Browncast episode 88: Phillipe Lemoine, covid-19 “optimism”

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on LibsynAppleSpotify,  and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

You can also support the podcast as a patron. The primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else. This website isn’t about shaking the cup, but I have noticed that the number of patrons plateaued a long time ago. This month has been our biggest traffic month ever, and I think our corona-casts have been popular (patrons also get access to one that you can’t find on the public feed).

I would though appreciate more positive reviews! Alton Brown’s “Browncast” has 30 reviews on Stitcher alone! Help make us the biggest browncast! At least at some point.

This week I talked to Phillipe Lemoine about his blog post Are we headed toward an unprecedented public health disaster? A philosopher by training, Phillipe is now working as a data scientist, and he has been looking a the patterns of fatality in Europe for the past several weeks.

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Numinous
Numinous
4 years ago

Razib:

As someone who moved from California to the Seattle area for work, I can assure you the “Seattle Freeze” is real. 🙂

iamVY
iamVY
4 years ago

Is there any relationship between lifestyle and susceptibility to Covid19?

I see a direct relationship between number of infections and economic prosperity of affected region relative to the national average. Case in point Germany. Infections started in NRW state but slowly the south Germany which is most rich economically is pulling ahead.

Surely the affluent are travelling around world and hence carrying virus from far away places. But once the infection is spreading locally, that is not the only defining factor, isnt it?

Any thoughts from Razib /Phillippe?

Numinous
Numinous
4 years ago
Reply to  iamVY

“Number of confirmed infections” is directly correlated with the extent of testing of the target population perhaps? And the extent of testing is directly correlated with affluence?

iamVY
iamVY
4 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

Maybe true. But I am having doubts. The death rate is increasing in tandem too.
I can understand your point about detection but then the affluent would have better means to treat the disease too.

Maybe more data on the number of infections & number of dead as function of household income will confirm this.

Sumit
Sumit
4 years ago
Reply to  iamVY

Can’t take any of the stats seriously at this point. There is too little testing.
Just go by hospital disruption, keep in mind that hospitals are more prepared for the coming storm, than the ones in Lombary and Wuhan were. Meaning they have already doubled down on PPE, ventilators, and cancelled all the elective procedures etc. So they probably have higher capacity.
Medically the game is just getting the reproduction rate lower, and buying us more time to let human ingenuity do its job.
Economically we have to thread the needle. At some point we need to make adult decisions about the cost / benefit of keeping the lockdown going.

Brown Pundits