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

Noone i would assume :)?

I said "Well you cant relax methods of containment and not expect a higher increase in cases"

Regardless of what that number is (since we dont know it), we know it will be higher if everyone started interacting with each other rather than continued to live in lockdown no?

It's being reported that the smartphone app would need 60% of population to be using it to work.

So that's six sevenths (fuck that maths) of all smartphone owners using it. Yarp.

Epidemiologists advising the NHS say that about 56% of the UK population - equating to about 80% of smartphone owners - need to use the app in order to suppress the virus.

However, they add that the spread of the disease could still be slowed even if the take-up is lower.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52521526

(edit: shared for the simpler math more than anything, but I do think 80% isn't entirely beyond possibility, and I think the point about it not being a zero-sum game is important)

Smartphone usage was 78% in 2018 (Source Ofcom: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/decade-of-digital-dependency) so we only* need ~46% of the population to run an app that may or may not spy on you or make your battery last half the day.

six sevenths (fuck that maths)

Lucky for you, sevenths are easy. Simply memorise "142857" and rotate the digits as necessary to achieve the correct fraction. 6/7 is therefore 0.857142... with the 6 digits after the point repeating.

http://dankalman.net/AUhome/dofiles/doss_e0603sevenths.html

Fantastic! Thanks. I have never come across that number theory result before.

I have never come across that number theory result before

It's not that exciting.

Not to you maybe....

It's not that exciting.

Challenge accepted.

I've vinegar stroked to more difficult things in the past. Memorably once onto the hot plate of an iron.

Ok you’re not being precise with your language?

A ‘higher increase in cases’ means an acceleration of an increase.

You should not ease lockdown until you have a steep enough decrease in cases to have headroom and deaths still fall.

Well sorry bout that, english not my native language ill try to do better.

Don’t apologise! It’s entirely normal (I wouldn’t have mentioned it but I wasn’t sure what you intended).

Yeah but when discussing something like this its also good to be as accurate and as precise as one can. Its hard enough without guessing what ppl mean so its good that im reminded to make my points more clear (if possible :)

Some statisticians with middle initials holding up a mirror to David Spiegelhalter.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/uk-behind-the-curve-in-curbing-covid-19-deaths

Frankly, I'm not sure the number of signatories represents a statistically robust sample.

Question: can state of emergency laws place restrictions on the press?

In the UK? Not that I'm aware of. I LLPdon't believe UK law gives the government the right to declare a state of emergency. Or at least gives them any more powers if they do declare there to be one.

Obviously the government could try to pass a law giving it the right to censor the press. Can't see that getting passed though.

Barbaric, out of touch, inhuman

But that's exactly what he's not. He's very carefully pointing out that if the costs of lockdown (deaths from lockdown-related issues) are greater than those lost directly from Covid-19 then our actions have killed people. As he says, epidemiologists don't suffer if they predict 100x or 1000x more deaths than occur, but do suffer if they underestimate by a factor of 3. It's therefore in their nature only to publish generous estimates of mortality.

It's like the helmet debate. People argue that cyclists must wear helmets because "if it saves one life" when we know very well that we could save far more lives by encouraging people to cycle rather than scaring them off it by suggesting that it's a form of transport that requires armour.

Incidentally, I'm not saying I agree with him, but when you're dealing with deaths across populations of hundreds of millions you need to be brave enough to consider the unintended consequences of what seems like the right thing to do right now.

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...

Surely the message, and its merits or lack of them, is more important than the messenger?

SOP: copy the FT URL, and search for it with Google. The first link in the results should take you to an Amp page where you can read the article. This link works for me without any of the above shenanigans though: https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=gbr&cumulative=0&logScale=1&perMillion=0&values=deaths

Who's right?!? Who knows?!?

I know there are other factors to consider like those people waiting for urgent hospital treatment who will probably die because the ICUs are full but I just found his whole numerical outlook a bit cold and unrealistic, just because we are humans, all the feels, etc...

And @danstuff... I'm clearly not getting the message... I understand that to attain a level of immunity more people need to be infected but at what human cost? He trails off into this is a boomer problem and maybe boomers need to make way for the next generation by dying etc, maybe I wasn't paying enough attention... I'll watch it again...

I haven't watched it, so I've no idea if the points he's making are valid or not. All I know is that evil bastards can sometimes be right, despite being evil bastards, and history is littered with really nice, kind, well-intentioned people with really dumb ideas.

But if his argument was that it's OK for older people to die before their time just because they're old, then that's as stupid as the argument previously advanced on this thread that's it's OK for a few younger people to die as long as the oldies are OK.

It's late but this is worth a read
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01315-7

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkqtcm3w7Vw