[FRIAM] Outbreak Simulation
Steven A Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sat Mar 21 11:47:56 EDT 2020
While I'm sympathetic with the idea that the relative magnitude of this
threat *might* be on the same order as "hit by a car", and that to the
extent that panic behaviour has it's own risks and unintended
consequences, I think there is a qualitative issue at hand as well.
It is as if the number of cars on the road just doubled and some of the
drivers come from the UK right-hand-driving sphere such that while the
risk of death has only roughly *doubled*, our instincts are not tuned to
where to look (left/right) when we step out into the street. Our
intuitions just aren't well tuned to this.
Unfortunately, quantitative numbers are exponential not linear, so even
if you could compare it to "hit by a car", it doesn't calibrate for
crazy fluctuations in traffic. Like being the Frog in Frogger right
after a level-up.
This just out from James Tamplin (founder of Firebase), providing a
slightly finer grain model to refer to and build
from:https://covidactnow.org/ . <https://covidactnow.org/>It is
worthwhile to read the assumptions that this model uses. It is all
transparent and implemented as spreadsheets that can be downloaded and
tweaked if you choose. It is strictly statistical and aggregated at
the State level, but does not take into account variations in population
density and personal encounters (this is a case where the style of
mixing implied by suburban car-culture may be a lot safer than urban
pedestrian-culture).
Mary and I have had to calibrate our sensitivity to risk several times
during this episode.
1. We were on our way to a long overdue visit to my mother (91) in her
assisted living where most everyone else there is older and more
at-risk even than she is. Her TV has only one channel (Fox) and
she was reluctant (2 weeks ago) to believe that my daughter in
Portland with an 18 month old she hasn't met yet, really shouldn't
risk gathering virus particles through 3 airports and 2 planes to
visit her. After they waved off, we planned to come ahead as a
consolation prize, as did my other daughter and her 8 year old (we
were both driving, avoiding high-risk virus-gathering
opportunities). Even though we were already on the road when
things really started looking bad (over a week ago), I was pretty
sure we shouldn't even risk *our* bringing her anything from here or
our travels, but was reluctant to tell her that yet. 2 days in my
daughter was leaving Denver with two kids promised a Spring Break
and we negotiated a back-country tour of the 4 corners area, meeting
up with them, and not risk delivering virus particles to their
great/grandmother and her friends.
2. After listening to towns, counties, parks, states shut their doors
on our heels as we traveled through, we were feeling a little
"guilty" by the time we arrived back on our fairly isolated
home(stead) 20 minutes outside of Santa Fe. Our normal life
involves at most 3 trips to *some* town, and even then very limited
interaction with others usually. Dropping back to 1 very careful
grocery run a week is not that big of a step for us.
3. We now have other semi-rural friends/neighbors trying to negotiate
visits with us which we are trying to sort through. In our early
60s, we are marginally at higher risk than many, but most of those
friends/neighbors include at least 1 member in their late 70s or
even 80s. Their level of self-concern varies wildly from radical
germophobe to devil-may-care libertarians. I could mix with any
*one* of these sub-cliques comfortably if I didn't feel like I was
risking cross-contamination between them. The highest-risk-taking
groups aren't too high-risk for us, nor are the lowest-risk-takers
too low, but I"m unwilling to accidentally bridge the two.
4. Our 5 (collectively) adult children have roughly 5 different
circumstances and sensibilities about this pandemic. One is a
virologist who is already engaged in working directly on the
problem. Two others are owners of small businesses which are direct
personal service (crossfit gym and art framing-shop) and one is a
child social worker who supervises dozens of people whose everyday
job is to do home visits with families in crisis... this quarantine
situation puts some of those families at yet higher risk in several
ways. The fifth just got the diagnosis (this week) that his wife
very likely has a cancer that will need/deserve surgery AND
chemo/rad ASAP. Juggling our advice/support across this
diversity is a challenge, though a tiny fraction I think of what
*many* have to face.
5. Mary is intrinsically more concerned about her personal health than
I tend to be (about my own) which means she is moderately more
healthy but at the same time more fragile in her concerns. She
took two weeks to recover from a COVID_like flu with bacterial
(sinus) complications just a month ago... had that hit a week or two
later, we would have had to respond *as-if* it were COVID19. She
did give over to a doc visit who threw antibiotics at her, and the
secondary sinus (with fever) cleared up in days. I have no idea
how that would have unfolded under the current shadows.
6. I just glanced through Barry's post just now and was reminded of the
issue of Asymptomatic transmission vs what I prefer to think of as
Presymptomatic. Presymptomatic includes some coughing and sneezing
that you don't attribute to an illness (yet)... if you are an
annual allergy sufferer, for example, it could be easy to assume the
increased sneezing is an allergy (and it might be!) right up until
you get hit with a fever or discover someone in your social network
is symptomatic/positive.
Blah blah,
- Steve
> Gillian writes:
>
> "One side of that is you have a higher risk getting hit by a car than
> not making it through this, what ever it is. "
>
> In 2018 in Italy, there were 3,325 fatalities from road accidents.[1]
> There have been 4,032 fatalities from COVID-19 so far. The
> governor of California announced that 56% of the state could contract
> the virus.[2] Extrapolating that to the whole country, an
> uncontrolled outbreak would kill about 1.8 million people at a 1%
> fatality rate. There were 33,654 road fatalities in the United
> States in 2018.
> Stay at home.
>
> Marcus
>
> [1]
> https://www.statista.com/statistics/437928/number-of-road-deaths-in-italy/
> [2] https://abc7news.com/6029302/
> [3] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Gillian
> Densmore <gil.densmore at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 21, 2020 6:53 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Outbreak Simulation
>
> Mmm. Well. That is true our medical system is a fragile mess as is. My
> concern that I realize is a pretty unpopular opinion is a total lack
> of perspective. One side of that is you have a higher risk getting hit
> by a car than not making it through this, what ever it is. I gather
> the real issue isn't that, it's people who for what ever reason don't
> quite stay at some dry caugh cold, nasty flue like stage but then
> also get just nastily congested lungs that need sterrioids and oxygen.
> And all of that on top of a surreal amount of hyping up the negative
> and turning it into a WWF style match from media. "PANDEMIC 2000
> (PANDEMIC, DEMIC EPIDEMIC MOOONSTER DEMIC RACING 2020!!! ALL
> THE...SAME SOUND BYTES NOW WITH MORE COWBELL!!!" I don't know if
> that'll read well in text. Anyone that was a kid of the 80s(us) and
> they'd have this truck rally adds on Saturdays and Sometimes Sundays.
> I imagine how that'd sound with this Max-Hendroomy thing of turning
> this epidemic into something like that. As if it's a 80s WWF wrestling
> match
>
> But then also the scientists I don't think are saying lock yourself
> inside.(yet) Pretty disturbing to call 'Eh well try to avoid people'
> as Social Distancing.
>
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 11:49 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com
> <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>
>
> It’s not about stalling for a treatment, it is to pace the
> hospital arrivals.
>
>> On Mar 20, 2020, at 10:44 PM, Gillian Densmore
>> <gil.densmore at gmail.com <mailto:gil.densmore at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> fuck "social distancing" this "shelter in place" shit has the
>> assumption that we'll pull a rabbit out of our ass in 2-3 months
>> tops. When in the history of medicine has that ever happend? I
>> don't want people hurt by it. Drumming up more hysteria than the
>> news already does isn't helping matters either.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 5:01 PM Merle Lefkoff
>> <merlelefkoff at gmail.com <mailto:merlelefkoff at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Below is information I just saw from the Center for American
>> Progress on strategies to insure the election process can
>> move forward. This is in answer to Nick's (and my) concern.
>>
>>
>> Expand opportunities for people to vote from home or at
>> quarantine locations
>>
>> States should think seriously about adopting all vote-by-mail
>> <https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/all-mail-elections.aspx> elections
>> with vote centers or other in-person options for people who
>> prefer or need them. States such as Colorado, Oregon, and
>> Washington have already implemented all-mail elections with
>> great success, and Hawaii will begin implementing
>> <https://elections.hawaii.gov/voters/hawaii-votes-by-mail/> all-mail
>> voting during the 2020 elections. Another option is to
>> adopt no-excuse absentee voting
>> <https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx> and
>> extend deadlines for requesting absentee ballots. A handful
>> of states have permanent absentee voting
>> <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/21/for-many-americans-election-day-is-already-here/>lists,
>> whereby every registered voter who signs up receives an
>> absentee ballot each election. As a precaution for upcoming
>> elections, jurisdictions should automatically mail
>> <https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/capitol-ideas/mc-nws-pa-coronavirus-primary-election-mail-voting-20200312-rs7mnligozbv3f6m2wlrvr37ny-story.html>a
>> ballot to each registered voter well in advance of voting
>> periods. Voters should be able to return their ballots by
>> mail or by dropping their voted ballot off at conveniently
>> located secure drop boxes or at drive-up, drop-off locations.
>> Ballot envelopes should be self-sealing to protect
>> <https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/election-polling-locations.html> the
>> health and safety of election workers who handle absentee
>> ballots. All absentee ballots postmarked on or before
>> Election Day must be counted even if they are ultimately
>> received days later due to postal service delays.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 1:56 PM Marcus Daniels
>> <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I thought this was kind of interesting.
>>
>>
>>
>> https://us.dantelabs.com/pages/coronavirus
>>
>>
>>
>> If they were doing something like this, might be able to
>> collect both the viral and human data from one sample:
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.illumina.com/content/dam/illumina-marketing/documents/products/appnotes/ngs-coronavirus-app-note-1270-2020-001.pdf
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
>> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> on behalf of Frank
>> Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com>>
>> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
>> Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>> *Date: *Friday, March 20, 2020 at 12:02 PM
>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] Outbreak Simulation
>>
>>
>>
>> Don't go to sleep, please
>>
>>
>>
>> I think our institutions are more robust and durable than
>> you do.
>>
>>
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 12:55 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com
>> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, Y’all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Just got done with the FRIAM ZOOM session, which
>> seemed to divide into two sessions, equally
>> interesting, but quite different. Session one was an
>> expert discussion of the complexity dynamics of the
>> pandemic and how technology could be used to maximize
>> privacy while slowing transmission. Session two was
>> an exploration of what it is actually going to be
>> like to live through the next six months, and what,
>> if anything we should be doing, psychologically and
>> practically, to prepare ourselves for it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Most riveting quote of the day, perhaps more riveting
>> because it was so paradoxical:
>>
>>
>>
>> “One thing you better have in mind as you plunge into
>> a phase transition is a clear idea of how you want
>> the world to look like after you come through it.”
>>
>>
>>
>> Most actionable suggestion of the day:
>>
>>
>>
>> Insist by every means possible that local and state
>> election officials begin to plan (and practice in the
>> primaries) a non-in-person voting system that will be
>> regarded as legitimate by the general public.
>>
>>
>>
>> Personally, speaking for myself, I was left with one
>> meta-question:
>>
>>
>>
>> How much time do we devote to trying to imagine the
>> unimaginable. One the one hand, it seems like we
>> have to; on the otherhand, trying to do it is so
>> scarey that it runs the risk of bringing all thought
>> to a stop.
>>
>>
>>
>> I know how to handle it individually: If I start to
>> panic, I just climb into bed, imagine that I am never
>> going to wake up, and go to sleep. But
>> conversation-wise, I am not so sure. Perhaps agree
>> to devote small portion of the conversation to
>> catastrophic thinking, with a clear boundary?
>> Assuming we can do that, here is my suggestion for a
>> catastrophic discussion:
>>
>>
>>
>> Worse than the worst predictions for the virus acting
>> alone, are the consequences of the virus acting in
>> concert with a total collapse of our institututions,
>> food production, distributution, our elections,
>> public order, etc. (e.g., Who is going to plant and
>> pick the crops if the borders are closed? Draft
>> out-of-school college students?) Our country is run
>> by a gerontocracy, which, being human, will try above
>> all to protect themselves. But they will mosty fail,
>> in any case, because they are the most vulnerable.
>> What if, in their vain attempt to protect themselves,
>> they bring down the whole?
>>
>>
>>
>> Ok. Now I am going to bed.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
>> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of
>> *Jon Zingale
>> *Sent:* Friday, March 20, 2020 12:02 PM
>> *To:* friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Outbreak Simulation
>>
>>
>>
>> At home, we are discussing the effect of the virus
>> and the effect
>>
>> of social distancing on individuals that rely on soup
>> kitchens.
>>
>> What strategies can Friam produce for feeding these
>> people
>>
>> that is consistent with the social distancing strategy?
>>
>> For bonus points, please justify posted strategies
>> with a model,
>>
>> or simulation.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jon
>>
>> ============================================================
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>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org <http://emergentdiplomacy.org>
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>> merlelefkoff at gmail.com <mailto:merlelefoff at gmail.com>
>> mobile: (303) 859-5609
>> skype: merle.lelfkoff2
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>> ============================================================
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>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>> <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> by Dr. Strangelove
>>
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>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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> ============================================================
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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