Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Interesting graph comparing Covid curves, apparently from Harvard prof. via some 'endcoronavirus' org.

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I'd be interested to see population density for those various countries or, at least, some indication of the scale of large urban centres. Also, when did most of those countries have their first cases? Did some of them benefit from learning from other countries. Finally, what now? Have they lifted their lockdowns?

^ yeah that chart is a crock of shite

Which is the technical term I believe

.

Looks like they've just scaled it/standardised to cases per million.

The obvious outliers of UK/USA/Sweden tells its own well documented story about how long it took to lockdown, how effective testing has been etc, no?

Edit, just had a look at the website. Actually pretty good context for how each country has responded:

https://www.endcoronavirus.org/daily-update-winning

Act confidently against COVID-19 with the help of our guidelines and
research established by distinguished experts and scientists from the
New England Complex Systems Insitute (NECSI), Harvard, UCLA, MIT and
more.

LEADER: YANEER BAR-YAM

• president of New England Complex Systems Institute
  
• MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist
  
• has warned about global pandemics for 15 years
  
• contributed outbreak response protocols for stopping Ebola in Africa in 2014, which worked
  

I'll be sure to email Yaneer and let him know that user62119 thinks his scientific analysis is a "crock of shite."

Somehow I don't think it'll keep him awake at night with worry...

Chart seems pretty decent to me to illustrate the point he is trying to make. Scales don’t matter as it’s just showing a pattern.

^ yeah that chart is a crock of shite

Chartist.

The headline is how countries beat covid?

No one did tho.. more like how countries postponed it.

hah yeah that, amongst other clangers

This.

Also it ain't over.

Will the 'crushers' be in lock down foevea?

^ yeah that chart is a crock of shite

The bullet points are also manifestly false.

Yeah I mean I have no problem with the data (although I suspect some of it is....suspect at source) it’s the conclusions that piss me off but the author has to push it as far as they can or it won’t get internet shares and likes and the author won’t get famous.

/cynicism

I think if you look at their mission it's more trying to act as a counterpoint to Trump's lethal mysticism and lobbying for proper federal action, but yeah MIT profs are renowned for their clickbait just as Lufgussers are renowned for their pandemic modelling expertise.

New Zealand, Vietnam, Australia have done pretty well, no?

Guess it just depends if/when the vaccine comes along to be able to qualify that position. The sooner it does the more unnecessary deaths will have occurred in those nations that CBA locking down sufficiently to prevent them.

Looks like they've just scaled it/standardised to cases per million.

There's no scaling as far as I can tell, since they're only interested in the shape of the graphs. They do give a figure for cases per million, but on that basis Luxembourg and Iceland are complete failures despite having apparently "crushed" it. Norway and Austria are also in the same ballpark as the apparent failures.

The obvious outliers of UK/USA/Sweden tells its own well documented story about how long it took to lockdown, how effective testing has been etc, no?

Well kind of, but in some senses it's still too early to tell. It's really uncertain what will happen in those countries when lockdown is eased. My best guess at a measure of success would be deaths per cases per million. If you've had lots of infection but relatively few deaths then you're probably further along the route to actually getting things back to (a hopefully better) normal. Ultimately that's what beating the pandemic will be.

In Sweden people were/are happy with a more relaxed lockdown and "herd immunity" approach, we'll have to see if that indeed means they won't get as much of a second spike & there won't be as many deaths due to poverty due to lockdown/people not going to get healthcare for diabetes/cancer/etc.

It is all very hard to calculate those avoidable deaths though in a lockdown VS "herd immunity" scenario, especially as social security/healthcare system health also vary per country...

If you've had lots of infection but relatively few deaths then you're probably further along the route to actually getting things back to (a hopefully better) normal. Ultimately that's what beating the pandemic will be.

Doesn't this just mean herd immunity-which I think it's fair to say has been roundly exposed as totally false without vaccination?

Sweden's model is based on letting the less at risk groups get it but protecting the vulnerable. In the same breath they admit they've failed to do that, and their death rate-like ours-reflects that failure. The position that "they're going to die sooner or later" again doesn't take into account the potential for finding a vaccine relatively quickly, and that, from everything I've read, is what the real key to "beating" the pandemic is.

Anyway, I posted it because it's interesting seeing the shape of each country's curve, I didn't make it. Folk really need to calm their fucking tits.

I really want to believe the figures from Vietnam...but idk. I’d avoid including them if I had to persuade an audience and wanted to appear super-credible.

This was a strange watch... Can't figure out if the guy is just a straight numbers, on-the-spectrum science guy or a black hearted neo-liberal posing as one...

Let enough people die so we can get up to herd immunity? Barbaric, out of touch, inhuman...

Yes but don't forget that there are a ton of other factors

NZ - Isolated island with relatively small numbers of external visitors
Vietnam - Similarly isolated from global travel, authoritarian Communist government
Australia - Low population density

Bit of an oversimplification but there are always other factors beyond simply government response to things

Australia - Low population density

Everyone lives near the coast, most of Australia is uninhabitable unless you've got a pocket for a bellybutton or you're very poisonous...

NZ - Isolated island with relatively small numbers of external visitors

Any government can close borders/implement quarantine though? How quickly and efficiently they do this will inevitably help control the outbreak-South Korea has reduced the new infection numbers to new arrivals for example.

Australia - Low population density

on average, still has densely populated large cities. Also locked down pretty fast.

Bit of an oversimplification

It's a chart with a very limited purpose, designed to communicate an idea. I think it's supposed to be simplified. I don't think anyone is forgetting there are a ton of other factors, but Government response or lack thereof is one that i think everyone can agree is pretty fundamental.

Doesn't this just mean herd immunity-which I think it's fair to say has been roundly exposed as totally false without vaccination?

Has it? Anyway, it's not a call for a herd-immunity approach, it is an indication that you're actually some way to achieving it. If you've had a lot of infections with very few deaths then it indicates that you have managed to protect the most vulnerable while moving some way towards having the herd-immunity that will protect those people in the long-term. I'm not saying that any country has been able to achieve that, I'm suggesting that it's a better metric than number of cases per million.

Interesting graph

The bullet points are just wrong for many of the countries listed and the text sets off alarm bells (common sense, masks innit m8).