LESSWRONG
LW

All of gsgs's Comments + Replies

Rationality Quotes October 2014
gsgs20

the numbers of ebola cases were no longer exponential since mid Sept. instead they stay almost constant with ~900 new cases per week since Sep.14 This should have been clear to WHO and researchers at least since mid-Oct. Still they publically repeated the "exponential" forecasts , based on papers using old data. Ban ki Moon (on 2014/10/09) and Chan(on 2014/10/14) and Aylward said it. WHO until now puts forward their containment plan based on 5000-10000 new cases in the first week of december. They didn't correct it yet.

according to Fukuda on 20... (read more)

Reply
[Link] First talk by CSER
gsgs00

so, what are the risks ? Is it secret ?

Reply
0NoSuchPlace
I think this is the relevant link
Open Thread, November 1 - 7, 2013
gsgs50

in USA they can fill in 20 secondary causes on the death certificates and all the anonymized death certificates since 1959 are available online from NCHS in computer-readable form to check/search for conditions. Irregularities usually appear when there is a switch from one ICD-Code to a new one, so in 1969,1979,1999. Other irregularities are often checked, compared with other states,countries,conditions and the reason discovered

Reply
2hyporational
It seems I miscommunicated here. What I meant to say that listing these other diseases has no meaningful impact on the mortality statistics, although technically speaking they are causes of death. If the point is to gather accurate statistics, listing them feels like a consolation prize, because statisticians don't seem to be interested in them. In Finland a direct translation for these would be "contributory causes of death". That's probably the same thing as secondary causes of death. The problem is, it's difficult for someone who makes these into statistics to know how important they were. Almost anything the patient has can be listed as a contributory cause of death. Even a bigger problem is that listing them is completely optional. If almost nobody fills them in properly (because they usually have better things to do), that is another good reason for a statistician not to use them. Is filling in the secondary causes mandatory in US? Are there clear restrictions for what can be listed? If not, I'm not sure if they provide all that useful information, statistically speaking. Are they really used in meaningful way in any statistics? I suppose WHO recommendations for filling these certificates impact the US too.
Techniques for probability estimates
gsgs70

I just found this with google. I spent much time in 2005-2007 to get experts assign a subjective probability to a severe (H5N1) pandemic with >100M deaths. This was a strange experience. Experts didn't want to give probabilities but painted a somehow dark picture in interviews.Economists ignored the problem in their models (mortality bonds rating). Among the few who gave estimates were Bob Gleeson and Michael Steele with ~20% per year. The same problem occurs in other sciences : ask your surgeon for the probability that you'll die or your lawer for the ... (read more)

Reply