Antirez (Redis creator): don’t believe this is just a flu | Hacker News Reader

Antirez (Redis creator): don’t believe this is just a flu

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23 pointsptype27 comments

I find it strange that even on HN we seem to fall into the trap of holding up people's opinions who ostensibly know nothing special about the subject. This guy is an engineer not a public health expert, why are we holding his thoughts and advice in particular esteem?

Because he’s on the ground in one of the hardest hit areas, and has no (that I can see) incentive to lie. The media, where he is getting his info from, also has no (that I can see) incentive to overstate the situation. Sometimes you have to consider anecdotal evidence - sometimes there is no other option in a crisis like this.

That is a good point, I am still skeptical that he should be handing out advice though. I would also disagree that the media has no incentive to overstate the situation. The Italian PM has specifically asked them to tone down their reporting as it was causing panic.

> The Italian PM has specifically asked them to tone down their reporting as it was causing panic.

That doesn't mean they are being untruthful, though.

> Because he’s on the ground in one of the hardest hit areas, and has no (that I can see) incentive to lie.

But that doesn't make him an unbiased observer. If anything, it's only human nature to magnify once own suffering and the suffering of people around during a crisis like this.

Maybe because he is relaying stats which are not (widely?) reported at least in UK media, and by being “famous” his account is validated and we trust him to at least accurately relay information from Italy? Does not seem so unreasonable to me.

People know him, and people are interested in what people they know have to say. The fact that it's in an unrelated context adds novelty, which also attracts interest. I don't think it implies particular esteem.

It's probably not a good HN submission, though, unless there's something unusually substantive. Especially on the most-covered topic of the moment.

The advice is "The only way to stop the infection is to stay at home and to limit the contacts at every cost." I'm pretty sure that anybody observing the current events is qualified to give that advice.

Other than that - the guy is a celebrity and people are interested in hearing celebrities speak, which is why outlets like twitter are so popular to begin with.

Are you an expert on giving or taking advice or contemplating the thoughts of others? If not, why shouldn't we completely disregard what you're saying here?

This. Reminds me of Jurgen Klopp being asked about coronavirus and he had the best response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBCzWDxaLiw

The rate at which this has spread in Italy is a two sided coin in my opinion.

It means the "found" cases are grossly under representative, and probably deaths is a more meaningful statistic. But on the upside it also means the virus is probably not as lethal as the 3% figure, as it has passed through many people uncounted.

Absolutely agree. Looking at Italy as a case study we need to limit the spread of this virus only for the reason of reducing stress on the medical industry at any given single moment while accepting everyone is likely to encounter this thing eventually. Aside from slowing the rate of transmission the guidance, from the medical experts, says to treat this no differently than the flu.

The reality is that this virus will be everywhere because it is at least as transmissible as the flu but with more benign symptoms and a longer incubation period. The incubation period for the flu is generally 5-7 days but the early data from China was suggesting an incubation period of 10-14 days for corvid19. Both of those numbers are variable upon a given snapshot and environmental factors.

On the other hand the earlier people encounter this thing though means the earlier a population can build the necessary mass immunity resistance.

> But on the upside it also means the virus is probably not as lethal as the 3% figure, as it has passed through many people uncounted.

Lethality appears to be a function of the availability of health care.

> This is what you can conclude: countries that are prepared will see a fatality rate of ~0.5% (South Korea) to 0.9% (rest of China); countries that are overwhelmed will have a fatality rate between ~3%-5%.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...

I read yesterday that the US infection rate is tracking that of Italy. If so, we should all take note of his comments regarding isolation and culture.

Sorry to say this, but the US is going to be even worse than Italy. You have not been testing nearly enough people.

Additionally, the US health care system is worse, people are not or under-insured (so they have an incentive to avoid seeking care), and leading US politicians are acting like it isn't really happening.

I'm usually pretty libertarian and I think private healthcare can work. But right now it really, really can't. Massive issues are down the road, and not very far down the road (14 days).

And if private healthcare can’t work during a crisis, then what use is it?

A large public system cannot be conjured out of thin air to met each crisis.

We will see the large well funded social medical systems, with their “inefficient” over capacity, over-perform the operating on thin margins private systems.

I’m terrified here in the US.

(FWIW - give me 90% socialized medicine with room on the margins for private clinics, like the vast majority of the 1st world)

Does anyone know where he is getting the number from? It is quite a striking statistic, I would love to read more.

It’s in the thread: “Yes, it was reported yesterday by the authorities in the Italian television, the director of one of the major hospitals also reported a few severe cases with people under 30 otherwise totally healthy.”

Citation needed.

"The authorities ..." Which one? If it's an official statement there should be better sources available.

"the director of one hospital ..." Which one?

What is it with so many people being so dismissive of such reports? You think he's just lying, that he just wants to mislead us, or what?

There is so much misinformation out there about this situation, I think skepticism of any report is not an unreasonable position. The Italian media has been criticised for drumming up panic.

The health system is completely overloaded and unable to deal with this (1). And that's in a health system that was rated as one of the best in the world (2).

(1) Article in German, shared by Germany's top virologist (1b), the guy who literally developed the test for the corona virus https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/panorama/aus-dem-co...

(1b) https://twitter.com/c_drosten/status/1237650201323737088

(2) many sources, but see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...

We just have to be careful with the information we use and the conclusions we draw from them.

From all we know, the mortality correlates with age. Only few deads younger than 50 were reported and we don't know what other diseases they suffered from.

I personally wouldn't use TV as a source of information in this regard but that's a personal preference.

> I personally wouldn't use TV as a source of information in this regard but that's a personal preference.

What are you using as a source of information?

Well, I currently find cough twitter quite informative. But I'd rather listen to epidemiologists and virologists. I'd also prefer a good weekly magazine, radio station or podcast because there people have more time/space to elaborate on their point of view. In TV, with very few exceptions, everything is crammed into very small portions that leave no room for critical discussion/appraisal.

Not trying to be negative, but this seems to me as a appeal to non-authority bias, specially the way the title is written.

For the fun of it, let's reverse it:

Adhanom (OMS General Manager): Redis is way better than memcached

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