Coronavirus: Continuing Vigilance

[HoonDing]

Captain Trumps.

[Zoraptor]

47 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Disagree. An epidemiologist is going to provide figures and predictions taken from a mathematical model that works along the lines of (if [parameter] then [output]) because they are literally a bunch of differential equations and certain assumptions about infection dynamics. By itself, that isn't enough to become policy, and an epidemiologist prescribing anything beyond "wash your hands, use face masks" as policy is overstepping. Public health policies are multi-faceted matters that require a multidisciplinary approach. I'm not just making this up, it's what epidemiologists informing the UK's policy noted:

The epidemiologists will be providing a bit more guidance than washing hands, but yeah, while they will have aspects of general population modelling and the like economic modelling won't be their job. There should however be economists doing their modelling as well and if the governmental organisations are competent they should be doing so alongside and in cooperation with the epidemiologists to show the potential effects of each policy and potential best recovery options. My presumption is that most of them are coming up with the same general result: you can have a very severe, quick but hopefully one off effect; or you can spread the effect out over time and hope it isn't as severe overall- and not much else as the situation is both unprecedented in modern times and we simply don't know how c19 and its effects/ treatments will evolve over time. And as much as it isn't a health modellers job to make economic policy it also isn't an economic modellers job to make health policy. Except, maybe, in the US and Brazil.

Quote

To put it differently: we are absolving politicians of their responsibility to come up with workable solutions that go beyond "do exactly what it says in this technical report" and **** the consequences because the experts said so. We don't elect scientists, and we don't hold scientists accountable. Passing the buck is unacceptable.

Now that **** has hit the fan, people are turning to "science" like they used to turn to religion. Anything to stave off uncertainty, I guess.

Eh, I'm not sure even competent politicians can really do much else at this point. Several countries have ended up where they are- big example being the US- specifically because politicians have ignored advice from experts in favour of 'saving the economy'/ their poll numbers. I'd give the early effected countries' politicians some extra leeway too; it's often difficult to know which experts to listen to at the best of times, and human nature means that most of the time people listen to the view that tells them everything will be OK over the one preaching doom and gloom, especially when going for the doom and gloom incorrectly means losing your job. Then again our PM* has taken responsibility for almost literally everything politically and done very well out of it, politically, while following the advice of the bureaucrat (a scientist, not lobbyist or career aparatnik thank science) in charge of responding, with the health minister being entirely sidelined from the response and just running the admin. I'd imagine the situation is different in places where c19 has made it to epidemic status and glaring and obvious mistakes have been made as very few politicians are ever going to willingly own a mistake if they can avoid it.

*and praise science that she won, and not Ximon Brudges who thinks driving ten hours in a lockdown to attend a fricking video conference is 'essential' work. The essential part is, in actuality, him being able to stand in front of press cameras in person to mumble his stupidities.

[Elerond]

47 minutes ago, 213374U said:

To put it differently: we are absolving politicians of their responsibility to come up with workable solutions that go beyond "do exactly what it says in this technical report" and **** the consequences because the experts said so. We don't elect scientists, and we don't hold scientists accountable. Passing the buck is unacceptable.

Now that **** has hit the fan, people are turning to "science" like they used to turn to religion. Anything to stave off uncertainty, I guess.

From where politicians dig those workable solutions if not from technical reports and prediction models based on available data? Should the just guess and hope for best? Of course one should except that politicians have enough understanding to be able use those reports and models to decide actions that best serve their constituents (this includes to holding on ideologies, morals, worldviews, etc.). 

 

[213374U]

  

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The epidemiologists will be providing a bit more guidance than washing hands, but yeah, while they will have aspects of general population modelling and the like economic modelling won't be their job. There should however be economists doing their modelling as well and if the governmental organisations are competent they should be doing so alongside and in cooperation with the epidemiologists to show the potential effects of each policy and potential best recovery options. My presumption is that most of them are coming up with the same general result: you can have a very severe, quick but hopefully one off effect; or you can spread the effect out over time and hope it isn't as severe overall- and not much else as the situation is both unprecedented in modern times and we simply don't know how c19 and its effects/ treatments will evolve over time. And as much as it isn't a health modellers job to make economic policy it also isn't an economic modellers job to make health policy. Except, maybe, in the US and Brazil.

Agreed. This is in the context of an article being piled on for "not listening to evidence", though. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with the torygraph being laughed at, but I despise social media even more.

A big problem currently is that the scientists' recommendations are based on incomplete data. Parameters such as IFR keep getting revised almost weekly and so do the predictions based on them. But also how the virus actually spreads and kills. To what extent are the models considering things like the age-structure of the population and antibiotic resistance rates, which are now believed to be strong factors in the high death toll in Italy? A lot of the papers floating around haven't been peer-reviewed yet simply because there hasn't been time. Acknowledging the limitations of the predictive tools is important when using them to inform policy.

There's also the economic realities to deal with, whether we like it or not. Total lockdown in Wuhan could have been enforced indefinitely because the rest of the country kept running. As you say, it's an unprecedented situation, and the idea that lockdown can be maintained nation-wide for 12-18 months has a huge question mark over it. UK has lost 2 million jobs thus far -- it's unknown how many here because there's a temporary ban on layoffs but that's only going to delay it. There is legislation in the works to have the state pay a living subsidy to about 9 million people, possibly indefinitely. That is with a severely damaged productive fabric. If the money stops flowing in from the EU, the state will be bankrupt... which may in turn make suppression fail. I wouldn't expect an epidemiologist to be concerned with any of this, and yet the impact on any proposed measures is inescapable.

I'm pretty confident that there is no "exit strategy" to speak of, at least here. Which is why I was saying that passing the buck isn't going to cut it and people need to realize that. Throwing scientists under the bus for what are really political failures if/when they happen is a threat to science as well.

 

 

1 hour ago, Elerond said:

From where politicians dig those workable solutions if not from technical reports and prediction models based on available data? Should the just guess and hope for best? 

Well, that's what the article talked about.

Edited April 10, 2020 by 213374U

[Malcador]

13 hours ago, Elerond said:

I wonder why there are people who trust conspiracy theories and don't care what scientific evidence says  

I am so shocked to read that from the Telegraph.

[Elerond]

13 hours ago, 213374U said:

Well, that's what the article talked about.

If you say so, what I remember it did not really do that, but as can't read it again as it is moved behind paywall and I don't think that I will pay for subscription just to check, so lets say that you are right.

 

EDIT: As I don't feel that this need any more talk

I would say that article doesn't talk about it. As it just glance over idea that politicians needs to debate which exit model to follow, but main point is that writer thinks that it is more important that there is exit strategy than that exit strategy actually works as it gives people hope and feeling that things will return normal.

So as I said article has tone where every theory is equal and  we need to just pick one that sound best 

Edited April 11, 2020 by Elerond
I didn't want to make new post to continue debate

[213374U]

1 minute ago, Elerond said:

If you say so, what I remember it did not really do that, but as can't read it again as it is moved behind paywall and I don't think that I will pay for subscription just to check, so lets say that you are right.

Disable Javascript.

Boom! Now you know how to avoid most annoying features in about 95% of websites. It also breaks others and may stall your browser from time to time, but hey...

(seriously, who the hell makes a paywall that can be sidestepped by disabling js...)

[InsaneCommander]

Why people believe in conspiracies? Well, I think I have a clue. Some are talking about the "world shadow government" creating the pandemic to control people and whatever.

Here in Brazil, the governor of São Paulo state made a deal with cell phone companies to check people's location through their cell phones so that they can act when many people gather together. Imagine how the crazy people will react to this lol

[Bartimaeus]

[Gromnir]

8 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

image

in our experience, the hardest part 'bout helping grandma has been unnecessary politeness. we get lists from grandmas on day previous to doing our shopping sojourns. brief.  small.  minimalist.

...

we keep telling grandmas how particular as stocks is still not normalized, is better to add a bit o' bloat to the lists as 'posed to trimming out o' some misplaced sense o' not wanting to be a burden.

am suspecting it would help if we were an actual grandson to the folks for whom we shop. is a bit easier to ask family for help as 'posed to neighbors even if such neighbors is friendly and have a good foundation/relation. 

every grandma is channeling mary mcdonnell.

HA! Good Fun!

[rjshae]

2 hours ago, 213374U said:

Disable Javascript.

Boom! Now you know how to avoid most annoying features in about 95% of websites. It also breaks others and may stall your browser from time to time, but hey...

(seriously, who the hell makes a paywall that can be sidestepped by disabling js...)

I'm still hoping one day we can selectively disable JavaScript on a per-site basis.

[Zoraptor]

Noscript can do that. No idea if it's available for anything other than Firefox though. Given the first scripts I nuke are always fb and greater google services I'd imagine they wouldn't want it on chrome. Only drawback is that most of Raithe's and GD's funny stuff posts show up as a long string of numbers only with fbcdn blocked.

(Though should be noted that nuking js on firefox did not also nuke the torygraph's paywall, for me at least. Even the 1-2 punch of private window and nuked js didn't work. Though that may well be my ISP caching the crap out of things to lower its record throughput...)

[Bartimaeus]

uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Smart HTTPS, Canvas Defender, Disable WebRTC, NoScript, User Agent Switcher, Tampermonkey, Dark Reader, Behind the Overlay. I recommend any and all for Firefox. NoScript is the one that takes the most work to upkeep, since you basically have to build a library of trusted sites as you go along, and casual browsing of foreign websites (i.e. ones you haven't visited before) will frequently lead to them breaking.

[Hiro Protagonist]

10 hours ago, rjshae said:

The supermarkets in Australia don't give refunds on toilet paper or hand sanitiser. Also, many people in Australia report price gouging on sites like ebay to get the over priced toilet paper taken down and is very successful. It's basically a FU to these people. No sympathy at all.

[Gorth]

17 hours ago, rjshae said:

Here's to hoping she doesn't get a single cent back. Maybe offer her some good cooking recipes? I remember as a poor student that toilet paper in a pinch could be used as coffee filters (that was before instant coffee). No kidding, if you don't have any money, you become inventive.

 

Hope she chokes on that paper for a very long time to come

 

[Gfted1]

Why would anyone return anything, it lasts indefinitely, are they going to stop wiping their asses now? Besides, it sounds like CA still needs it.

Supplies are infinitely more stable here in IL. We just went shopping yesterday, and oddly, the only thing we couldn't find was powdered yeast. TP was literally so overstocked that it was also stacked up in the isle. Soaps, sanitizers...all the hard to find stuff...was on hand. I also noticed they have fully resumed online ordering and pickup so Im going to try that for my next order. The only problem with that is that if something I want is out of stock, they may not pivot to what would have been my replacement choice.

[Malcador]

I guess they need the money back?

[rjshae]

Life is like a carefully sanitized box of chocolates...

[Gfted1]

I forgot to look when I was shopping, but where does one go to buy those cloth face covers that hook around your ears? Do regular grocery stores sell them?

[Deadly_Nightshade]

16 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

I forgot to look when I was shopping, but where does one go to buy those cloth face covers that hook around your ears? Do regular grocery stores sell them?

Maybe a drug store? I don't think I've seen them in a regular grocery store, at least not around here, but medical supply stores and/or drug stores should have something (assuming they haven't sold out).

[Skazz]

If we're talking about masks, where I live they sell them in pharmacies.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Skazz

[HoonDing]

Democratics governors like CUomo and the young one, that woman, are doing as little as possible to keep the death toll up and make Captain Trumps looks bad.

 

They're truly vile people.

[Totally not Gorgon]

20 hours ago, Volourn said:

"China has addressed this spread effectively "

 

L0L The disease spread from one Chinese city to almost the entire world. How in the world can you claim with a straight face that they addressed this spread 'effectively'? That's delusional gobblygook.

 

China, btw, is a country that had done some of the following things effectively:

1. Punish a doctor for telling the truth. he subsequently died.

2. Lie about number of deaths.

3. Claimed it was over when there a few days with no deaths then it started again.

4. reopened certainly things (theatres) only to have to close them not even a week later.

 

People who praise China are drinking the koolaid. Don't be like PM Blackface. Never admire the Chinese gov't in the way it 'runs' things.

Nobody knows what the situation is actually like in China, for the simple reason that the Chinese Communist Party are not to be trusted on this at all. While Wuhan was in lock down, you could freely fly from the international airport in the same province to anywhere in the world. That's how the virus spread. 

 

Why ?, because not losing face was more important than lives lost. 

I wonder if Kim Jung Un has some spare space place in his concentration camps, maybe we could throw the lot of the CCP in there. 

[ShadySands]

1 hour ago, Skazz said:

If we're talking about masks, where I live they sell them in pharmacies.

My father-in-law in Estonia can just get the good ones right off the shelf but here in Denver you need a connection or Domino level luck. Everyone is making their own masks instead.

I think our governor said to make multiple and only wear them only once, if possible, before sanitizing them.

Edited April 11, 2020 by ShadySands

[Gromnir]

in a closet where we keep med/first aid stuff we found a box o' procedure masks-- 50 count. not n95 and not even surgical masks. they are hospital garb blue, and they got a bendy metal nose strip, so they give the impression o' being more effective than the cloth petri dish medicine dan described in another thread even if they ain't. have used one.  the masks is likely near a decade old, and have a dusty odor, but as their only function is to keep us from spreading via respiration whatever foulness we may have contracted, am thinking they will be good enough.  functional near a year supply as am only needing weekly. am thus set for masks.

huzzah.

Here’s what we know about Minnesota’s model for predicting the toll of COVID-19

Scenario 3.1: Two weeks of stay-at-home followed by physical distancing until June 12, followed by requirement that the vulnerable stay home until about Aug. 14:

Date of peak cases: July 6, or 15 weeks (10-20 weeks)
Date of peak ICU need: June 29, or 14 weeks (9-19 weeks)
Number of beds needed at peak ICU: 3,300 (2,600-4,000)
Mortality: 20,000 (9,000-33,000)

...

"MDH officials have said they believe the oft-cited University of Washington model, which predicts fewer than 500 deaths for Minnesota, makes unrealistically optimistic assumptions about how well Americans’ succeed at social distancing and about the accuracy of death data from China."

...

numbers is only for minnesota and their health folks admit their models is leaning towards pessimistic compared to other state models, albeit not most pessimistic. nevertheless, the mdh mistrust o' china numbers is looking reasonable in light o' recent info which suggests china cases and deaths were much higher than reported. 

HA! Good Fun!