COVID-19

[Alphaville]

Not just wishful thinking, IMO, but also woe and doom pessimism (though maybe that's wishful thinking from a different perspective). Caution and optimism have their places, of course, and I think letting "the science" govern is a bit snake oily, but a measure each of caution, optimism, and reason, seasoned with reliable, well-understood data, should all be tossed into the shepherd's pie. A one-ingredient pie--not so good.

wishful thinking is wishful thinking, and yes, doom and pessimism are also a form of it, not to be trusted, same as optimism.

science is based on skepticism and evidence and proof, and part of the problem we have is that people don’t understand these things.

e.g. “no evidence of x” is taken to mean “evidence of no x.” which is... wrong. also, the popular versions of skepticism are not based on reasoned argument, but just in statements like “i don’t trust that” or “that’s just a theory”, etc. well, everything is a “theory,” it’s just some theories stand scrutiny better than others.

it’s also poor understanding of science to confine its domain to epidemiology alone.

economics is a science (not a hard science but still a science), risk management (is it a science?) uses scientific principles and is used to prevent bias and can be scientifically researched, etc. i don’t want to get lost in semantics here, e.g. “is math a science?” maybe it’s just a form of reason. nevertheless, i’ll throw it in.

managing through “gut” and “faith” has been our problem all along. optimism/pessimism, same shit.

korea did not fuck around, tested for evidence and limited spread, did not waste time dreaming, and is reopening right now, with something called “everyday distancing.” their economy is projected to grow this year, but they’re still reasonably preparing their medical facilities for a new spike in the fall, according to sound risk management principles.

[jacob]

There has not been a successful vaccine developed against any coronavirus.

Not in humans ... but there are animal coronavirus vaccines because the commercial incentive is there. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_co ... nd_control

[Peanut]

Not in humans ... but there are animal coronavirus vaccines because the commercial incentive is there. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_co ... nd_control

Interesting! Do you know about Covid 19 in dogs? Are they infectious? I think somewhat from wha I've read?
We are thinking about getting a puppy if shutdown continues...

[jacob]

@Peanut - The cats and dogs vs CV19 has changed back and forth over the months. As far as I know the current understanding is that cats can be infected and infect other cats and possibly die from it. Dogs can be infected but do not infect other dogs and they don't die. Of course either can run around with virus in their fur if a human sneezes on them or pets them. Overall, pet transmitted CV19 does not appear to have merited more than a casual interest, so the vector is tiny.

[Alphaville]

south korea’s baseball season started yesterday

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieport ... f022f6fffa

german bundesliga expected to restart soon as well.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ge ... r-BB13GEZA

[Ego]

@tony, I encourage you to do so.

I was the one who first posted Ferguson's paper here predicting 2.2 million deaths in the US and I am not happy for having been duped. So perhaps I should be calling myself an assumehole. I've since learned that Ferguson used the same technique of employing sensational death estimates to manipulate the public with Mad Cow, Bird Flu and Swine Flu.

Bird Flu: Ferguson prediction 200 million deaths / Actual worldwide deaths 282
Swine Flu: Ferguson prediction 65,000 deaths in the UK / Actual UK deaths 457
Mad Cow: Ferguson predicted up to 150,000 deaths in the UK / Actual deaths 177

On March 18th Ferguson said he was infected with Covid and was recovering.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... bey-rules/

"Our latest estimates suggest that the virus is slightly more transmissible than we previously thought," he tweeted on March 26.

Yet four days later the professor was feeling well enough to break his own advice to the public and allow his girlfriend, Antonia Staats, to cross London for a visit. The following week she made a second visit to Prof Ferguson's flat, despite telling friends she suspected that her husband had coronavirus symptoms.

Actions speak louder than words and I think his actions tell us how he really feels about the dangers of the virus.

[7Wannabe5]

@bigato:

I think daylen would say something about how different brains acquire and process information differently.

[ZAFCorrection]

I would make a case for (4) after a fashion. Certain issues seem to flip a switch in the mind where suddenly there is an extreme distaste and intolerance for even a single casualty. You see it on the left for school shootings. You see it on the right for terrorism [by Muslims]. You see it today where advocating any policy which might increase the direct coronavirus death count is looked at as monstrous.

By comparison, no one bothers enacting and enforcing a rule that everyone wear hardhats during their daily lives. It would clearly save a few lives, but it doesn't flip that ethical switch. Because most of the time people implicitly make cost-benefit decision which allow a few lives to be lost.

To put it simply, your basic ethics are probably situational given the limits of human cognition. It's not surprising if people are constantly violating them.

[George the original one]

Sweden might do things differently if given a second chance?

Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist, appeared on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" on Tuesday, when he described the country's controversial approach.

"We never really calculated with a high death toll initially, I must say," he said.

"We calculated on more people being sick, but the death toll really came as a surprise to us."

On protecting the vulnerable...

Tegnell said in late April that at least half of the country's deaths had been in nursing homes.

"We really thought our elderly homes would be much better at keeping this disease outside of them then they have actually been," he told Noah.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/head-swedens ... 11923.html

[Alphaville]

@bigato - i don’t think people are unable to understan basic logic (well, some are).

the problem is that humans are afflicted by cognitive biases that lead them to ignore/discard/sidestep basic logic, evidence, etc. human history is replete with examples.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_l5ntikaU

there is ample literature on the subject. easy start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

avoiding cognitive biases is actually hard work. this is why science requires special training—not just in content and use of instrumentation, but also philosphy because good research requires good questions, and research is peer reviewed, etc.

[7Wannabe5]

@ZAFCorrection:

It isn’t that simple. Many of us had already discounted economic crash due to environmental stress some time this decade.

[Ego]

I'm not getting this kind of experience in real life (not much of face to face interaction these days) nor among my friends whom I talk to mostly via whatsapp and sometimes telephone.

@bigato, I don't believe any of those fit very well. I certainly do not think you are stupid and I am definitely not a genius.

One interesting facet of the quarantine is that it doesn't just quarantine us from the virus. It quarantines us from getting real information from those who are not in the same information bubble as us. The subtleties of in-person interaction provide far more authentic information. In fact more authentic than the person even intends to convey. Also, as I've said several times, actions speak the loudest.

Online interactions that most are relying on to decide what is right and wrong leave us and them highly vulnerable to manipulation. I do NOT believe the experts like Ferguson are using the manipulation for evil ends. I believe they are making extremely hard decisions and are each trying to err on the side of saving lives because they don't want deaths on their conscience. This built in error gets compounded with each additional person in the line of decision-making adding to it. The normal mediating effect of dissent gets shut down because people who have a different view of the situation are called immoral monsters.

My experience is different than most in that I am actually meeting and interacting in person everyday with many people who are suffering and would be placed on the other side of the (false) lives vs. economy equation. I am surprised myself by just how much the plight of some have influenced me. The newly homeless. The shell shocked of separation. Those who expected their family to help and discovered they are alone. I have to admit that at least twice I've posted something in this thread that I am not particular proud of just after showing an apartment to someone who broke down crying or while shaking with fear as they explained their desperation.

I mentioned very early in this tread that I am not personally worried about the virus itself, I am concerned about the reaction to it. Now I've got a new concern. I believe CRISPR makes this kind of pandemic far more likely in the future. The next time it will be worse and we will under-react because we are always fighting the last war.

[ZAFCorrection]

@ZAFCorrection:

It isn’t that simple. Many of us had already discounted economic crash due to environmental stress some time this decade.

But not, I imagine, the forced isolation, the supply chain disruption, and the suspension of other important medical services.

An interesting factor in all this is that they let the prisoners out to keep the pandemic from getting out of control, but the inmates at the rest homes had to stay put and suffer the consequences of large numbers of vulnerable people being stacked in place. The public is happy to let the older adult population succumb to old age in an institutionalized, and frankly hopeless, setting, but at least they are moral enough to use old people as props in their moralizing.

The kinds of situations people can live with from an ethical standpoint can vary widely.

[Bankai]

How is it that Belgium which was one of the first to introduce lockdown (and probably the harshest in Europe) is still suffering the most deaths per capita? Also, I don't see any difference so far between lockdown-no lockdown looking at how Sweden is doing...

[Alphaville]

How is it that Belgium which was one of the first to introduce lockdown (and probably the harshest in Europe)

really?

[Bankai]

@bigato: yeah, the counting is so inconsistent. Many people suspect numbers in Poland might be superficially deflated so the government looks good ahead of presidential elections - there are suspiciously few deaths per capita compared with the rest of Europe while also there are anecdotal accounts of many likely victims having flu or pneumonia on death certificates as they were never tested.

[Alphaville]

Alphaville: I'm well aware of how biased we all are, but when it crosses ethics, I still call that being a monster. Or when it overrides basic logic and math, I still call that stupid.

oh, right, i see what you meant now. indeed.

[jacob]

Okay guys, cut down on the broadsides already or this thread will get its own lockdown.

[jacob]

https://covidactnow.org/ has changed their presentation again and now show the graphs of the R0 timeline for each state.

[M]

@Augustus

I am genuinely curious about the details of your business. Do you see revenue and customers coming back after pandemic for example? What product/service do you sell? Do you have a wide variety of customers? How much has revenue dropped? thanks for any insight.