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This same argument process--that to "flatten the curve" in the way all the cutesy diagrams show isn't going to be sufficient to avoid chaos unless we maintain s
by saurik 7y ago
This same argument process--that to "flatten the curve" in the way all the cutesy diagrams show isn't going to be sufficient to avoid chaos unless we maintain social distancing for years, and that we are deluding everyone into thinking this is "the solution" and that life is somehow going to go back to normal in a couple months (which is where most of the people I know--normal people, not all of my super paranoid friends ;P--are with their mental timelines) to the point where we are not concentrating any effort on anything else (to the point where believing "flattening the curve" is some panacea is maybe even a "dangerous delusion"), including capacity expansion and explicit tracing--was made by someone in an article on medium a few days ago. The prior article had the same little modified graphs showing the true problem, but had actual math to back up their back of the envelope calculations for why it will take years. FWIW, that article was shat on... hard... by people here on Hacker News, and was even flagged, because people even here are apparently so bought into the narrative that they take arguments that it isn't sufficient as somehow "so don't do it: social distancing is bad" (which is bullshit, and not what either of these arguments were/are saying). It is absolutely frustrating how much of an uphill battle it is to even get people to analyze this stuff quickly: we keep having to wait until things get notably worse and then we are willing to look at something only slightly more drastic. I have had friends making this same argument for like a month now and everyone just treats them as if they were literally insane or something :(.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22575356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22575356
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22581950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22581950
- smallgovt 7y agoI think you're conflating what the general public believes with what those in control believe. It is in the public's best interest for the general public to only worry about what is within their control (so as to avoid panic). Therefore, the general public is being led to believe that all is going to be OK after a couple months of social distancing. I guarantee you behind the scenes, those in control are scrambling to take immediate and drastic action to ramp up our medical treatment capacity.
- saurik 7y ago...but I am an elected government official (for a hyper local government, though in a good position where I get to peak behind the curtain of the regional government above me) and the vast majority of my friends work in government; and when I present the argument about capacity expansion moving the line on that cute graph upward as a critical thing we should be doing in addition to moving the peak down and to the right using capacity expansion, the reaction was literally "huh, I hadn't thought about it that way before" :(.