"COVID-19 Fears and Wargaming" Topic

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This article looks back at data on the Spanish flu. History can show our future.

But we are 100 years in medical science from the Spanish flu, I have confidence that will prove to be a big difference.

Doesn't hurt to hope.

All the social distancing is designed to do, is to delay. NOT mitigate directly. Until a vaccine is provided, the infection rate is hopefully being controlled as a function of time so as not to overwhelm available medical resources.

In effect, at least 50% is going to get the virus.

Depends what you mean by panic. I remember your country declaring a national emergency in 2009 because of H1N1.

Yes but did they issue orders to shutdown everything?

No they did not.

Now as to this and Wargaming.

Yes the groups that are greatly impacted this would included most gamers that I know.

But if you keep yourself healthy you will survive this.

Also the chances of getting this is very, very low.

But yes the media and others are pushing this and causing everyone to panic and think that this is more dangerous than it actually will be.

This is not the first time we have had things like this happen; 1957, 1968 & 2009 and we did not do what they are doing today during anyone of those.

Businesses were still open and individuals went about there lives.

But today they have issues orders and shutdown everything.

There is a reason but that is better left to The Blue Fez.

This is not the first time we have had things like this happen; 1957, 1968 & 2009 and we did not do what they are doing today during anyone of those.

If by "like this" you mean in a cursory way that doesn't consider the actual risk factors, then yes.

COVID-19 is more persistent on surfaces than any of the other examples. It has a long incubation period, possibly in the top 1%. It is more infectious prior to the emergence of symptoms than any of the other examples. It has lower degrees of symptoms in young, healthy people, the ones who are most prolific in engaging in behaviours that spread disease. In '57 and '68 two-day air delivery of an order placed instantly probably wasn't even science fiction; in '09 it was a luxury; today it's minimal cost to upgrade to one-day delivery. Both people's movement around the globe and products/packages movement around the globe has been steadily increasing since '58 (and longer than that).

There's all kinds of hype, stupid, and overreaction in the media. That's why I don't watch it.

Statistics if you want to keep a eye on it
covid19stats.global/state

You could look at stats provided by a media organization with a stated political agenda who elicit help from anyone willing, regardless of credentials.

Or you could get it from career health professionals.

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So very true ! And I've noticed the media will interview anyone who says they are an "expert".

And just as importantly is the "expert's" leanings, agenda, narrative, etc., agrees with the media, individual or organization doing the interview.

Someone from Johns Hopkins is doing those numbers daily

Someone from Johns Hopkins is doing those numbers daily

Really? One of the janitors from JHU, maybe? You said "someone". But, no, not a janitor.

But also, no to your statement. A group of JHU employees, with whom I work, at the Center for Systems Science and Engineering – none of whom are healthcare professionals – are collecting data streams and providing these numbers:

coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

covidtracking.com states that their process includes:

"directly asking state officials, watching news conferences, gleaning information from trusted news sources, and whatever else it takes to present reliable numbers"

Gotta love that good, old scientific "whatever else it takes". And I ope you trust whom they trust. The same way they trust them.

covidtracking.com/about-data

"Really. One of the janitors from JHU, maybe?"

As opposed to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, aka Janitor in Chief for the Chinese Government? I guess someone has to clean up their mess, why not their lackey?

9,580 fatalities of 2am this morning
Ny at 4,159, NJ at 917, together all but 53% of nations total

Here's another statistics site, Worldometer:

worldometers.info/coronavirus

It rationalizes data to 1/1 million so all comparisons are apples-to-apples…

Thanks for that link worj01

You're welcome! I got the link from a friend in Badong, West Timor who was trying to demonstrate to me why Indonesia is scrambling so hard to get a handle on this. 17,000 islands, many needing a boat (not plane) to get to… Whew!

Trying to get my head around these statistics.

USA # of dead = 10,000+
Population 327 million
Deaths per million = 32

Mexico # of dead = 94
Population 130 million
Deaths per million = .7

(I have family in Mexico; that's why I was curious about the stats for that country in particular.)

I wondered about that as well (not just about Mexico, but several countries). The Johns Hopkins link shared by etotheipi, above, shows similar totals. Not sure what to make of it…

The numbers from JHU can't be used for that type of cross-country comparison. Most countries use very different, incompatible methods for collection and analysis.

etotheipi, per your msg with the links, I tend to agree.

Putting the data on a world map like the JHU site does, or putting it in a list like Worldometer does, practically begs the viewer to make those comparisons, though, doesn't it?

The Worldometer site bases its data on that provided by the affected countries (i.e. if a country didn't report anything I suspect they'd show no new cases – that sort of thing).

The JHU site doesn't seem to provide an easy way to see the sources for its data streams (well, not easy to me – I'm happy to be corrected!) so I don't know where their data comes from. But I suspect sources are similar to those shown at the bottom of the Worldometer main page. Lots of sources but many or most most probably rely on self-reporting by the involved countries.

Like I said, I'm not sure what to make of it – the numbers, that is…

Putting data on a geographic map does invite the reader to make geographic comparisons. The best map for this is probably the WHO world map … it shows general magnitude categories, which is probably the only useful granularity for such comparisons across different collection techniques.

One of the things that you can do with the data is track control of the disease. Even though within a country (especially a large population/area country) there are still reporting inconsistencies, sliding averages can give an indication of the second and third derivative of infection rates.

This is useful information to feed response action decisions.

I see what you mean by the WHO world map – it doesn't deal with counts but rather, with infection ranges e.g. "101 – 1000".

I have to say that I agree with the skepticism on one hand, but those western countries, I am guessing are pretty similar to how we go about it. How Russia and China are dealing with this I am not sure I want to know (if their numbers are true.)

China's are not worth used cat litter

For me, it's not so much skepticism as concern for context. Scientific data is highly sensitive to context.

People often say that "Statistics tell the truth; statisticians lie." and "Science can prove anything". While there certainly are cases of doing empirically bad work, more often then not it is about using validly derived numbers from incompatibly different contexts.

Sometimes scientists make these contextual errors, especially in modeling. For any given any two (or, really any number of) data sets there are an infinite number of models that will correlate the data to any given degree of statistical confidence. So when I hear "Model X correlates data A and B to within Y", I'm not particularly interested. If you want to talk about the details of A, B, X, and Y, then there's something worth the effort.

Likewise, all models are mathematically abstract and meaningless. Meaning is superimposed on their behaviour within a (at least partially assumed) context. Who cares? That means that any data of the right type will "work" in a model. So, if you took the JHU model, created a fictitious country, rolled dice for data, and fed it in, the model would chug along merrily and produce and output. Again, it's not about the model itself, bur rather the bits that went into it's and it's data's design.

Really does not matter what they are reporting since the total number of those who have gotten this is far higher by a factor of 10 or more.

So the overall Death Rate is far less than what is being reported.

Sure this is an disease that once again has come out of China and it will kill individuals.

But it will not match the level of past pandemics.

Has there been any discussion about maybe moving Historicon 2020 to later in the year?

Most venues seem to be flexible in allowing conventions to move to later dates with no penalty.

Louis,

I've spoken with the convention center about that and they have given us a date but it's not much after the date we're currently at. That said, most of the conventions that are rescheduling at a later date run their show once a year. HMGS runs Fall In! in October so moving the show too much would end up running into that show. I'll be speaking with the board this weekend and I assume that discussion will include where we're at with Historicon this year.

Thanks,
Joby

I've spoken with the convention center about that and they have given us a date but it's not much after the date we're currently at.

I wouldn't mind pushing back to later in July if it means the con can go on, so long as people can adjust their hotel stays accordingly.

The PEL deadline is in 6 days. I have to imagine the number of submitted games is down considerably from last year. Will there be any extension?

TSD, we're severely limited by the convention center's availability. Even if we can move to a later date it's likely we won't be able to get the whole facility, which isn't insurmountable.

Also, I plan to extend the PEL and that announcement will go out after the Sunday board meeting along with a few other announcements. It would still be helpful to get as many events in as possible as soon as possible. Not having enough events because people are waiting to see if the show is going to go off before they submit will also factor into decisions going forward. If it looks like people aren't coming that will make planning harder. I realize some might have to back out if they commit early but that's understandable and something we can address.

Joby

Hi Joby thanks for the insight to where you are at.

While I am certainly not your core market just some thoughts from the UK.

The Government has announced the lockdown here will run another 3 weeks. That will take us to the 7th May.

I have a flight partly paid for but final payment is due early May and who knows if I should bail or risk travelling. Realistically I guess I would only travel if I knew I was safe, I.e not infectious or vulnerable to infection. As the UK has limited testing at the moment I would have no basis to make that judgement.

I had planned on running a game but that is on hold as I don't know how I can make a safe call to travel if that was an option, which is an unknown as the USA could open up, but then close down if the virus takes hold again. My insurance would certainly need to allow me to travel as it is not cheap in America for care and potentially not fair for me to burden the healthcare system in America.

I guess people in the states would need to know the same, I.e am I safe for other people and safe from other people, will that be in place for HCon?

What a tough situation for you and the team and my heart goes out to you and those suffering from this awful situation.

Cheers H.

Not having enough events because people are waiting to see if the show is going to go off before they submit will also factor into decisions going forward.

I could run up to 4 games if it seems like there isn't going to be enough. Corzin is probably down for 2 and my cousin would run another, so that's 7 the Yellow Worm Gaming Society can submit. I'll see if we can coordinate this weekend.

Also, I plan to extend the PEL and that announcement will go out after the Sunday board meeting along with a few other announcements

Anything new on this?

I submitted two games and plan on volunteering as well.