It's honestly just so mystifying how, if you have people working to prevent a thing from becoming a serious problem, and it's never a serious problem so you realize you don't need them, and you fire them all, somehow it's right after that that the problem becomes serious. What amazingly bad luck! If only there were some logical explanation for how "prevention" keeps things from happening.
D&D and the rising pandemic
- Thread starter GreyLord
- Start date
Yes, that guy was trying to profiteer off the epidemic. But the majority of folks buying huge amounts of toilet paper are not trying to resell it.
Theo R Cwithin
I cast "Baconstorm!"
I predict a lot of gifting of toilet paper at Christmas this year, after everyone realizes how much toilet paper they don't actually need.
So, in a discussion on Friday, the speaker had a very interesting point that we may gain significant leverage on the disease not based directly on its R0, but on the second moment of R0, the variance of R0.
So... consider two diseases:
Generic influenza - while there's some differences in strains, broadly, it has an R0 of about 1.3.
Ebola - has an R0 of about 2.
Based on that alone, we'd expect ebola to be a highly prevalent disease. However, it is influenza that just about everyone in the world gets. Why? Because R0 is an average, and we have to then consider the spread of values that make up that average.
The R0 of influenza is about 1.3, and there's not a whole lot of variance in it - if three people get influenza, you can put good money on how they will together infect four more people. Between its intrinsic properties and how we deal with it... influenza is relentless and almost like clockwork.
Ebola... is not. There's a high variance in its R0. A lot of folks who get ebola never pass it to anyone else. And a small number of victims of the disease are responsible for "superspreader" events - passing it on to 20 more, instead of just 2. So, on broad average R0 is small.
And, that's how you deal with ebola - you crack down on the superspreader events, and what is left is an R0 too small to sustain itself, and the outbreak dies out.
So, when we look at the preliminary R0 for covid-19, we are looking at that average, and we have to wonder whether it is that, if one person has it they reliably pass it to 2.5 more people, or if most folks with it don't pass it on at all, and that a few are responsible for large spreading events.
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MarkB
Legend
Well, it's not as though it goes off, or you're ever going to decide to stop using it. Eventually it will get used up.
The basic issue around such conspiracy theories is simple - anyone smart enough to pull it off will know that a bioweapon is too difficult to control to be reliable.
I mean, it'll kill old dependents? You realize that the upper levels of government is disproportionately populated with high-risk folks over 60? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
So, let's not engage in the conspiracy theorizing, please.
Acolyte of Zothique
Adventurer
Just heard this. Among other things, my UK government is proposing an emergency power (among others) to quarantine people who are considered a danger to public health. In other words, if you don't act responsibly, you will find yourself being forcibly quarantined. I should be shocked at that but, given the situation, I find myself applauding this.
Go for it, I can't wait to see the look on those irresponsible a*******s who say 'I want to carry on living my life as I want'. Try questioning the authority of government when that happens.
Go for it, I can't wait to see the look on those irresponsible a*******s who say 'I want to carry on living my life as I want'. Try questioning the authority of government when that happens.
Celebrim
Legend
People will use it eventually, and it's not like it goes bad.
Theo R Cwithin
I cast "Baconstorm!"
Awww. Now what do I do for Christmas presents? My nieces and nephews will be devastated.
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