This is one of those situations where, when a solution to a problem just seems ssoo simple, it's because you don't understand the problem.BusterAg said:eidetic78 said:
Every flu statistic you've ever seen is also an estimate.
There's no malice or purposeful obfuscation in the process used to estimate disease burdens.
Frankly, I don't believe you.
There are always caveats because the information itself is imperfect. That just has to be understood to be an intelligent consumer of the data.
Two remedies:
1) get better information
2) Analyze the freaking data!!!! This is supposed to be the era of Big Data! All of the richest companies in the world are rich specifically because they can deal with problems like this. We can do better analysis, we just don't want to.
Nobel Prize Winner Michael Levitt shreds the politics and science surrounding COVID p
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Last: 5 yr ago by Keegan99
They differentiate between a seasonal and ap andemic flu based on it's novel nature - is it a new strain. For example, the H1N1 flu was a pandemic since it was a new type of influenza.agforlife97 said:
One other point that Levitt makes on his twitter is that mass testing in some sense actually causes this pandemic. We don't do mass testing of flu every year (including lightly symptomatic or asymptomatic people), but if we did we might consider that we have a flu pandemic every single year.
More broadly, all that really matters are the number of people that are sick enough to be hospitalized. There's really no reason for lightly symptomatic or asymptomatic people to get tested.
That nitpicking aside, I do agree on your point that if we all over analyzed the seasonal flu with daily sites updating cases/hospitalization/deaths for cities/counties/states/countries/the world - yes, there would be much more fear. One thing that has been clear to me while reading about Covid 19 and other viruses and the deadly pandemics, or ones that threatened to become pandemics, is that viruses are fascinating and yes, vaguely scary at all times. I think the scientific community feels a black death or Spanish Flu type situation is possible again, so they live on heightened alert - and may be proven to over react at times. H1N1 had some early attention and scares (in the media at least) but ended up a 0.02 IFR I think. Hard to say what should be done early, I tend to agree with err on the side of caution, but after 6 months of Covid 19 I think we do have the data to change our lock downs, change our stances on schooling, etc - and that has been happening since May 1, I'm not happy seeing some of that progress get reversed in recent days.
Which platitude is more likely in any given situation where a power struggle is involved:eidetic78 said:This is one of those situations where, when a solution to a problem just seems ssoo simple, it's because you don't understand the problem.BusterAg said:eidetic78 said:
Every flu statistic you've ever seen is also an estimate.
There's no malice or purposeful obfuscation in the process used to estimate disease burdens.
Frankly, I don't believe you.
There are always caveats because the information itself is imperfect. That just has to be understood to be an intelligent consumer of the data.
Two remedies:
1) get better information
2) Analyze the freaking data!!!! This is supposed to be the era of Big Data! All of the richest companies in the world are rich specifically because they can deal with problems like this. We can do better analysis, we just don't want to.
1) Occam's razor; or
2) Follow the money.
Again, arguing that the data is imperfect, and that is the way it is, in the era of Big Data is speciously lazy.
One thing about Michael Levitt, if you google him and include different time frames - like back in feb/mar or more recently - it's easy to see he's been all over the news. He's really put himself out there and lot and seems to like it. There are dozens, if not a hundred plus, living Nobel Laureates from the sciences and economics but he seems to be the most vocal. [url=https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/nobel-laureate-israel-will-have-no-more-than-ten-coronavirus-deaths-621407][/url]https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/nobel-laureate-israel-will-have-no-more-than-ten-coronavirus-deaths-621407 It should be noted Israel has 25K cases and 320 deaths, but perhaps Levitt only thinks 5-10 have been legitimately recorded as due to Covid?
I think he makes some valid points, but it's lost a bit in a rant that didn't include a clear definition of what should have been/should be done and also his conflicting history of supporting some form of lockdown and ranting against some form of lockdown.
I think he makes some valid points, but it's lost a bit in a rant that didn't include a clear definition of what should have been/should be done and also his conflicting history of supporting some form of lockdown and ranting against some form of lockdown.
What power struggle?BusterAg said:Which platitude is more likely in any given situation where a power struggle is involved:eidetic78 said:This is one of those situations where, when a solution to a problem just seems ssoo simple, it's because you don't understand the problem.BusterAg said:eidetic78 said:
Every flu statistic you've ever seen is also an estimate.
There's no malice or purposeful obfuscation in the process used to estimate disease burdens.
Frankly, I don't believe you.
There are always caveats because the information itself is imperfect. That just has to be understood to be an intelligent consumer of the data.
Two remedies:
1) get better information
2) Analyze the freaking data!!!! This is supposed to be the era of Big Data! All of the richest companies in the world are rich specifically because they can deal with problems like this. We can do better analysis, we just don't want to.
1) Occam's razor; or
2) Follow the money.
Again, arguing that the data is imperfect, and that is the way it is, in the era of Big Data is speciously lazy.
And I'm not arguing the data is imperfect. As a virologist, I actually know the caveats. Hand waving with some meaningless phrase like "era of Big Data" and thinking it represents an actual solution to any problem is intellectually lazy.
Your remedies of "get better information" and "Analyze the data" show a complete lack of understanding of the process. There's a minimum amount of information you need before you can understand how much you don't know. If those are serious suggestions, you're not there yet.
I've seen your other posts about death coding, and I understand on the surface it seems suspicious.
Let me see if I can help you out with a flu example:
If you look at the CDCs estimates for flu death burden, it's a gigantic range. (like 12k - 80k or something) Why? Why don't they just count?
For influenza specifically, it's because states are not required to report flu infections in people over 18. So we must estimate in other ways. There is no "better information" to get.
So we're forced to look at local patient symptoms, season, confirmed infections in the area, deaths with pneumonia as an underlying cause, etc... All kinds of "potentially related" things that point to flu. This means that all the estimates rely on individual physicians to be thorough and accurate. I'm sure most are, but it's still an inference based on their opinions.
Additionally, influenza, like many viral diseases, can pre-dispose to secondary bacterial infection. If someone who's diabetic and obese gets the flu, which leads to bacterial pneumonia, which leads to death, how should that be coded?
Even with perfect data and perfect analysis, the flu death burden is still an estimate based on different mathematical models which are filled with physicians professional opinions.
Estimations of covid deaths will go through exactly the same process, and all the same inferences/estimations and physician opinions will be baked in, just like it is for every other disease.
There's no conspiracy in the death reporting itself. Those intentions are fabricated and layered on later by people hoping to use the stats to support whatever story they're writing.
We should replay the entire shutdown during next flu season. See if it takes the summer off.JesusQuintana said:
Well I sure wish this **** would have taken the summer off like the flu. Would have been nice to have a break
This:agforlife97 said:
One other point that Levitt makes on his twitter is that mass testing in some sense actually causes this pandemic. We don't do mass testing of flu every year (including lightly symptomatic or asymptomatic people), but if we did we might consider that we have a flu pandemic every single year.
More broadly, all that really matters are the number of people that are sick enough to be hospitalized. There's really no reason for lightly symptomatic or asymptomatic people to get tested.
Leads to this:Quote:
There's really no reason for lightly symptomatic or asymptomatic people to get tested.
Quote:
people that are sick enough to be hospitalized.
That seems to be true just by looking at Worldometer data, if you assume the pandemic is over for Italy, Spain, UK, France - all have deaths per million population around 500-650.
Having said that, I wonder why he predicted 5-10 total deaths in Israel then. And I still struggle with the logic he applied when he made his China predictions late FEb/early March.
Having said that, I wonder why he predicted 5-10 total deaths in Israel then. And I still struggle with the logic he applied when he made his China predictions late FEb/early March.
The herd immunity at 15% is interesting. If you consider that human interactions probably follow close to the 80/20 rule, 15-20% of immunity comprised of the most highly sociable parts of the population (people) kind of makes sense. It's probably better thought of as substantial immunity rather than actual herd immunity.
That's 0.05%.
It has been reported that 15% of covid-19 patients in the ICU in Houston are in their 20s and 30s.The_Fox said:Is it worse than the flu for those under 50?Dr. Not Yet Dr. Ag said:
"Exactly as deadly as the flu" is provably false. The worst flu season in the last several decades (2017-18) saw a total of around 60,000 deaths in the US. We have double that now despite 2 months of locking down. 1 in every 500 NYC inhabitants died from COVID. This is pretty clearly not the flu. I won't get into discussions regarding whether a full lockdown was necessary, but it is hard to take someone seriously who fails to acknowledge the very basic understanding that this is quite clearly much worse than the flu.
How many have died?eric76 said:It has been reported that 15% of covid-19 patients in the ICU in Houston are in their 20s and 30s.The_Fox said:Is it worse than the flu for those under 50?Dr. Not Yet Dr. Ag said:
"Exactly as deadly as the flu" is provably false. The worst flu season in the last several decades (2017-18) saw a total of around 60,000 deaths in the US. We have double that now despite 2 months of locking down. 1 in every 500 NYC inhabitants died from COVID. This is pretty clearly not the flu. I won't get into discussions regarding whether a full lockdown was necessary, but it is hard to take someone seriously who fails to acknowledge the very basic understanding that this is quite clearly much worse than the flu.
HotardAg07 said:
My complaint broadly with what you're saying is that nobody is disagreeing with you that the effects of shutting down are terrible. However, there are many people who are taking their frustrations with the effects of shutdown to downplay the threat of the virus -- like you saying that 99.97% of people will survive from covid infections, which is not even remotely true. You have to really selectively cherry pick data to reach conclusions even remotely close to that. 0.58% of all people in Bergamo, Italy have died from coronavirus. ALL people, not just infected people.
The two beliefs do not need to be mutually exclusive. I do not want us to have to do a lockdown, I want kids back in school, I want to support as many businesses as I possibly can, but I also have a healthy respect for the virus. I can recognize that the virus is more deadly than the flu, especially for older populations. I do not hand waive 500,000 deaths.
But for me, those internalized concerns means wearing a mask, washing hands obsessively, keeping my distance from people where possible, and trying to be careful around my most vulnerable family members.
What I think is a shame are the people are so mad with the shutdown and the economic ramifications that they have militantly decided that they will NOT do anything to prevent the spread of the disease and that being safe is someone else's problem. Our vulnerable populations need to interact with people to live, whether it be caretakers or younger family members. I don't take their life lightly and I do not consider my 80+ year old grandmother expendable because she already lived past the age expectancy. She has many years left to live.
For example, it's made the news that a bar owner is protesting the closing of bars in Texas. He's saying that his bar plays a small part of the coronavirus spread but it's going to crush him financially and drive him to bankruptcy. I absolutely empathize and sympathize with his frustration. What I do not like is that he is so angry with the coronavirus hype he BANNED employees and patrons from wearing a mask in his store. Even if you question the efficacy of home made cloth masks in preventing the spread of covid, why would you BAN employees and patrons from making their own decisions on whether or not to wear them?
Every single day I come on this website, and people push experts and articles that downplay the threat of the virus and discredit experts and articles that give credit to the threat of the virus -- don't you see the cognitive dissonance and the confirmation bias at play? Shouldn't well educated, grounded people be able to review all information and make informed conclusions about the threat level and how to best manage that risk? If you're always rejecting the information that you don't like, does that reflect well on your critical thinking?
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