4 ms·

after all the epidemic modeling fiascos of the previous two years, i'm really surprised we still grant any value to people piling maths analysis on top of rudim

by bsaul 5y ago

after all the epidemic modeling fiascos of the previous two years, i'm really surprised we still grant any value to people piling maths analysis on top of rudimentary models. You want to know how many people an unvaccinated person can contaminate ? Well, that's easy: measure the virus load difference between vax & non vax, as well as the time it's still in one person's body. That's biology, not rocket trajectory dynamics. You won't solve the problem just by looking at numbers and slopes.

detaro 5y ago
Epidemic modeling has been quite accurate at predicting this current wave in Germany.
- Leparamour 5y ago
  > Epidemic modeling has been quite accurate at predicting this current wave in Germany. Researchers predict that infection case numbers would rise with the start of flu season. Grant money spent well. /s
- angelzen 5y ago
  It's been obvious that covid is seasonal for a long time now. The winter season is here, the covid wave is here. No need for complex math models. BTW, funny how those models usually ignore seasonality, natural immunity or quarantine on symptoms, i.e. basic respiratory infectious disease common sense. Here's yours truly, cautioning that 'the coming winter risks being brutal', 58 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28700532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28700532
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - detaro 5y ago
    Country-specific predictions are a bit more detail than "covid is seasonal", and at least in the models relevant here percentage of people with immunity and (quarantine and other) policies obviously play a role. Are they perfect? No, but "models are pointless and only give trivial results" is too easy.
    - angelzen 5y ago
      Do you happen to have 2 months old predictions of the models you find non-trivial? My sense is that this is weather vs. climate prediction. They may be able to do a somewhat reasonable job a few days ahead, but beyond that it's all about common sense, i.e. similar to the historical record, as limited as it may be. They probably constantly retrofit the models with current data, which makes it look like the models where accurate all along. Common sense can also work in the short term. E.g. Austria (and Netherlands) seem to have crested the cases wave [1], which I predicted a 3 days ago by looking at the death rates plateauing, and noticing that the same pattern happened in US southern states and BG/RO [2]. I wonder what said models were saying 3 days ago, if such models exist for AT/NL and if they happen to publish their historical predictions. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29334288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29334288 [2] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&uniformYAxis=0&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Cases+and+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=DEU~AUT~NLD~ROU~BGR https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
pieno 5y ago
I think it’s actually the kind of simplistic analysis you are referring to that got us into this mess. If we would have put a bit more belief in the epidemic models and acted accordingly from the beginning, we would be a lot better off right now. But even now, two years into the pandemic, the “people” and policy still seem to be unable to take any action until we see very widespread disastrous effects that were predicted weeks or months in advance. Even now, people still don’t care about an increase from 10 to 20 cases (or any other metric) and won’t take action until they see cases going from 1,000 to 2,000. Remember the ridicule Merkel faced when she told journalists in summer 2020 that models showed that Germany would see a huge second wave by fall? That just seemed completely nuts to those journalists at the time given the very low number of cases at the time, even if there was already exponential growth again at that moment.
- bsaul 5y ago
  I certainly remember how the first death toll estimation by neil fergusson were off by (at least) an order of magnitude, and completely changed european countries attitudes from being careful to being hysterical. I don't think much has changed...

by bsaul 5y ago

detaro 5y ago

Epidemic modeling has been quite accurate at predicting this current wave in Germany.

Leparamour 5y ago
> Epidemic modeling has been quite accurate at predicting this current wave in Germany. Researchers predict that infection case numbers would rise with the start of flu season. Grant money spent well. /s
angelzen 5y ago
It's been obvious that covid is seasonal for a long time now. The winter season is here, the covid wave is here. No need for complex math models. BTW, funny how those models usually ignore seasonality, natural immunity or quarantine on symptoms, i.e. basic respiratory infectious disease common sense. Here's yours truly, cautioning that 'the coming winter risks being brutal', 58 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28700532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28700532
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- detaro 5y ago
  Country-specific predictions are a bit more detail than "covid is seasonal", and at least in the models relevant here percentage of people with immunity and (quarantine and other) policies obviously play a role. Are they perfect? No, but "models are pointless and only give trivial results" is too easy.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    Do you happen to have 2 months old predictions of the models you find non-trivial? My sense is that this is weather vs. climate prediction. They may be able to do a somewhat reasonable job a few days ahead, but beyond that it's all about common sense, i.e. similar to the historical record, as limited as it may be. They probably constantly retrofit the models with current data, which makes it look like the models where accurate all along. Common sense can also work in the short term. E.g. Austria (and Netherlands) seem to have crested the cases wave [1], which I predicted a 3 days ago by looking at the death rates plateauing, and noticing that the same pattern happened in US southern states and BG/RO [2]. I wonder what said models were saying 3 days ago, if such models exist for AT/NL and if they happen to publish their historical predictions. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29334288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29334288 [2] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&uniformYAxis=0&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Cases+and+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=DEU~AUT~NLD~ROU~BGR https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

pieno 5y ago

I think it’s actually the kind of simplistic analysis you are referring to that got us into this mess. If we would have put a bit more belief in the epidemic models and acted accordingly from the beginning, we would be a lot better off right now. But even now, two years into the pandemic, the “people” and policy still seem to be unable to take any action until we see very widespread disastrous effects that were predicted weeks or months in advance. Even now, people still don’t care about an increase from 10 to 20 cases (or any other metric) and won’t take action until they see cases going from 1,000 to 2,000. Remember the ridicule Merkel faced when she told journalists in summer 2020 that models showed that Germany would see a huge second wave by fall? That just seemed completely nuts to those journalists at the time given the very low number of cases at the time, even if there was already exponential growth again at that moment.

bsaul 5y ago
I certainly remember how the first death toll estimation by neil fergusson were off by (at least) an order of magnitude, and completely changed european countries attitudes from being careful to being hysterical. I don't think much has changed...