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During the Covid pandemic health officials occasionally used similar language: The rate of increase in new cases was increasing/decreasing...

by inasio 4y ago

tunesmith 4y ago
Oh, right! Yeah, in an Rt graph, any time the upward slope starts getting more gentle.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
During the COVID pandemic, I saw some truly magical statistics in our government (I am French). I tried to understand some of their data but it was beyond my capacities - despite having access to some raw data. I do not think that the general population cared (the concern was rather on how to calculate 1 km from their house) but for someone who is allergic to bad statistics creating crappy results it was torture.
- inasio 4y ago
  I used to work doing epidemic models, it was torture sometimes to see people abuse mathematical concepts (eigenvalues, r0, etc) when talking about covid
  - BrandoElFollito 4y ago
    We had an expert one on TV answering questions, and one of the questions was the one I was burning to ask: "how do you know there are X infections per day"? To what he answers "because we get data from pharmacies, doctors, etc. about cases" - so how do you know that this is a total number? It is just the number of positive tests? - yes, so we know the ratio and therefore can tell for the whole population - so the number you provide is an estimate? - no, the number of cases (some time passed and then another question) - when you extrapolate (they used a more human-friendly term), how do you know that the ones who come for tests are representative of the whole population - ... While I must say that our government reacted to the pandemic almost very well (except that they lied at the beginning), some of the experts they put ahead were ridiculous.
    - yoyopa 4y ago
      who was asking the questions?
      - BrandoElFollito 4y ago
        It was a "round table" kind of show with experts from the government, academia, science journalists etc. It was interesting because it raised the right questions but unfortunately dd not beiring any answers.

During the Covid pandemic health officials occasionally used similar language: The rate of increase in new cases was increasing/decreasing...

by inasio 4y ago

During the Covid pandemic health officials occasionally used similar language: The rate of increase in new cases was increasing/decreasing...

tunesmith 4y ago

Oh, right! Yeah, in an Rt graph, any time the upward slope starts getting more gentle.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

During the COVID pandemic, I saw some truly magical statistics in our government (I am French). I tried to understand some of their data but it was beyond my capacities - despite having access to some raw data. I do not think that the general population cared (the concern was rather on how to calculate 1 km from their house) but for someone who is allergic to bad statistics creating crappy results it was torture.

inasio 4y ago
I used to work doing epidemic models, it was torture sometimes to see people abuse mathematical concepts (eigenvalues, r0, etc) when talking about covid
- BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  We had an expert one on TV answering questions, and one of the questions was the one I was burning to ask: "how do you know there are X infections per day"? To what he answers "because we get data from pharmacies, doctors, etc. about cases" - so how do you know that this is a total number? It is just the number of positive tests? - yes, so we know the ratio and therefore can tell for the whole population - so the number you provide is an estimate? - no, the number of cases (some time passed and then another question) - when you extrapolate (they used a more human-friendly term), how do you know that the ones who come for tests are representative of the whole population - ... While I must say that our government reacted to the pandemic almost very well (except that they lied at the beginning), some of the experts they put ahead were ridiculous.
  - yoyopa 4y ago
    who was asking the questions?
    - BrandoElFollito 4y ago
      It was a "round table" kind of show with experts from the government, academia, science journalists etc. It was interesting because it raised the right questions but unfortunately dd not beiring any answers.