Why we should continue taking actions that are proven to work.

DeVore

"We did a thing, and now the numbers are small We ShOuLd ToTaLly StOp DoInG ThAt ThInG"

I swear, if I see this sort of idiocy on the site I'll freakin' lose it.

Already I hear people saying the government "over estimated the numbers". Thats not true, they estimated 15,000 if nothing was done.

Here's the thing, my main job now (after selling my shares in Boards) is modelling. (Mathematical modelling, not the catwalk, I look like the back end of a bus!).

I work with Dutch folks who are expert in this stuff. I modelled the viral spread myself because I dont trust anyone and immediately put my family into lock down 2 weeks ago and sent all my staff home. (yes, me, my family all have the dreaded "underlying conditions" but even my company has been in quarantine for 2 weeks because we see this coming). Thats not fear, thats pragmatism.

Firstly if you want to see someone absolutely brilliantly explain what makes a difference to the models check out 3Blue1Brown and his beautiful visual explanations. Trust me, even if you hate maths, this is visually explained so well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs

So, our numbers look good, we've done everything right, and now... what? People want to STOP doing that?

What do you think... do you think the virus might have gotten bored?

Perhaps its gotten tired? Grown a taste for Spanish/Italians and will leave us alone?!

We closed the schools on the 12th. We know this thing has up to a 14 day symptom lag (median is 6) a testing lag of a couple of days and a 5 day hospitalisation lag before death. Reporting of new cases is lagging about 2 days too. So the impact on new cases should happen around around 9-11 days after an action is taken (roughly).

Closing the schools should have hit about 9 days after the 12th. And if you look at Ten of Swords excellent tracking post here: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058062246 ... we see that the first day we had only teens in the "new cases growth column" is indeed the 21st.

(Caveat: there are other factors influencing this number, from "regression to the mean" to the exponential viral growth but this is a clear and continuous impact).

We closed the pubs on 15th? We worked from home less than a week ago. We went into full lockdown only a few days ago. These have yet to really have an impact on the numbers.

What we are doing is working.

I dont think we should stop doing the thing that is working. Thats all I'm saying.


If you want to ask me questions about how people model this stuff, I'm happy to answer. I don't specialise in virology but I these models work.

bloodless_coup

Are you American?

DeVore

No. I'm Irish. I also started this site 20 years ago.

theteal

Forgive my being out of the Irish loop (I've enough on my plate aghast at the craic over here in the UK) but are people already calling for an end to restrictions????

sydthebeat

theteal wrote: »

Forgive my being out of the Irish loop (I've enough on my plate aghast at the craic over here in the UK) but are people already calling for an end to restrictions????

"People" is a lose term.

Crackpot conspiracy nuts and Internet trolls would be a more apt description.

We had a poster here, only a couple of days ago, call for everyone to be let back to work because the UK changed its classification of the virus from an original incorrect classification.

The cranks are out there

sydthebeat

KiKi III wrote: »

Not sure I believe you, account that literally registered today.

Why didn’t you post this in the ongoing thread, not sure it needed its own.

Face-palm.

beauf

I'll have to look at this properly later but interesting stuff. I've been watching some of Bill Gates talks and that's also interesting. I'm not really interested in the biology more the data processing side of it.

MadYaker

He own boards do he can do what he likes and it would have been buried in bullish!t in the main thread.

redman

DeVore wrote: »

No. I'm Irish. I also started this site 20 years ago.

Theres gonna be a few facepalms to that

That aside, totally agree with your sentiment, so thanks for highlighting

Pretzill

That's an excellent visual representation, thanks Devore

HeidiHeidi

Could you arrange to have this printed on a banner on the front page of every newspaper for the foreseeable?

We're barely days into "lockdown" (I suspect the real thing is yet to come), and already some are getting antsy.

Ballso

theteal wrote: »

Forgive my being out of the Irish loop (I've enough on my plate aghast at the craic over here in the UK) but are people already calling for an end to restrictions????

No. Pointless thread.

DeVore

I technically dont own boards any more. I do kinda know what I'm talking about and you're going to hear a lot more from me over the next few weeks. The Oldies around here know me and (most) trust me because they have seen me guide this ship before.

I posted this as a thread to head off the (already appearing) people saying the government over reacted. Or that we should relax restrictions now.

Mostly I want to arm people with GOOD information and ammo to argue back about this.

On one hand plenty of my family are in the firing line of this thing (including me, my parents, my partner and my sister who works in a hospital)...
On the other hand an extended lock down will trash my new company that I have been working on for nearly 3 years, and also trash my other sister's business (OffBeat Donuts if you know them). So, I've definitely skin in the game in both ways.

What I'm going to do is bring well sourced info, with sources quoted where possible, to cut through some of the ... less science-based... posts here.

Ulysses Gaze

theteal wrote: »

Forgive my being out of the Irish loop (I've enough on my plate aghast at the craic over here in the UK) but are people already calling for an end to restrictions????

A few people on Boards that think we need to "save the economy at all costs".

Nermal

DeVore wrote: »

I dont think we should stop doing the thing that is working. Thats all I'm saying.

What's your definition of 'working'?

If all you care about is saving lives, then why not lock down further?

theteal

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

A few people on Boards that think we need to "save the economy at all costs".

Urgh, feels like over here so. . . .although that's now slowly changing

Ulysses Gaze

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

A few people on Boards that think we need to "save the economy at all costs".

The economy is sacred, so what of the thousands of elderly & vulnerable at high risk. They were never going to last anyway, necessary collateral damage.

To recite the unholy gospel from Platoon, "when the machine breaks down, we break down". Mantra of the muppet.

Wibbs

Pretzill wrote: »

That's an excellent visual representation, thanks Devore

+1. I've got dyscalculia so anything more than 1+1=2 requires me taking my socks off and bring extra digits into the mix and even I understood it.

Wibbs

Nermal wrote: »

What's your definition of 'working'?

If all you care about is saving lives, then why not lock down further?

It's a risk/benefit exercise. If we could completely lock down every human host in Ireland for three weeks the virus would die out. Until someone with it came back into the country. Rinse and repeat.

Locking down further might reduce some spread, but would likely bring much more hardship. The current lockdown will work in reducing most spread, with much less hardship and buys us time to treat people who need more than panadol and bed rest and buys us time until viable treatments and a vaccine comes along.

DeVore

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Could you arrange to have this printed on a banner on the front page of every newspaper for the foreseeable?

We're barely days into "lockdown" (I suspect the real thing is yet to come), and already some are getting antsy.

I'm hoping to do better than that. I hope to have a direct channel, site-wide pretty soon. And we're 10 times bigger than any news paper...

Ballso wrote: »

No. Pointless thread.

I'm afraid already I've seen people posting about how the "government got it wrong" because 15,000 arent sick with it. Tbh, this seems like a lot of political hacks who have the knives out for Leo because they cant see him do a good job (for once, where has this Varadkar been for years!). Also Morning Ireland this morning were discussing it.

Its coming. For once I want to be ahead of The Stupid.

Deleted User wrote: »

First-rate deconstruction of the casual nonsense that passes for '"shure we'll be supping on pints within a fortnight at this rate". Bravo OP.

That guy 3Blue1Brown, his entire Youtube is the best thing on that tide-pod-eating wasteland of a site. Seriously, his math and comms skills are amazing.

ax530

that is great thanks for sharing

VanHalen

To be honest "the government got it wrong" brigade are a bit like the people who complained that Y2K was a damp squib - yes it was a damp squib but that was because of all the work that went into preventing it!

Ballso

Ballso wrote: »

No. Pointless thread.

Yeah take it your not reading the posts complaining about the economy and the other edge lords on here complaining about everything, not to mention the NP and gemtards going on about flights landing.

crossman47

VanHalen wrote: »

To be honest "the government got it wrong" brigade are a bit like the people who complained that Y2K was a damp squib - yes it was a damp squib but that was because of all the work that went into preventing it!

It reminds me so much of that. Planes didn't fall out of the sky so the experts were wrong was a common view.

celticWario

We only have the numbers of those tested, I personally know 4 people from work who have symptoms who aren't bothering to get tested because it's too much of a hassle "sure by the time they get around to testing me I'll be over it/it'll all be over" is the attitude.

Nermal

Wibbs wrote: »

Locking down further might reduce some spread, but would likely bring much more hardship.

'Might'?

'Likely'?

This is the sort of modelling we're doing?

Vegeta

DeVore wrote: »

Here's the thing, my main job now (after selling my shares in Boards) is modelling. (Mathematical modelling, not the catwalk, I look like the back end of a bus!).

Cool, do you guys do mathematical modelling, statistical modelling or both?

Wibbs

Nermal wrote: »

'Might'?

'Likely'?

This is the sort of modelling we're doing?

Oh FFS. OK "would" and "definitely". Happy now?

storker

theteal wrote: »

Forgive my being out of the Irish loop (I've enough on my plate aghast at the craic over here in the UK) but are people already calling for an end to restrictions????

Yes, because The Economy.

Signore Fancy Pants

Nermal wrote: »

'Might'?

'Likely'?

This is the sort of modelling we're doing?

I would be interested to hear your assessment of the Pandemic, specifically the characteristics which have contributed to the global spread of the virus, the value of mitigation measures and your 2 month projection for the course of the Pandemic.

I find your comments interesting so would like to know where they stem from.

Should we be doing less and why, should we be doing more, and why?

That is why they have to be so careful about the measures they adopt its working and we cant relax just yet.

DeVore

Vegeta wrote: »

Cool, do you guys do mathematical modelling, statistical modelling or both?

Mostly we do Machine Learning models. I am not sure how statistical models wouldnt be considered mathematical models

What we do is more in line with statistical models but using things like Neural Networks, Gradient Boost Machines and Random Forests etc.
Mostly we do it for the insurance industry and its applied against the (vast) amounts of data the insurance companies have about cars and drivers. (ppl, don't @ me about your car insurance, I dont set it and I dont care ).

We have some senior people who have worked in virology before but its a different kind of modelling, more "agent based" which we have done some of but which I havent applied here.

What I'm doing is straight forward "exponential to logistic curve" modelling, hand fitting the data to best first by tuning hyper parameters and then mostly drinking, heavily.

Yellow_Fern

It is pretty clear that this crisis has been poorly handled. Our gov had to be begged into action by the public and media and clearly they lack the courage to take the strong steps needed to stop the virus stone dead. There are plenty of examples of superior containment and mitigation that we are ignoring.

HeidiHeidi

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

It is pretty clear that this crisis has been poorly handled. Our gov had to be begged into action by the public and media and clearly they lack the courage to take the strong steps needed to stop the virus stone dead.

You'll no doubt follow that up with a couple of examples of countries that took those "strong steps", and "stopped the virus stone dead". If you don't mind. :rolleyes:

(Sorry if that's a derail of the original thread, couldn't resist)

storker

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

A few people on Boards that think we need to "save the economy at all costs".

Or are just pretending they think that. Either way, I'd like to see them relocated. To Anthrax Island or maybe Pripyat...just so they can get a sense of what "at all costs" really means.

bloodless_coup

DeVore wrote: »

No. I'm Irish. I also started this site 20 years ago.

Then stop talking like an American.

DeVore

Nermal wrote: »

'Might'?

'Likely'?

This is the sort of modelling we're doing?

All modelling is probabilistic. You're trying to predict the future, its by definition unknown.

As standard the modelling industry will return a prediction ("X% this thing happens") and a confidence rating ("we're Y% sure we're right about that").

So like we might be 5% sure someone is going to crash their car next year but only 20% confident in that prediction.

Without lots of hard data about Covid 19 (which is still emerging) we cant have high confidence about long term trends. *HOWEVER* the trend is sooo bad that it doesnt really matter. The variance in the "do nothing" model was from "this is going to be really really terrible" to "We're looking at burning bodies in pyres"... so they took action. (quite correctly imho)

storker

DeVore wrote: »

What I'm doing is straight forward "exponential to logistic curve" modelling, hand fitting the data to best first by tuning hyper parameters and then mostly drinking, heavily.

I think it's disgraceful that you deliberately infected all those innocent little pi's in order to achieve this. I'm emailing PETA about this right now...

CtevenSrowder

DeVore wrote: »

"We did a thing, and now the numbers are small We ShOuLd ToTaLly StOp DoInG ThAt ThInG"

I swear, if I see this sort ...

Good post, though I've not seen anyone claiming what we are doing now should be stopped just yet!

Regardless, in your opinion, how long do you think it's feasible to keep the current measures in place? I personally think up until end of May, start of June. I think the 6 months that the UK CMO has said is too long.

Vegeta

DeVore wrote: »

Mostly we do Machine Learning models. I am not sure how statistical models wouldnt be considered mathematical models

I know, I know statistics is a field within mathematics but in my limited experience, mathematical modelling has been used to refer to modelling that has its origin in applied mathematics and includes a ton of differential calculus etc. So for stress, strain, heat, brain tissue deformation..... those type of problems

What I'm doing is straight forward "exponential to logistic curve" modelling, hand fitting the data to best first by tuning hyper parameters and then mostly drinking, heavily.

Recently completed some training in the field so was interested to see what type of problems a dedicated company were working on. What kind of tools are you using for the analysis? Python? Matlab?

CtevenSrowder

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

It is pretty clear that this crisis has been poorly handled. Our gov had to be begged into action by the public and media and clearly they lack the courage to take the strong steps needed to stop the virus stone dead. There are plenty of examples of superior containment and mitigation that we are ignoring.

Christ. How many times does it have to be pointed out that they followed the advice given by the HSE and CMO?

Nijmegen

At the bottom of most of the calls for this to be treated in a less severe fashion is fear: Fear of the consequences of the medicine, fear of the disease itself (leading to latching on to anything that evidences it to be less severe than it is) and fear of change.

I think the only way to deal with this fear is through carefully and plainly explained data, such as the above; and by using calm and reasoned experts such as the ones we have here from the medical community talking to the population daily.

Good initiative.

FVP3

While what DeVore says is correct, it is hard to see how we can therefore get out of this without antibody testing.

Politically 2 weeks is about the maximum for a lockdown as much as we can do it here. If we then get a reduction in the rate of increase, then we will probably open up work at least, urging people to WFH where possible, cocooning older people. If the infection rates then start to increase again, we may lockdown again.

Cant see pubs opening, except perhaps with some outdoor facilities or restricted entry during the inbetween periods.

Wetbench4

I have a question.
How can we model anything for the future, or even tell whats going on right now, when we know there aren't enough tests? The numbers we see each day aren't accurate at all. The only accurate measurements we have are the numbers in icu and fatalities. We could easily be close to the original estimation of 15000 cases and imo we probably are.

rahmalec

That's a great video and really well explained, thanks for posting.
I look forward to watching his other video on mathematical concepts.

Nijmegen

FVP3 wrote: »

While what DeVore says is correct, it is hard to see how we can therefore get out of this without antibody testing.

Politically 2 weeks is about the maximum for a lockdown as much as we can do it here. If we then get a reduction in the rate of increase, then we will probably open up work at least, urging people to WFH where possible, cocooning older people. If the infection rates then start to increase again, we may lockdown again.

Cant see pubs opening, except perhaps with some outdoor facilities or restricted entry during the inbetween periods.

I was thinking about the slow open with antibody testing scenario. I think it could lead to a lot of social friction and other problems. Bit dystopian to be going around with your government ID to say you've had the virus and are therefore a privileged citizen who can go to the pub.

Jaden

I have a question: What kind of twisted loon uses the left and right mouse buttons to strafe left and right playing QW?

Questions on COVID-19 - None. You're right about our actions on combating this pandemic - more of same, please.

FVP3

storker wrote: »

Yes, because The Economy.

Yes, but while I am not urging an end to these restrictions now, or in the very near future there will come a time when the economy will have to become an issue. This country went into this crisis with high debt level, so as there will be massive layoffs and increases in social protection, there will also be massive increases in debt. Banks might be affected again if the payments of mortgages stops.

Unless the ECB and other CBs monetize all the debt of all the Euro zone, or some other mechanism, then we will be in dire economic trouble worldwide. Some say that this time there aren't as many underlying problems in the banks, neither are they robust enough to endure liquidity issues for months.

So there is no clear solution.

PMBC

I've read a lot of your posts since joining and find you to be very reasonable and rational - all round a good guy. Thanks for this thread and for good scientific information which is what is needed in a time like this.
The vast majority of people are behaving as required; the numbers, that you averted to, dont lie. Those who arent it is out of lack of knowledge or understanding.
I will be hit financially by this and am not eligible for any government support because of my age. But we will get through it and we will show how strong we are in the way we do and will continue to help one another.

DeVore

Vegeta wrote: »

I know, I know statistics is a field within mathematics but in my limited experience, mathematical modelling has been used to refer to modelling that has its origin in applied mathematics and includes a ton of differential calculus etc. So for stress, strain, heat, brain tissue deformation..... those type of problems



Recently completed some training in the field so was interested to see what type of problems a dedicated company were working on. What kind of tools are you using for the analysis? Python? Matlab?

We use Python, Matlib, SciKitLearn and a few of the other basic libraries. Then we build our own models, usually ensemble methods of several approaches. If you want to work in the industry, learn those but try to learn them "formally" because there are a lot of people knocking about who try to pass themselves off as Data Scientists who really just tinkered with some code and watched a few youtubes.

FVP3

Nijmegen wrote: »

I was thinking about the slow open with antibody testing scenario. I think it could lead to a lot of social friction and other problems. Bit dystopian to be going around with your government ID to say you've had the virus and are therefore a privileged citizen who can go to the pub.

Younger people will try picking up the virus in that scenario.