Is the open outdoors even known to be a problem? I thought it's possible you're far safer outdoors if the virus is around than indoors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
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Is the open outdoors even known to be a problem? I thought it's possible you're far safer outdoors if the virus is around than indoors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Cases in which they could might be if they also had the flu but the death gets marked as CV (because that's prominent on minds).Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Thanks for the graph. It's the kind of thing I'm looking for. It's reassuring that we're not miscounting by much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
I wonder what it would take -- after this settles down -- for society to have an adult discussion about lifestyle (instead of like what happened with PoundMeToo: the emotion-bellowing cancel-crisis).
Example: I'd like to see us decide that it's virtuous to encourage people to live healthier lifestyles. NOT villainize those who live unhealthy lifestyles.
I been hearing bout this multiples times now. Where is it coming from?Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Ya, I think they're being a bit paranoid, but maybe not totally. Seems a lot more dangerous when you're in a confined space with others.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
For some random person outside to walk by you within 2m and you to catch it they pretty much have to breathe right in your face while you're breathing in, and there be no breeze.
OTOH, if you walk by 100 of them it's 100x more likely for that to happen than if you walk by 0 of them I guess. Still, 100x a very very very small number is still a very very small number.
https://media.giphy.com/media/l1J9GO...UyYM/giphy.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Could happen. But, I think the WHO is running a tighter ship than that. I don't think you're supposed to count it as CV without a +ive test.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
More likely seems that a lot of early CV deaths were ascribed to flu/pneum. because no-one was thinking CV then.
LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Excellent use.
Picture perfect editorial journalism from Jake Tapper
https://twitter.com/CNNSotu/status/1246811253726679043
China owns 5GQuote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Well shit. I used to like 5g.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
The 5G bollocks is mostly coming from flat earthers. Pointing out that Iran has CV but not 5G is like showing them a picture of the curve. It's a lie, fish eye lens, you're a NASA fanboy etc.
If someone wants to argue this pandemic is a hoax, I'll listen without assuming they're a retard. It could be a hoax. But for it to be a hoax, it implies total global control for the "elite" or whatever we're going to call them. And this is no 9/11, there's no "jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams" or "the towers fell too fast". If this is a hoax, it's a fucking brilliant hoax.
The idea that radio waves of a certain frequency can activate an idle virus in a person though, this is just pure scientific illiteracy. It's right up there with flat earth. Even chemtrails isn't this batshit, at least it's possible to spray chemicals into the air.
It would require the worldwide conspiracy of people who have literally sworn to "do no harm" as part of taking their jobs.
I'm not saying it's 0%, but if we're that deep in the lizard-people's control, then it hardly matters to hide it at this point.
If Ong says it's a tinfoil hat theory, that's enough for me.
That said, has anyone seen Fauci's DNA profile?
@mojo
I agree the probability is small, but I like to think tinfoil. It entertains me. But if we're going down this road, such a conspiracy doesn't necessarily need the willful compliance of regular scientists and doctors. I use the term "hoax" pretty loosely, so if, for example, this is a lab virus deliberately released, and we're being told it's a natural event, then this fits into my loose definition of "hoax".
Could you prove this isn't a lab virus? Who could?
I saw you later capitulated on this point. Why? Pneumonia is the condition in which one or both of your lungs is inflamed from a viral, bacterial, or fungal infection and fill with liquid. You drown on dry land.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I believe this tangent started with wuf wondering if other deaths, including pneumonia deaths may be erroneously getting counted as Covid deaths. Well, yes, insomuch as an authority is counting deaths that don't have positive laboratory tests, but instead and being attributed due to symptoms, it's possible. So it makes sense to wonder if non Covid-19 pneumonia deaths are getting attributed to Covid-19, but it's important to understand that pneumonia, as well as ARDS are not infections themselves, but the condition by which infections kill.
It may seem semantic, and it is, but this is not a gratuitous nit picking, the distinction actually matters to the discussion at hand.
As for what the predicted impact Covid-19 should have on non Covid-19 deaths, I could see there being relevant variables that aren't readily apparent to laymen like us that could flip the model. For example, is it possible to have a case of fatal non-Covid-19 pneumonia, and then catch Covid-19? It would seem impossible, short of omniscience, to separate this death from the Covid-19 count.
I thought I was wrong. Now I'm not so sure. I guess we have to ask what the most common cause of pneumonia is. If it's respiratory illnesses, as I suspect, then social distancing will still have an effect on mortality, because regular flu will be less active too. In fact, if the whole world socially isolates for another month, we could accidentally eradicate flu. That would be a nice bonus, and would have a massive net long term effect on population.Quote:
I saw you later capitulated on this point. Why?
Poop
On restarting the economy: I think you're woefully wrong here. I'll give a hypothetical and an analogy, maybe you'll find either or both insightful.
There's essentially no more easy way to get oil in the US. Therefore, production only makes sense when crude prices are high. Due to the breakdown of the Saudi/Russo cartel, they are both flooding the market with oil, depressing the price below the profit point for US shale producers. So, you'd think the shale producers would just close the tap, furlough everyone, and wait for MBS and Putin to sort their shit out, and for the price to rebound above their point of profit. Well, this isn't what is happening, instead they continue to pump oil at a loss for two reasons: for one, it's highly leveraged business and many producers simply need the cashflow to service their debt. Secondly, and far more important, it's extremely expensive to cap a well, and often times it damages the well, significantly reducing it's ultimate output should it be retapped. This is one industry, and their current crisis isn't primarily predicated on the pandemic, but it is illustrative of how shutting down and restarting complex systems is not necessarily as simple as flicking a light switch.
Now for the hypothetical. Say a company is able to stay afloat, but they have to make some tough choices-- they need to fire some percent of their staff. Which percent are they going to fire? The bottom %. Surely people had an idea of who were the top performers and who weren't, but now it's being made explicit who the powers that be think those people are. If that relationship isn't permanently severed, it's certainly significantly damaged.
Lastly I'll say that your reasoning here sounds awfully similar to someone insisting the UK would simply eat more fish to buoy the country against the negative economic effects of Brexit. Your model is absurdly simplistic and doesn't pass muster.
Of couse. Its also (imo much more) possible to have people who were dying from ARDS where the underyling cause was attributed to something else because at the time the death itself was not considered a huge surprise and/or CV-reported cases were low. "one more old geezer getting a cold that leads to pneumonia? ya, ok died from 'complications'."Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
Much more likely 2 weeks ago than now, and 4 weeks ago than 2 weeks ago, but still..
The only cause of pneumonia is respiratory illness. It is caused by bacterial, fungal, or viral infections of the lung(s). You can have a respiratory illness that doesn't make it to the lungs, if it does, and if it causes fluid build up, that's pneumonia.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Yeah, agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Well first, I don't have a model, I am talking off the top of my head. Let's be clear about that.Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
Second, inasmuch as any such model does exist, I think it should properly account for the fact that people who are continuing to make an income will be sitting on a pile of savings when the crisis ends will inevitably spend it. No-one is going to decide to start saving now becuase a once in a centry event occurred. Or maybe they will; i really don't know.
Of course you have a model, you outlined in previous posts:
A is forced by B to leave C. Once B no longer influences A, A will return to C.
I'm not looking to insult you, I just think your model is shit.
Not sure this is entirely true. I do believe you can 'catch' pneumonia. For example, there is community spread from pneum. , which suggests it is not entirely a secondary symptom. (cf. the link i posted earlier)Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
It certainly could be shit; wouldn't be the first time.Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
But, you'll have to remind me of what A, B, C stood for in order for me to even try to defend it.
Ok, I guess that makes sense and is probably obvious now I think about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
If that were true, there would be no community spread. If there's community spread (even if it only accounts for 10% of cases), then you can "catch" pneum.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
This is why you should only go the hospital as a last resort imo and/or for palliative care: whatever is ailing you is prolly not as bad as that plus the shit that's floating around in their ventilation system.
Surely they have effective methods of sterilising ventilation systems. I know a hospital is a great place to get nasty bugs though.
I agree, it's a bit misleading how they talk about it, but they're simply using a shorthand to express that the underlying causes of pneumonia can be communally spread, which then go on to cause pneumonia in some subset of the infected.
Again, look to the definition of pneumonia. If it is not itself a virus, bacteria, or fungus, then how exactly is it spreading? You may again say, well that's just semantics, but I'd again say that in this case semantics actually matter because the distinction is at the heart of what we are (were) discussing.
Dunno. But unless they were actively saving my life from something or someone I knew was dying, I would stay away from a hospital always. A hospital is right up there with an elementary school and an international airport for places to catch something your immune system hasn't heard of.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
In the hospital case, there are people whose immune system can't stop a bug from multiplying, so many more bugs to catch. In an elementary school, there are people who lack basic hygiene skills. In an international airport, my immune system doesn't recognize the ebola from W. Africa or w/e (think smallpox in the New World). My sense is the elementary school is the safest of the three, since it's more likely you were already exposed to whatever the little germ-vectors are snotting out and rubbing on their sleeves.
Fwiw, I had a physio appt. lined up for a bad back in a hospital two weeks ago; I said 'oh, a hospital? As a pandmemic is about to break out? Yea, thanks but no thanks. A bad back won't kill me; whatever little CV that's floating around Chertsey General might. Not to mention the shit those other old geezers are coughing up.' (to be clear, I'm sympathetic to the old geezers dying, I just don't want their germs)
Same argument can be made about the common cold, afaik it's up to >100 different viruses that can cause it now. Still, no-one tries to argue you can't 'catch' it.Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
Edit: And there are arguments the common cold is similar to pneum. in the respect that you continually harbor viruses capable of causing it, which only start the party when you're particularly susceptible.
Here's another example: I had mono (glandular fever in the UK) when I was 18. Suddenly I also got strep throat that knocked me on my ass to the extent my throat was swollen to the point I couldn't swallow food. Was that a coincidence, or because the mono had f'd my immune system?
We also know strep type viruses are pretty much living in us all the time. So if you ask me, being sick from mono let the strep go wild. I think it's the same with CV and pneum.
Yeah, I may have made a misstep in saying "you can't catch pneumonia." Let's walk back to the start of this tangent: wuf asked "is it possible pneumonia deaths are being misattributed to Covid-19." This implies a fundamental misunderstanding of what pneumonia is vs what Covid-19 is. It would make sense to ask the same question with "non-Covid-19 pneumonia" substituted in, but not understanding that pneumonia and ARDS are the ways in which Covid kills can lead to some unfortunate misunderstandings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
I get the distinction boost is making. But I also get poop's point. The common cold is always caused by a virus. But it's worth pointing out the common cold itself is not a virus, it is an infection, caused by a virus (rhinovirus or coronavirus). Flu is an infection, also caused by a virus (influenza). Pneumonia is an infection with multiple causes. You don't catch pneumonia, but neither do you catch a cold or flu. You catch a virus, and that in turn causes an infection.
So it does seem like it's a matter of semantics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
Yes, it's confusing, and I don't doubt the exact number of deaths due to CV are being numerated ineffecively in some sense all over the world.
Perhaps the question itself is ill-formed: "are some pneum. deaths wrongly ascribed to CV?" to me is akin to asking 'did we miscount deaths from smallpox?" The answer in either case can be simplified to 'did you notice a difference?" or more scientifically to "how many died that weren't expected to die anyways? Is the illness rate enough that we note a big difference in people dying from vague (e.g. , pneum). causes?". If the answer is a big fat ' absolutely , yes' then the conclusion is inescapable imo.
At this point in the game it's a moot question imo.
I tihink so, yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
The thing is, this is effectively a strain of the common cold that is much, much more serious than the other >100 strains of the cold. Just like the Spanish Flu was a mutation of the 'flu that was much more deadly. Whether you call one a 'cold' or a 'flu' is somewhat irrelevant - I'd much rather have some wimpy kind of rhinovirus that gives me a runny nose for 3-4 days than CV that could put me on life support, and weakens me to the point I need a ventilator. I don't really care about semantics at that point.
For you history buffs: SF was ass-kicking bad. People showed symptoms on day 1 and died on day 3. And not just old people, a lot of the deaths were young people who were otherwise in perfect health; it basically killed by tricking the immune system into killing everything, good cells, virus cels it didn't care. My great-grandfather was in his 40s; fine one day, sick the next, dead the day after that. And this wasn't uncommon. My grandpa wrote it all down.
I've lived 51 years and have never seen anything like this. But my grandparents saw WWI, SF, the Great Depression, and WWII. We'll get through this shit, and we'll carry on.
I always wondered why my grandpa was always so unflappable about everything - now I think I know. His attitude was always "Oh, life's bad? You pussy, you ain't seen nothin'"
Savings = future consumption.
It's good for the economy, in part because it doesn't extract consumption from the economy, and it brings the benefit of making people able to better respond to unforeseen issues.
I certainly couldn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
IDK who could.
A biologist? virologist? epidemiologist? immunologist?
IDK if it could even be done.
Well I'm sure someone posted something itt that claims not only can it be done, also that it has been done, and that neither biowarfare nor an accidental release of a lab virus were causes of the pandemic. They determined the evolution of the virus was through natural selection processes. It was a nature.com article iirc.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I obviously don't know if it can be done, I put my faith in science. I just also think there's an elite level of global power, and they might or might not sacrifice babies.
Btw in case you haven't noticed, there's an interesting empirical study underway. The first 5 photos are from Stockholm this weekend, the rest from Helsinki:
https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-200000...5.html?ref=rss
So far Sweden has 6830 confirmed cases and 401 deaths, while Finland has 1927 and 28. Sweden has really only shut down gatherings of over 50 people and given some voluntary guidelines, but all businesses continue to operate. Will be interesting to see what happens.
Tukholmassa is Finnish for Stockholm?
Yes. Or more accurately tukholma is the base word, tukholmassa means in stockholm. Pre- and postpositions are overrated.
Finland is a weird country. They identify as Scandinavian, but speak Hungarian.
It's gonna be crazy if we find out all of this could have been avoided by promoting healthy lifestyle along with less in-your-face cultural norms like you find in Mediterranea (yes I made that word up) and NYCQuote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
Not sure I follow. Those are the countries with the highest life expectancies in the world. They are also some of the countries most heavily hit by CV.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
In other news:
https://www.unc.edu/posts/2020/04/06...-19-treatment/
It's good news, butQuote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
"Clinical studies of EIDD-2801 in humans are expected to begin later this spring."
It's not going to be widely available anytime soon.
That's true for all medications and vaccines, most likely. Having something effective widely available in 2020 is pretty much the best case scenario. This one just looks really promising, and not just for this virus but similar pathogens that cause pneumonia.
The idea is that if we compare to, say, Japan, it's fair to say that the virus got there but possibly wasn't able to spread much or kill much because of their cultural norms or lifestyles.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
We don't know that's the case, but it would be neat if we did.
High life expectancy = older population, ie more vulnerable population. If you die before you reach the age of 20, chances are it wasn't lung cancer, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
Japan has only tested 0.000365% of their population as of today, and they just declared emergency. They are not invulnerable, they've just been lucky so far, it seems.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Not sure how reliable their math is, given that 21% number, but none of this looks too promising.
https://www.worldometers.info/corona...=homeAdvegas1?
USA #1. 30,000 new cases today. Basically same as yesterday.
More than 4x the 2nd most new cases (Spain).
https://preview.redd.it/lsqyafo5qmr4...t=mp4&bb360734Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Apparently that's just reporting lag.
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1727839/
"It's just a flu"
In terms of deaths/million you've got a ways to go to catch most of Europe. That said, (parts of) America sure seem to be trying to be #1.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Will be interesting to see what happens in Wisconsin after the other day's contagion party.
The Blitz spirit lives on.
https://twitter.com/TheBirmingham6/s...35942162272256
FT reporting that deaths from CV in UK may be being severely under-reported, actual numbers up to 80% greater than UK gov figures.
https://www.ft.com/content/c07e267b-...e-8631a29854cb
As of yesterday, Wisconsin ranked 21st/50 US states in deaths/million. If the contagion party ordered by the SC results in more CV deaths, we should see a change by around two-three weeks' time.
NY state is hit worst of all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/n...virus-nyc.html
"Another grim distinction: New York State, with 149,316 confirmed cases, has had more people test positive for the virus than any country outside the United States, including Italy and Spain, the two other countries the pandemic has hit hardest."
Awesome. It's crazy how one important adjustment can change everything.Quote:
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
Link is broken btw. I did just recently see the thing I think you're linking to from somebody else. Here's one https://twitter.com/TylerMorganMe/st...06877145776129
CV is showing up in prisons, where it basically spreads like fire.
Inb4 all those people who the judicial system determined didn't earn themselves a death sentence die in prison.
Inb4 numbskulls try to argue that this is fine.
Prison is a mess. An absolute mess. I agree with you about supporting a politician who can fix it. Are there any who know how? The best I can say is people shouldn't be in prison for things they do as consenting adults, but that only fixes part of the problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I can't think of a single politician who has a platform of being soft on crime, and that's what it will take.
The overloaded prisons are a result of inhumane laws more than anything. As you've noted, we've been increasingly criminalizing non-violent behaviors by consenting adults for decades.
For me, it seems to have all started with the "War on Drugs" by Nancy Reagan, but IDK if it really goes back to when Nixon pushed for Marijuana to be classed as a schedule 1 drug, equivalent to cocaine, in order to persecute his political opponents, namely the Hippie movement.
One thing that's hard to get my head around is the fact that America has never been a politically stable place. We've always been fiercely divided along political party lines, even as the parties have swapped places. All the way back to 1776.
A student of mine went back home to Slovakia. He just finished 2 weeks in an army barracks quarantine where he wasn't allowed to leave the room. Yesterday he got a test, and if it comes out -ive he'll be allowed to leave q'tine.
Svk: 0.4 deaths/m
UK: 105 deaths/m
I'm in the middle of week 3 of q'tine, and I've never been tested.
But I did go to the store to buy milk and sugar today, so... 2 more weeks for me, I guess.
Right?
Paywalled. So... huge massive fuck off pile of salt. Clickbait buy me fuck off.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Julian Assange will catch covid in prison and die. It would be hugely convenient.
It's easy to jump to conclusions, but Slovakia is not nearly as international as the UK. There are so many factors involved that we can't say this or that is the reason one country is hit worse than another.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
This is a long, long way from over. Slovakia might just be lucky so far.
Short story of what happened in UK:
Plan A: "Herd immunity": ~250k deaths, reduce disruption on the economy.
Public: Uh, wut now?
Plan B: "Social distancing" but without proper testing, contact tracing, or provision of health services. Clap for NHS.
Today: ~1k deaths a day (or closer to ~2k depending on how you count the deaths).
Plan C: Clap for Boris.
Public: Fuck off.
There's plenty of countries doing better than the UK right now; you can't make excuses for all of them.
Tests per 1k population, as of today (rounded off):
Norway: 22
Swtz: 21
Germany: 16
Italy: 14
Austria: 14
Denmark: 11
Canada: 10
S. Korea: 9
Spain: 8
Finland: 7
USA: 7
Sweden: 5
UK: 4
France: 3
Poland: 3
Romania: 3
Turkey: 3
Iran: 3
Not an exhaustive list, obviously, and we're not doing the worst of all. But we're not doing well either.
Yes there's lots of countries doing better. What's your point? There's also a fair few doing worse. This isn't a competition.
I have no idea what the fuck is going on. But moaning about governments dealing with it badly is pointless. There's no precedent. We don't know what China were telling us when we were talking about herd immunity. We don't know what Boris' advisers were saying to him.
I really don't know why people want to turn this into a political shitshow.It's easy for me to say I'm glad Corbyn isn't in charge now, but if he were, I'd forgive him his mistakes because I wouldn't have faith in anyone else to not make mistakes. And that includes myself. If I were in charge, we'd probably be a lot more fucked. And I'm pretty sure the same is true of you poop.
Italy doing 3x more tests than us and Spain doing 2x more.
How's that working for Switzerland?
Those numbers are completely useless.
Surely you can understand people's frustration with how this has been dealth with?
You may think 'oh don't complain it doesn't help', but if people just accept any old shit then that's what they're going to keep getting.
I think the general frustration you speak of is more a reflection of a huge problem in society, amplified massively by social media, where everyone thinks they know best.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Do you understand why they give tests in the first place? Do you think it's just so they know what to write on the toe tag?
If you test people early and often you can isolate them and do contact tracing, and administer proper follow-ups. Obviously we're way past that stage now - which is kind of the point - but given we had at least two weeks warning more than Italy, Spain and Swz, the fact we still haven't caught up to most of the civilized world in testing is irresponsible at best, criminal at worst.
Just because you're ignorant and don't inform yourself doesn't mean everyone else is the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I watched experts talk about how to handle this before it took off in Europe. I posted a youtube talk here by Osterholm when you were still bitching about toilet paper and predicting mass riots over social distancing. None of those experts talked about 'herd immunity', all of them encouraged mass testing, isolation and social distancing. They knew it was coming.
The fact is, the UK gov't thought the people would rather perserve the economy than people's lives. They got it wrong, and then they tried to change course. But they're still fucking it up as it goes on.
Poop, you first have to have confidence in the test. And then you need to be able to mass produce it, at a time when demand for the chemicals and technology is at a record high. Spain sent a bunch back to China because they were unreliable. No test is better than a bad test.
Needlessly harsh. Very few people knew what was coming, back in Feb most people thought this would be contained, like SARS. I wasn't ignorant, I was naive and complacent, along with the vast majority of people.Quote:
Just because you're ignorant and don't inform yourself doesn't mean everyone else is the same.
You say "mass testing" like it's a simple solution. It is not. If it were, we'd be doing it. We are doing isolation and social distancing.
And don't stretch the truth. I wasn't bitching about bog roll, I was amused by the panic buying. And I never suggested social distancing would trigger riots, I thought the danger was opportunistic twats who want to kick off, like when Mark Duggan got himself shot.
This isn't a fact. It's your interpretation. This could all have been a strategy to control panic. It could be incompetence. It could global fascist powers taking control. It could be biowarfare and we tried to do that thing where you take a punch and pretend it didn't hurt. I have no idea, so I'll reserve judgement.Quote:
The fact is, the UK gov't thought the people would rather perserve the economy than people's lives. They got it wrong, and then they tried to change course. But they're still fucking it up as it goes on.
Deaths from all causes, Paris and East of France.
Curved line is expected number of deaths. Yellow lines look like 100s above expected. Jaggy line is actual number. 2015 and 2017 peaks were from bad flu seasons.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVL17MxX...name=4096x4096
Austrian study shows > 3x as many infections as were reported.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/austrian...gher-1.1420112
Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
... 0,32% of 1544 people is 5 people. Either I'm missing something important or this is a bullshit study.Quote:
...tested 1,544 randomly selected Austrians for live infections by swabbing the mouth and nose.
The results indicate that 0.32% of the population...
How would 5/1544 positive tests make it a bullshit study? What number would make it not-bullshit?
Certainly it's no surprise the no. of positive tests was higher than the background rate of +ive. Unless you believe they are finding 100% of people in Austria with CV by testing 1/70 people.
3x as many as background rate seems pretty reasonable to me.
https://www.research-advisors.com/tools/SampleSize.htm
tbh I thought the spread would be higher than that, but still...
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no statistician, but that 0,32% has a 2,5% error margin, correct? So the resulting numbers could reasonably be off by 500% or more, right?
The margin of error (MoE) is a proportion of the standard error, which depends on the standard deviation divided by the square root of the sample size. It becomes smaller with larger n, so with n =1554, the standard error = stdev/sqrt(1554) or stdev/~39.Quote:
Originally Posted by oskar
The stdev itself gets a bit whacky when the mean is low (like 0.32%), and the MoE becomes skewed as you go further from 50% scores. It's also a binary test (yes/no answer or 0 vs. 1 in statisical terms) which requires a somewhat different handling of the math.
That study reported a MoE of 0.12% to 0.76%, which with a n =1554 intuitively seems sensible enough to me that I'm not suspicious of it.
A bigger concern would be the method of sampling (if it was truly 'random' insofar as every single person in the country yet to be tested had the same probability of being included, or just close enough not to make a real difference), and/or the accuracy of the tests themselves (are all 'positives' really people with CV, and all 'negatives' really people without CV?). A large false negative rate would lead one to underestimate the score (a large false positive rate would result in > 0.32% score, so not really a concern here).
It's always possible there are flaws in sampling or testing that changed the score, so yeah don't take it as completely trustworthy or anything.
Even at 0,76% the MoE is 200% of the actual number, yet they project a number of 28,500 cases based on that statistic. Is that not ridiculous when that number based on that study could be reasonably half that or twice that? What am I missing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by oskar
Yes, it's wide, but it's only an estimate and not a fact.Quote:
The results indicate that 0.32% of the population, or about 28,500 people, were infected in the period around April 4-5, according to a presentation Friday by Science Minister Heinz Fassmann in Vienna. That compares with 8,500 confirmed active cases during that period. The margin of error was wide, ranging from 10,200 to 67,400 cases, or 0.12% to 0.76% of the population.
Moreover, not all of the values between 10k and 67k are equally likely. The most likely-to-be-true value is the mean score of .32%, and the likelihood of each score being true drops off following a normal(ish) curve as you go away from that score (like the figure on the right), where .32% is near where the curve peaks, and .12 and .76 are close to the left and right edges of the curve). The score .32% is much much more likely than either the high or low end estimates in the MoE.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...lan%29.svg.png
To get the MoE much smaller you'd have to sample a LOT more people. Because MoE depends on sqrt(n), it shrinks by the inverse of that, meaning there's diminishing returns with increasing n. If the MoE with n =1554 is a range of .64%, for example, then to halve that you'd need n=6216, or about 4x as many tests.
Fair enough. Probably shouldn't have stopped reading half way through the 3rd paragraph.
Sure, but the probability that it's exactly 0.32% is still 0%.
The error bars are not trivial.
Fine, between .0315% and .0324999% then.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
That's why they report them, yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
If you're trying to devise a strategy that requires you know the exact prevalance rate, then you need to test more than 1554 people.
If you're just trying to get an idea of prevalence rate, well you've got a fairly good guess now.
The fact that a country in the middle of CV-infested Europe is still < 1 % infected overall suggests any ideas about loosening restrictions have to be considered cautiously.
This is the same logic I was applying when I said 0% of numbers have the number 9 in it. The probability of it being precisely 0.32% might be 0%, but only because it's one outcome from an infinite amount. It's still a potential outcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
The outcome is limited by the population size. It's not infinite, and so neither is the number of possible probabilities.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I'm not even going to consider whether exactly 0.32000000% of Austria's population is a whole number or not (because who cares), I'll just accept it's probably not and shift to an interval that includes 0.32%
Check and mate.
Actually you're right. The percentage range is not infinite, because the population is not infinite. 0.32% might or might not be a potential outcome, no idea how to calculate that tbh.