Coronavirus: COVID-19

[Mightysword]

The problem is that all the South-East Asia countries that are phraised by main stream media have miniscule testing numbers. They literally stopped testing, comparing to USA and Europe, yet they do nor collapse from COVID not are afraid about 2nd wave.

I can verify this is true, Vietnam did very few testing. If anything aside from a few wealthy countries, most others don't have the resource to do it on large scale anyway. But geographically it has some advantages going for it. First most countries are homogeneous so immigration traffic is almost non-existent. Secondly the borders are often stricter. It means new vectors are fairly limited in number, and those few that exist there are met with a hammer - i.e when the first couple cases detected in a town near China border, the government immediately shut down the border and put the whole town (with ~10000 people) in quarantine overnight.

While they can be considered "good example", I'm not sure the lesson is really applicable for Western countries though. Your borders are much more boros, and the people here won't stand for the hammer approach. Limited testing works before you start having community spread. Once you do, either you have to test a lot to keep track of progression and slow down further spread, or stop and brace yourself in hope of herd immunity (kinda like what the UK government originally tried to do).

[mr.WHO]

The problem is that all the South-East Asia countries that are phraised by main stream media have miniscule testing numbers. They literally stopped testing, comparing to USA and Europe, yet they do nor collapse from COVID not are afraid about 2nd wave.

I can verify this is true, Vietnam did very few testing. If anything aside from a few wealthy countries, most others don't have the resource to do it on large scale anyway. But geographically it has some advantages going for it. First most countries are homogeneous so immigration traffic is almost non-existent. Secondly the borders are often stricter. It means new vectors are fairly limited in number, and those few that exist there are met with a hammer - i.e when the first couple cases detected in a town near China border, the government immediately shut down the border and put the whole town (with ~10000 people) in quarantine overnight.

While they can be considered "good example", I'm not sure the lesson is really applicable for Western countries though. Your borders are much more boros, and the people here won't stand for the hammer approach. Limited testing works before you start having community spread. Once you do, either you have to test a lot to keep track of progression and slow down further spread, or stop and brace yourself in hope of herd immunity (kinda like what the UK government originally tried to do).

You know what is funny - the no-testing approach might actually be the correct one. There is very high false positive and false negative ratio in the testing. Often it's not only the test fault, but also the fault of personel who do the swaps (I know because my sister work in laboratory which test the provided samples).
Testing might actually be detrimental to counter the virus (you underestimate or overestimate the actual numbers). If proper quality and scale cannot be achived, then this is just waste of money.

In the end it's not possible to contain a normal flu, then why anyone expect to contain COVID? You force vaccinate 7.6 bilion people?

[CBJ]

You know what is funny - the no-testing approach might actually be the correct one. There is very high false positive and false negative ratio in the testing.

This is dangerous nonsense on so many levels. Medical professionals across the world, including in the US, have explained over and over again how important it is to understand the spread of the disease in order to avoid an uncontrolled expansion and at least an order of magnitude more deaths than have already occurred. No test is perfect, but the level of information provided by the current tests is considerably better than no information at all. And a false positive rate of 1% is not "very high", making it eminently useful.

[Mightysword]

You know what is funny - the no-testing approach might actually be the correct one. There is very high false positive and false negative ratio in the testing. Often it's not only the test fault, but also the fault of personnel who do the swaps (I know because my sister work in laboratory which test the provided samples).

Uhm no, because you always need data to make informed policies, and to justify the policies to others. That's always better than making one randomly, or worse, cross your finger and hope for the best in blind faith (which given the trend in behavior, is guarantee what a lot will opt for in the lack of evidence). The only scenario where you can afford to ignore data is when you're ready to assume the worst scenario and make plan according to it, at which point testing data is simply redundant because it can't be worse than what you gonna work for. Again this is the model South-East Asian countries adopted. Failing that you need as much data as possible to slow/curtail the spread. Remember, it's to slow, not to stop, so the argument 'you can't stop it anyway why try' doesn't apply.

The issues with the West is many either by circumstance or by design, are stuck in between without fully committing to one method.

[mr.WHO]

You know what is funny - the no-testing approach might actually be the correct one. There is very high false positive and false negative ratio in the testing.

This is dangerous nonsense on so many levels. Medical professionals across the world, including in the US, have explained over and over again how important it is to understand the spread of the disease in order to avoid an uncontrolled expansion and at least an order of magnitude more deaths than have already occurred. No test is perfect, but the level of information provided by the current tests is considerably better than no information at all. And a false positive rate of 1% is not "very high", making it eminently useful.

The very same link you provide 56% false negative rate - if you can use selective arguments to prove your point, I can use selective argument to prove mine.
In your link there is 25 incorrect results to 75 correct results.

How almost 25% propability that your results is false provide accurate data to stop the COVID expansion?
Other that having several waves of test on ENTIRE population (in hope to to find out false negative) testing will not stop the expansion at all.


There is still bad fixation on medical experts - if they would do their job correctly then COVID should never made outside China.

I recall there was a psyhological experiment in US university where paid actor pretend to be electrocuted in pain screaming and begging to stop.
There was a button in the room and test subject was asked to pres the button - then actor started screaming and begging.
Most people stoped after first pressign the button...until a guy in medical doctor suit was added to the room and keep saying "this is fine/safe, keep pressing the button".
Most people kept pressing the button despite actor screaming and begging to stop...just because a guy in doctor suit kept telling them it's ok.

[Ketraar]

The very same link you provide 56% false negative rate - if you can use selective arguments to prove your point, I can use selective argument to prove mine.

Your PC must be infected, nowhere does it say 56% false negatives. It says even after a negative test you have 56% CHANCE to be infected, thats not the same thing by a long shot. But fake news and all that.

There is still bad fixation on medical experts - if they would do their job correctly then COVID should never made outside China.

Ah here it is, the "what do expert know" posts. Are we sure we are not on facebook? Sure feels like it. Yes its all the fault of the doctors, they are doing it on purpose they dont want us to know that they already have a cure and only are in for the money and to push a leftist gay agenda to force all straight white man to feel insecure about themselves and their feelings and that is unfair...

MFG

Ketraar

[mr.WHO]

Ah here it is, the "what do expert know" posts. Are we sure we are not on facebook? Sure feels like it.

Yes its all the fault of the doctors, they are doing it on purpose they dont want us to know that they already have a cure and only are in for the money and to push a leftist gay agenda to force all straight white man to feel insecure about themselves and their feelings and that is unfair...

Oh, how mature of you assume all those things in the second part of your post.

I was all for experts when the virus was first discovered in Wuhan.
I was all for experts when the virus spread all over China.
I was all for experts when the virus spread outside of China.
I was all for experts when the virus started to kill people across Italy and USA.
I was all for experts when the virus started to kill people across entire Western Europe.

Now 500k dead later and nearly 10 mil infected, should I still be all for the experts?

[Ketraar]

Now 500k dead later and nearly 10 mil infected, should I still be all for the experts?

Of course you should, because we ONLY get those deaths due to experts, in fact if stupid leaders and equally stupid people that ignore experts about the safety measures is what makes this number as high. Its infuriating that people will use this argument. If we listen to experts and nothing happens, people will go, "derpty derpty I told you nothing would happen! Duh!"

MFG

Ketraar

[mr.WHO]

Now 500k dead later and nearly 10 mil infected, should I still be all for the experts?

Of course you should, because we ONLY get those deaths due to experts, in fact if stupid leaders and equally stupid people that ignore experts about the safety measures is what makes this number as high. Its infuriating that people will use this argument. If we listen to experts and nothing happens, people will go, "derpty derpty I told you nothing would happen! Duh!"

MFG

Ketraar

It's strange that entire South-East Asia goes derpy derpy agains WHO "test test test", isn't it?
It's strange that both UK and Sweden went against lockdown and UK was hit hard, while Sweden was not.

Basically this is one big trial & error medical experiment whatever "Medical Expert" say, half of it is true and half is BS.
Basically this is glorified "lets try this and see how it works. Oh 500k dead 10 mil infected? My bad, lets try this".

At some point they will figure something out, but this doesn't change that those "experts" are full of BS.
I had respect to "medical expert" authority, but my patience has a limit.

Before COVID, I aways imagine every single goverment, UN and WHO had contingency plans in case of global epidemy like "here mr. President, we need to do this and this and this".
Where were all these medical experts?

[Vertigo 7]

Now 500k dead later and nearly 10 mil infected, should I still be all for the experts?

Of course you should, because we ONLY get those deaths due to experts, in fact if stupid leaders and equally stupid people that ignore experts about the safety measures is what makes this number as high. Its infuriating that people will use this argument. If we listen to experts and nothing happens, people will go, "derpty derpty I told you nothing would happen! Duh!"

MFG

Ketraar

It's strange that entire South-East Asia goes derpy derpy agains WHO "test test test", isn't it?
It's strange that both UK and Sweden went against lockdown and UK was hit hard, while Sweden was not.

Basically this is one big trial & error medical experiment whatever "Medical Expert" say, half of it is true and half is BS.
Basically this is glorified "lets try this and see how it works. Oh 500k dead 10 mil infected? My bad, lets try this".

At some point they will figure something out, but this doesn't change that those "experts" are full of BS.
I had respect to "medical expert" authority, but my patience has a limit.

Before COVID, I aways imagine every single goverment, UN and WHO had contingency plans in case of global epidemy like "here mr. President, we need to do this and this and this".
Where were all these medical experts?

Trump fired them. We had a pandemic response unit. /shrug

[CBJ]

At some point they will figure something out, but this doesn't change that those "experts" are full of BS.
I had respect to "medical expert" authority, but my patience has a limit.

No, it's exactly this attitude that is why some countries have a problem. It's people not understanding the data, not understanding how to interpret the data, and assuming that the wildly inaccurate conclusions that they draw from that data have more validity than those the experts come to.

Of course we still have an epidemic. The experts can't magically make it go away; but they can mitigate it, and have done so pretty effectively. What makes things difficult for them is if certain people, and certain governments, don't listen to them.

[Mightysword]

in fact if stupid leaders and equally stupid people that ignore experts about the safety measures is what makes this number as high.

Don't take this seriously but just feel like I gonna poke you for a bit of guilty fun here: I think part of the reason South-east Asia did well because they ignore certain "expert advise" about wearing mask. And that advise came from pretty much all known top medical expert including from the WHO. I mentioned I'm actually late to the mask party, and only started wearing it once it became mandatory in my state. But I remember back In Feb when I talked about how the initial advise (about wearing mask doesn't help) doesn't make any sense on reddit, and boys the hate I got back then, fearmonging, backwater, ignoring expert advise. I bet a lot of people who heap those hate on me back then are also the same who heaping comparable hate on those who ignoring the wearing mask advise now.

[fiksal]

in fact if stupid leaders and equally stupid people that ignore experts about the safety measures is what makes this number as high.

Don't take this seriously but just feel like I gonna poke you for a bit of guilty fun here: I think part of the reason South-east Asia did well because they ignore certain "expert advise" about wearing mask. And that advise came from pretty much all known top medical expert including from the WHO. I mentioned I'm actually late to the mask party, and only started wearing it once it became mandatory in my state. But I remember back In Feb when I talked about how the initial advise (about wearing mask doesn't help) doesn't make any sense on reddit, and boys the hate I got back then, fearmonging, backwater, ignoring expert advise. I bet a lot of people who heap those hate on me back then are also the same who heaping comparable hate on those who ignoring the wearing mask advise now.

What was the expert advice exactly, that wearing masks doesnt help protecting yourself ? Well it still doesnt, does it, nothing changed there?

It's good for just the opposite.

[mr.WHO]

At some point they will figure something out, but this doesn't change that those "experts" are full of BS.
I had respect to "medical expert" authority, but my patience has a limit.

No, it's exactly this attitude that is why some countries have a problem. It's people not understanding the data, not understanding how to interpret the data, and assuming that the wildly inaccurate conclusions that they draw from that data have more validity than those the experts come to.

Of course we still have an epidemic. The experts can't magically make it go away; but they can mitigate it, and have done so pretty effectively. What makes things difficult for them is if certain people, and certain governments, don't listen to them.

Sorry, but you cannot claim your point is more or less valid than mine. There are some contries that "follow the experts" and some counties that "defy the expert" - in both groups there are countries that fare good and fare poor.
At best we will see who is right in a year or two - untill then this is just "guess, trial & error" experiment in progress.

My point is that "Expert" are people too - they make mistakes and are full of BS too.
You can say that expert do good by slowing down and mitigation, but in the same time it could be that acceleration and herd inmunity might be better, worse or as good.
The truth might be even more bizzare that one approach might be better for one country, but not for another.

I personally think that USA/UK situation is bad becasue obesity - if 30% of population is horrendously fat you're very exposed to "other health conditions". Asians in general are slim, Eastern Europeans are slim (comparing to Western Europeans).
Of course there are anomalies, like Russia or Brazil, but this might be other factor involved.

[CBJ]

The truth might be even more bizzare that one approach might be better for one country, but not for another.

That's not even in question; of course the approach is likely to need to be different in different countries. Just off the top of my head I can think of any number of reasons why this would be pretty much guaranteed to be the case: population density and distribution, age and health profiles, genetic susceptibility, cultural factors, climate, availability of healthcare facilities and financial support. What works in Sweden couldn't possibly work in India, and vice versa.

I personally think that USA/UK situation is bad becasue obesity - if 30% of population is horrendously fat you're very exposed to "other health conditions". Asians in general are slim, Eastern Europeans are slim (comparing to Western Europeans).

Close but no cigar. The UK situation has a lot to do with population density. And the situation in south east Asia is complicated by the fact that, however slim they may or may not be, they have a high incidence of diabetes.

[Mightysword]

What was the expert advice exactly, that wearing masks doesnt help protecting yourself ? Well it still doesnt, does it, nothing changed there?

It's good for just the opposite.

You can choose to be semantic, but you know it's moot in term of public interpretation. We went from the act of wearing mask itself was questioned as either dubious ill-informed superstition or outright criticism, to almost mandatory - law bidding ordinances, that's a big about face no matter how you slice it. Not that I have problem with the turn, because that's how I thought it should be from the beginning.

[pjknibbs]

My point is that "Expert" are people too - they make mistakes and are full of BS too.

Yes, that's certainly true. It may even cause an issue if you're relying on the opinion of a single expert--which is why governments don't do that. They have panels of experts whose job is to come to a conclusion based off the best match they can between their various opinions. A single expert making a mistake shouldn't cause bad advice to come out of such a group. Unless you're saying that *all* experts are equally useless, in which case, going to have to disagree strongly.

[mr.WHO]

My point is that "Expert" are people too - they make mistakes and are full of BS too.

Yes, that's certainly true. It may even cause an issue if you're relying on the opinion of a single expert--which is why governments don't do that. They have panels of experts whose job is to come to a conclusion based off the best match they can between their various opinions. A single expert making a mistake shouldn't cause bad advice to come out of such a group. Unless you're saying that *all* experts are equally useless, in which case, going to have to disagree strongly.

That WAS true in the past. My sister is a researcher (was academic, then went to private sector), due to COVID she voluntered to COVID testing lab. I heard plenty of stories about peer review and expert panel.
If I'd have to compare it to any story from US I know, it would be that one of US Universities reviewed, approved and published juicy cutpaste fragments of Mein Kampf as support for some kind of feminist research. It went through multiple "expert" and no one spotted anything - this is funny and harmless.

This is more serious - Listed to this podcast (about 20 minute long) about lab-mice issue that no one is speaking about - it could undermine all modern research methodology that base on lab-rats:
https://youtu.be/pRCzZp1J0v0?t=9598

Listen to this and tell me if you still "belive in experts"? Honestly tell me if you will vacinate yourself after hearing this? This in not some random nutjob, but college professor.
Even without it, I'd never take drug that normally should be tested for 5 year, but someone cut testing to 1 year - unless I'm already on deathbed and has nothing to loose.

[CBJ]

Oh, there it is. A YouTube video as evidence. Are we playing "conspiracy theory bingo" already?

[mr.WHO]

Oh, there it is. A YouTube video as evidence. Are we playing "conspiracy theory bingo" already?

Last time I checked, conspiracy videos were purged from YT.
Having telomer boosted rats that are have unnatural resitance to pathogens and therefore make them bad testing subject make sence.
This mean that drugs tested on these rats might be safe for rats, but not to actual humans.
If college profesor is openly speaking about it then he either should loose his job or someone should pull a research that he's telling bulshit - none of these hapened.

Edit: Aparently, he's no longer college professor. Still I'd feel better if there would be a research that his theory is not true - this doesn't sounds like flat Earth or Chemitrails.