Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now | Hacker News Reader

Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now

medium.com

134 pointsjabo11 comments

Allthough everything in this medium article might be factually correct, it doesn't seem to me that Tomas Pueyo has any kind of relevant medical or microbiological education to base the content in this article upon. It content just seems to be just a mishmash of stuff gathered on the internet. My fear of this kind of medical bro-science writing is that it is probably doing more harm than good. Please leave this kinds of writeups to the experts. The situation is far too serious for armchair experts to be doling out advice.

Another one of his articles is titled "The 12 Rules of Virality I Learned Building a Video App That Blew Up". Seems he's trying to include a bunch of hockey stick charts and levarage the virality of viruses.

I read through his past work on Medium as well and it does seem like he's optimizing his content for virality, but I like to think that that should not preclude or discredit him from being to able to present gathered data and his line of reasoning on this topic.

Did you see anything off in his arguments or the data presented in this article?

Perhaps he’s using his skill of manufacturing viral content for good. My wife has masters in epidemiology and has been pushing social distancing for a couple weeks now. It’s unfortunate that we have to rely on this random guy to get the word out and not our govt with their massive platform.

What are you complaining about? He's taken some available data, made some points and illustrated them using graphs.

You might not find it edifying enough (PS I like the bro-science phrase!), however, it might spur an actual medical science specialist to do some real figures.

PPS. I put up coronavirus posters up at work a week ago last Monday and brought some hand-sanitiser in. Everyone laughed and poked-fun, some even baulked when I demanded they hand-sanitise at my desk. No jokes any more, people are even washing their hands.

> people are even washing their hands.

Mind blown.

Hands washed.

When the actual so-called authorities downplay the seriousness and suppress helpful information, who is left but the "armchair experts"?

I was pointed to it by my brother-in-law who is an MD, smart, and not prone to overplay things.

With a quick search online I found the following bio from a TED talk he gave.

"Tomas was fascinated with the Why behind everything, he studied two MSc in Engineering from ICAI Madrid and Ecole Centrale Paris. After a few years of management consulting, he moved to America in 2008 to pursue his MBA at Stanford University. He specialized in Behavioral Psychology, Design, Storytelling, and Scriptwriting in an effort to uncover how people think and why they think the way they do."[1]

His background in engineering gives me confidence he's not making all this up, and the lack of medical or microbiological education doesn't seem as relevant given he's not making claims about the virus itself, but rather about the mathematical underpinnings of it's spread and interpretation of publicly available figures.

The take-away is that it's prudent to take this seriously now, as in today, if not yesterday.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUT6GQveD0E

Nonetheless, the point stands: social distancing now. That's what we and everyone can act to help. There is no getting around.

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