From "In Easter Mass, Pope Speaks of ‘a Contagion of Hope’ Amid Coronavirus: Live Coverage/Japan’s leader posted a video of himself petting a dog as he urged residents to stay home. Russia reported its largest daily increase in new cases since the start of the outbreak" — the NYT collection of coronavirus updates.
I'm interested to see how that distancing at school works for Denmark. Who can figure out in advance what risks and potential benefits there are? Who can even assign a weight to the problem of children getting in the way of parents who are forced into working at home? How can you decide that 5 children make an acceptable play group — but no more than 5? It's an experiment, and I hope it goes well.
I wondered how to say "really cool" in Danish (and I don't think I've ever given a thought to the question of how to say anything in Danish).
It's Easter — so catch the contagion of hope and keep being virkelig cool.
पोस्ट्स
१७२ टिप्पण्या:
Q. "I wondered how to say 'really cool' in Danish"
A. "Really cool." Most Dutch know English; not at all unusual to see billboards, street advertising, in English.
Norway 200 Years! - (Danish Language Explained)
Alcohol may have been involved.
"Who can figure out in advance what risks and potential benefits there are?"
Well, first, you have to have a group of people who can't protest their presence in your grotesque medical experiment.
Then, you put them in groups of five and use a tape measure to see how close they can get to each other before they start infecting each other.
Next, you say a prayer to your God ... Josef Mengele, and see who drops first.
Google translate is bad at colloquialisms, I'd be interested in knowing from a Danish speaker if that is correct.
From what I know of German (not a native speaker) the equivalent of 'verkelig' is 'wirklich', meaning actual or real in the sense of "that really happened". I don't think it's used for emphasis as 'wirklich cool'.
Data, data, data ... I cannot make bricks without clay. - Sherlock Holmes
That's a good one buckwheat Johnny cakes
Good for them.
Quite a lot of "relaxing" is in the European news.
Austria, Norway, etc. are also going to do various "relaxing" things this week.
Spain is still confused about what to relax and when. Not surprising considering how hard it was hit. But yesterday was a much better day.
Also note that reported death statistics here are incomplete.
Actual mortality may be substantially higher than the stats you see as non-hospital deaths, such as nursing homes, are not usually categorized nor have these people been tested. Italy is generally in the same case, and I think France too.
If anyone starts comparing US mortality vs anyone else, for political reasons say, tell them it is very premature.
We're getting back to work soon here in Texas. Democrat whining to follow.
"Who can figure out in advance what risks and potential benefits there are? “
It’s like evolving military tactics. You try stuff and see what works. We are going to have to do the same kinds of things very soon, and without firm scientific guidance since we can’t know really. Like in Denmark, people are gonna die, every decision is fraught, but they still have to be made. There is no “get out of pestilence free” card.
Buwaya Puti: I hope you and your family are healthy a lot of us have been worried about you
"Actual mortality may be substantially higher than the stats you see”
You’ve stepped in it now!
That's a great Oso Necro. Just stay in Texas during your experiment.
thanks buwaya
I do not like Buckwheathikes.
Public policy kills people, indirectly, no matter what it is.
But one must have policy, even if it is no policy.
We live in an imperfect world, a fallen world, where there is no clear guidance whether any act or word inadvertently does harm. We are forced to sin, by existing, and often enough also by not existing.
At best we are forced inevitably into cost-benefit analyses based on imperfect information. There really is no other way to decide and to live, and anyone who denies this is a fool, or is insincere.
To call every such change, or state, or condition, or that cost-benefit analysis murder, is evil. Knowing evil in this case.
Using such language for amusement, not some "higher" purpose, is worse.
Where's Pete Buttigieg when you need him?
Buwaya,
Question for you: Should the children experimented on in Denmark be given a chance to CHOOSE whether they want to participate in the medical experiment that Denmark is imposing upon them?
"At best we are forced inevitably into cost-benefit analyses based on imperfect information. There really is no other way to decide and to live, and anyone who denies this is a fool, or is insincere.”
Exactly.
I really only object to those people who claim that their way has not costs and the other way is murderous. People who claim that the victims have been over counted and they are all old (too bad, so sad) or moral failures, as in obese. There are people harmed on both sides.
One of the stupidest arguments against Trump in the past couple weeks is that he is "wiling to kill people.” The president of the United States damn well be ready to make life and death decisions with the greater good in mind in an imperfect world.
Buwaya
Welcome back! Glad you are well.
"Should the children experimented on in Denmark be given a chance to CHOOSE whether they want to participate in the medical experiment that Denmark is imposing upon them?”
Please nobody confuse this with my position. I wouldn’t be suprised if it’s parody of some kind.
Buckwheathikes, I will not answer anything from you as you are insincere and knowingly malevolent.
Tim,
You didn't answer the question:
Should the children being experimented on in Denmark be provided with informed consent and be allowed to CHOOSE whether or not they wish to participate in the medical experiment being imposed upon them by their government?
Buwaya,
I knew you wouldn't, and could not, answer that question. Because if you did answer it, then you'd reveal your own malevolence.
Experiments are good. Local conditions vary. That’s why Trump is right to leave details to the states.
Ann asks why 5. I bet there were a lot of simulations run to find a maximum group size that still kept spreading fairly low. I bet it’s bigger than 5.
When you're running an experiment on human beings informed consent is impossible
"Actual mortality may be substantially higher than the stats you see”
You’ve stepped in it now!
Buwaya, last I heard, lives in Spain. Spain and France have not been counting WuFlu deaths in nursing homes.
"Who can figure out in advance what risks and potential benefits there are? Who can even assign a weight to the problem of children getting in the way of parents who are forced into working at home? How can you decide that 5 children make an acceptable play group — but no more than 5? It's an experiment"
The entire point of Ann's post is to talk about the medical ETHICS of what the government of Denmark is doing by experimenting randomly with their children's lives.
Discuss.
Actually buckwheat Johnny cakes Ann is discussing the engineering aspects of the test not the ethical aspects... although I will concede that they are intertwined.
Speaking of human experimentation, the University Medical Center here in Las Vegas has begun prescribing hydroxychloroquine to ER patients who test positive for the virus but do not require immediate hospitalization.
Buwaya, Bill ROT
France wasn’t counting them but is now. I don’t know about Spain.
There are reasons to think Italy's count is low too.
As I said earlier, it’s really excess deaths that matter for policy. Those are a bit more complicated, but a first pass estimate for NYC was posted as a graph. Huge spike in April.
Here in Norway, daycare centers will be opening next week followed by the elementary schools. Parents can keep their kids at home if they choose. Shops and restaurants have been opened, except for hairdressers, training centers etc. The bars were open in Oslo, but the city closed them down because there were too many violations of social distancing.
"Speaking of human experimentation, the University Medical Center here in Las Vegas has begun prescribing hydroxychloroquine to ER patients"
And, it should be noted, UMC Las Vegas is giving those patients informed consent before allowing them to take the prescription, and giving them the opportunity to CHOOSE whether they wish to be part of the experiment.
Tcrosse
Random trial or just routinely?
tcrosse: the main difference with the experiment using malaria drug is that it's toxicity effects on patience is already well-known. Denmark children experiment that Ann posted is a complete Black box at this point.
This is too funny AmexPat. The Commie socialist Scandinavians sound like they're listening to the American deplorables on how to deal with Coronavirus.
speaking of macabre experiments
When you're running an experiment on human beings informed consent is impossible
All of life is just one big experiment. From beginning to end.
Is moderation on?
I agree with buwaya about bad faith from buckwheat, but the answer is that as ever parents decide for their children.
"Buwaya, last I heard, lives in Spain. Spain and France have not been counting WuFlu deaths in nursing homes.”
In NYC “cardiac arrest - DOA” ambulance calls are through the roof. They are not counted either. I guess we should interpret that as people having heart attacks due to the shutdown.
DBQ: thalidomide is just life
"to avoid setting off a surge in new cases."
Why? A "surge" in new "cases" is what you want, among the healthy young at no risk of complications. It builds up community immunity. It's what you need for seniors to come out of isolation.
Short of a vaccine or a permanent total lockdown, some further transmission is inevitable anyway. You just don't want it to get to the really vulnerable, within reason.
Unless I missed something -- if I did, I am open to correction -- the death count for flu among the young is much higher than for Wuhan/Covid.
As for the Las Vegas UMC experiment, all I know is what I read in the local paper. It's a lengthy story, and you can read it yourself
DBQ: thalidomide is just life
There. You do see. Those who chose not to participate in that particular experiment and those who did.....Lessons were learned. Sad lessons, but learned nevertheless. Now all we have to do is try to REMEMBER those lessons. That is the hard part.
Do you think that every bit of life in the petri dish is preserved? We learn from death as well as life.
On Easter, you would think that we might reflect more on just what the end results of this experiment that we are all participating in might be, instead of vapor locking on the inevitable failures.
"to avoid setting off a surge in new cases."
Sebastian said Why? A "surge" in new "cases" is what you want, among the healthy young at no risk of complications. It builds up community immunity. It's what you need for seniors to come out of isolation.
Exactly THIS.
How can you build up "herd immunity" if you keep each cow isolated from the other. The HERD needs to mingle.
You can want an increase in new cases but still not want a “surge”. A surge is where the danger ramps up: too many sick at once, too many asymptomatic spreaders, too many cases to handle with whatever infrastructure you have in place. Surges introduce variance and risk.
The very first thing I did when when I opened this comments section was to Control F Pete Buttuvwxyz.
Damn you to Hell, Mezzrow, for writing my joke before I thought of it!😛
European "socialists" - that is, the state institutions they create - in my experience, are often (not always) much less process-bound, more efficient, less creatures of unthinking centralized bureaucratic inhumanity than their American cousins.
This is less a question of ideology than it is of institutional failure.
If American socialists truly wanted a socialist future their best path to get it would be through a vicious, bloodthirsty, Mao-style cultural revolution against their American bureaucracies.
You go first DBQ. Herd immunity requires 80 to 95% to be infected or immunized because Science. You can pave the way in your sheep experiment. It's just life and death.
You can want an increase in new cases but still not want a “surge”.
Now you have it!! This is why Trump and others have advocated a strategic opening back up of society. Allowing the low risk and essential people to get the F out of their houses and back to work.
Not everyone with no restrictions. Selected locations and selected businesses. Piece by piece.
Herd immunity will never be achieved by this total insane lock down. People can CHOOSE to continue to shelter themselves. People can CHOOSE to emerge from their cocoons.
Glad to see nothing has changed with Buwaya Puti. That's a good sign.
buwaya wrote:
"Actual mortality may be substantially higher than the stats you see as non-hospital deaths, such as nursing homes, are not usually categorized nor have these people been tested. Italy is generally in the same case, and I think France too.
If anyone starts comparing US mortality vs anyone else, for political reasons say, tell them it is very premature."
We don't have guess about France- they admitted about a week or so ago that they hadn't classified nursing home deaths- you see that in the first big spike up over 1000 deaths a day on April 2nd when they started to account for such deaths. Based on that data, I would guess that about half the deaths are being missed in most countries who aren't accounting for such deaths, including the US.
Thanks tcrosse, good article. Sounds like they are doing it the right way. Only 11 patience so far, but you gotta start somewhere
“ This is why Trump and others have advocated a strategic opening back up of society. ”
Indeed. Others includes me. I bet I have posted more articles here on detailed suggestions of different ways to open things up based on testing, in stages than anyone else. I have posted articles on group testing, variolation and testing, targeted sector testing, test and trace, and several different particular plans. The “open it now” crowd have presented very little analysis indeed.
the redoubt of commissar whitmer, (there's a title) shows how it's moved up to no. 3, rocketing past California, no 5, and my own state of florida, as to the much derided Sweden, they don't seem to be in such bad shape.
Jury is still out on Sweden. It’s an experiment. I read they might clamp down in Stockholm though.
But in this case there is still zero understanding of what actually matters.
There is no way to "plan", if your data is this defective.
Most factors that actually matter in generating infections and death in this epidemic are still unknown, or so little known, that you may as well rely on faith alone.
The models used so far are completely useless, as they simply cannot explain, gross (orders of magnitude) national and even regional differences in case rates and outcomes.
Similar to German "wirklich." This language thing is habit-forming... Might have to look into Danish!
Buwaya Puti: agreed, very high uncertainty with the pandemic. One slight quibble, the models have been fairly accurate in predicting the peak death windows. I think that one reason for the success on top of the failure in the United States was the compliance of the American people. That's the main fudge factor they got wrong in the models.
What's interesting about the biggest u.s. failure is allowing so many American citizens to return from Europe in mid March. I don't think we can squarely place the blame for that on anybody other than our collective ignorance.
it's like when reed and finlay were investigating the yellow fever outbreak, and debating over who got credit for identifying aedes aegyptis as the vector, but they weren't that absolutist in their judgements, which I discovered was responsible for outbreaks in pre constitution Philadelphia and dc.
See Alexander Kekule
This is a very good idea.
But it is unreasonable to expect that the children will not get the virus. The plan is in fact that they will get the virus.
And then they will infect their parents.
99.999% of the children will be fine after getting infected.
99.9% of the parents will be fine after getting infected.
At that point, Denmark, or whatever country, will basically have herd immunity and the odds of the virus reaching people that it might kill, like the grandparents, will have been greatly reduced, and then there will be time to develop vaccines and more sophisticated medical treatments.
The trick for those that are elderly or in poor health is to how avoid all of the people in Denmark that for the next two months or so will have the virus.
“ There is no way to "plan", if your data is this defective. ”
Someone once said, you have to make decisions based on the evidence you have,
And in fact we do have *some* good evidence. The virus spreads very quickly if no steps are taken to check it. It can and does overwhelm healthcare systems. Methods that have worked to slow the spread with other outbreaks do seem to work with this virus.
In Iceland we have enough tests to know asymptomatic spreaders are common. That’s important to know.
Are all models useless? You can’t mean that. Chloroquine came to notice due to models of how the virus invades cells. Several drugs are in development due to computer models of the virus. Perhaps you mean just models of the spread. But just because they are variable doesn’t make them useless. They illustrate possibilities and risks. Real experts only use them as aids, not as gospel. See what Fauci and Birx say about them.
"they [Sweden] don't seem to be in such bad shape”
It’s early days there. Where is the bend in the curve going to come from that the other countries have managed as they got further along and locked down? Sweden is tracking the other countries pre-lockdown stats, which is to be expected.
The lockdown has to end, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves about the costs of ending it anymore than would should kid ourselves about the costs of the lockdown.
According to Swedes and Norwegians, Danish is not a language but a throat condition.
"The trick for those that are elderly or in poor health is to how avoid all of the people in Denmark that for the next two months or so will have the virus.”
This is where 90% of the hand waving that goes on here comes in.
tim in vermont.
I was told 'bending the curve' would not save any lives. Only spare medical services from being overwelmed. Is that right, or another instance of experts being wildly wrong?
The lockdown has slowed the virus and given us weeks more of medical advancement.
Mandrewa
Not a new idea actually. Ties in with the various variolation schemes that have been discussed. Easier to do if you have testing, because someone needs to attend to some of those in isolation, and you need to be able to throttle back if things start to go south.
I posted something earlier on the idea of cycles of tightening and loosening to achieve a spread through society whilst keeping high risks in isolation.
Iowan2
You missed a possibility. You weren’t told or didn’t listen to everything. Flattening the curve was the main but not the sole gain from distancing. I have posted on that quite frequently.
"another instance of experts being wildly wrong?”
Do we know more about how to treat it than we did a month ago?
Do we have more medical capacity than we did a month ago?
Are we better prepared for the inevitable next surge than we were a month ago?
Do we have many more times the number of tests than we did a month ago?
In Iceland we have enough tests to know asymptomatic spreaders are common. That’s important to know.
The German study contradicts that.
15% infection and most asymptomatic.
Over the last two weeks, German virologists tested nearly 80 percent of the population of Gangelt for antibodies that indicate whether they'd been infected by the coronavirus. Around 15 percent had been infected, allowing them to calculate a COVID-19 infection fatality rate of about 0.37 percent. The researchers also concluded that people who recover from the infection are immune to reinfection, at least for a while.
For comparison, the U.S. infection fatality rates for the 1957–58 flu epidemic was around 0.27 percent;
The PCR positive rate was less than 5% but I can't find that link right now. The antibody positive rate was 15%.
Read it before Medium decides to yank it again: Eight Reasons to End the Lockdowns As Soon as Possible.
(Disclaimer: Don't know if this is overly optimistic or not, just throwing it out there.)
Factors that MAY matter far more than exposure models - but it is impossible to evaluate these in a "scientific" manner, within the available time.
- Climate/weather, temperature, humidity, sunlight.
- Population partial immunity, or better immune system function in this case, due to exposure to other infectious agents. There is some talk of exposure to tuberculosis as giving some benefit.
- Diet
- Partial immunization through unrelated vaccines. There is quite a lot of talk about the BCG tuberculosis vaccine as an explanation for gross national differences in case rates and outcomes. The correlations here are quite compelling.
Herd immunity requires 80 to 95% to be infected or immunized because Science.
The problem with that is that infection rates are only about 15% in the German study and the cruise ship.(20% I think) Are 85% immune from some other mechanism ? There are other mechanisms. Tears kill staphylococcus; that is how penicillin was discovered. Fleming had studied tears. Maybe Interleukins work. Maybe that is how "Cytokine storms" happen. It gets out of hand,
Buwaya
Let’s imagine a game. We have a deck of cards. If you cut a club nothing happens. If you cut the 5 of hearts I pay you $2. If you cut any other card but the queen of spades I pay you $100. If you cut the queen of spades you pay me $5000.
We will play the game 10 times, that is 10 cuts.
Can any model predict with high accuracy exactly how much we owe each other at the end? No. But we can assess an expected value and a level of risk.
Welcome back, Buwaya! We have a cousin in Spain, who's a general surgeon - he's had a rough go of it in the hospitals, there. Lotta similar problems as Italy (aging population, lotta smokers, etc, etc)
Navigate thru and around some of knuckleheads here..
As for Denmark, and other European countries, phased-reopening is the way to go.
Stay healthy!
Buwaya - what’s your take in Ph?
What I read is very worrisome...
I assume your in Spain.
Ken, you can predict the expected value because you know the probabilities in the case of drawing cards.
But in this case we do not know the probabilities.
Consider the cost-benefit calculation (with "expected" values presumably) of California ending its lockdown. Where do you start?
Buwaya
I thought you might say that. So imagine that someone removed a few cards, you don’t know how many. Now there’s a lot of uncertainty. Model is still useful.
That’s my point. You say the model is useless unless it predicts the actual outcome. I say it is useful if it gives reasonable estimates of the risks.
I haven't followed up, but it appeared to me, that outstanding tests, skewed positive, in places like ny,
"The entire point of Ann's post is to talk about the medical ETHICS of what the government of Denmark "
I see yer problem right there, lady. "Government" and "ethics" cancel each other out. There ain't no such animal. There are just government opratives trying to not get caught. No ethics involved.
Buwaya! Dude! Good to see ya back.
Ph is doing ridiculously well, from an infection/death point of view, so far, in spite of having many heavy strikes against it. "Social distancing" there, in Manila especially (20-25 million in that conurbation), is an absurd concept given the crowding. Add to that heavy travel to and from China, of tourists and gamblers and businessmen, and that the place had some of the worlds earliest cases and deaths outside of China.
And if people started reporting to hospitals with pneumonia at the rate of NYC - well, they would be dying in the streets, not ICUs.
Everyone is wearing masks now and Manila has been locked down for almost a month, but something else, another factor, is working over there. Maybe its the Santo Nino.
The name of this Althouse post left me thinking:
I too pray for the redheads.
I’m not sure the lockdown in Southern California resulted in flattening the curve.
There still seems to be infections happening at the same amount. I was looking at Riverside county specifically.
What I’m curious about is what is the source of infections?
Are they nursing homes? Where and how are people being infected?
Riverside county just required, a week ago, everyone to wear face coverings, and this I believe will have a positive impact.
I asked the simple yes/no question. Was I not told bending the curve would not save lives, only spread out the exposure?
But the two with all the answers, are strangely tongue tied, and into full double speak mode.
The lockdown has slowed the virus and given us weeks more of medical advancement.
You missed a possibility. You weren’t told or didn’t listen to everything. Flattening the curve was the main but not the sole gain from distancing. I have posted on that quite frequently.
Spain is having a very rough go indeed.
Another relative of a relative of ours passed away last night - makes 2.
We will have another Skype funeral I expect.
Thanks Buwaya for the info on Ph.
I was worried more about the food situation.
Seems lots of fear and a badly done lockdown is paralyzing food delivery and production.
My guess is Coronavirus is less likely to spread in hotter areas, but AIr Conditioning helps the spread. And the ones with AC are the elites, and they are leading the country and are most affected.
It just occurred to me that I was at the epicenter, NYC, Manhattan in mid February. Went to a play, went to the closing sale of Barney’s which was packed, walked all over Manhattan, crowded restaurants, crowds on crowds. The S.O. got pretty ill when we got back, her sister got pretty ill too. I kind of developed a throat thing, and minor tightness in the chest not too serious but my voice has never really come back from it. I took Zicam, (A.K.A. zinc) like I always do when I feel a cold coming on, I took it for a few days before it cleared. Now I want an antibody test.
Keeping kids at a set distance?
Perpetual motion is easier.
I kind of developed a throat thing, and minor tightness in the chest not too serious
I would love to know more about this, because just about everyone I know (including me) had some version of this in the past few months.
Tim in Vermont: if you get a test, would you let us know the results?
I had a sore throat for 1/2 day. My wife got it at the same time. When I get sick, normally it’s a 3 week affair with a bout of bronchitis to make it ever more fun. I’ve never gotten a sore throat that ended in 1 day. So I’m wondering if I can get a test also...
“ Consider the cost-benefit calculation (with "expected" values presumably) of California ending its lockdown. Where do you start?”
I start with the assumption that an indefinite lockdown is untenable. I think that is a judgment about costs. I assume you agree.
I also start with the assumption we have to prioritize getting what I will loosely call first priority workers back to work safely: health care of all sorts, groceries, farms. I think that is a judgement about benefits. I propose that testing is key to that, and regulates the speed of opening. I think that is a judgment about costs.
That's a start, and it’s cost-benefit thinking.
What I do not do: ignore the risks and let anyone who wants to go anywhere he wants. Neither do I set a date months in the future and declare the state closed until then.
"Was I not told bending the curve would not save lives, only spread out the exposure?”
Who told you that? Bending the curve is about buying time as well as reducing the demand on medical resources, which will save lives in the ways that I pointed out. Sorry for expecting you to make the connection without spoon feeding it to you. Did you have some logical mousetrap gotcha planned by trying to pin down a yes or no answer? Sorry to disappoint you.
Tim
Iowan2 has proven xe is a bad faith commenter.
Ph cannot continue in a lockdown much longer.
This is a brutal policy in such a poor country, where people need to work to eat.
There is already talk of cases of public unrest.
Not much reported in the news.
The class aspect is obvious - so far this coronavirus is a rich mans problem there.
Same in Mexico, so far. AMLO said so, a couple of weeks ago, the only public figure anywhere to make this obvious point.
Ken B. said,
"Let’s imagine a game. We have a deck of cards. If you cut a club nothing happens. If you cut the 5 of hearts I pay you $2. If you cut any other card but the queen of spades I pay you $100. If you cut the queen of spades you pay me $5000.
We will play the game 10 times, that is 10 cuts."
buwaya already said it, but I'll repeat from a slightly different perspective.
Ken, the example you just posed is part of the reason that people using statistics so often screw it up.
There is one kind of math for a situation where we completely know the rules, ie. we know all possible events and the odds for every one of them and there is a different kind of math for the far more common situation where we don't know what we don't know and we certain don't the odds for all possible events.
One of the ways statistics is misused is to apply the methods and reasoning of the first situation to the second.
California has been doing a terrible job on testing. Numbers from covidtracker are strange... and CA leads the nation in Bio Tech. Recently this may have improved. Ca has been leading the nation in backlogged tests. Per a nurse it’s currently a 4 day turnaround to get test results in a hospital. And for normals it’s really hard to get tested.
They will use tape measure and barriers in playgrounds to partition groups, as up to five children will be allowed to play together without mixing with other groups.
Segregering nu, Segregering i morgen, Segregering for evigt?
I don’t think that the odds that the test would come back positive are great, but now that I think about it, I bet they are high enough that a test wouldn’t be a complete waste of money.
We have less capacity to treat than we did a month ago.
Hospital groups are already in BK.
"I say it is useful if it gives reasonable estimates of the risks."
But we already know the models didn't do that because of how far they have moved the predictions with almost no change in the actual policies handed down from the top. You keep trying to ignore the fact that the 2 million in the US dead estimated came after the travel bans from Europe, all the ending of large-scale crowds, after the non-essential businesses were beginning to be closed by the governors- the models took that into account when we were told it would be 2 million to 11 million dead. They used that range to advocate for a complete lockdown of everyone for 8-10 weeks to save us from the minimal number of 2 million. Of course, as the data came in, they were forced to change the predictions each time, even though the policies haven't changed at all.
Mandrewa
I am illustrating a simple point. A model does not have to predict the actual outcome to be useful. Giving an idea of the risks or variance can be useful. It’s easy to inject uncertainty into my little game I think.
Do you eat random mushrooms in the woods? Same principle.
Wittkowski:
JOHN: And what do you think are the possible health risks of the policy that we are following now, the shelter in place?
WITTKOWSKI: Well, we will see maybe a total of fewer cases—that is possible. However, we will see more cases among the elderly, because we have prevented the school children from creating herd immunity. And so, in the end, we will see more death because the school children don’t die, it’s the elderly people who die, we will see more death because of this social distancing.
JOHN: So, we keep being told now about the second wave that will come in the fall. Now, tell us what your thoughts about the second wave are and how—it seems like from everything you’re saying is that we’ll have a second wave because of social distancing—
WITTKOWSKI: Yes.
JOHN: Okay, so, could you say that in a sentence for me?
WITTKOWSKI: Okay. If we had herd immunity now, there couldn’t be a second wave in autumn. Herd immunity lasts for a couple of years, typically . . . if we are preventing herd immunity from developing, it is almost guaranteed that we have a second wave as soon as either we stop the social distancing or the climate changes with winter coming or something like that.
JOHN: But, because this is an airborne illness, it sounds to me as though social distancing wouldn’t even have prevented more people from getting it, right? I mean, it already spread, because it’s airborne, because it lives on surfaces. By the time England or the US shut down, it had probably already gotten all around, right?
WITTKOWSKI: Unfortunately, it seems that in western countries where the story of China was already known, people started with social distancing, as imperfect as it is, before the epidemic could reach the level that is needed to develop herd immunity.
JOHN: I see. And so, to summarize, you are saying that’s going to flatten and extend the epidemic and create the second wave that we are being told to fear?
WITTKOWSKI: Yes. The second wave is a direct consequence of social distancing."
Let the kids go back to school, pronto. "If we only save one life!"
** adjusts tinfoil hat **
Just musing here.
Lefty position - guaranteed basic income.
Covid-19 result - Unemployment benefits PLUS $600 per week. Plus a fixed cash infusion.
Lefty position - Green New Deal
Covid-19 result - blue skies over LA (good PR), fossil fuel use through the floor.
Must stay-in-place until an effective,double-blind study, FDA blessed vaccine is tested, approved and available!
All is well.... so long as the impossibility of continuing this madness is repressed.
The only modelers that really get any credit for being useful are the ones from Oxford- they took immense heat for predicting numbers that were two orders of magnitude lower, and they did that 3 weeks ago. All of the models have moved in their direction, though, not the other way around.
On vaguely related matter to this plague, I note the immense value and penetration of Skype and other audiovisual social media. Its a phenomenon. We have dozens of 60+ people (and in their 80's and 90's) suddenly on Skype and yakking away as if over the back fence. And it matters not a bit what continent they are on.
Austria that is working on reopening requires masks.
Masks plus social distancing seem to help:
https://masks4all.co/ Has lots of good info.
NY subway my guess is a huge contagion vector.
Somehow Taipei (Taiwan) and HK have subways without this issue.
NYC May be the first test of herd immunity, due to its high infected rate.
I just read about first case hitting a homeless shelter, it was in SF.
I will note that the tenor of comments has changed considerably.
Some are already rewriting history.
They know who they are.
"I'm interested to see how that distancing at school works for Denmark."
Why? Do you think that what works (or doesn't work) in Denmark has predictive value of what might work (or not) elsewhere? If so, why?
A model that cannot predict within an order of magnitude or two is useless for making a cost-benefit analysis.
Might as well go on gut.
All other things being equal, if I'm going to get sick in a pandemic, I'd rather get sick at the tail end, when knowledge of treatment effectiveness is greater, than at the beginning, where the likelihood of getting the most effective treatment is going to be less. So there is a non-zero benefit due to time. On the other hand, all other things are never equal.
Yancey: "They used that range to advocate for a complete lockdown of everyone for 8-10 weeks to save us from the minimal number of 2 million. Of course, as the data came in, they were forced to change the predictions each time, even though the policies haven't changed at all."
This will have to part of The Reckoning.
No one is saying that models can't be useful. But models built on BS data, with modelers systematically making wrong guesses. being off by orders of magnitude within weeks, without assumed conditions changing significantly, then being exploited to impose destructive policies to address imaginary problems posited by the models themselves, are worse than useless. They did great harm: they fueled The Panic of 2020, they justified an insane overreaction, and they gave power-hungry, CYA politicians cover.
The mushroom analogy does not have a benefit attached.
Add a benefit.
Consider if the person reaching for the mushroom were at the brink of death through starvation.
As I've been saying, lasrt monday, April 6,was the high water mark of the scam. Not the kung flu necessarily but the lockdown scam.
Monday was when the march 6 funding bill ecpired.
Not original with me, I'm not the one who noticed this. I had it pointed out to me by Dvorak & Curry.
We could see the great walkback starting last Tuesday. Now the marks are being cooled and it's really starting to pick up steam.
PDJT predicted it would be over by Easter and was called a buffoon for saying that.
Who are the buffoons now?
John Henry
I suppose opening government schools is a priority because it relieves parents of baby-sitting so they can go back to work. That is surely the highest function of our otherwise dysfunctional education system.
“A model that cannot predict within an order of magnitude or two is useless for making a cost-benefit analysis. “
Moot point, since as has been noted we do have models that have done well. There are a lot of models out there.
But it’s also wrong, depending on the variance. We routinely require airplane parts to test out with safety margins a couple of orders of magnitude better than experience tells us is likely needed. Tail risks matter.
Go on gut? You mean ask a haruspex? 😉
I wonder:
Why some people get sicker than others?
Are people in NYC getting much sicker than the rest of the US?
Is this due to higher exposure? If you get exposed more. You become sicker?
Steve Sailor did an estimate to use x 1000 to number dead to figure out number infected.
6,000 dead in NYC means 6 million infected. NYC population is 8 million. I did not include suburb. This may be a good test of herd immunity soon.
Buwaya
Mushrooms are tasty. Why isn’t that a benefit? I eat candies selected at random from the confectioners. But my model is that random poisoners are rare.
throw darts then, amlo is regarded as a fool for statements like that, in local media, as well as iconoclasts like Jaime bayle, think a peruvian Andrew Sullivan, without the crazy,
which model, oxford, ihme, was anywhere near correct?
There is no model AFAIK that can explain why NY has 8000+ dead and California has 600.
So if one were to do a CBA of relaxing a lockdown in LA (where my daughter lives), what could you use to predict the outcome?
“ Consider if the person reaching for the mushroom were at the brink of death through starvation.”
Okay, I will. I think you are conceding that said person has a choice to make, and that choice is affected by how much he has to gain. But also, since you imagine him passing up the mushroom in some cases, a cost. If he were just hungry he might pass it up. He is operating on a statistical model model that tells him poisonous mushrooms are common enough the risk should not be taken without extreme need. And that that matters.
AMLO is no fool.
In the third world this is not a democratic virus, as it is here, or the US.
In those parts it goes for the rich, the powerful, and the middle class.
In 2017 about a $billion in pandemic bonds were issued by the world bank. These paid high interest rates but in the event of a pandemic the principle would go to fight it. The bondholders would lose all their money.
I had understood that this was supposed to be triggered by the declaration of the magic word "pandemic".
Apparently not. Apparently now the forfeiture will be triggred in May if this goes on.
Which is perhap another reason for the great walkback.
Lots of info on the web about the bonds in general. Here, for a start
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2017/06/28/world-bank-launches-first-ever-pandemic-bonds-to-support-500-million-pandemic-emergency-financing-facility
I was unable to find much info on when they would be triggered.
John Henry
Are people in NYC getting much sicker than the rest of the US?
Is this due to higher exposure? If you get exposed more. You become sicker?
It might be viral ,load from subways and packed living space. That is one theory. Maybe small viral exposure allows immunity to develop without the symptoms. Maybe the two strains theory, S and L, are correct and S hit CA while L hit NYC.
In those parts it goes for the rich, the powerful, and the middle class.
Travelers. Maybe that is why the "homeless" are not hit hard. They don't go anywhere and others stay away from them.
Better than unreliable modeling, would be reviewing, assessing and evaluating 100 years of infectious disease mortality in the US, .
If one were to do that, one would see a huge decline right after the Spanish of 1918, and basically a low level flatline since the 1950s. See Figures 1 & 2. One would also note that infectious disease comprise 1% of all deaths, whereas 99% of deaths are non-infectious (heart attacks, cancer, stroke, car accidents, etc).
Birkel said...
We have less capacity to treat than we did a month ago.
Hospital groups are already in BK.
I wonder if that is one of the points of this evil exercise? A feature, not a bug.
"hospitals are going tits up. We must have govt healthcare to save them."
John Henry
First person in my circle of friends has it. She is around 30 and very fit. I am not that worried about her, except you can’t help but worry about people you care about. Anyway, she works in health care administration, she was tested after she came up during contact tracing. She tested negative. Four days after her test she had symptoms and she is ill with it now.
is this helpful, a forbes piece wasn't even aware they were already issued
"I was unable to find much info on when they would be triggered."
That is pretty easy to guess if you have the right information- all you need to know is who is making the decision, and who has offered the largest bribe.
Indeed, you might as well ask some neo-pagan to revive the art of the haruspex, to give you the wisdom of a sheeps liver.
Personally, were I an Emperor or Governor, I would request a Mass of Supplication at the Cathedral, and ask for Divine Mercy and Intercession for the outcome of the decision I make on the basis of my own whim. Thats the best anyone can do.
Another day, another gross overestimation:
"According to the flatter, revised model there should be about 1200 new cases today in Ohio; instead there are 372 cases. Time to revise the model and make it even flatter. This of course means that infections will last longer. Please note 247 deaths include 5 deaths under “CDC expanded death definition.” Please note that 63 of 6250 cases are defined as “CDC expanded case definition.” The median age of death in Ohio is 79 yrs (which agrees with Israel and Italy). The deaths in New York follow closely what is observed in Ohio."
With sensible comments by Cleveland Clinic doc at Power Line. But infections will "last longer" if we don't open up and allow herd immunity to develop among the young and healthy. We need more "cases."
And check out the "expanded death definition." Data massaging has begun. Though I do not assume that even "expanded" death counts are necessarily overcounts: very likely, a number of recent deaths have occurred in private, without a proper assessment of cause of death. Whether the undercount offsets the overcount is hard to say at the moment.
Thanks Narciso. Interesting article
All the info I'd seen put the bonds at almost a billion. $950 or so in 2 tranches.
Forbes has them at a few hundred milion. I don't understand the discrepancy.
Also, doesn't answer when they pay out.
I'm guessing never.
John Henry
oh that's not suspicious
Two strains of the virus is yet another possible unmodeled unknown.
"Hospital groups are already in BK."
More marginal businesses, as we've been told on this very blog. Too bad for them.
Of course, we all know the one business that's never marginal: government.
what we have here is a failure to communicate
"Experts" analyzing the data say that Nevada peaked on April 7th, and that with 112 deaths through April 11th, they expect it to end up at 254 deaths by end of August (21 week season).
In 2018 the state had 630 deaths from the flu in a 13 week season.
'”Go on gut”
In the end we will, as we have so far, *decide* on gut. Does that mean we have to analyze and communicate just on gut? Models help clarify key factors and assumptions. They create accountability and clarity. They focus debate and disagreement.
Under these conditions models are just confusing distractions.
Something is wrong with our kids. Analysis of Covid 19 data by the Oxford Center for Evidence Based Medicine, reports that, in Europe, people below the age of 65 years old have a 34- to 73-fold lower risk than those older than 65 years old. BUT in New York City, Louisiana and Michigan, younger people only have a 13- to 15-fold lower risk than the very old. What a tremendous discrepancy. Your C student kid, who's perpetually covered in Flaming Hot Cheetos crumbs and one hundred pounds over weight, is at risk. And what about drug usage and lack of education? Holy cow! Things are going to get rough...
“ Two strains of the virus is yet another possible unmodeled unknown”
Huh? You know all the models? I saw a paper about just such models!
“What we have here is failure to communicate “
Indeed, and a nice allusion! But I think we can communicate better if assumptions are clear and in a model rather than just in a gut.
But no-one has any idea if there are two or twenty strains, or if they exist how or where they matter. This is speculation about unexplained discrepancies.
As also weather and sunlight and diet and race and class and whatever one wants to hypothesize about.
There is no point in considering these things in a decision until you know something.
Marginal businesses indeed, Sebastian.
But then I am worried about "shithole countries" that may be less than marginal if American food producers are unable to get their foodstuffs to the international market.
I am kind of crazy that way.
(Certain posters will not be embarrassed about arguing to destroy lives they deem marginal.)
Iowan2 has proven xe is a bad faith commenter.
I asked a simple question, that all of a sudden cant be answered
Brix a Fauci cautioned that bending the curve would not reduce deaths from COVID.
Now, all I hear is the success of the mitigation and the lives saved. What I understand is deaths delayed, not deaths denied.
This goes to the core of defining "success".
Not getting simple answers, feeds into the whole game of changing history as I am living it. Models were wrong, drastically. Those last adjustments lasted less than a week.
"Brix a Fauci cautioned that bending the curve would not reduce deaths from COVID. “
Why don’t you give a link so we can see the context of that, since that clearly goes against everything that’s been discussed here.
there is nowhere near enough data to validate the models, any of them,
"they’ve all been 'really cool' in avoiding the virus"
Apologies for beating this drum again, but not only were the shutdowns destructive overreactions in themselves, especially when less costly targeted (sniper-vs.-carpet-bombing) alternatives were available, but they were in some ways the opposite of what's needed: it's not cool for kids to avoid the virus. If we cared as much about public health as we profess to do, then parents would insist that their kids go back to school. But as Althouse taught us long ago, people don't believe what they profess to believe. When panic takes hold, that applies even more.
Of course, the other cost that has barely been mentioned, not even by SJWs as far as I know, is the way these shutdowns intensify class privilege in education. I seem to recall studies that show poor kids lag behind during the summer. Is anyone measuring how much they lose out due to being forced to stay home, in effect doubling the summer deficit? Poor kids' futures being sacrificed to save richer old white men: why is that not a prog meme? Or is it?
“ Brix a Fauci cautioned that bending the curve would not reduce deaths from COVID”
As we say in Backgammon, I double. Got proof they said this? I think they said bending the curve saves lives by not overloading the system. There are other benefits that can save lives too.
I hate it when other people's internet goes down.
" They create accountability and clarity"
Riiiiight. "But we had models." is just the kind of accountability that forces people to be careful with their policies. It starts out as an unaccountable excuse, and ends up as an unaccountable scapegoat.
And nothing says clarity like projections off by orders of magnitude.
"there is nowhere near enough data to validate the models, any of them,"
But there will be as soon as we adjust the models to match reality.
“There is nowhere near enough data to validate the models, any of them,”
Including the ones that claim massive deaths from the shutdown.
Total deaths in America were down last month.
What has been said, and is irrefutable, is that poverty causes higher rates of earlier death. Find any source that argues otherwise.
4/11/20:
"According to the Nevada Health Response's daily update Saturday, 70% of ICU beds in the state were occupied. About 62% of hospital beds were in use and 41% of the state's ventilators were also in use."
bagoh20: "According to the Nevada Health Response's daily update"
And projections were . . .You are not trying to say that another bites the dust, are you?
"What has been said, and is irrefutable, is that poverty causes higher rates of earlier death.”
Not good enough. We are looking for a perfect model that gives us exact figures so that we can make perfect decisions.
Now Tim. That is clearly labeled “Goose Sauce”. You can’t use it on ganders.
I'm sure there are models of the risk of death from severe economic slowdowns, and depending on who's models they are, they probably show significant or even devastating death rates from it, especially at this scale. The question is: if they showed that more would die from the shut down than the disease would we end the shutdown, follow the models? I doubt it. All hypothetical of course. Just commenting on a blog.
tim in vermont,
Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
https://www.tilastokeskus.fi/isi99/proceedings/arkisto/varasto/mart0473.pdf
Whatever model you have, remember that it has to take into account the ramifications of all of the current policies that have been implemented and those yet to come... precisely.
What’s funny if you look at the data. Florida, which was demonized a couple weeks ago by the NYTimes for driving around too much, is not doing too badly. Deaths have plateaued now since the beginning of April, higher than one might like, but perfect is not on offer.
Yes, the NYT is full of shit.
Something upon which we can agree.
Tim in Vermont: "Not good enough."
It's been good enough for you for months now.
If excess deaths due to unemployment desperation/despair for those families that are in the most vulnerable economic position can save just 1 person who has coronavirus, it will have been worth it.
FWIW, 3/29
DR. BIRX: Thank you. I mean, we have grave concerns when you look at the model. As I told you, look at the Chris Murray model, where he shows rapid escalation. And you can see it happening with the people we’re losing every day throughout the — throughout America. And you can see it going up, just like cases. And we’re starting to lose people at the same rate. And we have deep concerns about that.
<
So in the model — and there’s a — there’s a large confidence interval, and so it’s anywhere in the model between 80,000 and 160,000, maybe even potentially 200,000 people succumbing to this. That’s with mitigation. In that model, they make full assumption that we continue doing exactly what we’re doing, but even better, in every metro area with a level of intensity.
Howard said...
Buwaya Puti: I hope you and your family are healthy a lot of us have been worried about you
+1. Welcome back and Happy Easter! << if that's ok with J-Farm.
Buckwheathikes said...
Data, data, data ... I cannot make bricks without clay. - Sherlock Holmes
4/12/20, 7:41 AM
Howard said...
That's a good one buckwheat Johnny cakes
4/12/20, 7:45 AM
Curiously, a bit off. Unless KJV says different, in the Torah, it says they were not provided with *straw* but thenceforth had to gather it for themselves on top of existing workload without affecting quota. Why "clay?"
Why clay?
Because that's what bricks are made of.
Also, don't ask the commenters, ask Sherlock. He's the one that said it.
John Henry
I know that, JH, I saw it too. I'm not recalling whether that was Doyle or Cumberbatch/his writers. Wasn't blaming you but wondered if you knew.
Teachers here in Oregon have been given an impossibly dense 30-some-page document, all in finest Educratese, to put together lesson plans through the end of the school year, now that it's finally been established that school won't reopen at the end of this month as originally planned. The latest wrinkle for my husband (orchestra director for West Salem HS) arrived in a text this morning: If there is even a single student who left his/her instrument at school, then (in the name of "equity," natch) class time may not include any activities involving the use of an instrument. Which is literally everything his students do. He is prepared, at this point, to FedEx the one remaining student so situated an instrument from his own collection, rather than subject the remaining hundred-plus to synchronized thumb-twiddling for the next eight weeks. Aaaaargh.
Michelle
So much for the hope that leftist nonsense will perish from covid.
I bet they raise an objection to the FedEx plan.
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