What is your plan for re-opening?

[Flying Crane]

Statement released from the WHO today that transmission of the Covid-19 virus from someone who is asymptomatic is very rare.

Follow up discussion indicates it’s not quite that simple. Ignore social distancing and the wearing of masks at your peril.

Are asymptomatic people spreading the coronavirus? A WHO official’s words spark confusion, debate

 

[jobo]

Follow up discussion indicates it’s not quite that simple. Ignore social distancing and the wearing of masks at your peril.

Are asymptomatic people spreading the coronavirus? A WHO official’s words spark confusion, debate

well thats WHO back tracking some what

thanks for posting that i confused Gerry and wasted a lot of words explaining that, that, was most certainly wrong, well more exact simplistically inaccurate

when these few words sum it up well
Some countries using contact tracing to work backward from confirmed cases have not found many instances of asymptomatic spread, WHO officials noted. At the same time, WHO officials acknowledged on Tuesday some modeling studies have suggested as much as 41 percent of transmission may be due to asymptomatic people.

or to be even more succinct WHO couldnt find their **** with a flash light

 

[dvcochran]

Follow up discussion indicates it’s not quite that simple. Ignore social distancing and the wearing of masks at your peril.

Are asymptomatic people spreading the coronavirus? A WHO official’s words spark confusion, debate

Yep, even within WHO itself, who know what the hell to believe? I have lost a good amount of respect for this entity.

 

[jobo]

Yep, even within WHO itself, who know what the hell to believe? I have lost a good amount of respect for this entity.

by any reasonable measure they have failed at every step.

their almost sole reason for being is to stop epidemics becoming pandemics and for one reason or another( but mostly i suspect through political pressure from the Chinese government) they didnt sound the warning bell till it had become a trans national disease.

then they went to the other extreme and started being hysterically over the top about what should be done, whilst ignoring that their recommended actions would be at least as harmful to most people as the disease. allowing that the spread of the disease was largely their fault in the first place

now they have flipped the other way, (possibly because of politic pressure from the american and other western governments), and are significantly down playing it

there are serious lesson after all this is sorted out, that WHO are not fit for purpose

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Follow up discussion indicates it’s not quite that simple. Ignore social distancing and the wearing of masks at your peril.

Are asymptomatic people spreading the coronavirus? A WHO official’s words spark confusion, debate

Yep. An over-simplified statement that left some confusion.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yep, even within WHO itself, who know what the hell to believe? I have lost a good amount of respect for this entity.

The science at the moment is inexact, evolving, and confined to using pretty broad ranges, so nobody (WHO included) is able to give accurate, un-nuanced statements. It’s the sounds bytes that make them seem confused.

 

[jobo]

The science at the moment is inexact, evolving, and confined to using pretty broad ranges, so nobody (WHO included) is able to give accurate, un-nuanced statements. It’s the sounds bytes that make them seem confused.

its not an emerging science, the science is very well established, and they have near six months worth of data,,, the problem seems to lye with gathering and interpreting that data or more exact, choosing which data to gather and how that can be done

IF and its a big if, some of the data ive seen recently is true, that 80% of people are asymptomatic and few of those are ( highly) contagious and the seriously ill / dead % is circa one % of the symptomatic population and that one % is mostly made up of a discrete demographic, then the whole strategy was wrong, not over protective wrong but dangerously under protective for the at risk population wrong, and they really should know which if any of those are so by now

a system of data recovery that only gets to the nuts and bolts after the pandemic has passed, and people who could have been saved are dead and untold economic damage has been done, is woefully inadequate. and whose fault would that be, ?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

its not an emerging science, the science is very well established, and they have near six months worth of data,,, the problem seems to lye with gathering and interpreting that data or more exact, choosing which data to gather and how that can be done

IF and its a big if, some of the data ive seen recently is true, that 80% of people are asymptomatic and few of those are ( highly) contagious and the seriously ill / dead % is circa one % of the symptomatic population and that one % is mostly made up of a discrete demographic, then the whole strategy was wrong, not over protective wrong but dangerously under protective for the at risk population wrong, and they really should know which if any of those are so by now

a system of data recovery that only gets to the nuts and bolts after the pandemic has passed, and people who could have been saved are dead and untold economic damage has been done, is woefully inadequate. and whose fault would that be, ?

6 months of data isn’t as much as you seem to think. Those data are not consistent in categorization, methodology, selection, and other areas. They are quite incomplete.

Science around this particular virus is less than a year old. That’s really new in scientific terms, and well within the period you’d expect to see a lot of new discovery, conflicting data, and much else you attribute to incompetence.

There is much that cannot be known without much wider testing, more time, and more data.

 

[jobo]

6 months of data isn’t as much as you seem to think. Those data are not consistent in categorization, methodology, selection, and other areas. They are quite incomplete.

Science around this particular virus is less than a year old. That’s really new in scientific terms, and well within the period you’d expect to see a lot of new discovery, conflicting data, and much else you attribute to incompetence.

There is much that cannot be known without much wider testing, more time, and more data.

6 months of data and 400,000 deaths is 6 months of data about 400,000 deaths, that exactly what i think it is, how can it be less ?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

6 months of data and 400,000 deaths is 6 months of data about 400,000 deaths, that exactly what i think it is, how can it be less ?

That’s a description of a time period and number of deaths, not a description of an amount of data.

 

[jobo]

That’s a description of a time period and number of deaths, not a description of an amount of data.

well yes it is, they are both a description of an amount of data or are you saying that time of 6 and deaths of 400,000 isnt an amount or data ???????????????

 

[Gerry Seymour]

well yes it is, they are both a description of an amount of data or are you saying that time of 6 and deaths of 400,000 isnt an amount or data ???????????????

Yes. That's precisely what I'm saying.

Having spent a fair amount of my career doing data analysis, I have some understanding of what goes on with data. You're talking about a moderate amount of data points with the deaths, but there's not much consistent data collected between those (medical data isn't consistent between countries nor often within a country, and is also inherently full of uncontrolled variables). The 6 months is largely irrelevant as a descriptor. In this case, 6 months worth of data on the progression of the virus gives a reasonable start for analyzing transmissibility and virus life cycle in the wild. But that data is also inherently incomplete and highly variable, so you're left with a relatively small core of points that can be effectively analyzed to any level of certainty.

All of that, along with the fact that there's no magical feed directly to any one organization - each country (in the US, each state - probably similar issue in some other countries) is gathering data, so that's a bunch of similar, but not identical data collections. They won't all collect the same bits, nor call them the same thing, nor use the same classifications, nor store them in the same format, nor have the same ability to store and transmit them.

Deeper analysis (to attempt to control for confounding variables) takes quite a bit of time. The data that is now available will mean more in a year, because it simply takes time. And by that time, we'll also have more data.

But if you can do better than the data experts, go for it.

 

[jobo]

Yes. That's precisely what I'm saying.

Having spent a fair amount of my career doing data analysis, I have some understanding of what goes on with data. You're talking about a moderate amount of data points with the deaths, but there's not much consistent data collected between those (medical data isn't consistent between countries nor often within a country, and is also inherently full of uncontrolled variables). The 6 months is largely irrelevant as a descriptor. In this case, 6 months worth of data on the progression of the virus gives a reasonable start for analyzing transmissibility and virus life cycle in the wild. But that data is also inherently incomplete and highly variable, so you're left with a relatively small core of points that can be effectively analyzed to any level of certainty.

All of that, along with the fact that there's no magical feed directly to any one organization - each country (in the US, each state - probably similar issue in some other countries) is gathering data, so that's a bunch of similar, but not identical data collections. They won't all collect the same bits, nor call them the same thing, nor use the same classifications, nor store them in the same format, nor have the same ability to store and transmit them.

Deeper analysis (to attempt to control for confounding variables) takes quite a bit of time. The data that is now available will mean more in a year, because it simply takes time. And by that time, we'll also have more data.

But if you can do better than the data experts, go for it.

id hesitate to call my self a data expert, but statistical analyse was a component in both of my post grad qualification and was a big part of what my employer thought i was doing whilst i was mostly sat in coffee shops

this pandemic is not a surprise its been predicted and modelled and drilled for decades.

so knowing IT was coming, even if you dont know specifically was IT was or when it was coming. that gives you the imperative to consider what data should be collected and by what means and by who and to put measures in place for that to be so

The very fact that different govenments set off on different data trails is a clear indecation of the lack of planning

however even with that issue, knowing what data you want and how the data being provided differs from that allows you to weight the data.

so for instance, the UK govenment were collecting data from hospitals whilst not collecting data from the ''community'', this excluded a significant number of cases from the figures, in the fact the death toll in old peoples homes at least equalled the death toll in hospitals AND most importantly complete changed the demographic of the deaths. a simple question Does the data included care homes ? should have been asked

Now WHO should have insisted on accurate data collection( they should have insisted on the data they had previously agreed with governments should be provided) and if not forth coming should at the very least have viewed the data as very suspect and have included a significant margin of error in the modelling to account for this, you dont wait till the end to account for variables that should be built in to your modelling software

bBUT they had 6 months of data, 400.000 deaths and 200 countries, that more than enough data to get an accurate picture of who the at risk groups were, with some data manipulation to account for variables as above

 

[dvcochran]

Yes. That's precisely what I'm saying.

Having spent a fair amount of my career doing data analysis, I have some understanding of what goes on with data. You're talking about a moderate amount of data points with the deaths, but there's not much consistent data collected between those (medical data isn't consistent between countries nor often within a country, and is also inherently full of uncontrolled variables). The 6 months is largely irrelevant as a descriptor. In this case, 6 months worth of data on the progression of the virus gives a reasonable start for analyzing transmissibility and virus life cycle in the wild. But that data is also inherently incomplete and highly variable, so you're left with a relatively small core of points that can be effectively analyzed to any level of certainty.

All of that, along with the fact that there's no magical feed directly to any one organization - each country (in the US, each state - probably similar issue in some other countries) is gathering data, so that's a bunch of similar, but not identical data collections. They won't all collect the same bits, nor call them the same thing, nor use the same classifications, nor store them in the same format, nor have the same ability to store and transmit them.

Deeper analysis (to attempt to control for confounding variables) takes quite a bit of time. The data that is now available will mean more in a year, because it simply takes time. And by that time, we'll also have more data.

But if you can do better than the data experts, go for it.

I fully agree with what you say. Data mining is a true term in the idea that you do not know what you may find. And while you are generally looking for a certain thing(s) you usually test/inspect/review everything. Not always but usually. It may take time to realize something you have been throwing away has value. When you get flooded with data from numerous sources this is a very tall order. I think this is exactly what is happening right not. Being afraid to throw away any data and trying to figure out what is and is not important.
Time and experience are huge assets in this effort.

Since the CDC and WHO are at the top level of this analysis they are, or should be best positioned to aggregate the data into useful pieces. Frankly, I am not certain if my frustration is with them or the medias never ending rhetoric and twisting of information.
I really appreciate how our Aussie friends government simply said "we don't know" when they said to expect a rise in cases as their society returns to normal activity. Simple and factual. Most everything else is minutia in the still unknown details, useless to the average working person.

 

[dvcochran]

id hesitate to call my self a data expert, but statistical analyse was a component in both of my post grad qualification and was a big part of what my employer thought i was doing whilst i was mostly sat in coffee shops

this pandemic is not a surprise its been predicted and modelled and drilled for decades.

so knowing IT was coming, even if you dont know specifically was IT was or when it was coming. that gives you the imperative to consider what data should be collected and by what means and by who and to put measures in place for that to be so

The very fact that different govenments set off on different data trails is a clear indecation of the lack of planning

however even with that issue, knowing what data you want and how the data being provided differs from that allows you to weight the data.

so for instance, the UK govenment were collecting data from hospitals whilst not collecting data from the ''community'', this excluded a significant number of cases from the figures, in the fact the death toll in old peoples homes at least equalled the death toll in hospitals AND most importantly complete changed the demographic of the deaths.

Now WHO should have insisted on accurate data collection( they should have insisted on the data they had previously agreed with governments should be provided) and if not forth coming should at the very least have viewed the data as very suspect and have included a significant margin of error in the modelling to account for this

If it were only that easy. There are SO many influencers affecting the data gathering process. The most prominent to me are the deaths being classified as COVID related that are not due to the financial gains of the classification and such.

 

[_Simon_]

A man at the protest in Melbourne developed symptoms 24 hours after the protest. He's tested positive. Estimated there were about 10,000 people there on the Saturday. All quite tightly packed in there. Oh boy...

 

[jobo]

If it were only that easy. There are SO many influencers affecting the data gathering process. The most prominent to me are the deaths being classified as COVID related that are not due to the financial gains of the classification and such.

well simple isnt the word, data collection and aylisis is anything but,,,, BUT there a data collection companies who can predict the out come of elections to remarkable accuracy with only a few thousand data points, coz they understand the variables and account for them. analysing the data is the easy part., analysing the data to ensure you have accurate data is tricky

what they clearly needed was EXPERTS, what they got was anything but. they should have passed the whole thing to gallop to do, if they didn't ( and they clearly didn't) have that expertise in house.

you were warning about the over diagnosis of cases two months ago, did any one tell, WHO ?

 

[Headhunter]

A man at the protest in Melbourne developed symptoms 24 hours after the protest. He's tested positive. Estimated there were about 10,000 people there on the Saturday. All quite tightly packed in there. Oh boy...

Human stupidity. You can’t beat it

 

[jobo]

A man at the protest in Melbourne developed symptoms 24 hours after the protest. He's tested positive. Estimated there were about 10,000 people there on the Saturday. All quite tightly packed in there. Oh boy...

well 24 hours is on the short side for developing symptoms( its seems) so there is a fair good change he had contracted the virus before that

 

[_Simon_]

well 24 hours is on the short side for developing symptoms( its seems) so there is a fair good change he had contracted the virus before that

Yeah they seem to think he didn't contract it at the protest like you said, but that he was potentially infectious at the time if he had it. Who knows..