COVID-19 | science, damage limitation, NO POLITICS

[Paulo Bizarro]

I don't trust experts when I get a whiff of BS or incompetency from them.  Why would you?

You sound like someone who is often mentioned in the other thread. Better stick to that one.

[Paulo Bizarro]

I went to three doctors for "second" opinions of what to do with a cancer I had once.  I got three different solutions which was the best course to follow. Anyone who listens to so-called experts without discernment is foolish.   

Look at what's happening now with moving forward.  Everyone is guessing using the best information they have right now.  But that info isn't complete.  Plus this disease is new.  No one can guarantee anything other than if you stay in your house and avoid contact with anyone, you'll be less likely to get it.  Well, that doesn't help much when officials have to make decisions.  The experts just don;t have all the answers.

It's called uncertainty management. It's a new disease, scientists are studying it for 4 months only. It requires politicians to make decisions with the best information available on a daily basis. Of course there is a risk, which needs to be managed. The experts will only have all the answers in a time frame of 1 to 2 years.

The amount of work being done by the experts that you say are lying to you is admirable. Under normal circumstances a vaccine takes years to be developed and trialed; that experts are estimating a vaccine in about 1 year to 1 1/2 years, which is amazing. We are seeing an unprecendented collaboration between academia, industry, and governments to achieve that goal ASAP.

[Jim Pascoe]

Well of course. After all, my wife and I have been isolating at home for four weeks now.  But I take experts with a grain of salt.

Alan - every time I look at this forum I seem to find you disputing what is happening or the suggested means of dealing with it.  You are asking questions, but you don't appear to listen to or like the answers.  I can see you are confused and worried.  As you are retired, why not just relax, stay at home, avoid news except perhaps once every few days to catch up, and stop stressing.  Yes, some of the experts might be wrong - and of course none of us except the very uninformed would take everything we hear as the gospel.  The fact is, unless we all carry on as normal and let the virus rip through society in a few months, some people are going to have to isolate or distance themselves for many months.  Perhaps even a year.  That might be you.  But there is no shortcut until a vaccine is found.

As they say - there are few certainties in life except for death and taxation.  The coronavirus is a new disease and even the experts are learning anew each week that passes.  It will all become very clear in a couple of years - let's try to make sure we are still alive to learn about it ourselves.

Jim

[armand]

This Japanese experiment shows how easily coronavirus can spread – and what you can do about it
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-microdroplets-talking-breathing-spread-covid-19

[elliot_n]

This Japanese experiment shows how easily coronavirus can spread – and what you can do about it
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-microdroplets-talking-breathing-spread-covid-19

Interesting article. I hadn't realised the WHO recommend only 1 metre social distancing. Here in the UK it's 2 metres (6' 6").

[John Camp]

Here's the most interesting site I've found for providing Covid-19 stats for the U.S. Good breakdowns on a variety of parameters, by state.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

[Guillermo Luijk]

Update of the evolution of deaths plot.
Reminder (X-axis=Deaths per million inhabitants, Y-axis=Daily deaths per million inhabitants):
- Countries in the diagonal still don't control the disease.
- Countries bending down are already flattening the curve.
- The higher a country gets the more relative population have died.

All subject to the coronavirus deaths accounting criteria on each country.

- Belgium shows terrible relative numbers and trend.
- Spain, Italy and at some distance France, UK and the Netherlands, have quite high numbers but are controlling the disease
- Bad trend in the USA but still with low relative numbers (the disease arrived later)
- Very good figures and trend in Germany and Portugal



Regards

[BobShaw]

Here's the most interesting site I've found for providing Covid-19 stats for the U.S. Good breakdowns on a variety of parameters, by state.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

That is a good site.
The thing that I noticed is that death rates in the US per case appear much higher than most countries.
I would think that would indicate that the case is not being discovered until the chance of recovery is lower or the the identified case is not being treated effectively due to resources.

[BobShaw]

- Bad trend in the USA but still with low relative numbers (the disease arrived later)

Regards

I doubt that the disease arrived later in the US than any other country.

[Guillermo Luijk]

I doubt that the disease arrived later in the US than any other country.

Irrelevant semantics. Call it spread instead of arrive as you like.



Regards

[RichDesmond]

That is a good site.
The thing that I noticed is that death rates in the US per case appear much higher than most countries.
I would think that would indicate that the case is not being discovered until the chance of recovery is lower or the the identified case is not being treated effectively due to resources.

It's basically due to the low rate of testing in the US.

[BobShaw]

Irrelevant semantics. Call it spread instead of arrive as you like.

Regards

Do you really believe that (the disease arrived in the US after every other country) ?
That no one infected went to the USA before someone infected went to Iceland?
That the US went from zero cases to 10,000 new cases per day in a week?

Anyway, if that was really the case that every country had it before the US then why didn't they see it coming?

[Alan Klein]

Alan - every time I look at this forum I seem to find you disputing what is happening or the suggested means of dealing with it.  You are asking questions, but you don't appear to listen to or like the answers.  I can see you are confused and worried.  As you are retired, why not just relax, stay at home, avoid news except perhaps once every few days to catch up, and stop stressing.  Yes, some of the experts might be wrong - and of course none of us except the very uninformed would take everything we hear as the gospel.  The fact is, unless we all carry on as normal and let the virus rip through society in a few months, some people are going to have to isolate or distance themselves for many months.  Perhaps even a year.  That might be you.  But there is no shortcut until a vaccine is found.

As they say - there are few certainties in life except for death and taxation.  The coronavirus is a new disease and even the experts are learning anew each week that passes.  It will all become very clear in a couple of years - let's try to make sure we are still alive to learn about it ourselves.

Jim

Thanks for agreeing with my previous post when I said that I take experts with a grain of salt. 

[Alan Klein]

Do you really believe that (the disease arrived in the US after every other country) ?
That no one infected went to the USA before someone infected went to Iceland?
That the US went from zero cases to 10,000 new cases per day in a week?

Anyway, if that was the really case that every country had it before the US then why didn't they see it coming?

If it arrived in the US at the same time, why did the cases pop up two weeks later? Could environment, weather, native genes, or other factors affect the incubation period?  These are things worthy of study.  They may help find a cure or vaccine. 

[armand]

Thanks for agreeing with my previous post when I said that I take experts with a grain of salt.

That’s not what you said. It’s huge difference between taking what experts say with a grain of salt and you actually said, multiple times:

....
Like I said, liars, damn liars and experts.

[Alan Klein]

If it arrived in the US at the same time, why did the cases pop up two weeks later? Could environment, weather, native genes, or other factors affect the incubation period?  These are things worthy of study.  They may help find a cure or vaccine. 

I just found this article.  It appears that there are three Covid viruses that showed up at different times and different places.  That could account for the delays of outbreak.  The article also mentions that the virus could have been out there as early as last September and that Wuhan might not be the initial location. 
https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-outbreak-september-not-wuhan-1498566

[Alan Klein]

That’s not what you said. It’s huge difference between taking what experts say with a grain of salt and you actually said, multiple times:

Regarding my statement about  liars, damn liars and experts.  It isn't my expression.  And that's the truth.

Witnesses in trials give testimony about truth.  They are either truthful or lying.  Experts give testimony which is not truth but rather their opinion and for which they cannot be called liars.  Opinions are not truth.  It's worse. 

[RichDesmond]

Regarding my statement about  liars, damn liars and experts.  It isn't my expression.  And that's the truth.

Witnesses in trials give testimony about truth.  They are either truthful or lying.  Experts give testimony which is not truth but rather their opinion and for which they cannot be called liars.  Opinions are not truth.  It's worse.

I take it you're not someone who'd ever had to give expert testimony?

An expert isn't someone who knows everything. That person doesn't exist, even regarding very narrow fields of knowledge.

I really don't understand what you mean by "Opinions are not truth.  It's worse."

As an expert in my (very narrow) field I'm occasionally called to render an opinion. Depending on the question at hand I can sometimes say with absolute certainty that X is true. More often I can say that X is likely to be true, and give a confidence band. My opinions are not infallible, but in all cases, are much more likely to be correct than those of some random guy off the street.
If you had a question about a matter that I'm the expert in, would you listen to me or to the random guy? Would you conclude that you can't tell, and that a proven track record in that field has no value? Do you value knowledge and experience? How do decide that what you "know" is true? Do you analyze the thought process that went into what you have decided is "true"?

[Alan Klein]

I take it you're not someone who'd ever had to give expert testimony?

An expert isn't someone who knows everything. That person doesn't exist, even regarding very narrow fields of knowledge.

I really don't understand what you mean by "Opinions are not truth.  It's worse."

As an expert in my (very narrow) field I'm occasionally called to render an opinion. Depending on the question at hand I can sometimes say with absolute certainty that X is true. More often I can say that X is likely to be true, and give a confidence band. My opinions are not infallible, but in all cases, are much more likely to be correct than those of some random guy off the street.
If you had a question about a matter that I'm the expert in, would you listen to me or to the random guy? Would you conclude that you can't tell, and that a proven track record in that field has no value? Do you value knowledge and experience? How do decide that what you "know" is true? Do you analyze the thought process that went into what you have decided is "true"?

I gave a weeks testimony (1500 pages) in a wrongful death case and spent a week in US Federal Court defending myself and my company in another case that cost $250,000 in legal fees.  I had my own expert witness as did my adversary.  The jury didn't believe my expert but believed theirs.  Two experts.  I lost the case and my business.  So yes, I've had some experience with expert witnesses. 

What makes experts saying what they say worse than regular people, is that with the latter, you consider if they're telling the truth.  With experts, you assume they are and could more easily be taken in by what they say which could be plain wrong even if not a lie.  So lots of misinformation is spread around by experts.  We listen to financial experts and invest our money only to see it disappear at the next economic slump.  Didn't you get in on the real estate boom right before its bust in 2008.  We have an operation on their advice and find out the the cure winds up worse than the disease because they didn't tell us all the problems that could occur beforehand.  We get foreign affairs advice from international experts and find ourselves in a war we could have avoided if we avoided the experts.    Experts can be very dangerous. 

[RichDesmond]

I gave a weeks testimony (1500 pages) in a wrongful death case and spent a week in US Federal Court defending myself and my company in another case that cost $250,000 in legal fees.  I had my own expert witness as did my adversary.  The jury didn't believe my expert but believed theirs.  Two experts.  I lost the case and my business.  So yes, I've had some experience with expert witnesses. 

What makes experts saying what they say worse than regular people, is that with the latter, you consider if they're telling the truth.  With experts, you assume they are and could more easily be taken in by what they say which could be plain wrong even if not a lie.  So lots of misinformation is spread around by experts.  We listen to financial experts and invest our money only to see it disappear at the next economic slump.  Didn't you get in on the real estate boom right before its bust in 2008.  We have an operation on their advice and find out the the cure winds up worse than the disease because they didn't tell us all the problems that could occur beforehand.  We get foreign affairs advice from international experts and find ourselves in a war we could have avoided if we avoided the experts.    Experts can be very dangerous.

Ok, so, answer my last couple of questions. Basically, what do you know, and how do you know you know it? If you consider experts dangerous, how do gain knowledge and make decisions about matters you have no personal knowledge?