6 ms·
Seems the evidence bar for bad news is quite low, but the bar for good news is unbelievably high. Is there a good source for variant circulation? As a layperson
by parkingrift 5y ago
Seems the evidence bar for bad news is quite low, but the bar for good news is unbelievably high. Is there a good source for variant circulation? As a layperson how can I find what percentage of cases in a given area are from omicron vs delta?
- tehjoker 5y agoIf good news happens, you don't need to do anything. If bad things happen, you need to do something fast. I don't think this is unreasonable.
- TheGigaChad 5y agoIdiot.
- redisman 5y agoThat’s what the news business would like you to think. How much action are you taking from the 100+ bad news stories bombarding you every day?
- tomjen3 5y agoCovid. Covid lockdowns. New variants. These are all things that we have to act on, as individuals. They are all bad news. Then you have the rest of the 99.999% that you don't need to know, but you do need to know the very few stories. And for that you have to go through all the other ones.
- culi 5y agoSure, that's generally true. But in the case of a global pandemic, I think the comment is valid
- redisman 5y agoNot really. Consuming your daily drip of numbers from the news is hardly any more actionable than checking your local public health officials guidance every quarter
- moistly 5y agoEvery quarter? This new variant doubles every two days. You’d best be paying a bit more than checking the PHO every three months!
- epgui 5y agoWell I’m a scientist with 12 years of post secondary education in life science (and no conflict of interest), and that’s exactly what I’d like you to think too. Be reasonable.
- justtologin 5y agoThis is a good argument against technocracy. I want expert's views to be taken into consideration when making decisions that affect other people. I don't want them telling people what to do using the lens of their narrow technical expertise.
- epgui 5y agoI understand what you are saying, but I’m not sure I understand how it relates to what I wrote. Do you mind clarifying that?
- justtologin 5y agoWhat I took from the thread was: Bad news is reported more, if bad things happen, you need to act fast so it's good to pay close attention to bad news, that's what news organizations want you to think. And then you commented that as an educated scientist, you also think we should pay close attention to bad news. At least that's how I took it.
- epgui 5y agoRight, I see where you’re coming from. When I wrote my comment, my intended meaning was more specific to the current situation: I really wish people would be more united in taking action in the face of an infectious disease, the transmission of which is entirely preventable in the aggregate.
- hanoz 5y ago> If good news happens, you don't need to do anything. There's plenty you need to stop doing.
- scns 5y agoIf you want to read good news, you proactively look for them eg here https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
- JackFr 5y ago>If good news happens, you don't need to do anything. If bad things happen, you need to do something fast. That is actually a terrible heuristic. The need to “do something fast” leads to tremendous amounts of wasted time and resources and often a codified public policy that is unproductive or counterproductive. The bias to action over inaction exists, among other reasons, because it plays out conceit that we control our own fate.
- tehjoker 5y agoWell, I'd rather try and be wrong than lie down and die and be right.
- adam_arthur 5y agoFear and despair sells better. But if Omicron happens to be benign enough, it almost acts as a natural vaccine. This would be a very positive development for covid, not negative. For some reason the focus still seems to be largely on case counts instead of actual outcomes. Economic impact of lockdowns was mitigated somewhat by mass money printing and fiscal spending. If we lockdown again, will be disastrous for global economy as most monetary and fiscal firepower has been exhausted. Very troubling to see nations moving towards this again
- weaksauce 5y ago> But if Omicron happens to be benign enough Here's my speculation on the reason that the virus is seeming benignish so far... omicron requires fewer ACE2 receptors to bind to in order for it to infect a host(because of the incredible reproduction rate over delta once it takes hold). The younger are generally not taking as many precautions as the elderly did(elderly have more ACE2 receptors but have mostly been vaccinated or died already). so as the pool of eligible candidates for infection trend younger (fewer ACE2 required moves the bar of easy infection down younger) you have younger people generally having a better time with the infection because their immune system is slightly more robust. and that tracks with younger people (generally) during the delta wave and original variant; younger people tended to have fewer really bad outcomes.
- Traster 5y agoThis is the exact problem - there are a hundred different explanations for why news might be good or bad. High case right? Good sometimes! You need a fully formed view to come to a conclusion based on details and those most qualified to do so are the least willing to do so.
- matthewmacleod 5y agoFor some reason the focus still seems to be largely on case counts instead of actual outcomes. The reason seems obvious - it’s been only 25 days since the discovery of the first case. There haven’t been many outcomes yet to focus on - as far as I remember, the average time between symptom onset and hospitalisation is something like 10 days, depending on the age group.
- downWidOutaFite 5y agoI don't think that's right, we all heard the tentative good news as soon as it was available. I think the bias is that there is a massive thirst for certainty and definitive conclusions for each new pandemic development, but science does not work that fast. There's also a bias towards wanting your political side to be proven correct, but the virus doesn't care and has proven all predictions and conclusions wrong at one point or another.
- parkingrift 5y agoPerhaps so. I’m just on the lookout for good news, and it seems the good news is always wrapped up in caution tape. Maybe I’m just bitter.
- sega_sai 5y agoI disagree with your statement, but here are the results for the whole UK https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-variants-genomically-confirmed-case-numbers/variants-distribution-of-case-data-17-december-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-variants... and here's the plot for London https://twitter.com/theosanderson/status/1471907339397738502 https://twitter.com/theosanderson/status/1471907339397738502
- parkingrift 5y agoInteresting. Thanks for the link. Do you happen to know of equivalent data for NYC? I’m apparently not adept at finding this information.
- the-dude 5y agoWhy is the delta graph blocky and the omicron one smooth?
- matthewmacleod 5y agoThis looks like the weekend reporting artefact - you can see that Delta cases are lower at the weekend. You can actually see the same effect show itself as a small slowdown in the growth of the Omicron series, but since it’s a rapidly climbing figure it’s a bit harder to make out.
- throwhauser 5y ago> Seems the evidence bar for bad news is quite low, but the bar for good news is unbelievably high. It seems safer to believe bad news, and remain wary, than to believe good news and drop your guard.
- ineedasername 5y agoIn this case, it's neither good nor bad news because there is insufficient data. Per the article: So far, the data are scarce and incomplete The rest of the article consists of anecdotes that could point in either direction. If you want good news, check out the piece from WaPo from a few days ago [0] Just keep in mind the scarce and incomplete factor. Give it another 2-3 weeks and we'll know more. Meanwhile it's probably not a good time to stop whatever precautions you have already been taking. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/14/south-africa-omicron-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/14/south-africa...
- Retric 5y agoMany people take longer to die of COVID than has elapsed since the first Omicron variant was discovered. We simply don’t know at this point, and won’t for probably 2 months. Extrapolating from hospitalization rates and limited sample sizes is mostly just guesswork. It’s probably not much worse, but beyond that is up in the air.
- epgui 5y agoThe rationale for the bar being at different heights is: 1) the “precautionary principle” 2) the consequence asymmetry: if we’re vigilant at a time when we could relax, the consequence is small, but if we relax when we should increase vigilance, the consequence is larger.
- nradov 5y agoThe precautionary principle is garbage. If our hominid ancestors had followed the precautionary principle they would have never come down out of the trees. Embrace risk and accept the consequences.
- epgui 5y agoBy the same evolutionary fallacy, you should always trust your gut feeling instead of thinking rationally, because the more primitive centres of your brain are more similar to the parts of the brain that allowed our ancestors to survive in the jungle.
- mint2 5y agoThis article summarized the studies and the results are mixed. Not really sure what good news there is yet, aside that it does not appear worse. Unvaccinated who haven’t had the virus should be very worried due to the transmission. For people with some immunity, the jury is out but personally I am not looking forward to probable mild Covid, until recently I thought I had a good chance of simply not catching it due to being vaccinated. that seems to be no longer the case.
- MaxMoney 5y ago
- rsynnott 5y agoThere isn’t much good news, or at least not great news. It seems likely that it’s not _worse_ than delta, and there’s some early evidence that it might be slightly better (eg the 30% lower hospitalisation thing). And it seems like existing vaccines and prior infections are probably at least somewhat protective against severe disease. That’s all good in that it’s not as bad as it could have been; the very worst case scenarios seem to have been all but ruled out. But it’s certainly not good enough for anyone to be feeling particularly optimistic now.