(o)(o) wrote:The video KlaxonCow posted is very good at a basic level R0 type explanation but there are so many unpredictable variables (and he makes too many assumptions.. it's not really an analysis just an overview)
In fairness, that's really what it's supposed to be.
A basic overview, for the layperson, of how viruses in general - not specifically this particular Corvid 19 coronavirus, though he uses reported numbers from that as his "real world data" to compare his spreadsheet simulation against - work to help people understand that what makes them so potentially deadly (even with fairly modest rates of spread) is "the network effect" of how contagious it is. But, equally, how preventative measures early on to curb that spread can knock the legs out from under an epidemic and something that, unrestrained, could potentially infect millions can be brought down to thousands or hundreds, and it burns itself out, if preventative steps - like quarantine, washing hands, etc. - are taken nice and early.
(Which, I feel, is the big take-away. Viruses that are highly contagious are, of course, a problem but the natural balance to that is that they also will burn themselves out quickly, as long as they're not given a platform to spread like wild fire. They're "live fast and die young", so if the lid can be kept on it long enough, they'll actually helpfully burn themselves out in short order too.)
It's informative. To let the average person understand what you should be panicking about, and what you shouldn't be panicking about.
(It's also a video in the wider context that he has previously addressed anti-vaccination nonsense in the past, along similar lines, and how a wave of people refusing to get vaccinated becomes a threat to absolutely everyone. Because if you keep a lid on things then, yes, this stuff becomes minor and seems like a "fuss over nothing". But a bunch of people saying "I refuse to help keep a lid on things" gives diseases an unrestrained environment to spread like wild fire - and that's how you convert a "fuss about nothing" into a deadly pandemic, and stuff that used to be under control - TB, for example - starts making a deadly comeback. Thanks to idiots getting in a panic about the wrong thing.)
Indeed, it can't be an analysis, in that sense, as we can only go by the reported numbers - which, at this stage, are unreliable, even without potential lying about it from China - so no-one is capable of giving anyone a rock solid conclusive analysis. This is still on-going with, indeed, too many unknowns.
It's meant as more of a "Viruses 101" for the public to inform them a little better of what the underlying problem can be and what needs to be done to address that problem, as a counter-balance to the media hysteria that typically explains nothing to anyone.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
