NEW EXPLORABLE! ✨ “What Happens Next?” COVID-19 Futures, Explained
Added 2020-04-30 16:13:39 +0000 UTCI'm still editing & polishing this thing very, very last minute! If you find typos & errors or weird UI, please comment below so I can fix 'em! Thank you! Aghhhhhhh!
. . .
Here you go, the most "deep dive" explorable I've ever made – epidemiology 101, the proposed COVID-19 interventions, and some best/worst-case-scenarios... explained with playable pictures:
😷 WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? (30 min read/play) 😷
👉 https://ncase.me/covid-19/ 👈
Again, thank you for your generous support and keeping me afloat in these hard times 💖 I say that every time I post a project, but given the whole, y'know, everything happening right now – I extra mean it.
I hope this guide gives you hope – not the "downplay danger" kind, but the "here's a sword and shield" kind. We can still beat COVID-19, in a way that also protects our mental & financial health.
Fight on, y'all.
✊,
~ Nicky Case
Comments
We've been reading and re-reading this second frame, but it is not worded correctly: "You're contagious 2 days before you know you are infected. But it takes 3 days to become contagious..." It would make more sense if that first "contagious" were "infected" instead. However, if it really does mean "contagious," the rest becomes nonsense.
Michael
2020-05-07 20:57:20 +0000 UTCJust getting started, but wanted to note the footnotes show up squashed into about 100px on firefox.
sam
2020-05-04 05:21:58 +0000 UTCyou must go to tamera, Nicky!! yeah, masks, condoms and don't forget sunglasses... words won't ever be enough. i can't tell you why. just go! 😘
caue rego
2020-05-04 00:25:33 +0000 UTCThis is really impressive work, well done! Made me become a Patreon supporter :) Keep up the good work, I really like what you do.
Vincent Zalzal
2020-05-03 20:26:51 +0000 UTCThis is brilliant. The best educational coronavirus piece I have read! Would you be happy for me to translate it to Hebrew?
Asher Barak
2020-05-03 14:46:10 +0000 UTCThis is great Nicky! Thank you. Do you know what % of population you need to be testing every day for effective contact tracing please? I'm working with a few open-source companies to make a plan any country / company in the world can copy. But knowing the scale in terms of % testing or tests needed per positive case is crucial. Thank you!
AP
2020-05-02 09:05:08 +0000 UTCThis is beautiful work. I love your explorables! As a fact-checking nerd, I have one bone to pick: You say that "Around 1 in 20 people infected with COVID-19 need to go to an ICU (Intensive Care Unit)." I think this number is the fraction of confirmed cases. But that is an underestimate of all actual cases. In the footnote you do write *all* cases, so I clicked the source, but that page doesn't even give away sources without registration. After some googling, I found a CDC page with the same data: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm#T1_down maybe you could link that in your footnote. And it confirms my suspition that these numbers are based only on *confirmed* cases. I am not sure what the correct number is, since estimates of total cases vary wildly, up to an order of magnitude. Here they estimate that only 13% of covid cases in March were detected: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.20050542v3 (But it's for a period that is a bit later compared to the data you use, so maybe there it was more accurate and your three times increase might be reasonable.)
Jachym Sykora
2020-05-02 01:42:17 +0000 UTCNo worries, thank you for appreciating it! ^_^ And ack yeah those are two embarrassing typos/bugs. Will fix soon, thanks for bringing them up!
Nicky Case
2020-05-01 23:49:17 +0000 UTCThis is wonderful - I'll be sending it to everyone I can think of. So clear! Only thing I would say about the UK context: to say that the UK policy was merely 'badly explained' is... *cough* only one of a range of possible interpretations *cough*. See, e.g.: e.g.: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/05/01/the-coronavirus-crisis-government-anticipated-more-than-a-million-covid-19-deaths-but-refused-to-take-action-for-three-weeks/ https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2020/04/coronavirus-care-homes-carers-elderly-deaths-PPE But the explainer is awesome :)
Kate Cross
2020-05-01 22:29:35 +0000 UTCFantastic. Thank you for this, Nicky. Can't support yet, but will. Was there supposed to be a way to switch masks in a simulation? I can't find it. not sure if there's a missing "that" in "the stuff _that_ makes life worth living" or if you intended it this way
Agami
2020-05-01 21:41:32 +0000 UTCsorry I didn't get to this until now. to answer: no, I didn't previously click the footnotes, though I did realize they were footnotes. however the reason I didn't click them was because I assumed it would link to some academic paper in another page or something, and I wasn't planning on doing an in-depth fact check. the new "click this footnote ->" instruction at the top, paired with the new style very clearly communicates that they are bubbles, which absolutely invites clicking. so I think you've nailed it here.
Phil Dougherty
2020-05-01 16:23:06 +0000 UTCWith regards to the citations, maybe make the bubbles appear on hover instead of on click. I was aware of them while reading but didn't want to click in fear of it redirecting me and making me lose my spot on the page
Evan Rocha
2020-05-01 15:44:42 +0000 UTCWas going to post this as a seperate comment, but realized I'm echoing Phil, so: Haven't read the whole thing yet, but some small notes - 1. I find it hard to read text interspersed with symbols for susceptible, infectious etc. It appears word mode and picture mode on my brain are v disconnected. Maybe representing those words in text with a colored highlight would work better for folks like me? 2. I appreciate how you linked the footnotes, usually I have a silly fear of jumping down to some references section when I click on those :) I didn't realize that the bubbles were citations on the first one, but realized when I got to the second. I uh... just kind of ignored the first bubble, then went back up to see why you added a footnote to the date of publishing. Great work so far (I've gotten upto SIR and SEIR models, and I've learned something already!!), can't wait to finish ~
Ridima Ramesh
2020-05-01 00:18:27 +0000 UTCThank you for the citation. I will send it around to working epidemiologists around here, because this isn't widely known (at least among my friends in the field). The footnotes don't render like footnotes in firefox. It isn't clear they are clickable in the Patreon android app, either. Maybe it is just me, though. See what others think before you change things based on just my input.
Grävling
2020-04-30 22:33:26 +0000 UTCFor what it's worth, a lot of my coworkers and administrators have also realized that this situation has made it apparent what parts of in-class learning are not (or, not easily) replicated in distance/online learning. It's been a good kick-start for getting many teachers into taking online resources seriously, and it's been amazing for accessibility. (That said, there's been a lot of equity and accessibility shortcomings that are becoming noticeably apparent, finally.)
Sofia Razón
2020-04-30 22:14:30 +0000 UTCThis whole scenario was not the way I wished online learning would take off, but, uh, I guess every bomb has a silver lining. (Thank you again, and as always, for sharing my shtuff with the next generation... of the future! ^_^)
Nicky Case
2020-04-30 22:11:49 +0000 UTCI really appreciated having the footnotes being prominent in the text. It made me... more interested in clicking on them, I suppose!
Sofia Razón
2020-04-30 22:11:36 +0000 UTCThank you Sofia! Ack yeah I forgot to let people re-play the recordings! And maybe toggling "show percentages" would be a good quick feature to add... Others also had trouble finding the ICU line too, so I'll add a bit of text saying "it's waaaaayyyyy at the bottom. yup." "ICU, I don't C U"
Nicky Case
2020-04-30 22:09:41 +0000 UTCOh, and I know you asked about it before, but, after seeing the note at the bottom I want you to know that I have been absolutely sharing your explorables (and the others you link to) in my classes. I'm taking an approach of "Here are some resources and interactives and videos. Pick one, play with it, and then respond." Most students seem to be responding well (...as well as they can, considering) to it.
Sofia Razón
2020-04-30 22:07:11 +0000 UTCThanks for the in-depth response! Will address those points more explicitly in the text > So I am very interested in reading where the assertion that they are rare comes from. Here's the citation! https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-1274_article They followed a cluster of cases from a South Korean call center for weeks (where they tested 1000+ people), and found "Of the 97 persons with confirmed COVID-19, only 4 (1.9%) remained asymptomatic within 14 days of quarantine, and none of their household contacts acquired secondary infections." This citation was in a footnote, but that brings me to my big question: I'm currently using the crappy default style for some footnotes javascript thing – did the numbers even *look* like footnotes? Let alone one you can click to get a little dialogue bubble with citations or explanations? (instead of teleporting you to the end of the page, which I hate about most web page footnotes) Did you click one? (If not, I'll change their styles & more explicitly highlight "HEY THESE FOOTNOTES CREATE BUBBLES"!)
Nicky Case
2020-04-30 22:04:11 +0000 UTCThank you so much for the in-depth feedback! ^_^ Will fix those typos & unclear wordings! Quick question: I'm currently using the default style for some footnotes javascript thing – did the numbers even *look* like footnotes? Let alone one you can click to get a little dialogue bubble with citations or explanations? Did you click one? (If not, I'll change their styles & more explicitly highlight "HEY THESE FOOTNOTES CREATE BUBBLES")
Nicky Case
2020-04-30 21:57:06 +0000 UTCThis is absolutely one of my favorite explorables. Not just because of it's imminent relevance, but because of how clearly and respectfully (of both the subject and the readers) it is! There were some things that I thought /might/ make it a bit easier for me (and hopefully others) to play with and learn. - After modifying the recorded simulations, I couldn't find a way to go back to the recorded one. (To see if my changes were that different after all, or, if I accidentally changed something, and wanted to see the original recorded one.) - The graphs were really good to see, but it was hard to compare some of the numbers without actually seeing the percentages. It might be helpful / interesting to have an option to see the percentages of the different populations as the simulation is running. - I had trouble finding the ICU line at first. I know it's a very small number compared to the percentages displayed, but if it were thicker (or even had an arrow pointing to it or something), I'd have an easier time finding it initially. - This, again, might just be an issue for me, but the sliders were a little tricky to fine-tune sometimes. I think it might be easier to interact with if they were a bit bigger. - Maybe this is my strategy-game mindset, but, I almost wish there were an auto-pause function on the longer simulations. Something like pausing every month or year... just to help with changing the values over time. That's it. Again, these are only my initial thoughts as I was going through this amazing project you (all) have created! I don't know if they're important (or easy) enough to change, as overall, I had no trouble navigating and understanding the material (to the best of my current abilities)! Again, thank you for asking for our feedback, and thank you for dedicating so much time and effort and research and hard work and everything into putting this together!
Sofia Razón
2020-04-30 21:56:57 +0000 UTCAt any rate, the reports I am reading are saying that it is hard to know how many people are truly asymptomatic, because people who are symptomatic have been the priority in measuring most places. And what counts as 'mild symptoms' is something that people with, for instance, pollen allergies have all the time. If you have pollen allergy and covid-19 how can we tell where your sniffles come from? Should you be counted among the asymptomatic? If you take an anti-histamine so the pollen won't get to you, and that means you don't sneeze at all, even though you have covid-19 are you asymptomatic? So I am very interested in reading where the assertion that they are rare comes from. About the masks -- I don't think anybody knows what the relationship is between reducing the amount of virus you are exposed to and reducing the chance that you get the disease. Whatever it is, a 1:1 ratio is almost certaintly the wrong answer. If you need exposure to a lot of virus to catch the disease, then a 70% reduction could reduce things by even more than 70%. Conversely, if only a tiny bit typically suffices to strike you down, it could be that the masks have no effect at all. This is one reason why simulations like yours are so excellent. It is something to visualise the level of uncertainty. I suspect that you will not have time to add this, but there is one other aspect of mask adoption which is very relevant. It is really important to understand how effective your general public thinks masks are. This is one reason why some countries think that masks are a bad idea, and promote the spread of disease rather than the reverse. If the people who are coughing are staying at home and self-isolating, as you want them to, because they don't want to kill their neighbours, there is a distinct possibility that they will think that the masks are so effective that they can go out wearing a mask and cough and not post any or much of a risk. After all, the health authority recommended them. They wouldn't have done that if masks weren't very effective. Suddently you have all of these sick people who would otherwise be at home out spreading the disease. This is one reason why some governments really do not want to try to present the message that 'masks are only for people who don't think they are sick', so they won't be recommending masks because they think in their situation it would only make things worse. Again, around here people don't know if summer/winter has an effect. There are many people who think that the temperature has nothing to do with the summer reduction, witness all the hot places where infectious diseases are a year round thing. What may be relevant is that in the summer time people in the west take vacations, and head to the outdoors, and have their children home from school and daycare. For most infectious diseases -- though apparantly not covid-19 -- schools are the great place where disease thrives. Then children give the disease to their parents, and their parents take it to work with them. Having a kid in daycare or having a co-worker with kids in daycare makes it more likely that you will catch the flu in flu season. So far this doesn't seem to be the case for covid-19. 'Parents of small children' are not a significant risk group. If children aren't good vectors for covid-19 and the proposed summer effect would be due to getting the children out of daycare and elementary school, then there will be no summer improvement for us. So thank you so much for this Nicky. I will be so happy to be able to share this with others on May 1st. And please do take some vacation and mental health time for yourself. You are one of the people who makes the world a better place and we would hate to lose you. All the best!
Grävling
2020-04-30 19:00:00 +0000 UTCOoops, I hate it that patreon sends off the reply as soon as you hit a return. Off to keep writing somewhere else, and paste it in later ...
Grävling
2020-04-30 17:36:00 +0000 UTCThank you for doing this. A couple of comments -- it would be good to have a source for 'true asymptomatics are rare'. The latest reports I am reading say 'we have no clue'.
Grävling
2020-04-30 17:35:10 +0000 UTCfirst off, really really impressive work as always. doubly so with how quickly you put this together to stay relevant, and quadruply so to do such work in the midst of a pandemic. very proud to be your patron. here's my brain-dump feedback, with an eye towards the whole "able to be fixed in < 24hrs" constraint. (in order of appearance) 1. the interspersed "susceptible" and "infected" emojis into text is great for continuity between sims, images, and text. but without an explicitly instructed word to name them, I found my mental voice kinda "stuttering". I would mentally speak "the virus jumps from an [red] to an [white] every 4 days" as "the virus jumps from a ~blehr~ to a ~hmngng~ every 4 days". just a tiny mental hurdle that stuck with me until I made the conscious decision to start calling reds "infecteds" and grays "susceptibles". maybe at the beginning when you introduce them, you could say "THIS IS AN INFECTED: [red]". (the way you currently introduce them essentially says the same thing, just a bit less "instructive", if that makes sense?) 2. the text in the graphic after "One thing that stops a virus from spreading is if others already have the virus:" reads a bit strange. "When population ~100% [white] ...". Could change to "When a population is ~100% [white] ...". This would also be improved if I was explicitly directed to read as "susceptible"! 3. The "Play with this R0 calculator" interactive text uses "Becomes [gray] in 4 days"- I wonder if the point might more clearly come across if you instead say "stays [red] for 4 days"? (I know that might not technically be true, because it's also a pink face for a couple days, but the relevant point isn't _how fast one recovers_, it's _how long one is infectious_. 4. typo: "When enough people have immunity, R < 1, and the virus is contained!" (remove "and") 5. The ICU capacity line is so low relative to the "focal point" of the graph, its easy to miss. while that's a legitimate rhetorical point, it might cause more confusion than insight? easy fix could be just making it a color that really explicitly stands out. 6. // TODO: pic difference (I assume you know about this, but pointing it out just in case!) 7.(Rant about the confusion about pre-symptomatic vs "true" asymptomatic. "True" asymptomatics are rare:27) (again, pointing out for completeness' sake) 8. the "% of not susceptible" slider on the vaccines interactive is locked to the vaccine %, which I _think_ makes sense... but shouldn't it also be possible to be additionally _naturally_ not susceptible _pre_vaccine (ie, from recovery)? 9. the 1.2.3.4. simulation w/ "quarantining contacts" shows essentially 0 infected for its duration. I know this is strange, but is there a way to be _pessimistic_ about the effectiveness of this so there's _some_ visual feedback? lol it's so successful it feels almost broken? alternatively, you could just call that out ("see how there are like IMPERCEPTIBLY FEW new infections during this period?!") 10. the summer interactive that causes intermittent peaks is fucking sick. excellent work. Ok that's all I could find! Obviously take all my critiques with a grain of salt as, like I said, they are just off the top of my head. I think this is really really going to be a helpful resource. Now get some rest!
Phil Dougherty
2020-04-30 17:18:16 +0000 UTCStarted testing it (Ubuntu Studio 20.04, Firefox 75.0) Very good and understandable explorable -- again -- Nicky! And a lot of it too, I totally understand that you want to take a vacation after this :) This being said, the "vertical windows" in which simulations are shown are a bit too small, so the bottom of the simulations are cut, including part of the "start" buttons. Maybe that's a Firefox thing. Addendum: this is especially visible in the last, tallest fully free simulation, where the start button is not even seen.
Albert ARIBAUD
2020-04-30 16:52:47 +0000 UTCFirst feedback, I feel like people try to take in information as fast as possible, and as I started playing with the graphs I felt compelled to watch the whole simulation that was defaulted to 40 seconds. i.e. by the time I've watched the the foundational 3 animations I'm already tired of reading/waiting. Maybe crank down the default speed of each animation to 2.5 or 3 seconds?
Michael Huff
2020-04-30 16:44:16 +0000 UTCexcited to check it out! if you're looking for feedback ASAP, I figured I'd let you know the twitter/facebook image links seem to be broken at the top. lol hopefully my feedback will be more substantive by the time I actually read the thing. :P
Phil Dougherty
2020-04-30 16:21:19 +0000 UTC
