People Scaremongering About Millions of Deaths Don't Understand How Viruses or Statistics Work.

First, regarding the need for quarantines at this point. My understanding of this kind of virus is that it spreads extremely quickly. If it has an average incubation period of two weeks and we first noticed it about three months ago, that means two things. One, the virus is probably close to four months old. Two, the virus has probably already spread to a majority of the population of the world. As such, why are we quarantining young people three to four months later? It would make sense to quarantine older and at-risk people based upon the (probably very low) chance that they have not yet been exposed to the virus but to quarantine people who are not at-risk three months later probably does almost nothing to help.

Second, I feel as if this has happened because people don't understand how statistics work. Using the classic shark attack example, your chances of being attacked by a shark are incredibly low -- but they go up dramatically if you spend a lot of time swimming with sharks. The shark attack numbers we get presented with for the general population, most of whom will never be swimming around a shark in their entire lives, those numbers actually tell us nothing about sharks. Similarly, our current death rate for COVID-19 is based largely off of people who needed to be hospitalized. Putting that at around 4% ignores that most of the population was likely already infected and that nothing happened to them. But extrapolating from this percentage, we can imagine that there'd be millions of dead and so we get panic and quarantines, four months into something that has a two week-long timer. It's dumb.

Also, let's look at this China thing. They've claimed to have had their first day with no new cases in Wuhan. Lots of people claim that they're lying. I've noticed that people want to believe the Chinese when they release bad news but want to believe they're lying when they release good news. Yet their statements square with similar rates of decline in South Korea and Japan. It's also inline with what we would expect should this Coronavirus have the traits that are typical of such viruses. But no, they must be lying, buy toilet paper before it's too late.

Finally, to all the little bitches who say that anyone who disagrees with the status quo must want millions of people to die or that they must be selfish. The really dangerous and selfish people are those who stockpile goods at the last minute so that others can't get access to them. If this had been a real crisis, basic (and easily supplied) goods like toilet paper would have gone into a shortage because of those literal dumbshits. It's those same people who say that you must want to be a mass murderer if you don't panic. Scum.

 

a little fear and the sheep march to slaughter.

 

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

Tell you what

Why don’t you write to the authors of this report and tell them what they got wrong.....

 

That isn't true. It took time for the virus to spread to different countries and communities and even when the first infections reach a location doesn't mean ever individual there is instantly exposed at that point. It will naturally take a couple of months for the virus to go through the cycle of infecting everyone who will eventually get infected in any given community.

The measures being taken are, somewhat ironically, as much about extending that period so the impact on healthcare services isn't as sudden but, done well, it could reduce the extent of the infection too.

There has certainly been some ignorant reporting around the statistics (as is so often the case) but it's worth noting that doesn't mean the 3%-4% figure is wrong or "fake news" as long as it is presented in the correct context. The problem is that while the scientists and professionals present statistics in context, that tends to get lost (due to ignorance or intent) when they're repeated by the media or politicians.

From America at least, I think that is more about the nationalists desire to attack China by whatever means is available. There is certainly a lot of propaganda and spin that comes out of the Chinese government but I'm not actually convinced it's much more than any other. The main difference with this is that there are fewer independent news sources to capable of reasonably questioning and challenging them.