Beware second waves of Covid-19 if lockdowns eased early: study(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Beware second waves of Covid-19 if lockdowns eased early: study
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-wuhan-secondwave/beware-second-waves-of-covid-19-if-lockdowns-eased-early-study-idUSKBN21D1M9
233 comments
> The longer we're locked down, the longer it's going to take for the economy to recover.
The economy would take a serious hit if suddenly millions of people overwhelm the medical system, people collapse in the streets and bodies pile up in and outside of morgues.
There's a weird false dichotomy I keep encountering where people insinuate that we either quarantine and hurt the economy, or we don't quarantine because of the damage it would do to the economy. The economy is going to take a hit no matter what.
The economy would take a serious hit if suddenly millions of people overwhelm the medical system, people collapse in the streets and bodies pile up in and outside of morgues.
There's a weird false dichotomy I keep encountering where people insinuate that we either quarantine and hurt the economy, or we don't quarantine because of the damage it would do to the economy. The economy is going to take a hit no matter what.
The guy who predicted millions of deaths in the US is walking back his study as we speak: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238578-uk-has-enough-i.... Dr Birx mentioned the study in today's presser and said the task force is working on the mass serological test to determine the rate of latent, asymptomatic infection. There won't be "millions of deaths", no matter how much CNN would like you to believe otherwise. There will, however, be a few tens of thousands of deaths, and the public needs to be prepared for that. And it's currently not prepared at all.
He's not "walking it back."
https://twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1243294815200124928
https://twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1243294815200124928
There is no "the guy", there are only people who understand statistics. If this coronavirus has a similar disease burden as the flu, more than a million people will die, even if we assume that everyone that needs care gets adequate care. Should the healthcare system become overwhelmed, people that need care won't get it, and even more people will die. Should this coronavirus have a higher disease burden than the flu, which the data shows is very possible, even more people will die.
I have never watched CNN in my life.
I have never watched CNN in my life.
330 Mio US citizens
x 70% of them getting infected until herd immunity
x 1% mortality
= 2.31 Mio deaths in the USA
---
if the virus spreads uninhibited the mortality will be way higher.
x 70% of them getting infected until herd immunity
x 1% mortality
= 2.31 Mio deaths in the USA
---
if the virus spreads uninhibited the mortality will be way higher.
Read the article.
I did. I am in the US. You should read the tweets from "the guy"[1] that clarifies his statements, and how they're being misinterpreted[2] by people like yourself:
> I think it would be helpful if I cleared up some confusion that has emerged in recent days. Some have interpreted my evidence to a UK parliamentary committee as indicating we have substantially revised our assessments of the potential mortality impact of COVID-19.
> This is not the case. Indeed, if anything, our latest estimates suggest that the virus is slightly more transmissible than we previously thought. Our lethality estimates remain unchanged.
> My evidence to Parliament referred to the deaths we assess might occur in the UK in the presence of the very intensive social distancing and other public health interventions now in place.
> Without those controls, our assessment remains that the UK would see the scale of deaths reported in our study (namely, up to approximately 500 thousand).
[1] https://twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1243294815200124928
[2] https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-pandemic-n...
> I think it would be helpful if I cleared up some confusion that has emerged in recent days. Some have interpreted my evidence to a UK parliamentary committee as indicating we have substantially revised our assessments of the potential mortality impact of COVID-19.
> This is not the case. Indeed, if anything, our latest estimates suggest that the virus is slightly more transmissible than we previously thought. Our lethality estimates remain unchanged.
> My evidence to Parliament referred to the deaths we assess might occur in the UK in the presence of the very intensive social distancing and other public health interventions now in place.
> Without those controls, our assessment remains that the UK would see the scale of deaths reported in our study (namely, up to approximately 500 thousand).
[1] https://twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1243294815200124928
[2] https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-pandemic-n...
It's possible for you both to be right.
The Professor is correct that his study essentially recommended (and caused) the nationwide house arrest now implemented, and that this is why he's now estimating far fewer deaths.
At the same time I wouldn't pick that study as a hill to die on. It has flaws that are severe and obvious to any layman and probably more that aren't, e.g.
• The assumption of mass deaths was based on constant NHS capacity for a year. That assumption is obviously false, the NHS managed to double ICU capacity within a week or so just by converting wards and now they're building emergency hospitals, China style.
• They used hospitalisation and fatality rates calculated from Italy, although the problems with biased sampling there are well discussed.
• They applied no discount rate learned from prior SARS outbreaks, where the final CFR turned out to be far lower than initial estimates, even though it's clear that the same will happen this time.
• When people asked for their source code the good professor announced it was of such low quality he couldn't release it until Microsoft had rewritten it for him.
• It mixes up excess mortality with incidental mortality. The UK has the same problem as Italy, where deaths that involve COVID-19 are being reported and counted as caused by it (because it's on the 'notifiable diseases' list). A shift in distributions is being reported as deaths that would never have happened otherwise, which isn't the case. And the ICL team know this because the professor blithely stated that of the 20,000 predicted deaths, probably 2/3rds would have happened anyway. Why was this rate not applied in the study given that excess mortality is obviously what people care about?
Right now it's really hard to feel confidence in any epidemiological output. This field feels more like psychology or economics than physics or microbiology.
The Professor is correct that his study essentially recommended (and caused) the nationwide house arrest now implemented, and that this is why he's now estimating far fewer deaths.
At the same time I wouldn't pick that study as a hill to die on. It has flaws that are severe and obvious to any layman and probably more that aren't, e.g.
• The assumption of mass deaths was based on constant NHS capacity for a year. That assumption is obviously false, the NHS managed to double ICU capacity within a week or so just by converting wards and now they're building emergency hospitals, China style.
• They used hospitalisation and fatality rates calculated from Italy, although the problems with biased sampling there are well discussed.
• They applied no discount rate learned from prior SARS outbreaks, where the final CFR turned out to be far lower than initial estimates, even though it's clear that the same will happen this time.
• When people asked for their source code the good professor announced it was of such low quality he couldn't release it until Microsoft had rewritten it for him.
• It mixes up excess mortality with incidental mortality. The UK has the same problem as Italy, where deaths that involve COVID-19 are being reported and counted as caused by it (because it's on the 'notifiable diseases' list). A shift in distributions is being reported as deaths that would never have happened otherwise, which isn't the case. And the ICL team know this because the professor blithely stated that of the 20,000 predicted deaths, probably 2/3rds would have happened anyway. Why was this rate not applied in the study given that excess mortality is obviously what people care about?
Right now it's really hard to feel confidence in any epidemiological output. This field feels more like psychology or economics than physics or microbiology.
It's not "misinterpreted". No self respecting academic will willingly admit to a blunder of this magnitude, so he's just walking it back one bit at a time as the number of the ground go more and more out of alignment with their modeling.
You should also mention the Oxford study also mentioned in the article if you want to maintain some semblance of unbiased opinion: https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Mod...
That study suggests that _because_ the virus is more transmissible, and because most people do not have symptoms, a ton of people had it already without paying much attention. Think about it. If it's so transmissible as the "walked back" estimate suggests, wouldn't the UK, which implemented isolation measures only very recently, and which pretty much _lives_ in the pubs, be very, very fucked right now? And it's not fucked. 162 cases per million, only 163 people in critical condition, 9 deaths per million (flu, for instance, claims 142 people per million in the US), although I'm sure the numbers will go up significantly before they are out of the woods.
Moreover, after restrictions were partially lifted in China and Korea and people were put back to work the epidemic did not restart there. This does not line up at all with the initial "we're all gonna die" rhetoric.
You should also mention the Oxford study also mentioned in the article if you want to maintain some semblance of unbiased opinion: https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Mod...
That study suggests that _because_ the virus is more transmissible, and because most people do not have symptoms, a ton of people had it already without paying much attention. Think about it. If it's so transmissible as the "walked back" estimate suggests, wouldn't the UK, which implemented isolation measures only very recently, and which pretty much _lives_ in the pubs, be very, very fucked right now? And it's not fucked. 162 cases per million, only 163 people in critical condition, 9 deaths per million (flu, for instance, claims 142 people per million in the US), although I'm sure the numbers will go up significantly before they are out of the woods.
Moreover, after restrictions were partially lifted in China and Korea and people were put back to work the epidemic did not restart there. This does not line up at all with the initial "we're all gonna die" rhetoric.
An article doesn't really mean much in the age of missinformation. You can find articles for whatever opinion you wish to confirm.
forget the economy. Imagine the practical consequences of letting the virus run wild in the population. The deaths are not an abstract number. It would mean northern Italy in every city. Doctors overwhelmed, patients suffocating on hospital floors. So many corpses you actually have to transport them away on army trucks. That's where Lombardy is right now.
It's a joke to even think society and the economy would go on as normal even if you would ignore the health impact, it would destroy the reputation and fabric of pretty much any modern state.
It's a joke to even think society and the economy would go on as normal even if you would ignore the health impact, it would destroy the reputation and fabric of pretty much any modern state.
New York hospitals have already had to bring in refrigerated trailers to store the bodies.
Every single news outlet is showing _the same_ hospital, and the same empty trailer. Notice also what an eye trained for bullshit sees in the video: rows of ventilators that aren't even plugged in, "easy" patients with oxygen cannulas and face masks ("hard" ones would be intubated, sedated, lying prone, and they would be immobilized), empty beds here and there. All the while the narrative is "we're piling up the bodies over here". 13 deaths for a large hospital _do not_ require a mobile crematorium or a trailer refrigerator. At best, you're seeing selection bias. At worst, you're being deliberately lied to, to drive clicks
At double worst, you're being deliberately lied to because the media believe, truly and honestly, that it's their job to manipulate you into believing socially useful things.
I’m getting the sense it’s what HN and perhaps more mainstream groups think too — that people are too weak to defend themselves against intellectual manipulation, and that democracy needs a special helping hand from the intellectual class.
The strong sense of the critique isn't quite fair. It wouldn't be right to call every political activist an elitist, even though they often think people are being intellectually manipulated and always think that democracy needs their special helping hand.
Yeah I'm sure they consider blind, raging panic they're trying their hardest to stoke to be "socially useful" somehow.
Well, that part I think they've actually made pretty explicit. The general public isn't taking coronavirus seriously enough (which I agree is true!), so it's their job to try and make the public more scared. Which is really obnoxious to those of us who live in a county that takes it as seriously as possible, let me tell you.
If they want to be "responsible" they need to be preparing the public to 50-60K dead for the year, which would be a normal haul of a heavy flu season. With extraordinary measures already in place (and with selective lifting of the measures in locales where infection is moderate), it seems to me that's where we'll end up. IOW, people who would die of the flu complications, will die of COVID19 and lower respiratory problems instead. Trouble is, nobody pays any attention to how many people die of flu complications per year. That number for lower respiratory diseases, for instance, is 160K per year in the US, without any virus (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929#chronic-low...). So it is possible that _fewer_ people will die of lower respiratory stuff because all the stops are being pulled when caring for them.
As to making people take it seriously, I don't think that's their primary motivation at all. As of yesterday, Cuomo himself admitted that there is a lot of unused ventilator capacity in NY. Meanwhile the press is reporting that they're running out of beds and ventilators, possibly causing people to freak out and leave NY, dragging disease to where it has not yet proliferated. This is extremely irresponsible.
As to making people take it seriously, I don't think that's their primary motivation at all. As of yesterday, Cuomo himself admitted that there is a lot of unused ventilator capacity in NY. Meanwhile the press is reporting that they're running out of beds and ventilators, possibly causing people to freak out and leave NY, dragging disease to where it has not yet proliferated. This is extremely irresponsible.
On one hand, it's a harder problem than you're giving it credit for. We're likely to end up with a death toll of a heavy flu season or a bit above, but that's because the country's taking it seriously, building out the required healthcare capacity and taking extreme mitigation measures to make sure there's time to do it. New York has unused ventilator capacity now, and will likely be able to source enough ventilators to keep up even with their peak, but that's only helpful because they've worked at breakneck pace to remove every other obstacle to scaling up the healthcare system.
On the other hand, your last point does reflect a real problem with the media's strategy here. Gross manipulation doesn't allow the media to effectively communicate the subtle distinction between "this is an emergency, we must act urgently or New Yorkers will think they've been hit with the plague" and "our emergency response measures are largely expected to work, it will be tragic but not the end of New York".
On the other hand, your last point does reflect a real problem with the media's strategy here. Gross manipulation doesn't allow the media to effectively communicate the subtle distinction between "this is an emergency, we must act urgently or New Yorkers will think they've been hit with the plague" and "our emergency response measures are largely expected to work, it will be tragic but not the end of New York".
A claimed picture of the bodies inside one of these trailers: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/miriamelder/coronavirus...
What was the hit to the economy from Spanish Flu, that also mostly killed the young?
What is the specific serious hit to the real economy that you expect, other that short-term, from "bodies piling up"?
Sure, I agree it's terrible, but the claim about the economy is what's weird.
Sure, I agree it's terrible, but the claim about the economy is what's weird.
Also, there are other solutions like serological testing, aggressively developing ways to manage the illness, testing vaccines, etc. It's not just quarantines, folks
It's almost as if the US government does not have a coherent plan. /s
It's almost as if the US government does not have a coherent plan. /s
> Also, there are other solutions like serological testing, aggressively developing ways to manage the illness, testing vaccines, etc. It's not just quarantines, folks
Unless we want to completely overwhelm the medical system within the next couple of weeks and potentially have over a million people drop dead from infection or lack of adequate healthcare, quarantine is the one tool we have at our disposal right now to manage this pandemic.
Unless we want to completely overwhelm the medical system within the next couple of weeks and potentially have over a million people drop dead from infection or lack of adequate healthcare, quarantine is the one tool we have at our disposal right now to manage this pandemic.
Is the UK really going to have serological testing up and running that quickly?
There are people arguing that it would be better to stop the quarantine now and get it over as quick as possible. Everybody over retirement age would be refused treatment to reduce the long term burden on the social security system.
Fortunately there isn't much serious discussion of this approach outside of certain think tanks because the optics are bad even for true died in the wool libertarians.
You'll even see arguments like "more people will die of the quarantine because they have no job if we keep the economy stopped for much longer".
IMHO this kind of one sided thinking comes from only considering the markets when making a decision. The markets don't care if you live or die, only that money is being made and spent.
Fortunately there isn't much serious discussion of this approach outside of certain think tanks because the optics are bad even for true died in the wool libertarians.
You'll even see arguments like "more people will die of the quarantine because they have no job if we keep the economy stopped for much longer".
IMHO this kind of one sided thinking comes from only considering the markets when making a decision. The markets don't care if you live or die, only that money is being made and spent.
A plan to refuse treatment to everyone over retirement age has a lot of problems but one of them is that there are a fair number of really tough, armed, and knowledgeable old people out there. I doubt they’d just surrender without a fight.
> A plan to refuse treatment to everyone over retirement age has a lot of problems but one of them is that there are a fair number of really tough, armed, and knowledgeable old people out there.
Are they armed with a vaccine ? Otherwise how would being armed help?
Are they armed with a vaccine ? Otherwise how would being armed help?
If you sentence everyone over a certain age to death, some of them are likely to decide they have nothing to lose.
They may not be able to compel anyone to treat them, but they can take a few doctors with them out of spite to make sure the rest of us are as screwed as they are.
They may not be able to compel anyone to treat them, but they can take a few doctors with them out of spite to make sure the rest of us are as screwed as they are.
Oh man. You’re telling everyone over 65, “go fuck yourself, you paid taxes and worked hard to build this country, we don’t care, let this virus kill you”. Some may agree to it, but I’m pretty sure this will cause a lot of havoc on the streets. People killing until they get treated.
Also this virus is a bell curve not a cutoff threshold. It has killed many young people. If you let it run wild , it can even come for you.
The common flu has been us for decades. What if COVID-19 became like the flu. A seasonal thing that evolves a bit every year. Soon there is a time bomb strain that kills 10% of the population but only kicks in after a month.
Something like that could wipe off a billion people from the planet. The only planet we know that can sustain intelligent life.
Also this virus is a bell curve not a cutoff threshold. It has killed many young people. If you let it run wild , it can even come for you.
The common flu has been us for decades. What if COVID-19 became like the flu. A seasonal thing that evolves a bit every year. Soon there is a time bomb strain that kills 10% of the population but only kicks in after a month.
Something like that could wipe off a billion people from the planet. The only planet we know that can sustain intelligent life.
> You'll even see arguments like "more people will die of the quarantine because they have no job if we keep the economy stopped for much longer".
There are a few of these arguments in this thread, even.
There are a few of these arguments in this thread, even.
Sure, but the longer the lockdown, the worse it is for the economy. And it's economy that pays for healthcare, food, housing, etc.
It's not an ideal situation when we eradicate the virus but have millions of people jobless and homeless in the US.
It's not an ideal situation when we eradicate the virus but have millions of people jobless and homeless in the US.
I'm not sure I understand the "bad for the economy" side of things. Who will suffer if we shut down unessential businesses and just mail people checks? We'll still be able to eat, we'll still have roofs over our heads, etc. The only ones who will really see their lives change significantly are the ultra-rich, who need us riding around in Ubers, renting Airbnbs, and buying plane tickets so they can fund their wealthy lifestyles. Who gives a shit about them? The average American is affected less by a quarantine than an unchecked pandemic. The only reason this is even a discussion is because our political system has been completely bought out to serve only the wealthy.
> Who will suffer if we shut down unessential businesses and just mail people checks? We'll still be able to eat, we'll still have roofs over our heads, etc. The only ones who will really see their lives change significantly are the ultra-rich, who need us riding around in Ubers, renting Airbnbs, and buying plane tickets so they can fund their wealthy lifestyles.
Why do you think this to be the case? The ultra-rich don't need you around to do whatever they want. They have their islands and personal staff to attend to them.
When the government bails you out and gives you money, you slowly by slowly become unable to eat, unable to have roofs over your head. Food does not magically appear in a grocery store. Food has a global supply chain that requires your currency to have value. When the government prints money, it makes it harder for it to borrow money in the future. Eventually, your dollar buys less on the global markets, meaning farmers cannot acquire fertilizer and other needed things to grow your crops. We won't be able to hire labor to pick the crops. People will lose their jobs as exports dry up and American dollars buy less and less foreign currency. Eventually, farmers raise their prices to combat all these forces, and the government must print more money. This is just food on the table. Construction materials and workers to put a roof on your head require an even larger, international supply chain. In order to combat this, the government reduces welfare programs and increases taxes. Business and 'the rich' leave for greener pastures. Frankly, inflation kills, and I don't understand why everyone is so dismissive of this.
I'm not even touching inflation's effects on doctors ability to do medicine.
Why do you think this to be the case? The ultra-rich don't need you around to do whatever they want. They have their islands and personal staff to attend to them.
When the government bails you out and gives you money, you slowly by slowly become unable to eat, unable to have roofs over your head. Food does not magically appear in a grocery store. Food has a global supply chain that requires your currency to have value. When the government prints money, it makes it harder for it to borrow money in the future. Eventually, your dollar buys less on the global markets, meaning farmers cannot acquire fertilizer and other needed things to grow your crops. We won't be able to hire labor to pick the crops. People will lose their jobs as exports dry up and American dollars buy less and less foreign currency. Eventually, farmers raise their prices to combat all these forces, and the government must print more money. This is just food on the table. Construction materials and workers to put a roof on your head require an even larger, international supply chain. In order to combat this, the government reduces welfare programs and increases taxes. Business and 'the rich' leave for greener pastures. Frankly, inflation kills, and I don't understand why everyone is so dismissive of this.
I'm not even touching inflation's effects on doctors ability to do medicine.
>Food has a global supply chain that requires your currency to have value.
Not true for all food.
> When the government prints money, it makes it harder for it to borrow money in the future.
What causes it to be harder to borrow is the faith of people willing to hold government debt. The American government has never reneged on its debt. "Printing money" has very little to do with the government's ability to borrow.
>Eventually, your dollar buys less on the global markets, meaning farmers cannot acquire fertilizer and other needed things to grow your crops.
We produce these things locally. Every nation-state with a half-decent national security apparatus does.
>People will lose their jobs as exports dry up and American dollars buy less and less foreign currency.
This is one of the most glaring cognitive dissonances in this thought process. Currency is relative. When the American dollar is strong, it means foreign currency buys fewer tangible American goods, and we actually export less. When the American dollar is weak, foreign currency goes farther and we export more.
>When the government bails you out and gives you money, you slowly by slowly become unable to eat, unable to have roofs over your head.
As Alan Greenspan put it when Paul Ryan brought this fanciful line of thinking up in Congress: inflation happens when there are too many dollars chasing too few goods. There are two sides to this equation. Given the difficulty the Fed has had meeting inflation targets, it is far more likely we are constrained by the allocation of dollars either because we are not able to get them where they need to be in the economy, or because there's just too little circulating.
Not true for all food.
> When the government prints money, it makes it harder for it to borrow money in the future.
What causes it to be harder to borrow is the faith of people willing to hold government debt. The American government has never reneged on its debt. "Printing money" has very little to do with the government's ability to borrow.
>Eventually, your dollar buys less on the global markets, meaning farmers cannot acquire fertilizer and other needed things to grow your crops.
We produce these things locally. Every nation-state with a half-decent national security apparatus does.
>People will lose their jobs as exports dry up and American dollars buy less and less foreign currency.
This is one of the most glaring cognitive dissonances in this thought process. Currency is relative. When the American dollar is strong, it means foreign currency buys fewer tangible American goods, and we actually export less. When the American dollar is weak, foreign currency goes farther and we export more.
>When the government bails you out and gives you money, you slowly by slowly become unable to eat, unable to have roofs over your head.
As Alan Greenspan put it when Paul Ryan brought this fanciful line of thinking up in Congress: inflation happens when there are too many dollars chasing too few goods. There are two sides to this equation. Given the difficulty the Fed has had meeting inflation targets, it is far more likely we are constrained by the allocation of dollars either because we are not able to get them where they need to be in the economy, or because there's just too little circulating.
America needs phosphate and imports it currently. We cannot produce enough locally. This is needed to produce enough food. I'm not sure how you get around this in your magical world.
> What causes it to be harder to borrow is the faith of people willing to hold government debt. The American government has never reneged on its debt. "Printing money" has very little to do with the government's ability to borrow.
Yeah, making up money and having people sit at home (thus not paying taxes) is really going to inspire people to hold American debt!
> What causes it to be harder to borrow is the faith of people willing to hold government debt. The American government has never reneged on its debt. "Printing money" has very little to do with the government's ability to borrow.
Yeah, making up money and having people sit at home (thus not paying taxes) is really going to inspire people to hold American debt!
>America needs phosphate and imports it currently.
Sure, right now the economics work out that it's cheaper to import phosphate then produce it locally.
>We cannot produce enough locally.
We might not produce enough locally to meet the current demand right now, but that doesn't mean we can't. It about whether capital is currently allocated toward the production of phosphate. It doesn't need to be because we can import it. If we couldn't produce it under any circumstance that would be a massive national security flaw. :)
> Yeah, making up money and having people sit at home (thus not paying taxes) is really going to inspire people to hold American debt!
Having as many people as we can bear sit at home is the best course of action at the very present moment to avoid spreading this virus. The people sitting at home need to be able to buy what they need and pay the essential workers producing and transporting what they need to them. The alternative is worse: you spread virus and can't pay working people.
People will hold American debt if the American government can assure debt holders that its people and institutions can survive a pandemic.
>... is really going to inspire people to hold American debt!
In the end we agree, it really is about faith :)
Sure, right now the economics work out that it's cheaper to import phosphate then produce it locally.
>We cannot produce enough locally.
We might not produce enough locally to meet the current demand right now, but that doesn't mean we can't. It about whether capital is currently allocated toward the production of phosphate. It doesn't need to be because we can import it. If we couldn't produce it under any circumstance that would be a massive national security flaw. :)
> Yeah, making up money and having people sit at home (thus not paying taxes) is really going to inspire people to hold American debt!
Having as many people as we can bear sit at home is the best course of action at the very present moment to avoid spreading this virus. The people sitting at home need to be able to buy what they need and pay the essential workers producing and transporting what they need to them. The alternative is worse: you spread virus and can't pay working people.
People will hold American debt if the American government can assure debt holders that its people and institutions can survive a pandemic.
>... is really going to inspire people to hold American debt!
In the end we agree, it really is about faith :)
> If we couldn't produce it under any circumstance that would be a massive national security flaw. :)
Yeah, it's so much a national security flaw that American law gives American citizens the right to claim islands as parts of the United States in order to secure access to a very difficult to acquire resource.
> Having as many people as we can bear sit at home is the best course of action at the very present moment to avoid spreading this virus.
This is not up for debate, and I never disagreed with it.
> The people sitting at home need to be able to buy what they need and pay the essential workers producing and transporting what they need to them.
Certainly. I wasn't disagreeing with you that people will need compensation for lost income.
However, what we were discussing was this:
> Who will suffer if we shut down unessential businesses and just mail people checks? We'll still be able to eat, we'll still have roofs over our heads, etc. The only ones who will really see their lives change significantly are the ultra-rich, who need us riding around in Ubers, renting Airbnbs, and buying plane tickets so they can fund their wealthy lifestyles.
The ultra-rich are not going to suffer. They have their own personal capital they will use for their enjoyment. The people who will suffer are the American tax payer (regardless of income) who now has a larger debt burden. At some point, the American tax burden will overshadow the service we pay on debts. Then all faith will be lossed. It may not happen after this bill. It may not happen after 100 of these bills, but it will happen eventually, and it'll not harm the rich, I'll tell you that.
Yeah, it's so much a national security flaw that American law gives American citizens the right to claim islands as parts of the United States in order to secure access to a very difficult to acquire resource.
> Having as many people as we can bear sit at home is the best course of action at the very present moment to avoid spreading this virus.
This is not up for debate, and I never disagreed with it.
> The people sitting at home need to be able to buy what they need and pay the essential workers producing and transporting what they need to them.
Certainly. I wasn't disagreeing with you that people will need compensation for lost income.
However, what we were discussing was this:
> Who will suffer if we shut down unessential businesses and just mail people checks? We'll still be able to eat, we'll still have roofs over our heads, etc. The only ones who will really see their lives change significantly are the ultra-rich, who need us riding around in Ubers, renting Airbnbs, and buying plane tickets so they can fund their wealthy lifestyles.
The ultra-rich are not going to suffer. They have their own personal capital they will use for their enjoyment. The people who will suffer are the American tax payer (regardless of income) who now has a larger debt burden. At some point, the American tax burden will overshadow the service we pay on debts. Then all faith will be lossed. It may not happen after this bill. It may not happen after 100 of these bills, but it will happen eventually, and it'll not harm the rich, I'll tell you that.
>it'll not harm the rich, I'll tell you that.
Inflation, once it is an actual problem, can be taxed away and we can structure that tax progressively. The rich will pay their fair share.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/16/18251646/modern...
Inflation, once it is an actual problem, can be taxed away and we can structure that tax progressively. The rich will pay their fair share.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/16/18251646/modern...
They'll just leave the United States, then?
Why is it 'fair'? They made their money by giving people things they wanted in exchange for money the people were happy to give them. How is taking it back fair?
Why is it 'fair'? They made their money by giving people things they wanted in exchange for money the people were happy to give them. How is taking it back fair?
> They'll just leave the United States, then?
Good, they're leeches on society and add nothing of value. If they added value, they wouldn't pay their workers the bare minimum and list them as contractors so they don't get health insurance. Let's encourage more compassionate corporations to expand their operations, and force greedy corporations out. I think we'll all be better off for it.
Good, they're leeches on society and add nothing of value. If they added value, they wouldn't pay their workers the bare minimum and list them as contractors so they don't get health insurance. Let's encourage more compassionate corporations to expand their operations, and force greedy corporations out. I think we'll all be better off for it.
> They'll just leave the United States, then?
American citizen expatriates pay tax.
>How is taking it back fair?
We live in a society. :)
American citizen expatriates pay tax.
>How is taking it back fair?
We live in a society. :)
> They have their own personal capital they will use for their enjoyment.
Where did they get this capital? I say we take it back from them and use it to buy food. Not that there's a shortage of food. I guess I should say we should take it from them and hand it to Americans so they are allowed to access the food which we have already produced. It's a sad state of things when Americans go hungry solely due to billionaires hoarding wealth on private islands. The food is there, the people who need it are there, but our "economic system" says they're not allowed to access it until a billionaire decides they're good enough to be employed to make them richer.
Where did they get this capital? I say we take it back from them and use it to buy food. Not that there's a shortage of food. I guess I should say we should take it from them and hand it to Americans so they are allowed to access the food which we have already produced. It's a sad state of things when Americans go hungry solely due to billionaires hoarding wealth on private islands. The food is there, the people who need it are there, but our "economic system" says they're not allowed to access it until a billionaire decides they're good enough to be employed to make them richer.
> Where did they get this capital?
I would assume people gave it to them in exchange for goods that those same people were unwilling to produce?
> It's a sad state of things when Americans go hungry solely due to billionaires hoarding wealth on private islands.
No one is going hungry. People have paid unemployment insurance and will be getting a stimulus check anyway.
> ut our "economic system" says they're not allowed to access it until a billionaire decides they're good enough to be employed to make them richer.
You don't need a billionaire to employ you. Just make something your neighbor wants and charge them for it. I made a small fortune selling tomato starts to my neighbors. Which billionaire employed me? Maybe people should start asking what they can do for others instead of waiting for someone to spell it out for them.
I would assume people gave it to them in exchange for goods that those same people were unwilling to produce?
> It's a sad state of things when Americans go hungry solely due to billionaires hoarding wealth on private islands.
No one is going hungry. People have paid unemployment insurance and will be getting a stimulus check anyway.
> ut our "economic system" says they're not allowed to access it until a billionaire decides they're good enough to be employed to make them richer.
You don't need a billionaire to employ you. Just make something your neighbor wants and charge them for it. I made a small fortune selling tomato starts to my neighbors. Which billionaire employed me? Maybe people should start asking what they can do for others instead of waiting for someone to spell it out for them.
> those same people were unwilling to produce?
Because people just have the option to produce food for themselves right?
> No one is going hungry.
This is just plain false. Many children who relied on school lunches are going hungry as we speak.
> Just make something your neighbor wants and charge them for it.
My neighbor is just as poor as me. We can only afford rent, food, and healthcare (healthcare is a luxury). What are my options now? I have to work as an Uber driver because it's hard to find work around here.
> I made a small fortune selling tomato starts to my neighbors.
That's great, if you live in a rich neighborhood. Unfortunately when I go door to door in wealthy neighborhoods the cops pick me up.
Because people just have the option to produce food for themselves right?
> No one is going hungry.
This is just plain false. Many children who relied on school lunches are going hungry as we speak.
> Just make something your neighbor wants and charge them for it.
My neighbor is just as poor as me. We can only afford rent, food, and healthcare (healthcare is a luxury). What are my options now? I have to work as an Uber driver because it's hard to find work around here.
> I made a small fortune selling tomato starts to my neighbors.
That's great, if you live in a rich neighborhood. Unfortunately when I go door to door in wealthy neighborhoods the cops pick me up.
This is entirely incorrect
The ultra-rich will have a variable level of "decreased performance in their portfolio". They're still rich, especially if not over-levered. They are also well positioned to take advantage of any hyper-inflation event.
The average american, with the loss of their primary income and no real UBI is going to feel it the most.
The ultra-rich will have a variable level of "decreased performance in their portfolio". They're still rich, especially if not over-levered. They are also well positioned to take advantage of any hyper-inflation event.
The average american, with the loss of their primary income and no real UBI is going to feel it the most.
For the USD to hyperinflate, we would have to print quadrillions and quintillions of dollars.
Hyperinflation is about as real a threat as Bigfoot, or little green men from mars.
Hyperinflation is about as real a threat as Bigfoot, or little green men from mars.
> The only ones who will really see their lives change significantly are the ultra-rich, who need us riding around in Ubers, renting Airbnbs, and buying plane tickets so they can fund their wealthy lifestyles.
[citation needed]
[citation needed]
The wealthy's assets require hired labor to keep and increase their value. Their wealth is derived from those assets.
There's lots of hired labor around the world, no one needs to live in the united states. That is not actually a requirement to be rich.
In a world where people's identities have become hopelessly conflated with their occupation, preventing them from working for a prolonged period would seem like a pretty major change to their lives. I'm talking about working-class folks here, not the ultra-rich.
Life isn't just about having money to buy food.
Life isn't just about having money to buy food.
The US is currently experiencing the root of the wave, the face of it is yet to come, then comes the crest. Only then can you start to see what comes after it... the US and almost everyone else is a looooong stretch (exponentially speaking) away from getting in front of anything here.
Your administration speaking of "open churches for Easter" is entirely and utterly delusional.
Your administration speaking of "open churches for Easter" is entirely and utterly delusional.
This article has a nice solution: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/opinion/coronavirus-depre... . Take some of the trillions of dollars that will be spent on bailout, and spend it on building a never-before-seen amount of protective equipment. Once we have enough for everybody to wear a new heavy-duty protective suit every day, people could go back to work. It might be expensive, but still way cheaper than shutting the economy down an extra month or two.
There is one wrinkle to that idea - compliance.
Even if we did give everyone protective suits, I can guaranteed a not insignificant percentage of the country wouldn't play along.
Even if we did give everyone protective suits, I can guaranteed a not insignificant percentage of the country wouldn't play along.
The nice thing is, assuming the suits work correctly, it doesn't matter if other people comply. As long as you wear a suit, you'll be safe.
We’re back to the core problem of this virus: it’s not that you have a very high chance of dying from it, it’s that our system isn’t scoped to handle the high hospitalization rates.
I can wear a suit, but I’m still impacted if our hospitals are overwhelmed and FEMA runs out of ice trucks for the bodies.
I can wear a suit, but I’m still impacted if our hospitals are overwhelmed and FEMA runs out of ice trucks for the bodies.
PPE isn't perfect or a magical panacea. Ask Craig Spencer, the NY ER doc who worked with Ebola in Africa, how he got it despite being careful.
>PPE isn't perfect or a magical panacea.
Maybe if we invested a trillion dollars (which is an absurd amount of money) into developing and improving it, it would be.
Maybe if we invested a trillion dollars (which is an absurd amount of money) into developing and improving it, it would be.
The lag time between that much money turning into a country-size amount of equipment that can be used by ordinary people without error might well be longer than the quarantine period.
I've seen some manufacturing miracles, but that's a really tall order.
I've seen some manufacturing miracles, but that's a really tall order.
> that can be used by ordinary people without error
Social media has been great for airline oxygen mask designers as it has shown the failure rates of real world emergencies. I imagine that even with highly trained people like medical staff, the problems of proper PPE usage are just so much worse. People have a really hard time understanding things clearly.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/passengers-fail-to-wear-oxyg...
Social media has been great for airline oxygen mask designers as it has shown the failure rates of real world emergencies. I imagine that even with highly trained people like medical staff, the problems of proper PPE usage are just so much worse. People have a really hard time understanding things clearly.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/passengers-fail-to-wear-oxyg...
Personally, I'm not going to eat at a restaurant if I have to do it in a protective suit. It's more pleasant at that point to just stay home.
On the 'essential workers' bit:
Worth being clear that it is not necessary to completely eliminate every case of the virus.
If the natural r0 is 3, and you eliminate roughly 3/4 of each person's contacts, we've won.
You can break these links by things like social distancing, wearing PPE, better hygiene, better contact tracing and isolation, immunity, or closing some portions of the economy.
In theory, I'd be surprised if the essential workers cant work while keeping r0 low enough for it to die out.
It's not clear how hard it is to get this r0 sufficiently down. Different countries are experimenting with different strategies.
Worth being clear that it is not necessary to completely eliminate every case of the virus.
If the natural r0 is 3, and you eliminate roughly 3/4 of each person's contacts, we've won.
You can break these links by things like social distancing, wearing PPE, better hygiene, better contact tracing and isolation, immunity, or closing some portions of the economy.
In theory, I'd be surprised if the essential workers cant work while keeping r0 low enough for it to die out.
It's not clear how hard it is to get this r0 sufficiently down. Different countries are experimenting with different strategies.
> Keep the lockdown too long and the impact to the economy will only get worse, requiring massive gov't bailouts/support. The longer we're locked down, the longer it's going to take for the economy to recover.
It's bad for the economy if a million more people than necessary die because our healthcare system was overwhelmed.
Yes, the economy is going to suffer no matter what we do. But ending the lockdown too early will make the situation worse, not better.
It's bad for the economy if a million more people than necessary die because our healthcare system was overwhelmed.
Yes, the economy is going to suffer no matter what we do. But ending the lockdown too early will make the situation worse, not better.
it would...only... be about one million
It's bad either way - keeping the lockdown in place for too long or relaxing it too early.
The goal is to find the right balance - the least worst option.
The goal is to find the right balance - the least worst option.
Sure, okay, but I think it's pretty darn clear that we're far away from needing to consider that.
When the number of new cases starts going down we can begin having this conversation.
When the number of new cases starts going down we can begin having this conversation.
Why would we wait to begin having the conversation?
Because if you start talking about it too early then people will change their behaviour too early.
Because we don't have enough information yet. We still don't really know how deadly this virus is, or how it spreads or mutates.
More importantly than anything else: it is profoundly unethical.
Are people really okay with abandoning millions of our most vulnerable people to death, abandoning millions more to complications from this illness, just to save some abstract notion of "the economy"?
I flatly reject that reality, and everyone should too.
Not only do the vulnerable members of our society deserve to be treated humanely, so do our nurses and other medical workers, these genuine heroes, who are subjecting themselves to this illness to reduce other people's suffering.
And yes, the economy will suffer no matter what we do, like you mention. But even if it didn't, it is still profoundly unethical. Arguably on the level of genocide.
Are people really okay with abandoning millions of our most vulnerable people to death, abandoning millions more to complications from this illness, just to save some abstract notion of "the economy"?
I flatly reject that reality, and everyone should too.
Not only do the vulnerable members of our society deserve to be treated humanely, so do our nurses and other medical workers, these genuine heroes, who are subjecting themselves to this illness to reduce other people's suffering.
And yes, the economy will suffer no matter what we do, like you mention. But even if it didn't, it is still profoundly unethical. Arguably on the level of genocide.
I find there is an uncomfortable blurry line in the sand here where it is somehow OK to let the flu kill tens of thousands without us batting an eyelash, but not OK for this illness to kill a million. At the end of the day the decision is pragmatic and based on money, similar to allowing motor vehicles on public roads (to the point where they are de facto required).
There is nothing to say we were right to let the flu do that, and I would argue that we should reassess our moral compass in the face of all suffering and death as a society. This event should be a wake up call. We should invest much more resources and mindshare into alleviating suffering and stop accepting that these deaths are "inevitable".
Agreed, and I am hoping one outcome of this disaster will be that a lot more resources will be devoted to prevention/treatment of such illnesses we've come to accept as common. Flu for sure, maybe even the common cold.
This virus is currently killing people 30 times faster than the flu. ~0.01% of the population dies from the flu each year.
0.12% of the population of Italy died over the past two weeks from COVID-19, and the rate of deaths has still not peaked - despite a complete lockdown. Had there not been a lockdown, the death rate would have continued doubling every 3 days.
You're drawing a false equivalence.
0.12% of the population of Italy died over the past two weeks from COVID-19, and the rate of deaths has still not peaked - despite a complete lockdown. Had there not been a lockdown, the death rate would have continued doubling every 3 days.
You're drawing a false equivalence.
> 0.12% of the population of Italy died over the past two weeks from COVID-19
I think you mixed up numbers, this looks too large by one order of magnitude. Maybe you used the numer of cases instead of deaths or something.
I think you mixed up numbers, this looks too large by one order of magnitude. Maybe you used the numer of cases instead of deaths or something.
Sorry, I missed a zero. It's 0.012% - but over two weeks, instead of over a year. So, the 30x number is correct... But not the 0.12% one.
I understand how much bigger the mortality is for this virus, and I understand why we are reacting this way. But how do you argue that deaths from one virus are not equivalent to the other? If it's just numbers, can you specify the number that is OK to let die instead of locking down?
If the death rate were within 5x of the flu, and if the death rate did not increase dramatically when our medical system is overloaded, a hard lockdown would probably be a mistake.
It's not 5x, and it does increase dramatically, though.
It's not 5x, and it does increase dramatically, though.
Comparing this to the flu is a non-starter for participating an an intelligent discussion about this.
I agree with you! But "it's worth more people dying to save the economy" is a real view that people have, so let's explore it. And when you do, you realize it's not a real choice anyway—economies throughout history suffer massively when large portions of the population suddenly die, for relatively obvious reasons.
Broadly speaking, it's likely that people who disagree with you have seen the same arguments you have and come to a different conclusion. So, try shifting your perspective.
Broadly speaking, it's likely that people who disagree with you have seen the same arguments you have and come to a different conclusion. So, try shifting your perspective.
This recent month is like a nightmare where you realize just how bad it is, but slowly. So many people would actually throw (someone else's) grandpa under a bus for a profit; it's just that they haven't had a chance yet to do it. And now we have it.
This begs an interesting question, the paradox of tolerance on steroids: is it ethical to murder people that put profits over the lives of their neighbors?
This begs an interesting question, the paradox of tolerance on steroids: is it ethical to murder people that put profits over the lives of their neighbors?
I reject your "this offends my sense of ethics and thus it cannot be most pragmatic or humane" line of reasoning. Will you at least acknowledge there exists a relationship between a trashed economy and an increase in human suffering (not least of all suicides)?
S Korea was able to sort this by stellar tracking of individuals social graph when they got sick while lifting lockdowns. Something hardly anyone is talking about now.
That's not quite true. Asian countries have used mobile phone data in some cases but so have western countries.
South Korea got somewhat lucky (so far) due to the weird way it got into the country, via a cult that was already in effect socially distancing themselves and that was filled with young people. But now their cases seem to be growing again.
Also what do you think happens to mobile phone tracking the moment someone walks into a subway system? Orwellian surveillance isn't a magical panacea.
South Korea got somewhat lucky (so far) due to the weird way it got into the country, via a cult that was already in effect socially distancing themselves and that was filled with young people. But now their cases seem to be growing again.
Also what do you think happens to mobile phone tracking the moment someone walks into a subway system? Orwellian surveillance isn't a magical panacea.
Because of states rights as well as legal rights afforded to every US citizen, a lot of the same options / technologies aren't available by design. You also have to deal with two distinctly different cultures with drastically different outcomes of citizens actions.
We can look to them for inspiration, but to expect the same actions / outcomes isn't prudent and pulls away from the focus of figuring out what we can do here in a realistic manner.
We can look to them for inspiration, but to expect the same actions / outcomes isn't prudent and pulls away from the focus of figuring out what we can do here in a realistic manner.
The hammer and the dance article covers in depth what you described. We need near very high test availability, and intense tracking of cases. The lockdown just buys time.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...
>"Basically, enough testing so that new cases can be immediately identified and quarantined."
Currently since everyone is suffering there is pressure on the government to provide aid and for employers to be flexible. I'd be concerned that support wouldn't be extended to people who do need to be quarantined after society as a whole has returned to work.
Currently since everyone is suffering there is pressure on the government to provide aid and for employers to be flexible. I'd be concerned that support wouldn't be extended to people who do need to be quarantined after society as a whole has returned to work.
>What seems to make sense to me is, keep the lockdown in place long enough to get in front of it. Basically, enough testing so that new cases can be immediately identified and quarantined. That alone will have a big impact.
This does make sense. It is crazy those who think we're "over it" and need to get the "economy going again", despite our inability to even correctly measure the spread yet.
It smells again like the people who were thinking "it's a China problem", and then "it's a European problem", as if it'd never be a US problem. Now it is a US problem, and those same people are now saying "well the problem is practically over, let's stop the quarantines..." The time for chronically underestimating the impact is over.
This does make sense. It is crazy those who think we're "over it" and need to get the "economy going again", despite our inability to even correctly measure the spread yet.
It smells again like the people who were thinking "it's a China problem", and then "it's a European problem", as if it'd never be a US problem. Now it is a US problem, and those same people are now saying "well the problem is practically over, let's stop the quarantines..." The time for chronically underestimating the impact is over.
> the impact to the economy will only get worse
To be fair, most of the economic sectors affected by this are silly frivolities, e.g. travel, tourism, fine dining, vacationing, nightclubbing, cruises, sportsball, etc.
The actual, value-generating, real economy will continue on as before, and may possibly even benefit from it as our attentions are shifted away from garbage pursuits that don't advance society at all.
To be fair, most of the economic sectors affected by this are silly frivolities, e.g. travel, tourism, fine dining, vacationing, nightclubbing, cruises, sportsball, etc.
The actual, value-generating, real economy will continue on as before, and may possibly even benefit from it as our attentions are shifted away from garbage pursuits that don't advance society at all.
I’ve heard a concept from a virologist. He called it smart distancing. a) Everybody wears a mask b) people keep at least 2m distance, always c) wash your hands regularly d) keep the elderly extra protected
He said with these measures we could reopen slowly again after Easter. It requires discipline though and makes things a packed subway impossible. Which is ok in summer
He said with these measures we could reopen slowly again after Easter. It requires discipline though and makes things a packed subway impossible. Which is ok in summer
>"Basically, enough testing so that new cases can be immediately identified and quarantined."
Does anyone have a reliable source for the current state of testing? Is this still possible with current rate of infection and the speed at which testing is being ramped up?
Does anyone have a reliable source for the current state of testing? Is this still possible with current rate of infection and the speed at which testing is being ramped up?
[deleted]
The world is changing. There is no going back. Some governments are better able to adapt than others. It’s going to be hard here in the US.
We watched communism fail on TV 30 years ago from a government that essentially socially and economically suffocated its people. Now we are watching capitalism fail because of unchecked social freedom and an economy that can only function on infinite growth.
We are in the thick of it now. As the President said, “Our country wasn’t built to shut down.” He’s absolutely right, and that may end up being a defining quote in the history books.
We watched communism fail on TV 30 years ago from a government that essentially socially and economically suffocated its people. Now we are watching capitalism fail because of unchecked social freedom and an economy that can only function on infinite growth.
We are in the thick of it now. As the President said, “Our country wasn’t built to shut down.” He’s absolutely right, and that may end up being a defining quote in the history books.
This is hysteria. I don’t have any sources but that’s apparently the name of the game in this thread, so here we are.
Times are tough. It will get worse before it gets better. But it will get better.
Pin this post and watch the situation unfold. If we really see the fall of capitalism, I will personally come visit you wherever you are, and we can ritually burn a portrait of Keynes together. To keep warm.
Times are tough. It will get worse before it gets better. But it will get better.
Pin this post and watch the situation unfold. If we really see the fall of capitalism, I will personally come visit you wherever you are, and we can ritually burn a portrait of Keynes together. To keep warm.
I respectfully disagree. Things get better or worse based on our decision-making skills and the physical state of the world, not because we "deserve" to get better or because it "naturally" happens. We have to put in the effort and hard work in order to attain greatness, it doesn't just come.
For example, I made two Hacker News posts about the coronavirus before all this happened, and both times people rose to dismiss my concerns:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22111815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22453381
Now JHU CSSE is reporting 23,970 deaths and a continued exponential rise in confirmed cases with no peaking in sight. We're quarantining themselves on a state-by-state basis, NY w/ Cuomo is locking down hard while New Orleans was partying @ Mardi Gras. No restrictions on domestic interstate travel. No federal roadmap for the next three to six months. No communications with even our closest allies on travel bans.
Just as surely as the sun rises, black swans can and do happen, and sometimes empires and peoples don't get up. Not ever. Carthage, Babylon, Jericho, Palmyra, Teotihuacan, and a hundred other once-great cities said we will overcome and persevere, and now they're dead and dead forever.
We have absolutely got to stop thinking we're exceptional and we're different. We're where we are now because a lot of good men and women worked tirelessly to get us here, sometimes kicking and screaming. We'll get out of it if and only if we listen to those same men and women working tirelessly on our behalf.
Otherwise we will join the dead in the scrap heap of history. Don't ever, ever assume it can't happen to you.
For example, I made two Hacker News posts about the coronavirus before all this happened, and both times people rose to dismiss my concerns:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22111815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22453381
Now JHU CSSE is reporting 23,970 deaths and a continued exponential rise in confirmed cases with no peaking in sight. We're quarantining themselves on a state-by-state basis, NY w/ Cuomo is locking down hard while New Orleans was partying @ Mardi Gras. No restrictions on domestic interstate travel. No federal roadmap for the next three to six months. No communications with even our closest allies on travel bans.
Just as surely as the sun rises, black swans can and do happen, and sometimes empires and peoples don't get up. Not ever. Carthage, Babylon, Jericho, Palmyra, Teotihuacan, and a hundred other once-great cities said we will overcome and persevere, and now they're dead and dead forever.
We have absolutely got to stop thinking we're exceptional and we're different. We're where we are now because a lot of good men and women worked tirelessly to get us here, sometimes kicking and screaming. We'll get out of it if and only if we listen to those same men and women working tirelessly on our behalf.
Otherwise we will join the dead in the scrap heap of history. Don't ever, ever assume it can't happen to you.
We’re going through all these lockdowns to help prevent vulnerable groups from dying needless deaths. This is important to be sure, but it’s a far cry from societal collapse. I care about people staying home as much as the next guy but I’m so tired of the hysteria. We’re protecting the elderly here, let’s keep some perspective. I’m not “just saying it will be alright”, I’m saying this specifically will be alright.
Comparisons with bygone empires are far more apt in almost any other conversation : MAD, global warming, hell even cyber warfare.
Comparisons with bygone empires are far more apt in almost any other conversation : MAD, global warming, hell even cyber warfare.
A few days ago I would have said you're right. But this virus changes day by day, and there are reports younger people are requiring ICU / ventilation in New York City. 29% of those hospitalized are between 20-44 y/o:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-updates-young-peopl...
The problem with exponential growth is a small change in the growth factor means a great deal. Spanish Flu reportedly caused people to think civilization itself will come to an end, not just because of the death rates but because people refused to take care of the sick / do essential jobs: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-1...
Spanish Flu was "just a flu" @ 3-4% mortality. Right now COVID-19 is around 1% mortality, but IIRC I've heard from Bill Gate's virtual TED discussion reopening the country by Easter will result in that 3-4% mortality.
Again, I'm not trying to be pessimistic or contrarian. I really wish I believed in your optimism for this point, but the dots don't seem to connect for me.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-updates-young-peopl...
The problem with exponential growth is a small change in the growth factor means a great deal. Spanish Flu reportedly caused people to think civilization itself will come to an end, not just because of the death rates but because people refused to take care of the sick / do essential jobs: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-1...
Spanish Flu was "just a flu" @ 3-4% mortality. Right now COVID-19 is around 1% mortality, but IIRC I've heard from Bill Gate's virtual TED discussion reopening the country by Easter will result in that 3-4% mortality.
Again, I'm not trying to be pessimistic or contrarian. I really wish I believed in your optimism for this point, but the dots don't seem to connect for me.
We aren’t just protecting the elderly. 20% of people need hospitalization. There aren’t enough beds or ventilators. Maybe in a week there will be. Maybe there won’t. That’s a big gamble.
several of those examples about once great entities (?) were destroyed in part if not wholly by foreign armies - so i'm not sure that rhetoric is (or at least those examples are) really appropriate here.
Death is always an uncomfortable discussion topic, but I'd say it's one of our best teachers.
To bring up one of my examples, Palmyra was once a wealthy Roman provincial capital in Asia Minor, separated from the Roman Empire by declaring the Palmyrene Empire during the Crisis of the Third Century, and henceforth destroyed by Aurelian.
You can argue the Roman army would be a foreign army composed partly of barbarians unfamiliar to a longstanding part of the Roman Empire, and you can also argue it's a domestic army putting down an insurrection.
Now take this news:
https://www.newsweek.com/massachusetts-governor-says-hes-bei...
President Trump is outbidding state governors for medical equipment during this crisis, while telling them to purchase their own directly from the supplier. States don't issue currency and can't run a deficit, and federal treasuries are much more plentiful than state treasuries because of a greater lever to tax, so President Trump gets the medical supplies. President Trump can increase the amount of production by invoking the Defense Production Act, but has not yet done so; as far as I know private companies are increasing production due to increased demand (which has to be proven after people die and start panicking) and not out of a proactive government grant.
Massachusetts is a state that votes mostly Democratic at the federal level. California and Washington state are mostly Democratic at the federal level too.
Now, for the million-dollar question: given the federal government's response, would you say this behavior is indicative of a federal government that treats these states as domestic, or foreign, entities?
I've read through maybe a third of the Federalist Papers, and the first ten or fifteen letters hammer home the importance of union in the face of enemies foreign and domestic. Tear away that fabric, and you have the Greek city-states or the Balkans on a continental scale.
To bring up one of my examples, Palmyra was once a wealthy Roman provincial capital in Asia Minor, separated from the Roman Empire by declaring the Palmyrene Empire during the Crisis of the Third Century, and henceforth destroyed by Aurelian.
You can argue the Roman army would be a foreign army composed partly of barbarians unfamiliar to a longstanding part of the Roman Empire, and you can also argue it's a domestic army putting down an insurrection.
Now take this news:
https://www.newsweek.com/massachusetts-governor-says-hes-bei...
President Trump is outbidding state governors for medical equipment during this crisis, while telling them to purchase their own directly from the supplier. States don't issue currency and can't run a deficit, and federal treasuries are much more plentiful than state treasuries because of a greater lever to tax, so President Trump gets the medical supplies. President Trump can increase the amount of production by invoking the Defense Production Act, but has not yet done so; as far as I know private companies are increasing production due to increased demand (which has to be proven after people die and start panicking) and not out of a proactive government grant.
Massachusetts is a state that votes mostly Democratic at the federal level. California and Washington state are mostly Democratic at the federal level too.
Now, for the million-dollar question: given the federal government's response, would you say this behavior is indicative of a federal government that treats these states as domestic, or foreign, entities?
I've read through maybe a third of the Federalist Papers, and the first ten or fifteen letters hammer home the importance of union in the face of enemies foreign and domestic. Tear away that fabric, and you have the Greek city-states or the Balkans on a continental scale.
I have no doubt things will get better. But it’s not just going to go back to the way things were.
You aren’t going to see the fall of capitalism, but the kind of late stage, cut throat, everyone for themselves capitalism is falling apart. Before it’s even really begun we are already calling for a return to work because that’s all we know.
You aren’t going to see the fall of capitalism, but the kind of late stage, cut throat, everyone for themselves capitalism is falling apart. Before it’s even really begun we are already calling for a return to work because that’s all we know.
It's going to be a return to rampant crime, drug addiction, poverty, etc.
There will be significantly more deaths from the cure.
There will be significantly more deaths from the cure.
People have short memories. If hoping for change is optimism, then you're too optimistic.
In the first comment you said that capitalism was going to fail and likened that failure to the one of the Soviet system.
Maybe that comment was a bit hyperbolic?
Maybe that comment was a bit hyperbolic?
No, I think that’s pretty apt. I’m specifically talking about the US. Capitalism won’t fall, but the kind of capitalism we have in the US is literally falling apart at the seams.
We know what the solution is to the problem, but it is not compatible with our system. We are fighting it every step of the way. So either the system changes or a lot of people die… which will force even more accelerated change.
We know what the solution is to the problem, but it is not compatible with our system. We are fighting it every step of the way. So either the system changes or a lot of people die… which will force even more accelerated change.
>"We know what the solution is to the problem, but it is not compatible with our system."
Could you elaborate on what that solution is? What comes after this "late stage" capitalism exactly? It's not clear to me.
Could you elaborate on what that solution is? What comes after this "late stage" capitalism exactly? It's not clear to me.
The solution is to test people rigorously and restrict and track their movement. We know this.
What comes after? I’m not sure. Guess we’ll find out.
What comes after? I’m not sure. Guess we’ll find out.
If capitalism doesn’t fall during this can I pay you to burn the portrait anyway?
> Now we are watching capitalism fail because of unchecked social freedom and an economy that can only function on infinite growth.
We’re watching the rest of the free world persevere through yet another catastrophe of authoritarian communism.
We’re watching the rest of the free world persevere through yet another catastrophe of authoritarian communism.
It may have escaped because of an authoritarian reaction at the beginning, but I'm not too impressed with how we in the free world have handled our end.
I don't understand how someone arrives at this position without starting off with an axe to grind and looking for facts that fit.
Do you think that a liberal capitalist country would have managed to contain this? How, in that case, do you explain the utter failure of most liberal capitalist countries to actually contain it?
Do you think that if China had their act together they would have been able to squash it in the crib and prevent it spreading anywhere else? How do you reconcile that with the fact that Seattle imported its first case on January 15, on a flight from Wuhan, and that this person must have been infected days before that? Japan got it on January 3. The first case in Thailand was hospitalised on January 8.
Do you think that Wuhan should have been sealed off that early? Do you think that the failure to do that is a failure of authoritarian communism to which liberal capitalism is immune? Evidence from the "free world's" response to this suggests otherwise, and that they are even more hesitant than China to put significant containment measures in place.
You may respond that China suppressed information about the outbreak, and it appears that they did. What difference did it make in the end though? The cat was already out of the bag.
Do you think that a liberal capitalist country would have managed to contain this? How, in that case, do you explain the utter failure of most liberal capitalist countries to actually contain it?
Do you think that if China had their act together they would have been able to squash it in the crib and prevent it spreading anywhere else? How do you reconcile that with the fact that Seattle imported its first case on January 15, on a flight from Wuhan, and that this person must have been infected days before that? Japan got it on January 3. The first case in Thailand was hospitalised on January 8.
Do you think that Wuhan should have been sealed off that early? Do you think that the failure to do that is a failure of authoritarian communism to which liberal capitalism is immune? Evidence from the "free world's" response to this suggests otherwise, and that they are even more hesitant than China to put significant containment measures in place.
You may respond that China suppressed information about the outbreak, and it appears that they did. What difference did it make in the end though? The cat was already out of the bag.
I read the article to say: lockdowns don't solve anything, the virus still lurks. Lockdowns are a public policy cul-de-sac. The Korea solution of extremely aggressive testing is the only way for a nation to function effectively while also guarding against the novel coronavirus.
>lockdowns don't solve anything
Of course they don't kill the virus, but they absolutely do work if your definition of success isn't sufficiently pedantic to mean "this strategy eliminated the virus completely". They reduce the dr/dt of infections, giving you time to prep and actually save people's lives when they do get infected. "Lockdowns don't solve anything" should be lumped into the same category of advice as "masks don't solve anything". Both statements are true IFF your definition of "solve" is "virus is over with this one neat trick".
Of course they don't kill the virus, but they absolutely do work if your definition of success isn't sufficiently pedantic to mean "this strategy eliminated the virus completely". They reduce the dr/dt of infections, giving you time to prep and actually save people's lives when they do get infected. "Lockdowns don't solve anything" should be lumped into the same category of advice as "masks don't solve anything". Both statements are true IFF your definition of "solve" is "virus is over with this one neat trick".
I've never once heard that lockdowns cure us from the virus.
The stated goal by my State's (Ohio) government is "widen the curve", meaning to spread out the peak of the infection rate to a longer period of time so hospitals don't get overwhelmed.
The stated goal by my State's (Ohio) government is "widen the curve", meaning to spread out the peak of the infection rate to a longer period of time so hospitals don't get overwhelmed.
I'll say it then. "lock downs CAN cure us from the virus".
Note that can doesn't mean it will. If everybody in the world stuck to their own small family house (not extended family) for four weeks it would be gone, either your family had it (with some deaths because of lack of medical care),kicked it, and everything on surfaces died; or it wasn't in your family and you were safe. Of course few people can do that. You need not only stored food, but also there will be nobody running the power plants (and it will take them two weeks to restart them afterwards), not to mention hospitals won't be there for other emergencies.
Note that can doesn't mean it will. If everybody in the world stuck to their own small family house (not extended family) for four weeks it would be gone, either your family had it (with some deaths because of lack of medical care),kicked it, and everything on surfaces died; or it wasn't in your family and you were safe. Of course few people can do that. You need not only stored food, but also there will be nobody running the power plants (and it will take them two weeks to restart them afterwards), not to mention hospitals won't be there for other emergencies.
do you have evidence to support your claims? Italy has not seen any reduction in new cases from its lockdown. Many epidemiologists have posited that a blanket lockdown does more harm than good when instituted after the virus is already widespread.
You mean that lockdown that started 17 days ago, and didn't become full until 5 days ago?
I wonder with every expert around claiming that it takes at least 15 days for an action to cause an effect, why is it that the growth in the number of cases only started to slow down a couple of days ago?
I wonder with every expert around claiming that it takes at least 15 days for an action to cause an effect, why is it that the growth in the number of cases only started to slow down a couple of days ago?
Where did 15 days come from?
The last figures people were given in the UK was you can incubate for 7 days then get sick for 7 days, which is why people were told to self-isolate for 14 days if someone in their household got sick.
If that's true then you'd expect to see a drop in case numbers just one week after a full lockdown.
The last figures people were given in the UK was you can incubate for 7 days then get sick for 7 days, which is why people were told to self-isolate for 14 days if someone in their household got sick.
If that's true then you'd expect to see a drop in case numbers just one week after a full lockdown.
From the WHO, here: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
> Most estimates of the incubation period for COVID-19 range from 1-14 days
Honestly, I took the 15 days from memory. There are plenty of sources citing anything on that range.
Keep in mind that after incubation a person will start to show weak symptoms, that get strong gradually. Hospitals will only notice a change after the week or so (from memory, there was a good interview with a Chinese doctor here a few weeks ago) that it takes for people to get really sick.
> Most estimates of the incubation period for COVID-19 range from 1-14 days
Honestly, I took the 15 days from memory. There are plenty of sources citing anything on that range.
Keep in mind that after incubation a person will start to show weak symptoms, that get strong gradually. Hospitals will only notice a change after the week or so (from memory, there was a good interview with a Chinese doctor here a few weeks ago) that it takes for people to get really sick.
This is the kind of ridiculous pedantic response I'm referring to. Are you claiming that the growth in new cases would be the same without a substantial decrease in social interaction from the lockdown? The cases you're seeing today were initially infected as long as 2 weeks prior. The claim you're making in that case is much more extreme than mine, because you have to make the argument this isn't something that has a high rate of human transmission.
Folks, we're all data-oriented people I get it. But it strains credulity that we're suspending our logical faculties for how viruses actually work.
Folks, we're all data-oriented people I get it. But it strains credulity that we're suspending our logical faculties for how viruses actually work.
Lockdowns buy you time to institute the Korean model.
How long?
Buying a week or less isn't worth the damage to the economy.
Buying a week or less isn't worth the damage to the economy.
1. The economy is going to be destroyed regardless. Right-thinking people currently don't want to travel, don't want to eat out, don't want to go to entertainment venues. If you lift the lockdown tomorrow, without actually controlling the virus, all of those industries are still going to die (Along with a few million people), with all the knock-on effects. Also, once everyone expects a recession, people reign in spending, thus making that expectation self-fulfilling.
2. There's every reason to believe that a lockdown significantly cuts down R, even to below 1, thus buying a lot more than a week. It certainly did in Wuhan. Instead of griping about the economy, why don't we actually work on measures that will let us leave lockdown?
2. There's every reason to believe that a lockdown significantly cuts down R, even to below 1, thus buying a lot more than a week. It certainly did in Wuhan. Instead of griping about the economy, why don't we actually work on measures that will let us leave lockdown?
I'm tired of this story (1 above) frankly.
Have you been anywhere with lockdown as it was being ramped up? I don't know where those right thinking people are, but even after everything-except-the-stay-at-home order in WA (i.e. everything closed and a recommendation to stay home including freakin signs on the highway), everything that was open was extremely crowded, from the park near my home to any restaurant with takeout nearby benches or a park, to hiking trails. We went out, a trailhead was literally the most crowded I've seen it in my 8 years here by far (Little Si trail, the big overflow-overflow parking lot was almost full). That is WITH lockdown and constant media fear mongering. Without lockdown it would be even (from my position) better. I was working thoughout the week, but even with stay at home order and parking lots gated, someone told me there are tons of people on weekdays out on popular trails, parking on nearby roads and walking in, and I applaud this civil disobedience. Right thinking people would go out and live their lives.
We also have a historical example of Spanish flu that did nothing to economy even in medium term.
Have you been anywhere with lockdown as it was being ramped up? I don't know where those right thinking people are, but even after everything-except-the-stay-at-home order in WA (i.e. everything closed and a recommendation to stay home including freakin signs on the highway), everything that was open was extremely crowded, from the park near my home to any restaurant with takeout nearby benches or a park, to hiking trails. We went out, a trailhead was literally the most crowded I've seen it in my 8 years here by far (Little Si trail, the big overflow-overflow parking lot was almost full). That is WITH lockdown and constant media fear mongering. Without lockdown it would be even (from my position) better. I was working thoughout the week, but even with stay at home order and parking lots gated, someone told me there are tons of people on weekdays out on popular trails, parking on nearby roads and walking in, and I applaud this civil disobedience. Right thinking people would go out and live their lives.
We also have a historical example of Spanish flu that did nothing to economy even in medium term.
> It certainly did in Wuhan. Instead of griping about the economy, why don't we actually work on measures that will let us leave lockdown?
It's a global epidemic now, Wuhan isn't safe. What measures will really let us leave lockdown, other than hunting down and isolating (or worse...) infected world-wide?
It's a global epidemic now, Wuhan isn't safe. What measures will really let us leave lockdown, other than hunting down and isolating (or worse...) infected world-wide?
A week won't do shit. You need a couple of months for the curve to become flat and from there on you go to targeted lockdowns through a lot of testing.
As long as it takes to get ahead.
In the UK we don’t seem to have realised this yet.
Our gov’s plan was do no testing and just sort of hope it infected everyone so we’d have herd immunity but somehow without killing too many people.
The virus had other plans
Our gov’s plan was do no testing and just sort of hope it infected everyone so we’d have herd immunity but somehow without killing too many people.
The virus had other plans
How exactly does the Korean model work? They aggressively test people... and then just quarantine individuals? Isn't one of the supposed problems with this virus that it spreads rapidly before symptoms show?
you cant measure what you cant see. tests allow you to see the virus and then you can backtrack all the interactions a positive person had.
They test everyone that might have had contact whether they have symptoms or not. Though they haven't been able to squash it they've able to keep the growth rate linear instead of exponential like it is everywhere else, which might be the best you can hope for.
They test any contact, even if you don’t show symptoms. And everyone wears masks.
We do neither of these.
We do neither of these.
The Korean model is test a lot, and quarantine those found infected.
But that is just the beginning.
The real effective tool is tracking down where the infected person had been by examining cell records, credit card records, interviews and determine where the infected person had been at for a few days before infection was confirmed.
Once the recent movements of an infected person is compiled, the list of location/time is blasted out via app and also main stream media.
This public disclosure is important as infected person might have visited a mall or a theater, making it impossible to contact each of possible contacts individually. Big malls/theaters have closed for a few days after a visit by an infected person is found. After deep cleaning of a few days, it reopens.
Some articles that explain better are below.
How Korea got a fast start with testing for coronavirus: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testin...
Extensive contact tracing has slowed viral spread in Korea: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00740-y
But all of above is possible only with a lot of testing, free when ordered by a doctor due to possible exposure.
But that is just the beginning.
The real effective tool is tracking down where the infected person had been by examining cell records, credit card records, interviews and determine where the infected person had been at for a few days before infection was confirmed.
Once the recent movements of an infected person is compiled, the list of location/time is blasted out via app and also main stream media.
This public disclosure is important as infected person might have visited a mall or a theater, making it impossible to contact each of possible contacts individually. Big malls/theaters have closed for a few days after a visit by an infected person is found. After deep cleaning of a few days, it reopens.
Some articles that explain better are below.
How Korea got a fast start with testing for coronavirus: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testin...
Extensive contact tracing has slowed viral spread in Korea: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00740-y
But all of above is possible only with a lot of testing, free when ordered by a doctor due to possible exposure.
I thought this. It seemed only to prevent the public from panicking I heard in NYC and italy it made things worse because young people got stuck inside with old people and made them sick.
Run your own model... play the scariest game!
https://neherlab.org/covid19/
Presented recently as Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616456
https://neherlab.org/covid19/
Presented recently as Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616456
The virus is growing at different rate in many continents so whilst one may get things under control, the issue shifts and south america and africa do seem to be worrying for many.
There will be many waves ahead.
There will be many waves ahead.
Many people confuse virus growth rates with positive test rates (limited by testing), owing to governments testing slowly in order to claim positive lockdown effects (slower positive test rate growth). For example, here in Austria the tests are increasing by ~10% per day currently and they pat themselves on the back when positive tests grow "only" 15% per day. Meanwhile, deaths are increasing by 30-50% per day.
If Iceland with its extensive tests has concluded that 1% of their population is currently infected, it's naive to assume that more accessible countries where covid19 spread earlier are less affected.
If Iceland with its extensive tests has concluded that 1% of their population is currently infected, it's naive to assume that more accessible countries where covid19 spread earlier are less affected.
Death numbers may be a better proxy for how widespread it is, but they suffer from even larger lag than infection numbers and less clear counting rules (see: Russia, and various other countries, not counting deaths of COVID-19 infected, if they had {any, some} prior illness).
Even in Italy the death numbers may be signficantly under-counted.
https://www.corriere.it/politica/20_marzo_26/the-real-death-...
https://www.corriere.it/politica/20_marzo_26/the-real-death-...
Sadly you are right, though as mentioned by others, not all testing in countries and registration of deaths are equal.
But it is probably the best metric so far alas.
However, hold a thought for postal workers in a few months as they will be asked to monitor people's mailboxes filling up as a sign that somebody died inside and nobody knows.
But it is probably the best metric so far alas.
However, hold a thought for postal workers in a few months as they will be asked to monitor people's mailboxes filling up as a sign that somebody died inside and nobody knows.
>If Iceland with its extensive tests has concluded that 1% of their population is currently infected
People really need to stop parroting this. Please see the article this claim came from (https://nordiclifescience.org/covid-19-first-results-of-the-...). Note how it says voluntary screening, not randomly-selected screening? Since it is voluntary, there is likely a significant selection bias. It is much more probable that the actual population infected rate at the time of that screening was much less than 1%.
People really need to stop parroting this. Please see the article this claim came from (https://nordiclifescience.org/covid-19-first-results-of-the-...). Note how it says voluntary screening, not randomly-selected screening? Since it is voluntary, there is likely a significant selection bias. It is much more probable that the actual population infected rate at the time of that screening was much less than 1%.
I'm amazed that it's spreading so fast in US.
US is a huge place. Okay NY has a high population density so that makes sense, but outbreaks in Seattle et al. is surprising me and I can't figure out why it's faster than other countries.
US is a huge place. Okay NY has a high population density so that makes sense, but outbreaks in Seattle et al. is surprising me and I can't figure out why it's faster than other countries.
Because a significant portion of the population and political establishment refuses to face the reality of the situation, and by doing so has created incredibly fertile conditions for spread of the virus.
Some guesses why it would spread faster than say Scandinavia:
- No public health care, people infect family caretakers. - No paid sick leave means people go to work sick and infect colleagues. - No strong government campaign to enforce working from home, washing hands etc. - No central initiative to track and isolate cases
These are just guesses but I'm far from surprised the US is seeing explosive increases. There seems to be no crisis awareness and there's no strong public welfare.
- No public health care, people infect family caretakers. - No paid sick leave means people go to work sick and infect colleagues. - No strong government campaign to enforce working from home, washing hands etc. - No central initiative to track and isolate cases
These are just guesses but I'm far from surprised the US is seeing explosive increases. There seems to be no crisis awareness and there's no strong public welfare.
[deleted]
I don't think the speed of spread is fundamentaly different between most countries. Unless strong measures like lock-downs are taken, we are talking about an exponential development. Based on that, the different speeds of spread would denote different sections on the time line. That means, different time spans between the first infections in a country and the time, systematic testing and countermeasures are taken.
Based on that, one can conclude that e.g. Italy was one of the first European countries being hit by a spreading infection and it took too long till systematic testing began. Likewise, in the US there was too much time between the first cases and testing, which basically just began.
Based on that, one can conclude that e.g. Italy was one of the first European countries being hit by a spreading infection and it took too long till systematic testing began. Likewise, in the US there was too much time between the first cases and testing, which basically just began.
The US is a well off country and we have increasingly started moving all over it. I personally have family and friends on both coasts. I don't visit them much but I have many reasons to travel. Our travel is also extremely cheap. A friend of mine routinely drives from CT to NM and back. She has very limited income, yet is able to do that.
Also, it doesn't help that our leadership has completely failed to act on this situation, and is continuing to mostly fail to do so. This virus should rightly be called the Trump virus in the US. Our president* not only failed to act, he did things that actively enabled COVID-19 to spread faster. In these kinds of circumstances it's no wonder it's spreading so fast.
Also, it doesn't help that our leadership has completely failed to act on this situation, and is continuing to mostly fail to do so. This virus should rightly be called the Trump virus in the US. Our president* not only failed to act, he did things that actively enabled COVID-19 to spread faster. In these kinds of circumstances it's no wonder it's spreading so fast.
Canadian living in the US here.
It is amazing (and absolutely terrifying) as to how belligerent Americans are to any sense of being told what to do. A good % of them will purposely do the opposite just to exercise their freedoms.
So in a situation of lock-downs, shelter in places, and generally strong advice to socially distance you have:
- Neighbor's continually inviting us to BBQ's and dinner parties
- Bars are closed so people are having tailgate parties outside of the local liquor stores with friends
- Nobody respecting 2m distancing at groceries, even with tape lines to indicate safe spacing
- Assholes purposely coughing and as they do so muttering "corona" in public places treating it like a joke
- Young people on tiktok and other social media doing things like spitting, licking, or coughing on others/foods.
Unfortunately this is not selective in that those acting like idiots are not the only impacting themselves, but they are helping the spread and impacting others.
It is amazing (and absolutely terrifying) as to how belligerent Americans are to any sense of being told what to do. A good % of them will purposely do the opposite just to exercise their freedoms.
So in a situation of lock-downs, shelter in places, and generally strong advice to socially distance you have:
- Neighbor's continually inviting us to BBQ's and dinner parties
- Bars are closed so people are having tailgate parties outside of the local liquor stores with friends
- Nobody respecting 2m distancing at groceries, even with tape lines to indicate safe spacing
- Assholes purposely coughing and as they do so muttering "corona" in public places treating it like a joke
- Young people on tiktok and other social media doing things like spitting, licking, or coughing on others/foods.
Unfortunately this is not selective in that those acting like idiots are not the only impacting themselves, but they are helping the spread and impacting others.
> it fully deserves what occurs
"It" is not one person, "it" is a country of 330 million people. Many of them are not behaving in the ways you describe. I personally have not observed any such behaviors in my neighborhood or on the (rare) occasions over the past few weeks when I've had to go to the store (we stocked up early on to minimize the need to shop).
Also, while we Americans do tend to distrust authorities and we like to exercise our freedoms, we also have (or at least some segment of us have) a strong sense of personal responsibility. That means, first, that you are perfectly justified in not going to neighborhood BBQs or tailgate parties and explaining that you don't think it's safe, telling people sharply in stores (after you've backed away to a safe distance) that you are keeping your distance for your and their safety, publicly telling assholes who treat it like a joke in public that it isn't a joke, publicly criticizing people who post obviously stupid things on social media, etc. You are responsible for your own safety and you don't have to accept what others are doing as normal or right.
Second, personal responsibility means that all those people who are doing stupid things should suffer the consequences of their actions. If they feel bad because you spoke sharply to them to protect your own safety or to call out obviously stupid behaviors, tough. And if they get sick because they didn't take proper precautions, you don't owe them sympathy.
Unfortunately, many Americans do seem to have lost sight of the whole personal responsibility thing in recent times. Perhaps this is an opportunity to re-emphasize it.
"It" is not one person, "it" is a country of 330 million people. Many of them are not behaving in the ways you describe. I personally have not observed any such behaviors in my neighborhood or on the (rare) occasions over the past few weeks when I've had to go to the store (we stocked up early on to minimize the need to shop).
Also, while we Americans do tend to distrust authorities and we like to exercise our freedoms, we also have (or at least some segment of us have) a strong sense of personal responsibility. That means, first, that you are perfectly justified in not going to neighborhood BBQs or tailgate parties and explaining that you don't think it's safe, telling people sharply in stores (after you've backed away to a safe distance) that you are keeping your distance for your and their safety, publicly telling assholes who treat it like a joke in public that it isn't a joke, publicly criticizing people who post obviously stupid things on social media, etc. You are responsible for your own safety and you don't have to accept what others are doing as normal or right.
Second, personal responsibility means that all those people who are doing stupid things should suffer the consequences of their actions. If they feel bad because you spoke sharply to them to protect your own safety or to call out obviously stupid behaviors, tough. And if they get sick because they didn't take proper precautions, you don't owe them sympathy.
Unfortunately, many Americans do seem to have lost sight of the whole personal responsibility thing in recent times. Perhaps this is an opportunity to re-emphasize it.
Thanks, edited as was too pointed with the "it"
But I also do not agree fully. I have seen altercations in supermarket lines where someone oversteps the "tape separation" line and has been asked nicely "please step back" to get told off, or better yet spit on.
Things are not right. This is not how civilized people interact with one another.
But I also do not agree fully. I have seen altercations in supermarket lines where someone oversteps the "tape separation" line and has been asked nicely "please step back" to get told off, or better yet spit on.
Things are not right. This is not how civilized people interact with one another.
> I have seen altercations in supermarket lines where someone oversteps the "tape separation" line and has been asked nicely "please step back" to get told off, or better yet spit on.
At that point I'd be calling for the store manager, and if they didn't tell that person to leave, I'd be calling the cops. Particularly if someone was spit on; under current circumstances that amounts to reckless negligence.
> This is not how civilized people interact with one another.
And letting it happen without imposing consequences is not how civilized people maintain the standards and norms of civilization. The people you describe are uncivilized barbarians and should be treated with the appropriate contempt.
At that point I'd be calling for the store manager, and if they didn't tell that person to leave, I'd be calling the cops. Particularly if someone was spit on; under current circumstances that amounts to reckless negligence.
> This is not how civilized people interact with one another.
And letting it happen without imposing consequences is not how civilized people maintain the standards and norms of civilization. The people you describe are uncivilized barbarians and should be treated with the appropriate contempt.
>> At that point I'd be calling for the store manager, and if they didn't tell that person to leave, I'd be calling the cops. Particularly if someone was spit on; under current circumstances that amounts to reckless negligence.
Good luck getting the cops to show up, and good luck not getting ktfo while you try doing so.
Good luck getting the cops to show up, and good luck not getting ktfo while you try doing so.
> Good luck getting the cops to show up, and good luck not getting ktfo while you try doing so.
If you really live in an area where you can't depend on other people to abide by and help enforce obvious rules of civilized behavior, then you do not live in a civilized area and should consider moving.
If the store manager really tried to kick me out under the circumstances described, instead of the person who spat on me, I would tell him in no uncertain terms that he would never get my business again, nor that of anyone else I could convince. I suspect that a few well-placed Internet posts, not to mention phone calls and emails to every local and national news organization, would convince a lot of people.
If you really live in an area where you can't depend on other people to abide by and help enforce obvious rules of civilized behavior, then you do not live in a civilized area and should consider moving.
If the store manager really tried to kick me out under the circumstances described, instead of the person who spat on me, I would tell him in no uncertain terms that he would never get my business again, nor that of anyone else I could convince. I suspect that a few well-placed Internet posts, not to mention phone calls and emails to every local and national news organization, would convince a lot of people.
I live near a bunch of "tough guy rancher" states, and that mentality is just absurd. I want to just scream at these folks sometimes, "the virus doesn't care how tough you are!!! If you infect your wife/parents/child and somebody dies, what do you have left to say? 'oh, well I'm a tough guy?". I recognize this is a strawman, but I watched one of these fine specimens sneeze all over a bunch of bags of tortilla chips at the grocery store yesterday. All I could say was... "I KNEW I should have stayed home".
Some of this seems just human nature to me. Normalcy bias and reluctance to the social fallout of telling people "things are different" combined with that rebellious itch.
But: in the states for a looong time it's seemed to me there's been a cultural spread of a privilege that could be roughly paraphrased as "my opinion & rights are as good as anyone's arguments or expert direction."
I don't think this is just a cultural accident. There's some indication that phrases like "coastal elite" are deliberate fronts in a war to Other expertise, and reason to believe there are people who decided decades ago that affirming and spreading this stance was likely to increase their chances of having political power wielded towards their goals.
Many Americans have long had the privilege of thinking this way if they want to, without many noticeably singular consequences to have to face. Some are going to try to hold on to this. Maybe some minority will even come through this without having been directly impacted and will continue to live comfortably inside that privilege.
The difficult part is that there are many people who don't think this way who don't deserve the poke in the eye, but the behavior of others can bring it anyway.
But: in the states for a looong time it's seemed to me there's been a cultural spread of a privilege that could be roughly paraphrased as "my opinion & rights are as good as anyone's arguments or expert direction."
I don't think this is just a cultural accident. There's some indication that phrases like "coastal elite" are deliberate fronts in a war to Other expertise, and reason to believe there are people who decided decades ago that affirming and spreading this stance was likely to increase their chances of having political power wielded towards their goals.
Many Americans have long had the privilege of thinking this way if they want to, without many noticeably singular consequences to have to face. Some are going to try to hold on to this. Maybe some minority will even come through this without having been directly impacted and will continue to live comfortably inside that privilege.
The difficult part is that there are many people who don't think this way who don't deserve the poke in the eye, but the behavior of others can bring it anyway.
American living in America here.
It is amazing as to how easy it is to tell Canadians what to do (heh joking).
You're mostly right, though I think people are starting to catch on where I live (West Coast). We don't have the same kind of, how to put this, "social unity" we had after WWII where basically every big company and most of the government was staffed by veterans of that war. So it is a little hard to get people to comply, and convince them that this kind of mobilization is necessary.
It is amazing as to how easy it is to tell Canadians what to do (heh joking).
You're mostly right, though I think people are starting to catch on where I live (West Coast). We don't have the same kind of, how to put this, "social unity" we had after WWII where basically every big company and most of the government was staffed by veterans of that war. So it is a little hard to get people to comply, and convince them that this kind of mobilization is necessary.
I'm going to level with you, also as a Canadian living in the US, this list of behaviors reads like something you'd come up with if you spent all day inside consuming local news. Lockdown seems to be working just fine in Seattle.
> It is amazing (and absolutely terrifying) as to how belligerent Americans are to any sense of being told what to do. A good % of them will purposely do the opposite just to exercise their freedoms.
"Small government" is part of many TV stations indoctrination. The idea that any government initiative, except for war, should not be taken seriously and should be defunded is hammered on the American public.
So, there is no balance between what should be run for the good of the community and personal freedoms.
> To be very honest it fully deserves what occurs as so many are poking this in the eye asking for her vengeance.
Sadly many people are as much victims as executors. Many American citizens have learned to hate the common good and bring people to power with the same mindset. For me it is hard to think that people that never got a chance, that never got proper education, that is only following what other taught them is deserving of such suffering.
I hope that the reality of this situation may help to break that cycle. I do not expect this overnight, but, it may come as a change in the long run.
"Small government" is part of many TV stations indoctrination. The idea that any government initiative, except for war, should not be taken seriously and should be defunded is hammered on the American public.
So, there is no balance between what should be run for the good of the community and personal freedoms.
> To be very honest it fully deserves what occurs as so many are poking this in the eye asking for her vengeance.
Sadly many people are as much victims as executors. Many American citizens have learned to hate the common good and bring people to power with the same mindset. For me it is hard to think that people that never got a chance, that never got proper education, that is only following what other taught them is deserving of such suffering.
I hope that the reality of this situation may help to break that cycle. I do not expect this overnight, but, it may come as a change in the long run.
What do you expect after three years of #Resistance, Russia-related conspiracies, the Mueller mess, and worse in this country? Frankly I am surprised that we have any shred of compliance anywhere at all. The state briefing here in Ohio today said we're expecting things to hit the multiples thousands per day in late April for diagnoses so this situation can still accelerate yet.
And which institutions had both agency and time and still failed to respond at Korea-like speed and method?
- POTUS level administration
- The congress, related staff, and all their institutional memory and connections to CDC, NIH etc.
- CDC, NIH, Pentagon -- each of them
- Major national media
- 50 state governors and related disaster teams
- Social media demonitizing and banning COVID topics/early-warning-analysis
-- Etc for real-rime and later analysis
Sadly, the same log-plot-slope might be baked in for four weeks to come -- about two weeks given incubation times, and another two weeks given the likelihood that the behaviors the immediate parent describes (along with others shopping and working) imply the doubling time will not have been increased much. At least four weeks --> at least a factor of 100 prospective increase, assuming a four-day doubling time and no saturation effects.
- POTUS level administration
- The congress, related staff, and all their institutional memory and connections to CDC, NIH etc.
- CDC, NIH, Pentagon -- each of them
- Major national media
- 50 state governors and related disaster teams
- Social media demonitizing and banning COVID topics/early-warning-analysis
-- Etc for real-rime and later analysis
Sadly, the same log-plot-slope might be baked in for four weeks to come -- about two weeks given incubation times, and another two weeks given the likelihood that the behaviors the immediate parent describes (along with others shopping and working) imply the doubling time will not have been increased much. At least four weeks --> at least a factor of 100 prospective increase, assuming a four-day doubling time and no saturation effects.
Joachim Klement has an interesting piece on this: https://klementoninvesting.substack.com/p/individualism-kill...
[deleted]
> I'm amazed that it's spreading so fast in US.
That speed is an attribute of exponential growth. It has happened in all countries. One day there is one death a couple of weeks latter a hundred, the lock down comes shortly after. In four months there are at least 500,000 infected from just one case. That is fast.
> why it's faster than other countries.
My guess is that it is not faster, it is just a lack of testing that was hiding the real numbers.
Deaths have a more tragic impact that infections and are easier to count. The number of deaths is an indicator of the real number of infections the country had two weeks to three weeks ago. As, the number of currently infected will result in deaths two to three weeks from now.
That is why a lock down of three weeks is the bare minimum amount to have any kind of impact, even that is not enough to really keep it under check.
That speed is an attribute of exponential growth. It has happened in all countries. One day there is one death a couple of weeks latter a hundred, the lock down comes shortly after. In four months there are at least 500,000 infected from just one case. That is fast.
> why it's faster than other countries.
My guess is that it is not faster, it is just a lack of testing that was hiding the real numbers.
Deaths have a more tragic impact that infections and are easier to count. The number of deaths is an indicator of the real number of infections the country had two weeks to three weeks ago. As, the number of currently infected will result in deaths two to three weeks from now.
That is why a lock down of three weeks is the bare minimum amount to have any kind of impact, even that is not enough to really keep it under check.
The virus lives for days on surfaces. Packages and mail can carry it. I'm guessing we are shipping the virus nonstop, worldwide. I'm surprised it isn't spreading faster.
Based on reports from different parts of USA, it’s been here since February and spreading and we just didn’t test patients/corpses until it was community spread. It’s still hard to get tested unless you are sick enough to be admitted to a hospital except in New York. Medical personnel in New Orleans think their outbreak started around Mardi Gras. Reports from airports had people only being screened minimally right up until they shutdown eu ingress. There was widespread (different states) proclamation that life should go on as normal and there are cases on both coasts where one international traveler spread it at a party and then gives it someone who goes to another party and exposes hundreds of people. It’s the same story as what happened in Northern Italy but all over the USA.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-24/coronavi...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/coronavirus-westport-c...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/26/new-orleans-...
Just based on the news reports alone this seemed inevitable with the president calling it a hoax early on.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-24/coronavi...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/coronavirus-westport-c...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/26/new-orleans-...
Just based on the news reports alone this seemed inevitable with the president calling it a hoax early on.
I live in New Orleans. All expectations are for the hospitals to hit capacity next week. And since this is majority service industry town no one really has any source of income beyond then either.
If you want to understand how this is spreading the way it is and why go look at the Westport cluster: 50 people attend a part, 20 of them come out positive.
The point is that lockdown is only a stalling tactic, if you release the lockdown before everyone is vaccinated it'll just come right back. Places that have it "under control" are only going to keep it that way if they continue to shelter in place for at least a year.
I think NYC might of solved it with the antibodies test. They plan on letting people with the antibodies go back to work. Plus the test is easier to make that the test for the virus.
This would be a massive help for healthcare. I can't see how it would work for the general population though, are you going to split society into two, one group who are allowed out and another that have to lock themselves away.
Yes, with a leaky valve on the locked down people, perhaps ordered by job criticality/working-from-home possibility. The valve is then adjusted to ensure hospitals are maxed out all the time.
Is there any other exit path? Even a vaccine would need to be handled like that.
Is there any other exit path? Even a vaccine would need to be handled like that.
That doesn't really solve anything. If 20% of our population got the disease in the same six month period the health care system would collapse entirely and we'd be looking at up to 10% CFR. Millions and millions of people dead.
99% of cases are mild as per Korea's data, so no, we would not have 10% mortality
You can have a 1% CFR if your health services are functioning. The point is that they won't be if everyone gets it at the same time. In any case 99% are not mild; at least 20% are serious and require medical intervention. If you stop treating them...they die.
The data doesn't show 20% need medical treatment. 1% need that. 19% are getting as sick as the flu at most. 80% literally couldn't tell if they were sick or not.
I haven’t seen any numbers of confirmed infections that match a 1% hospitalization rate. Heck I haven’t even seen an ICU rate that low. Have a link?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-kore...
99% of active cases in Korea are mild. There is some difference between countries in terms of reporting but typically "mild" indicates no hospitalization, "severe" requires hospitalization and "critical" indicates ICU.
It's hard to estimate true hospitalization rate when you don't know the spread of the disease, and we don't have good data for that anywhere. But here is a repo with the data we do have:
https://github.com/beoutbreakprepared/nCoV2019
99% of active cases in Korea are mild. There is some difference between countries in terms of reporting but typically "mild" indicates no hospitalization, "severe" requires hospitalization and "critical" indicates ICU.
It's hard to estimate true hospitalization rate when you don't know the spread of the disease, and we don't have good data for that anywhere. But here is a repo with the data we do have:
https://github.com/beoutbreakprepared/nCoV2019
That only if thats true and the number of infected are higher and alot people either got over it and just didn't know they were infected.
Wouldn't this encourage people to seek out the virus and get sick so they can get back to work sooner?
Not at risk people which are the people overwhelming the population. Right now though people who a healthy in the same houses as people who are sick potentially getting themselves sick again
Also all the people that are at-risk but financially in a really bad place. Letting cured people go back to life as normal while the others stay in quarantine indefinitely will create some weird unintended consequences.
Yeh but having everyone financially at risk would crash the economy. Making everyone poor will just break everything and I really don't believe the government will help. The US government isn't built to function that way.
It doesn't have to be a disaster to extend the lock down (aka some restrictions). Remote work exists. Contactless food delivery exists. Homeschooling is easier than ever.
We just need to focus on helping people make those transitions. We need to stop focusing on "just say no" and start focusing on "You can say yes to these things. We can help you make that choice."
We just need to focus on helping people make those transitions. We need to stop focusing on "just say no" and start focusing on "You can say yes to these things. We can help you make that choice."
this is a very white-collar centric view of the world. Anyone who's living paycheck to paycheck in an hourly job, or a small business owner, is unlikely to be able to work from home. And how do you work from home and homeschool at the same time? Anyway, even if you personally can get by, there will be mass failures to make rent in both commercial and residential sectors which will destroy financial markets and that will actually affect you even if you have a cool tech job in SF.
I have known people who homeschooled to make life easier. I was one of them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22681334
Takeout is allowed. Food delivery is allowed. Amazon and grocery stores are hiring. Those are not white collar jobs.
I've been dirt poor for years. I do remote work. I'm a freelance writer, not a programmer.
It helped me establish an income and pay down debt while homeless.
If you think remote work is only for the privileged few, that's your bias showing, not mine.
I have been promoting remote work and gig work as a solution for homeless people for years. I run several websites and a few reddits supporting that model.
I've never gotten traction. Maybe I will never get traction. But I've absolutely done all of the above and not because I have some privileged upper class life.
Quite the opposite. I've done it to accommodate my health problems and the needs of two special needs kids.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22681334
Takeout is allowed. Food delivery is allowed. Amazon and grocery stores are hiring. Those are not white collar jobs.
I've been dirt poor for years. I do remote work. I'm a freelance writer, not a programmer.
It helped me establish an income and pay down debt while homeless.
If you think remote work is only for the privileged few, that's your bias showing, not mine.
I have been promoting remote work and gig work as a solution for homeless people for years. I run several websites and a few reddits supporting that model.
I've never gotten traction. Maybe I will never get traction. But I've absolutely done all of the above and not because I have some privileged upper class life.
Quite the opposite. I've done it to accommodate my health problems and the needs of two special needs kids.
There's a limit to how many people can work remotely. Certainly, factory workers, restaurant employees, healthcare professionals, retail workers and bank tellers can't do this.
And homeschooling isn't for everyone... But it's virtually impossible to do if both parents are working full time.
Not to mention the effect this has on children. It's very difficult for children to be socially isolated. It's good for their mental health to be around other kids.
And homeschooling isn't for everyone... But it's virtually impossible to do if both parents are working full time.
Not to mention the effect this has on children. It's very difficult for children to be socially isolated. It's good for their mental health to be around other kids.
Ah, the socialization argument. Such an old saw. It was openly mocked and derided on homeschooling lists when I was a homeschooling parent.
That was before the argument was "We absolutely need to risk the lives of people in the face of a plague. Think of the social needs of the children!"
Edit in response to your deleted comment:
Particularly, socialization research confirms that young people can grow up more mature and poised than their age-peers if they avoid the age segregation characteristic of almost all schools.
https://learninfreedom.org/
The author was a school teacher and he's the founder of some education organization or other. You can probably find a lot more info under his hn handle of tokenadult.
I don't plan to continue this argument.
That was before the argument was "We absolutely need to risk the lives of people in the face of a plague. Think of the social needs of the children!"
Edit in response to your deleted comment:
Particularly, socialization research confirms that young people can grow up more mature and poised than their age-peers if they avoid the age segregation characteristic of almost all schools.
https://learninfreedom.org/
The author was a school teacher and he's the founder of some education organization or other. You can probably find a lot more info under his hn handle of tokenadult.
I don't plan to continue this argument.
As a homeschooler who grew up in a very rural area and didn’t attend a co-op I feel like I missed out on a lot of things socially. It’s not really economically impacting but not everything is about making money.
I think I made up for it in college but not everyone gets to do that, and it took a lot of effort on my part.
I think I made up for it in college but not everyone gets to do that, and it took a lot of effort on my part.
None of us gets to go back in time and run the simulation over and see how it would have gone had we taken the other path somehow.
You are romanticizing public school and assuming it would be have been a wonderful social experience that you missed out on. Perhaps it would have been a terrible experience. Perhaps you would been horribly bullied.
Most people do not seem to look back on k-12 and miss it terribly as the most wonderful time in their life. They usually found it wanting, at best, or even quite awful.
Please don't conflate positive college social experiences with positive K-12 experiences.
College students are generally legal adults who have, to some degree, chosen the school in question, chosen their major, chosen their classes and can very much choose their social activities. In contrast, K-12 kids are usually thrown together against their will, have very little real choice, etc.
You are romanticizing public school and assuming it would be have been a wonderful social experience that you missed out on. Perhaps it would have been a terrible experience. Perhaps you would been horribly bullied.
Most people do not seem to look back on k-12 and miss it terribly as the most wonderful time in their life. They usually found it wanting, at best, or even quite awful.
Please don't conflate positive college social experiences with positive K-12 experiences.
College students are generally legal adults who have, to some degree, chosen the school in question, chosen their major, chosen their classes and can very much choose their social activities. In contrast, K-12 kids are usually thrown together against their will, have very little real choice, etc.
[deleted]
Yes, it has to be a disaster to extend the lockdown. You're severely underestimating how unhappy many people are to be locked down. If it starts stretching into 3 or 4 months, I and a lot of other people are going to just refuse to comply.
I have an incurable medical condition. I've lived with a lot of restrictions for a long time.
I feel my life is a great deal fuller than it used to be. It's vastly better to not be miserably sick and in pain all the time. I have more energy for other things. I have a better quality of life.
That's why I am saying we need to emphasize what activities are possible. I'm not trying to keep people imprisoned in their own homes. I'm trying to tell you this doesn't have to be pure misery with no income, etc.
I'm sorry you are having a hard time adapting. It's been a hard road for me for a long time.
I just think this emphasis on "a return to normal" is misguided. I think we don't have to choose between having germ control and having a life.
I think we can have both. I feel I do.
I feel my life is a great deal fuller than it used to be. It's vastly better to not be miserably sick and in pain all the time. I have more energy for other things. I have a better quality of life.
That's why I am saying we need to emphasize what activities are possible. I'm not trying to keep people imprisoned in their own homes. I'm trying to tell you this doesn't have to be pure misery with no income, etc.
I'm sorry you are having a hard time adapting. It's been a hard road for me for a long time.
I just think this emphasis on "a return to normal" is misguided. I think we don't have to choose between having germ control and having a life.
I think we can have both. I feel I do.
Trying to return to complete normality is misguided, certainly. Nightclubs and stadiums will likely stay closed for a while, and schools aren't realistically going to start back up until the fall; all of that will suck, but I'm confident we can adapt.
The current set of lockdown restrictions ban me from hanging out with my friends or visiting my parents. I reject your kindness and flatly refuse to adapt to that. After some number of weeks, which I haven't quite nailed down but is certainly not in the double digits, I'll happily organize a riot at city hall if that's what it takes to hug my mom again.
The current set of lockdown restrictions ban me from hanging out with my friends or visiting my parents. I reject your kindness and flatly refuse to adapt to that. After some number of weeks, which I haven't quite nailed down but is certainly not in the double digits, I'll happily organize a riot at city hall if that's what it takes to hug my mom again.
I'm not personally asking you to not hug your mom.
Have a nice evening. Or whatever time of day for your time zone.
Have a nice evening. Or whatever time of day for your time zone.
This isn't even the beginning of the first wave except for a couple front line states like Washington and NY
https://covidactnow.org/state/NY
https://covidactnow.org/state/NY
Watch thunderf00t's videos and Paul Beckwith's.
Without a vaccine and pervasive testing, isolation resets the clock on the pandemic curve and it starts like Groundhog Day all over again, but at a potentially lower level. It will keep happening over and over again, especially spreading N <--> S hemispheres with the seasons. It will keep happening until either everyone is infected, resulting in hundreds of millions of cumulative deaths, indefinite isolation, or a vaccine is widely-deployed.
That is reality.
Without a vaccine and pervasive testing, isolation resets the clock on the pandemic curve and it starts like Groundhog Day all over again, but at a potentially lower level. It will keep happening over and over again, especially spreading N <--> S hemispheres with the seasons. It will keep happening until either everyone is infected, resulting in hundreds of millions of cumulative deaths, indefinite isolation, or a vaccine is widely-deployed.
That is reality.
> especially spreading N <--> S hemispheres with the seasons
Temperature seems to have no impact on transmission rate in Brazil.
Temperature seems to have no impact on transmission rate in Brazil.
Isn't it too soon to assume that? Viruses decay faster at higher temperatures so it should have some effect on R0. With other measures like social distancing, masks, and remote work it might lower it below 1.
There are already dozens of severely ill patients on many cities in Brazil, what is the easy to compare metric. The rate of growth of cold and hot cities isn't very different, and hasn't been very different from the untreated growth on the rest of the world.
FWIW, I will throw in my two cents. This shutdown needs to end immediately. This is absolutely crushing the middle class and the economy. I'd bet that many of the small shops and restaurants I used to go to will never reopen. These low-margin businesses cannot cope with a week long closure, let alone four. We are already looking at waves of rent/debt defaults followed by massive layoffs and then a deep recession if not a depression. And if the government's response is unlimited money creation (for the banks or for individuals, it does not matter) then we are looking at a potential monetary or dollar crisis.
This decision to shutdown the economy has been made on the misguided assumption that you can save the healthcare system in isolation from the rest of the system of production in which it resides. It is also assuming that saving lives supersedes any other consideration, especially money or economics. We are hearing this now from the media who already pre-attacking Trump for hinting he wants to end the shutdown -- that he is valuing billionaires or dollars over lives. This is shear non-sense and ignores the fact that people are not ghosts, we need to work in order to stay alive and live. I am reading on many forums about people who are about to lose their business that they spent 20 years building or their homes if they cannot get back to work soon. This is not just narrowly about lives lost to the virus but living for everyone. Of course we will do everything reasonable to help the afflicted but shutting down the economy should not be one of them.
If you want to still hold to the assumption that only lives matter in this decision then think about this. Think of how many alcoholics will be created or relapse from spending days on end with nothing to do, bored in their home. How many of those will eventually die of alcoholism or kill people with their car? What about anorexics who recover but under quarantine and the anxiety of virus scaremongering relapse and ultimately starve to death? If the economy goes into a recession or depression (a fait accompli in my view) then how many people are going commit suicide which always goes up in bad times? How many people will die in just these three examples 100K, 200K, 1M people?
These are not fantasy deaths, it will really happen but they will never be blamed on the shutdown. It is a real hidden cost, as real as those who die from CV19. There are real life-and-death altering consequences beyond just those unfortunate to get this virus.
This decision to shutdown the economy has been made on the misguided assumption that you can save the healthcare system in isolation from the rest of the system of production in which it resides. It is also assuming that saving lives supersedes any other consideration, especially money or economics. We are hearing this now from the media who already pre-attacking Trump for hinting he wants to end the shutdown -- that he is valuing billionaires or dollars over lives. This is shear non-sense and ignores the fact that people are not ghosts, we need to work in order to stay alive and live. I am reading on many forums about people who are about to lose their business that they spent 20 years building or their homes if they cannot get back to work soon. This is not just narrowly about lives lost to the virus but living for everyone. Of course we will do everything reasonable to help the afflicted but shutting down the economy should not be one of them.
If you want to still hold to the assumption that only lives matter in this decision then think about this. Think of how many alcoholics will be created or relapse from spending days on end with nothing to do, bored in their home. How many of those will eventually die of alcoholism or kill people with their car? What about anorexics who recover but under quarantine and the anxiety of virus scaremongering relapse and ultimately starve to death? If the economy goes into a recession or depression (a fait accompli in my view) then how many people are going commit suicide which always goes up in bad times? How many people will die in just these three examples 100K, 200K, 1M people?
These are not fantasy deaths, it will really happen but they will never be blamed on the shutdown. It is a real hidden cost, as real as those who die from CV19. There are real life-and-death altering consequences beyond just those unfortunate to get this virus.
> I am reading on many forums about people who are about to lose their business that they spent 20 years building or their homes
> We are already looking at waves of rent/debt defaults followed by massive layoffs and then a deep recession if not a depression. And if the government's response is unlimited money creation (for the banks or for individuals, it does not matter) then we are looking at a potential monetary or dollar crisis.
We've already been having an ongoing monetary crisis for the past decade, with interest rates being kept artificially low so that The Line will keep going up. Which has continued to shape the economy into a highly leveraged rent treadmill, unable to withstand any interruption. This is going to have to be reckoned with some time. It's suboptimal to do it in a crisis, but the past decade has shown that it certainly won't happen outside of a crisis, so here we are.
Direct aid to individuals will be a drop in the bucket compared to the corporate handouts that will inevitably be approved, or to the monetary creation from low interest rates that got us into this jam. And directly compensating for the immediate problem is certainly better than forcing low-negotiating-power workers to expose themselves to a pandemic without so much as a mask, just so they can die on the sidewalk outside of a hospital in a month.
> We are already looking at waves of rent/debt defaults followed by massive layoffs and then a deep recession if not a depression. And if the government's response is unlimited money creation (for the banks or for individuals, it does not matter) then we are looking at a potential monetary or dollar crisis.
We've already been having an ongoing monetary crisis for the past decade, with interest rates being kept artificially low so that The Line will keep going up. Which has continued to shape the economy into a highly leveraged rent treadmill, unable to withstand any interruption. This is going to have to be reckoned with some time. It's suboptimal to do it in a crisis, but the past decade has shown that it certainly won't happen outside of a crisis, so here we are.
Direct aid to individuals will be a drop in the bucket compared to the corporate handouts that will inevitably be approved, or to the monetary creation from low interest rates that got us into this jam. And directly compensating for the immediate problem is certainly better than forcing low-negotiating-power workers to expose themselves to a pandemic without so much as a mask, just so they can die on the sidewalk outside of a hospital in a month.
Will the economy really get completely destroyed after 1 month of public spaces closed?
There is not much reason for that. All the same things will be there in 1 month, all the same people will be there too. If the information channel of the economy has such a form that it will kill itself because of a short gap, maybe it's a good time to have a frank conversation about how we replace that imaginary structure.
There is not much reason for that. All the same things will be there in 1 month, all the same people will be there too. If the information channel of the economy has such a form that it will kill itself because of a short gap, maybe it's a good time to have a frank conversation about how we replace that imaginary structure.
I don't know much about suicide in the US, but I do know a lot about suicide in the UK.
Over here about 6500 people die by suicide each year. This is with the broad definition used in the UK. Let's imagine a massive rise of 20% to give us 7800 deaths next year.
It's much harder to get numbers for people who die when eating disorder is the underlying condition. Here's one reliable source. These numbers are likely to be much higher, so let's say the real numbers are ten times what's listed here. That would mean about 200 to 300 people die each year from eating disorder in the UK. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
So that's about 8500 per year, if we massive inflate the numbers.
The argument goes that covid-19 is about the same as flu. (That's wrong. It kills more people and it hospitalises more people). Flu in the UK kills about 17,000 per year. So, if covid-19 killed half as many people as flu does it overtakes our 8500 deaths to suicide and eating disorder.
> but they will never be blamed on the shutdown.
I don't know about the US, but in the UK our statisticians are pretty good at pointing to the wider determinants of health. For a while they've been saying that economic downturn in 2007 caused extra death by suicide.
> Think of how many alcoholics will be created or relapse from spending days on end with nothing to do, bored in their home. How many of those will eventually die of alcoholism or kill people with their car? What about anorexics who recover but under quarantine and the anxiety of virus scaremongering relapse and ultimately starve to death?
Your point here loses direction. You appear to be wanting to count these deaths as shutdown deaths, but definitely not as covid-19 related death. People with substance misused disorders or eating disorder are unable to have face to face meetings because of covid-19.
Over here about 6500 people die by suicide each year. This is with the broad definition used in the UK. Let's imagine a massive rise of 20% to give us 7800 deaths next year.
It's much harder to get numbers for people who die when eating disorder is the underlying condition. Here's one reliable source. These numbers are likely to be much higher, so let's say the real numbers are ten times what's listed here. That would mean about 200 to 300 people die each year from eating disorder in the UK. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
So that's about 8500 per year, if we massive inflate the numbers.
The argument goes that covid-19 is about the same as flu. (That's wrong. It kills more people and it hospitalises more people). Flu in the UK kills about 17,000 per year. So, if covid-19 killed half as many people as flu does it overtakes our 8500 deaths to suicide and eating disorder.
> but they will never be blamed on the shutdown.
I don't know about the US, but in the UK our statisticians are pretty good at pointing to the wider determinants of health. For a while they've been saying that economic downturn in 2007 caused extra death by suicide.
> Think of how many alcoholics will be created or relapse from spending days on end with nothing to do, bored in their home. How many of those will eventually die of alcoholism or kill people with their car? What about anorexics who recover but under quarantine and the anxiety of virus scaremongering relapse and ultimately starve to death?
Your point here loses direction. You appear to be wanting to count these deaths as shutdown deaths, but definitely not as covid-19 related death. People with substance misused disorders or eating disorder are unable to have face to face meetings because of covid-19.
I think you are focusing onthe wrong metric. Suicides are generally done by younger people more than they die of flu/covid.
The years of life comparison probably is more in favorable to suicide.
The years of life comparison probably is more in favorable to suicide.
It's not a question of leftist media. When the Black Death happened, feudalism ended. It's a simple as that. Do you think the virus gives a shit about how highly leveraged our system is?
I removed the unnecessary adjective. Thanks.
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The NYT published a simulator yesterday that shows infections/deaths over time according to lockdown lengths:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/25/opinion/coron...
The first two graphs show the incredibly dramatic reduction in infections and deaths if we lock down for 2 months as opposed to just 2 weeks.
But what scares me is the sudden uptick at the end of the period shown. And the article addresses it:
> A skeptic will note that these measures don’t seem to prevent a surge in infections so much as delay them (in some cases so that the impact is pushed beyond the period that this model tracks). There’s something to that: We may see a resurgence whenever we let up, at least until we have a vaccine or herd immunity.
But this is what scares me. Whenever the lockdown ends, it's almost like we're back to square one.
Yes, of course we have time to manufacture more ventilators and masks and everything else. But I don't think anyone's contemplating a year-long lockdown until a vaccine might be ready.
So somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't developing herd immunity seems like the only realistic scenario here? Which basically means just enough lockdown to "flatten the curve" but then essentially give the virus free reign -- accepting that people will die, but still saving many more lives than right now (because enough ventilators, etc.).
Yet virtually nobody seems to be talking about this -- about herd immunity, about how there's zero chance of a lockdown eradicating the virus, about coming to terms with what "flattening the curve" really means and when we decide it's been flattened enough.
I suppose that's where the national conversation will have to go in the next couple weeks/months... but it seems better to be having it up-front.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/25/opinion/coron...
The first two graphs show the incredibly dramatic reduction in infections and deaths if we lock down for 2 months as opposed to just 2 weeks.
But what scares me is the sudden uptick at the end of the period shown. And the article addresses it:
> A skeptic will note that these measures don’t seem to prevent a surge in infections so much as delay them (in some cases so that the impact is pushed beyond the period that this model tracks). There’s something to that: We may see a resurgence whenever we let up, at least until we have a vaccine or herd immunity.
But this is what scares me. Whenever the lockdown ends, it's almost like we're back to square one.
Yes, of course we have time to manufacture more ventilators and masks and everything else. But I don't think anyone's contemplating a year-long lockdown until a vaccine might be ready.
So somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't developing herd immunity seems like the only realistic scenario here? Which basically means just enough lockdown to "flatten the curve" but then essentially give the virus free reign -- accepting that people will die, but still saving many more lives than right now (because enough ventilators, etc.).
Yet virtually nobody seems to be talking about this -- about herd immunity, about how there's zero chance of a lockdown eradicating the virus, about coming to terms with what "flattening the curve" really means and when we decide it's been flattened enough.
I suppose that's where the national conversation will have to go in the next couple weeks/months... but it seems better to be having it up-front.
Lockdown is entirely about trying desperately to not overwhelm the healthcare system.
Do not confuse it with eradication of the virus.
If the healthcare system gets overwhelmed you end up with a much higher mortality rate and secondary deaths because treatments for things that would not have been life threatening are no longer are available.
Do not confuse it with eradication of the virus.
If the healthcare system gets overwhelmed you end up with a much higher mortality rate and secondary deaths because treatments for things that would not have been life threatening are no longer are available.
Just because people are out and about doesn't mean we have to go back to the old value of R. In order to make easing lockdown viable, we need to reduce R for people outside, in every way we can afford. Masks for everyone, of the highest quality we can manage without hurting healthcare. Continue distancing. Constant surface cleaning and air filtration. Mass antibody tests, so we know who has already had it. With all of this, and lockdown for critical outbreak areas, we should be able to keep the curve under control.
> Whenever the lockdown ends, it's almost like we're back to square one.
The part they're not telling you is that that conclusion is not an output of the model. It's an input to the model. The model tells you cases will surge up again after lockdown ends because that assumption was put into it.
More precisely, the underlying assumption is that, even if you get to the point where there are no new cases and you've waited long enough that the incubation period has passed, so everybody who was exposed to the virus is either symptomatic and being quarantined or asymptomatic and has no issues, it is still possible for new people to get infected. But if the incubation period has passed and everyone is either quarantined or asymptomatic, how is anyone new supposed to get infected? The people who are symptomatic are quarantined, so they can't, and the people who are asymptomatic shouldn't be contagious any more, because the incubation period has passed. Yet the computer models predict new cases. So the models are assuming that somehow people can be exposed to the virus, never develop symptoms, but stay contagious indefinitely. That doesn't seem to be a realistic assumption.
The part they're not telling you is that that conclusion is not an output of the model. It's an input to the model. The model tells you cases will surge up again after lockdown ends because that assumption was put into it.
More precisely, the underlying assumption is that, even if you get to the point where there are no new cases and you've waited long enough that the incubation period has passed, so everybody who was exposed to the virus is either symptomatic and being quarantined or asymptomatic and has no issues, it is still possible for new people to get infected. But if the incubation period has passed and everyone is either quarantined or asymptomatic, how is anyone new supposed to get infected? The people who are symptomatic are quarantined, so they can't, and the people who are asymptomatic shouldn't be contagious any more, because the incubation period has passed. Yet the computer models predict new cases. So the models are assuming that somehow people can be exposed to the virus, never develop symptoms, but stay contagious indefinitely. That doesn't seem to be a realistic assumption.
> But if the incubation period has passed and everyone is either quarantined or asymptomatic, how is anyone new supposed to get infected?
Because that's obviously an unrealistic assumption.
Realistic lockdown still has tons of people mixing at the grocery store, at the doctor's or hospital, with all the essential services. During lockdown tons of new people are getting infected constantly. There's zero way to bring that down to zero. Lockdown is just about reducing it.
And of course, even if a single country managed to achieve the impossible and bring it to zero -- somebody from another country is going to visit at some point and reintroduce it.
Because that's obviously an unrealistic assumption.
Realistic lockdown still has tons of people mixing at the grocery store, at the doctor's or hospital, with all the essential services. During lockdown tons of new people are getting infected constantly. There's zero way to bring that down to zero. Lockdown is just about reducing it.
And of course, even if a single country managed to achieve the impossible and bring it to zero -- somebody from another country is going to visit at some point and reintroduce it.
> Realistic lockdown still has tons of people mixing at the grocery store, at the doctor's or hospital, with all the essential services.
That's not what "lockdown" meant in China. In China it meant people getting welded inside their homes, no mixing of people in public, nothing functioning anywhere even close to normal.
If the NYT is defining "lockdown" the way you describe, then they're just redefining the word to suit their agenda. What you're describing is more like the UK "mitigation" strategy, where you don't try to contain the virus, you just try to slow down the growth so that everybody eventually gets infected, but at a slow enough rate that the health care system can cope. But if that's the strategy, we're talking a year at least, not two months.
To be clear: I'm actually not in favor of "reopening America" in two weeks, come what may. We have to see how things develop, and I doubt things will have developed in two weeks to the point where most Americans feel comfortable relaxing social distancing. But nobody knows enough about what's going to happen to make confident predictions, either that there will be a massive upsurge if we go back to normal, or that there won't. By saying "Here's what happens if we do", NYT is being hugely overconfident, and they shouldn't be. They should be honest and say that nobody really knows at this point how things are going to develop, and encourage people to exercise common sense and not expect any Authoritative Expert to tell them what to do or how things are going to play out.
That's not what "lockdown" meant in China. In China it meant people getting welded inside their homes, no mixing of people in public, nothing functioning anywhere even close to normal.
If the NYT is defining "lockdown" the way you describe, then they're just redefining the word to suit their agenda. What you're describing is more like the UK "mitigation" strategy, where you don't try to contain the virus, you just try to slow down the growth so that everybody eventually gets infected, but at a slow enough rate that the health care system can cope. But if that's the strategy, we're talking a year at least, not two months.
To be clear: I'm actually not in favor of "reopening America" in two weeks, come what may. We have to see how things develop, and I doubt things will have developed in two weeks to the point where most Americans feel comfortable relaxing social distancing. But nobody knows enough about what's going to happen to make confident predictions, either that there will be a massive upsurge if we go back to normal, or that there won't. By saying "Here's what happens if we do", NYT is being hugely overconfident, and they shouldn't be. They should be honest and say that nobody really knows at this point how things are going to develop, and encourage people to exercise common sense and not expect any Authoritative Expert to tell them what to do or how things are going to play out.
Asymptomatic people can transmit - you can have a small minority be responsible for the majority of new cases
> Asymptomatic people can transmit
For how long? If I was exposed to the virus last week and am asymptomatic, will I still be contagious in another week? A month? A year?
For how long? If I was exposed to the virus last week and am asymptomatic, will I still be contagious in another week? A month? A year?
Until you seroconvert I guess, I don’t think there are prodromes and shedding like herpes
> Until you seroconvert I guess
Ok, so how long is that?
Ok, so how long is that?
"Yet virtually nobody seems to be talking about this -- about herd immunity, about how there's zero chance of a lockdown eradicating the virus, about coming to terms with what "flattening the curve" really means and when we decide it's been flattened enough."
To me this seems like what everyone is talking about all the time.
To me this seems like what everyone is talking about all the time.
I don't think so -- my impression is that most people are under the impression that we flatten the curve, end the lockdown, and the end result is that most people will not ever get the virus and it will no longer be a problem.
I don't see people acknowledging the fact that a large percentage of people, if not a large majority of the population probably, are eventually going to get it.
Right now what people are talking about is "lockdown now" and "we don't know when it will end".
Not about when the right time is for it to end, or the reality that there will obviously be a surge in cases once it does. (Assuming that the virus doesn't spread to large/majority percent of the population during lockdown anyways.)
I think most people are hoping a vaccine will show up in a month or something and that will fix things. When the reality seems to be that a vaccine is something like a year away.
I don't see people acknowledging the fact that a large percentage of people, if not a large majority of the population probably, are eventually going to get it.
Right now what people are talking about is "lockdown now" and "we don't know when it will end".
Not about when the right time is for it to end, or the reality that there will obviously be a surge in cases once it does. (Assuming that the virus doesn't spread to large/majority percent of the population during lockdown anyways.)
I think most people are hoping a vaccine will show up in a month or something and that will fix things. When the reality seems to be that a vaccine is something like a year away.
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The message is going out. I don't know whether it's getting to people. It would help if the main news story were supporting the medical and public health responses to the pandemic.
Instead 80% of the press seems to believe that the main story right now is to keep on signaling which side they're on in the political food fight.
Instead 80% of the press seems to believe that the main story right now is to keep on signaling which side they're on in the political food fight.
Link to the pdf?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2... (PDF link on the top-right of the page)
There are a few things we do know:
- It's impossible to keep the lockdown in place for long enough to completely eliminate the virus. Why? Because there are still essential workers out there, giving it to each other and their families.
- Because we can't eliminate the virus, the main goal to limit spread so that our existing medical resources can handle it.
- End the lockdown too early, and like a wildfire, it will spark up again in a few weeks and we're back at square one (or close to it).
- Keep the lockdown too long and the impact to the economy will only get worse, requiring massive gov't bailouts/support. The longer we're locked down, the longer it's going to take for the economy to recover.
What seems to make sense to me is, keep the lockdown in place long enough to get in front of it. Basically, enough testing so that new cases can be immediately identified and quarantined. That alone will have a big impact.
Then start to identify other essential services and slowly relax restrictions while at the same time keeping up the early identification and isolation of new cases. If things flare up, stop and get in front of it. Then continue to relax the lockdown.
The only way I can see a rapid end to the lockdown is if we either get a vaccine approved (and mass vaccination occurs) or a very effective treatment is found that takes the pressure off of medical resources.