies from place to place, from job to job, from community to community, and the ones where it's below 1 will end up representing an exponentially smaller fraction of cases compared to the ones where it's above 1 meaning that the overall average won't stay below 1 for long. Treating R, the number of infections from each case, as though it was the same everywhere is just a way of simplifying the model, but the map is not the territory and we need to be a lot more careful about whether our simplifying assumptions change the overall behaviour of the system being modelled than we have been.
- Retric 6y ago
  It’s not about an abstract model, there are feedback loops involved. Shutdowns and people’s behavior responds to the number of new infections. Globally across the last 6 months, new infections are close to 1:1 because you don’t exponential growth. Just look at the three waves in the US. In effect masks buy you a more open environment where people can leave their homes and do more stuff. Further, when locations decide to shutdown that shutdown is more effective.
timr 6y ago
Nothing I wrote was an argument about masks. I linked to the one RCT on masks (as PPE) done in 2020, to illustrate that it's possible to do high-quality studies of these kinds of interventions, and underline the point that politicians are mostly just guessing, and people can see this. You're grinding an axe here, but it has little to do with what I wrote.