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At this point wouldn't it be better to just implement a Chinese-style martial law lock-down? The damage to the economy is already here. Might as well shut thing

At this point wouldn't it be better to just implement a Chinese-style martial law lock-down? The damage to the economy is already here. Might as well shut things down for 3-4 weeks and slowly open up sections of a city. That seems better to me then dragging this thing out for 3 months or longer. I feel like these "stages" of lock-down are doing nothing but delaying the inevitable which will cause more damage in the long run.

quartzite 7y ago
Exactly. All this talk of "flattening the curve" is counterproductive if the curve remains flattened right at capacity for an extended period of time, which is what these measures will cause, rather than spiking for a short period.
- r00fus 7y ago
  Yeah, because a quick spike wouldn't have any outside effects at all. You sound as if you're ok with millions of people dying miserably. You think a long period of decreased economy is bad, the spike might cause outright panics and armed unrest. We can print dollars, we can't resurrect the dead.
  - virmundi 7y ago
    Why not make the death fast? The argument is for euthanasia not a poor life to slowly die.
    - r00fus 7y ago
      It's not "death fast", it's: 1) way more deaths and a complete congestion of medical services vs. 2) less deaths, manageable medical service and a period of painful stagnation for the economy. If you get critically sick or injured (not COVID19 related) and hospitals are overflowing, you will suffer when no one can see you because of COVID19 cases.
      - quartzite 7y ago
        And the problem is that during an extended period of curve reduction there will still be people pushed out of medical care due to surging cases (but not spiking!). The total area between the number of patients and hospital capacity curves may be similar in both cases.
        r00fus 7y ago
        This also assumes an invariant capacity. Extended period gives us the opportunity increase that capacity through means including getting folks trained as hospital techs (4 week training) and having local teams sew & build our filters and masks. Essentially given a will, we could transition part of our economy to a war footing (against the virus). Do we have the will? Or do we capitulate and decimate the population?
      - virmundi 7y ago
        Why not move to a system where those most likely to live with minimal resource consumption move up? You’d probably need a multiplier for those that are useful to society but need more resources
        Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
        That sounds an awful lot like a romanticized perfect democracy, which cannot exist outside of fiction, or a social credit system. There's an ongoing study on the effectiveness of a social credit system. It's happening in China. Go test it out and report back.
  - mardifoufs 7y ago
    Can you print economic output though? Printing dollars only works when there are things to buy and sell. More money and less things to use it on only makes the money less useful (inflation). Usually the economy can absorb that extra supply pretty well to the point of being insignificant, but that doesn't work when you just stop said economy. Also, how do you think we will be able to support and help those more vulnerable if we don't have any economic output? Will printing money make supplies appear from nowhere?
- redisman 7y ago
  No one in this country is mentally ready for hospitals to just not be available for an unknown amount of time. IMHO this would cause complete societal breakdown. It's one of our basic needs like food and shelter.
- tedunangst 7y ago
  One wonders why they don't call it elongating the curve.
carlosdp 7y ago
I don't think authoritarian tactics like that, while effective, would fly in the US. I for one would not be ok with that. Once the government takes that authority once, who knows what they end up doing with it when they see they can get away with it.
- sodafountan 7y ago
  I agree, as alarming as it sounds I think we'd need something much higher than a 2% fatality rate to justify completely giving up our civil liberties. If anything it should be the elderly and vulnerable that are forced to isolate while the rest of society slows down for awhile, but even that I think is too egregious at this point.
  - redisman 7y ago
    You're not gonna get 2% fatality rate without serious quarantine measures. That rate assumes you can get all the serious cases to the ICU and into a ventilator. If you let it grow exponentially, we need to start imagining what is the fatality rate basically without any hospital care. Scaling hospitals will be absolutely impossible once the cases start heading into six and seven figures.
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    Imperial College doesn’t think that’s going to do enough good
  - mokus 7y ago
    Lincoln used marshal law during the civil war and even that was deemed unconstitutional in some areas. As long as there are functioning civil courts, marshal law is not considered justified, as I understand it.
    - schoen 7y ago
      It's "martial" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/martial#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/martial#English) rather than "marshal" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/marshal#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/marshal#English). The two are homophones, but the first means 'military' and the second is a particular rank or role within an army or government.
jimkri 7y ago
The only logical reason he might be doing it slowly is to limit the number of people trying to leave the city or state. This way people will trickle out instead of having a rush, like Italy, that caused it to spread
Dirlewanger 7y ago
Governments would love that. Also, don't think things regarding their newfound powers would go "back to normal" either after.
- ambicapter 7y ago
  What "newfound" powers? Did they pass any new laws for these powers? Seems like they always had them, so your scenario doesn't make sense.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    In the late 19th century New York City used to send people with serious infectious diseases to a Sanitarium. Unless they could afford to be under a doctor/hospitals care. Most didn't come back.
icelancer 7y ago
>> The damage to the economy is already here You think it can't get worse?
- y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
  On the contrary, I know it will get worse regardless of what we do. The question is does it get more worse with a long drawn out lock-down or a short and stern one? EDIT: a word
  - icelancer 7y ago
    I'll support lockdowns when the governments (local, state, federal) provide an economic relief package to go with it for all the businesses that will suffer absurd losses. It's real easy to shut down businesses and livelihoods when politicians are not responsible for the economic fallout.

quartzite 7y ago

Exactly. All this talk of "flattening the curve" is counterproductive if the curve remains flattened right at capacity for an extended period of time, which is what these measures will cause, rather than spiking for a short period.

r00fus 7y ago
Yeah, because a quick spike wouldn't have any outside effects at all. You sound as if you're ok with millions of people dying miserably. You think a long period of decreased economy is bad, the spike might cause outright panics and armed unrest. We can print dollars, we can't resurrect the dead.
- virmundi 7y ago
  Why not make the death fast? The argument is for euthanasia not a poor life to slowly die.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    It's not "death fast", it's: 1) way more deaths and a complete congestion of medical services vs. 2) less deaths, manageable medical service and a period of painful stagnation for the economy. If you get critically sick or injured (not COVID19 related) and hospitals are overflowing, you will suffer when no one can see you because of COVID19 cases.
    - quartzite 7y ago
      And the problem is that during an extended period of curve reduction there will still be people pushed out of medical care due to surging cases (but not spiking!). The total area between the number of patients and hospital capacity curves may be similar in both cases.
      - r00fus 7y ago
        This also assumes an invariant capacity. Extended period gives us the opportunity increase that capacity through means including getting folks trained as hospital techs (4 week training) and having local teams sew & build our filters and masks. Essentially given a will, we could transition part of our economy to a war footing (against the virus). Do we have the will? Or do we capitulate and decimate the population?
    - virmundi 7y ago
      Why not move to a system where those most likely to live with minimal resource consumption move up? You’d probably need a multiplier for those that are useful to society but need more resources
      - Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
        That sounds an awful lot like a romanticized perfect democracy, which cannot exist outside of fiction, or a social credit system. There's an ongoing study on the effectiveness of a social credit system. It's happening in China. Go test it out and report back.
- mardifoufs 7y ago
  Can you print economic output though? Printing dollars only works when there are things to buy and sell. More money and less things to use it on only makes the money less useful (inflation). Usually the economy can absorb that extra supply pretty well to the point of being insignificant, but that doesn't work when you just stop said economy. Also, how do you think we will be able to support and help those more vulnerable if we don't have any economic output? Will printing money make supplies appear from nowhere?
redisman 7y ago
No one in this country is mentally ready for hospitals to just not be available for an unknown amount of time. IMHO this would cause complete societal breakdown. It's one of our basic needs like food and shelter.
tedunangst 7y ago
One wonders why they don't call it elongating the curve.

carlosdp 7y ago

I don't think authoritarian tactics like that, while effective, would fly in the US. I for one would not be ok with that. Once the government takes that authority once, who knows what they end up doing with it when they see they can get away with it.

sodafountan 7y ago
I agree, as alarming as it sounds I think we'd need something much higher than a 2% fatality rate to justify completely giving up our civil liberties. If anything it should be the elderly and vulnerable that are forced to isolate while the rest of society slows down for awhile, but even that I think is too egregious at this point.
- redisman 7y ago
  You're not gonna get 2% fatality rate without serious quarantine measures. That rate assumes you can get all the serious cases to the ICU and into a ventilator. If you let it grow exponentially, we need to start imagining what is the fatality rate basically without any hospital care. Scaling hospitals will be absolutely impossible once the cases start heading into six and seven figures.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  Imperial College doesn’t think that’s going to do enough good
- mokus 7y ago
  Lincoln used marshal law during the civil war and even that was deemed unconstitutional in some areas. As long as there are functioning civil courts, marshal law is not considered justified, as I understand it.
  - schoen 7y ago
    It's "martial" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/martial#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/martial#English) rather than "marshal" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/marshal#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/marshal#English). The two are homophones, but the first means 'military' and the second is a particular rank or role within an army or government.

jimkri 7y ago

The only logical reason he might be doing it slowly is to limit the number of people trying to leave the city or state. This way people will trickle out instead of having a rush, like Italy, that caused it to spread

Dirlewanger 7y ago

Governments would love that. Also, don't think things regarding their newfound powers would go "back to normal" either after.

ambicapter 7y ago
What "newfound" powers? Did they pass any new laws for these powers? Seems like they always had them, so your scenario doesn't make sense.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  In the late 19th century New York City used to send people with serious infectious diseases to a Sanitarium. Unless they could afford to be under a doctor/hospitals care. Most didn't come back.

icelancer 7y ago

>> The damage to the economy is already here You think it can't get worse?

y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
On the contrary, I know it will get worse regardless of what we do. The question is does it get more worse with a long drawn out lock-down or a short and stern one? EDIT: a word
- icelancer 7y ago
  I'll support lockdowns when the governments (local, state, federal) provide an economic relief package to go with it for all the businesses that will suffer absurd losses. It's real easy to shut down businesses and livelihoods when politicians are not responsible for the economic fallout.