8 ms·

I feel like we should just do this nation wide.

by Whut 7y ago

TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
USA is huge, and the virus is hitting different areas with different intensities. Its spread is heavily impacted by population density and rates of random social encounters. A Nationwide lockdown might make sense if the goal was to snuff the infection out, but as of now the goal is to lower the peak of the curve. If you lock down too early, you extend the infection to a length of time that makes the lockdown impossible.
- vehementi 7y ago
  > If you lock down too early, you extend the infection to a length of time that makes the lockdown impossible. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?
  - syshum 7y ago
    This virus will be with everyone for 18+ months, the point of the lockdown is allow the Health system to catch up If you lock down early you irreparably harm the local economy and simply delay a spike instead of "flattening the curve" unless you are willing to except a year long lock down, massive economic depression and the colapse of the US Dollar
    - wbl 7y ago
      We could contact trace and quarantine like SK is now.
      - syshum 7y ago
        We should be doing that, but that is not what we are doing We quarantine in indiscriminately with no tracing, very little testing This has all the economic harm with no benefits that a proper quarantine would have
    - 40four 7y ago
      This is happening in my area right now. The number of cases is little to none, but the governor threw a blanket lock down on bars and restaurants, etc, over the whole state. It was too early for my area for sure. So in the meantime, businesses and people's livelihoods are already being destroyed.
      - mythrwy 7y ago
        The number of infected though is unknown because we haven't tested many people. When it is known then lock down on bars restaurants etc. will be too late.
        40four 7y ago
        I live in South Carolina https://www.scdhec.gov/monitoring-testing-covid-19 https://www.scdhec.gov/monitoring-testing-covid-19. You are correct testing is still low, but I don't think that data is useless. I don't agree with the notion that it 'will be too late'. As others have said, the point of a lock down should to prevent the hospitals from getting overwhelmed, prevent ventilator shortages, etc. Nobody even knows if a preemptive lock down can 'squash' the virus. While testing is being ramped up, aren't there other ways to determine outbreaks? Can't our leaders communicate with hospitals and find out number of open beds, ventilators, an influx of patients with suspected symptoms? It is still going to be around once we come of of hiding, whenever that is, so it's possible we are just delaying the acceleration phase and we end up with the same result later instead of facing it now. I'm not saying there is never a time for a lock down, I just wonder if my local leaders panicked and did it to early, because they didn't know what else to do? So in my area, the hospitals are fine. People are not flooding in the doors. Meanwhile thousands of jobs & businesses are being torched. My mom is a massage therapist, and is out of work for the foreseeable future. I just think there are smarter ways to go about it.
  - ipsum2 7y ago
    You can't have a lockdown for more than a few months, otherwise the economy grinds to a halt and you get something akin to or worse than the great depression.
  - jellicle 7y ago
    Poster seems to be thinking about the "UK approach" which is declared to be managing the situation until population immunity catches up and helps snuff it out. But, since we're starting from zero natural immunity and a virulent disease with long hospitalizations, if you actually do the math here it never works - there's no situation where you can keep the number of infected low enough to not use up too many hospital beds and also high enough to get population immunity in any reasonable period of time. Those values simply don't overlap (which apparently someone has told the UK now, I guess). The only viable approach is massive lockdowns to reduce the number of infected to a reasonable number followed by super-aggressive public health interventions for each and every infected person to control future spread.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  > A Nationwide lockdown might make sense if the goal was to snuff the infection out The goal needs to be to snuff the infection out. Otherwise, we will be like this for the next year and a half while we wait for the vaccine, which IMO is not acceptable when a little extra short-term sacrifice can get us near eradication inside two months. Also, even if the curve is mediated by density, it seems clear enough that a lack of density is not going to be sufficient to prevent it from becoming a crisis. The infection is spreading even in less dense cities like Atlanta, New Orleans, and Saint Louis.
  - jeremyjh 7y ago
    Snuffing the virus out is not an option at this point. Perhaps they could have done that in Wuhan in December, but it is not an choice we can make for the United States in March. And no, we aren't waiting for a vaccine. We will build herd immunity as people contract the virus, develop antibodies and recover from it. The goal now is to moderate the rate at which people acquire the disease so that the critical cases do not overflow health care capacity.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
      Snuffing out the virus absolutely is an option. If we adopt a stance that makes R0 < 1, there is no other stochastically possible outcome. Whether we will is another question. > We will build herd immunity as people contract the virus, develop antibodies and recover from it. This is a pipe dream, at least outside the context where we are going to accept megadeaths or years of social distancing. The hospital capacity of the US is such that, if we were to run them all at 100% and somehow hold the virus exactly to the level that maximally utilizes ICUs, it would still take the better part of a decade before we got to the point of having herd immunity.
      - TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
        How is it possible to make R0 < 1 for rural Africa? Or for the remote areas of the world? For something more infectious than the flu? It's impossible, unfortunately. There are billions on the planet without even access to the internet. Many don't have running water or consistent food. How can we get R0 less than 1 there?
- 40four 7y ago
  I agree... it doesn't make sense to just throw a blanket lock down over the whole county indiscriminately. Same goes for state governors to throw these blanket shutdowns of bars a restaurants over the whole state at once. I don't understand why we can't take a more localize approach to this. Maybe only implement the lock downs in the worst areas, or areas entering acceleration phase. Can't we be smarter about this? We don't even know if it will snuff the infection out. It might just be kicking the can down the road. In my area, it is still very low risk. Meanwhile, businesses are already beginning to shut down, and people's are loosing their livelihoods.
  - papa_bear 7y ago
    Without out adequate testing, we can't know where to localize the lockdowns to.
    - 40four 7y ago
      Agreed, I don't understand why there isn't a concerted effort to ramp up testing. NYC is doing this now, part of the reason their total cases are going so high so quickly. Lockdown makes sense for them right now. The medical facilities are starting to feel the pressure.
    - TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
      This is true, but you don't need blanket testing to have adequate testing for estimation of community spread. There is a fantastic video here[1] that covers the specifics, but basically we know enough about how the virus spreads that if we just track who is in the hospital or dead from the virus, we can estimate its state of community spread, and thus know when to lock down. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCa0JXEwDEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCa0JXEwDEk
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
s1artibartfast 7y ago
That would do more harm than the virus. The virus is not everywhere[1] and no lockdown is perfect, so the virus will spread hit different places at different times. It is better to lock down regions or states as needed Also, unnecessary lockdowns can ruin the credibility of the heath authorities. IF we lock down counties with no cases, not only are we needlessly disrupting lives, people wont listen to the order when it IS necessary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_States#/media/File:COVID-19_Outbreak_Cases_in_the_United_States_by_counties_(Confirmed).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_t...

I feel like we should just do this nation wide.

by Whut 7y ago

I feel like we should just do this nation wide.

USA is huge, and the virus is hitting different areas with different intensities. Its spread is heavily impacted by population density and rates of random social encounters. A Nationwide lockdown might make sense if the goal was to snuff the infection out, but as of now the goal is to lower the peak of the curve. If you lock down too early, you extend the infection to a length of time that makes the lockdown impossible.

vehementi 7y ago
> If you lock down too early, you extend the infection to a length of time that makes the lockdown impossible. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?
- syshum 7y ago
  This virus will be with everyone for 18+ months, the point of the lockdown is allow the Health system to catch up If you lock down early you irreparably harm the local economy and simply delay a spike instead of "flattening the curve" unless you are willing to except a year long lock down, massive economic depression and the colapse of the US Dollar
  - wbl 7y ago
    We could contact trace and quarantine like SK is now.
    - syshum 7y ago
      We should be doing that, but that is not what we are doing We quarantine in indiscriminately with no tracing, very little testing This has all the economic harm with no benefits that a proper quarantine would have
  - 40four 7y ago
    This is happening in my area right now. The number of cases is little to none, but the governor threw a blanket lock down on bars and restaurants, etc, over the whole state. It was too early for my area for sure. So in the meantime, businesses and people's livelihoods are already being destroyed.
    - mythrwy 7y ago
      The number of infected though is unknown because we haven't tested many people. When it is known then lock down on bars restaurants etc. will be too late.
      - 40four 7y ago
        I live in South Carolina https://www.scdhec.gov/monitoring-testing-covid-19 https://www.scdhec.gov/monitoring-testing-covid-19. You are correct testing is still low, but I don't think that data is useless. I don't agree with the notion that it 'will be too late'. As others have said, the point of a lock down should to prevent the hospitals from getting overwhelmed, prevent ventilator shortages, etc. Nobody even knows if a preemptive lock down can 'squash' the virus. While testing is being ramped up, aren't there other ways to determine outbreaks? Can't our leaders communicate with hospitals and find out number of open beds, ventilators, an influx of patients with suspected symptoms? It is still going to be around once we come of of hiding, whenever that is, so it's possible we are just delaying the acceleration phase and we end up with the same result later instead of facing it now. I'm not saying there is never a time for a lock down, I just wonder if my local leaders panicked and did it to early, because they didn't know what else to do? So in my area, the hospitals are fine. People are not flooding in the doors. Meanwhile thousands of jobs & businesses are being torched. My mom is a massage therapist, and is out of work for the foreseeable future. I just think there are smarter ways to go about it.
- ipsum2 7y ago
  You can't have a lockdown for more than a few months, otherwise the economy grinds to a halt and you get something akin to or worse than the great depression.
- jellicle 7y ago
  Poster seems to be thinking about the "UK approach" which is declared to be managing the situation until population immunity catches up and helps snuff it out. But, since we're starting from zero natural immunity and a virulent disease with long hospitalizations, if you actually do the math here it never works - there's no situation where you can keep the number of infected low enough to not use up too many hospital beds and also high enough to get population immunity in any reasonable period of time. Those values simply don't overlap (which apparently someone has told the UK now, I guess). The only viable approach is massive lockdowns to reduce the number of infected to a reasonable number followed by super-aggressive public health interventions for each and every infected person to control future spread.
asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
> A Nationwide lockdown might make sense if the goal was to snuff the infection out The goal needs to be to snuff the infection out. Otherwise, we will be like this for the next year and a half while we wait for the vaccine, which IMO is not acceptable when a little extra short-term sacrifice can get us near eradication inside two months. Also, even if the curve is mediated by density, it seems clear enough that a lack of density is not going to be sufficient to prevent it from becoming a crisis. The infection is spreading even in less dense cities like Atlanta, New Orleans, and Saint Louis.
- jeremyjh 7y ago
  Snuffing the virus out is not an option at this point. Perhaps they could have done that in Wuhan in December, but it is not an choice we can make for the United States in March. And no, we aren't waiting for a vaccine. We will build herd immunity as people contract the virus, develop antibodies and recover from it. The goal now is to moderate the rate at which people acquire the disease so that the critical cases do not overflow health care capacity.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    Snuffing out the virus absolutely is an option. If we adopt a stance that makes R0 < 1, there is no other stochastically possible outcome. Whether we will is another question. > We will build herd immunity as people contract the virus, develop antibodies and recover from it. This is a pipe dream, at least outside the context where we are going to accept megadeaths or years of social distancing. The hospital capacity of the US is such that, if we were to run them all at 100% and somehow hold the virus exactly to the level that maximally utilizes ICUs, it would still take the better part of a decade before we got to the point of having herd immunity.
    - TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
      How is it possible to make R0 < 1 for rural Africa? Or for the remote areas of the world? For something more infectious than the flu? It's impossible, unfortunately. There are billions on the planet without even access to the internet. Many don't have running water or consistent food. How can we get R0 less than 1 there?
40four 7y ago
I agree... it doesn't make sense to just throw a blanket lock down over the whole county indiscriminately. Same goes for state governors to throw these blanket shutdowns of bars a restaurants over the whole state at once. I don't understand why we can't take a more localize approach to this. Maybe only implement the lock downs in the worst areas, or areas entering acceleration phase. Can't we be smarter about this? We don't even know if it will snuff the infection out. It might just be kicking the can down the road. In my area, it is still very low risk. Meanwhile, businesses are already beginning to shut down, and people's are loosing their livelihoods.
- papa_bear 7y ago
  Without out adequate testing, we can't know where to localize the lockdowns to.
  - 40four 7y ago
    Agreed, I don't understand why there isn't a concerted effort to ramp up testing. NYC is doing this now, part of the reason their total cases are going so high so quickly. Lockdown makes sense for them right now. The medical facilities are starting to feel the pressure.
  - TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
    This is true, but you don't need blanket testing to have adequate testing for estimation of community spread. There is a fantastic video here[1] that covers the specifics, but basically we know enough about how the virus spreads that if we just track who is in the hospital or dead from the virus, we can estimate its state of community spread, and thus know when to lock down. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCa0JXEwDEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCa0JXEwDEk

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

s1artibartfast 7y ago

That would do more harm than the virus. The virus is not everywhere[1] and no lockdown is perfect, so the virus will spread hit different places at different times. It is better to lock down regions or states as needed Also, unnecessary lockdowns can ruin the credibility of the heath authorities. IF we lock down counties with no cases, not only are we needlessly disrupting lives, people wont listen to the order when it IS necessary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_States#/media/File:COVID-19_Outbreak_Cases_in_the_United_States_by_counties_(Confirmed).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_t...