[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2021-April-22, 02:44, said:

Our friend Nick Triggle from the BBC is still at it, minimizing the acceptance of 30,000-100,000 additional deaths after most have been vaccinated.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56830398

I don't see any minimising of it

Quote

Some models suggest there could be in excess of 100,000 deaths over the coming year or so. But others say it may be no worse than a bad flu season with around 30,000 deaths.

When the next wave will come is also not clear. Eventually it is expected the virus will become seasonal like flu. But that cannot be a given for this year - hence the summer warnings.

It's why government scientists are insisting we move forward carefully.

But why in the long-run we can learn to live with Covid.

The implication is that after this year we can live with it, but we have to be careful this year, which seems a reasonable interpretation of what the scientists are saying. Also the 100K is probably from the model that suggested everything would be 2-3 times as bad as it has proven to be at every stage. Unless an apocalyptic new variant appears, 100K seems horribly unlikely as by the time of the predicted peak, the vast majority of adults will have had at least one dose of vaccine and a small majority will have had both.

[cherdano]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-April-22, 03:50, said:

I don't see any minimising of it

Quote

A rise in infections is sadly inevitable, (...)Some models suggest there could be in excess of 100,000 deaths over the coming year or so. But others say it may be no worse than a bad flu season with around 30,000 deaths.

He is implying another 30,000 deaths would be a success.

There is nothing inevitable about another wave of this magnitude. Vaccinations. Hand out N95 masks to everyone working along-side others indoors. Proper sick-pay for those who have to isolate due to a positive test or a contact-tracing call and cannot work from home. A serious improvement of ventilation in public buildings.
And finally, when case numbers are low enough, do proper contact-tracing - not just calling up recent contacts (and don't restrict yourself to silly 2m rules), but also find out where someone got infected, and who else could have gotten infected by that person (backward tracing).

[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2021-April-22, 15:31, said:

Proper sick-pay for those who have to isolate due to a positive test or a contact-tracing call and cannot work from home.

That is the one thing that will have the biggest effect.

Obviously I can't verify these calls, but I've heard several people claiming to work in test and trace phoning in to radio programs saying that people are simply putting the phone down on them when they find out where the call is from, or they suspect using caller display and not taking calls from them to avoid being told to isolate.

[pilowsky]

There is something truly strange about the world we live in when these two headlines appear on the same day:

https://www.bbc.com/...d-asia-56870410

Quote

Indian hospitals say their patients are dying because of a shortage of oxygen as Covid case numbers and deaths set new records for a third day running.

and

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989797337/out-of-thin-air-nasa-rover-makes-oxygen-from-martian-atmosphere

Quote

Out Of Thin Air: NASA Rover Makes Oxygen From Martian Atmosphere

[johnu]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-April-22, 15:47, said:

That is the one thing that will have the biggest effect.

Obviously I can't verify these calls, but I've heard several people claiming to work in test and trace phoning in to radio programs saying that people are simply putting the phone down on them when they find out where the call is from, or they suspect using caller display and not taking calls from them to avoid being told to isolate.

It's nice to know that the US doesn't have a monopoly on sociopaths.

[hrothgar]

Good article in Vanity Fair about vaccine distribution

https://www.vanityfa...untries-in-need

[pilowsky]

Vaccine distribution in Australia is useless.
To date, the roll-out is risibly small https://www.abc.net....t/13197518?nw=0

Politicians claim all kinds of reasons for this - shortage of supply, poor production, mean Europeans.

But for the past 30-40 years, successive governments paid lip service to science.
Quietly dissipating and denigrating the pursuit of academic work while pumping money into "important" endeavours like the Australian Institute of Sport.

To give some perspective about the value that the world places on Science, it is worth remembering that this year the Nobel prize for Medicine is worth $USD 1,192,546 (converting SEK10,000,000).
The Nobel prize is typically shared between 3 people (the maximum permitted in the rules) who are not dead (also in the rules).

Each of the winners of the US tennis open will get USD3,800,000 this year.

Much as I understand that hitting balls with sticks takes practice, this disparity makes no sense to me.

One beneficial effect of the coronavirus was that, for a short while, there was no sport on the radio.

[thepossum]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-April-18, 04:20, said:

https://www.theguard...-yyD3mawbEEPCsk

I guess I shouldn't have wasted 30 seconds scanning this article. I gave up reading any news publication (even "respected" ones) for anything science related early last year

I hope poor Bayes' spirit doesn't have access to a Guardian subscription

[cherdano]

 thepossum, on 2021-April-25, 17:18, said:

I guess I shouldn't have wasted 30 seconds scanning this article. I gave up reading any news publication (even "respected" ones) for anything science related early last year

I hope poor Bayes' spirit doesn't have access to a Guardian subscription

LOL

[johnu]

If you have children that attend this school you should get them out of there before they are taught to be terminally stupid.

Miami Private School Won’t Allow Vaccinated Teachers Near Students, Citing Misinformation

Quote

In a letter to faculty and staff sent last week and obtained by The New York Times, school co-founder Leila Centner reportedly requests that teachers who have already been vaccinated inform the school so they can be physically distanced from students. Teachers should tell the school if they get vaccinated before the end of the school year “as we cannot allow recently vaccinated people to be near our students till more is known,” or wait until the school year is over to be vaccinated. Centner adds that teachers who receive the vaccine over the summer will not be allowed to return until clinical trials on the vaccines have finished.

In a separate letter, sent to Centner Academy parents on Monday, Centner cites a false claim that “tens of thousands of women all over the world have recently been reporting adverse reproductive issues” from being near people who have received the vaccine.

“It is our policy, to the extent possible, not to employ anyone who has taken the experimental COVID-19 injection until more is known,” Centner writes.

Presumably this is a QAnon or Fox Propaganda screwball conspiracy meant for their most severely mentally incompetent followers.

[pilowsky]

 johnu, on 2021-April-27, 12:40, said:

If you have children that attend this school you should get them out of there before they are taught to be terminally stupid.

Miami Private School Won't Allow Vaccinated Teachers Near Students, Citing Misinformation

Presumably this is a QAnon or Fox Propaganda screwball conspiracy meant for their most severely mentally incompetent followers.

No, the same people exist all over the world.
If you can believe the world was created in 6 days, you can believe anything.

[helene_t]

 thepossum, on 2021-April-25, 17:18, said:

I hope poor Bayes' spirit doesn't have access to a Guardian subscription

I may be biased because I consider the Guardian a less-terrible-than-average-British-newspaper, but I don't think the article does such a bad job.

But it's a bit disappointing that they start the article with "only 1 false positive in 1000" and then proceed as if that has a well-defined meaning. They should either spell out "only one out of 1000 tested non-Covid cases result in a false positive", or they should subsequently have written "it depends what 1 in 1000 is supposed to mean". As it is, they make it more obscure than needed.

Anyway, newspapers, even The Guardian, are not great sources of science news and background. So far I agree with you. Better to read Scientific American or New Scientist.

[thepossum]

 helene_t, on 2021-April-27, 16:16, said:

I may be biased because I consider the Guardian a less-terrible-than-average-British-newspaper, but I don't think the article does such a bad job.

But it's a bit disappointing that they start the article with "only 1 false positive in 1000" and then proceed as if that has a well-defined meaning. They should either spell out "only one out of 1000 tested non-Covid cases result in a false positive", or they should subsequently have written "it depends what 1 in 1000 is supposed to mean". As it is, they make it more obscure than needed.

Anyway, newspapers, even The Guardian, are not great sources of science news and background. So far I agree with you. Better to read Scientific American or New Scientist.

It was the stuff about obscurity and anomalies that got me

To be honest even the alternative publications you mention are no longer (sorry, never were) high on my list

[cherdano]

If you don't think Bayes theorem is obscure, you should get out of your bubble a bit more.

[hrothgar]

 cherdano, on 2021-April-28, 12:19, said:

If you don't think Bayes theorem is obscure, you should get out of your bubble a bit more.

FWIW, my department at work often uses a (better framed) version of this
same example as one of our early round interview questions.

[hrothgar]

 cherdano, on 2021-April-28, 12:19, said:

If you don't think Bayes theorem is obscure, you should get out of your bubble a bit more.

FWIW, my department at work often uses a (better framed) version of this
same example as one of our early round interview questions.

[StevenG]

 cherdano, on 2021-April-28, 12:19, said:

If you don't think Bayes theorem is obscure, you should get out of your bubble a bit more.

I was wondering what theorems the average Guardian journalist would not consider obscure.

[pilowsky]

If Bayes theorem is obscure then all hope is lost.

[sfi]

 StevenG, on 2021-April-28, 15:06, said:

I was wondering what theorems the average Guardian journalist would not consider obscure.

The Pythagorean theorem is the only one that comes to mind. Theoretical mathematics really does not hold much of a place in most people's lives.

Edit: Having done a bit of "research" and found what is clearly the authoritative list of the top 100 theorems, there aren't many others that people would know by name. I also notice the Bayes theorem isn't even on their list.

[kenberg]

 pilowsky, on 2021-April-28, 15:20, said:

If Bayes theorem is obscure then all hope is lost.

Then abandon all hope.