So much scaremongering out there, and so many people who eagerly eat it up.
Folks, just get vaccinated and boosted; if you can’t get vaccinated or have a weak immune system, get Evusheld (I got it this week); if you get infected, get Paxlovid. Take care of those things and don’t give credence to the doomsters.
That’s a pretty weak debunk. Basically, they’re saying it’s too hard to calculate so there’s no evidence it is more infectious than measles. They take issue with the methodology but offer none better.
I think a better verdict would be: unconfirmed.
So you’re hanging your hat on the one scientist who says he alone can calculate it and ignoring the many other scientists who say no you can’t or that that he’s just plain wrong?
Okay.
How many times can someone get the measles?
One of the people quoted says that if you apply the same methodology to seasonal flu, its R0 would be in the hundreds or thousands, which is absurd. I don’t know how you don’t get to a “false” verdict from there.
Others are pointing out that R0 is a measure of transmission in a fully unexposed population. For COVID that has not been the case since the original variant (whose R0 was somewhere in the 1-4 range), so calculating R0 for delta or omicron or BA.4/BA.5 or any future variant either requires quite a bit of nuance and interpretation or is, in fact, simply meaningless.
It is highly unlikely for one to catch the measles after receiving the measles vaccine. Not true with the COVID-19 vaccine. It’s dumb to make any conclusion regarding the spread of two vastly different illnesses.
Might as well be comparing ant bites with shark attacks.
Not at all what I’m saying. If the R0 is not 18.6, fine. Then what is it? If the critic cannot answer, then he or she can only claim the 18.6 is “unconfirmed” or “unlikely”. They claim that 18.6 is unequivocally wrong without offering an alternative.
How about: “There are unconfirmed estimates that the R0 of BA.5 is as high as 18.6. If true, that would make BA.5 the most infectious disease known. Some experts, however, believe that the R0 is substantially lower, but are unable to provide their own estimates”.
If his methodology is inherently flawed and would produce silly results if applied elsewhere, why isn’t that enough for you? Why insist that the critics pointing it out MUST provide their own estimates?
If news organizations presented it the way you’re suggesting, they’d be guilty of spreading misinformation.
You have taken this as gospel. I don’t. Was the formula properly applied? Was the calculation correctly performed? Is it even appropriate to apply the same methodology to the two different viruses in two different circumstances? I don’t know and neither do you. I’m happy to say I don’t know. You take the Reuters “fact check” as indisputable fact. I read it and found their debunking sufficient only to put the 18.6 in question, not disprove it. By the way, one can only disprove something by proving something else. When they submit better facts and methodology of their own on the record, then I may adopt their conclusion. Until then, the 18.6 remains questioned, but hardly disproven.
So I’m no longer an idiot?
Pot and kettle. You’ve done precisely the same thing.
As several cited people pointed out, asking someone to provide the R0 of BA.5 is almost more of a theoretical question than a practical one because BA.5 does not have access to an unexposed population like measles or the original SARS-CoV-2. That begs the question: does it even matter? Might as well ask how many miles per gallon each disease gets on the highway.
No, I’ve done precisely the opposite. I’ve come off my absolutism and am happy to live in uncertainty. There’s reason to question the 18.6. I accept that. I do not consider Reuters to be the ultimate scientific authority so I critiqued their debunk and found it less than conclusive.
Throw a stat into a medical discussion and…BOOM!
No more than I.
All I’m saying is the way I filter scientific or other information that I don’t know shit about is to focus on what the preponderance of experts on the subject seem to be saying. Not just focusing on any single person.
Fair enough. Then the critique is that the R0 is incalculable, which may very well be the case.
This is exactly the kind of thing I tend to discount when evaluating new technology or research. Big numbers like this almost always mean “tweaked” methodology. Big differences require more, not less supporting data, at least for me.
In other words, I’m not quickly convinced by hyperbolic numbers. If anything it increases my skepticism.
I’m going to walk my last post back a bit because I misread some things. An unexposed population is not required for R0. It’s clear that it’s been hard to nail down the R0 values for the COVID variants. I have seen numbers all over the place for delta and omicron.
I did like this, though, in another article quoting the same dude:
Reached for comment by Fast Company, Esterman stood by his measles comparison, noting that none of his critics “were willing or able to provide estimate of R0 for BA.5.”
“Since BA.5 is far more transmissible than BA.1, an estimate of 18 is not totally unreasonable, Esterman said. “The main thrust of my argument was that BA.5 is probably now as transmissible as measles. That argument holds true even if BA.5 has an R0 of 12.”
He added, “At least my article has promoted robust discussion on the use and calculation of R0, which can only be a good thing.”
So he stands by his assertion, yet he is already equivocating. And in the end at least it got everyone talking, right?