Again this question can be misleading, as in the case of human to human transmission of this H1N1 (which may well happen, 25% chance seems about right to me based on past outbreaks), by far the most likely scenario is one or a few cases of transmission as we have seen in the past—not the kind of human to human transmission which could lead to disaster
I think it wouldn’t be a problem if either the question had been phrased in terms of the expected number of human-to-human cases, or if there were other questions for specific orders of magnitude. I think the latter could still be done, and it would contextualize the first question.
Good points. As is often the case with forecasting questions, the details of the resolution criteria matter quite a bit. For this question to resolve as “yes”, the UK Health Security Agency must classify H5N1 as a “level 5 risk.” Currently it is classified as a level 3 risk.
So, forecasters on Metaculus are predicting whether the UK Health Security Agency will raise the H5N1 risk level to level 5, which signifies human-to-human transmission.
Other related questions on Metaculus:
Launches tomorrow:
Again this question can be misleading, as in the case of human to human transmission of this H1N1 (which may well happen, 25% chance seems about right to me based on past outbreaks), by far the most likely scenario is one or a few cases of transmission as we have seen in the past—not the kind of human to human transmission which could lead to disaster
I think it wouldn’t be a problem if either the question had been phrased in terms of the expected number of human-to-human cases, or if there were other questions for specific orders of magnitude. I think the latter could still be done, and it would contextualize the first question.
Good points. As is often the case with forecasting questions, the details of the resolution criteria matter quite a bit. For this question to resolve as “yes”, the UK Health Security Agency must classify H5N1 as a “level 5 risk.” Currently it is classified as a level 3 risk.
So, forecasters on Metaculus are predicting whether the UK Health Security Agency will raise the H5N1 risk level to level 5, which signifies human-to-human transmission.