Friday, March 20, 2020

Worth considering …

… In the coronavirus pandemic, we're making decisions without reliable data.

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data — there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew — the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases — a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%.

3 comments:

  1. This is an attempt to express reliability stats to the general public, something that other reviews of scientific studies commonly do, something many of us are getting into now. When you have an issue with reliability, and almost every study does, thus the statistical reliability factor R, the scientific thing to do is then to make conjecture and ask for further study. This takes off as part of the researcher team's conclusion to fellow scientists.


    I subscribe to Stat, and have found an important issue with this reviewer's review of the study. This paragraph begins:

    "In the absence of data, prepare-for-the-worst reasoning leads to extreme measures of social distancing and lockdowns. Unfortunately, we do not know if these measures work."

    That first part of the paragraph is sound. The idea of flattening the curves is to delay herd immunity so as not to overload health care systems, hospitals, doctors, and such, and maybe get us to a point of vaccination and/or cure sooner than later.

    Ioannidis goes on:

    "But then School closures, for example, may reduce transmission rates. But they may also backfire if children socialize anyhow, if school closure leads children to spend more time with susceptible elderly family members, if children at home disrupt their parents ability to work, and more. School closures may also diminish the chances of developing herd immunity in an age group that is spared serious disease."

    The issue here is a common error. We do not know who the virus spreads to and precisely why. We do not yet know that someone younger will tend to be immune or less susceptible to Covid-19. Each time he uses the word "may", the reader is to take it with a grain of salt. What we know with good reliability (yet never 100% when making conjecture) is older people tend to die far more often once the virus has been contracted.

    The number of deaths in the USA has now grown to 278 as I write: Covid-19 Global Cases. We know that whatever the unknown science is, that Italy is nearing 5,000 deaths now. The discussion here goes into how many are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of our lifestyles. We may conjecture, that quarantine, isolation, and stay-home directives will also reduce such things as deaths and injuries from auto accidents, sacrifices we tolerate each day. We know enough to understand that this is a boomer remover. Is that okay with us?

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  2. Mein Mann und ich sind jetzt seit ungefähr 7 Jahren verheiratet. Wir waren glücklich verheiratet und hatten zwei Kinder, einen Jungen und ein Mädchen. Vor 3 Monaten bemerkte ich merkwürdiges Verhalten von ihm und einige Wochen später stellte ich fest, dass mein Mann jemanden sah. Er kam spät von der Arbeit nach Hause, kümmert sich nicht mehr um mich oder die Kinder, manchmal geht er aus und kommt für 2-3 Tage nicht einmal nach Hause. Ich habe alles getan, um dieses Problem zu beheben, aber nicht umsonst. Ich wurde sehr besorgt und brauchte Hilfe. Als ich eines Tages im Internet suchte, stieß ich auf eine Website, auf der vorgeschlagen wurde, dass Dr. Padman helfen könnte, Eheprobleme zu lösen, zerbrochene Beziehungen wiederherzustellen und so weiter. Ich hatte das Gefühl, ich musste es versuchen. Ich habe ihn kontaktiert und er hat mich verzaubert. Zwei Tage später kam mein Mann zu mir und entschuldigte sich für das Unrecht, das er begangen hatte und versprach, es nie wieder zu tun. Seitdem hat sich alles wieder normalisiert. Meine Familie und ich leben wieder glücklich zusammen. Vielen Dank an Dr. Padman. Wenn Sie einen Zauberwirker benötigen, der in der Lage ist, einen Zauber zu wirken, der wirklich funktioniert, sollten Sie ihn kontaktieren. Er wird dich nicht enttäuschen. Hier ist seine E-Mail:

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  3. The USA is now 3rd in the world in number of known cases, behind China #1 and Italy #2. The deaths in the USA as I write now is 307.

    And there is a non-random study from France indicating a treatment regimen: New drug combo wiped out coronavirus in patients. The graph looks dramatic: Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an openlabel non-randomized clinical trial.

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