Covid-19 and the madness of crowds

lazland: You can bang on about numbers being meaningless as long as you want. In fact there are many ways in which we can learn, for example data and mortality from the Diamond Princess where everyone was tested (which of course needs to be age-adjusted - not that this is something that cannot be done), relating known fatality to know positive cases knowing the percentage of population tested in certain areas, comparing percentages of positive test results among non-symptomatic people (which do exist) with those of symptomatic people etc. All mathematical modelling can be criticised, but if humankind believed that every model that can be legitimately criticised is in effect worthless, we'd still believe the earth is flat. People have estimated very generous intervals for mortality of Covid-19 compared with flu, based on the available information and taking into account uncertainties, and these range from Covid-19 being five times more deadly to a factor of 100 and more (I have actually linked to and commented on such results, without a response from you). That's the thing with science, we don't know things precisely, there are large uncertainties, we try to find out better and take into account uncertainty. There's always something to criticise and something to improve, true, but ignore science at your peril.

^ Hard not to be interpreted as callous, or as comparing this to influenza which it clearly is not.   I'm just glad there's been some progress.

Interesting study from China suggesting the primary sources of infection are in the home and on public transportation.   That is both a daunting problem and yet very important information.

^^ Great balanced, centered post.

In a way both of you are correct.

Just for statistical purposes, correct and complete testing will not supply the data required for comprehensive results; that time has passed and can't be corrected.

Even if you have some isolated area that you could analyse from scratch (a cruise ship or something similar), the study group would probably be too small for the data to be applied to the whole pandemic. Close, but not close enough.

So in a way, we probably won’t know the exact numbers, but then again, we don’t have the exact numbers for seasonal flu either. Does it matter? Probably not. At least not for statistical purposes alone.

So we don’t really have a choice but to make do with estimates and work with them. Not ideal, but not a deal-breaker either.

He wrote about this in 2007?? Nostradamus predicted 911 supposedly. I predict another pandemic in 25+yrs and it will originate in China, WHO will not be prepared to advise the world what to do nor will they react quickly enough...so there.

What exactly, that Taleb does not articulate, should have been done in Jan-Feb? His best statement was that nobody knew anything about Covid-19. Up till about 2 weeks ago the world thought the first US death was in Washington state, as it turns out not surprisingly the first was in California. Most of what he talks about is economics....

Pretty much every country was not prepared for such a pandemic both medically and logistically, not enough of everything to satisfy anything. I would think most hospitals that were affected saw a 50-80% increase in attendance and some 100% increase...daily!! I highly doubt any hospital has that much inventory on hand. That's an easy solution, stock up on everything and I am sure all hospitals and emergency groups will have more than enough by years end, certainly before my prediction comes to pass.

The WHO was not prepared to advise the world what to do, that is their job. Basically left every country to fend for themselves. At the end of all this, if that happens, WHO has a lot of questions to answer for, especially their relationship with China and how they do and don't interact with them. 

At least Classic raised taxes as a recognition that what he himself had called voodonomics when he ran against Reagan wasn't working. Dubya left the first sh*tpile, now there's gonna be an even bigger one.  Circumstances have conspired to somewhat shield Trump from the blame on THAT one (but not for his epic misguiding and mishandling of the crisis itself) because many countries are forced to experiment with unconventional solutions that will surely lead to new highs of deficit spending.  In India, we are talking of monetising deficits, something we stopped in the late 90s to get spending under control.  But there is a clear recognition now that this is not the time for austerity.