8,835 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2020
    1. Will Fithian en Twitter: “The authors said by email that they used a built-in Stata function and aren’t sure themselves how the software used the input weights. I suspect they misapplied that function (too complicated to tweet why) but I don’t know Stata well enough to be sure; it seems neither do they.” / Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. Retrieved April 27, 2020, from https://twitter.com/wfithian/status/1252692362037362693

    1. Natural immunity, which has been slowed by the shutdown, will not yet have fully developed.

      The shutdown was necessitated by the lack of capacity in our healthcare system. This statement seems to name natural immunity as the end goal without mentioning the capacity of the healthcare system.

    2. It is a huge and daunting problem, but the Purdue way has always been to tackle problems, not hide from them. 

      This is interesting rah-rah rhetoric even while he seems to be hiding from the medical and scientific realities of the problem.

    3. We expect to be able to trace proximate and/or frequent contacts of those who test positive.  Contacts in the vulnerable categories will be asked to self-quarantine for the recommended period, currently 14 days.  Those in the young, least vulnerable group will be tested, quarantined if positive, or checked regularly for symptoms if negative for both antibodies and the virus.

      By reopening, the school increases those proximate and frequent contacts exponentially. They have the technical infrastructure to engage learners collaboratively while maintaining physical distance but they're in a hurry to resume with the stubborn improvement plans that are put on hold, which they boast about strangely in this message. They could ask school communities to think together about how they can use the tools at their disposal to not risk more lives and strain the health care system that is clearly ill-equipped. The subtext is that they're in a hurry. Why not marshal the patience and collaborative ingenuity to care for every life while our scientists design testing, treatments and a vaccine?

    4. All data to date tell us that the COVID-19 virus, while it transmits rapidly in this age group, poses close to zero lethal threat to them.

      This seems easy to fact check but also very premature.

    1. Testing and tracing will be useful only if students who are ill or who have been exposed to the virus can be separated from others. Traditional dormitories with shared bedrooms and bathrooms are not adequate. Setting aside appropriate spaces for isolation and quarantine (e.g. hotel rooms) may be costly, but necessary. It will also be necessary to ensure that students abide by the rigorous requirements of isolation and quarantine.

      Here is how she describes the separation. There are gaping holes in the outline of this. What would treatment look like at these makeshift facilities? How will schools staff up these quarantine centers that are fundamental to this plan? How do we keep these folks who are separated from everyone from becoming an immediate drain on the public health resources that led to the closures in the first place? Don't you have to explain to your student body how this separation process will look and work? Won't every parent want to know?

    2. The basic business model for most colleges and universities is simple — tuition comes due twice a year at the beginning of each semester. Most colleges and universities are tuition dependent. Remaining closed in the fall means losing as much as half of our revenue.

      Here is what is also basic- universities are cornerstones of our democracy and our economy. Our government must find ways to shelter them temporarily from the short term economic impact of this pandemic.

      The desperation they're expressing is based on short-sightedness of the moment, and also well founded mistrust in our government that is in denial about the need to protect us economically.

    3. the fierce intellectual debates that just aren’t the same on Zoom

      This is really a hole in the argument. Here's the crux of the tradeoff that she says is too great for us to be patient with the science.

    4. Aggressive testing, technology-enabled contact tracing and requirements for isolation and quarantine are likely to raise concerns about threats to civil liberty, an ideal that is rightly prized on college campuses.

      No mention of all the people quarantined at that hotel and the medical staff they've provided to care for them.

    5. If they can’t come back to campus, some students may choose — or be forced by circumstances — to forgo starting college or delay completing their degrees.

      This is a really weak premise. Consider this: if schools reopen with a byzantine health and safety plan, many students will choose to forgo starting college or delay completing their degrees because they don't want to contract a deadly virus that is still not understood.

    1. Significant paper on the cost of misinformation. Basically, one standard deviation more viewership of Sean Hannity (denied seriousness of COVID) versus Tucker Carlson (took the pandemic seriously) is associated with in 20% more deaths at the county-level. https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_202044.pdf…

      Mindblowing

    1. Dorison, C., Lerner, J. S., Heller, B. H., Rothman, A., Kawachi, I. I., Wang, K., … Coles, N. A. (2020, April 16). A global test of message framing on behavioural intentions, policy support, information seeking, and experienced anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/sevkf

    1. 1 in 5 people in NYC may already have immunity to Covid19, suggesting that the CFR is much lower... as of today it's ~10k deaths / 150k cases => 7%

      But if 20% of NYC have it => 1.7m cases => 10k/1.7m => .6% CFR

    1. Richardson, S., Hirsch, J. S., Narasimhan, M., Crawford, J. M., McGinn, T., Davidson, K. W., Barnaby, D. P., Becker, L. B., Chelico, J. D., Cohen, S. L., Cookingham, J., Coppa, K., Diefenbach, M. A., Dominello, A. J., Duer-Hefele, J., Falzon, L., Gitlin, J., Hajizadeh, N., Harvin, T. G., … Zanos, T. P. (2020). Presenting Characteristics, Comorbidities, and Outcomes Among 5700 Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 in the New York City Area. JAMA. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.6775

    1. Wynants, L., Van Calster, B., Bonten, M. M. J., Collins, G. S., Debray, T. P. A., De Vos, M., Haller, M. C., Heinze, G., Moons, K. G. M., Riley, R. D., Schuit, E., Smits, L. J. M., Snell, K. I. E., Steyerberg, E. W., Wallisch, C., & van Smeden, M. (2020). Prediction models for diagnosis and prognosis of covid-19 infection: Systematic review and critical appraisal. BMJ, m1328. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1328

    1. Newton, P. N., Bond, K. C., Adeyeye, M., Antignac, M., Ashenef, A., Awab, G. R., Babar, Z.-U.-D., Bannenberg, W. J., Bond, K. C., Bower, J., Breman, J., Brock, A., Caillet, C., Coyne, P., Day, N., Deats, M., Douidy, K., Doyle, K., Dujardin, C., … Zaman, M. (2020). COVID-19 and risks to the supply and quality of tests, drugs, and vaccines. The Lancet Global Health, S2214109X20301364. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30136-4

    1. Verity, R., Okell, L. C., Dorigatti, I., Winskill, P., Whittaker, C., Imai, N., Cuomo-Dannenburg, G., Thompson, H., Walker, P. G. T., Fu, H., Dighe, A., Griffin, J. T., Baguelin, M., Bhatia, S., Boonyasiri, A., Cori, A., Cucunubá, Z., FitzJohn, R., Gaythorpe, K., … Ferguson, N. M. (2020). Estimates of the severity of coronavirus disease 2019: A model-based analysis. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, S1473309920302437. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30243-7