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Re:The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming by throwaway_pdp09 on Saturday March 21, 2020 @10:35AM (#22646735)
> There is no "actual data" in your comment above

There is in http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/#w which I said matches what I've found rather well.

> The other poster doesn't have any responsibility to tell you "how to model the data better".

Yes he does,

Re:The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming by leereeves on Saturday March 21, 2020 @02:36PM (#22648730)
People spend years studying epidemiology. No one can write a comment here that will teach you how to do it properly.

But I'll try to help. You're looking at a graph of confirmed cases, in other words, positive test results.

That may be due to an increase in the number of infected people; or because the number of tests being performed is increasing, and therefore the percentage of infected people reported as confirmed cases is increasing; or because some positive test results (even with confirmation) are false positives. And there may be other causes that I don't know, because I'm not an epidemiologist either, just a statistics grad student.

Figuring out the the contribution of each cause is a job for the professionals.

Re:The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming by andrepd on Saturday March 21, 2020 @12:01PM (#22647426)
I don't need to be an aeronautic engineer to know that a person with no such background should not throw hunches about designing planes.
Re:The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming by NateEag on Saturday March 21, 2020 @12:00PM (#22647419)
> There is in http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/#w which I said matches what I've found rather well

There may be data there, but if I understand you correctly you did not have it when you made your first post.

It is therefore inadmissible evidence as to whether your first post was a reasonable thing to write.

> Yes he does,

If you have decided you want to be an epidemiologist, or at least to learn their skillset, whose responsibility is it to fulfill that desire?

I don't think there is a reasonable answer to that other than "mine."

[dead]
Re:The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming by alien_ on Saturday March 21, 2020 @04:12PM (#22649609)
There's a quote that states that all models are wrong, some happen to be useful.

With this in mind I think we should stop nitpicking on non-specialists who try to raise awareness of this pandemic.

Yes there might be some differences from what a specialist would have done.

Due to the speed at which the situation evolves and the inability to test everyone daily there are lots of unknowns so even a specialist may not be able to give a more much precise figure, everything is going to be a rough estimate.

This is a very serious situation and it's better to err on the caution side, people's lives depend on everyone doing their part.

Non-constructive criticism of people who raise awareness will erode people's buy-in and people will die because of this.

Re:The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming by andrepd on Saturday March 21, 2020 @03:12PM (#22649074)
Mate I can start to pontificate randomly about aeronautics design, and you can very well tell me to shut up with no requirement that you are an expert yourself.