lol they got the WH doctor to say it's good and cool the President is taking hydrochloroquine for no reason

@BradC i assumed Bolsonaro at first until i hovered over the link

oh man, this is WILD

The data scientist who designed Florida's COVID-19 dashboard — a mobile friendly, intuitive display of the outbreak — has been removed from her position because she refused to censor data and manipulate numbers to generate support for reopening, she says

RIP The Free World, it was fun while it lasted

On stupidity vs malice

> One day last week the number of new coronavirus cases registered at Bradford Royal Infirmary jumped to 30. Dr John Wright thinks there could be a link to VE Day parties that ended in fist fights

Jesus wept

> "There were a number of assaults and it was quite clear that as the alcohol flowed, the street parties became closer and they were no longer street parties, and more garden parties - and then eventually front-room parties. And then, as often happens with parties, they were boxing matches."

as often happens with parties

> As he points out, it's not possible to punch someone from 2m away.

@fredley I mean, it's possible if you got a long enough extending glove, but most people tend to not carry around things like that to parties

lol 538

what an utterly useless category

Let's just real quick fold the guy who owns 2 houses together with the company that has no more than 10 large multi-unit and possibly multi-building properties, depending on how you define "property" (is it a location or a building)

@Unionhawk wow

"about 90% of CEOs own no more than 10 vehicles"

about as specific

like do you have one car, five yachts, a tank?

The public do not understand logarithmic graphs used to portray COVID-19

Not surprising, but pretty important.

@BradC is that total number of cases because it doesn't ever go down?

> Mass media routinely portray information about COVID-19 deaths on logarithmic graphs. But do their readers understand them? Alessandro Romano, Chiara Sotis, Goran Dominioni, and Sebastián Guidi carried out an experiment which suggests that they don’t. What is perhaps more relevant: respondents looking at a linear scale graph have different attitudes and policy preferences towards the pandemic than those shown the same data on a logarithmic graph.

> Consequently, merely changing the scale on which the data is presented can alter public policy preferences and the level of worry, even at a time when people are routinely exposed to a lot of COVID-19 related information. Based on these findings, they call for the use of linear scale graphs by media and government agencies.

oh the scale is logarithmic

I don't really understand those

@Unionhawk Number of rental units would be proper way to categorize large and small landlords

it's like one unit is a power of ten or something?

Case in point, then :)

@Stormblessed Yes, that's correct.

that is pretty misleading

no

do not do that

MATH IS MATH

@Stormblessed Ah yes, remember the times when the US had 0.1 deaths?

@Stormblessed log scales are perfectly fine

@PrivatePansy yeah they should at least cut the bottom part off

There are certainly cases where a logarithmic scale is useful and maybe even necessary.

@MadScientist but it changes the shape so much

But yeah, how easy they are to misinterpret is the point of the article

It makes it look like it’s not accelerating

exponential growth is exactly one of the use cases for log scales. Of course you have to understand what that does, so it does need a bit of explanation in public media

worldometers.info?

For an article that normal people will see I think that linear is how it should be

If you have a straight line in log scale, you're in exponential growth. If it is below a straight line, you've dampened the growth. That's very useful

Right. And in some cases its much easier to compare two growth rates in log than in linear. Like, all the "us vs italy" charts we saw early on

Because in linear a steep curve just looks like a steep curve; to compare the steepness, you use a log scale

But I absolutely agree, they are very easy misunderstood

Looks like we flattened the weird curve when in fact it is steeply rising

But new cases are proportional to existing cases, so flattening a log curve does actually mean you're improving

In general, it's much better to look at daily new cases and deaths now

Vegebles

much easier to understand

@Ronan but wouldn’t a straight line up in a log scale be shown as a decelerating curve?

not straight up I mean a linear equation

A straight diagonal line in a log graph means exponential growth, which is the default for diseases

So if it curves shallower it means you're slowing down the infection rate

And if it curves up you're making it worse

@Ronan Yeah, I think this is key, that exponential graphs are par for the course within scientific/medical work on infection

Also, at certain points in the pandemic, we have different goals: when "slowing the growth" is the goal, an exponential graph is the correct way to visualize it.

log scales are not bad and not misleading, but maybe too complicated and unusual for the general public

@BradC Do you mean logarithmic?

@Ronan yes. log scale to visualize exponential data

Key findings in the report I linked above, not just about comprehension, but about how that influences their opinion of policies about the pandemic:

> Furthermore, we tested whether the scale used affects the respondents’ attitudes towards the pandemic. It looks like it does. First, we find that despite predicting a higher number of deaths, people who were shown the logarithmic scale chart declare to be less worried about the health crisis caused by the coronavirus.

> A possible explanation of our finding is that the linear scale gives the impression of a growing pandemic, without any sign of improvement. At the same time, the curve on the logarithmic scale looks flatter and reassuring.

> Fewer Traffic Collisions During Shutdown Means Longer Waits For Organ Donations

Well, this is grim

The article also says that people are seemingly less inclined to go to the ER for symptoms of heart attacks and strokes, so they end up dying at home where the blood loss from the organs means they aren't viable

@TimStone I've been thinking about excess mortality as a better measure of the impact of Covid-19, and how even it would likely under-report the number of deaths given the reduction in traffic accidents, but I haven't given much thought to which other causes of death are likely to increase due to the pandemic.

The woman behind ‘Roe vs. Wade’ didn’t change her mind on abortion. She was paid

> “I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That’s what I’d say,” she says in “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX. “It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress.”

"Not receiving a transplant" is likely to increase, although I have to imagine it's a fraction of the reduction due to traffic accidents.

Yeah, I'd assume so too

> Inventors developed a coronavirus mask that lets you eat without taking it off. Squeeze a lever and it opens a slot so you can go at it like Pac-Man. Inventors say the mask lets you can dine out with friends without taking your mask off

rubs temples

@TimStone Reminds me of that story last week of a civil servant that that cut a slit in their mask so they could breath a little easier.

Nevermind, I just watched the video. I think this is much worse.

@TimStone why

that is so dumb

it doesn’t even close that tightly, you could easily cough the virus out through the mask

@Stormblessed This is dumber

I was confused encountering a meme with Trump and potatoes just now, and the actual source is probably dumber and weirder than I expected

twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1262800205293879296

@TimStone oh I’d seen that, it’s insane

can we attack Trump for policies

and being a bad president

the stuff trending now on Twitter is such early-2017 rubbish

To be clear, engaging in such rubbish in here will get you instantly banned :)

Or as instantly as I can manage anyway

lol trump is orange

FOLKS

HE

IS

ORANGE

Alison Roman is on leave from the NY Times after her comments about Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo which like okay but also Bret Stephens is still employed so, hm, perplexing