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Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better.
Note : This stance is idiotic. Not making those decisions early will result in a LARGER economic loss, in addition to a larger loss of life. The longer social distancing is delayed, the more stringent the restrictions will be for it to be effective.
For those who are doubtful: we'll be able to see social distancing's effect in real time in the next week, as some states have been very fast moving (like Ohio), while others only really decided it mattered a day or two ago (Florida and Georgia).
I've read suggestions that we may have to do it in waves. A 3-4 week letup, then going back into for the next month. That's the BEST case scenario. Too many people just aren't taking this seriously enough.
Good post overall and interesting numbers. I tend to agree with your little note and what I was trying to convey in my posts above. Just be more restrictive while it's still new to make people pay attention and take note then once a month or so is up, we can see the new results and be less restrictive.
On April 02 2020 17:58 Nouar wrote: A little tidbit about the USA : they bought "under the counter" directly at the plane a shipment of masks that was ordered and paid for, due to fly to France, paying 3 times the price and redirecting the plane towards the USA.
The info is coming directly from a (edit : two...) region president (more or less governor), complaining that while we have to pay shipments in 3 thirds, the US operatives are directly at the airport with cash, buying back shipments, depriving other countries. No comment.
Don't stop at the first mention of RT, what matters is what these governors answered, and they also told the same to 2 TV and radio stations, RMC and BFM TV. I'd still like some other kind of source, but you can't really get higher than these guys. The next level is the government and they are not the ones doing the buying for regions...
Jean Rottner, governor of the region grand est, has said on twitter that the masks he ordered have arrived in France.
So was it all a misunderstanding?
Well if it is a misunderstanding, that would be great. There is no doubt that these supplies are in high demand and the situation is pretty tough. France seized all masks produced inland, as did other countries, and thus seized masks that were built by a swedish company, bringing tensions between the governments for example. There are several examples of the same kind, some with Turkey as well.
On April 03 2020 03:27 FiWiFaKi wrote:
On April 02 2020 14:30 BigFan wrote:
On April 02 2020 14:10 Sharkies wrote:
On April 02 2020 10:07 Sharkies wrote:
On April 02 2020 09:18 JimmiC wrote:
On April 02 2020 09:12 Sharkies wrote:
On April 02 2020 07:19 TT1 wrote: [quote]
China had a complete lock down for well over a month tho (going as far as locking people in their homes), the measures they took were more extreme than any other country.
We've tackled this issue multiple times in this thread already. As TT1 points out, it seems like North America and Europe were caught off guard because Asia (China, Singapore, South Korea etc.) took drastic measures very early so they were able to contain the virus and make it look like it wasn't a big threat. As a result, the response from rest of world has been far too slow as they underestimated the virus.
To the extent numbers are not accurate in countries, I'm sorry but this applies in EVERY country at the moment. Not sure how many people here will have access to Financial Times, but I link an article from today in any event: https://www.ft.com/content/44f4301e-b5f3-4434-a086-9a822ea72a71. There are articles like this covering many other countries in North America and Europe if you did any level of research.
"Sourced from death certificates, official figures for the period up to March 20 showed that 210 people died in England and Wales with Covid-19 mentioned by a doctor on the death certificate, compared with 170 recorded up to that date in hospitals, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The 23.5 per cent gap between the two figures would increase “noticeably” in the days ahead, according to Nick Stripe, head of life events at the ONS, because with the current movement restrictions it would take longer than usual for people to notify register offices of deaths.
Only roughly half of the deaths on March 20 would have been notified to the statistics agency by five days later, for example, Mr Stripe said.
Mr Stripe stressed, however, that the discrepancy did not suggest any cover-up of deaths from coronavirus, but just that many people had died in the community rather than in hospital, where the daily government counts are taken."
In summary, yes all countries at the moment cannot be reporting accurately - there are more important things to be doing. If you somehow think China is covering this up any more than any other nation, that is just your personal bias. You are of course entitled to your opinion like everyone else, but it is just not a very informed opinion.
China's history of lying including on this exact pandemic, says otherwise. Along with all the articles about it, some I have already posted, they are not alone, they are in a group with a bunch of other countries purposely miss-reporting numbers. Which is different from the countries which simply cannot get enough tests done.
You my friend are the one with the bias.
On April 02 2020 09:16 stilt wrote:
On April 02 2020 06:48 Mohdoo wrote: [quote]
For China it is that they, desperately, more than anything, want to appear as though they are a legitimate world power rather than just a country with an insane amount of people.
It's crazy your rent against china doesn't get warning while it's obviously politically motivated. The source which implied that China lied with the 400 000 000 urns is Radio Free Asia directly funded by the american congress, what a joke, would not be the first time USA crafts international lies.
And China is a major power (which would surclass usa during this century hopefully) and a country with a culture way deeper than Disney, your ignorance and contempt for stuffs you don't understand is alarming.
Yes it is a super power, and yes it has deep culture. What is sad is that the current authoritarian government is robbing them of that culture, while actively destroying other parts of it it Uighar and Tibet. People who speak positively of the Chinese government are drinking some strong propaganda. They are all about enriching themselves at the cost of their own people. You don't need to colonize when you can just abuse your own people as free labour while you and your other despots get wildly rich.
And then since they have to keep the "honor" of China above the people they are misreporting data which in impeding the rest of the world from coming to the correct conclusion quickly.
Thank god that one doctor had the bravery to sacrifice himself for all of us, Dr. Li Wenliang is a true hero and it is disgusting that his government arrested him for " spreading rumors".
And it is embarrassing that even after shit like this people still defend this evil government that does not give two shits about its own people let alone everyone else. And if you are drinking the "China's socialist" koolaid I'm sorry but socialist countries are not run by a few billionaires, in fact if they were actually a socialist countries they would not have any. They are a Capitalism-run-muck dictatorship that the leadership was worried if word got out they might make less money.
Edit: in case that link isn't your flavour I'll add a bunch more.
If you think that China has a monopoly on a history of lying, then I can only say good luck to you and your world view.
We can both accuse each other of bias, but it boils down to:
- you think China is somehow worse than other countries (something which Western media tries very hard to push, except that Western media changes their target over the years (Koreans, Vietnamese, USSR, Middle East, now China)
- I happen to think that no government is particularly reliable. The world is driven by interests, and at the political level it is always going to be Machiavellian (particularly between the most powerful nations). To think that one country is "worse" than any other is naive.
You have linked a number of articles, but I invite you to go to Factcheck and you will see that the lies coming out of US politicians is hardly limited to "reporting lower numbers due to a lack of tests". I don't blame them for this, at least not any more than I blame any country/authority. The only thing I blame are people who are naive enough to believe one side or another.
User was warned for this post.
In the past I had generally respected the fact that despite being a website originally for video game news, this site generally had relatively neutral treatment of discussion. So it is quite disappointing to see that only one side of the discussion gets a warning.
There's actually a lot more information to share because I see there is very little on here about how and why Asia were very successful at controlling the virus. Western governments have behind the scenes done a lot more to speak with and understand how policies were implemented, unlike a lot of the media and public discussion.
From reactions from some people on this thread, I doubt my participation will be missed, but it's also a good reminder to myself to enjoy this site for what it is, which is first and foremost a website for video game competition news (at which it is very good).
The idea behind this thread is to avoid politics and focus on the virus itself. People stating their own experiences, what worked in a country etc... again without politics. Why people feel the need to keep bringing it back to China is beyond me since imo, we are not dealing with it properly at all in the west. Probably partially due to the media as well.
Anyways, in Canada, we've broken 9k+ and we are still rising. Pictures have shown people walking side by side in parks last week which got our PM mad. I'd rather we took China's approach of a full lockdown than what's going on now because it's going to keep spreading. There's a lot of people not considering others at times and it's terrible.
On that note, the US had the most deaths I've seen in a single day, 1k+ yesterday. If this continues for say, 2-3 months, that's easily 60-90k and that assumes it holds steady, but the question is how bad it'll get in 2 weeks time when more get infected and it keeps spreading. I can easily see millions dead...
I guess my issue here is that you're very pro lockdown, and say the west is handling it poorly. And then people end up getting warned who have different opinions from you.
I think the US is handling it better than any other country. The flu kills 250k to 500k people per year, while COVID is serious, the reaction is disproportionate. We move on with our lives while making easy changes to be more careful. Closing the country until a vaccine is no bueno in my books. When someone is 85 and they die, even if they are found to have COVID in their system, it's highly likely something else killed them.
If COVID ends up killing 3 million worldwide, that to me is a completely acceptable number for a shitty flu season, doesn't justify so many people not being able to make ends meet. When you do the analysis of overall benefit to people, I think the minor reaction results in much better results than such a big one.
Ok, let's quickly run a few numbers. The flu kills 250/500k *worldwide* per year. In France, there are approximately 2 to 6 million people who catch the flu each year. Out of these, around 10k die. Hospitals are not oversaturated and people can be treated.
Imagine if Covid gets the same amount of cases. Let's target the middle, with 4 million. 20% of those need to go to the hospital, 5% in ICU, 3% die. That would mean 800,000 people in the hospital in a few months, 200,000 in ICU (in France, we had around 6k ICU beds total). And 120,000 dead. Add to that the overloading of ICU beds, that's probably around another 100k dead. You already have more than 200k deaths *only in France*.
And the flu is seasonal. There is currently no proof that Covid is seasonal, which means it is not going to stop, until enough of the population has become immunised that is slows and stops spreading. It *seems* to spread a little bit slower in hotter countries, but that could be because their health systems are less developed and can't track it as well.
I'll take a commonly used target of 60% of the population before it stops spreading. If I take the same figures I took earlier, that brings us to 40M people, with AT LEAST 3% dead (not even accounting the ICU shortages, that would greatly increase the death toll as demonstrated by Italy these past few weeks.) That is >1M deathes, only for France.
I did this with a country well equiped in supplies and hospitals. There are 3 ICU beds in Central African Republic, for 4 million people. Do you want to guess a body count worldwide ? 3% of 7 billion people is 210million. Are you willing to bet 210million lives by taking only mild measures ?
I don't see how the US is handling it better though. 2 trillion debt taken (it's pretty much the only country that can do this kind of thing since dollar is the reference currency), 10M unemployed in 2 weeks, and still a larger increase in cases and deaths than all other countries, while it had more time to prepare. If you compare to Europe as a whole, the US is still rising higher, faster in cases and deaths.
Im not saying no response, just a more mild one. The flu has a minimal response from people, so I don't agree with those numbers exactly.
The coronavirus won't just disappear like you said, so at some point we need to return to normal. Right now we're just extending how long that will be, in addition to inconveniencing people more. I'm looking at it from a public economist perspective of for small probability deaths, you assign a value to a life, say 3 million given the age of the average death... And make sure your cost of containing it doesn't exceed the cost of the deaths. Right now the minor suffering of many exceeds the significant suffering of the few.
Per capita it's growing rather similar to most of Europe.
I think what your fight club calculation is missing (besides compassion) is that there will come a point when there are too many corpses and the people will revolt. I think the UK noticed this and Sweden will in about a week.
I am compassionate, there's emotions on both sides.
I think outside of post secondary, and even in post secondary, the actual class material is the secondary thing you go to school for. It's more so about learning social interactions, and moving things online significantly reduces the value of schooling.
An article I read a couple days ago says that 46% of households that rent don't have more than 1 month of savings in Canada. I think having to live paycheque to paycheque is extremely disappointing, but it's a reality for many people, I think that removing that many people's autonomy and having them rely on government handouts that my kids will be paying for decades to come is extremely unwanted. And like many here, I've seen first hand the stress of potentially losing work is to people. I've hired international employees who are already getting airplane tickets ready to return to their country as they came here to work. Then I have other colleagues talking to me about how many mortgage payments they are able to miss without ruining their credit.
COVID is serious, but we need an objective view of the damage it's causing, it may seem petty, but when 1000x as many people experience "petty" damage that is still very harmful, it adds up relative to the 80 year old who dies, especially when many of these are not too far from diabetes eating their bodies from the inside and such. A common reply is that I am selfish, but couldn't you view it as that 80 year old being selfish as well, to cause so much pain to other people? Were in a difficult situation that we didn't expect, and we need to manage the costs. My initial messages came off as rash as I saw a few comments and posted while at work, where I didn't have time to be careful with my wording.
A lot of the government action comes down to what the people feel, and when the majority supports lockdown, we will likely have a lockdown. I'm trying to do my part, and get my view across, because I believe we don't have a proper reaction, but I think it's logically sound - it's just an unpopular one.
I think people will want to revolt on both sides, but I think forcing people against their will to stay at home will cause more problems in comparison to response measures that are too loose. If quarantine measures are weaker than you would like, you're still able to do a lot yourself (practice all the current social distancing and hygiene practices), have the option to go on COVID 19 employment insurance for just cause (positive test close to where you work), get as much as you can delivered, stay at home, etc. That's how I think this situation should be handled.
And it's just not economic, this part is a bit subjective but I lean towards liberty instead of security compared to the majority of the population. But look it China, its reminiscent of the movie Gattaca. GPS tracking, facial recognition, an app that you must show anywhere you go at what your status at a citizen is. If I knew that if we do what China did for a year, and not another person dies... Not in a million years.
On April 02 2020 06:42 Emnjay808 wrote: What are the main reasons for countries to hide numbers?
-poor data collection? -mislead other nations for w/e reason
I sincerely hope it’s the former
For China it is that they, desperately, more than anything, want to appear as though they are a legitimate world power rather than just a country with an insane amount of people.
China had a complete lock down for well over a month tho (going as far as locking people in their homes), the measures they took were more extreme than any other country.
We've tackled this issue multiple times in this thread already. As TT1 points out, it seems like North America and Europe were caught off guard because Asia (China, Singapore, South Korea etc.) took drastic measures very early so they were able to contain the virus and make it look like it wasn't a big threat. As a result, the response from rest of world has been far too slow as they underestimated the virus.
To the extent numbers are not accurate in countries, I'm sorry but this applies in EVERY country at the moment. Not sure how many people here will have access to Financial Times, but I link an article from today in any event: https://www.ft.com/content/44f4301e-b5f3-4434-a086-9a822ea72a71. There are articles like this covering many other countries in North America and Europe if you did any level of research.
"Sourced from death certificates, official figures for the period up to March 20 showed that 210 people died in England and Wales with Covid-19 mentioned by a doctor on the death certificate, compared with 170 recorded up to that date in hospitals, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The 23.5 per cent gap between the two figures would increase “noticeably” in the days ahead, according to Nick Stripe, head of life events at the ONS, because with the current movement restrictions it would take longer than usual for people to notify register offices of deaths.
Only roughly half of the deaths on March 20 would have been notified to the statistics agency by five days later, for example, Mr Stripe said.
Mr Stripe stressed, however, that the discrepancy did not suggest any cover-up of deaths from coronavirus, but just that many people had died in the community rather than in hospital, where the daily government counts are taken."
In summary, yes all countries at the moment cannot be reporting accurately - there are more important things to be doing. If you somehow think China is covering this up any more than any other nation, that is just your personal bias. You are of course entitled to your opinion like everyone else, but it is just not a very informed opinion.
China's history of lying including on this exact pandemic, says otherwise. Along with all the articles about it, some I have already posted, they are not alone, they are in a group with a bunch of other countries purposely miss-reporting numbers. Which is different from the countries which simply cannot get enough tests done.
You my friend are the one with the bias.
On April 02 2020 09:16 stilt wrote:
On April 02 2020 06:48 Mohdoo wrote:
On April 02 2020 06:42 Emnjay808 wrote: What are the main reasons for countries to hide numbers?
-poor data collection? -mislead other nations for w/e reason
I sincerely hope it’s the former
For China it is that they, desperately, more than anything, want to appear as though they are a legitimate world power rather than just a country with an insane amount of people.
It's crazy your rent against china doesn't get warning while it's obviously politically motivated. The source which implied that China lied with the 400 000 000 urns is Radio Free Asia directly funded by the american congress, what a joke, would not be the first time USA crafts international lies.
And China is a major power (which would surclass usa during this century hopefully) and a country with a culture way deeper than Disney, your ignorance and contempt for stuffs you don't understand is alarming.
Yes it is a super power, and yes it has deep culture. What is sad is that the current authoritarian government is robbing them of that culture, while actively destroying other parts of it it Uighar and Tibet. People who speak positively of the Chinese government are drinking some strong propaganda. They are all about enriching themselves at the cost of their own people. You don't need to colonize when you can just abuse your own people as free labour while you and your other despots get wildly rich.
And then since they have to keep the "honor" of China above the people they are misreporting data which in impeding the rest of the world from coming to the correct conclusion quickly.
Thank god that one doctor had the bravery to sacrifice himself for all of us, Dr. Li Wenliang is a true hero and it is disgusting that his government arrested him for " spreading rumors".
And it is embarrassing that even after shit like this people still defend this evil government that does not give two shits about its own people let alone everyone else. And if you are drinking the "China's socialist" koolaid I'm sorry but socialist countries are not run by a few billionaires, in fact if they were actually a socialist countries they would not have any. They are a Capitalism-run-muck dictatorship that the leadership was worried if word got out they might make less money.
Edit: in case that link isn't your flavour I'll add a bunch more.
If you think that China has a monopoly on a history of lying, then I can only say good luck to you and your world view.
We can both accuse each other of bias, but it boils down to:
- you think China is somehow worse than other countries (something which Western media tries very hard to push, except that Western media changes their target over the years (Koreans, Vietnamese, USSR, Middle East, now China)
- I happen to think that no government is particularly reliable. The world is driven by interests, and at the political level it is always going to be Machiavellian (particularly between the most powerful nations). To think that one country is "worse" than any other is naive.
You have linked a number of articles, but I invite you to go to Factcheck and you will see that the lies coming out of US politicians is hardly limited to "reporting lower numbers due to a lack of tests". I don't blame them for this, at least not any more than I blame any country/authority. The only thing I blame are people who are naive enough to believe one side or another.
User was warned for this post.
In the past I had generally respected the fact that despite being a website originally for video game news, this site generally had relatively neutral treatment of discussion. So it is quite disappointing to see that only one side of the discussion gets a warning.
There's actually a lot more information to share because I see there is very little on here about how and why Asia were very successful at controlling the virus. Western governments have behind the scenes done a lot more to speak with and understand how policies were implemented, unlike a lot of the media and public discussion.
From reactions from some people on this thread, I doubt my participation will be missed, but it's also a good reminder to myself to enjoy this site for what it is, which is first and foremost a website for video game competition news (at which it is very good).
The idea behind this thread is to avoid politics and focus on the virus itself. People stating their own experiences, what worked in a country etc... again without politics. Why people feel the need to keep bringing it back to China is beyond me since imo, we are not dealing with it properly at all in the west. Probably partially due to the media as well.
Anyways, in Canada, we've broken 9k+ and we are still rising. Pictures have shown people walking side by side in parks last week which got our PM mad. I'd rather we took China's approach of a full lockdown than what's going on now because it's going to keep spreading. There's a lot of people not considering others at times and it's terrible.
On that note, the US had the most deaths I've seen in a single day, 1k+ yesterday. If this continues for say, 2-3 months, that's easily 60-90k and that assumes it holds steady, but the question is how bad it'll get in 2 weeks time when more get infected and it keeps spreading. I can easily see millions dead...
I guess my issue here is that you're very pro lockdown, and say the west is handling it poorly. And then people end up getting warned who have different opinions from you.
I think the US is handling it better than any other country. The flu kills 250k to 500k people per year, while COVID is serious, the reaction is disproportionate. We move on with our lives while making easy changes to be more careful. Closing the country until a vaccine is no bueno in my books. When someone is 85 and they die, even if they are found to have COVID in their system, it's highly likely something else killed them.
If COVID ends up killing 3 million worldwide, that to me is a completely acceptable number for a shitty flu season, doesn't justify so many people not being able to make ends meet. When you do the analysis of overall benefit to people, I think the minor reaction results in much better results than such a big one.
I won't touch on the rest because several have already commented on how your flu comparison is not right in this case. As to the lockdown, yes, I'm pro-lockdown. It's better to bear 3-4 weeks of full lockdown than have them slowly lockdown the country over months. People are already starting to get restless and it's only been ~3 weeks in my province. Keep in mind that I'm referring to Canada specifically and not the US because as it stands, we are supposed to practice social distancing and personal hygiene which I agree with. But I've also had folks tell me that they are even starting to slowly limit amount of people in a household or how many people can even be in a car from what I hear. I don't know if that's true or only in certain places, but that's way too extreme if it's true and not some rumour.
I live in the west so yes, I feel like the west overall is handling it poorly. This is not a political statement unless you feel it is because I used the term west rofl. So let's rephrase, I feel like Canada, US and lots of EU countries handled it poorly so far which is why the number of infections and deaths are spiking. Italy's numbers are slightly down but they are still averaging like 700-800 deaths a day. Spain is very close behind in terms of overall infections and had more deaths yesterday than Italy. The US had a thousand the other day and close to a thousand yesterday. The UK and France seem to be following a similar curve because their deaths are going up, getting what, 400-500 or so or at least close. We have been lucky to avoid those high death counts so far in Canada, but if it starts hitting long term care homes and it has hit some already, there's going to be a lot of dead people. Likewise, we are still in an exponential curve and this next week will give an idea whether some of the measures taken have helped or not.
I don't have an issue with you being political, and wasn't complaining about that. I simply think you lean heavily one way on the issue, and makes me feel there's a bit of moderation bias against the anti-lockdown people. And I didn't agree with those warnings of multiple users a few pages back, but not really a discussion for this thread.
I think there should be a response to COVID, and unfortunately the west left it late, I'm arguing that the response should be focused on the less intrusive and costly things... Not closing schools or businesses.
One side note I'd like to add about the statistical value of life is that while yes, the $9-$10 million is a reasonable number, that is for the US. In my studies in Canada 4 years ago, the frequently quoted number for $4-$5m Cad, and as a whole, depends on the culture, the US seems to be the highest in the world... The rest of the wealthy west seems closer to that middle 7 figures.
And even more importantly, it's dependent on the country. In surveys many countries like Russia have sub 100k valuations for a value of life. And usually its an expected healthy years left of life adjusted number. To say that a worldwide number would be $1million per death does not seen proposterous in this situation (I used 3 million earlier to get a point across and not have others call out a number I used). World economy being $90Trillion, a $10Trillion cost to people corresponding to 10 million deaths seems to be in the right ballpark anyway.
I'm not as well researched as most people here, just trying to apply some thinking and basic calculations to what I've experienced in my life. People like Nevuk and Brad and invaluable to a thread like this, and bringing facts to the table to here is important. But having spent some time in academia, I know well enough that data can be twisted to fit any narrative, so having regular Joe's discuss is important. One group sets the theory, the other discusses the practicality.
For China it is that they, desperately, more than anything, want to appear as though they are a legitimate world power rather than just a country with an insane amount of people.
China had a complete lock down for well over a month tho (going as far as locking people in their homes), the measures they took were more extreme than any other country.
We've tackled this issue multiple times in this thread already. As TT1 points out, it seems like North America and Europe were caught off guard because Asia (China, Singapore, South Korea etc.) took drastic measures very early so they were able to contain the virus and make it look like it wasn't a big threat. As a result, the response from rest of world has been far too slow as they underestimated the virus.
To the extent numbers are not accurate in countries, I'm sorry but this applies in EVERY country at the moment. Not sure how many people here will have access to Financial Times, but I link an article from today in any event: https://www.ft.com/content/44f4301e-b5f3-4434-a086-9a822ea72a71. There are articles like this covering many other countries in North America and Europe if you did any level of research.
"Sourced from death certificates, official figures for the period up to March 20 showed that 210 people died in England and Wales with Covid-19 mentioned by a doctor on the death certificate, compared with 170 recorded up to that date in hospitals, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The 23.5 per cent gap between the two figures would increase “noticeably” in the days ahead, according to Nick Stripe, head of life events at the ONS, because with the current movement restrictions it would take longer than usual for people to notify register offices of deaths.
Only roughly half of the deaths on March 20 would have been notified to the statistics agency by five days later, for example, Mr Stripe said.
Mr Stripe stressed, however, that the discrepancy did not suggest any cover-up of deaths from coronavirus, but just that many people had died in the community rather than in hospital, where the daily government counts are taken."
In summary, yes all countries at the moment cannot be reporting accurately - there are more important things to be doing. If you somehow think China is covering this up any more than any other nation, that is just your personal bias. You are of course entitled to your opinion like everyone else, but it is just not a very informed opinion.
China's history of lying including on this exact pandemic, says otherwise. Along with all the articles about it, some I have already posted, they are not alone, they are in a group with a bunch of other countries purposely miss-reporting numbers. Which is different from the countries which simply cannot get enough tests done.
You my friend are the one with the bias.
On April 02 2020 09:16 stilt wrote:
On April 02 2020 06:48 Mohdoo wrote:
On April 02 2020 06:42 Emnjay808 wrote: What are the main reasons for countries to hide numbers?
-poor data collection? -mislead other nations for w/e reason
I sincerely hope it’s the former
For China it is that they, desperately, more than anything, want to appear as though they are a legitimate world power rather than just a country with an insane amount of people.
It's crazy your rent against china doesn't get warning while it's obviously politically motivated. The source which implied that China lied with the 400 000 000 urns is Radio Free Asia directly funded by the american congress, what a joke, would not be the first time USA crafts international lies.
And China is a major power (which would surclass usa during this century hopefully) and a country with a culture way deeper than Disney, your ignorance and contempt for stuffs you don't understand is alarming.
Yes it is a super power, and yes it has deep culture. What is sad is that the current authoritarian government is robbing them of that culture, while actively destroying other parts of it it Uighar and Tibet. People who speak positively of the Chinese government are drinking some strong propaganda. They are all about enriching themselves at the cost of their own people. You don't need to colonize when you can just abuse your own people as free labour while you and your other despots get wildly rich.
And then since they have to keep the "honor" of China above the people they are misreporting data which in impeding the rest of the world from coming to the correct conclusion quickly.
Thank god that one doctor had the bravery to sacrifice himself for all of us, Dr. Li Wenliang is a true hero and it is disgusting that his government arrested him for " spreading rumors".
And it is embarrassing that even after shit like this people still defend this evil government that does not give two shits about its own people let alone everyone else. And if you are drinking the "China's socialist" koolaid I'm sorry but socialist countries are not run by a few billionaires, in fact if they were actually a socialist countries they would not have any. They are a Capitalism-run-muck dictatorship that the leadership was worried if word got out they might make less money.
Edit: in case that link isn't your flavour I'll add a bunch more.
If you think that China has a monopoly on a history of lying, then I can only say good luck to you and your world view.
We can both accuse each other of bias, but it boils down to:
- you think China is somehow worse than other countries (something which Western media tries very hard to push, except that Western media changes their target over the years (Koreans, Vietnamese, USSR, Middle East, now China)
- I happen to think that no government is particularly reliable. The world is driven by interests, and at the political level it is always going to be Machiavellian (particularly between the most powerful nations). To think that one country is "worse" than any other is naive.
You have linked a number of articles, but I invite you to go to Factcheck and you will see that the lies coming out of US politicians is hardly limited to "reporting lower numbers due to a lack of tests". I don't blame them for this, at least not any more than I blame any country/authority. The only thing I blame are people who are naive enough to believe one side or another.
User was warned for this post.
In the past I had generally respected the fact that despite being a website originally for video game news, this site generally had relatively neutral treatment of discussion. So it is quite disappointing to see that only one side of the discussion gets a warning.
There's actually a lot more information to share because I see there is very little on here about how and why Asia were very successful at controlling the virus. Western governments have behind the scenes done a lot more to speak with and understand how policies were implemented, unlike a lot of the media and public discussion.
From reactions from some people on this thread, I doubt my participation will be missed, but it's also a good reminder to myself to enjoy this site for what it is, which is first and foremost a website for video game competition news (at which it is very good).
The idea behind this thread is to avoid politics and focus on the virus itself. People stating their own experiences, what worked in a country etc... again without politics. Why people feel the need to keep bringing it back to China is beyond me since imo, we are not dealing with it properly at all in the west. Probably partially due to the media as well.
Anyways, in Canada, we've broken 9k+ and we are still rising. Pictures have shown people walking side by side in parks last week which got our PM mad. I'd rather we took China's approach of a full lockdown than what's going on now because it's going to keep spreading. There's a lot of people not considering others at times and it's terrible.
On that note, the US had the most deaths I've seen in a single day, 1k+ yesterday. If this continues for say, 2-3 months, that's easily 60-90k and that assumes it holds steady, but the question is how bad it'll get in 2 weeks time when more get infected and it keeps spreading. I can easily see millions dead...
I guess my issue here is that you're very pro lockdown, and say the west is handling it poorly. And then people end up getting warned who have different opinions from you.
I think the US is handling it better than any other country. The flu kills 250k to 500k people per year, while COVID is serious, the reaction is disproportionate. We move on with our lives while making easy changes to be more careful. Closing the country until a vaccine is no bueno in my books. When someone is 85 and they die, even if they are found to have COVID in their system, it's highly likely something else killed them.
If COVID ends up killing 3 million worldwide, that to me is a completely acceptable number for a shitty flu season, doesn't justify so many people not being able to make ends meet. When you do the analysis of overall benefit to people, I think the minor reaction results in much better results than such a big one.
I won't touch on the rest because several have already commented on how your flu comparison is not right in this case. As to the lockdown, yes, I'm pro-lockdown. It's better to bear 3-4 weeks of full lockdown than have them slowly lockdown the country over months. People are already starting to get restless and it's only been ~3 weeks in my province. Keep in mind that I'm referring to Canada specifically and not the US because as it stands, we are supposed to practice social distancing and personal hygiene which I agree with. But I've also had folks tell me that they are even starting to slowly limit amount of people in a household or how many people can even be in a car from what I hear. I don't know if that's true or only in certain places, but that's way too extreme if it's true and not some rumour.
I live in the west so yes, I feel like the west overall is handling it poorly. This is not a political statement unless you feel it is because I used the term west rofl. So let's rephrase, I feel like Canada, US and lots of EU countries handled it poorly so far which is why the number of infections and deaths are spiking. Italy's numbers are slightly down but they are still averaging like 700-800 deaths a day. Spain is very close behind in terms of overall infections and had more deaths yesterday than Italy. The US had a thousand the other day and close to a thousand yesterday. The UK and France seem to be following a similar curve because their deaths are going up, getting what, 400-500 or so or at least close. We have been lucky to avoid those high death counts so far in Canada, but if it starts hitting long term care homes and it has hit some already, there's going to be a lot of dead people. Likewise, we are still in an exponential curve and this next week will give an idea whether some of the measures taken have helped or not.
I don't have an issue with you being political, and wasn't complaining about that. I simply think you lean heavily one way on the issue, and makes me feel there's a bit of moderation bias against the anti-lockdown people. And I didn't agree with those warnings of multiple users a few pages back, but not really a discussion for this thread.
I think there should be a response to COVID, and unfortunately the west left it late, I'm arguing that the response should be focused on the less intrusive and costly things... Not closing schools or businesses.
One side note I'd like to add about the statistical value of life is that while yes, the $9-$10 million is a reasonable number, that is for the US. In my studies in Canada 4 years ago, the frequently quoted number for $4-$5m Cad, and as a whole, depends on the culture, the US seems to be the highest in the world... The rest of the wealthy west seems closer to that middle 7 figures.
And even more importantly, it's dependent on the country. In surveys many countries like Russia have sub 100k valuations for a value of life. And usually its an expected healthy years left of life adjusted number. To say that a worldwide number would be $1million per death does not seen proposterous in this situation (I used 3 million earlier to get a point across and not have others call out a number I used). World economy being $90Trillion, a $10Trillion cost to people corresponding to 10 million deaths seems to be in the right ballpark anyway.
I'm not as well researched as most people here, just trying to apply some thinking and basic calculations to what I've experienced in my life. People like Nevuk and Brad and invaluable to a thread like this, and bringing facts to the table to here is important. But having spent some time in academia, I know well enough that data can be twisted to fit any narrative, so having regular Joe's discuss is important. One group sets the theory, the other discusses the practicality.
Some of the danger in just using deaths is that survivors apparently have a decent chance of long term respiratory damage, even for young people. Even if mortality ends up being very low, if several times that number have long term issues, that has a price as well.
In a perfect world, the government would just say 'stay 2m apart and you can continue going to work'. But we know that doesn't work. I remember seeing an incredible amount of people still going to the park to hang out, shop, etc when the UK government first announced social distancing. People only took it seriously when the government announced two days later that everything was to shut down.
(highly biased source, only linked for the video clip).
Note : This stance is incorrect. Not making those decisions early will result in a LARGER economic loss, in addition to a larger loss of life. The longer social distancing is delayed, the more stringent the restrictions will be for it to be effective.
For those who are doubtful: we'll be able to see social distancing's effect in real time in the next week, as some states have been very fast moving (like Ohio), while others only really decided it mattered a day or two ago (Florida and Georgia).
I've read suggestions that we may have to do it in waves. A 3-4 week letup, then going back into for the next month. That's the BEST case scenario. Too many people just aren't taking this seriously enough.
Tucker spitballs a lot of bs for his job. I think the mature version of the argument compares a lockdown lasting beyond 2 months against some phased out period for business, while preserving shelter in place for elderly and respiratory/immune compromised (and extend it to social distancing, hand washing, touching face). This is partly what you're discussing. A long lockdown (and maybe recommended by epidemiologists) must be weighed against millions whose business is shuttered, employees are laid off, because they simply aren't deemed essential. A check from the government and a loan on the horizon is still tough when it's your livelihood.
My jaw dropped at NYC's big surge, and outgoing flights from the local area to all across the country. It has the potential to last past May with a spread slowed by current measures, and intercommunity spread, and across the southern border.
I do think governors have appropriately issued restrictions lasting the entirety of April. That's my idea of a minimum of time to see where things stand and make a decision on what to relax and when. State by state and county by county.
It really sucks for people who are losing jobs and going out of business. Unfortunately the alternative is potential death of yourself or your customers.
This all wouldn't be so bad if the world wouldn't be so overpopulated. In the ideal world people shouldn't really live in conglomerates of more than 150 people.
On April 03 2020 14:52 Firebolt145 wrote: In a perfect world, the government would just say 'stay 2m apart and you can continue going to work'. But we know that doesn't work. I remember seeing an incredible amount of people still going to the park to hang out, shop, etc when the UK government first announced social distancing. People only took it seriously when the government announced two days later that everything was to shut down.
Thats what my coworkers who returned from UK just before borders closed where saying. That people werent taking corona and social distancing too serious out there.
I found this to be an insightful answer into BC's testing strategy. Our positive result rate has gone up over time as a result of testing key populations and prioritizing best use of limited resources.
It's a few minutes long for the question/answer, but this section of the video is pretty helpful in understanding where the reasonable success BC's had in containment so far comes from.
On April 03 2020 08:14 Acrofales wrote: Someone explain to me please how Brad's post was good and not just a rehash of all the hateful crap other people have said about how tanking the economy is worse than letting a few million old people die? He's just more eloquent about it.
EDIT: Oh I see where you're coming from now.
Given his earlier, detailed post in favour of restrictions, he's not really advocating for letting people die.
Imo the second post is a fairly accurate explanation of where the sentiment comes from. The boomer position on climate change is definitely a bit ironic right now.
There is a reason I started it with: "Gonna go in with a stupid hot-take here...".
Let me clarify that I attempted to demonstrate a thought process that seems valid, in spite of how much I may disagree with it and find it reprehensible.
The big reason why I think it's a relevant sentiment is the feeling of 'helplessness' from one side. In either situation one side can/will feel utterly powerless; I think the effective loss of an individuals locus of control in the face of a monumental task is the truly poignant impact.
I think an element of it is also perspective. I'm speaking from the perspective of someone in healthcare. I can easily imagine why someone who has otherwise been unaffected from a healthcare point of view but is now suddenly redundant and worrying about the next paycheck might be more worried about the economic repercussions.
On April 03 2020 09:36 stilt wrote: France has 1300 deaths in one day as the deaths on the ehpad structures (basically, institutions for old people) are now counted.
Can you clarify on this for me? Is the 1300 a catchup/aggregate number, because they added previous deaths that werent counted so far, but happened in a longer time-span?
On April 03 2020 11:24 BlackJack wrote: I am surprised we are 100 pages in and still getting flu comparisons. I do think it's worth weighing the economic ramifications of the lockdowns vs the potential loss of life. A lot of hospitals right now are actually operating below census, mine included. The Bay Area was one of the first areas in the entire country to start getting positive cases and we've had positive cruise ship passengers disembark into our hospitals. My asshole has been puckered for a whole month waiting for the descent into chaos and it still hasn't come. It would seem that the shelter-in-place orders have been super effective which begs the question are they too effective? Are we accomplishing anything here or are we just kicking the can down the road? What's the end game? Waiting for a vaccine? Hoping the warmer weather helps take it out? Developing herd immunity? If nobody is getting it now and developing antibodies then as a community we would be just as vulnerable in a few months than we are now. We're not flattening the curve, we're just kicking the curve down the road. Are we shutting down the economy and accomplishing nothing?
Talked about this with a friend of mine and the best I came up with was "one step at a time"
It's quite possible this comes back in winter with even higher casualties. It's also possbile we are fully vaccinated by then.
Note: This is not to compare this to seasonal influenza or any other crap like that, i'd just like to know what is a reasonable analysis of the fatality and what isn't, for my own amusement.
That being said i feel pretty thankful we have a quite good situation here where i live, on the area of our "central hospital" (as we count the cases in Finland). Around 20 infected and no deaths. I also feel thankful i get to go to work normally and literally zero people from our work (or their relatives) have been infected (fingers crossed obviously on that).
On April 03 2020 09:36 stilt wrote: France has 1300 deaths in one day as the deaths on the ehpad structures (basically, institutions for old people) are now counted.
Can you clarify on this for me? Is the 1300 a catchup/aggregate number, because they added previous deaths that werent counted so far, but happened in a longer time-span?
Exactly.
Not really in fact, 1300 is the aggregate for elderly that weren't taken into account (~900) and the remaining 400 are the deaths for yesterday in hospitals (as reported by our gov since the begining).
Note: This is not to compare this to seasonal influenza or any other crap like that, i'd just like to know what is a reasonable analysis of the fatality and what isn't, for my own amusement.
That being said i feel pretty thankful we have a quite good situation here where i live, on the area of our "central hospital" (as we count the cases in Finland). Around 20 infected and no deaths. I also feel thankful i get to go to work normally and literally zero people from our work (or their relatives) have been infected (fingers crossed obviously on that).
The article says "Estimates of the population-level case fatality ratio from all case reports are in the range of 2–8%"
The 3% number was thrown around a lot a few weeks ago, when China and SK were the two countries with most cases, and there the total number of infected / death ration came out about 3%, which obviously isnt an exact number either for many reasons. Now, as of today, worldwide we have ~1,040,000 confirmed cases and 55,170 deaths, so about a 5.3% mortality rate across the globe. obviously, no way to include the number of non-tested infected people which could be anywhere between hundreds of thousands and millions. The "closed cases" worldwide include ~222,000 cured patients besides the aforementioned death-count, so in that regard the ratio is pretty close to 20%-80% (dead / recovered) numbers from worldometers.info
Fivethirtyeight has done some great articles on coronavirus, the economy, and statistical modeling recently.
On how much they suspect we'd be willing to pay (the number they come up with is 20 trillion - based on reducing a possible 2 million deaths).
Economists might not be able to say how much an individual person’s existence is worth, but they have figured out a way to calculate how much the average person is willing to pay to reduce the risk of death — which allows them to put a price tag on the collective value of saving one life. That figure, which currently hovers somewhere around $9 or $10 million, is known as the “value of statistical life,” and it’s the basis for all kinds of high-stakes decisions that involve tradeoffs between public safety and economic cost — from food and automobile regulations to our responses to climate change.
As cold-blooded as it might seem, several economists told me that, at least in theory, a pandemic is exactly the kind of situation this metric is designed to help with. “Essentially, we’re trying to figure out what our society is willing to pay to reduce the risk of mortality,” said W. Kip Viscusi, an economist at Vanderbilt University and one of the leading experts on these calculations. “In that sense, a pandemic isn’t so different from a terrorist attack or a pollutant that’s threatening to kill large numbers of people — it’s just happening very quickly and on a very large scale.”
Summary regarding death predictions and their wild range:
Tucker Carlson earlier tonight was ranting about how terrible an idea it is to follow the advice of health professionals with regards to economic decisions because of the unemployment numbers. He's been one of the better voices on Fox News about COVID-19 until this, so it's a weird turn for him.
This matters because Carlson was supposedly one of the people who brought it to Trump's attention. He's also been credited as the person who told Trump that war with Iran over a downed, unmanned drone would be a terrible idea.
"Our leaders still seem far more afraid of a virus that probably kills fewer than 1% of those infected than the prospect of a third of all Americans losing their jobs."
(highly biased source, only linked for the video clip).
Note : This stance is incorrect. Not making those decisions early will result in a LARGER economic loss, in addition to a larger loss of life. The longer social distancing is delayed, the more stringent the restrictions will be for it to be effective.
For those who are doubtful: we'll be able to see social distancing's effect in real time in the next week, as some states have been very fast moving (like Ohio), while others only really decided it mattered a day or two ago (Florida and Georgia).
I've read suggestions that we may have to do it in waves. A 3-4 week letup, then going back into for the next month. That's the BEST case scenario. Too many people just aren't taking this seriously enough.
Holy shit, according to the CDC about 647,000 Americans die from heart disease each year—that’s 1 in every 4 deaths.
The worse estimates has a chance to beat this. I hope it won't happen... But those numbers are ... stunning
It's really too bad that it's impossible to rely on any number at all. The amount of cases per country was clear to be inaccurate from the start, as no country can test everyone (and even tests aren't 100% accurate). But even the fatality count depends on which cases you account to Covid, which varies per country and sometimes even per week, as methods of counting change all the time.
I still have the feeling that the number of infections is about 10x what we officially know (at least in my country) and the mortality rate should be about 1% with good healthcare, obv. much more when triage is applied. But those are numbers with no scientific basis whatsoever...
That is a very accurate tracking of case fatality rate. Scroll up a bit to learn about the limitations of the method.
As this paper shows42, CFRs vary widely between countries, from 0.2% in Germany to 7.7% in Italy. But it says that this is not necessarily an accurate comparison of the true likelihood that someone with COVID-19 will die of it.
We do not know how many cases are asymptomatic versus symptomatic, or whether the same criteria for testing are being applied between countries. Without better and more standardised criteria for testing and for the recording of deaths, the real mortality rate is unknown. As the paper says, to understand the differences in CFR and how they should guide decision-making, we need better data.
EPT
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