CDC Launches Forecasting Center To Be Like a 'National Weather Service for Infectious Diseases' (cnn.com) 69
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched its Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics on Tuesday. The center aims to be like the "National Weather Service for infectious diseases," helping to guide decision-making at all levels. From a report: Data-driven weather forecasts help leaders know when to deploy resources to respond to hurricanes and individuals decide whether they need to bring an umbrella with them when they go out. Similarly, the CDC's new disease forecasting center aims to guide decisions about broad public health needs like developing vaccines or deploying antivirals, and helping individuals decide whether it's safe for them to go to the movie theater, Dylan George, epidemiologist and director of operations for the new center, said during a call with reporters. George and a small team of colleagues are faced with tackling a "critical need" to improve the government's "ability to forecast and model emerging health threats. In short, we need to use data more effectively to guide response efforts," he said. As the United States approaches a grim milestone of 1 million lives lost to Covid-19, recently appointed White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said "the failure to be prepared is really startling."
Re: (Score:2)
You're doing it wrong, according to Eddie Izzard it goes like this:
“Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death – lunch- death, death, death -afternoon tea - death, death, death - quick shower"
Re: (Score:2)
No supper? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Sounds like the British Empire."
He's talking about Pol Pot, millions murdered but he got house-arrest.
Re: (Score:2)
Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
Even if this is something we needed, why would anyone think the CDC is capable of creating and managing this. Particularly after the past 2+ years of bullshit.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
There is a ton of garbage going into this system, if any at all. [nytimes.com] If not carefully managed, this forecast could be worse garbage. [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if someone is going to be tracking this kind of stuff, it should be the CDC. That's probably the most important part of its job.
I personally hope the CDC prioritizes infectious diseases and keeps that as it's focus instead of going into general healthcare (diabetes, obesity...)
I used to cringe when people talked about the obesity epidemic. I hope we never make that same mistake again after seeing an actual pandemic like Covid.
Re: (Score:1)
Even if this is something we needed, why would anyone think the CDC is capable of creating and managing this. Particularly after the past 2+ years of bullshit.
Fauci spending 50 years studying viruses just to trick people into wearing paper masks. His life's work is now complete.
Re: (Score:2)
Fauci spending 50 years studying viruses just to trick people into wearing paper masks. His life's work is now complete.
Please mod parent up! (ROFL)
Re: (Score:2)
Said the guy looking over the scientists shoulder, "He's just moving stuff from one test tube to another. Hell, I could do that."
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because aside from some setbacks when they were crippled by the previous administration the CDC is one of the top disease research centers in the world and in the best places to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
I am on the horns of a dilemma.
Re: (Score:2)
I am on the horns of a dilemma.
So's ur mum.
Re: (Score:2)
We'd be much better off if the CDC were spun off and were just a non-profit entity funded by private individuals rather than at the whims of quacks/charlatans/republicans (unclear of the difference in those).
Making it private would satisfy republicans and democrats alike in most respects since republicans don't want to spend money and democrats want to use science
Re: (Score:2)
That's got to be the dumbest idea for the CDC yet, i.e., make them the tool of private industry.
"Don't put that kind of information about deaths caused by firearms, the gun industry won't like it. They'll cut our funding."
"Yeah, Ma and Pa Kettle's Magic Elixir will kill you, but if we tell people that, then Ma and Pa Kettle will take their funding elsewhere."
"Don't put that out there about that company, Senator Bloviate angle to pass laws regulating the CDC out of existence."
"Well, we'd like to put a stop t
Re: (Score:1)
Maybe so, but the CDC is currently pretty close to useless and if Bill Gates (e.g., someone rich who doesn't believe in the tooth fairy unlike our last president) funded the CDC it would be much better
I don't trust them for anything anymore given their strong political affiliation
Likely due to having a republican administration, they failed pretty spectacularly compared to other rich countries with respect to the pandemic and unless we have consistent democratic administrations going forward, I have no fait
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's true but there's also the fact that the CDC is inherently science based and people who believe in science like Bill Gates would fund such ventures whereas those who don't believe in science (republicans) wouldn't fund the CDC
I'd venture a guess that most people on slashdot believe in science - perhaps you don't?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bill's on the anti-disease side right?
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure he's at least anti-malaria whereas we know that republicans are openly pro-covid/etc. or, at the very least, claim it's some democratic hoax
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We'd be much better off if the CDC were spun off and were just a non-profit entity funded by private individuals rather than at the whims of quacks/charlatans/republicans (unclear of the difference in those).
Making it private would satisfy republicans and democrats alike in most respects since republicans don't want to spend money and democrats want to use science
Bruh...It's already run by bribes from private corps. How do you think they pushed an untested new form of "vaccine" with virtually zero efficacy and lots of side-effects through in the span of months when standard approvals through basically the entire history of all working vaccines has been about a decade precisely because the things are so prone to fucking up and causing harm?
Re: (Score:2)
you must be a republican?
is your zero efficacy claim from conservapedia, infowars, breitbart, or foxnews?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I trust major peer reviewed medical journals like NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, BMJ, etc. and those publications which report on them like NYT, New Yorker, etc.
All of the above are in agreement that all of the major vaccines are highly effective
What peer reviewed source says otherwise?
Re: (Score:2)
I trust major peer reviewed medical journals like NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, BMJ, etc.
Oh, so you're already aware it's garbage then? Or do you just read the cliff-notes published by the NYT, New Yorker, etc and not the actual papers with the raw data? You know - the ones that get pulled by the time the NYT would parse through it.
Re: (Score:2)
I read the actual journal articles and the synthetized versions in mainstream media
There are very rarely significant inconsistencies between them
Please cite evidence showing limited effectiveness from one of those major journals or just admit you're a republican and/or anti-science which is nothing to be ashamed of
Re: (Score:2)
I read the actual journal articles and the synthetized versions in mainstream media
There are very rarely significant inconsistencies between them
Oh wow, so you're just straight up lying. No one who actually reads journals as they come out sees much if any similarity to anything in the news. Have a good day, I'm done here you disingenuous filth.
Re: (Score:2)
Dude - just cite an inconsistency between one of the major journals and NYT or cite evidence from a major journal showing "virtually zero efficacy"
Can you do that?
Here's an actual citation and quote:
NEJM link [nejm.org]
"Vaccine effectiveness for partial vaccination was 77.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 70.9 to 82.7) with the BNT162b2 vaccine (Pfizer–BioNTech) and 88.9% (95% CI, 78.7 to 94.2) with the mRNA-1273 vaccine (Moderna); for complete vaccination, vaccine effectiveness was 88.8% (95% CI, 84.6 to 91.8)
Re: (Score:2)
btw - make sure you give some extra dollars to Trump for his reelection campaign and criminal defense fund
Re: (Score:2)
still waiting for your citation lol
Re: (Score:2)
Big deal (Score:1, Insightful)
They've done SUCH a good job of making shit up and carrying the DNC's water for the past few years.
ZERO CREDABILITY.
Re: (Score:2)
un-American (Score:1)
Re:Failed Data-Models for Everyone... (Score:4, Informative)
What happens when gas prices rise up? Do people just continue buying gas? No, a lot of people start consuming less gas.
We model climate change the same way - the models of 2000 did predict an environmental disaster. But people reacted and even just 10 years later, the growth in things like coal emissions went down significantly because countries like China went to different, cleaner energy sources. Given coal's price rise, switching to cleaner sources already was a no-brainer and emissions went down.
In fact, the disasterous 4+ degree rise in temperatures has been averted - if things continue as they are, the projected increase is 3 degrees. still off from the 2 degrees we need, but the change in energy consumption, the rise of electric vehicles, and other things have actually made a difference.
When the models were created, the prediction is based one simple assumption - nothing changes. We continue to emit more CO2 as we have in the past decade, we don't change a single thing.
And yet, things did happen. Electric cars are practical for a good percentage of the population, especially in the era of higher gas prices. Coal consumption went down because the costs of transporting such dirty fuels went up that new coal plants simply stopped being built in favor of cleaner fuels.
Disaster not quite averted, but change did happen. No one can model the future, but people started saying "we need to change" and change happened and the models need to be updated because of it.
People changed, which is what happened. Same with the pandemic - if no one changed, then health care would be overrun with sick people and you'd see people dying of easily treatable things, but because of the models, restrictions got imposed so the health care system did not get overrun. Didn't make the model wrong, but it informed changes to avoid a disaster.
Re: (Score:2)
When the models were created, the prediction is based one simple assumption - nothing changes
What? You get models for many different scenarios of future behavior of humanity. I haven't seen a climate model that would *only* be based on the "nothing changes" assumption for quite a long time.
Re: (Score:1)
What change are you seeing? I'm looking at total CO2 emissions here:
https://ourworldindata.org/co2... [ourworldindata.org]
and the curve from 2000-2010 does not look to be flattening. It does look like there is some flattening starting around 2012, that some are suggesting is caused by structural changes in the world economy.
Re: (Score:2)
Ya, those tropical diseases marching north are merely the bugs enjoying the cold. The fishes in the Atlantic are moving north to escape the fishermen and not the warmer waters. The sewage systems up and down the East Coast are being flooded because they are fundamentally fed up with not being close to the ocean. The drought the West, now marching East to an area near you, are merely "shit happens". Greenland melting will be good for the ocean, it always wanted several feet of new water depth to enjoy.
The Ar
Re: (Score:2)
I've got a better idea (Score:3)
Let's just have the local TV weather forecaster do the same with infectious diseases. Weather forecasters seem to have he same poor chances of being correct as the CDC.
Re: (Score:2)
Well the weather forecasts are pretty darn accurate these days so I guess that's could work. I guess it could just be boomer humor
Re: (Score:1)
Sure, epidemiology isn't rocket science. Anyone can do it. I'll bet you could do it. Why don't you stop posting stupid shit here and get your degree and then tell us how it all really works.
And just as accurate (Score:1)
Have you noticed that nobody holds the NWS accountable for getting it wrong? The CDC isn't going to be held accountable either.
I guess we'll have to revise the adage "Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear war" to "Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, CDC forecasting, and nuclear war."
Re: (Score:2)
They will STILL be in the tub.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, forecasting diseases is easy, everyone can do it. All it takes is an alleged president, a microphone, and no understanding of science. "It will be gone a April", "Ooops, it will be gone in June." "Okay, okay, it will be gone over the summer." "Damn, I've got it now, it will be gone by Sept.". "Can't we use bleach, I hear it knock it right out of there." "Hydroxychloroquine is a game changer."
See, science is easy, anyone can do it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Lest anyone think this is mere trolling, here is the Slashdot post (not by me) pointing to the dubious nature of the UK computer model used to predict the Coronavirus/COVID-19 spread early in the pandemic, which was used to justify widespread lockdowns:
https://slashdot.org/submissio... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:1)
The whole thing became politicized in a foolish attempt to get Trump.
Now we wonder:
1) Did the masks really work? Considering how they did it I don't think so. There should have been public announcements about which ones to get, how to use them. They let us do - whatever. Some people simply wore the mask around their neck. Others below the nose negating any benefit.
2) Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine - did they work? Seems that they did help with the symptoms enough to have saved lives.
3) (and this is a biggy)
Expect it to be as useful as the doomsday clock (Score:1)
Can we see your data?
Crickets ...
CDC looking for a purpose and relevance (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hello, I'm from FEMA, prepare your anus. (Score:1)
Saw this one coming, not specifically C-19, but some way to get FEMA involved in a martial law type of role.
Keep an eye on the UN also.
Re: (Score:1)
Fairly new here, no edit button? Maybe I'm just missing it.
Anyway, not talking Alex Jones here, he lost me a few decades ago with his lizardmen from space taking over the bodies of government leaders and Soros and such people (Soros isn't alien, he is the Devil's red-headed step-child.
Wasn't sure if he was serious or I was missing a metaphore, didn't stay long enough to find out.