Overcoming the "zero deaths" fallacy.

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There has to be a balance between corona virus denial and corona virus hysteria. Right now we are in the middle of the crisis. We are all hunkering down at home, and we are all accepting this disruption in our lives.

But this will end. At some point we are going to have to leave the safety of our houses and resume living life. And when we do this we will be forced to take risks because life has always had risks.

There is a path between the two extremes. Before this crisis I hugged my friends. I shook hands with colleagues. I went to a crowded gym to watch my nephew wrestle. I bought tacos from a truck. I took a vacation on a crowded airplane. If you asked me before the crisis if there was a risk of dying from a virus from these activities... the answer would have been "sure". There is always a risk. We live our lives anyway.

The idea that we can accept "zero deaths" means that we can't dance, we can't hug our friends, we can't see plays or go to a baseball game or take trips..... We aren't going to live this way after the virus any more than we did before the virus.

This pandemic is a special case. We are responding to a short term crisis from a novel virus. During the crisis we should respond appropriately as a society, and it seems like we are. This is rare, although has happened before. It will end.

There is a path between the two extremes. But remember that when this ends (and it will end) we need to get back to living life with all of its risks and joys.

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@maxdancona,

Well said indeed life is a risk and of all the many risks we run everyday this Virus seem down the list of risks.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

I think you are on the opposite extreme Bill.

I think you greatly minimizing the risk of the virus... particularly to the health care system. Even if you are correct and this is just a bad season of the flu, that still means we need double the amount of hospital beds than usual for respiratory illnesses.

I am advocating for a rational middle here.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Note that so far the hospitals are not running out of capabilities to care for all those who need treatments and the only if the insane figures of future maximum demands are true do we have problems.

As those worst cases possible predictions are not showing any thing near to becoming true the whole things seems to be false doom days prediction similar to the computers date roll over problem that was sold as being the end of our society.

PS take note also that all those emergency spill over hospitals are not being call into service in any repeat any meaningful manner.

2 Replies

@BillRM,

Bill, you are being ridiculous. The fact is that hospitals in New York and new jersey have already been overwhelmed. You can argue your opinion, but the facts are against you.

The facts are so clearly against your argument this discussion doesn't interest me.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Bill, you are being ridiculous. The fact is that hospitals in New York and new jersey have already been overwhelmed. You can argue your opinion, but the facts are against you.

The facts are so clearly against your argument this discussion doesn't interest me.

My my so those emergency hospitals are being floods with patients including the two hospitals ships an the sport arenas with their thousands of beds. Oh I forgot the hospitals set up under tents in Central Park with all the needed gear to care for an treat the virus victims.

Quote:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-usns-comfort.html

USNS Comfort Hospital Ship Was Supposed to Aid New York ...www.nytimes.com › nyregion › ny-coronavirus-usns-comfort
Apr 2, 2020 - The Navy hospital ship Comfort has been docked at Pier 90 in Manhattan since its arrival on Monday. ... Only 20 patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even ... After The New York Times published an article with that number, ... As a precaution, the ship's crew isolated for two weeks before ...

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@BillRM,

Quote:

Note that so far the hospitals are not running out of capabilities to care for all those who need treatments...

I believe those projections reflected the conditions — supply of PPE and rate of infection — at that time. The dire predictions of shortages resulted in more aid being made available more quickly (not enough and probably not distributed "fairly" but that's another discussion), and social distancing may have slowed the rate of infection, so the fact that the worst case scenarios didn't happen shouldn't make us automatically doubt the accuracy and value of scientific projections.

And we don't know what's going to happen next, either. At this point we have no idea how long the pandemic will last. We haven't had to face the problem of reinfection yet, but it's becoming a concern in some of the Asian countries which are further along, on the downside of the curve, people who "recover" and get sick again. There's the question of seasonality as well and whether the rates of infection fall in the warmer months like the flu — when we know the answer we'll change our projections. If predictions of doom cause people to change the behavior which would lead to doom, the doomsayers have done their job.

1 Reply

@hightor,

This is a thread about taking a rational moderate path. On one side are the denialists who want to do nothing. On the other side are the "doomsayers" who want to take every measure no matter how extreme.

This thread is not intended to be another place for the to extremes to yell at each other.

The facts on one side are:

1. There is a new virus that is making a lot of people very sick very quickly.

3. Scientists admit uncertainty, but there seems to be a consensus of a significant chance that millions of people would die the US without social distancing.

4. Social distancing is believed by the experts to slow down the spread of the disease and there is good evidence that this is the case.

The facts on the other side are:

5. There is great uncertainty over how many people will get sick and die if this virus is allowed take its course. The experts openly admit this.

6. Social distancing measure come with a very high cost. There is suffering caused by the measures we are taking.

7. We will need to have a discussion about what measures are reasonable given the costs. The idea that "zero risk is acceptable" doesn't work in reality. In truth we make these decisions all of the time from eating table sugar to taking daily aspirin.

This is another issue where everyone takes one of two extremes

Is everyone here backed into their own extreme ideological corners? Or is there room for people to discuss the issues and make rational choices in the middle?

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It so happens that I just had influenza A about five weeks ago, but the fact is that as things were before, I would have had a perfectly reasonable chance of going out and getting close to people but never in my life getting influenza A or B. Furthermore, it was only 10% as lethal as coronavirus. Yes, there was risk before, but it wasn't very high.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

This thread is not intended to be another place for the to extremes to yell at each other.

Who's "yelling"?

Quote:

This is another issue where everyone takes one of two extremes

Where have I taken "one of two extremes"?

I was suggesting, to BillRM, that the difference between the estimate and the reality is likely the result of different conditions brought about by changes in the way the threat is perceived and how quickly the pace of relief is stepped up.

2 Replies

@hightor,

Quote:

Where have I taken "one of two extremes"?

What I mean by "extreme" is that you only accept the facts that are offered by your side of the argument. If you are not taking one of the extremes, then you accept there are valid facts on both sides of the issue.

I may have missed something, but I have not seen you do this.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

If you are not taking one of the extremes, then you accept there are valid facts on both sides of the issue.

I wasn't aware that there were any "sides to the issue". There's widespread infection in the country. Various efforts are being made to care for the ill and prevent further spread of the disease. We assume that eventually it will be over. Do you have facts that disprove these observations? I don't see where I've taken any "extreme" position and I don't understand why you brought the matter up.

1 Reply

@hightor,

Quote:

I wasn't aware that there were any "sides to the issue".

You are describing group think, where anyone who doesn't agree with you doesn't count. Of course there are multiple points of view.

China used a military dictatorship to clamp down on movement and keep people inside. Sweden gave "suggestions" but has left restaurants and schools open and allowed people mingle as they see fit.

Some people think wearing masks in public is essential. Other people (including epidemiologists) think they are excessive and maybe even counterproductive.

Then there is the discussion on when we should open the economy again. Some people here are saying "zero deaths are acceptable". Other people believe there needs to be a balance between public health and economic needs.

Are you willing to accept that there are valid points of view other than yours?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

You are describing group think, where anyone who doesn't agree with you doesn't count.

What have I said that anyone would disagree with? I basically set out a few different possibilities that would be likely to influence people's viewpoints. Who said anything about other viewpoints not counting? I was responding to BillRM's comment about scientific predictions and whether they overstated the likely intensity and course of the pandemic.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Quote:
This thread is not intended to be another place for the to extremes to yell at each other.

Who's "yelling"?

Quote:

This is another issue where everyone takes one of two extremes

Where have I taken "one of two extremes"?

I was suggesting, to BillRM, that the difference between the estimate and the reality is likely the result of different conditions brought about by changes in the way the threat is perceived and how quickly the pace of relief is stepped up.

Computer modeling is an interesting tool however modeling results can greatly variant with very tiny starting assumptions changes.

See the example of the 1970s club of Rome project that predicted that all manner of resources needed to keep our civilization going was going to ran out in a decade or so.

This Project had one hell of a large budget with at the time some of the best computer modeling people in that field.

Setting up such models can get any result you are assuming are the most likely correct by adjusting the models to discard results you do not think are reasonable an that can be done with no desire to rigged the models.

2 Replies

@BillRM,

Yup. Thanks, Bill.

0 Replies

@BillRM,

Quote:

Computer modeling is an interesting tool however modeling results can greatly variant with very tiny starting assumptions changes.

See the example of the 1970s club of Rome project that predicted that all manner of resources needed to keep our civilization going was going to ran out in a decade or so.

This is an anti-science stance. I have to defend science.

First of all, the Club of Rome was a fringe political organization from the start. It was never part of the scientific establishment. It is not even a good example.

Even if you can find a couple of examples over the past 50 years (BillRm went back 50 years for his example)-- you can probably find a dozen, computer modeling has been incredibly useful and accurate the majority of the time. Not only do computer models predict weather event well enough that we now take it for granted... they even predict what you want to buy on Amazon fairly accurately (if you are honest).

Not all computer models have the same quality. A model built by scientists with expertise and data can build a quite accurate model. A model built by a political group, not so much. Scientists have a way of quantifying the certainty of their model.

It is too convenient to discard science when you don't like the results. Science tends to be correct anyway.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
Computer modeling is an interesting tool however modeling results can greatly variant with very tiny starting assumptions changes.

See the example of the 1970s club of Rome project that predicted that all manner of resources needed to keep our civilization going was going to ran out in a decade or so.

This is an anti-science stance. I have to defend science.

First of all, the Club of Rome was a fringe political organization from the start. It was never part of the scientific establishment. It is not even a good example.

Even if you can find a couple of examples over the past 50 years (BillRm went back 50 years for his example)-- you can probably find a dozen, computer modeling has been incredibly useful and accurate the majority of the time. Not only do computer models predict weather event well enough that we now take it for granted... they even predict what you want to buy on Amazon fairly accurately (if you are honest).

Not all computer models have the same quality. A model built by scientists with expertise and data can build a quite accurate model. A model built by a political group, not so much. Scientists have a way of quantifying the certainty of their model.

It is too convenient to discard science when you don't like the results. Science tends to be correct anyway.

Interesting any questioning of the result of the art of computer modeling is anti scientific for some strange an I mean to me very strange reasons.

My background in computer modeling came in large part from a 600 level college course in Economic modeling that I happen to had enjoy greatly even given such models weaknesses that still exist to this day.

Still have the course book in my library many many decades later title 'Macroecononic Analysis ' that I had refer to over the years in playing with modeling of such subjects as of all things handicapping dogs races using an over all bell curve for the field and curves for the individual dogs along with probability theories.

In any case, models are just tools an in themselves no more scientific then the assumptions an starting conditions being use in the models no matter if the models are full of Difference equations an other higher mathematics elements.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

In any case, models are just tools an in themselves no more scientific then the assumptions an starting conditions being use in the models

I agree with this completely. In fact I said a similar thing here.

Quote:

In any case, models are just tools an in themselves no more scientific then the assumptions an starting conditions being use in the models

The greater amount of quality data you have, the more accurate the model. I might want to quibble later over the difference between scientific and economic modeling, but this point stands in either case.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
In any case, models are just tools an in themselves no more scientific then the assumptions an starting conditions being use in the models

I agree with this completely. In fact I said a similar thing here.

Quote:
In any case, models are just tools an in themselves no more scientific then the assumptions an starting conditions being use in the models

The greater amount of quality data you have, the more accurate the model. I might want to quibble later over the difference between scientific and economic modeling, but this point stands in either case.

Lol how is an economic model that attempt to predict the outcomes of human beings interacting with each other within the sphere of our economic system so difference from human beings interacting in connection to the spread of a virus?????

Now as far as the more information you have the better the predictions of modeling will be there is a sharp limit to that see chaos theory.

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