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A Private Eye
 Rep: 77 

Re: Covid 19

Randall Flagg wrote:

"We searched the WHO repository of COVID-19 studies on 24th March 2020. To identify studies reporting data on LTCs among people who had died from Covid-19, we screened titles and abstracts of all epidemiological, clinical, case-series and review articles (n=1685). We identified and screened 77 potentially relevant full-text articles, of which four reported aggregate data on LTCs among people who had died of COVID-19. Three were small studies (32, 44, and 54 deaths, respectively) based in Wuhan, China"

Any person with any academic background in stats would immediately see the problem.  To say nothing that its thesis clearly doesn't align with real world data.  They're using data from March, and 3/4 of their data is from "small studies"  in Wuhan.  That's just  a fantatsic model to make predictive claims from.

''In view of the smaller sizes of the Chinese studies, and the greater dissimilarity of these populations with the UK relative to the Italian data, we opted not to include these in the analysis.''

Any person with an academic background in stats would probably read the whole study properly first.

Randall Flagg wrote:
TheMole wrote:

Of course everyone acknowledges there are consequences, but the financial fall-out just seems so much more manageable (in the sense that we as a society have the tools to soften the impact) than the loss of lives (for which we still don't have an adequate answer in the form of a cure or vaccin).

Do you have anything to support this opinion, or is based on the same appeal to authority as your other posts are.  "I don't really have an answer, but I like it when authority tells me it's going to be ok.  I'm still going to express an opinion, but when someone tells me not to worry, I just let the people I think are smarter than me make decisions, and accept them.  You're crazy if you question any of it."

Does he really need to support this opinion on that? The West has recovered from many financial crisis over the years, history tells us it is not only possible but highly likely. Is the stance that a financial crisis and the effects thereof are easier to reverse than death a postion that needs defending?

A Private Eye
 Rep: 77 

Re: Covid 19

mitchejw wrote:

I strongly suggest this thread get closed...this won’t end. RF and buzz will force everyone out of this conversation if they haven’t already.

It's the biggest news story in 20 years, it's not getting closed.

Randall Flagg
 Rep: 139 

Re: Covid 19

A Private Eye wrote:
Randall Flagg wrote:

"We searched the WHO repository of COVID-19 studies on 24th March 2020. To identify studies reporting data on LTCs among people who had died from Covid-19, we screened titles and abstracts of all epidemiological, clinical, case-series and review articles (n=1685). We identified and screened 77 potentially relevant full-text articles, of which four reported aggregate data on LTCs among people who had died of COVID-19. Three were small studies (32, 44, and 54 deaths, respectively) based in Wuhan, China"

Any person with any academic background in stats would immediately see the problem.  To say nothing that its thesis clearly doesn't align with real world data.  They're using data from March, and 3/4 of their data is from "small studies"  in Wuhan.  That's just  a fantatsic model to make predictive claims from.

''In view of the smaller sizes of the Chinese studies, and the greater dissimilarity of these populations with the UK relative to the Italian data, we opted not to include these in the analysis.''

Any person with an academic background in stats would probably read the whole study properly first.

Randall Flagg wrote:
TheMole wrote:

Of course everyone acknowledges there are consequences, but the financial fall-out just seems so much more manageable (in the sense that we as a society have the tools to soften the impact) than the loss of lives (for which we still don't have an adequate answer in the form of a cure or vaccin).

Do you have anything to support this opinion, or is based on the same appeal to authority as your other posts are.  "I don't really have an answer, but I like it when authority tells me it's going to be ok.  I'm still going to express an opinion, but when someone tells me not to worry, I just let the people I think are smarter than me make decisions, and accept them.  You're crazy if you question any of it."

Does he really need to support this opinion on that? The West has recovered from many financial crisis over the years, history tells us it is not only possible but highly likely. Is the stance that a financial crisis and the effects thereof are easier to reverse than death a postion that needs defending?


Good point. Granted this is the worst it’s been since the 1930s, and it took WW2 to end that. So WW3 it is!  You guys better start getting into shape. The Chinese and Russians won’t stop their armored vehicles when you protest in the street.

So you think data from Italy as of 24 March is sufficient to make any kind of claim?  You take no issue with all the stated assumptions or that the claim doesn’t align in any nation using current death rates?

mitchejw
 Rep: 130 

Re: Covid 19

mitchejw wrote:
A Private Eye wrote:
Randall Flagg wrote:

"We searched the WHO repository of COVID-19 studies on 24th March 2020. To identify studies reporting data on LTCs among people who had died from Covid-19, we screened titles and abstracts of all epidemiological, clinical, case-series and review articles (n=1685). We identified and screened 77 potentially relevant full-text articles, of which four reported aggregate data on LTCs among people who had died of COVID-19. Three were small studies (32, 44, and 54 deaths, respectively) based in Wuhan, China"

Any person with any academic background in stats would immediately see the problem.  To say nothing that its thesis clearly doesn't align with real world data.  They're using data from March, and 3/4 of their data is from "small studies"  in Wuhan.  That's just  a fantatsic model to make predictive claims from.

''In view of the smaller sizes of the Chinese studies, and the greater dissimilarity of these populations with the UK relative to the Italian data, we opted not to include these in the analysis.''

Any person with an academic background in stats would probably read the whole study properly first.

Randall Flagg wrote:
TheMole wrote:

Of course everyone acknowledges there are consequences, but the financial fall-out just seems so much more manageable (in the sense that we as a society have the tools to soften the impact) than the loss of lives (for which we still don't have an adequate answer in the form of a cure or vaccin).

Do you have anything to support this opinion, or is based on the same appeal to authority as your other posts are.  "I don't really have an answer, but I like it when authority tells me it's going to be ok.  I'm still going to express an opinion, but when someone tells me not to worry, I just let the people I think are smarter than me make decisions, and accept them.  You're crazy if you question any of it."

Does he really need to support this opinion on that? The West has recovered from many financial crisis over the years, history tells us it is not only possible but highly likely. Is the stance that a financial crisis and the effects thereof are easier to reverse than death a postion that needs defending?

I think you're absolutely correct and I also think the US has learned from the mistakes of the depression and other recessions...there was no talk of stimulus checks or support for small business in 1929...Hoover just basically let things take their course. I'm wondering if in hindsight Hoover would've done things differently knowing the consequences. It's kind of mind blowing how quickly our government considered and approved the policies regarding stimulus given that's not what America is supposed to be all about. I will tip my hat to congress for doing that.

You can complain about how it was rolled out...but the idea was right. There is an ending to this and there is no reason to make things worse by sticking to policy ideas that are for 'normal' times.

buzzsaw
 Rep: 423 

Re: Covid 19

buzzsaw wrote:
mitchejw wrote:

Flagg and buzz would have you believe they know everything...

But in reality, they set up a perfect situation in this thread where they can say one of two things: so many people died the quarantine wasnt worth it or not enough people died we should open up immediately!

They don’t care about the health or the safety of anyone. They care about themselves. Me me me me me! No empathy no concern for anyone ever. Just getting up on their soapbox over and over and over again telling everyone how smart they are.

On the contrary fuckhead, I've said we don't know more than anyone here.  But keep running with your false narrative...its all you have at this point.

buzzsaw
 Rep: 423 

Re: Covid 19

buzzsaw wrote:
buzzsaw wrote:
mitchejw wrote:

Flagg and buzz would have you believe they know everything...

But in reality, they set up a perfect situation in this thread where they can say one of two things: so many people died the quarantine wasnt worth it or not enough people died we should open up immediately!

They don’t care about the health or the safety of anyone. They care about themselves. Me me me me me! No empathy no concern for anyone ever. Just getting up on their soapbox over and over and over again telling everyone how smart they are.

On the contrary fuckhead, I've said we don't know more than anyone here.  But keep running with your false narrative...its all you have at this point.

Just a quick follow up - I have a lot of empathy for those being impacted by Covid...I just choose not to limit that to those that get sick from the virus.  People that never got symptoms are being hit extremely hard by this, yet nobody really seems to care about them at all.  I'd be careful about playing the empathy card when you're ignoring those that are suffering deep hardships. 

Whoever it was that said the economy is going to recover just fine and cited some past pandemic experience seems to ignore we've haven't handled any recent (and by recent I mean not in 100 years) in any way similar to how we've handled this one.  We typically ignore them.  Small businesses will close and never open again.  People will lose their homes and be setback so far that they may never recover.  People have already killed themselves as a direct result of the virus.  We've paid a huge price to (at this point) not really save anyone.

TheMole
 Rep: 77 

Re: Covid 19

TheMole wrote:
Randall Flagg wrote:

Are you going to provide a cutoff for when it's safe to "return", or is playing "gotcha" cause I didn't catch "Italy" in the jumbo wall of text you posted from some grad students in Glasglow.

I think the R0 needs to land below 0.8 or 0.7 before it is safe to ease restrictions. That's the primary metric by which this should be managed in my opinion. I couldn't find an official estimated R0 for the US, but we've started to see a small downward trend in the number of new cases recently, which indicates an R0 somewhere just below 1.0, so we're probably not too far off. Once R0 gets below 0.8 you can slowly start easing the restrictions and measure the impact of that by closely monitoring the R0, if it goes up again, you need to clamp down again.

You need to understand that the reason people rail against Trump's handling of this whole thing is not because we want this to go on indefinitely. Everyone is in favor of getting back to normal ASAP, for the good of the economy and for the sanity of all of us cooped up in our own homes. But it needs to be done on a factual basis, and we need people that can at least give a basic impression of understanding how this shit works to explain this to the unwashed masses. Trump is a fucking cheerleader with a god complex, and that rightfully rubs a lot of people the wrong way, especially in times like these.

Randall Flagg wrote:

Can you explain how they came to their conclusions since you think this study is so good?  What do you think of them taking historical WHO data on morbidity and transposing it on a specific population? What do you think  of their study using variables and beliefs about COVID that were available in late March?  You're using this study as some kind of credible claim despite the very unavoidable fact it doesn't align with any modern demographic information from any nation.  What about this study (it's actual models) makes you think it's accurate or suggestive of something.  Can you provide a  link to any nation that has an large amount of people dying under the age of 65?  SHouldn't that be your first step if you're going to make a claim that COVID is killing people 12 years too early?

Look man, I realize we all have our opinions and biases. You've posted several appeals to authority without explaining why you trusted the source, the prime example being those estimated numbers you got from the IHME model that have been proven wrong twice in a matter of days. You're in no position to demand a level of scrutiny that you're not willing to put in yourself. I also noticed you never reacted to me referencing articles clearly outlining how your quoted source has been proven unreliable time and time again. That's fine, you don't have to, but don't expect others to do so either then.

Randall Flagg wrote:

Pot calling the kettle black is you linking an article you didn't read and can't explain, and attempting to claim I'm somehow in error because the actual figures I linked don't remotely align with such a while claim.  If we can link grad student  studies from mediocre universities and accept them as fact, can I play too?

You know what irks me the most about your posts? The arrogant and clearly intentionally aggressive language that you use, as if people having a different opinion somehow hurts you personally. I don't care if you feel wounded when someone disagrees with you man, I'm just trying to have a civil discussion with people that have different opinions than mine. Give me a reply without the arrogant undertones and I'll immediately and happily engage in a discussion with you, I'm tired of following your playbook.

TheMole
 Rep: 77 

Re: Covid 19

TheMole wrote:
Randall Flagg wrote:
TheMole wrote:

Of course everyone acknowledges there are consequences, but the financial fall-out just seems so much more manageable (in the sense that we as a society have the tools to soften the impact) than the loss of lives (for which we still don't have an adequate answer in the form of a cure or vaccin).

Do you have anything to support this opinion, or is based on the same appeal to authority as your other posts are.  "I don't really have an answer, but I like it when authority tells me it's going to be ok.  I'm still going to express an opinion, but when someone tells me not to worry, I just let the people I think are smarter than me make decisions, and accept them.  You're crazy if you question any of it."

Yes, and I posted my source a little bit further down in that post, did you not read through to the end?

TheMole wrote:

Looking at past pandemics, it's clear to see that economic recovery post-lockdown is almost a given. It is up to us as a society to ensure that we do everything we can to support that recover. This article is an interesting read on the subject: https://theconversation.com/past-pandem … ery-137775

Feel free to question it, I'm sure there's things I haven't considered and I'm happy to discuss.

TheMole
 Rep: 77 

Re: Covid 19

TheMole wrote:
buzzsaw wrote:

Just a quick follow up - I have a lot of empathy for those being impacted by Covid...I just choose not to limit that to those that get sick from the virus.  People that never got symptoms are being hit extremely hard by this, yet nobody really seems to care about them at all.  I'd be careful about playing the empathy card when you're ignoring those that are suffering deep hardships.

I believe you, everything in your posts screams empathy for those struck by the economic downturn. But it's unfair to say that the rest of us are ignoring that. You know for a fact that Mitch's company has been hit hard by this.

buzzsaw wrote:

Whoever it was that said the economy is going to recover just fine and cited some past pandemic experience seems to ignore we've haven't handled any recent (and by recent I mean not in 100 years) in any way similar to how we've handled this one.  We typically ignore them.  Small businesses will close and never open again.  People will lose their homes and be setback so far that they may never recover.  People have already killed themselves as a direct result of the virus.  We've paid a huge price to (at this point) not really save anyone.

Well, that's the crux of the discussion isn't it? Would the impact of the pandemic have been worse if we didn't take the measures we're taking?  I think so, based on the evolution of that R0 metric I mentioned in the other post. You seem to believe that we haven't really saved anyone, and I'm curious to know why you think that...

buzzsaw
 Rep: 423 

Re: Covid 19

buzzsaw wrote:
TheMole wrote:

Well, that's the crux of the discussion isn't it? Would the impact of the pandemic have been worse if we didn't take the measures we're taking?  I think so, based on the evolution of that R0 metric I mentioned in the other post. You seem to believe that we haven't really saved anyone, and I'm curious to know why you think that...

The quick answer is the "flattening the curve" concept. The theory behind that was never to stop the virus, it was just to delay the timing. So following that logic, we end up in the same place but the timing of when we get there is different. You can argue semantics if you want, but that's as accurate and simple of a description of what flattening the curve does as you can get.  It lowers the peak but makes it last longer.

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