Coronavirus - A pale horse,4 men and ....beer

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jamesg46
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Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2016 1:05 pm

I read that the virus mutates & each time it does that it makes a mistake, apparently if I've read it right this occurs with each transfer from one person to another... taking this into account & that's it originated in China, I'm labeling this a "Chinese whisper"
Nero Tulip
Posts: 708
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:29 pm

I'm glad the other scientists have chimed in, this is a serious race against time.. time that we were fortunate to have and are squandering with incredible efficiency as we speak. If they are going to change direction, they had better hurry up.

Literally can't believe the foolishness of the UK government approach. There is so little evidence to back up the idea, and honestly, when dealing with 'risk of ruin' or hard problems (like death and lots of people dying!), using evidence as a base for your science is actually less of an issue - your evidence is people dying!..... you should be employing the precautionary principle.

What they are doing currently, is going for a drive and waiting for evidence of a crash before putting on a bloody seat belt ! Another good one - playing Russian roulette and saying we'll probably be ok because there is only 1 bullet. Ordinarily, I would laugh and poke fun at those surely exaggerated examples, but in this case it is exactly like that !

They're using shite behavioral science to mitigate risk, they need to dump it like the steaming stuff it is, and engage with risk/probability scientists with expertise in second order problems / fat tails. Even then, it does not take any particular mathematical talent to see that putting 100,000s of people's lives at risk on your watch is well, effing idiotic ! If that is allowed to play out, with 0.5%+ of the population of UK dying, whilst other countries restrict it to an order of magnitude smaller (say 0.05%, China is a further order smaller than this!), Tony Blair will look like a national treasure! This is maybe one of the more bizarre points to this, being an incredible career politician, it's bizarre that Boris Johnson has not seen what is going to play out. His job is to race the other leaders for decisiveness, to take measures that make him look good, be seen to take care of his citizens more than any other leader... it's amazing that he has not seen this when he so readily seizes on every opportunity in ordinary life, and that's because he's been sold some science which is not fit for a ruin situation and believed it.

It's sad and I'm seriously concerned, the horse has bolted ages ago, before cheltenham. Final example, during the press conference, they quoted the average number of people each case seems to pass it to (2-4 I think it was), as a way of saying gatherings were OK. If that doesn't immediately strike you as BS, probably stop reading this. Not sure how many gatherings and sporting events they think sufferers with this are going to, but it's not many!! Even if I am wrong on that due to asymptomatic transmission - use some common sense, if you have people dying because of a contagious disease, don't have 60000 of them huddle together watching racing?? Unbelievable.

I saw a video the other day from a doctor saying that given the number of cases, you were more likely to be struck by lightening.... also another classic - run over by a car. If that's true, then 14,000 people got hit by lightening today ! 4,000 italian's run over ! This is ducking serious sh!t, stay away from other people, slow the spread down, assume that it is everywhere by now and likely very close to home.
JasBarrow
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:03 pm

Trader Pat wrote:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 7:04 pm
Its kinda still abstract until you see the numbers like this (if accurate) Scary stuff, especially the Italian numbers :( Don't think it needs the soundtrack though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgylp3T ... e=youtu.be

Also sobering to think its a new virus so even when the worst of it is over its still going to be around

Credit to @TheOddsBeater
thats incredible, has an hypnotic quality :geek:
greenmark
Posts: 6266
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:15 pm

Nero Tulip wrote:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 9:18 pm
I'm glad the other scientists have chimed in, this is a serious race against time.. time that we were fortunate to have and are squandering with incredible efficiency as we speak. If they are going to change direction, they had better hurry up.

Literally can't believe the foolishness of the UK government approach. There is so little evidence to back up the idea, and honestly, when dealing with 'risk of ruin' or hard problems (like death and lots of people dying!), using evidence as a base for your science is actually less of an issue - your evidence is people dying!..... you should be employing the precautionary principle.

What they are doing currently, is going for a drive and waiting for evidence of a crash before putting on a bloody seat belt ! Another good one - playing Russian roulette and saying we'll probably be ok because there is only 1 bullet. Ordinarily, I would laugh and poke fun at those surely exaggerated examples, but in this case it is exactly like that !

They're using shite behavioral science to mitigate risk, they need to dump it like the steaming stuff it is, and engage with risk/probability scientists with expertise in second order problems / fat tails. Even then, it does not take any particular mathematical talent to see that putting 100,000s of people's lives at risk on your watch is well, effing idiotic ! If that is allowed to play out, with 0.5%+ of the population of UK dying, whilst other countries restrict it to an order of magnitude smaller (say 0.05%, China is a further order smaller than this!), Tony Blair will look like a national treasure! This is maybe one of the more bizarre points to this, being an incredible career politician, it's bizarre that Boris Johnson has not seen what is going to play out. His job is to race the other leaders for decisiveness, to take measures that make him look good, be seen to take care of his citizens more than any other leader... it's amazing that he has not seen this when he so readily seizes on every opportunity in ordinary life, and that's because he's been sold some science which is not fit for a ruin situation and believed it.

It's sad and I'm seriously concerned, the horse has bolted ages ago, before cheltenham. Final example, during the press conference, they quoted the average number of people each case seems to pass it to (2-4 I think it was), as a way of saying gatherings were OK. If that doesn't immediately strike you as BS, probably stop reading this. Not sure how many gatherings and sporting events they think sufferers with this are going to, but it's not many!! Even if I am wrong on that due to asymptomatic transmission - use some common sense, if you have people dying because of a contagious disease, don't have 60000 of them huddle together watching racing?? Unbelievable.

I saw a video the other day from a doctor saying that given the number of cases, you were more likely to be struck by lightening.... also another classic - run over by a car. If that's true, then 14,000 people got hit by lightening today ! 4,000 italian's run over ! This is ducking serious sh!t, stay away from other people, slow the spread down, assume that it is everywhere by now and likely very close to home.
Sounds like you're freaking out which may be due to your local/social/familial circumstances.
Personally I was freaking out weeks ago.
But the little fella is out there now. Short of shutting down social interaction you cannot kill him. The govt's strategy actually makes sense to me. As the numbers escalate, shut down different areas. Flatten the curve, give the NHS some room to process the seriously ill. The govt maybe wildly wrong, but they have no empirical data to work from. Its all speculation, best guess stuff by people who are experienced on the subject.
And I agree to an extent that lockdown strategies risk serious economic ramifications.
But also can anyone say "why worry if 80% won't suffer"?
What about the sub-categories within the other 20%?
Finally, when people in Italy are shrieking that young health workers are dying, don't you have to take notice?
jamesg46
Posts: 3771
Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2016 1:05 pm

https://youtu.be/uLkKD2hFnIc

My tune of the week!
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gazuty
Posts: 2553
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:03 am

All my generation of gen x's had the boring 70s (oil shock, inflation, brown suits), the 80s (87 crash, Berlin wall, falkands, failure of communism, samantha fox), 90s (gulf war i), 00s (9/11, middle east wars, islamic terrorism, financial system crisis), 10s (more islamic terrorism, continued middle east etc).

But nothing like wwi, spanish flu, the depression and wwii.

And millenials etc pffffttt - they are the softest most coddled generation in the history of 2000 of releative human civilisation. I'm not heading for the hills, but the level of panic is extraordinary and so there might be some fraying at the edges of civil society here and it seems like we might have an event more equivalent to wwii but not the duration.
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ruthlessimon
Posts: 2144
Joined: Wed Mar 23, 2016 3:54 pm

Derek27 wrote:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 6:37 pm
The pot noodle shelf is running down now, people are getting really desperate. :lol:
I missed this :mrgreen:
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Derek27
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ruthlessimon wrote:
Sun Mar 15, 2020 2:53 am
Derek27 wrote:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 6:37 pm
The pot noodle shelf is running down now, people are getting really desperate. :lol:
I missed this :mrgreen:
I wouldn't eat pot noodles if I was threatened at gunpoint. But when I'm really ill with the flu, all I feel like eating is cereal, toast, fried/poached/scrambled eggs, peanuts and crisps, and dare I say it, pot noodles!

When you're ill your taste buds stop working and the texture of what you eat takes over. I think I'll buy a few before they run out and some Rustler burgers - they'll taste just like BK. :D
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alexmr2
Posts: 768
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:32 am

The government's plan is a win/win for them whatever the outcome. If it fails and lots of (most likely non-working elderly or ill) people die, then it goes towards solving the aging population and pension crisis that I have no idea how the economy is going to afford to cope with in the future.

I'm sure I heard one of the UK politicians say something along the lines of "one person typically only infects two more, so it's not a concern". I found that highly amusing he obviously has no understanding of the exponential function in maths such as when 2 quickly becomes 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1028...

Apparently China is over the worst which leads me to believe that there is an overreaction in the grand scheme of things (11k+ people die every week in the UK anyway). Seems like a lot of people have been burned financially, I am most interested to see how it will affect the property market if at all.
ricardodeano
Posts: 205
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2015 2:03 pm

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... 9w8jYPvkKQ

Mr Hancock saying herd immunity is not their go to strategy. I will get back in my box.
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wearthefoxhat
Posts: 3554
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:55 am

ricardodeano wrote:
Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:53 am
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... 9w8jYPvkKQ

Mr Hancock saying herd immunity is not their go to strategy. I will get back in my box.

That's because he doesn't want the credit to go to someone else.

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Euler
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wearthefoxhat
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Bill Gates had it covered nearly 5 years ago....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Af6b_wyiwI


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superfrank
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It seems extraordinary how China has contained the outbreak after the initial phase (assuming we believe the numbers).
China had 20 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections on March 14, up from 11 cases a day earlier, but 16 of those cases involved travellers entering China from overseas, Beijing said.

The remaining four cases were recorded in the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak is believed to have first begun. Saturday was the tenth straight day when Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, recorded no new infections outside Wuhan.
In Europe and there is an acceptance that the disease cannot be contained, only the rate of infection delayed, but China seemingly proving it can.
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PDC
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What will happen to rates when people restrictions are lifted in China is going to be interesting.
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