14 ms·

How to Work During a Pandemic

70 points by ajaviaad 7y ago

jbverschoor 7y ago
Or you just don’t.. 90% of the jobs are useless anyway.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  If your goal is to earn money to continue to live they tend to be fairly important. We're talking animal needs here, not "is my job fulfilling or helping society?"
rob74 7y ago
"Masks are actually not recommended, but won’t make anything worse" - sounds very short-sighted to me. If a lot of people start buying and wearing masks just because it makes them feel safer, people who might actually need masks (i.e. medical personnel) might have trouble getting them...
- antoniuschan99 7y ago
  I hear this argument a lot. Why don’t Medical personnel have their own portal to obtain medical supplies that thr regular population doesn’t have access to?
- geddy 7y ago
  This is already happening: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-n95-face-mask-coronoavirus-20200228-43zikhw4ercbdma3lfeul4u6py-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-n95-face-mask...
  - Seenso 7y ago
    It's already happened. Ever since the coronavirus hit China, N95 masks have been sold or selling out in the US. I'm sure some were bought by preppers, but many were bought to export to China to help relieve acute shortages in Wuhan. Also, US medical facilities and government already don't have a sufficient stockpile, so there will be shortages and they're talking about changing usage practices to conserve the supply. 3M, at least, has said they're going to prioritize medical customers, but they're not going to catch up until April, at least. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor-communication-complicate-coronavirus-preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-an...
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Let's not forget price gouging. There are those despicable "entrepreneurs" that bought up masks to resell them on-line at high markup. There's supply and demand, but then there's straight profiteering from a public health crisis.
      - dmurray 7y ago
        To play devil's advocate: the profiteers are providing the mask manufacturers with cashflow and a strong market signal to manufacture more masks. Given that the coronavirus is spreading so slowly, this kind of market activity might actually increase the availability of masks when they're actually most necessary. Of course, there are other ways to achieve this effect: governments could order the mask manufacturers to step up production, or the manufacturers could take a gamble on the future and step up production before seeing an increase in sales (and a bank could finance that if cashflow was an issue). But you know, you wouldn't criticize the mask manufacturers for increasing production and thereby profits, so it's a bit harsh to blame the intermediaries.
        Seenso 7y ago
        > They are providing the mask manufacturers with cashflow and a strong market signal to manufacture more masks. No they're not. The profiteers are resellers that bought masks/respirators from the manufacturers at regular price, then sell them with a crazy markup. I've been watching the prices of these items throughout this whole crisis, and the prices of 3M respirators sold through reputable retailers has not budged. 3M is not increasing them either: https://news.3m.com/blog/3m-stories/3m-responds-2019-novel-coronavirus https://news.3m.com/blog/3m-stories/3m-responds-2019-novel-c...: > 3M has not changed the prices we charge for 3M respirators as a result of the outbreak
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Indeed. They're just savvy enough to get a week ahead of the crowd and buy up all the stock, incidentally triggering the panic buying (it's not the regular people that bought enough of personal protection equipment that the stores started running short; it's the resellers, and the missing stock is what gets people scared).
- joncrane 7y ago
  Not only that, but as other commenters (and the health minister of Singapore) noted, most times, wearing a mask means you touch your face MORE to adjust it.
  - antoniuschan99 7y ago
    The required gear should be Face Mask and Hand Sanitizer. People should start thinking of sanitizing their headphones too.
- cpeterso 7y ago
  Plus "masks may actually increase your coronavirus risk if worn improperly, surgeon general warns": https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-coronavirus-masks-risk-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-corona...
AlexCoventry 7y ago
I got curious about the US laws related to involuntary quarantine, last night. The federal government can only quarantine you as you enter the country or cross state lines. In Massachusetts, the state can quarantine you to a hospital or your home, and the compensation for lost wages is not to exceed $2 a day! It's a good time to be working remotely.
- mc32 7y ago
  Don’t hospitals have the power to quarantine patients as well? So you go to hospital to get checked, one potentially end up being quarantined, depending on their assessment.
  - AlexCoventry 7y ago
    As I read the law, I think someone needs to be explicitly commissioned for those powers, on a disease-by-disease basis. I'm just going on my memory from reading for a different question, though. The relevant law is here: https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Chapter111/Section94G https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Ch... https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Chapter111/Section95 https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Ch...
- SilasX 7y ago
  lol that's ridiculous. I guess they never update this stuff for inflation? Australia has the right idea with "penalty units" so they can specify a monetary fine in a way that automatically keeps up with inflation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_unit
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  Those might be the powers that are specifically spelled out in statutes, but most states and the federal government grant medical authorities broad powers to do whatever they feel is necessary in the event of an emergency.
jdlyga 7y ago
Masks aren't really an individual thing that will keep you safe if only you wear it, but it helps if you look at a population that wears masks vs doesn't wear masks. If masks are worn by a certain percentage of the population, it's been shown to put a halt to influenza pandemics (according to a paper posted late last week). It stops people from touching their mouth, and stops infected people from spreading their germs to others. It's one of the reasons why the coronavirus hasn't taken hold in Hong Kong more than it has. The reason it's not been recommended in the US is because it's not really part of our culture, and so we don't have a huge supply of them. Medical workers need them the most. But if we did have enough, yes they're definitely recommended.
- sithlord 7y ago
  Dont forget, if people are not accustomed to wearing masks, or if they are not fitted correctly - it will cause the person to be constantly readjusting, and touching their face more than if they didnt have the mask on.
- ghostpepper 7y ago
  Is there any evidence that masks stop healthy people from acquiring the virus? I think everyone agrees that sick people should wear one to stop it from spreading. I'm also not convinced that a mask stops you from touching your mouth. Some experts are saying that it will actually cause you to touch your face more, and if the mask is not waterproof (are N95 respirators waterproof?) after less than an hour of wear the humidity of your breath will have created a large wet patch directly covering your mouth and nose. Now any time you touch a surface and then readjust your mask, you're planting more bacteria and viruses directly on that wet patch.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayvd 7y ago
    Masks, as most people wear them, don't do much. They'd need to be custom fitted to ensure no "leakage". The surgical masks do even less.
cryoshon 7y ago
>This is going to cost you money, time, and opportunity herein lies the problem. everyone knows the virus is costing time and money. but how much do you want to bet that unscrupulous people are going to want to try to keep their employees working in-office or on their retail sites so that their bottom line doesn't get hammered as hard? without a public health response mandating certain measures -- a response which the US public health bodies have been woefully slow to initiate -- many people will be left at risk. then there's the other issue: what do we do about people who can't afford to stop working or work remotely? at present, we have no plan. these people are a ticking time bomb because our political apparatus refuses to mobilize in response to this threat.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
  I'm curious what would lead to more death and disease overall: shutting down retails sales, or trying to keep it running? For really basic goods and services: production and sales of food, fuel, electricity, healthcare, etc., it's easy to imagine the health impact of a prolonged interruption. But what about less urgent categories, such as building construction, automobile manufacturing, restaurants, and tourism? Is it possible that a prolonged reduction in economic activity from those sectors would have a major impact on public health?
  - Frost1x 7y ago
    It's certainly an incredibly complex multifaceted issue. It would be interesting with the correct data to model the infection rate and mortality rate. As a back of the envelop calculation from someone who doesn't do epidemiological modeling, the US has ~330M people. The flu itself infects 5-20% of the population from what I read so let's say this virus infects a conservative 3%, we're at 9.9M. Based on the data I'm seeing, mortality rate is higher than 3% but there's a lot of factors that go into that (so who knows), so were at just shy of 300k deaths. I think those are conservative figures, personally. My guess is the transmission rate and mortality rates are both higher but there are again so many unknowns. https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/01/23/coronavirus-outbreak-mapping-tool-649-em1-art1-dtd-health/ https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/01/23/coronavirus-outbreak-mapping-...
alephnan 7y ago
At the bottom of the article, I see an ad for TechCrunch SF in late April. Wonder if that’s still going on ...
matthewmcg 7y ago
It's only a matter of time before school closures begin. For working parents with school-aged children, that essentially means no available working time. I'm surprised there's not more attention being paid to this.
- cryoshon 7y ago
  school and business closures should have happened two or three weeks ago when it was clear that the US still had a chance to nip the infection in the bud. now, it's way too late. we've had numerous instances of community transmission where we can't track the origin of the infection. we'll need to shutter everything for a longer period if we want to prevent widespread infections.
  - usaar333 7y ago
    School closures can be enormously disruptive if not handled correctly. As OP notes, who is going to watch the kids if you close schools? We have large numbers of essential services (medical, utility, food, etc.) that must keep running. - perhaps you could set up childcare for said workers, but again, you have to be careful here your prevention doesn't cause more harm.
    - PeterisP 7y ago
      The whole point of school closures is to avoid kids from many families being together and mingling, so setting up a community childcare service for said workers is not appropriate. The counterpart to "who's going to work if they have to watch the kids?" is "who's going to work if they're infected because kids braught the virus from school?". Also, the childcare argument applies to just the first few years of the school - most of school-aged kids are old enough to stay home unsupervised if it's needed, and high school kids can supervise younger siblings.
      - usaar333 7y ago
        > Also, the childcare argument applies to just the first few years of the school - most of school-aged kids are old enough to stay home unsupervised if it's needed, It's a problem for basically kids ages 0-11 (depending on where your cut-off is); that's strictly the majority of children and hits a huge percentage of the workforce. Again, you very well can end up worse off if you do this (someone needs to work on medical treatments, medical research, etc.)
misja111 7y ago
I find this article a huge overreaction and at the same time an underestimation of the spread of the coming Corona pandemic. To start with the latter: this virus cannot be contained anymore, at best it can be slowed down. Which means that sooner or later we all will get it. So the extreme measures to isolate yourself from your environment in hopes of not getting contaminated are a waste of time and resources. On the other hand, for normal healthy people, who seem to be the group at which this article is targeted, the infection is not much worse than influenza. Many people don't even realize they have it. "Take the loss" is the only reasonable paragraph in the article.
- QUFB 7y ago
  > To start with the latter: this virus cannot be contained anymore, at best it can be slowed down. Which means that sooner or later we all will get it. So the extreme measures to isolate yourself from your environment in hopes of not getting contaminated are a waste of time and resources. Not true at all. There is a great benefit to "flattening the curve" to spread out the infections over time, as a high percentage of cases for older individuals will require hospitalization, and there are a limited number of beds available. If reasonable isolation measure are in place, this could happen, as there would be fewer active carriers at any time to transmit the virus to vulnerable populations.
  - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
    It seems like a lot of the public/government messaging regarding this virus is ambiguous regarding their policy goals: true containment (like you'd want with Ebola), or simply flatting the rate of spread (as you argue). If the GP was referring to messaging that suggests a goal of true containment, then I think you're both right.
  - Seenso 7y ago
    > Not true at all. There is a great benefit to "flattening the curve" to spread out the infections over time, as a high percentage of cases for older individuals will require hospitalization, and there are a limited number of beds available. If reasonable isolation measure are in place, this could happen, as there would be fewer active carriers at any time to transmit the virus to vulnerable populations. Also, delaying infections helps buy time to bring novel treatments to bear on the problem.
LarryDarrell 7y ago
A global pandemic is a great rebuttal to right-wing arguments that paid sick days and single payer healthcare are socialist policies that would wreck the economy.
- rayvd 7y ago
  Now there's a helluva leap.
marvin 7y ago
I'm impressed by the Norwegian health authorities' response thus far, and society's receptability. We have 19 confirmed cases, and more or less everyone who has met a confirmed infected individual is (strongly) encouraged to self-quarantine for two weeks. Working from home if possible, staying off work if not. This means that 100-300 people are self-quarantining at the moment. It's costly in terms of lost time, but it's much less costly than a full-scale epidemic will be. Will be very interesting to see whether these measures work. My gut feeling says we'll have a full-scale epidemic regardless, but hopefully with a lower peak that the healthcare system will be able to handle.
- SilasX 7y ago
  "Oh, hey, please don't infect anyone" isn't what I'd call an impressive response.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    It's societally impressive if people take the request seriously enough that it works.
    - SilasX 7y ago
      >>>I'm impressed by the Norwegian health authorities' response thus far, and society's receptability
      - nitrogen 7y ago
        I suppose I would italicize "society's receptability" too. Also, if the weak-seeming response of the authorities is actually effective, then one could find that impressive.

70 points by ajaviaad 7y ago

jbverschoor 7y ago

Or you just don’t.. 90% of the jobs are useless anyway.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
If your goal is to earn money to continue to live they tend to be fairly important. We're talking animal needs here, not "is my job fulfilling or helping society?"

rob74 7y ago

"Masks are actually not recommended, but won’t make anything worse" - sounds very short-sighted to me. If a lot of people start buying and wearing masks just because it makes them feel safer, people who might actually need masks (i.e. medical personnel) might have trouble getting them...

antoniuschan99 7y ago
I hear this argument a lot. Why don’t Medical personnel have their own portal to obtain medical supplies that thr regular population doesn’t have access to?
geddy 7y ago
This is already happening: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-n95-face-mask-coronoavirus-20200228-43zikhw4ercbdma3lfeul4u6py-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-n95-face-mask...
- Seenso 7y ago
  It's already happened. Ever since the coronavirus hit China, N95 masks have been sold or selling out in the US. I'm sure some were bought by preppers, but many were bought to export to China to help relieve acute shortages in Wuhan. Also, US medical facilities and government already don't have a sufficient stockpile, so there will be shortages and they're talking about changing usage practices to conserve the supply. 3M, at least, has said they're going to prioritize medical customers, but they're not going to catch up until April, at least. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor-communication-complicate-coronavirus-preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-an...
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Let's not forget price gouging. There are those despicable "entrepreneurs" that bought up masks to resell them on-line at high markup. There's supply and demand, but then there's straight profiteering from a public health crisis.
    - dmurray 7y ago
      To play devil's advocate: the profiteers are providing the mask manufacturers with cashflow and a strong market signal to manufacture more masks. Given that the coronavirus is spreading so slowly, this kind of market activity might actually increase the availability of masks when they're actually most necessary. Of course, there are other ways to achieve this effect: governments could order the mask manufacturers to step up production, or the manufacturers could take a gamble on the future and step up production before seeing an increase in sales (and a bank could finance that if cashflow was an issue). But you know, you wouldn't criticize the mask manufacturers for increasing production and thereby profits, so it's a bit harsh to blame the intermediaries.
      - Seenso 7y ago
        > They are providing the mask manufacturers with cashflow and a strong market signal to manufacture more masks. No they're not. The profiteers are resellers that bought masks/respirators from the manufacturers at regular price, then sell them with a crazy markup. I've been watching the prices of these items throughout this whole crisis, and the prices of 3M respirators sold through reputable retailers has not budged. 3M is not increasing them either: https://news.3m.com/blog/3m-stories/3m-responds-2019-novel-coronavirus https://news.3m.com/blog/3m-stories/3m-responds-2019-novel-c...: > 3M has not changed the prices we charge for 3M respirators as a result of the outbreak
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Indeed. They're just savvy enough to get a week ahead of the crowd and buy up all the stock, incidentally triggering the panic buying (it's not the regular people that bought enough of personal protection equipment that the stores started running short; it's the resellers, and the missing stock is what gets people scared).
joncrane 7y ago
Not only that, but as other commenters (and the health minister of Singapore) noted, most times, wearing a mask means you touch your face MORE to adjust it.
- antoniuschan99 7y ago
  The required gear should be Face Mask and Hand Sanitizer. People should start thinking of sanitizing their headphones too.
cpeterso 7y ago
Plus "masks may actually increase your coronavirus risk if worn improperly, surgeon general warns": https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-coronavirus-masks-risk-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-corona...

AlexCoventry 7y ago

I got curious about the US laws related to involuntary quarantine, last night. The federal government can only quarantine you as you enter the country or cross state lines. In Massachusetts, the state can quarantine you to a hospital or your home, and the compensation for lost wages is not to exceed $2 a day! It's a good time to be working remotely.

mc32 7y ago
Don’t hospitals have the power to quarantine patients as well? So you go to hospital to get checked, one potentially end up being quarantined, depending on their assessment.
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  As I read the law, I think someone needs to be explicitly commissioned for those powers, on a disease-by-disease basis. I'm just going on my memory from reading for a different question, though. The relevant law is here: https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Chapter111/Section94G https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Ch... https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Chapter111/Section95 https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Ch...
SilasX 7y ago
lol that's ridiculous. I guess they never update this stuff for inflation? Australia has the right idea with "penalty units" so they can specify a monetary fine in a way that automatically keeps up with inflation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_unit
Analemma_ 7y ago
Those might be the powers that are specifically spelled out in statutes, but most states and the federal government grant medical authorities broad powers to do whatever they feel is necessary in the event of an emergency.

jdlyga 7y ago

Masks aren't really an individual thing that will keep you safe if only you wear it, but it helps if you look at a population that wears masks vs doesn't wear masks. If masks are worn by a certain percentage of the population, it's been shown to put a halt to influenza pandemics (according to a paper posted late last week). It stops people from touching their mouth, and stops infected people from spreading their germs to others. It's one of the reasons why the coronavirus hasn't taken hold in Hong Kong more than it has. The reason it's not been recommended in the US is because it's not really part of our culture, and so we don't have a huge supply of them. Medical workers need them the most. But if we did have enough, yes they're definitely recommended.

sithlord 7y ago
Dont forget, if people are not accustomed to wearing masks, or if they are not fitted correctly - it will cause the person to be constantly readjusting, and touching their face more than if they didnt have the mask on.
ghostpepper 7y ago
Is there any evidence that masks stop healthy people from acquiring the virus? I think everyone agrees that sick people should wear one to stop it from spreading. I'm also not convinced that a mask stops you from touching your mouth. Some experts are saying that it will actually cause you to touch your face more, and if the mask is not waterproof (are N95 respirators waterproof?) after less than an hour of wear the humidity of your breath will have created a large wet patch directly covering your mouth and nose. Now any time you touch a surface and then readjust your mask, you're planting more bacteria and viruses directly on that wet patch.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rayvd 7y ago
  Masks, as most people wear them, don't do much. They'd need to be custom fitted to ensure no "leakage". The surgical masks do even less.

cryoshon 7y ago

>This is going to cost you money, time, and opportunity herein lies the problem. everyone knows the virus is costing time and money. but how much do you want to bet that unscrupulous people are going to want to try to keep their employees working in-office or on their retail sites so that their bottom line doesn't get hammered as hard? without a public health response mandating certain measures -- a response which the US public health bodies have been woefully slow to initiate -- many people will be left at risk. then there's the other issue: what do we do about people who can't afford to stop working or work remotely? at present, we have no plan. these people are a ticking time bomb because our political apparatus refuses to mobilize in response to this threat.

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
I'm curious what would lead to more death and disease overall: shutting down retails sales, or trying to keep it running? For really basic goods and services: production and sales of food, fuel, electricity, healthcare, etc., it's easy to imagine the health impact of a prolonged interruption. But what about less urgent categories, such as building construction, automobile manufacturing, restaurants, and tourism? Is it possible that a prolonged reduction in economic activity from those sectors would have a major impact on public health?
- Frost1x 7y ago
  It's certainly an incredibly complex multifaceted issue. It would be interesting with the correct data to model the infection rate and mortality rate. As a back of the envelop calculation from someone who doesn't do epidemiological modeling, the US has ~330M people. The flu itself infects 5-20% of the population from what I read so let's say this virus infects a conservative 3%, we're at 9.9M. Based on the data I'm seeing, mortality rate is higher than 3% but there's a lot of factors that go into that (so who knows), so were at just shy of 300k deaths. I think those are conservative figures, personally. My guess is the transmission rate and mortality rates are both higher but there are again so many unknowns. https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/01/23/coronavirus-outbreak-mapping-tool-649-em1-art1-dtd-health/ https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/01/23/coronavirus-outbreak-mapping-...

alephnan 7y ago

At the bottom of the article, I see an ad for TechCrunch SF in late April. Wonder if that’s still going on ...

matthewmcg 7y ago

It's only a matter of time before school closures begin. For working parents with school-aged children, that essentially means no available working time. I'm surprised there's not more attention being paid to this.

cryoshon 7y ago
school and business closures should have happened two or three weeks ago when it was clear that the US still had a chance to nip the infection in the bud. now, it's way too late. we've had numerous instances of community transmission where we can't track the origin of the infection. we'll need to shutter everything for a longer period if we want to prevent widespread infections.
- usaar333 7y ago
  School closures can be enormously disruptive if not handled correctly. As OP notes, who is going to watch the kids if you close schools? We have large numbers of essential services (medical, utility, food, etc.) that must keep running. - perhaps you could set up childcare for said workers, but again, you have to be careful here your prevention doesn't cause more harm.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    The whole point of school closures is to avoid kids from many families being together and mingling, so setting up a community childcare service for said workers is not appropriate. The counterpart to "who's going to work if they have to watch the kids?" is "who's going to work if they're infected because kids braught the virus from school?". Also, the childcare argument applies to just the first few years of the school - most of school-aged kids are old enough to stay home unsupervised if it's needed, and high school kids can supervise younger siblings.
    - usaar333 7y ago
      > Also, the childcare argument applies to just the first few years of the school - most of school-aged kids are old enough to stay home unsupervised if it's needed, It's a problem for basically kids ages 0-11 (depending on where your cut-off is); that's strictly the majority of children and hits a huge percentage of the workforce. Again, you very well can end up worse off if you do this (someone needs to work on medical treatments, medical research, etc.)

misja111 7y ago

I find this article a huge overreaction and at the same time an underestimation of the spread of the coming Corona pandemic. To start with the latter: this virus cannot be contained anymore, at best it can be slowed down. Which means that sooner or later we all will get it. So the extreme measures to isolate yourself from your environment in hopes of not getting contaminated are a waste of time and resources. On the other hand, for normal healthy people, who seem to be the group at which this article is targeted, the infection is not much worse than influenza. Many people don't even realize they have it. "Take the loss" is the only reasonable paragraph in the article.

QUFB 7y ago
> To start with the latter: this virus cannot be contained anymore, at best it can be slowed down. Which means that sooner or later we all will get it. So the extreme measures to isolate yourself from your environment in hopes of not getting contaminated are a waste of time and resources. Not true at all. There is a great benefit to "flattening the curve" to spread out the infections over time, as a high percentage of cases for older individuals will require hospitalization, and there are a limited number of beds available. If reasonable isolation measure are in place, this could happen, as there would be fewer active carriers at any time to transmit the virus to vulnerable populations.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
  It seems like a lot of the public/government messaging regarding this virus is ambiguous regarding their policy goals: true containment (like you'd want with Ebola), or simply flatting the rate of spread (as you argue). If the GP was referring to messaging that suggests a goal of true containment, then I think you're both right.
- Seenso 7y ago
  > Not true at all. There is a great benefit to "flattening the curve" to spread out the infections over time, as a high percentage of cases for older individuals will require hospitalization, and there are a limited number of beds available. If reasonable isolation measure are in place, this could happen, as there would be fewer active carriers at any time to transmit the virus to vulnerable populations. Also, delaying infections helps buy time to bring novel treatments to bear on the problem.

LarryDarrell 7y ago

A global pandemic is a great rebuttal to right-wing arguments that paid sick days and single payer healthcare are socialist policies that would wreck the economy.

rayvd 7y ago
Now there's a helluva leap.

marvin 7y ago

I'm impressed by the Norwegian health authorities' response thus far, and society's receptability. We have 19 confirmed cases, and more or less everyone who has met a confirmed infected individual is (strongly) encouraged to self-quarantine for two weeks. Working from home if possible, staying off work if not. This means that 100-300 people are self-quarantining at the moment. It's costly in terms of lost time, but it's much less costly than a full-scale epidemic will be. Will be very interesting to see whether these measures work. My gut feeling says we'll have a full-scale epidemic regardless, but hopefully with a lower peak that the healthcare system will be able to handle.

SilasX 7y ago
"Oh, hey, please don't infect anyone" isn't what I'd call an impressive response.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  It's societally impressive if people take the request seriously enough that it works.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    >>>I'm impressed by the Norwegian health authorities' response thus far, and society's receptability
    - nitrogen 7y ago
      I suppose I would italicize "society's receptability" too. Also, if the weak-seeming response of the authorities is actually effective, then one could find that impressive.