Marketing Research and Covid-19 — Ed Nevraumont // Marketing BS

Quotes

• “There are two European nations with fatality rates that differ by more than an order of magnitude. Why and how? There are three common explanations for the significant variations of fatality rates by country.

• 1.Death rates spike. When a high number of patients overwhelm the hospitals resulting in the shortage of ventilators. A problem that impacted Italy and Iran and may have hindered treatment options in New York and Detroit.

• 2.There are cohort issues. If for example, infections are spreading rapidly and theres a delay of several weeks between infection and death, simply dividing current deaths by current infections will radically understate the eventual death rate.

• 3.There are testing issues. If you test a patient in serious condition, you are likely to overstate the death rate. Anyone with mild or asymptomatic cases wont die by definition but they also wont get tested so they dont get counted at all. If people with mild or no symptoms were accurately tested and counted, it would bring down the average death rate.” -Ed

• “Cause of death. COVID 19 is particularly dangerous for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Suppose a person with diabetes or asthma contracts COVID and subsequently dies, should the cause of death be recorded as COVID or the pre-existing condition.” -Ed

• “The criteria for determining the cause of death varies depending on the country and city, and perhaps even according to the individual hospital or individual medical practitioner. The lack of universal guidelines has clouded our ability to compare fatality rates from one country to another.” -Ed

• “A person with sustained and direct exposure to a virus, like living with an infected person will receive a higher viral load than a person with a brief, indirect exposure like touching a doorknob of a supermarket.” -Ed

• “According to the preliminary research of COVID 19, there is a correlation between high viral load and more severe symptoms. In practical terms, this information suggests that people infected by prolonged contact with an infected individual are far more likely to experience serious consequences including death than someone who was infected by an incidental contact like touching a grocery cart.” -Ed

• “Culture. Are cultural differences especially in terms of physical contact responsible for these extreme variations? On many levels, the explanation of Japans relative success is still a mystery.” -Ed

• “At this point, our collective knowledge about COVID 19 is limited. There are more unanswered questions than comprehensive answers.” -Ed

• “Without extensivetesting, governments cannot track mild or asymptomatic cases. Many governments only record serious cases which are by definition more likely to result in fatality. With one, inadequate low number of tests and two, disproportionate testing of serious cases, a country could radically overestimate their fatality rate with no idea of the margin of that estimation.” -Ed

• “While Iceland only has 218 confirmed cases among its tiny population, its testing program has produced crucial data about the coronavirus. That half of those who were tested positive had no coronavirus symptoms. This information suggests that widespread testing is an effective strategy.” -Ed

• “But just as we solve one problem, we expose another. False positives with a low penetration rate. The problem with personalization.” -Ed

• “Despite what many vendors claim, personalization is not the Holy Grail of marketing. Personalization can help remove small groups from the overall sample. This tactic can marginally improve targeting.” -Ed

• “Remember that personalization cannot accurately identify small segments within a larger sample with any degree of accuracy unless your false-positive rate is close to zero.” -Ed

• “Blood tests are not only more accurate for testing positive cases but they can also determine if a person was previously infected. Recall that Iceland tested 10,300 random people identifying 218 or 2.1% with a virus. For that testing, Iceland used no swabs. How accurate are Icelands test? We dont know.” -Ed

• “Do not assume that if you contract the coronavirus you have a 50% chance of experiencing the symptoms at all. At this stage in our knowledge, I do not think we can tell the difference between some who is asymptomatic and someone who does not have the infection at all but registered false positive on a swab test.” -Ed

• “If I am right, then COVID has not spread so far as the projections but this would also mean that the diagnosed death rate may not be as overstated as the optimists hope.” -Ed

• “Problems with testing does not mean that extensive testing is not helpful. Paul Romer, 2018 Nobel Prize Winner and Chief Economist of the World Bank ran some simulations on COVID strategies. He considered the impact of running extensive tests and then placing all people who test positive in a quarantine, allowing the rest of the economy to function normally.” -Ed

• “Romer analyzed the limits of the test inaccuracy before the strategy would not work. His conclusion? Even if wetook action based on a test that is only 20% accurate, we could still dramatically reduce the devastation cost by COVID 19.” -Ed

• “Dosage might matter. This concept should increase your motivation to protect yourself and take precautions. If you wore gloves and a mask to a grocery store, you might still end up contracting the coronavirus but not as big a viral load as you might receive without protection.” -Ed

• “A lower viral load may allow your body to better fight off the virus saving you a possible trip to the hospital or worse.” -Ed