{"id":7791,"date":"2020-02-16T11:24:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-16T17:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=7791"},"modified":"2020-02-16T11:24:12","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T17:24:12","slug":"big-data-wont-save-you-from-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=7791","title":{"rendered":"Big Data Won&#8217;t Save You From Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/opinion\/articles\/2020-02-16\/coronavirus-big-data-can-t-track-the-spread-of-this-outbreak\">David Fickling<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That\u2019s not a comforting thought. We live in an era where everything seems quantifiable, from our daily movements&nbsp;to our internet search habits and even&nbsp;our heartbeats. At a time when people are scared and seeking certainty, it\u2019s alarming that the knowledge we have on this most important issue is at best an approximate guide to what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt\u2019s so easy these days&nbsp;to capture data on anything, but to make meaning of it is not easy at all,\u201d said John Carlin, a professor at the University of Melbourne specializing in medical statistics and epidemiology. \u201cThere\u2019s genuinely a lot of uncertainty, but that\u2019s not what people want to know. They want to know it\u2019s under control.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>That\u2019s most visible in the contradictory information we\u2019re seeing around how many people have been infected, and what share of them have died. While those figures are essential for getting a handle on the situation, as we\u2019ve argued, they\u2019re subject to errors in sampling and measurement that are compounded in high-pressure, strained circumstances. The physical capacity to do timely testing and diagnosis can\u2019t be taken for granted either, as my colleague Max Nisen has written.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Early case fatality rates for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome were often 40% or higher before settling down to figures&nbsp;in the region of 15% or less. The age of patients, whether they get sick in the community or in a hospital, and doctors\u2019 capacity and experience in offering treatment can all affect those numbers dramatically.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Even the way that coronavirus cases are defined and counted&nbsp;has changed several times, said Professor Raina MacIntyre, head of the University of New South Wales\u2019s Biosecurity Research Program: From \u201cpneumonia of unknown cause\u201d in the early days, through laboratory-confirmed cases once a virus was identified, to the current standard that includes lung scans. That\u2019s a common phenomenon during outbreaks, she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Related: the <a href=\"https:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/?q=%E2%80%9Chype+cycle%E2%80%9D&#038;t=brave&#038;ia=about\">hype cycle<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Fickling: That\u2019s not a comforting thought. We live in an era where everything seems quantifiable, from our daily movements&nbsp;to our internet search habits and even&nbsp;our heartbeats. At a time when people are scared and seeking certainty, it\u2019s alarming that the knowledge we have on this most important issue is at best an approximate guide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7792,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791\/revisions\/7792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}