ryankemper

19 ms·

91.
by ryankemper 6y ago
> This doesn't really pass the sniff test. You wrote 7500 words on this topic, but felt that including "I have zero experience in any relevant fields" would be overly verbose? Are you sure there wasn't another reason?
92.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Done. https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/05b4b616c5e0...
93.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Yes, I should have used more precise language. I should have made it clear but I wasn't attempting to construct an exhaustive list of risk factors, but more give an example of what that might look like
94.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Yes, the statement as I wrote it was imprecise enough to be false. I am going to circle back and fix it. In short, the important distinction is not that it's embedded into the founding documents, but that we do not place the limitation
95.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Thanks. I'm going to leave it as is. As another commentator has mentioned, use of the singular "we" is very common in academic writing anyway, not that I'm saying that this blog post of mine is "real" scientifi
96.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Epidemiologists are not equipped to understand the economic ramifications that occur when large portions of society are forced to halt their business operations. This seems self-evident. Public policy wrt Covid basically occurs at the inter
97.
by ryankemper 6y ago
That upper bound seems way too high. I think the Diamond Princess is the perfect case study to use as an upper bound, since we conducted extensive testing and the population is heavily skewed towards the elderly (and therefore higher risk t
98.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Note that this classic "pro-lockdown" talking point is an unfalsifiable claim. I don't think there's any figure I could pull out that might sway you otherwise, right? Simply put, this argument is invalid. Why? Because my
99.
by ryankemper 6y ago
So, I've read the article, and it seems to not support this assertion of yours: > TLDR: We're undercounting deaths due to covid-19 by ~60% nationally, and 40% in NYC. What it does say is this: > “Thus I would probably add ab
100.
by ryankemper 6y ago
That's the case fatality rate, not the infection fatality rate. As you can see in your quote, I was talking about IFR. In general - and this is a theme of the writeup BTW - we should be looking at IFR and not CFR. With IFR we can reaso
101.
by ryankemper 6y ago
In this case I e-mailed hn@ycombinator.com to inquire about why it was flagged, and Dang jumped in and lifted the flags after quickly scanning things over to check that it was legitimate. Basically, users flagged it. I think the explanation
102.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Good question. I should have proactively addressed that: The IMHE model, after re-estimating, _was_ too optimistic. My argument does not hinge on the IMHE model being too pessimistic; but rather simply that the IMHE model is basically usele
103.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Out of curiosity, to what extent do you feel we successfully flattened the curve in New York? Given that recent serology results showed between 15-20% prevalence, it does seem like it could have been significantly worse. But just to be clea
104.
by ryankemper 6y ago
It is fun to imagine the negative herd immunity threshold implied by the erroneous form of the equation though :P Say R0 is 2, 1/(1 - R0) means that we already hit herd immunity before SARS-CoV-2 even existed!
105.
by ryankemper 6y ago
> So you are telling me, that you write an article with misstakes and think you should be the person making statements because you are able to write an article? Yes, I am a person that makes and is currently making mistakes. > And yo
106.
by ryankemper 6y ago
> 1. The true IFR is hard to estimate at this point, but looks to be around 1%. This is a very difficult question to answer with the data we have and all the limitations. An IFR of 1% seems too high. This doesn't seem to line up wit
107.
by ryankemper 6y ago
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QuzAwSTND6N4k7yNj/seemingly-... is the critique (it's in the article but easy to miss) The most important point of criticism is this section: https://www.lesswrong.c
108.
by ryankemper 6y ago
The latter point is precisely why I was careful to say "pandemic flu" when responding to the above. But yes, the point is very valid. A novel disease with the same IFR of an established disease will kill a lot more in the year tha
109.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Thanks. The NYC data is something I want to add in there eventually. I agree with your assessment and reached a similar number myself. The main thing that gives me some doubt is it seems plausible that we'll retroactively find that the
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by ryankemper 6y ago
Doh! Thanks for catching that. That is a really glaring mistake on my part. (The irony in me having said it was "exactly" what Wikipedia says is not lost on me :P) https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-
111.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Thanks, that does make intuitive sense. I wonder for a virus like SARS-CoV-2 that has a high R_0 and thus requires maybe 80% of the population to be immune for full herd immunity, if that means that the overshoot would be pretty mild?
112.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Thanks. That was helpful. So then, it does seem that if we successfully contained the virus, and then avoided infection spread until a hypothetical future vaccine is developed, that we could avoid the number of infections required by some a
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by ryankemper 6y ago
> Many countries recognize such rights as part of their constitution or primary legal framework, and those rights are recognized by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The First Amendment itself was inspired by the
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by ryankemper 6y ago
No, not at all. I quit my job of my own volition, and have several years of living expenses in liquid financial assets. Most people are not that lucky. Additionally, the two companies that I had narrowed the search down to did not freeze hi
115.
by ryankemper 6y ago
> This is maybe the strangest section. Why does this just talk about a hero culture related to real scientists? Do we think that people are more likely to think some nerdy scientist is a hero rather than our heroic manly president? This
116.
by ryankemper 6y ago
I'm sure you're getting weary at this point, but I really need your help understanding what you're saying here, because to me it seems supremely untrue. First, `1/1-R_0`. This is exactly what Wikipedia says: https:&#x2F
117.
by ryankemper 6y ago
Well, being the author I am certainly biased, but I don't think you've wasted your time :) Thanks for the feedback. I think the dog-whistle part is quite true. I will need to circle back and add citations where I can. Particularly
118.
by ryankemper 6y ago
https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/9071eebf0964... Typo fixed! I think I've found at least 15 typos total now. Oops...
119.
by ryankemper 6y ago
> While it is true that some health care providers are experiencing a decline in demand due to, for example, people no longer seeking medical attention for (e.g.) coronary problems and other non-respiratory ailments, this is not the heal
120.
by ryankemper 6y ago
> Maybe mention something about the long term issues that it appears could be a reality for even those who "don’t feel sick at all, some people feel a little bit sick"? Have you seen any scientific literature alleging this poss

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