outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

population density in being related to infectious disease transmission shockah

― the word "restaurateur" doesn't have an n in it (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, July 15, 2020 5:36 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

there's literally no evidence that the relationship between population density and covid-19 incidence is causal fwiw. population density may also correlate with some other stuff that is causally related to covid transmission (inequality/race mainly), and there's some evidence that crowding (which is different density, because it's possible to build up, i.e. manhattan has low crowding) may be causally related too. but there's no evidence that, all things being equal, a place with a higher population density has a faster covid transmission rate.

if you don't believe me, look up the population density in hong kong, singapore, seoul, etc.

if the lesson we take from this is "cities are bad", we're fucked.

aren't hong kong, singapore, seoul, etc. places that implimented a plan and had broad compliance?

seems common sense that more people closer together would make for higher infection rate, since the disease is spread by...people...in close proximity

whatever the case, the notion ≠ "cities are bad"

oh I want people to think cities are bad so they move to the suburbs and I can afford to move in

Over here it's been less about population density and more about the number of people living in the same household and the working conditions they're pushed into.

aren't hong kong, singapore, seoul, etc. places that implimented a plan and had broad compliance?

exactly? the reason LA and NYC and other cities in the US are getting hit hard is not density. it might be a third order effect (behind competence of/compliance with the response and inequality) but honestly there's no evidence even for that!

if you want another example: compare the covid rate in manhattan with that in the other four boroughs.

it does seem like common sense, but like i say, there is no evidence that it is true.

xp yup, home occupancy and local industry does seem to have a strong effect.

(and it's not splitting hairs to differentiate between home occupancy and population density if you're trying to figure out a rational response after this is over)

I was thinking the best measure would be comparing densely populated areas to sparsely populated ones, with a control of similar containment protocols.

That some densely populated cities are relatively unaffected compared to others says much less about population density than aboutt containment measures

That some densely populated cities are relatively unaffected compared to others says much less about population density than aboutt containment measures

well, it tells you population density is less important than the other differences between those cities, and that if the lesson we take is "we should move to the suburbs" then it won't help.

population density in being related to infectious disease transmission shockah

― the word "restaurateur" doesn't have an n in it (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, July 15, 2020 2:36 PM (one hour ago)

It's only the 3rd most dense county in California, only 58% as dense as San Francisco.
http://www.usa.com/rank/california-state--population-density--county-rank.htm

San Francisco has 50 COVID deaths in the past 20 weeks*, which is what LA had just yesterday by lunchtime.

(*0 in the last 30 days!)

I was thinking the best measure would be comparing densely populated areas to sparsely populated ones, with a control of similar containment protocols.

this has been done. i'll try to dig up the studies.

but the short version again: look at the five boroughs of new york city.

I def hope some people move to the suburbs so I can live in their houses

good lessons that there is evidence for:

don't live 10 people to a dwelling
make working in a factory/warehouse/abbatoir safer
have a competent civil service and government
have a population that trusts its government
don't tie healthcare to employment

bad lessons there is no evidence for:

live in low population density settings

also that last one doesn't only not help. in a very real sense it will make the next pandemic more likely because it will accelerate the melting of the permafrost, releasing dormant viruses that we have no immunity for from the permafrost, killing us all haha fml.

lol

You can also see France as another counterexample to identifying population density and rona spread, in considering for example the regions of the Île-de-France (where Paris is located) and the Grand Est (where Strasbourg and Nancy are located). The former is much more dense but the latter had a proportionally worse outbreak.

Wait there’s a place in France called “Nancy”?

it's where they dance in fancy pants

Wait there’s a place in France called “Nancy”?

Yup, pronounced thusly:

https://forvo.com/word/nancy/#fr

I was ready to complain about French but that's not that egregious

Nancy the city is several centuries older than the English first name Nancy, so puh-leeze.

Interestingly, its German name is Nanzig (pronounced 'nan-tsikh', more or less).

does that mean we can call gdansk 'dancy'

gsluggo

Seed

You have chanced upon that city's true name. It is now yours for the taking.

2xp

Nancy is very nice! I was talking to my (American) parents about it recently, and said its name in the French way, and they had no idea what I was talking about until I sent a follow up email. It’s not well known outside of France I guess but it’s a métropole of 250,000 people. It has a UNESCO World Heritage Site! I am going to be spending a lot of time there so I can be your Nancy news network.

Fuck me, there are some idiots out there

A week ago, Melbourne law firm HWL Ebsworth said they were going to keep working out of their office rather than “blindly following the lead of others like a lemming".

They now have a cluster of 6 COVID-19 cases pic.twitter.com/zR58xdHN9B

— Jeremy Story Carter (@jstorycarter) July 16, 2020

jonathan meades has a good episode or two about the architecture of nancy iirc

Nancy the city is several centuries older than the English first name Nancy, so puh-leeze.

Which itself emerged from being a nickname for Ann

Like how you pronounce Annecy.

It is now yours for the taking.

ooh, i've always wanted my own baltic port

Turns out Sweden is ok. This is a bit ranty but there are a few truths on the discourse (at least the way it went in the UK)

Ok. The virus is pretty much over and done with in Sweden for now. Who knows if it will come back in September/October? (no one that's who, anyone who claims to know is an idiot) so I'll do a little rant because the discourse has been absurdly stupid

— grodaeu (@grodaeu) July 16, 2020

lol, that is very much not the consensus at all.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-15/sweden-says-latest-covid-immunity-not-enough-to-protect-citizens

Meanwhile, Sweden’s mortality rate per 100,000 is higher than that in the U.S.

^ seems pertinent

xp I read that thread and it seemed insane to me, didn’t it have the highest mortality rate of the Scandinavian nations? Who even is that person and what is their expertise?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html

LONDON — Ever since the coronavirus emerged in Europe, Sweden has captured international attention by conducting an unorthodox, open-air experiment. It has allowed the world to examine what happens in a pandemic when a government allows life to carry on largely unhindered.

This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.

I think this is quite the thing to write when people have been dying alone without family allowed to say goodbye or give them the last kiss. Not to mention the fact that covid kills people horribly and even the people it doesn’t kill can have problems for an as yet unknown time afterwards.

And then death numbers started to pop up. And suddenly a *hundred* years of medical practice of judging health hazards by lost life years was thrown out the window. One 93 year old with four other diseases dying was the same as one case of infant mortality

— grodaeu (@grodaeu) July 16, 2020

They even acknowledged it a month ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/architect-of-sweden-coronavirus-strategy-admits-too-many-died-anders-tegnell

2xp

More than three months later, the coronavirus is blamed for 5,420 deaths in Sweden, according to the World Health Organization. That might not sound especially horrendous compared with the more than 129,000 Americans who have died. But Sweden is a country of only 10 million people. Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40 percent more deaths than the United States, 12 times more than Norway, seven times more than Finland and six times more than Denmark.

this somebody also says the US is being irresponsible if they keep schools closed in Fall in another tweet, and i have no idea who this person is, so forgive me if I don't just accept it at face value.

the note about the economy is important. their economy still suffered despite mostly remaining open.

their cases have been on a downward slope for the last 10-14 days or so, buuuuut "over", idk, just a little over a month ago naive Floridians thought our infection rates were so low taht bars being open was something that'd not get interrupted again and suddenly our spikes showed up at an alarming rate.

grodeau's point seems to be "lol it was just fuckin' old people fuck them"

xp well tbf sweden _is_ unlikely to get waves like those in the US given they haven't actually changed their behavior.

gyac - don't know. With that first tweet I was taken aback because my understanding was that Sweden was fucked (however covid might have subsided recently like the rest of Europe) but what got me was the graphs discourse and what I liked was an acknowledgement of how much we just don't know or was a bit made up as we went along.

(It was RT-ed by a sane academic I've followed for a long time)

xpost yes very true

"I think this is quite the thing to write when people have been dying alone without family allowed to say goodbye or give them the last kiss. Not to mention the fact that covid kills people horribly and even the people it doesn’t kill can have problems for an as yet unknown time afterwards."

Not sure the tweet you linked warrants that. The tweet is about how do you count a death as due solely to covid (of a healthy infant) or what isn't quite (the 90 to with various issues).

Sweden's per capita death rate is insane but according to the FT coronavirus tracker both the number of cases and deaths is in decline. My assumption has been that's because people have been voluntarily locking themselves down but maybe there is a lower immunity threshold for reasons we don't understand yet. That last bit is probably wishful thinking.

that's a legit question but I hate how it's constantly co-opted into "if you get run over by a train they'll count it as a COVID death"

xxxpost i'm just wary of people prematurely overreacting to too little data and saying it truly was "much ado about nothing", because outside of the obvious (that what Sweden did couldn't realistically be implemented in the states), nonetheless, scores of idiots will do exactly that (just as they did earlier this year) and more people will disobey mask/distancing orders and beat up greeters at Wal-Mart for politely asking them to put a mask on.

xp it’s also summer and people are probably outside, cases are dropping everywhere in Europe too