
Your biggest problem right now is denial - vl
https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/opinion-your-biggest-problem-right-now-is-denial-30ec87b3505
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ramblerman
Steve is a good writer, and at this point it's pretty clear everybody should
stay the f __* home, so I 'm all for pieces that achieve that.

That being said, I do hate fear mongering, and insinuating that the situation
in Italy is even worse than we may believe by a factor of 4 is a big stretch
and unecessary.

Some facts from Italian government institutes:

[1]
[https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-C...](https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-
COVID-2019_20_marzo_eng.pdf)

\- median age of death is 80

\- 87% of deaths above 70

\- 99% of deaths with 1 co-morbidity, and 74% with at least 2.

[2]
[http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/caldo/SISMG_sintesi_ULTIMO....](http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/caldo/SISMG_sintesi_ULTIMO.pdf)

\- deaths in March for above 65 year olds are still projecting lower than
previous years

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ebcode
This is a good rant. The anger is palpable and I dare say righteous. Good on
you, Steve.

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hawaiian
No it isn't.

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temporarycovid
I am the intended audience of this article; one of the people who the author
urges should be shamed into changing my beliefs.

I didn't find the article compelling. I read the entire thing. I see the
author as breathless and overdramatic, asserting beliefs as fact.

I believe that the virus is:

\- much less deadly (easily a tens of times less than the WHO number

\- much less contagious (a third of the "80% of the population" numbers
floating around social media)

\- much more treatable clinically, pharmaceutically, herbally than is made out

\- nearly over (weeks from leveling out where I live)

I predict that the flu season with vaccines this year will be worse than
corona virus with distancing measures.

~~~
babaganoosh89
The fatality rate is based off of having required facilities and equipment.
With those run out the fatality rate will jump from .5% to 5%.

~~~
temporarycovid
I don't think this is true.

The WHO published one number for case fatality rate. According to you, they
should have published two (or more) numbers.

The reality of the situation is that epidemiologists use certain fixed
constants to understand the virus as part of a very crude model. The WHO is
and was providing a number for this model. In these models, the distinction
you made is not captured whatsoever (thus "crude model").

The WHO got to its number based on averaging unreliable data. This has two
problems. The first is garbage in, garbage out. The second is that this
averaging is an unscientific method.

I get what you're trying to say though, and broadly agree. Epidemiology
models, insisting on a single fatality number, are so crude they are nearly
not useful for making predictions.

