Interview With Hannah Fry on the Mathematics of Pandemics

I had an awful lot to say about this! See the comments on YouTube:


My comments:
19:55 that R_0 of 2.5, ... This is based on some sample, but without knowing what that is, never mind the statistics of the populations it is drawn from, I can't see that the figure could have any significance at all. This is because there is such a wide variety of social situations in which people around the world live. The R_0 is not an attribute of the virus! Consider Mexico, for example, which includes DF, which is the largest conurbation on the face of the earth. There, people are gathering in front of government buildings to protest! See https://logicafterthought.blogspot.com/2020/04/un-secretary-general-guterres-thinks.html
25:52 Your risk of dying from the coronavirus is about the same as your risk of dying in the next year (if there were no coronavirus, obviously.) So the coronavirus is _as_ dangerous as the sum of _all_ the other threats to your life in the next year? 😀 But seriously, what proportion of those threats involve being hospitalised in a country like England and potentially being exposed to a lethal antibiotic-resistant 'superbug'? This is what victims of serious road traffic accidents are exposed to, along with fatal errors made in the operation of IV dosage meters, which, it has been said, kill as many people every year as die in road accidents. See https://logicafterthought.blogspot.com/2020/02/more-from-cambridge.html
36:43 On decisions for the good of the many: this brilliant film explains the difference between AI and humanity: https://youtu.be/0KtrQJcKeyk See also https://logicafterthought.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-war-against-humanity.html https://logicafterthought.blogspot.com/2020/03/jade-giving-example-of-how-bad-idea-can.html especially the discussion of the repugnant conclusion.
40:10 We need more than just the data on the spread and extent of infection, we need accurate statistics on the mortality. A human being is a complex system, and death is always a complex of distinguishable causes. But the statistics don't tell us very much at all about that complex. See https://youtu.be/p_AyuhbnPOI and https://logicafterthought.blogspot.com/2020/03/jade-giving-example-of-how-bad-idea-can.html

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