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Coronavirus: Justified Practical Advice Thread
kinchen10

(Meta: unsure if it's ok to post an on-topic RFC here. Apologies in advance)

Should I sign up for cryonics ASAP?

Background: 23 y/o male in NYC. No known pre-existing health conditions. Mild -> moderate interest in cryonics; in a world without ncov, etc. would probably have a 30-60% chance of signing up.

Reply
4Ben Pace
Yeah, I'd ask you to make this a related question rather than an answer, it's not the right type for this thread. I'll move this to a comment and I recommend you go back up to the answer box and hit 'ask a related question'.
What will be the big-picture implications of the coronavirus, assuming it eventually infects >10% of the world?
kinchen50

I’m very interested in seeing how the Diamond Princess plays out. On feb 20, some half of the cases were asymptomatic. Wikipedia hasn’t been updated with any data since then. This bit feels cruxy to me.

Reply
3Benya Fallenstein
FWIW, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ counts all confirmed cases and has a table by country, which lists the Diamond Princess separately ("international conveyance"). It doesn't distinguish asymptomatic from mild, but does separate out "serious, critical" cases, which stand at 36/705 (plus 7/705 deaths and 100/705 recovered).
What will be the big-picture implications of the coronavirus, assuming it eventually infects >10% of the world?
kinchen10

The WHO report said some 90% of people had fever. Maybe the tests have a significant false neg rate, or theyre not testing enough people, but I am worried that few mild cases are being missed.

Reply
5kinchen
I’m very interested in seeing how the Diamond Princess plays out. On feb 20, some half of the cases were asymptomatic. Wikipedia hasn’t been updated with any data since then. This bit feels cruxy to me.
Coronavirus: Justified Practical Advice Thread
kinchen10

our risk tolerance is much lower

and

1⁄16 still isn’t great.

Yep, sounds right. :)

trust to be asymptomatic

Also right. Do you have any good pointers re: how much asymptomatic transfer there is? I've seen two things of note:

  1. CDC director comment:

In other words, Redfield said that an infected person not showing symptoms could still transmit the virus to someone else based on information from his colleagues in China.

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-13-20-intl-hnk/h_8d935a8b6df385aba0cbfdb30cd3aeac

  1. Two cases mentioned he
... (read more)
Reply
2Adam Zerner
Not really, sorry. The source that comes to my mind is the CDC ("Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure") but I also just generally recall various sources/people talking about it.
Coronavirus: Justified Practical Advice Thread
kinchen20

If it spreads like the common cold, how worried should I be about kissing people? Reason:

Kissing does not efficiently spread cold infection ... Of 16 susceptible recipients, only one became infected by a one or one-and-a-half minute kiss with an infectious donor.

Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/014556139407300906

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3Adam Zerner
Interesting to hear that about the common cold. My first thought is that with the coronavirus, our risk tolerance is much lower, and even if the data point applied to the coronavirus as well, 1/16 still isn't great. So if it makes sense to take the precautions of washing your hands after touching surfaces that others have touched, it probably also makes sense to avoid kissing people. My second thought is that when you're kissing people it's probably going to be people you know personally and trust to be asymptomatic. But people can have the disease and be asymptomatic for weeks, so I'm not sure how much that helps.
Introducing the Longevity Research Institute
kinchen30

From the website:

We reverse the usual grant-giving process: we seek out top researchers and offer them grants to run lifespan studies of the most promising drugs.

Is anyone doing something analogous for AI safety? I.e., contacting academics and asking (paying) them to do AI safety.

Reply
4habryka
Hmm, I think both Open AI and MIRI are recruiting from academic institutions, but I don't think there is any institution that is offering money to researchers who want to do independent research. I actually think this could be a pretty good idea.