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There are a couple possible re-thinkings. The disturbing one is where it is noticed that we are essentially sacrificing a bit of the economy to reduce fatalitie

There are a couple possible re-thinkings. The disturbing one is where it is noticed that we are essentially sacrificing a bit of the economy to reduce fatalities. So next time it is decided that company valuations are worth the extra deaths[1] I submit that rethinking needs to be started early rather than late so the discussion isn't dominated by euphemisms for some very dark path. [1] As we know, social isolation is to spread out the pace of acute cases so as not to overwhelm hospitals. But it obviously slows the economy considerably. The alternative would be to not to isolate, keeping businesses wide open and allow the medical system to be overwhelmed with its accompanying higher mortality rate.

jacquesm 7y ago
America has been on the dark path where lives are equated to money for a long time now. It will take something quite dramatic to shock the system to the point where people are willing to re-think it from the ground up. Maybe this is that shock. If not now, then probably never.
- namibj 7y ago
  Except that quality-adjusted life expectancy changes due to side effects of drugs are valued much more higher than people dying due to being too broke to get any non-ER-care for acute, but not yet emergency-posing illnesses. Even within the drug certification process there is an issue with relatively niche drugs wasting a lot on overly-extensive studies, if you calculate how many people would get how much benefit from getting/affording these niche drugs. IIRC there is about an order of magnitude higher weight on side-effect deaths compared to lack-of-medicine deaths for niche drugs.
riffraff 7y ago
to be fair, you can adopt europe/wuhan-style total lockdown but you could also adopt developed-asia-style mass tracing. The latter seems to have been way more effective in containing the epidemic and less impactful on the economy. So, there was third option which saves both people and economy, but it's probably politically unfeasible.
- foota 7y ago
  It's not politically infeasible, the adminstration just fucked it up. We could have been mass testing like other countries back in early February.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  The sole alternate to wuhan-style lock down is not utter incompetence. You could have an administration spend the early days working on the problem and appointing an epidemiologist to spearhead it rather than assert it's "fake news" from political enemies, appointing a loyal politician to manage it and classifying early data. For one, you could so easily just inform distributors ahead of announcements to address hording and delivery instead of leaving the elderly with no to get food. Even merely a large government orders for masks at at the beginning would have had a huge impact.
- thu2111 7y ago
  It's too early to evaluate the tracing approach. The problem is what happens when other people come in from the outside. This is now a major problem in Beijing; not internal transmission but cases brought by arrivals.

jacquesm 7y ago

America has been on the dark path where lives are equated to money for a long time now. It will take something quite dramatic to shock the system to the point where people are willing to re-think it from the ground up. Maybe this is that shock. If not now, then probably never.

namibj 7y ago
Except that quality-adjusted life expectancy changes due to side effects of drugs are valued much more higher than people dying due to being too broke to get any non-ER-care for acute, but not yet emergency-posing illnesses. Even within the drug certification process there is an issue with relatively niche drugs wasting a lot on overly-extensive studies, if you calculate how many people would get how much benefit from getting/affording these niche drugs. IIRC there is about an order of magnitude higher weight on side-effect deaths compared to lack-of-medicine deaths for niche drugs.

riffraff 7y ago

to be fair, you can adopt europe/wuhan-style total lockdown but you could also adopt developed-asia-style mass tracing. The latter seems to have been way more effective in containing the epidemic and less impactful on the economy. So, there was third option which saves both people and economy, but it's probably politically unfeasible.

foota 7y ago
It's not politically infeasible, the adminstration just fucked it up. We could have been mass testing like other countries back in early February.
TomMckenny 7y ago
The sole alternate to wuhan-style lock down is not utter incompetence. You could have an administration spend the early days working on the problem and appointing an epidemiologist to spearhead it rather than assert it's "fake news" from political enemies, appointing a loyal politician to manage it and classifying early data. For one, you could so easily just inform distributors ahead of announcements to address hording and delivery instead of leaving the elderly with no to get food. Even merely a large government orders for masks at at the beginning would have had a huge impact.
thu2111 7y ago
It's too early to evaluate the tracing approach. The problem is what happens when other people come in from the outside. This is now a major problem in Beijing; not internal transmission but cases brought by arrivals.