On 4/17/20 5:10 PM, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
Yes, we are all worried.
The LLC (and I presume the IESG / IRTF / ...) are trying to do the
right thing.
Jay has posted as set of evaluation criteria.
Given that "when enough of us think it is safe" is both a bad criteria
and unusable, I applaud the efforts to write down and discuss with us
those criteria.
While I understand the concerns in many of the notes, I am having
trouble seeing how Jay or anyone else can translate those concerns
into well-defined criteria that can be used to reach an appropriate
decision.
I'm reminded of the story about the guy who lost his keys inside his
house, but was looking for them outside under a street lamp because the
light was better there.
I understand wanting well-defined criteria. But just because they're
well-defined, or easily measured, is no reason to presume that they're wise.
While I appreciate the effort to seek guidance from RFC 8718, those were
only intended as venue criteria. The set of concerns related to
meeting during a global pandemic are considerably broader, and many are
not specific to the meeting venue.
As for well-defined criteria for deciding when it's safe to meet again,
I suggest (as a strawman proposal):
- Case fatality risk, defined as conditional probability of someone
diagnosed with COVID-19 having a fatal outcome within 30 days of
diagnosis, is 0.2% or less, both globally and in the venue country, for
a period of 90 days both before the venue selection is made, and also
for the 90 day period ending 14 days prior to the meeting.
- The conditional probability of someone diagnosed with COVID-19
requiring hospitalization, is 1% or less.
- The measured R number of COVID-19, for a period of 90 days prior to
venue selection and also a period of 90 days ending 14 days prior to the
meeting, both globally and in the venue country, is < 0.5. (This could
be the case because of herd immunity, or availability of a safe and
effective vaccine with few contraindications, or widespread testing and
contact tracing, or any combination of those and other factors)
Basically I think we mostly tolerate (or self-manage) the risk of
seasonal influenza. So when (by whatever means) COVID-19 is no more
dangerous than seasonal influenza, we would probably consider that
tolerable also.
Of course, these criteria need work. For instance CFR is often
dependent on age. An overall CFR of 0.2% might not be acceptable if
the risk for those over, say, 65, were 2%.
Keith
