5 ms·

The USA is going to be in terrible shape very soon, just look at this as of tonight: https://twitter.com/davidenrich/status/1239004689338970113 https://twitter.

The USA is going to be in terrible shape very soon, just look at this as of tonight: https://twitter.com/davidenrich/status/1239004689338970113 https://twitter.com/davidenrich/status/1239004689338970113

jtaft 7y ago
wow
beamatronic 7y ago
I cannot understand why unnecessary flying was not shut down weeks or months ago.
- nullc 7y ago
  Go read HN comments from weeks and months ago, and see the posters encouraging prompt measures getting called paranoids. :) Now scale this up to the whole country and account for the fact that HN is probably a little better on average about reasoning about these things. But now, on HN now we're mostly preaching to the choir... I've been contacting the officials of my state and surrounding communities since February 28th urging action. If your community isn't taking action you should join in. Even if your politicians don't respond to math, they'll still respond to public outcry. The best time to respond was a while ago, but today is still vastly better than tomorrow.
  - nodamage 7y ago
    > Go read HN comments from weeks and months ago, and see the posters encouraging prompt measures getting called paranoids. Exactly. Two weeks ago every coronavirus thread on Hacker News was full of deniers claiming this was no worse than the flu and this was all just media hysteria. Some probably still hold that opinion. I don't think they will be convinced until the hospitals start overflowing.
    - dmitriy_ko 7y ago
      Elon Musk was one of the deniers. You would think someone who "always starts with physics" would know better.
      - _jal 7y ago
        Wealthy people have a habit of doing this. Being good at something doesn't necessarily make you good at something else, and the hero-worship the wealthy get in the US (not to mention his fan club) can't help but go to one's head. (Engineers to, too. I try hard to watch it and I still arrogantly show my ignorance sometimes.)
      - friendlybus 7y ago
        He has a responsibility to not feed panic.
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      Yeah, When Coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, I tended to the opinion that it would self-limiting in one fashion or another or that is would not be worse than the flu. Only people arguing with me and me investigating the facts changed that. And, yeah, changing your opinion is hard and imagining a force that will upend the world is hard so it's easy to imagine how people stay in their positions. That said, we have a representative government with the aim of electing people who will think ahead and protect from purely reflex based views. And clearly that control has failed.
      - nullc 7y ago
        As disappointed as I am with much of the response in the US, it could still be a lot worse. The potential for this kind of pandemic is something that the government was aware of and at least somewhat prepared for. It can be hard to imagine, but if all we had were the concerns of joe-everyman this would have caught us significantly more off-guard than it has. Where I think we've faltered is in rapidly the hard decisions to trade-off short term economic impact vs long term health and economic impact. But there is still time to do a lot of good, and the level of our response seems to now-- finally-- be increasing exponentially along with the infection.
- ajmurmann 7y ago
  That apparently makes very little difference. I listened to an interview with a Yale professor who cited stories that showed minimal impact. The supposed reason is that by the time you know a country has an outbreak, it's already to late and people from there will have travelled to your country. What apparently had been shown to be very effective is preemptive school closures. Unfortunately that's a tough call because we can't have a well functioning social system liked other developed countries. Interview: https://samharris.org/podcasts/190-respond-coronavirus https://samharris.org/podcasts/190-respond-coronavirus
ekianjo 7y ago
Why are people still flying now? Most public transportation is rated as dangerous for several weeks already.
- thedance 7y ago
  Why do people ever fly? Something like a quarter of people who travel by air contract a respiratory infection from doing so. It's an extremely effective way to spread disease.
newtoday 7y ago
I'm in the US, no one cared about this until a few days ago. Now, some stores are getting low on food supplies, and people are posting about it. But, I was at a store today where they were completely stocked, and the only empty shelf was the toilet paper supply! It's insane.
- dboreham 7y ago
  Surely the hand sanitizer shelf was empty too?
  - erikerikson 7y ago
    Tofu was surprisingly empty here.
  - newtoday 7y ago
    Not empty at all, maybe a shipment came in, though.
- pettycashstash2 7y ago
  What? I’m in New England tri state and started preparing 28 days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22339369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22339369
  - dboreham 7y ago
    Parent presumably means no regular people. I had a similar experience: a month ago I suddenly realized we may need to be isolated at home for up to 2 months. I live in a place where that's actually fairly practical. Except our generator was broken. So I left work, drove to town immediately with the idea that I might be able to get the last generator as they sold out given that everyone else surely would be also buying a generator. Then over the next month I watched as Costco stacked a huge pile of generators near the entrance, eventually hand sanitizer sold out, flu medication, Isopropyl alcohol, and finally TP. I think you can still get a generator though.
    - 7y ago
vl 7y ago
Well, all these people consciously have chosen to fly at the time like this. It was clear that drastic travel disruption is imminent and chance of exposure is high on the plane, and yet they took the risk.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  Wow, you're not even considering that each infection in that airport will come back and infect a bunch of people who didn't make the choice to fly? IE we should not allow people to take risks that are going impact all of society. The virus has exploded the American myth that we can isolate individual behavior to individual rewards but also this myth means the country is going to seriously suffer.

jtaft 7y ago

wow

beamatronic 7y ago

I cannot understand why unnecessary flying was not shut down weeks or months ago.

nullc 7y ago
Go read HN comments from weeks and months ago, and see the posters encouraging prompt measures getting called paranoids. :) Now scale this up to the whole country and account for the fact that HN is probably a little better on average about reasoning about these things. But now, on HN now we're mostly preaching to the choir... I've been contacting the officials of my state and surrounding communities since February 28th urging action. If your community isn't taking action you should join in. Even if your politicians don't respond to math, they'll still respond to public outcry. The best time to respond was a while ago, but today is still vastly better than tomorrow.
- nodamage 7y ago
  > Go read HN comments from weeks and months ago, and see the posters encouraging prompt measures getting called paranoids. Exactly. Two weeks ago every coronavirus thread on Hacker News was full of deniers claiming this was no worse than the flu and this was all just media hysteria. Some probably still hold that opinion. I don't think they will be convinced until the hospitals start overflowing.
  - dmitriy_ko 7y ago
    Elon Musk was one of the deniers. You would think someone who "always starts with physics" would know better.
    - _jal 7y ago
      Wealthy people have a habit of doing this. Being good at something doesn't necessarily make you good at something else, and the hero-worship the wealthy get in the US (not to mention his fan club) can't help but go to one's head. (Engineers to, too. I try hard to watch it and I still arrogantly show my ignorance sometimes.)
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      He has a responsibility to not feed panic.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    Yeah, When Coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, I tended to the opinion that it would self-limiting in one fashion or another or that is would not be worse than the flu. Only people arguing with me and me investigating the facts changed that. And, yeah, changing your opinion is hard and imagining a force that will upend the world is hard so it's easy to imagine how people stay in their positions. That said, we have a representative government with the aim of electing people who will think ahead and protect from purely reflex based views. And clearly that control has failed.
    - nullc 7y ago
      As disappointed as I am with much of the response in the US, it could still be a lot worse. The potential for this kind of pandemic is something that the government was aware of and at least somewhat prepared for. It can be hard to imagine, but if all we had were the concerns of joe-everyman this would have caught us significantly more off-guard than it has. Where I think we've faltered is in rapidly the hard decisions to trade-off short term economic impact vs long term health and economic impact. But there is still time to do a lot of good, and the level of our response seems to now-- finally-- be increasing exponentially along with the infection.
ajmurmann 7y ago
That apparently makes very little difference. I listened to an interview with a Yale professor who cited stories that showed minimal impact. The supposed reason is that by the time you know a country has an outbreak, it's already to late and people from there will have travelled to your country. What apparently had been shown to be very effective is preemptive school closures. Unfortunately that's a tough call because we can't have a well functioning social system liked other developed countries. Interview: https://samharris.org/podcasts/190-respond-coronavirus https://samharris.org/podcasts/190-respond-coronavirus

ekianjo 7y ago

Why are people still flying now? Most public transportation is rated as dangerous for several weeks already.

thedance 7y ago
Why do people ever fly? Something like a quarter of people who travel by air contract a respiratory infection from doing so. It's an extremely effective way to spread disease.

newtoday 7y ago

I'm in the US, no one cared about this until a few days ago. Now, some stores are getting low on food supplies, and people are posting about it. But, I was at a store today where they were completely stocked, and the only empty shelf was the toilet paper supply! It's insane.

dboreham 7y ago
Surely the hand sanitizer shelf was empty too?
- erikerikson 7y ago
  Tofu was surprisingly empty here.
- newtoday 7y ago
  Not empty at all, maybe a shipment came in, though.
pettycashstash2 7y ago
What? I’m in New England tri state and started preparing 28 days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22339369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22339369
- dboreham 7y ago
  Parent presumably means no regular people. I had a similar experience: a month ago I suddenly realized we may need to be isolated at home for up to 2 months. I live in a place where that's actually fairly practical. Except our generator was broken. So I left work, drove to town immediately with the idea that I might be able to get the last generator as they sold out given that everyone else surely would be also buying a generator. Then over the next month I watched as Costco stacked a huge pile of generators near the entrance, eventually hand sanitizer sold out, flu medication, Isopropyl alcohol, and finally TP. I think you can still get a generator though.
  - 7y ago

vl 7y ago

Well, all these people consciously have chosen to fly at the time like this. It was clear that drastic travel disruption is imminent and chance of exposure is high on the plane, and yet they took the risk.

joe_the_user 7y ago
Wow, you're not even considering that each infection in that airport will come back and infect a bunch of people who didn't make the choice to fly? IE we should not allow people to take risks that are going impact all of society. The virus has exploded the American myth that we can isolate individual behavior to individual rewards but also this myth means the country is going to seriously suffer.