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Exactly! The "lock it all down" attitude has a heavy streak of unthinking authoritarianism to it that makes me very uncomfortable. Reasonable precautions? Of c

Exactly! The "lock it all down" attitude has a heavy streak of unthinking authoritarianism to it that makes me very uncomfortable. Reasonable precautions? Of course. Going nuts and disrupting everyone's lives and businesses like that? I'd rather not.

kaoD 7y ago
> I'd rather not. Every other nation would rather not too but, as soon as every single hospital collapses due to the sheer volume of cases (it's really that bad)... oh, you'd all rather yep, just like we did. It doesn't look like the US is going the South Korean way. And when I say "the hospital collapses" I really mean it cannot even take care of other emergencies. There are not enough ICU beds nor ventilators. Period. Normal operation is mostly halted too (I know this from first hand). The worst is I know you won't listen, just like nobody else listened until it was too late. Quote me on that.
solveit 7y ago
As I see it, you have a choice between three options. 1. Go nuts and lock everything down, Wuhan-style. 2. Be really competent at testing people, tracking everyone they've come into contact with over the previous ~2 weeks, test them too, and recurse. South Korea/Singapore-style. 3. Accept that ~60% of your population will get the virus and take the ~million deaths. Obviously 2 is the best choice to take, but in the absence of competent government, you will inevitably get overreaching government because reasonable precautions taken by mediocre government DOES NOT WORK!
- avip 7y ago
  60% of your population will get the virus and take the ~million deaths this implies 0.5% fatality rate. That's about an order of magnitude off.
  - solveit 7y ago
    You're right. I chose the optimistic end of fatality estimates because that's the conservative choice (for making the point I was making) but given that infrastructure will collapse in this scenario the true fatality rate is almost certain to be a lot higher.
  - jgalt212 7y ago
    I don't think there's enough data to say for sure on this in the sense that outside of S Korea, very few asymptomatic people have been tested.
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    Not according to S Korea
    - crooked-v 7y ago
      South Korea's infections have all overwhelmingly come from the same religious group, which tilts heavily towards the 25-35 year old demographic. People in that age group have a very low chance of dying from the disease.
    - klipt 7y ago
      South Korea has kept their infection rate low enough that it doesn't overwhelm their hospitals. The fatality rate is more like 5% if you can't get treated because the hospital is full.
  - __blockcipher__ 7y ago
    I would wager that a 0.5% mortality rate is closer to the “real” rate than the 5% figure. Look at South Korea. Do you see a 5% CFR there? Of course not.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > As I see it, you have a choice between three options. You left out a fourth option: 4. People exercise common sense and take precautions on their own initiative to minimize their risk. You don't have to wait for the government to tell you what to do.
  - acdha 7y ago
    You can look around to see how realistic that fantasy is. People are notoriously bad at risk assessment and in many cases the costs are borne by other people: those healthy 25 year olds hitting the bars all weekend probably don’t have much to worry about, but that’s almost certainly not true for everyone they cross paths with during the period where they’d be contagious. This is exacerbated by the political angle: once a huge, well-funded and entrenched propaganda system picked this up, it became inevitable that there’d be a lot of people who will take inordinate amounts of personal risk because they think doing so is somehow sticking it to liberals. The latest NBC poll showed a stark partisan divide on even basic personal safety measures: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/sixty-percent-believe-worst-yet-come-u-s-coronavirus-pandemic-n1159106 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/sixty-percen...
  - yongjik 7y ago
    People are hoarding toilet papers and you expect them to somehow channel knowledge through common sense and magically understand which places/activities to avoid?
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > People are hoarding toilet papers Yes, this was the oddest thing I noticed while shopping for necessaries. Every single place I went to was totally cleaned out of toilet paper. Other paper products were depleted but not completely out, but TP--nada. I don't get it.
      - D2187645 7y ago
        Its a symptom of those who have the virus, a intense need to collect toilet paper.
- blackoil 7y ago
  If you act early when total cases are in single or low double digit, 2 is a choice you can make. But for most of the world, that option is gone. Now the choices are 1 and 3. I like choosing lock-down to reduce no of wild cases to a small number followed by option 2. I believe that is what they are planning in Wuhan and China. They'll lift off the lock down gradually but will continue with aggressive monitoring/testing and tracing. This will bring back the economy while still keeping the risk of epidemic.

kaoD 7y ago

> I'd rather not. Every other nation would rather not too but, as soon as every single hospital collapses due to the sheer volume of cases (it's really that bad)... oh, you'd all rather yep, just like we did. It doesn't look like the US is going the South Korean way. And when I say "the hospital collapses" I really mean it cannot even take care of other emergencies. There are not enough ICU beds nor ventilators. Period. Normal operation is mostly halted too (I know this from first hand). The worst is I know you won't listen, just like nobody else listened until it was too late. Quote me on that.

solveit 7y ago

As I see it, you have a choice between three options. 1. Go nuts and lock everything down, Wuhan-style. 2. Be really competent at testing people, tracking everyone they've come into contact with over the previous ~2 weeks, test them too, and recurse. South Korea/Singapore-style. 3. Accept that ~60% of your population will get the virus and take the ~million deaths. Obviously 2 is the best choice to take, but in the absence of competent government, you will inevitably get overreaching government because reasonable precautions taken by mediocre government DOES NOT WORK!

avip 7y ago
60% of your population will get the virus and take the ~million deaths this implies 0.5% fatality rate. That's about an order of magnitude off.
- solveit 7y ago
  You're right. I chose the optimistic end of fatality estimates because that's the conservative choice (for making the point I was making) but given that infrastructure will collapse in this scenario the true fatality rate is almost certain to be a lot higher.
- jgalt212 7y ago
  I don't think there's enough data to say for sure on this in the sense that outside of S Korea, very few asymptomatic people have been tested.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  Not according to S Korea
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    South Korea's infections have all overwhelmingly come from the same religious group, which tilts heavily towards the 25-35 year old demographic. People in that age group have a very low chance of dying from the disease.
  - klipt 7y ago
    South Korea has kept their infection rate low enough that it doesn't overwhelm their hospitals. The fatality rate is more like 5% if you can't get treated because the hospital is full.
- __blockcipher__ 7y ago
  I would wager that a 0.5% mortality rate is closer to the “real” rate than the 5% figure. Look at South Korea. Do you see a 5% CFR there? Of course not.
pdonis 7y ago
> As I see it, you have a choice between three options. You left out a fourth option: 4. People exercise common sense and take precautions on their own initiative to minimize their risk. You don't have to wait for the government to tell you what to do.
- acdha 7y ago
  You can look around to see how realistic that fantasy is. People are notoriously bad at risk assessment and in many cases the costs are borne by other people: those healthy 25 year olds hitting the bars all weekend probably don’t have much to worry about, but that’s almost certainly not true for everyone they cross paths with during the period where they’d be contagious. This is exacerbated by the political angle: once a huge, well-funded and entrenched propaganda system picked this up, it became inevitable that there’d be a lot of people who will take inordinate amounts of personal risk because they think doing so is somehow sticking it to liberals. The latest NBC poll showed a stark partisan divide on even basic personal safety measures: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/sixty-percent-believe-worst-yet-come-u-s-coronavirus-pandemic-n1159106 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/sixty-percen...
- yongjik 7y ago
  People are hoarding toilet papers and you expect them to somehow channel knowledge through common sense and magically understand which places/activities to avoid?
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > People are hoarding toilet papers Yes, this was the oddest thing I noticed while shopping for necessaries. Every single place I went to was totally cleaned out of toilet paper. Other paper products were depleted but not completely out, but TP--nada. I don't get it.
    - D2187645 7y ago
      Its a symptom of those who have the virus, a intense need to collect toilet paper.
blackoil 7y ago
If you act early when total cases are in single or low double digit, 2 is a choice you can make. But for most of the world, that option is gone. Now the choices are 1 and 3. I like choosing lock-down to reduce no of wild cases to a small number followed by option 2. I believe that is what they are planning in Wuhan and China. They'll lift off the lock down gradually but will continue with aggressive monitoring/testing and tracing. This will bring back the economy while still keeping the risk of epidemic.