Author Topic: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?  (Read 675369 times)

marty998

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2150 on: May 26, 2020, 02:19:23 AM »
Back on topic, I've been reading some reddit comments and it seems like some of the more socialist minded young folks are almost disappointed that Australia has completely beaten the virus. They wanted more economic upheaval so that capitalism would sink. Now that it's business as usual and we've eradicated the 'rona, they are disappointed that the system did, in fact, work in this instance.

I find that attitude so disgusting -- that young people *want* more human suffering so their flawed ideology can "succeed".  It is also terrible that some demented, fringe few environmentalists were cheering on the wildfires, and some may have committed arson.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/01/07/australia-fires-people-charged-starting-wildfires-arson/2831063001/

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/text-messages-expose-teenage-arsonists-as-responsible-for-a-raging-bushfire-thats-forced-hundreds-of-terrified-locals-to-flee-their-homes/ar-AAH4TrC

A fringe element does not represent an entire generation is probably all I could say. In a population of several million, there will always be a very disproportionate few who hold objectionable views, or engage in despicable acts, and because of this ‘ability’ to polarise, will garner a disproportionately large amount of attention.

Just as not all boomers were hippies and communists, not all young people are socialist heathens.

Seems unfair to label all of the “Left” or the “Right” in this way, but that’s how the game seems to be played. The general public lose because of it.

The better question is to ask yourself who benefits from that outrage and division.

T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2151 on: May 26, 2020, 04:31:05 AM »
It's fascinating to look at news and predictions from the not so distant past.

This report is from May 4th:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-report-predicts-covid-19-cases-will-reach-200000-a-day-by-june-1/2020/05/04/02fe743e-8e27-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html

It estimated 200,000 new US COVID-19 cases per day by June and 3,000 deaths per day.

The actual new cases is about 20,000 per day and about 500 deaths per day. 

Reading the first few pages of this thread from mid to late March is eye opening, and that is before the most severe hysteria started.  Remember, the Imperial College model originally showed the US with over 1,000,000 COVID deaths (after flattening the curve).  It is truly remarkable the position we find ourselves in due to fear and very inaccurate predictions. 

I think the response to COVID will likely go down in history as an unfortunate screw up comparable to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In retrospect the loudest voices in epidemiology seem to originate from politically motivated pseudoscience. 
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 04:44:30 AM by T-Money$ »

marty998

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2152 on: May 26, 2020, 04:38:35 AM »
I'd question how cases can reach 200,000 a day if you're not running 200,000 tests per day....

KBecks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2153 on: May 26, 2020, 06:19:50 AM »
The issue is, are more people trending towards fringe ideology for the long-term?  Young people are generally stupid.  That's been true forever, they don't have the life experience to have wisdom. 

T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2154 on: May 26, 2020, 07:29:03 AM »
I think the political motivations are more widespread than is acknowledged.  Perhaps not to the fringe level, but it seems like "let no good crisis go to waste" mentality is not uncommon, especially here in the United States.

The polls I've read show large differences in how left and right wing people view the virus and what should be done about it.  My feelings are this goes back to the Thomas Sowell "conflict of visions" theory...

https://unherd.com/thepost/thomas-sowells-conflict-of-visions-epidemiology-edition/

I remember reading several months ago the online comments in The New York Times, how resentful the readership was that the more "red" states weren't taking this disease seriously and that the economy would get so bad Trump would lose.  Neil Ferguson the previously influential British epidemiologist seemed to have left wing ideologies (the married girlfriend he went to see during lockdown that eventually cost him his influential position certainly did, she is known to be a left wing activist). 

I think the mandated lockdown response feeds into left wing ideology.  The idea that we are all equal, the response must be uniform, because we are all equal and not different.  As more is acknowledged about the virus nothing can be further from the truth, reasonably healthy children have almost no risk from CoVID-19, while frail people in long-term care facilities have a fatality rate that could be close to 50%.  But, that acknowledgement comes with a lot of cognitive dissonance for people that think we are all equal and that the ends and result must also be equal. 

As humans we are able to fix problems and make things better and the government has the means to do it through mandated and uniform policy.  That's a great idea, but viruses don't work in the framework of an egalitarian mindset.

Case in point:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/opinion/coronavirus-race-obesity.html

While the author makes a valid point about racial health discrepancies, she does her best to discard pre-conditions and obesity as risk factors to CoVID, even though after only a few short months the correlation is well established. 

70% of the COVID deaths in the Northeast have been men, but acknowledging that fact and doing something about it doesn't fit the agenda...out goes science and in comes left wing politics to save the day.  You see, women are the true victims here:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/24/world/women-rights-coronavirus-intl/index.html

The current comments on The New York Times almost always "blame Trump" as their mantra for any article written about anything, yet the mandatory COVID seeding of nursing homes under the Governors of NY, NJ and PA is ignored.   Trial lawyers will have their day with the taxpayers of the Northeast, that I guarantee.

I think politics play a lot into the initial COVID forecasts and COVID response, and a lot of the response was based on fringe ideological ideas masked in pseudo-science and agenda.   We know politics and religion are the hiding places for scoundrels, unfortunately science isn't far behind.   Science has become a great hiding place for those with unscientific agendas.

The New York Times and CNN aren't what I would consider fringe, but how they look at the world isn't much different than a young socialist wanting to turn COVID into the next Karl Marx success story.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 07:42:35 AM by T-Money$ »

frugalnacho

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2155 on: May 26, 2020, 07:38:06 AM »
It's fascinating to look at news and predictions from the not so distant past.

This report is from May 4th:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-report-predicts-covid-19-cases-will-reach-200000-a-day-by-june-1/2020/05/04/02fe743e-8e27-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html

It estimated 200,000 new US COVID-19 cases per day by June and 3,000 deaths per day.

The actual new cases is about 20,000 per day and about 500 deaths per day. 

Reading the first few pages of this thread from mid to late March is eye opening, and that is before the most severe hysteria started.  Remember, the Imperial College model originally showed the US with over 1,000,000 COVID deaths (after flattening the curve).  It is truly remarkable the position we find ourselves in due to fear and very inaccurate predictions. 

I think the response to COVID will likely go down in history as an unfortunate screw up comparable to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In retrospect the loudest voices in epidemiology seem to originate from politically motivated pseudoscience.

The upper bounds were based on absolutely no change in behavior, or the terminology they used in the paper an unmitigated epidemic.  No masks, no social distancing, no shutting businesses down, not stopping large groups from gathering, no one washing their hands, and individuals not changing their behavior.  It was supposed to be a worst case scenario as if we were sims milling about without any awareness of a disease tearing through society.  IMO this was never even realistic because when people start dying in droves some of the population will start voluntarily implementing these behaviors, just like we've seen in places that haven't mandated closures or lockdowns.  It should be no surprise that we won't hit those grim predictions. 

The USA is officially passing the 100k death toll as I type this.  I suspect the numbers are being underreported and will be adjusted when the all-cause mortality is reviewed in the future.  I too suspect the COVID response is likely to go down in history as an unfortunate screw up, but probably from the opposite end of the spectrum as you. 

T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2156 on: May 26, 2020, 07:45:12 AM »
It's fascinating to look at news and predictions from the not so distant past.

This report is from May 4th:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-report-predicts-covid-19-cases-will-reach-200000-a-day-by-june-1/2020/05/04/02fe743e-8e27-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html

It estimated 200,000 new US COVID-19 cases per day by June and 3,000 deaths per day.

The actual new cases is about 20,000 per day and about 500 deaths per day. 

Reading the first few pages of this thread from mid to late March is eye opening, and that is before the most severe hysteria started.  Remember, the Imperial College model originally showed the US with over 1,000,000 COVID deaths (after flattening the curve).  It is truly remarkable the position we find ourselves in due to fear and very inaccurate predictions. 

I think the response to COVID will likely go down in history as an unfortunate screw up comparable to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In retrospect the loudest voices in epidemiology seem to originate from politically motivated pseudoscience.

The upper bounds were based on absolutely no change in behavior, or the terminology they used in the paper an unmitigated epidemic.  No masks, no social distancing, no shutting businesses down, not stopping large groups from gathering, no one washing their hands, and individuals not changing their behavior.  It was supposed to be a worst case scenario as if we were sims milling about without any awareness of a disease tearing through society.  IMO this was never even realistic because when people start dying in droves some of the population will start voluntarily implementing these behaviors, just like we've seen in places that haven't mandated closures or lockdowns.  It should be no surprise that we won't hit those grim predictions. 

The USA is officially passing the 100k death toll as I type this.  I suspect the numbers are being underreported and will be adjusted when the all-cause mortality is reviewed in the future.  I too suspect the COVID response is likely to go down in history as an unfortunate screw up, but probably from the opposite end of the spectrum as you.

I believe the upper bound of the initial Imperial College forecast was 2,000,000 with no mitigation.  Lockdowns and social distancing, before COVID were seen as "moderately effective" in contagious disease mitigation.

I disagree people dying in droves did much of anything.  That was the reality in nursing homes, it took the state governments about 2 months to realize seeding nursing homes with COVID was not a good idea.  Hospital beds sat empty as elderly COVID patients were forced into nursing homes.  Trial lawyers will find quite a bit of employment the next few years.

As Karen's rat out people on social media for not wearing masks and kids can't play on playgrounds, we still can't adequately test nursing home workers, visitors or patients.  Yep, mass lockdowns were a destructive failure.  But hey, we are all in this together...stay "safe" and stay home...my hairy behind.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 07:50:24 AM by T-Money$ »

the_fixer

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2157 on: May 26, 2020, 08:26:40 AM »
I'd question how cases can reach 200,000 a day if you're not running 200,000 tests per day....
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it still make a sound?


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Davnasty

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2158 on: May 26, 2020, 09:23:59 AM »
Reading the first few pages of this thread from mid to late March is eye opening, and that is before the most severe hysteria started.  Remember, the Imperial College model originally showed the US with over 1,000,000 COVID deaths (after flattening the curve).  It is truly remarkable the position we find ourselves in due to fear and very inaccurate predictions. 

It did not. Self quote from March 26:

The prediction of 1.1 million deaths was based on a mitigation strategy which means targeted interventions including case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly.

Neither the UK or the US is still pursuing a mitigation strategy, they've opted for suppression. That's what we're doing right now.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

So that estimate was based on a specific strategy that we did not pursue.

And that's before we get into your misunderstanding of how modeling works and what purpose it serves.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-models-arent-supposed-be-right/609271/

You wont read this, but maybe someone else will.

Davnasty

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2159 on: May 26, 2020, 09:37:50 AM »
It's fascinating to look at news and predictions from the not so distant past.

This report is from May 4th:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-report-predicts-covid-19-cases-will-reach-200000-a-day-by-june-1/2020/05/04/02fe743e-8e27-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html

It estimated 200,000 new US COVID-19 cases per day by June and 3,000 deaths per day.

The actual new cases is about 20,000 per day and about 500 deaths per day. 


Yet another piece of evidence that this poster doesn't read the articles they link.

It would seem the main point of this article was that these numbers should not have been presented as predictions.

Quote
The creator of the model said the numbers are unfinished projections shown to the CDC as a work in progress...  the data was presented as an “FYI” of work still in progress to officials within the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It was not in any way intended to be a forecast.”

Jon Bon

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2160 on: May 26, 2020, 12:12:24 PM »
Perhaps what the OP is saying is that the "black death" narrative was pushed pretty hard at the beginning. I mean it was damn near a panic. My state predicted 10k cases a day with heavy social distancing. We ended up with <1k.

Now part of this might have been intentional, to scare people into taking it seriously. For the most part it had its desired effect. Most folks locked down pretty hard for the first 4-6 weeks. However many predictions proved wildly inaccurate, and the associated yellow journalism that went with it.  So now folks have simply moved on.

Honestly if I can compare it too a real world example it would be the tornado sirens. They probably go off 2x a month over the summer? I don't take them seriously, I barely change my plans if at all. I have never hid in the basement. It is really a case of the boy who called wolf.

So maybe I will get killed from a tornado, or covid, but I can only handle so much alarmism before it just becomes noise.


T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2161 on: May 26, 2020, 12:17:27 PM »
Reading the first few pages of this thread from mid to late March is eye opening, and that is before the most severe hysteria started.  Remember, the Imperial College model originally showed the US with over 1,000,000 COVID deaths (after flattening the curve).  It is truly remarkable the position we find ourselves in due to fear and very inaccurate predictions. 

It did not. Self quote from March 26:

The prediction of 1.1 million deaths was based on a mitigation strategy which means targeted interventions including case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly.

Neither the UK or the US is still pursuing a mitigation strategy, they've opted for suppression. That's what we're doing right now.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

So that estimate was based on a specific strategy that we did not pursue.

And that's before we get into your misunderstanding of how modeling works and what purpose it serves.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-models-arent-supposed-be-right/609271/

You wont read this, but maybe someone else will.

I read it.  I think justifying inaccurate numerical modeling is nonsense.

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2162 on: May 26, 2020, 12:24:22 PM »
I'd question how cases can reach 200,000 a day if you're not running 200,000 tests per day....

In the US, we’re now running near 500 k tests a day.  That’s a remarkable rate.  There is more capacity but people aren’t going to get tested.  Positive rate has been lower than 5% now, cases and deaths continue to go down.  Lowest daily death total in 2 months.  No spike since reopening 1 month ago.  Media trying to get creative to keep the panic monetization gravy train alive.  We won’t hear from those who said there would be a spike that they were wrong.

« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 12:33:42 PM by HBFIRE »

MudPuppy

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2163 on: May 26, 2020, 12:27:16 PM »
Agree, @DadJokes. My town tests at noon on the first Saturday of each month. Caused quite a few panicked posts on nextdoor recently when the first Saturday fell a few days after actual tornadoes. People do get used to them, but it’s better than nothing.

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2164 on: May 26, 2020, 12:32:10 PM »
Cheap, emotionally leveraged second-guessing on COVID comprises almost the entirety of T-Money's contributions to this forum. I'm a pretty polite guy, but frankly, I've been working on COVID-19 for months and I'm losing patience for it. It's almost too delicious that the very first words he had on this topic were in regards to the death toll of H1N1, a take that has aged like milk.

For weeks, I've been encouraging those who think the reaction is overblown to get into the offices of decision makers to present competing analysis. They will never ever ever ever ever do this  though because their interest in this topic only goes as far as trying to be right on an Internet forum.

Pooplips

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2165 on: May 26, 2020, 01:10:25 PM »
With the few posts of T-Money’s that I have read, he seems to have laid out a decent case. Your comment has refuted none of his points.

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2166 on: May 26, 2020, 01:11:33 PM »
With the few posts of T-Money’s that I have read, he seems to have laid out a decent case. Your comment has refuted none of his points.

I agree, I didn't see any cheap or emotional argument.

The ease with which so many otherwise good people selfishly ignore the devastation of mass mandatory lockdowns on the poor/disadvantaged/marginalized is a moral stain. Supporting mandatory mass lockdowns is a privilege of the entitled who can comfortably "shelter" in their work-from-home middle-class bubbles enabled by Uber Eats and Amazon Prime. Apparently, grandmas in Africa who already lacked food security in the best of times, don't count for as much as grandmas with time-shares and RVs.

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2167 on: May 26, 2020, 01:15:28 PM »
With the few posts of T-Money’s that I have read, he seems to have laid out a decent case. Your comment has refuted none of his points.

He repeated a two month old lie about the Imperial study. He was corrected on this lie two months ago, chose to lie about it again today, and was again corrected on it today. Still won't confront the lie though.

It is impossible even for very smart and thoughtful people like myself to read and thoroughly respond to every wrong thing they read on the internet. You have to triage. Sometimes, when someone has a pattern on not acting in good faith, it's okay simply to dismiss them as not acting in good faith instead of doing point-by-point refutations.

People do this all the time. It's a must. For example, if someone chooses, of all possible combinations of English letters, to name themselves pooplips, I'm probably not going to take them as seriously as I might otherwise.

dandarc

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2168 on: May 26, 2020, 01:17:55 PM »
TMoney also changed their username a while back - I noticed because egillespie had made my very short ignore list due to the extensive intellectual dishonesty.

Never did address my direct question in another thread as to why the name change.

Pooplips

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2169 on: May 26, 2020, 01:20:15 PM »
Pooplips is a wonderful name, btw. You seem mad you didn’t think of it?

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2170 on: May 26, 2020, 01:20:29 PM »
With the few posts of T-Money’s that I have read, he seems to have laid out a decent case. Your comment has refuted none of his points.

I agree, I didn't see any cheap or emotional argument.

The ease with which so many otherwise good people selfishly ignore the devastation of mass mandatory lockdowns on the poor/disadvantaged/marginalized is a moral stain. Supporting mandatory mass lockdowns is a privilege of the entitled who can comfortably "shelter" in their work-from-home middle-class bubbles enabled by Uber Eats and Amazon Prime. Apparently, grandmas in Africa who already lacked food security in the best of times, don't count for as much as grandmas with time-shares and RVs.

Concern-trolling.

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2171 on: May 26, 2020, 01:21:25 PM »
Pooplips is a wonderful name, btw. You seem mad you didn’t think of it?

Support for conversational triage += 1

Pooplips

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2172 on: May 26, 2020, 01:24:39 PM »
Agreed.

Case

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2173 on: May 26, 2020, 01:34:07 PM »
Pooplips is a wonderful name, btw. You seem mad you didn’t think of it?

Support for conversational triage += 1

And of course there is this @T-Money$ gem:  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/coronavirus-are-aren't-more-american-wearing-masks-out-in-public/msg2620127/#msg2620127

It appears he collects random 'data', doesn't actually read it in much detail at all, cherry picks anything that remote appears to support his argument, cut and pastes, declares victory, and then doesn't follow up.

Jon Bon

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2174 on: May 26, 2020, 01:34:34 PM »
Perhaps what the OP is saying is that the "black death" narrative was pushed pretty hard at the beginning. I mean it was damn near a panic. My state predicted 10k cases a day with heavy social distancing. We ended up with <1k.

Now part of this might have been intentional, to scare people into taking it seriously. For the most part it had its desired effect. Most folks locked down pretty hard for the first 4-6 weeks. However many predictions proved wildly inaccurate, and the associated yellow journalism that went with it.  So now folks have simply moved on.

Honestly if I can compare it too a real world example it would be the tornado sirens. They probably go off 2x a month over the summer? I don't take them seriously, I barely change my plans if at all. I have never hid in the basement. It is really a case of the boy who called wolf.

So maybe I will get killed from a tornado, or covid, but I can only handle so much alarmism before it just becomes noise.

From my understanding, cities/towns are just testing to make sure the tornado sirens work. It's not for people to conduct a drill. In the small TX town I grew up in, the town intentionally only tested the sirens on days when the sky was clear, so that people wouldn't confuse it for a real emergency.

Yes every Wednesday at noon they test.

But 2x a month all summer they go off when it is not a test, and I ignore them, because nothing has ever happened. Perhaps they often set them off in an area 500x the size of the storm but to me they are just noise.




mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2175 on: May 26, 2020, 01:38:37 PM »
And of course there is this @T-Money$ gem:  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/coronavirus-are-aren't-more-american-wearing-masks-out-in-public/msg2620127/#msg2620127

It appears he collects random 'data', doesn't actually read it in much detail at all, cherry picks anything that remote appears to support his argument, cut and pastes, declares victory, and then doesn't follow up.

There should be a phrase for this. Maybe we can call it "headline harvesting"...

Case

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2176 on: May 26, 2020, 01:44:42 PM »
And of course there is this @T-Money$ gem:  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/coronavirus-are-aren't-more-american-wearing-masks-out-in-public/msg2620127/#msg2620127

It appears he collects random 'data', doesn't actually read it in much detail at all, cherry picks anything that remote appears to support his argument, cut and pastes, declares victory, and then doesn't follow up.

There should be a phrase for this. Maybe we can call it "headline harvesting"...

The lack of logic in at least some (I have only read some but would not be surprised if this is widespread) of @T-Money$ posts is so egregious that one has to consider that he is doing it on purpose (e.g. on purpose).  But it's also very dangerous, to have people pretending (or even thinking) their arguments are are compelling victories when in fact they are abysmal failures and perhaps even entirely fake.  I encourage the moderators to keep an eye on this one @arebelspy and others.

SuperNintendo Chalmers

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2177 on: May 26, 2020, 02:21:15 PM »
On the topic of credibility, when you use phrases like "As Karen's rat out people on social media for not wearing masks..." and "the entitled who can comfortably 'shelter' in their work-from-home middle-class bubbles enabled by Uber Eats and Amazon Prime," it's just a cheap zinger.  Based on an implicit foundation that people who are concerned about mitigating transmission fall into these characterizations and therefore are rightly dismissed.  Painting with that big of a brush seems better saved for presidential debates or a Yahoo comment section. 

I'm sure there are some people in the world who get kicks out of "ratting out" or "shaming" (another wonderful buzzword of these times).  I personally don't know of any.  The people I see who are supportive of restrictions on gatherings and social distancing are genuinely concerned about transmitting the virus to someone who may get sick and/or die.  And genuinely concerned about having to impose stricter restrictions if there are additional waves, thereby further hurting the economy. 

It goes the other way too -- if someone says people opposing government restrictions are "gun loving science deniers who can't do without a haircut," that's a pretty quick credibility killer as well.  People can reasonably disagree on the substance, but cheap zingers don't serve any purpose except I suppose making the person stating them feel good?

Kris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2178 on: May 26, 2020, 02:23:31 PM »
TMoney also changed their username a while back - I noticed because egillespie had made my very short ignore list due to the extensive intellectual dishonesty.

Never did address my direct question in another thread as to why the name change.

TMoney is egillespie? Sorry, I don't follow name changes much.

dandarc

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2179 on: May 26, 2020, 02:27:19 PM »
TMoney also changed their username a while back - I noticed because egillespie had made my very short ignore list due to the extensive intellectual dishonesty.

Never did address my direct question in another thread as to why the name change.

TMoney is egillespie? Sorry, I don't follow name changes much.
Yes - you can see it in older quotes. For example this one is from "TMoney" and the one immediately following it from bacchi shows the old username in the quote:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/how-long-can-we-wait-while-flattening-the-curve/msg2611853/#msg2611853
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 02:32:29 PM by dandarc »

RetiredAt63

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2180 on: May 26, 2020, 02:32:49 PM »
OT   This Karen/Becky crap sure makes me grit my teeth.    Our society doesn't have enough derogatory terms that people have to invent new ones? And people on our forums are willing to use them?

And my name is not Karen or Becky.

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2181 on: May 26, 2020, 02:45:10 PM »
Congratulation on the term "Karen" for graduating to the point of meaninglessness. If "Karen" can mean both someone who refuses to wear the mask, and someone who rats out others for not wearing masks, then it's over. Donezo.

Reminds me of "hipster". I got called a hipster in high school for having an iPod. Now everyone has an iProduct, but Android fans still call iOS users hipsters. Android users are called hipsters for being contrarian and not adopting the most popular smart device brand. It means nothing now.

mm1970

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2182 on: May 26, 2020, 03:01:13 PM »
Congratulation on the term "Karen" for graduating to the point of meaninglessness. If "Karen" can mean both someone who refuses to wear the mask, and someone who rats out others for not wearing masks, then it's over. Donezo.

Reminds me of "hipster". I got called a hipster in high school for having an iPod. Now everyone has an iProduct, but Android fans still call iOS users hipsters. Android users are called hipsters for being contrarian and not adopting the most popular smart device brand. It means nothing now.

Quote
As Karen's rat out people on social media for not wearing masks and kids can't play on playgrounds, we still can't adequately test nursing home workers, visitors or patients.  Yep, mass lockdowns were a destructive failure.  But hey, we are all in this together...stay "safe" and stay home...my hairy behind.

Basically

T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2183 on: May 26, 2020, 03:41:43 PM »
“On March 20th ICL lead author Neil Ferguson reported the 2.2 million death projection to the New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof as the “worst case” scenario. When Kristof queried him further for a “best case” scenario, Ferguson answered “About 1.1 million deaths” – a projection based on a modest mitigation strategy”

“After just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson is presenting drastically downgraded estimates, crediting lockdown measures, but also revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured.”

“A month later, it has become readily apparent that the 2.2 million death projection was off by several orders of magnitude, as was its UK counterpart of 500,000 projected fatalities. Ferguson and the ICL team shifted their public commentary to emphasize other scenarios with more conservative projections in the tens-of-thousands (in some cases this was misleadingly depicted as a revision to their model, although it actually used the milder scenarios in the original March 16th paper).“

“The NBER study thus concludes:

“In sum, the language of these papers suggests a degree of certainty that is simply not justified. Even if the parameter values are representative of a wide range of cases within the context of the given model, none of these authors attempts to quantify uncertainty about the validity of their broader modeling choices.”

https://www.aier.org/article/how-wrong-were-the-models-and-why/

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

https://www.dailywire.com/news/oxford-epidemiologist-heres-why-that-doomsday-model-is-likely-way-off

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/25/coronavirus-exposes-the-problems-and-pitfalls-of-modelling

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-real-scandal-is-why-did-anyone-ever-listen-to-this-guy/

The previously discussed IHME:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1565

Not peer reviewed yet, but worth a read:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf




« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 04:06:08 PM by T-Money$ »

Kris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2184 on: May 26, 2020, 04:10:12 PM »
TMoney also changed their username a while back - I noticed because egillespie had made my very short ignore list due to the extensive intellectual dishonesty.

Never did address my direct question in another thread as to why the name change.

TMoney is egillespie? Sorry, I don't follow name changes much.
Yes - you can see it in older quotes. For example this one is from "TMoney" and the one immediately following it from bacchi shows the old username in the quote:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/how-long-can-we-wait-while-flattening-the-curve/msg2611853/#msg2611853

Got it. Well, now at least I know this is not a new person I should be ignoring, just an old one.

js82

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2185 on: May 26, 2020, 05:05:59 PM »
Perhaps what the OP is saying is that the "black death" narrative was pushed pretty hard at the beginning. I mean it was damn near a panic. My state predicted 10k cases a day with heavy social distancing. We ended up with <1k.

The biggest discrepancy between early projections and reality is that early projections were based off the ~3% number which came from positive test results, rather than actual cases.  The CDC's current "best estimate" number is(roughly) an order of magnitude below that.  A 3% fatality rate spread uniformly across the population would warrant that panic.  A rate that's somewhere close to that in the elderly but at least two orders of magnitude lower in the young can be approached differently.

I think there's a degree of fairness in saying that we should have been quicker to adapt mid-stream as we acquired new knowledge - but I think calling out the early responses as an overreaction is an unfair bit of revisionist history, given what we knew at the time.

I also think it's fair to say we were not nuanced enough in our response - more rural, sparsely-populated areas don't need the same degree of restrictions as urban areas in order to limit the propagation of the virus.  And it's fair to say that parts of our behavior in the current moment don't align with our theoretical endgame (herd immunity while avoiding preventable/excess deaths and unnecessary economic damage).

wanderlustNW

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2186 on: May 26, 2020, 05:08:50 PM »
I had him on ignore too. So now I know to just ignore the new username. I wonder why the change of names?

SunnyDays

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2187 on: May 26, 2020, 05:27:18 PM »
Pooplips is a wonderful name, btw. You seem mad you didn’t think of it?

Support for conversational triage += 1

And of course there is this @T-Money$ gem:  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/coronavirus-are-aren't-more-american-wearing-masks-out-in-public/msg2620127/#msg2620127

It appears he collects random 'data', doesn't actually read it in much detail at all, cherry picks anything that remote appears to support his argument, cut and pastes, declares victory, and then doesn't follow up.

Sounds like a Trump disciple.  Isn’t that his MO?  Or wait, maybe it’s actually Trump .......

Jon Bon

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2188 on: May 26, 2020, 05:52:47 PM »
Perhaps what the OP is saying is that the "black death" narrative was pushed pretty hard at the beginning. I mean it was damn near a panic. My state predicted 10k cases a day with heavy social distancing. We ended up with <1k.

The biggest discrepancy between early projections and reality is that early projections were based off the ~3% number which came from positive test results, rather than actual cases.  The CDC's current "best estimate" number is(roughly) an order of magnitude below that.  A 3% fatality rate spread uniformly across the population would warrant that panic.  A rate that's somewhere close to that in the elderly but at least two orders of magnitude lower in the young can be approached differently.

I think there's a degree of fairness in saying that we should have been quicker to adapt mid-stream as we acquired new knowledge - but I think calling out the early responses as an overreaction is an unfair bit of revisionist history, given what we knew at the time.

I also think it's fair to say we were not nuanced enough in our response - more rural, sparsely-populated areas don't need the same degree of restrictions as urban areas in order to limit the propagation of the virus.  And it's fair to say that parts of our behavior in the current moment don't align with our theoretical endgame (herd immunity while avoiding preventable/excess deaths and unnecessary economic damage).

Oh sure I was there, I was pretty concerned when it sounded like 4% of people who caught it died from it, it made most of the lockdown feel completely legitimate.

However the numbers have clarified a bit, but it feels like lots of things that we are relatively sure are pretty low risk (*not an infectious disease expert) still are banned because we need to have extensive virus prevention theater?

As you say, changing your stance when you get new information is a pretty common thing to do, unless of course you are a politician....




frugalnacho

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2189 on: May 26, 2020, 06:52:03 PM »
“On March 20th ICL lead author Neil Ferguson reported the 2.2 million death projection to the New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof as the “worst case” scenario. When Kristof queried him further for a “best case” scenario, Ferguson answered “About 1.1 million deaths” – a projection based on a modest mitigation strategy”

“After just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson is presenting drastically downgraded estimates, crediting lockdown measures, but also revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured.”

“A month later, it has become readily apparent that the 2.2 million death projection was off by several orders of magnitude, as was its UK counterpart of 500,000 projected fatalities. Ferguson and the ICL team shifted their public commentary to emphasize other scenarios with more conservative projections in the tens-of-thousands (in some cases this was misleadingly depicted as a revision to their model, although it actually used the milder scenarios in the original March 16th paper).“

“The NBER study thus concludes:

“In sum, the language of these papers suggests a degree of certainty that is simply not justified. Even if the parameter values are representative of a wide range of cases within the context of the given model, none of these authors attempts to quantify uncertainty about the validity of their broader modeling choices.”

https://www.aier.org/article/how-wrong-were-the-models-and-why/

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

https://www.dailywire.com/news/oxford-epidemiologist-heres-why-that-doomsday-model-is-likely-way-off

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/25/coronavirus-exposes-the-problems-and-pitfalls-of-modelling

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-real-scandal-is-why-did-anyone-ever-listen-to-this-guy/

The previously discussed IHME:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1565

Not peer reviewed yet, but worth a read:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

Correct me if im wrong, but I thought the 2.2M was for no mitigation at all, and 1.1-1.2M was for a modest mitigation approach which basically only sheltered the old people but kept society open.  And based on those predictions the paper specifically recommended a suppression approach (ie lockdown) because 1.1M+ seems unpalatable?

I don't have the paper in front of me but I read it and remembered parts of it.  Maybe I'm completely wrong. Or maybe Neil was wrong about the paper he authored.  Or maybe Tmoney is wrong. 

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2190 on: May 26, 2020, 07:15:53 PM »

Correct me if im wrong, but I thought the 2.2M was for no mitigation at all, and 1.1-1.2M was for a modest mitigation approach which basically only sheltered the old people but kept society open.  And based on those predictions the paper specifically recommended a suppression approach (ie lockdown) because 1.1M+ seems unpalatable?

I don't have the paper in front of me but I read it and remembered parts of it.  Maybe I'm completely wrong. Or maybe Neil was wrong about the paper he authored.  Or maybe Tmoney is wrong.

Ferguson’s model has been proven wildly inaccurate. It estimated Sweden getting decimated with no lockdown -- 40 K deaths by May 1 and 100 K by June. Sweden now has 4,125 deaths and peaked weeks ago. Fraser Nelson (Britain's Spectator) said: “Imperial College’s model is wrong by an order of magnitude.”


Ferguson has been wrong so often that his fellow modelers call him “The Master of Disaster.”

It's not the first time, either.

In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 K people would die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease). In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.

In 2005, Ferguson predicted that 150 MILLION people would die from bird flu. 282 total worldwide deaths.

In 2009, Ferguson said a “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that the swine flu would kill 65 K in the UK.  457 people in the U.K. died from swine flu.

Ferguson admitted back in March that his Imperial College model was based on undocumented 13 yr old computer code that was designed for an influenza pandemic rather than a coronavirus outbreak. He refused to release his original code so other scientists could check his results.

Not sure why anyone listens to him.

What should be learned from all of this is how little our experts actually know, particularly when it comes to modeling and prediction.  Not just slightly off, but not even in the right dimension.  Sounds eerily similar to stock market predictors.  This is why Dr. Ioannidis (a titan in the world of epidemiology) said we have been operating on bad data all along -- broad sweeping policy decisions based in horrible data.

The CDC just very quietly released the new IFR estimate is only 0.3%, R0 is 2.5, and surface transmission is not what we thought.  No media coverage.  Don't get me started on the embarrassingly horrible IHME model.

« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 08:23:41 PM by HBFIRE »

Davnasty

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2191 on: May 26, 2020, 08:19:46 PM »

Correct me if im wrong, but I thought the 2.2M was for no mitigation at all, and 1.1-1.2M was for a modest mitigation approach which basically only sheltered the old people but kept society open.  And based on those predictions the paper specifically recommended a suppression approach (ie lockdown) because 1.1M+ seems unpalatable?

I don't have the paper in front of me but I read it and remembered parts of it.  Maybe I'm completely wrong. Or maybe Neil was wrong about the paper he authored.  Or maybe Tmoney is wrong.

Ferguson’s model has been proven wildly inaccurate. It estimated Sweden getting decimated with no lockdown -- 40 K deaths by May 1 and 100 K by June. Sweden now has 4,125 deaths and peaked weeks ago. Fraser Nelson (Britain's Spectator) said: “Imperial College’s model is wrong by an order of magnitude.”


Ferguson has been wrong so often that his fellow modelers call him “The Master of Disaster.”

It's not the first time, either.

In 2002, Ferguson predicted that 150 K people would die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease). In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.

In 2005, Ferguson predicted that 150 MILLION people would die from bird flu. 282 total worldwide deaths.

In 2009, Ferguson said a “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that the swine flu would kill 65 K in the UK.  457 people in the U.K. died from swine flu.

Ferguson admitted back in March that his Imperial College model was based on undocumented 13 yr old computer code that was designed for an influenza pandemic rather than a coronavirus outbreak. He refused to release his original code so other scientists could check his results.

Not sure why anyone listens to him.

What should be learned from all of this is how little our experts actually know, particularly when it comes to modeling and prediction.  Not just slightly off, but not even in the right dimension.  Sounds eerily similar to stock market predictors.  This is why Dr. Ioannidis (a titan in the world of epidemiology) said we have been operating on bad data all along -- broad sweeping policy decisions based in horrible data.

The CDC just very quietly released that the IFR is only 0.3%, R0 is 2.5, and surface transmission is not what we thought.  No media coverage.  Don't get me started on the embarrassingly horrible IHME model.

I don't know enough about Neil Ferguson, his research, or the current situation to say he's right or wrong, but I can still point out when someone posts something factually incorrect.

Like this:

In 2002, Ferguson predicted that 150 K people would die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease). In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.

Ferguson didn't say that, at least not officially in his research.

What he actually said was:
Quote
Extending the analysis to consider absolute risk, we estimate the 95% confidence interval for future vCJD mortality to be 50 to 50,000 human deaths considering exposure to bovine BSE alone, with the upper bound increasing to 150,000 once we include exposure from the worst-case ovine BSE scenario examined.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11786878/

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2192 on: May 26, 2020, 08:22:43 PM »

What he actually said was:
Quote
Extending the analysis to consider absolute risk, we estimate the 95% confidence interval for future vCJD mortality to be 50 to 50,000 human deaths considering exposure to bovine BSE alone, with the upper bound increasing to 150,000 once we include exposure from the worst-case ovine BSE scenario examined.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11786878/

Correct, I will amend.  Ferguson predicted that up to 150,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 08:40:12 PM by HBFIRE »

Davnasty

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2193 on: May 26, 2020, 08:40:32 PM »

What he actually said was:
Quote
Extending the analysis to consider absolute risk, we estimate the 95% confidence interval for future vCJD mortality to be 50 to 50,000 human deaths considering exposure to bovine BSE alone, with the upper bound increasing to 150,000 once we include exposure from the worst-case ovine BSE scenario examined.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11786878/

Correct, I will amend.  Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 (150 K?) people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.

Taken in the context of the full abstract I don't think it's accurate to say they "predicted" anything. Projections are not predictions, especially when the projections require certain conditions be met. Here's the full abstract for context:

Quote
Following the controversial failure of a recent study and the small numbers of animals yet screened for infection, it remains uncertain whether bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was transmitted to sheep in the past via feed supplements and whether it is still present. Well grounded mathematical and statistical models are therefore essential to integrate the limited and disparate data, to explore uncertainty, and to define data-collection priorities. We analysed the implications of different scenarios of BSE spread in sheep for relative human exposure levels and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) incidence. Here we show that, if BSE entered the sheep population and a degree of transmission occurred, then ongoing public health risks from bovine BSE are likely to be greater than those from cattle, but that any such risk could be reduced by up to 90% through additional restrictions on sheep products entering the food supply. Extending the analysis to consider absolute risk, we estimate the 95% confidence interval for future vCJD mortality to be 50 to 50,000 human deaths considering exposure to bovine BSE alone, with the upper bound increasing to 150,000 once we include exposure from the worst-case bovine BSE scenario examined.

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2194 on: May 26, 2020, 08:43:50 PM »

Taken in the context of the full abstract I don't think it's accurate to say they "predicted" anything. Projections are not predictions, especially when the projections require certain conditions be met. Here's the full abstract for context:



Feel free to swap "prediction" for "projection".  Either way, my points stand.

waltworks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2195 on: May 26, 2020, 09:19:22 PM »
Is it fair to say, simultaneously:

-2-3 months ago when we didn't know much about this, it was worth freaking out.

-Now, when we know more, the freakout was probably an overreaction. Very elderly people in nursing homes dying is horrible, but it's probably not worth ruining the economy, if we're going to be rational about it.

Unfortunately this is now a partisan issue, so half of everyone won't admit the latter, and half won't admit the former.

-W

Davnasty

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2196 on: May 26, 2020, 09:26:16 PM »

Taken in the context of the full abstract I don't think it's accurate to say they "predicted" anything. Projections are not predictions, especially when the projections require certain conditions be met. Here's the full abstract for context:



Feel free to swap "prediction" for "projection".  Either way, my points stand.

If you don't know how important the distinction between those two words is, you shouldn't be critiquing Neil Ferguson.

Prediction - a probabilistic statement that something will happen in the future based on what is known today

Projection - a probabilistic statement that it is possible that something will happen in the future if certain conditions develop

If we're going to take the upper bounds of a projection and call it a prediction, we could make anyone who's ever modeled a model look like an idiot.

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2197 on: May 26, 2020, 09:30:00 PM »

-Now, when we know more, the freakout was probably an overreaction. Very elderly people in nursing homes dying is horrible, but it's probably not worth ruining the economy, if we're going to be rational about it.

Unfortunately this is now a partisan issue, so half of everyone won't admit the latter, and half won't admit the former.

-W

I agree with this.  We had bad data but needed to act quickly.  Now we should act on accurate data.  The projection models have been embarrassingly bad.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 10:11:31 PM by HBFIRE »

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2198 on: May 26, 2020, 10:17:45 PM »

If we're going to take the upper bounds of a projection and call it a prediction, we could make anyone who's ever modeled a model look like an idiot.

No need to do that.  The so called projections speaks volumes.

According to Ferguson's projections, the current Swedish government’s response – if permitted to continue – would pass 40,000 deaths shortly after May 1, 2020 and continue to rise to almost 100,000 deaths by June.


Again, Sweden is at 4,125 deaths today and peaked weeks ago.

Any model that is off by order of magnitude needs to be pointed out, particularly when the world is using it to lead its major policy decisions.  This wasn't the first time.

Ferguson admitted in March that his model was based on an undocumented 13 yr old computer code originally designed for an influenza pandemic rather than a novel coronavirus outbreak. He refused to release his original code so other scientists could check his results.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 10:25:22 PM by HBFIRE »

Davnasty

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #2199 on: May 26, 2020, 10:26:20 PM »

-Now, when we know more, the freakout was probably an overreaction. Very elderly people in nursing homes dying is horrible, but it's probably not worth ruining the economy, if we're going to be rational about it.

Unfortunately this is now a partisan issue, so half of everyone won't admit the latter, and half won't admit the former.

-W

I agree with this.  We had bad data but needed to act quickly.  Now we should act on accurate data.

What bad data? Can you give specific examples?

Bad data comes from things like bad tests giving too many false positives or under/over-attributing deaths to coronavirus or intentional lying.

Perhaps you meant bad conclusions drawn from good data? Can you give specific examples?

And I mean examples from experts, not the media. Bad conclusions drawn from good data (and research) are rampant on both sides of the argument in the media which is a problem if decisions are made based on bad reporting... which they probably have been. But can you give specific examples?

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!