Even knowing about confirmation (edited from conversation via conformation) bias doesn’t always help one avoid it – it’s like trying to proof read one’s own work – fallible to say the least.
olivps
4 years ago
There is another two more problematic bias in Corvid19: the Status quo bias and the Sunk-effect bias, and currently they are hampering a proper strategy
Simon Forde
4 years ago
These remarks are only tangentially about “confirmation bias” (except that I would like to believe that countries like the Netherlands, UK, and Sweden are reacting well to this crisis)… in relation to the repeated statements that Germany is doing better than the UK, partly through testing but implicitly because they are of course far superior in all respects. And I read today that in fact we should have copied Latvia whose many small, early steps show up how pathetic we have been here. So, here is my question (as a historian and not a scientist): 1) I understand that the coronavirus is not some virus that is equally spread all over the world, but one that is transmitted person to person. 2) I understand that the coronavirus largely transmitted to the Netherlands when people took their February half-term to Italy (skiing and sightseeing) and it spread particularly rapidly in Brabant and Limburg during the Carnival season that coincided with the end of this half-term holiday (Carnival being four days of partying, drinking, close proximity, etc.). And it spread rapidly in the Catholic South of the Netherlands, easily to the heavily populated provinces of North and South Holland, but very little to the highly rural, distant provinces of Friesland and Groningen. 3) incidentally, the epicentre of the German coronavirus was a tiny town at its very margins, but happened to be a couple of miles from Limburg in the Netherlands. This is not a town where tens of thousands regularly commute to major German cities. It’s as if the outbreak in the UK was centred on Minehead. 4) I cannot find details of the spread of coronavirus to Germany from skiing – certainly some were infected at Ischgl in the Tirol. But were Germans skiing in places that were relatively unaffected by the virus? 5) I also understand that spreading of the virus has been most rapid and virulent in major cities – Madrid, London, New York.
My observation is therefore that the main factors that determine the extent of the outbreak of coronavirus are (i) the total number of infections from places like North Italy and Ischgl, related to skiing and sightseeing in the February holiday – not forgetting, of course, possible direct infection from Wuhan/China; (ii) the degree of urbanisation of the places infected; (iii) the degree of mobility to these conurbations – with London and the Dutch Randstad as examples of very heavy long-distance commuting and travel.
Latvia, like Shetland, scores low on these counts. Excellent that they took urgent action to protect their population. But the fact that Latvia, Shetland, and the South Island of New Zealand have lower death rates per million than England doesn’t seem to say much about the UK’s reaction to its own circumstances. Nor does Germany seem to be a directly comparative.
Even knowing about confirmation (edited from conversation via conformation) bias doesn’t always help one avoid it – it’s like trying to proof read one’s own work – fallible to say the least.
There is another two more problematic bias in Corvid19: the Status quo bias and the Sunk-effect bias, and currently they are hampering a proper strategy
These remarks are only tangentially about “confirmation bias” (except that I would like to believe that countries like the Netherlands, UK, and Sweden are reacting well to this crisis)… in relation to the repeated statements that Germany is doing better than the UK, partly through testing but implicitly because they are of course far superior in all respects. And I read today that in fact we should have copied Latvia whose many small, early steps show up how pathetic we have been here. So, here is my question (as a historian and not a scientist):
1) I understand that the coronavirus is not some virus that is equally spread all over the world, but one that is transmitted person to person.
2) I understand that the coronavirus largely transmitted to the Netherlands when people took their February half-term to Italy (skiing and sightseeing) and it spread particularly rapidly in Brabant and Limburg during the Carnival season that coincided with the end of this half-term holiday (Carnival being four days of partying, drinking, close proximity, etc.). And it spread rapidly in the Catholic South of the Netherlands, easily to the heavily populated provinces of North and South Holland, but very little to the highly rural, distant provinces of Friesland and Groningen.
3) incidentally, the epicentre of the German coronavirus was a tiny town at its very margins, but happened to be a couple of miles from Limburg in the Netherlands. This is not a town where tens of thousands regularly commute to major German cities. It’s as if the outbreak in the UK was centred on Minehead.
4) I cannot find details of the spread of coronavirus to Germany from skiing – certainly some were infected at Ischgl in the Tirol. But were Germans skiing in places that were relatively unaffected by the virus?
5) I also understand that spreading of the virus has been most rapid and virulent in major cities – Madrid, London, New York.
My observation is therefore that the main factors that determine the extent of the outbreak of coronavirus are (i) the total number of infections from places like North Italy and Ischgl, related to skiing and sightseeing in the February holiday – not forgetting, of course, possible direct infection from Wuhan/China; (ii) the degree of urbanisation of the places infected; (iii) the degree of mobility to these conurbations – with London and the Dutch Randstad as examples of very heavy long-distance commuting and travel.
Latvia, like Shetland, scores low on these counts. Excellent that they took urgent action to protect their population. But the fact that Latvia, Shetland, and the South Island of New Zealand have lower death rates per million than England doesn’t seem to say much about the UK’s reaction to its own circumstances. Nor does Germany seem to be a directly comparative.