trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Ineffective Response to COVID-19 and Risk Compensation
by Davidmanheim — 2020-03-08T09:21:55.888Z

UPDATE: This post was written and reflects an earlier set of my beliefs. I have updated significantly in a number of ways since it was posted, based on both external events and research, and no longer endorse it.

Epistemic status: I have a mental model that I think separates my view of response activities from that of the majority of what I see on Lesswrong and associated places. If it is incorrect, I'd be happy to update, but I think this is an area I have considered more than most other posters. I want to write a short post explaining this to allow others to update, and seeing if someone has an argument that changes my mind.

Put simply, my claim is that bringing attention to likely ineffective personal methods for reducing risk is not net neutral with a large upside if they work, it is instead likely to be on net fairly harmful, albeit with a large upside if they work.

Argument

First, we have incredibly effective and vastly underutilized ways to prevent spread of COVID-19, namely handwashing and not touching your face. Given that, if I propose an intervention like making homemade masks from fabric which reduced handwashing compliance by 1% (perhaps due to distracting people or making them think handwashing is less critical,) it would need to be astonishingly effective to be net positive. And most such approaches being discussed are, as far as I can tell, nowhere near that level of effectiveness.

Second, most readers of Lesswrong and effective altruism blogs and facebook groups aren't hardcore rationalists, and even hardcore rationalists aren't immune to Akrasia. On top of that, people like Scott Alexander have huge readerships and sometimes link people to Lesswrong. Many people reading posts here aren't washing their hands enough as it is, and aren't going to rationally evaluate the relative effectiveness of handwashing versus other interventions.

Third, evidence exists that risk-compensation is a meaningful issue. Actions that make people feel safer usually lead to less attention paid to more annoying / more intrusive measures. (There is evidence, such as Vrolix's paper*, that risk compensation reduces the size of the positive impact, but does not make interventions net negative. This is conditioned on the impact being significant and positive, however, and seems not to apply to speculative interventions like those being proposed...
Why would panic during this coronavirus pandemic be a bad thing?
by Adam Zerner — 2020-03-08T08:32:50.753Z

It seems like it's mostly being taken as a given that we want to avoid panic. I'm sure avoiding panic is in fact desirable, but I don't quite understand why that's the case, so please interpret this post and my follow up comments as Socratic grilling.

If there was panic, here is what I would expect:

People would stay home as much as possible.
This would involve some staying home from work, which would hurt the economy.
There would be enough public support to get more government funding approved.
With that money, they'd find a way to continue to provide core infrastructure to people. Eg. by simply paying workers more to go to work.
There would be a huge demand for things like hand sanitizer and masks that wouldn't be able to be met. So the government would have to step in and regulate those items.
People would rush to the grocery stores to stock up, and stores wouldn't be able to meet the demand. So the government would have to step in again, perhaps to restrict purchases and distribute food to people. But that seems like something that is doable. Eg. give everyone a big bag of rice and beans.
With everyone staying home, it'd reduce the spread of the virus.
Which would buy us time to produce more tests.
Eventually we'd be able test the whole country and figure out who is infected and who isn't.
From there we can isolate and treat those who are infected.
And once we do that, the risk of transmission will be much smaller, and we can start to move back to normalcy.

Here is what I suspect might be wrong with that story I just told:

Maybe it wouldn't be so easy to provide core infrastructure to people. Maybe I'm underestimating how many moving parts there are.
Maybe the economic damage caused by all of this fear will really set society backwards.
Maybe the government doesn't have the authority to do a lot of the stuff I'm envisioning.
Ignoring Country Cohorts
by baken — 2020-03-08T08:07:31.224Z

I assume that many of you have been watching the "total coronavirus cases outside of China" number. If you look at them on a log chart, they appear to be growing perfectly exponentially and doubling every 4-5 days.

This perfect straight line is obscuring a very, very important underlying fact. Within countries, the second derivative of cases has been falling rapidly (please reference the "first 60 days" tab).

This is a result of a few important factors:

1. Initially, in country growth is extremely high. Prior to reaching 100-1000 cases, countries do a poor job of testing. As a result, they accumulate a backlog of cases that are discovered quickly upon commencement of testing. This makes the growth rate appear to be very large for the first 1000 cases. The aggregate data we are seeing today is incredibly skewed as a result of this effect.

2. After 1000 cases, governments are actually jumping into action. They implement large scale testing (like we are currently seeing in South Korea), quarantines (like we are currently seeing in Italy), and other aggressive policies. Additionally, some measure of social distancing goes into effect as people start to worry about their own health. The effectiveness of action can be seen in the chart above.

My prediction:

By the week of March 16th, the slope of the line on the log chart will halve and subsequently continue to fall like we've seen in China. Total cases ex-China will approximately double between March 16th and March 24th (half the rate we're seeing today), and will continue to fall.

Despite the sense you might be getting from the 100lbs of rice in my pantry, I think we've seen some very positive news over the past few days and I'm becoming much more optimistic that this will not be a generational event.
At what level of coronavirus cases in a population should the people in that population start self-quarantining? 
by Jeremy Hadfield — 2020-03-08T03:22:53.860Z

The question and desiderata

I'm looking for a

specific number here

, even an equation. At what # of reported coronavirus cases (or estimated actual cases) within a population should the members of that population start self-quarantine measures (e.g. isolating themselves, avoiding contact with elderly, wearing masks)? Please state your reasoning, cite your sources, and/or show your math.

I know that being excessive in viral response is a good thing, and we should err on the side of doing too much, but I'm trying to be

optimal

in accounting for the behavioral costs of such measures.

Utah as a case study

Utah has 1 reported case. (source) It has a population of 3.161 million. The transmission rate of coronavirus in the US is around X (I don't actually know if there's a good source for this). Given these numbers for Utah, what is the "

trigger point

"- the ratio of (COVID-19 cases / population) at which we should self-quarantine? For example, we should begin self-quarantining when the number of CV cases reaches 1% of the population or 316,100 cases.

Or

more fine-grained

, what are the specific

series of trigger points

at which specific measures (mask-wearing, self-isolation, eliminating public gatherings) should begin?
4 Kinds of Learning
by lsusr — 2020-03-08T02:25:30.412Z

The best way to learn something depends on what you're learning. Broadly-speaking, the things you learn can be divided into thinking/doing and conscious/unconscious. We can thus break the learning landscape into four kinds of learning: conceptual learning, rote learning, kinesthetic learning and discipline.

Conscious thinking = Conceptual learning is critical thinking. It includes all kinds of critical thinking such as higher math, dialectical reasoning, puzzle solving and philosophy.

Unconscious thinking = Rote learning is mindless memorization. It includes times tables, vocabulary, geography, the alphabet and the dates of historical events.

Conscious doing = Kinesthetic learning is everything you do. It includes the raw act itself of drawing, slight of hand, marksmanship and dancing.

Unconscious doing = Discipline is about training unconscious habits like attention. It includes meditation, lucid dreaming, perseverance, determination, obedience, self-sacrifice, pain tolerance and addiction recovery.

In the American school system I grew up in, conceptual learning is prized, kinesthetic learning receives lip service and rote learning is derided[1]. Discipline is taboo[2]. This might have something to do with living in a free society. Critical thinking has good connotations because it's impossible to coerce. Discipline is simple to coerce. Coerced discipline is called "brainwashing". Ironically, this emphasis on conceptual learning runs opposite to compulsory schools' strengths. As coercive institutions, they're better at teaching discipline than critical thinking.

For each type of learning there is an optimal way to do it.

Concepts are best learned by discussing them in debates, teaching and writing. A free, egalitarian atmosphere is conducive to conceptual learning because it creates the conditions for good feedback.

Rote learning is about scheduling. The best way to memorize simple information is via spaced repetition. It's so mindless you can do it with software.

Kinesthetics are learned by doing them over-and-over again. Quantity of practice is the name of the game. Using your skill in the real world is usually (but not always) the best way to get these hours in.

Discipline is learned via habituation. It's about minimizing the time you aren't disciplined. Sobriety is about how infrequently you drink. Not how often you don't.

What follows are a few exam

...
Making a Standing Desk
by jefftk — 2020-03-07T23:10:02.318Z

With it looking like I might need to

remotely for a
while I've been thinking about how to make that more ergonomic.
There's no position where I can use a laptop for very long without
hurting either my wrists or my neck. A couple months ago I made a

folding couch monitor to use while
sitting, but (a) that's in the living room and (b) I generally prefer
to work

standing up. So I made
a small standing desk in our bedroom:

It's a one-monitor version of my work
hardware setup (which is still the same three years later, except
that I have 27" 2560 x 1440
monitors now). I use the laptop keyboard and trackpad because
that feels better on my wrists than any external keyboard and mouse
I've tried, and I don't use the laptop monitor because that hurts my
neck.

While I'm calling it a desk, it's really a shelf. It was easier to
attach a shelf to the wall with brackets than build something
freestanding, and a standard desk would take up a bunch more space.

It's very small, but all I need is space for a monitor and my laptop.
The top is a 22.5" by 17" piece of 3/4" plywood painted white. I
rounded the outside corner for safety. I could have made the top a
couple inches narrower if I hadn't been trying to match a specific
space. It's 41" off the ground, which is in the ~2" window where my
elbows can be close to a right angle.

The monitor stand doesn't go high enough on its own, so it's elevated
6.25" with a 10.5" by 7.5" pine box. I made it out of 2x6 scraps I had,
with a 3/4" plywood top for the monitor stand's base to sit on. I
didn't paint this, though I might at some point.

I'm pretty happy with it, though all I've used it for so far is
writing this post.
Winning vs Truth – Infohazard Trade-Offs
by  — 2020-03-07T22:49:47.616Z

[Cross-posted from Grand Unified Crazy.]

This post on the credibility of the CDC has sparked a great deal of discussion on the ethics of posts like it. Some people claim that the post itself is harmful, arguing that anything which reduces trust in the CDC will likely kill people as they ignore or reject important advice for dealing with SARS-CoV-2 and (in the long-run) other issues like vaccination. This argument has been met with two very different responses.

One response has been to argue that the CDC’s advice is so bad that reducing trust in it will actually have a net positive effect in the long run. This is an ultimately empirical question which somebody should probably address, but I do not have the skills or interest to attempt that.

The other response is much more interesting, arguing that appeals to consequences are generally bad, and that meta-level considerations mean we should generally speak the truth even if the immediate consequences are bad. I find this really interesting because it is ultimately about infohazards: those rare cases where there is a conflict between epistemic and instrumental rationality. Typically, we believe that having more truth (via epistemic rationality) is a positive trait that allows you to “win” more (thus aligning with instrumental rationality). But when more truth becomes harmful, which do we preference: truth, or winning?

Some people will just decide to value truth more than winning as an axiom of their value system. But for most of us, ultimately I think this also boils down to an empirical question of just how bad “not winning” will end up being. It’s easy to see that for sufficiently severe cases, natural selection takes over: any meme/person/thing that prefers truth over winning in those cases will die out, to be replaced by memes/people/things that choose to win. I personally will prefer winning in those cases. It’s also true that most of the time, truth actually helps you win in the long run. We should probably reject untrue claims even if they provide a small amount of extra short-term winning, since in the long run having an untrue belief is likely to prevent us from winning in ways we can’t predict.

Figuring out where the cut-over point lies between truth and winning seems non-trivial. Based on my examples above we can derive two simple heuristics to start...
Active Recovery
by Rarity Rings — 2020-03-07T20:29:31.003Z

If you believe you've caught the virus, what are some beginning steps to take to start initial recovery? What are there changes to diet, foods to avoid, or supplements to take? At this rate, it feels as though infections will no longer be uncommon so adapting to better safety and lifestyle habits will have to be practiced. Are there any other lesser-known methods to recovery like the breathing exercises or the electrolyte solution you've mentioned?
How long does SARS-CoV-2 survive on copper surfaces
by ChristianKl — 2020-03-07T10:00:26.951Z

I wrapped copper tape around a wood stick:

I will use this stick to push any buttons in public and press door handles. How reasonable is it to touch the copper-coated stick after it touching potentially contaminated surfaces? Do I have to pay attention to not touch the stick at places where it touches other surfaces?
How are people tracking confirmed Coronavirus cases / Coronavirus deaths?
by Eli Tyre — 2020-03-07T03:53:55.071Z

I'm keeping a log of the number of Corronavirus cases (both active and total), in local-areas that I care about.

Currently, I'm using the dashboard put together by John Hopkins Center For Systems Science and Engineering. Every day, I manually open it, zoom into the Bay area (for instance), and count the number of active cases, total cases, and total deaths. I log those numbers in a personal google sheet, for each relevant metropolitan area.

Is there a better way to do this? Does anyone know of a system that is automatically recording the number of cases and number of deaths, in different populations (in the US)?

Thanks
Coming Back to Biking
by jefftk — 2020-03-07T02:40:02.287Z

For about a year and a half starting in

September 2008, I rode my bike
everywhere. I was very into it, in a

retrogrouch way. Over time my

knees started hurting so I stopped
biking. I

just
tried coming back to it, easing into it so I don't hurt my knees
again, and I was surprised at how many things were different:

Bike lanes: my old commute had no bike lanes. Now there are
bike lanes almost my entire way. I'm in a slightly different place,
biking West Somerville to Kendall instead of West Medford to Fresh
Pond, but (a) if I did my previous commute now there's a mixture of
bike lanes and a bike path and (b) the bike lines on my new commute
didn't exist ten years ago.

More bikes: I didn't used to run into other bike commuters, but
now when I stop at a light there's a whole line of us:

Helmets: I got a new cheap helmet (this one)
and they've gotten much better. They're easy to adjust to fit, and
they stay adjusted. It's possible that fancier helmets like this were
around then, but now it's even the cheapest ones.

My work has showers and a bike cage. Possibly this is just me
working at a fancier place now?

The biggest thing is that I'd forgotten how much I enjoy biking. It's
just really nice, moving along under my own power, being able to go
wherever I want, enjoying the sun. I'm pretty much the slowest bike
out there, but there's enough traffic during rush hour that I'm still
faster than cars, which is also a fun feeling. I don't know if my
knees will be up for this long term, so I'll still take it slowly, but
I'm happy I decided to try coming back to it!
Credibility of the CDC on SARS-CoV-2
by Elizabeth — 2020-03-07T02:00:00.452Z

Introduction

One of the main places Americans look for information on coronavirus is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (abbreviated CDC from the days before “and Prevention” was in the title). That’s natural; “handling contagious epidemics” is not their only job, but it is one of their primary ones, and they position themselves as the authority. At a time when so many things are uncertain, it saves a lot of anxiety (and time, and money) to have an expert source you can turn to and get solid advice.

Unfortunately, the CDC has repeatedly given advice with lots of evidence against it. Below is a list of actions from the CDC that we believe are misleading or otherwise indicative of an underlying problem. If you know of more examples or have information on any of these (for or against), please comment below and we will incorporate into this post.

Examples

Dismissed Risk of Infection Via Packages

On the CDC’s coronavirus FAQs pages on

2020-03-04

, they say, under “Am I at risk for COVID-19 from a package or products shipping from China?”:

“In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures.”

However, this

metareview

found that various coronaviruses remained infectious for days at room temperature on certain surfaces (cardboard was not tested, alas) and potentially weeks at lower temperatures. The CDC’s answer is probably correct for packages from China, and it’s possible it’s even right for domestic packages with 2-day shipping, but it is incorrect to say that coronaviruses in general have low survivability, and to the best of my ability to determine, we don’t have the experiments that would prove deliveries are safe.

Blinded Itself to Community Spread

As late as 2020-02-29, the CDC was reporting that there had been no “community spread” of SARS-CoV-2. (Community spread means that the person hadn’t been traveling in an infected area or associating with someone who had). At this time, the CDC would only test a person for SARS-CoV-2

if they had been in China or in close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case

.

Testing Criteria as of

2020-02-11

This not only left them incapable of dete...
How hard would it be to attack coronavirus with CRISPR?
by Donald Hobson — 2020-03-06T23:18:09.133Z

Crisper can snip genomes in particular spots, we probably have the genome of corona virus. Viruses probably don't work if their genome is chopped up. What would happen if you loaded random chunks of the coronavirus genome into crispr, and injected it into someone with coronavirus? I don't know much biology, this may be completely stupid, but if there is someone out their with enough biology knowledge and biohacking skills...

EDIT:

Virus DNA is wrapped in protien shells in the intercellular fluid. You need some way to get your CAS9 into cells, like wrapping it in a virus protien shell, to hijack the viral delivery mechanism. We can use coronavirus itself. Get cas9 targeted to the coronavirus genome, put it within a coronavirus protien shell, and inhale the spray. (You don't need the defences in all your cells, just in your lungs.) The virus injects cas9 in to your cells, if you don't get coronavirus, the cas9 does nothing. If you get it in a cell, the cas9 chops it up. The virus protien shells help train your immune system.

EDIT2

Mutation rate, most of the time, one snip will kill it, sometimes it could mutate. Don't set the crispr to a part you don't want to mutate. Set it somewhere where mutations are harmful in the coronavirus genome, do these viruses have a part that looks the same?
Effectiveness of Fever-Screening Will Decline
by jimrandomh — 2020-03-06T23:00:16.836Z

COVID-19 Is Under Strong Selective Pressure

Fever screening is the practice of checking the temperature of everyone passing through a checkpoint, such as at an airport or public gathering, for fever. This can be done individually with regular thermometers, or on entire crowds with infrared cameras. Fever screening has been widely deployed against COVID-19, especially in China, since fever is its most common and often chronologically first symptom.

Fever screening applies an evolutionary pressure on pathogens to not cause fever, or to cause fever later relative to when it becomes transmissible. Pathogens mutate. In many diseases, this results in drug resistance; antibiotics, for example, lose effectiveness over time.

Drug resistance evolves slowly, because partial resistance is only a slight benefit to a pathogen which acquires it; most patients who receive antibiotics do not infect anyone after their treatment has started. Evasion of public-health screening procedures, on the other hand, is likely to evolve much faster, because any incremental improvement in a pathogen's ability to evade screening will give it a large advantage.

Evidence This Is Already Happening

I searched for papers recording the percentage of patients which had a fever in Google Scholar and in the citations on this page. For each paper, I extracted the percentage of patients reported to have a fever, and the date range of cases covered by the data. If the paper did not state the date range of cases, I wrote down the paper's publication date instead. I excluded papers which didn't report a percentage of patients with fever, or had n<20.

I found seven studies, listed below sorted by end date.

Dec 16-Jan 2: 98%
Jan 1-20: 83%
Jan 1-28: 98.6%
Jan 6-31: 58.3%
Pub. Feb 18: 78.2%
Jan 21-Feb 15: 85.7%
Before Feb 20: 87.9%

This is suggestive of a negative correlation between study date and percent of patients with fever. This is what you would expect if COVID-19 were evolving to evade fever screening; however, it could also be explained by later studies finding earlier and less-severe cases. This is weak evidence compared to the what could obtained by someone with access to a good dataset; these papers come from different sample populations and different points in the disease progression, and don't all specify what their cutoff temperature was for diagnosing fever. If someone has access to a suitable dataset,

...