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TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

Ok so Flybe flights are a gonner. Which airline do I buy my replacement tickets with? What airlines are still likely to be flying in mid June?

Edit and what are the odds on UCL cancelling their June open day?

Where are you flying to (and from)?

Edinburgh to City (at the moment)

Nigelb said:

MarqueeMark said:

williamglenn said:

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Overround.

Chips with more chips is a bargain at £2.40

Yes, you'd want to order 2 cod without chips plus chips with extra chips, instead of 2 cod and chips.

Bravo!

Yes, but if you order chips with chips.... how do you tell they haven’t short changed you on the chips ?

Yes, you’d better order at least one fish with chips, to get a basis for the portion size.

Goddamnit Leicester.

IshmaelZ said:

I thought usually they were de facto grounded anyway because nobody would give them credit for fuel, but praps on those short routes they carry more than one journey's worth.

https://twitter.com/HollyHNews/status/1235301789207015425

https://twitter.com/HollyHNews/status/1235305409965182977

IshmaelZ said:

AramintaMoonbeamQC said:

Glasgow Airport seem to have impounded some Flybe planes. Eeek.

https://twitter.com/ConnorGillies/status/1235313173571526660

I thought usually they were de facto grounded anyway because nobody would give them credit for fuel, but praps on those short routes they carry more than one journey's worth.

They've pulled flights at Manchester that were taxiing down the runway, so it isn't a lack of fuel.

Good to see that the website was still linking through Skyscanner a few minutes ago, to take money for flights that will never operate.

Latest spain figures 228 majority in madrid can’t remember the opening figure but it still looks like 90% are directly related to travel the majority of which originated in
Italy. 3 cases in school children but not serious around 10% needing ICU care and 25% hospitalization.

Anything that grows at a constant rate grows "exponentially". And nothing in nature grows without limit that we know of.

TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

Ok so Flybe flights are a gonner. Which airline do I buy my replacement tickets with? What airlines are still likely to be flying in mid June?

Edit and what are the odds on UCL cancelling their June open day?

Where are you flying to (and from)?

Edinburgh to City (at the moment)

Train it. Edinburgh to King's X on the East Coast Mainline, wonderful views.

Then taxi it.

I would walk UCL's portico is about a 10min walk from KX. You'll spend longer waiting for the lights up Euston road and at the station.

Scott_xP said:

IshmaelZ said:

I thought usually they were de facto grounded anyway because nobody would give them credit for fuel, but praps on those short routes they carry more than one journey's worth.

https://twitter.com/HollyHNews/status/1235301789207015425

https://twitter.com/HollyHNews/status/1235305409965182977

'Admin' as in 'Administrators'.

matt said:

DavidL said:

AramintaMoonbeamQC said:

Glasgow Airport seem to have impounded some Flybe planes. Eeek.

https://twitter.com/ConnorGillies/status/1235313173571526660

Be an interesting court case for someone tomorrow.

Contractual lien for unpaid landing charges.

Probably leased planes though. Lots of interesting issues for fees to be earned on.

eadric said:

IanB2 said:

Here’s a bit of good news:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51740214

I clicked on that in the hope that it was news about a forthcoming vaccine, or a sudden slide in cases....


Oh well.

Spoke to my friend again today

CDC close to releasing his validated Dx. He has capacity to produce 100k tests a week from Long Island. He already has a vaccine in Phase 1 human trials in Shanghai

DavidL said:

matt said:

DavidL said:

AramintaMoonbeamQC said:

Glasgow Airport seem to have impounded some Flybe planes. Eeek.

https://twitter.com/ConnorGillies/status/1235313173571526660

Be an interesting court case for someone tomorrow.

Contractual lien for unpaid landing charges.

Probably leased planes though. Lots of interesting issues for fees to be earned on.

Liens attach to the aircraft. Eurocontrol has a fleet lien. There will be few fees for lawyers (genuinely). Default notice, negotiate with administrators, hand over cash, ferry.

Pro_Rata said:

MightyAlex said:

Pro_Rata said:

A few Coronavirus thoughts and learning for the last couple of days:

1. Thanks @NickPalmer for the Vox article yesterday. Main take aways - the Chinese numbers are thought broadly credible and, one they got in gear, contact tracing was their best weapon. Happily something the UK seems to bed doing well, fingers crossed.

2. The Italian numbers for their local outbreak are broadly in line with Chinese numbers for a bigger area. Having looked at lots of charts, it suggests to me that we are 5-12 days from the peak death rate of the Lodi centred epidemic and it has run 15-25% of its course.

3. I'm not clear how Italy is reporting case by province. Exponenting case numbers exist beyond the current or proposed extension of the red zone - I don't know, in Milan's figures, for example, whether they are (a) reporting case numbers from red zone patients who are in Milanese hospitals (b) seeing cases of Milanese who have had contact with the Lodigiani &c, or (c) there is now local transmission in areas of Milan. Obviously this has great bearing on the likely course of the outbreak beyond the Lodi core.

4. Kids look, not only to not get that ill, but to barely contract the virus when in contact. Even if things are bad, closing all schools across Italy, over the heads of the Civil Protection experts, seems like a misstep.

5. We really should not be thinking of nations as having the virus, rather putting specific rings on maps for areas with local transmission, areas at high risk of local transmission, and other areas - the WHO template agreed yesterday with Italy was a good step.

Children may not be able to catch it but their minders, support staff and grand support staff certainly do. Schools must a superb way of amplifying infection rates in a community.

I agree with that - but in that respect a school is not that much of a special case compared with any other workplace. I'd have understood closing schools across the orange zone (about 1/3 of Italy, 20 million population in total) but across the South where there are few cases? This is what I mean when I say national borders are the wrong geography - specifying zones then redrawing diligently as soon as new facts emerge is better. And it sounds like the expert advice concurred.

Closing schools has a potentially massive effect both on healthcare - health workers have children that suddenly need looking after - and the economy. It surely should be avoided if at all possible.

DavidL said:

SandyRentool said:

DavidL said:

Ok so Flybe flights are a gonner. Which airline do I buy my replacement tickets with? What airlines are still likely to be flying in mid June?

Edit and what are the odds on UCL cancelling their June open day?

Catch the sleeper instead. 73 to Waverley for a 92 forward. What's not to like?

Plus a reduced carbon impact.

Really takes too long. I prefer the train but we have a prize giving in Dundee in the morning and need to be in London for a sharp start the next morning. Flying is all that works (although I prefer trains).

BA and Virgin both operate the EDI-LCY route, but I find the flight times poor for work purposes - I normally fly into Stansted on Easyjet or Gatwick on BA, then get in on the train.

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1235306739446185990

You know, I could see myself bursting with fury at civil servants at the Home Office. But DfID? That's a much more sedate place concerned with funding (or not funding) projects. It suggests that Ms Patel might want to take some management training courses.

rcs1000 said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1235306739446185990

You know, I could see myself bursting with fury at civil servants at the Home Office. But DfID? That's a much more sedate place concerned with funding (or not funding) projects. It suggests that Ms Patel might want to take some management training courses.

Would that be anger management management courses.

rcs1000 said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1235306739446185990

You know, I could see myself bursting with fury at civil servants at the Home Office. But DfID? That's a much more sedate place concerned with funding (or not funding) projects. It suggests that Ms Patel might want to take some management training courses.

As go on them , not conduct them !!!!!

DavidL said:

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

I know it is Guido but this is quite impressive

https://order-order.com/2020/03/04/uk-ranked-best-world-epidemic-response-mitigation/

I'm sorry but the US being second makes that table entirely without credibility. I would have them somewhere in the mid 140s.

It was done months back. The US was prepared but did SFA when the time came.

Ah, right. Ready on paper. In fairness so far the NHS has walked the walk but Singapore (who may have a climate advantage) must surely get the gold star.

This actually highlights an interesting flaw in the assessment, which overlooks the cultural and system impediments to effective deployment.

From a technical perspective, the US ticks all the boxes - medical expertise, equipment, technology, ability to detect, resources to mobilise rapidly, etc.

It’s just that - leaving aside the moron who happens to be in charge - many human and cultural factors prevented the US from responding. Such as cultural hostility to government intervention, isolationism and a tendency to think the worlds problems can’t reach America, a health system set up for competition not co-operation, minimal free healthcare creating disincentives for people to get tested, lack of sick pay discouraging people from self isolation.

And yet we are talking about the country whose logistical genius won WW2. The achievements were endless.

They won the battle of the Atlantic by building ships faster than the German U boats could sink them. One of my favourites is the Germans, who had been living on rats, in Monte Casino, who in a counter attack took some US trenches and found fresh cream cakes from Chicago. They surrendered.

What the hell has happened?

I’m reading Gen Marshall’s biography. He was a rare genius.

eadric said:

IanB2 said:

eadric said:

IanB2 said:

eadric said:

Chameleon said:

https://news.yahoo.com/crisis-yale-professor-said-u-143223472.html

"It is well within the realm of possibility that there are 100,000 people infected with this right now in the United States," Forman said. "Healthcare providers may be being exposed, other patients may be being exposed, and until you can give confidence to people about those answers, we are in a crisis here."

"It wouldn't surprise me if we were to learn that most major hospitals have coronavirus patients in them right now," he said.
in
Forman said in a tweet on Sunday that the number of confirmed cases in the US would "explode" in the coming days as existing cases are documented.

Quick reminder to America, if you healthcare providers are all sick, there is no one left to care. Mortality up.

If America has 100,000 cases NOW, that probably means millions of Americans are going to die, whatever they do from this moment on.

What we were saying about the unreliability and partiality of the Chinese data, we will soon be saying about the US.

But there is no evidence that millions will die.

We will never know the answer, because we will never know if that doctor is right, because America is such a shambles on this issue.

BUT mathematically I am right.

100,000 cases is huge. And this thing grows exponentially, doubling every 2-3 days in Europe (which has better healthcare). On that basis 100,000 cases becomes 51 million cases within about three weeks. = a million dead on a CFR of 2%

Exponential maths is scary

You are not even right on the maths, since exponential growth clearly can’t go on for ever in a finite system (and hence why roulette tables have a maximum allowable bet). It will slow down at some point, and neither you nor your sidekick on the numbers have given any thought to that part of the equation.

I assure you that we will know whether millions have died in the US, or not. They may not release the numbers as they go along, but this is not the famine in the Ukraine; the US is an open society where almost everything comes out in the end.

No, you don't understand. We will never know whether there are 100,000 cases in America RIGHT NOW, because the doctor is speculating (as he admits)

I sincerely hope he is wrong.

If 100,000 is the upper end, what’s the lower credible figure. Say 1,000. On the basis that (strangely, if you ask me) countries seem to be finding surprisingly many people infected who have travelled in Italy and surprisingly few at home.

The end state in the former case will be very different from the latter case. And therefore we’ll know at some point, by reverse deduction.

rcs1000 said:

TimT said:

geoffw said:

Anything that grows at a constant rate grows "exponentially". And nothing in nature grows without limit that we know of.

Even information cannot grow exponentially for ever.

Ah, but e^x grows exponentially.

Exactly how many bits of information is e^x? Now listing out all the data points for that equation into infinity for x - not possible, doesn't exist.

eadric said:

DavidL said:

eadric said:

IanB2 said:

eadric said:

Chameleon said:

https://news.yahoo.com/crisis-yale-professor-said-u-143223472.html

"It is well within the realm of possibility that there are 100,000 people infected with this right now in the United States," Forman said. "Healthcare providers may be being exposed, other patients may be being exposed, and until you can give confidence to people about those answers, we are in a crisis here."

"It wouldn't surprise me if we were to learn that most major hospitals have coronavirus patients in them right now," he said.
in
Forman said in a tweet on Sunday that the number of confirmed cases in the US would "explode" in the coming days as existing cases are documented.

Quick reminder to America, if you healthcare providers are all sick, there is no one left to care. Mortality up.

If America has 100,000 cases NOW, that probably means millions of Americans are going to die, whatever they do from this moment on.

What we were saying about the unreliability and partiality of the Chinese data, we will soon be saying about the US.

But there is no evidence that millions will die.

We will never know the answer, because we will never know if that doctor is right, because America is such a shambles on this issue.

BUT mathematically I am right.

100,000 cases is huge. And this thing grows exponentially, doubling every 2-3 days in Europe (which has better healthcare). On that basis 100,000 cases becomes 51 million cases within about three weeks. = a million dead on a CFR of 2%

Exponential maths is scary

But not necessarily appropriate as SK is now showing (as I predicted). Even starting a way behind it is possible to catch up, contain, isolate and treat if you make a big enough effort. The worry in the US is that the muppet in charge seems reluctant to recognise the need for such an effort. And muppet 2 thinks the answer is a prayer.

I hadn't noticed today's slowdown in South Korea. Hurray. But it is too soon to be truly confident. There was a slowdown two days ago, then it jumped again

Its far too soon for there to be a slow down and they still have a backlog but exponential growth has stopped. I suspect we will see new cases in the low hundreds for a few days yet as they process the backlog and then a more substantial drop off.

One of the things that is interesting about this is that so many virologists are very good at producing mathematical models of the disease but apparently very poor in interpreting the capacity restraints/ inclination to test. The link between new cases and actual spread is nowhere near as casual as they and their models assume.

TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

Ok so Flybe flights are a gonner. Which airline do I buy my replacement tickets with? What airlines are still likely to be flying in mid June?

Edit and what are the odds on UCL cancelling their June open day?

Where are you flying to (and from)?

Edinburgh to City (at the moment)

Train it. Edinburgh to King's X on the East Coast Mainline, wonderful views.

Then taxi it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lutNECOZFw

rcs1000 said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1235306739446185990

You know, I could see myself bursting with fury at civil servants at the Home Office. But DfID? That's a much more sedate place concerned with funding (or not funding) projects. It suggests that Ms Patel might want to take some management training courses.

She probably got slightly peeved when a civil servant raised an eyebrow to Priti's idea of donating the overseas aid budget to the Israeli military.

In a probably forlorn hope to drag this back to back to the topic of US Democrat Primary.

Tulsi Gabbard, will again be in the next US Democrat Debate. she has won 2 delights from American Samoa. which is the criteria they are using.

One of at max 4 candidates, on the stage.

She is my preferred candidate, but I very much doubt it will help.

but probably a remote chance if Biden really puts his foot in it or gets COV19.

I don't know her odds probably very long! but possibly worth a few people on here punting a bit down to cover all eventuality.

Benpointer said:

SandyRentool said:

DavidL said:

SandyRentool said:

DavidL said:

Ok so Flybe flights are a gonner. Which airline do I buy my replacement tickets with? What airlines are still likely to be flying in mid June?

Edit and what are the odds on UCL cancelling their June open day?

Catch the sleeper instead. 73 to Waverley for a 92 forward. What's not to like?

Plus a reduced carbon impact.

Really takes too long. I prefer the train but we have a prize giving in Dundee in the morning and need to be in London for a sharp start the next morning. Flying is all that works (although I prefer trains).

If you catch the Lowlander from Edinburgh rather than the Highlander from Dundee then I think this gets into Euston by 07.30

Don't expect to sleep much though (sadly)

Yeah we are not doing that with a teenage son and then running around London all day.

DavidL said:

matt said:

DavidL said:

AramintaMoonbeamQC said:

Glasgow Airport seem to have impounded some Flybe planes. Eeek.

https://twitter.com/ConnorGillies/status/1235313173571526660

Be an interesting court case for someone tomorrow.

Contractual lien for unpaid landing charges.

Probably leased planes though. Lots of interesting issues for fees to be earned on.

I thought FlyBe owned their planes but it turns out they lease about half of them from an American company.

Chameleon said:

Obviously it'll slow down at some point. However the point where the virus is slowing it's spread because it's running out of people makes it all a bit irrelevant. If 30% of the population is infected then obviously the R0 will drop and progression will slow.

R0 is the "basic reproduction number". It can (and does) change both over space and time for a whole bunch of reasons, but not the one you propose, since by definition it tells you on average how many people an infectious individual will infect in a population that's totally susceptible.

What you're talking about is the change in the net reproduction number, Rn, which takes into account the fact that not all of the population is susceptible (particularly once the epidemic has grown).

The formula is Rn equals R0 times s, where s is the proportion of the population that are susceptible.

geoffw said:

DavidL said:

matt said:

DavidL said:

AramintaMoonbeamQC said:

Glasgow Airport seem to have impounded some Flybe planes. Eeek.

https://twitter.com/ConnorGillies/status/1235313173571526660

Be an interesting court case for someone tomorrow.

Contractual lien for unpaid landing charges.

Probably leased planes though. Lots of interesting issues for fees to be earned on.

I have on my shelves The Scottish Students' Songbook of 1891 which includes a ditty entitled "Give a Fee (a song for young Advocates)".
Do you know it?

No never heard of it. Some things haven't changed much though.

tyson said:

Benpointer said:

Pro_Rata said:

MightyAlex said:

Pro_Rata said:

A few Coronavirus thoughts and learning for the last couple of days:

1. Thanks @NickPalmer for the Vox article yesterday. Main take aways - the Chinese numbers are thought broadly credible and, one they got in gear, contact tracing was their best weapon. Happily something the UK seems to bed doing well, fingers crossed.

2. The Italian numbers for their local outbreak are broadly in line with Chinese numbers for a bigger area. Having looked at lots of charts, it suggests to me that we are 5-12 days from the peak death rate of the Lodi centred epidemic and it has run 15-25% of its course.

3. I'm not clear how Italy is reporting case by province. Exponenting case numbers exist beyond the current or proposed extension of the red zone - I don't know, in Milan's figures, for example, whether they are (a) reporting case numbers from red zone patients who are in Milanese hospitals (b) seeing cases of Milanese who have had contact with the Lodigiani &c, or (c) there is now local transmission in areas of Milan. Obviously this has great bearing on the likely course of the outbreak beyond the Lodi core.

4. Kids look, not only to not get that ill, but to barely contract the virus when in contact. Even if things are bad, closing all schools across Italy, over the heads of the Civil Protection experts, seems like a misstep.

5. We really should not be thinking of nations as having the virus, rather putting specific rings on maps for areas with local transmission, areas at high risk of local transmission, and other areas - the WHO template agreed yesterday with Italy was a good step.

Children may not be able to catch it but their minders, support staff and grand support staff certainly do. Schools must a superb way of amplifying infection rates in a community.

I agree with that - but in that respect a school is not that much of a special case compared with any other workplace. I'd have understood closing schools across the orange zone (about 1/3 of Italy, 20 million population in total) but across the South where there are few cases? This is what I mean when I say national borders are the wrong geography - specifying zones then redrawing diligently as soon as new facts emerge is better. And it sounds like the expert advice concurred.

Closing schools has a potentially massive effect both on healthcare - health workers have children that suddenly need looking after - and the economy. It surely should be avoided if at all possible.

It's the single, most effective method to slow down the disease...children are such grubby little disease spreading (admittedly adorable) monkeys....

I agree. The jump between kids don't get sick from this to kids don't carry or spread this is a remarkable one to take. In China the family was the absolute number one source of infection.

eadric said:

TimT said:

YBarddCwsc said:

IanB2 said:

eadric said:

IanB2 said:

eadric said:

Chameleon said:

https://news.yahoo.com/crisis-yale-professor-said-u-143223472.html

"It is well within the realm of possibility that there are 100,000 people infected with this right now in the United States," Forman said. "Healthcare providers may be being exposed, other patients may be being exposed, and until you can give confidence to people about those answers, we are in a crisis here."

"It wouldn't surprise me if we were to learn that most major hospitals have coronavirus patients in them right now," he said.
in
Forman said in a tweet on Sunday that the number of confirmed cases in the US would "explode" in the coming days as existing cases are documented.

Quick reminder to America, if you healthcare providers are all sick, there is no one left to care. Mortality up.

If America has 100,000 cases NOW, that probably means millions of Americans are going to die, whatever they do from this moment on.

What we were saying about the unreliability and partiality of the Chinese data, we will soon be saying about the US.

But there is no evidence that millions will die.

We will never know the answer, because we will never know if that doctor is right, because America is such a shambles on this issue.

BUT mathematically I am right.

100,000 cases is huge. And this thing grows exponentially, doubling every 2-3 days in Europe (which has better healthcare). On that basis 100,000 cases becomes 51 million cases within about three weeks. = a million dead on a CFR of 2%

Exponential maths is scary

You are not even right on the maths, since exponential growth clearly can’t go on for ever in a finite system (and hence why roulette tables have a maximum allowable bet). It will slow down at some point, and neither you nor your sidekick on the numbers have given any thought to that part of the equation.

Exponentials never happen in the real world. Something always intervenes.

They do, but for only limited ranges.

Pandemics are surely a classic example of exponential growth in the real world


eg the Black Death.

I am right now reading a very good history of it, this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Mortality-Intimate-History-Devastating-ebook/dp/B008O8JWZY/ref=pd_vtp_351_5/257-0358485-4505117?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B008O8JWZY&pd_rd_r=aa0b6a55-64ee-493e-bdcb-cf6ae524c41e&pd_rd_w=hxVts&pd_rd_wg=7rPCn&pf_rd_p=78dd719b-ab64-47e6-8dc1-945f566666b3&pf_rd_r=331S1WNKBW7RTMJ764MN&psc=1&refRID=331S1WNKBW7RTMJ764MN

It started with some coughing peasant in, uh, China (or close), then within about 10 years it had infected maybe 30-40% of the world. That's quite exponential

Yes, but at some point they cease to grow exponentially - it doesn't go on forever. Living systems exist within tight physical constraints which introduce non-linearity at some point.

TheScreamingEagles said:

geoffw said:

Anything that grows at a constant rate grows "exponentially". And nothing in nature grows without limit that we know of.

You've never upset a woman have you?

Her anger grows exponentially, without limit, even if you apologise.

Oh she has a limit. And she knows where it is. She just doesn’t want you to know.

geoffw said:

DavidL said:

matt said:

DavidL said:

AramintaMoonbeamQC said:

Glasgow Airport seem to have impounded some Flybe planes. Eeek.

https://twitter.com/ConnorGillies/status/1235313173571526660

Be an interesting court case for someone tomorrow.

Contractual lien for unpaid landing charges.

Probably leased planes though. Lots of interesting issues for fees to be earned on.

I have on my shelves The Scottish Students' Songbook of 1891 which includes a ditty entitled "Give a Fee (a song for young Advocates)".
Do you know it?

O listen of Scotch and Civil Law Doctors all,
Solicitors, Agents, Accountants, to me;
O listen, of strifes and of lawsuit concoctors all,
And give to a poor starving lawyer a fee,

Give a fee,
Give a fee,
Give a fee!
O give to a poor starving lawyer a fee.

The soldier and sailor they dash on and splash on,
And, sure of their pay, scour the land and the sea-,
But we peak and pine here, and long, long years pass on,
Before our eyes blink at our first guinea fee.

Give a fee, etc.

The Church is an Eden of violets and roses,
The Bishop its Adam, from drudgery free;
The big burly priest on his soft down reposes,
While we must still fag on, and cry, “Give a fee!”

Give a fee, etc.

The quack he sells wholesale his pills universal,
And straight waxes richer than sagest M. D.-,
But we still must con o’er the same dull rehearsal,
And leave one or two old stagers to pocket the fee.

Give a fee, etc.

Here sit I, all frozen; my youth’s glowing visions.
See-saw like a Chinese joss or a Turkish Cadi;
I seek for no learning beyond the decisions,
And my soul’s proud ideal is a bright guinea fee.
Give a fee, Give a fee!

O force me no longer to cry, “Give a fee’.’

The sheet music is available at http://archive.org/details/scottishstudents00scot_0/page/32/

eadric said:

TimT said:

YBarddCwsc said:

IanB2 said:

eadric said:

IanB2 said:

eadric said:

Chameleon said:

https://news.yahoo.com/crisis-yale-professor-said-u-143223472.html

"It is well within the realm of possibility that there are 100,000 people infected with this right now in the United States," Forman said. "Healthcare providers may be being exposed, other patients may be being exposed, and until you can give confidence to people about those answers, we are in a crisis here."

"It wouldn't surprise me if we were to learn that most major hospitals have coronavirus patients in them right now," he said.
in
Forman said in a tweet on Sunday that the number of confirmed cases in the US would "explode" in the coming days as existing cases are documented.

Quick reminder to America, if you healthcare providers are all sick, there is no one left to care. Mortality up.

If America has 100,000 cases NOW, that probably means millions of Americans are going to die, whatever they do from this moment on.

What we were saying about the unreliability and partiality of the Chinese data, we will soon be saying about the US.

But there is no evidence that millions will die.

We will never know the answer, because we will never know if that doctor is right, because America is such a shambles on this issue.

BUT mathematically I am right.

100,000 cases is huge. And this thing grows exponentially, doubling every 2-3 days in Europe (which has better healthcare). On that basis 100,000 cases becomes 51 million cases within about three weeks. = a million dead on a CFR of 2%

Exponential maths is scary

You are not even right on the maths, since exponential growth clearly can’t go on for ever in a finite system (and hence why roulette tables have a maximum allowable bet). It will slow down at some point, and neither you nor your sidekick on the numbers have given any thought to that part of the equation.

Exponentials never happen in the real world. Something always intervenes.

They do, but for only limited ranges.

Pandemics are surely a classic example of exponential growth in the real world


eg the Black Death.

I am right now reading a very good history of it, this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Mortality-Intimate-History-Devastating-ebook/dp/B008O8JWZY/ref=pd_vtp_351_5/257-0358485-4505117?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B008O8JWZY&pd_rd_r=aa0b6a55-64ee-493e-bdcb-cf6ae524c41e&pd_rd_w=hxVts&pd_rd_wg=7rPCn&pf_rd_p=78dd719b-ab64-47e6-8dc1-945f566666b3&pf_rd_r=331S1WNKBW7RTMJ764MN&psc=1&refRID=331S1WNKBW7RTMJ764MN

It started with some coughing peasant in, uh, China (or close), then within about 10 years it had infected maybe 30-40% of the world. That's quite exponential

So you are sitting on this creepy island surrounded by boxes of latex gloves whilst reading a history of the Black Death after a lunchtime on the booze- and you want us to believe that your mental state is objective and rational?

DavidL said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

Ok so Flybe flights are a gonner. Which airline do I buy my replacement tickets with? What airlines are still likely to be flying in mid June?

Edit and what are the odds on UCL cancelling their June open day?

Where are you flying to (and from)?

Edinburgh to City (at the moment)

It’s senseless to fly that route. The train is nicer and takes the same time once you have faffed around.

Charles said:

rcs1000 said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1235306739446185990

You know, I could see myself bursting with fury at civil servants at the Home Office. But DfID? That's a much more sedate place concerned with funding (or not funding) projects. It suggests that Ms Patel might want to take some management training courses.

She went in with a mission to shake up Dfid. I suspect they didn’t like their comfortable certainties being challenged

There's never a good excuse for bullying, if that's what it's proven to be.

People in positions of authority in the workplace can seriously damage the health of their subordinates - I suspect we've all seen it happen. Fortunately these days it is less tolerated.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Charles said:

rcs1000 said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1235306739446185990

You know, I could see myself bursting with fury at civil servants at the Home Office. But DfID? That's a much more sedate place concerned with funding (or not funding) projects. It suggests that Ms Patel might want to take some management training courses.

She went in with a mission to shake up Dfid. I suspect they didn’t like their comfortable certainties being challenged

Perhaps they didn't like her being a national security risk running her own foreign policy?

You know the reason she had to resign in disgrace.

That to. But DfID is useless

TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

Ok so Flybe flights are a gonner. Which airline do I buy my replacement tickets with? What airlines are still likely to be flying in mid June?

Edit and what are the odds on UCL cancelling their June open day?

Where are you flying to (and from)?

Edinburgh to City (at the moment)

Train it. Edinburgh to King's X on the East Coast Mainline, wonderful views.

Then taxi it.

It’s a short walk. No need for a cab.

SandyRentool said:

Real world exponential: Radioactive decay.

(Nobody said it had to be an exponential increase!)

Even then, though, once you get near the end of it, you have to stop modelling it as a smooth exponential decay and start using a discretised stochastic model for the last few decays. And once that last one has popped, then there's decay no more, of exponential or any other kind...

Cyclefree said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

geoffw said:

Anything that grows at a constant rate grows "exponentially". And nothing in nature grows without limit that we know of.

You've never upset a woman have you?

Her anger grows exponentially, without limit, even if you apologise.

Oh she has a limit. And she knows where it is. She just doesn’t want you to know.

You have to account for TSE‘s particular perspective on this, though....

eadric said:

Charles said:

eadric said:

Charles said:

eadric said:

IanB2 said:

Here’s a bit of good news:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51740214

I clicked on that in the hope that it was news about a forthcoming vaccine, or a sudden slide in cases....


Oh well.

Spoke to my friend again today

CDC close to releasing his validated Dx. He has capacity to produce 100k tests a week from Long Island. He already has a vaccine in Phase 1 human trials in Shanghai

How long til it is usable??

The vaccine? He says a few months. His wife (who tends to be more realistic) says 12-18m

But this is something that should be completely safe so in theory you could take the polio approach

Quite an important difference. If it's a few months then it will be available for use in the northern hemisphere this autumn

Spanish flu teaches us that the SECOND wave can be savage, and worse

If it's 12-18 months it's too late

No vaccine is too late.....and we need to take any measure to reduce the spread of this disease...I think we'll be closing schools this time in a fortnight...Question...why do we have to wait a fortnight??

So FlyBeGone....

That is sad. Not sure how Exeter airport survives.

Casino_Royale said:

I've finally found something that unites the nation - Remainers and Leavers - alike.

Fish and chips.

Isn't that wonderful?

Thank God for Italian immigrants!

Casino_Royale said:

I've finally found something that unites the nation - Remainers and Leavers - alike.

Fish and chips.

Isn't that wonderful?

Except the weird English predilection for Cod instead of the vastly superior haddock.

moonshine said:

On the stock market: our assumption here is that the money is dumb and in denial.

Just to test the counter view, is there a possibility the money is right? WHO say China slowdown in cases is real. One assumes the same is true in Singapore and Vietnam. Could it be that while this is going to be a nasty shock, it’s not as apocalyptically bad as everyone here fears?

[removes party trousers and puts back on the brown slacks]

I liked your party trousers better.

Charles said:

Benpointer said:

Charles said:

rcs1000 said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1235306739446185990

You know, I could see myself bursting with fury at civil servants at the Home Office. But DfID? That's a much more sedate place concerned with funding (or not funding) projects. It suggests that Ms Patel might want to take some management training courses.

She went in with a mission to shake up Dfid. I suspect they didn’t like their comfortable certainties being challenged

There's never a good excuse for bullying, if that's what it's proven to be.

People in positions of authority in the workplace can seriously damage the health of their subordinates - I suspect we've all seen it happen. Fortunately these days it is less tolerated.

The problem is the definition of bullying is unclear. I really don’t like all these snonoymous accusations

Do you think there might be good reasons why such allegations, indeed whistleblowing allegations generally, might be made anonymously?