Summer 2020 is canceled
gadgetgirlIL
Posts: 1,381 Member
at least in my suburb, west of Chicago. Today the village announced the annual Eyes to the Skies festival held over several days around 4th of July won't be held this year. I understand but it still makes me sad and depressed. It is just the latest in local news of things not happening this summer. This comes on the heels of the governor saying that our peak is now mid-May not last week as the models originally suggested.Bonus: what does the term GIGO mean? This is what I feel is happening with the models due to the lack of comprehensive testing of the population.
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Garbage In - Garbage Out
And, I think you’re correct.0 -
Well, to be fair, I'd be careful about blaming GIGO on lack of universal testing.
There's just so much we don't know that it makes it hard to model. There appear to be a lot of people shedding virus without seeming actively ill. We don't know how much exposure is required to become infected--is one viral particle enough? 10? 100? 1000? etc.? Is it only in snot (so to speak) or can it float in aerosolized particles?
Likewise, there is evidence that many people have anti-COVID antibodies (suggesting significant prior exposure and recovery). This *might* suggest some level of "herd-immunity" that would reduce transmission. At the same time, we don't know if folks with antibodies are truly protected from reinfection. Similarly, it is my understanding that the antibody-tests are still not well-validated, so we don't know what the false-positive and false-negative rates are (indeed, I've wondered if these antibody tests might recognize non-COVID coronaviruses).
My current take is that we should assume that we know what we know at this point, and more information is going to be slow in coming (and there is no cure or vaccine in the immediate future). We need to understand how best to live in a world where there is certainly ongoing viral transmission. We're talking about how to get back to work, while at the same time making adjustments to our work-approach.
It's not easy.0 -
I told my husband I currently don't think we'll feel comfortable visiting our families during the Christmas holiday this year. I don't want to be Debbie Downer, but it's a possibility I'm mentally preparing for.
It will be interesting to see what knowledge will be gained once we have a lot more data from testing as well as data from patients being treated. This article about blood clots in Covid-19 patients is both interesting and concerning.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/22/coronavirus-blood-clots/1 -
Yup depressing indeed. Had an uplifting zoom with my wife's BF yesterday.0
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I agree with Steve that modeling is extremely difficult and the whole affair is far from easy.0
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@steve0mania - you are absolutely correct about how difficult it is to create a model when there are so many unknowns. At some point in the future this who pandemic will provide much data for epidemiology, economic, public health, logistics, etc. students to analyze and learn from. I'm old enough to remember discussing 3M's post-it notes invention in one of my business classes.0
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@gadgetgirlIL Yeah, it'll be a model for study, but with any/every new infectious agent, we'll likely have the same unknowns, and those unknowns will prevent "the best" policy for being enacted. As such, we'll still have to move forward in the dark as best as we can.
I do remember studying the 1918 Spanish Flu in our epidemiology/stats class in med school. It's not clear to me that the lessons learned there are entirely applicable to the current situation, but it's among the best of the imperfect guidance we have.
I will note that this is an example of not letting "perfect" get in the way of "good." I had dual MD/PhD training. It remains interesting to me to compare the two sides of my training. My PhD training taught me to be a major skeptic of information and to always try to poke and prod to define the boundaries of data, and to recognize what we really know as "fact" versus "speculation." I try to teach my graduate students to be skeptics as well.
However, my MD training taught me that even if we don't have all of the information we want or need, we still have to do something for the patient. We have to make our best guesses ("informed decisions") and devise a treatment strategy. At the same time, we have to continually monitor the patient's health and response, and make empirical adjustments along the way based on those responses. That's the "art" of medicine.
This is an absolute no-win situation for our leaders. Our governor has been held up in some circles as doing a legendary job, and in other circles they're calling him a total failure. Neither is fair. This is a situation where people will die. There is no way around it. At the same time, our economy is in the toilet. There's also no way around that. If our governor was more aggressive about stay-at-home, closing businesses, etc., folks would complain about the toll on the economy. If he were less aggressive, folks would complain that he let people die. There's just no answer that keeps everyone in work and doesn't allow anyone to die.
So, we all live with walking the tightrope.0 -
@steve0mania Thank you for your insight.0
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@steve0mania - I really appreciate your insight. Yes, it is a tightrope we are all on, without any safety net.0
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Well put Steve-O.0
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Thank you @steve0mania0
