COVID-19 Thoughts: Apr 6th 2020
I saw a meme about people wiping out stores of hand sanitizer with a caption along the lines of "it only works if everyone else does it too".
This applies to Trump attempting to divert 3M shipments from other countries.
The second wave or Coronavirus will simply hit the US quicker and harder linearly with how the countries it needs to deal with are impacted.
It is pointless to resolve the cases domestically, before a vaccine is approved and ready, if you can't also restore business and travel (the two are highly connected after all).
While business is often seen as impersonal, these times actually allow us to see through how humanitarian efforts need to be global efforts and not domestic ones.
The other thought was on whether or not governments should release the modelling and data they have to the public. I live in Ontario, and our Premiere shared ours. And frankly, I think it is pointless if that is all that we're going to get. 3 different sets of numbers illustrating the best, worst and likely scenarios. Every one of us has seen this data a million times from a million different sources. There was nothing new, or interesting in the data.
Also, the numbers are low compared to what we're seeing elsewhere. Ontario is only a fraction of the national or global populations. While any death is bad, the truth is, it didn't answer any questions for me. It was just an ad for "Flattening the curve". And it was ineffective AF.
It also says very little about the model selected, or the assumptions made. While being presented as being the information that the Premiere gets. I'll be honest. I think he gets a LOT more information than that.
I'm still not sure whether sharing information with the public on this matter is right or not. But, I don't think that if you're going to share it, that this is the way that it should be done. You should either release everything, regularly, with full documentation. Or, what is released should be considered and weigh vs. the potential impact.
As I said, everyone has heard of "flattening the curve" by now, and seen the charts. And had them explained. This was nothing more than a re-hash.
Personally, what I think people want to know is where we think we are on the curve. How long until measures start being relaxed. And how long until measures can be eliminated entirely.
I know that no one can promise these dates. But, I'll bet my ass that internally they have projections of all this as well. And I'll bet that telling people "you have a chance of going back to work in June if you follow the rules, but could be delayed until September, or even next year if you don't" would put a much more realistic spin on it for people.
The projections also focused on deaths. But, I think we need to know total infections and number of serious cases projected as well.
15k people at it's height vs 13.6 million in the population? That is about 0.1% of the population. NO DOUBT. That is a tragic number. But, it is also the same as saying "look around the nearest 999 people. One of you will die". Not as threatening as the sort of stats people are used to hearing. And that is the worst case.
This applies to Trump attempting to divert 3M shipments from other countries.
The second wave or Coronavirus will simply hit the US quicker and harder linearly with how the countries it needs to deal with are impacted.
It is pointless to resolve the cases domestically, before a vaccine is approved and ready, if you can't also restore business and travel (the two are highly connected after all).
While business is often seen as impersonal, these times actually allow us to see through how humanitarian efforts need to be global efforts and not domestic ones.
The other thought was on whether or not governments should release the modelling and data they have to the public. I live in Ontario, and our Premiere shared ours. And frankly, I think it is pointless if that is all that we're going to get. 3 different sets of numbers illustrating the best, worst and likely scenarios. Every one of us has seen this data a million times from a million different sources. There was nothing new, or interesting in the data.
Also, the numbers are low compared to what we're seeing elsewhere. Ontario is only a fraction of the national or global populations. While any death is bad, the truth is, it didn't answer any questions for me. It was just an ad for "Flattening the curve". And it was ineffective AF.
It also says very little about the model selected, or the assumptions made. While being presented as being the information that the Premiere gets. I'll be honest. I think he gets a LOT more information than that.
I'm still not sure whether sharing information with the public on this matter is right or not. But, I don't think that if you're going to share it, that this is the way that it should be done. You should either release everything, regularly, with full documentation. Or, what is released should be considered and weigh vs. the potential impact.
As I said, everyone has heard of "flattening the curve" by now, and seen the charts. And had them explained. This was nothing more than a re-hash.
Personally, what I think people want to know is where we think we are on the curve. How long until measures start being relaxed. And how long until measures can be eliminated entirely.
I know that no one can promise these dates. But, I'll bet my ass that internally they have projections of all this as well. And I'll bet that telling people "you have a chance of going back to work in June if you follow the rules, but could be delayed until September, or even next year if you don't" would put a much more realistic spin on it for people.
The projections also focused on deaths. But, I think we need to know total infections and number of serious cases projected as well.
15k people at it's height vs 13.6 million in the population? That is about 0.1% of the population. NO DOUBT. That is a tragic number. But, it is also the same as saying "look around the nearest 999 people. One of you will die". Not as threatening as the sort of stats people are used to hearing. And that is the worst case.
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