Dublin is NOT significantly more infected than any other county.

DeVore · 08-04-2020 12:29pm #1

The suggest was made on the 6-One news that Dublin be stopped from travelling and left in lockdown while the rest of the country wasnt (it was a question to the CMO).

I'm not suggesting Dubliners head off to Kerry for the weekend, in fact I'm suggesting that NO ONE DOES. I'm also saying there is little evidence to treat Dublin differently (as Twitter has been very vocal about today with some pretty nasty comments from non-Dubliners).

Quick analysis of infections by county. (data from Gov.ie)

Dublin is up there at the top alright. Now consider that 1,300 healthcare workers are infected and lets guess that 2/3rds are in Dublin hospitals.

Removing them out brings Dublin down to 0.15 which is about the middle of the leading pack.

Dublin has bigger numbers, because Dublin is... wait for it... bigger. 1.3M Live here... but its not really more infected by % than anywhere else particularly.

Lets not lose our social cohesion and unity because some people cant understand %'s and math.

DeVore · 08-04-2020 12:32pm

the way to think about this is simply:

If you meet someone from Dublin and someone from Cavan they have about the same likelihood of being infected.

suicide_circus · 08-04-2020 12:35pm

DeVore wrote: »

Lets not lose our social cohesion and unity because some people cant understand %'s and math

these are pre-existing animosities, no?

TheChizler · 08-04-2020 12:36pm

Not necessarily disagreeing with you but what's the rationale behind removing healthcare workers from the figures? Everywhere has healthcare workers, is Dublin particularly dense with them? Even if so why remove them?

MarkR · 08-04-2020 12:37pm

I see too many stats. Now I want to see percentage of those infected, vs those tested, by county. Have to stop looking at all these power bi videos...

Wibbs · 08-04-2020 12:39pm

DeVore wrote: »

the way to think about this is simply:

If you meet someone from Dublin and someone from Cavan they have about the same likelihood of being infected.

Not simply at all and quite obviously not. You're more likely to meet someone who is infected in Dublin than you are in Cavan, "because Dublin is... wait for it... bigger" and has a higher population density. So for all your understanding of % and "math" yet again wood for the trees thinking on display. And I've not seen any loss of "social cohesion" of late.

JCX BXC · 08-04-2020 12:40pm

Well, your figures show that Dublin is significantly more infected!

Removing healthcare workers doesn't particularly make a difference, these people are still infected, yes they often take more precautions than your average man but many still go to supermarkets/takeaways which is your main social contact nowadays.

cdeb · 08-04-2020 12:41pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Not simply at all and quite obviously not. You're more likely to meet someone who is infected in Dublin than you are in Cavan, "because Dublin is... wait for it... bigger" and has a higher population density. So for all your understanding of % and "math" yet again wood for the trees thinking on display. And I've not seen any loss of "social cohesion" of late.

That's not what he said though.

Take one person from Dublin and one person from Cavan, and they have an equal chance of being infected.

The fact that there are more people in Dublin to meet is irrelevant, but seems to be part of your argument.

As an addendum, I have a special hatred for people who use the word "math"...

Salary Negotiator · 08-04-2020 12:42pm

DeVore wrote: »

the way to think about this is simply:

If you meet someone from Dublin and someone from Cavan they have about the same likelihood of being infected.

Do you not have to factor in the likelihood of meeting someone from Dublin and Cavan to get the actual risk factor?

GreeBo · 08-04-2020 12:43pm

DeVore wrote: »

the way to think about this is simply:

If you meet someone from Dublin and someone from Cavan they have about the same likelihood of being infected.

Thats not correct though.
Someone in Dublin is more likely to be infected, exactly because we have more healthcare workers.

Someone from Dublin and someone from Cavan have the same inherent likelihood of getting infected, but due to their environs, someone from Dublin is more likely to get/be infected.

JCX BXC · 08-04-2020 12:43pm

cdeb wrote: »

That's not what he said though.

Take one person from Dublin and one person from Cavan, and they have an equal chance of being infected.

The fact that there are more people in Dublin to meet is irrelevant, but seems to be part of your argument.

As an addendum, I have a special hatred for people who use the word "math"...

Not from those figures provided though. It clearly shows that take 1 person from Dublin and 1 person from Cavan and the Dublin person is more likely to have it. Removing healthcare workers at an imaginary guesswork number doesn't particularly add much weight.

GreeBo · 08-04-2020 12:44pm

Bottom line is, unless you are avoiding healthcare workers in your day to day, you simply cant remove them from the stats.

GreeBo · 08-04-2020 12:45pm

JCX BXC wrote: »

Not from those figures provided though. It clearly shows that take 1 person from Dublin and 1 person from Cavan and the Dublin person is more likely to have it. Removing healthcare workers at an imaginary guesswork number doesn't particularly add much weight.

You could equally remove all the people that have it and then every country has the exact same infection rate....and it would be just as useful

Wibbs · 08-04-2020 12:49pm

cdeb wrote: »

That's not what he said though.

Take one person from Dublin and one person from Cavan, and they have an equal chance of being infected.

The fact that there are more people in Dublin to meet is irrelevant, but seems to be part of your argument.

But it's not irrelevant C. Yes in isolation it is, or you have the horn for maths, but in the actual real world it's mindwank. The true fact(tm) remains that if you are in a high population dense area you're more likely to meet someone who is infected. If I put you in a room with a bloke from Cavan, or a bloke from Dublin, yep the odds are even. However if I put you in a room with ten people...

As an addendum, I have a special hatred for people who use the word "math"...

That we agree on C.

YFlyer · 08-04-2020 12:50pm

Salary Negotiator wrote: »

Do you not have to factor in the likelihood of meeting someone from Dublin and Cavan to get the actual risk factor?

Higher risk for meeting a Cavan person.

Not a Cavan low blow.

Harry Palmr · 08-04-2020 12:51pm

Wexford is interesting, given it has a population of 150,000

The_Dave · 08-04-2020 12:54pm

DeVore wrote: »

Quick analysis of infections by county. (data from Gov.ie)

Dublin is up there at the top alright. Now consider that 1,300 healthcare workers are infected and lets guess that 2/3rds are in Dublin hospitals.

Removing them out brings Dublin down to 0.15 which is about the middle of the leading pack.

Why aren't you removing 2/3rds of the stats for the other counties, are their healthcare workers magically more immune?

Mickeroo · 08-04-2020 12:59pm

Obviously pretending almost half the cases in Dublin don't count would make it appear to have a lower infection rate

Wibbs · 08-04-2020 1:00pm

TBH I'm finding all these projections to be largely a waste of bloody time. No matter how good anyone is at sums and countin' an' that, the data is foggy at best, useless at worst. Take this example. It's based on what test results? The same testing programme that's to be kind kinda lagging behind with some people weeks waiting for results? How many are not being tested? How many won't bother going for testing? How many asymptomatic cases are in the population? How many testing centres in which areas? Crap data in - fancy number crunching - crap data out. I;m reminded of the US army intelligence crowd running projections on computers in the Vietnam war, that when they were pulling out diplomats from their Saigon embassy the projections were telling them they were winning...

The only numbers we can actually go on with any confidence are our population size, ICU numbers and deaths.* That's your lot. Anything else is plucked from the sky and utter conjecture and distraction. Now I'll happily admit I run outa mathmatical ability when I run outa fingers, but when I see things like "projections" ranging from 5,000 dead to 50,000 dead my BS detector starts banging into the red zone.

*in some cases I'm sure there are deaths from covid that aren't tracked, or deaths with covid rather than from it, but likely small enough?

08-04-2020 1:02pm

Why are you removing health care workers?

Doesn't make a huge amount of sense. We are people too. :P

hetuzozaho · 08-04-2020 1:03pm

Wibbs wrote: »

TBH I'm finding all these projections to be largely a waste of bloody time

You could argue this whole forum is a waste of time

Wibbs · 08-04-2020 1:05pm

hetuzozaho wrote: »

You could argue this whole forum is a waste of time

Or a happy distraction.

Actually, I really don't believe it's a waste of time at all. We need an outlet for discussion, to debate and agree and disagree. If we were only going on what the HSE etc were telling us we'd be in the dark way more.

cdeb · 08-04-2020 1:05pm

JCX BXC wrote: »

Not from those figures provided though. It clearly shows that take 1 person from Dublin and 1 person from Cavan and the Dublin person is more likely to have it. Removing healthcare workers at an imaginary guesswork number doesn't particularly add much weight.

Well that's true. Comparing an infection rate of 0.227% to 0.161% means that Dublin is around 40% more infected than Cavan, and ten times more infected than Carlow (although I don't know at what stage statistical significance comes in, because the numbers in Carlow are tiny). Healthcare workers are people too of course.

Wibbs wrote: »

But it's not irrelevant C. Yes in isolation it is, or you have the horn for maths, but in the actual real world it's mindwank. The true fact(tm) remains that if you are in a high population dense area you're more likely to meet someone who is infected. If I put you in a room with a bloke from Cavan, or a bloke from Dublin, yep the odds are even. However if I put you in a room with ten people...

You may be more likely to meet someone with coronavirus in Dublin, but the initial premise was that Dublin isn't significantly more infected than elsewhere. Population density doesn't come into that argument at all.

ShineOn7 · 08-04-2020 1:31pm

Normally love your posts DeVore but a strong disagree on your reasoning behind this. You can't just take the HSE numbers out of the Dublin figures

When the dust settles on this it'll be capital/major cities with the highest numbers in their country.

See: New York, London (in time) and - yes - Dublin

DeVore · 08-04-2020 1:46pm

GreeBo wrote: »

Bottom line is, unless you are avoiding healthcare workers in your day to day, you simply cant remove them from the stats.

I removed them because

1. right now they are far to busy to be going anywhere.

2. they dont just treat Dubliners, people are shipped to Dublin for treatment from all over the country and these health care workers got infected treating everyone so it seems a little "mean" to put them into Dublin numbers and then try to insinuate Dublin needs to be quarantined.

3. They are considerably more aware of the vectors of transmission and far less likely to break social measures.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! · 08-04-2020 1:49pm

cdeb wrote: »

As an addendum, I have a special hatred for people who use the word "math"...

Is that because they subtracted the "S" ... or because they are adding to the already flagrant use of Americanisms in our daily lives?

Please sum up for us, exactly what your beef is dude?

osarusan · 08-04-2020 1:49pm

There's no justification for removing healthcare workers in a statistics-based argument.

Tom Mann Centuria · 08-04-2020 1:50pm

GreeBo wrote: »

Bottom line is, unless you are avoiding healthcare workers in your day to day, you simply cant remove them from the stats.

To be fair, people were avoiding me long before they knew what I did for a living.

The_Dave wrote: »

Why aren't you removing 2/3rds of the stats for the other counties, are their healthcare workers magically more immune?

I feckin hope I'm immune, that'd be very handy :pac:

DeVore · 08-04-2020 2:02pm

Wibbs wrote: »

TBH I'm finding all these projections to be largely a waste of bloody time. No matter how good anyone is at sums and countin' an' that, the data is foggy at best, useless at worst. Take this example. It's based on what test results? The same testing programme that's to be kind kinda lagging behind with some people weeks waiting for results? How many are not being tested? How many won't bother going for testing? How many asymptomatic cases are in the population? How many testing centres in which areas? Crap data in - fancy number crunching - crap data out. I;m reminded of the US army intelligence crowd running projections on computers in the Vietnam war, that when they were pulling out diplomats from their Saigon embassy the projections were telling them they were winning...

The only numbers we can actually go on with any confidence are our population size, ICU numbers and deaths.* That's your lot. Anything else is plucked from the sky and utter conjecture and distraction. Now I'll happily admit I run outa mathmatical ability when I run outa fingers, but when I see things like "projections" ranging from 5,000 dead to 50,000 dead my BS detector starts banging into the red zone.

*in some cases I'm sure there are deaths from covid that aren't tracked, or deaths with covid rather than from it, but likely small enough?

A very good point, and one I agree with BUT STILL a question was asked on RTE 6 One news as to whether Dublin should be locked down while the rest of the country is released.

What I'm showing here is that that was not based on ANY data and even using the "foggy" data we have at the moment certainly does NOT point in that direction.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! · 08-04-2020 2:05pm

DeVore wrote: »

I removed them because

1. right now they are far to busy to be going anywhere.

2. they dont just treat Dubliners, people are shipped to Dublin for treatment from all over the country and these health care workers got infected treating everyone so it seems a little "mean" to put them into Dublin numbers and then try to insinuate Dublin needs to be quarantined.

3. They are considerably more aware of the vectors of transmission and far less likely to break social measures.

Decisions over whether to quarantine an area, ultimately comes down to size and population density.

A large city with a high pop density, is much harder to control... you have referred to vectors of transmission. Large cities are exactly that.

Locking down wuhan, probably saved millions.

Fr_Dougal · 08-04-2020 2:07pm

DeVore wrote: »

the way to think about this is simply:

If you meet someone from Dublin and someone from Cavan they have about the same likelihood of being infected.

Nice try, DeV.

But you’re still not allowed go to Connemara.

DeVore · 08-04-2020 2:11pm

I'm not suggesting Dubs go to Connemara or anywhere else.

I'm suggesting NO ONE goes ANYWHERE.

Stay in. Wash your hands.

begbysback · 08-04-2020 2:11pm

If the healthcare numbers are removed then it would make sense to remove the nursing home numbers too.

DeVore · 08-04-2020 2:16pm

From the previous page:

I removed them because

1. right now they are far to busy to be going anywhere.

2. they dont just treat Dubliners, people are shipped to Dublin for treatment from all over the country and these health care workers got infected treating everyone so it seems a little "mean" to put them into Dublin numbers and then try to insinuate Dublin needs to be quarantined.

3. They are considerably more aware of the vectors of transmission and far less likely to break social measures.

timsey tiger · 08-04-2020 2:16pm

It's just weak. You always need to compare like with like. If you wish to remove health care workers, that's fine, but you then need to remove them all.

More interesting, would be to see if you could compare Dublin to other urban areas, though the granularity of the data we are fed probably makes such an exercise highly speculative.

recyclebin · 08-04-2020 2:17pm

If you are a nurse and you live in Kildare and work In Dublin and you get it, are you classified as Kildare or Dublin?

DeVore · 08-04-2020 2:17pm

Just to be clear, I think the idea of splitting up our country into "Dublin" and "Not Dublin" is harmful, shortsighted, wrong headed and, in short, ABSOLUTELY ****ING LUDICROUS.

I just wanted to show its also not strongly supported by data.

.
.
ps: the numbers for some counties are so small that if one nursing home got a cluster there, it would rocket to the top of the list.

THIS ISNT GREAT DATA, but its the best we have and so speaking against it is EVEN MORE DUMB then relying on it.

begbysback · 08-04-2020 2:19pm

DeVore wrote: »

Just to be clear, I think the idea of splitting up our country into "Dublin" and "Not Dublin" is harmful, shortsighted, wrong headed and, in short, ABSOLUTELY ****ING LUDICROUS.

I just wanted to show its also not strongly supported by data.

Then can we not just do “Dublin” and “Culchies”?

Ficheall · 08-04-2020 2:22pm

Have the healthcare workers from the other counties also been removed?

ednwireland · 08-04-2020 2:24pm

DeVore wrote: »

A very good point, and one I agree with BUT STILL a question was asked on RTE 6 One news as to whether Dublin should be locked down while the rest of the country is released.

What I'm showing here is that that was not based on ANY data and even using the "foggy" data we have at the moment certainly does NOT point in that direction.

that should happen all the time IMO :eek::D;)

begbysback wrote: »

Then can we not just do “Dublin” and “Culchies”?

like the rest of the time

begbysback · 08-04-2020 2:25pm

cdeb wrote: »

That's not what he said though.

Take one person from Dublin and one person from Cavan, and they have an equal chance of being infected.

The fact that there are more people in Dublin to meet is irrelevant, but seems to be part of your argument.

As an addendum, I have a special hatred for people who use the word "math"...

Same here, can’t understand people who round to 3 decimal places.

timsey tiger · 08-04-2020 2:26pm

I'm not aware of a Dublin vs the rest of the country split in this. The real danger is for Counties with small numbers that people get complacent.

timsey tiger · 08-04-2020 2:29pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Not simply at all and quite obviously not. You're more likely to meet someone who is infected in Dublin than you are in Cavan, "because Dublin is... wait for it... bigger" and has a higher population density. So for all your understanding of % and "math" yet again wood for the trees thinking on display. And I've not seen any loss of "social cohesion" of late.

Lol dublin isn't bigger than Cavan

krissovo · 08-04-2020 2:32pm

What we really need is the data from the contract tracing as that will normalize the figures. Singapore published these figures and it was contained quite quickly as people knew where the danger areas were.

Fr_Dougal · 08-04-2020 2:35pm

begbysback wrote: »

Then can we not just do “Dublin” and “Culchies”?

What about the culchies living in Dublin?

Still waters · 08-04-2020 2:42pm

Pointless thread is true to name

DeVore · 08-04-2020 2:43pm

No. This list is without ANY healthcare workers being removed.

My point what that if you accept the assumption that 2/3rds of them are in Dublin (where most of the big hospitals, the busiest hospitals and the front line hospitals are) then the numbers normalise further. This is a very rough metric, and I dont have distribution numbers for infected hospital staff but I would not imagine it would move the other counties by much except perhaps Cork.

The list as published in the OP does NOT have the healthcare workers removed.

Wibbs · 08-04-2020 2:43pm

DeVore wrote: »

A very good point, and one I agree with BUT STILL a question was asked on RTE 6 One news as to whether Dublin should be locked down while the rest of the country is released.

What I'm showing here is that that was not based on ANY data and even using the "foggy" data we have at the moment certainly does NOT point in that direction.

Ah yeah we're in full agreement there D. Locking down Dublin is a daft idea. What about Cork, Galway, Waterford etc. Go Escape from New York on them too? Somebody must have been at the sherry on the RTE News and their Bumper Book of Silly Questions was down to the last page.

timsey tiger wrote: »

Lol dublin isn't bigger than Cavan

LOL we're talking about population size. LOL.

KyussB · 08-04-2020 2:49pm

As others have said, the logic of removing healthcare workers doesn't make sense. They still live in Dublin.

If we're going to talk about cases per head, figure these statistics, then:
Ireland has the 12th highest cases per head in the world, and the 10th highest deaths per head in the world.

We're actually doing a pretty bad job. We bungled our opportunity to stop a major outbreak - i.e. we have been reactive rather than proactive - we knew we should have been doing a lot more, to stop originating cases.

Pessimism and cynicism is often useful and a good thing, optimisim is often bad and misleading. The former would have had us take proper preventative measures to stop originating cases, the latter is part of why we didn't. Be appropriately cynical in evaluating things.

begbysback · 08-04-2020 2:51pm

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

What about the culchies living in Dublin?

Dulchies?

Wibbs · 08-04-2020 2:54pm

Vectors for infection are going to be highest in high people density environments, so cities are going to be worse than the countryside*, apartments worse than houses, shops, public transport rather than private, office buildings and the like, schools, care homes and obviously hospitals, anywhere you have a high footfall of people indoors with shared areas and surfaces. That they took their sweet time shutting down NCT centres is another WTF added to the list as far as our government goes. That could have easily started a cluster and anywhere in the country too.

When this is done and dusted I'll bet our low population density is going to be one factor we can be grateful for, but it will also show a lack of good management, because even with that major advantage we're still higher in deaths per million than other countries without that advantage.

As KyussB notes we're really not doing a great job at all. If we were to look at a nation that did do a better job, even after a false start, like the Czechs and roughly applied their figures to ours, we should be at around 50-60 deaths, not over 200.

*though you could have an asymptomatic spreader in a village post office that infects a load of people and causes a cluster.

Dublin is NOT significantly more infected than any other county.

Comments