[FRIAM] covid19.healthdata.org

Thu Apr 9 20:11:25 EDT 2020

Gary, 

I think SOME PEOPLE think there is an intermediate possibility.  When the numbers in a community get to zero, we hire a bunch of white vans and motel rooms, and a number of test kits, renewable, equal to at least twice the number of people in the community.  OK, then, whenever anybody shows symptoms, we swoop down on them, and all of their recent contacts (which have been duly recorded on their cell phones), snatch them off the street, stuff them into motel rooms and lock the doors from the outside.  We test them in three days.  All that pass the test go free.  Until they test negative, nobody get's out of that motel room.  Oh, and, by the way: everybody who comes into the community from the outside goes into one of those motel rooms, too.  

Sage Inn is waiting to accommodate you. 

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2020 5:08 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] covid19.healthdata.org

I don't think you're missing anything. But the numbers can't be trusted, optimistically or pessimistically. For example, we don't know how many asymptomatic people are really presymptomatic. If 25-50% of the tested/confirmed cases are thought to be asymptomatic, and that amount translates into the general population, then the number is larger than 2m/7.5b. Or, even if those we labelled asymptomatic were presymptomatic, the 80% mild symptom number will rise above 80%.

Those of us considering never shaking hands again in our lifetime, or never leaving home again, or whatever insane extreme are _catastrophizing_. It's a sign of low tolerance for ambiguity ... which I guess is typical for dorks like us ... but we should at least recognize it in ourselves.

My prescription for Nick is to turn off the internet, smoke a little weed, and start reading a big fat novel. 8^)

On 4/9/20 3:34 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
> From what I've read, it seems to me that if the only way for the virus to be stopped is for enough people to become immune that it runs out of hosts in which to reproduce. Immunity could develop in at least three ways: a) be vaccinated (probably 2+ years off); b) have natural immunity (probably a low percentage, besides who wants to risk it?); or c) be infected and recover (thus *presumably* making them immune).The only purpose of flattening the curve is to try to reduce mortality (and maybe even reduce the permanent damage done to the body) by keeping the medical systems from becoming overwhelmed. Given how few people have been infected and then either died or recovered (fewer than 2 million infected out of 7.5 billion, i.e. 0.026%), we could repeat this curve flattening exercise a thousand times before it would burn itself out.
> 
> Seems to me we have to either wait for a vaccine, or resign ourselves to the fact that we are going to get infected. Or just stay out in the cloud forest like I'm doing and never see anyone face to face again. Am I missing something?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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