4 ms·

So what changed in the last few days? What is playing out is EXACTLY what epidimiologists, scientists, mathemeticians, the US intelligence agencies, and the WHO

So what changed in the last few days? What is playing out is EXACTLY what epidimiologists, scientists, mathemeticians, the US intelligence agencies, and the WHO have been saying for over a month at this point. This has ALL been predicted and no one fucking cared or listened until it is BY DEFINITION TOO LATE. I've even been saying this for weeks now, and I get challenged on it. Even though every single day we continue to just follow or beat the worst trend lines from the worst affected countries BECAUSE WE'RE NOT DOING ANY OF THE THINGS WE KNOW WORK. What's going to be different next time? Are we going to have a global conversation about our inability to plan more than 2 days out? Our inability to grasp truly horrific facts and accept them, instead of letting fearful human brains go "That could never happen in America" (lol) even in the fact of raw statistics? Or is this just another thing I'm going to be eye-rolled at and told "it's just how it is". A global pandemic and economic slump (I'm metering my predictions here because this site doesn't seem to be able to handle realistically gloomy predictions for the future) still isn't enough to get us to ask how we got here?

ep103 7y ago
Just a reminder that trump still has a 43% approval rating among Americans. If you want to solve the problems you're talking about, you have to solve the underlying reason for this one first.
- fma 7y ago
  A quick video on the "underlying reason" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA
- 1996 7y ago
  You should not worry about the current low approval ratings. I'm sure it will easily go >50% once people see results coming - like field hospitals, hydroxychloroquine available to treat patients, etc. Even below 50%, everyone seems to comply and follow up on the lockdown at the moment. I don't know about the precise situation in Europe, but I've been told France had to go to martial law because people were not complying with the voluntary lockdown.
- twomoretime 7y ago
  The structural rot in American society that are leading to cascading failures across all industries and efforts began long before Trump was even a republican. And the depths of complacency and ignorance to which our society has fallen is such that individuals are culpable as well. Our culture has grown totally void - the average person is a helpless adult child. You all know the sorry state of our schools, churning out children who cannot perform basic Civic duties. This goes far beyond petty R-D politics.
tekkk 7y ago
I today saw the number of infected for US jump 8k (it seemed to have been reduced from 14k, which was really alarming). https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ A quite worrying turn that rate of cases is ramping up so quickly in US. Don't know what else to say. And there isn't really that much you can do as an individual, if the other people are not taking it that seriously. Just yesterday I saw a child with his parent cough with a rattling sound in a supermarket without covering his mouth. It is these types of small actions of neglectedness that compound, making this virus so hard to stop from spreading. Hopefully you at least build antibodies when you get sick. Otherwise this will never stop spreading until we get a working vaccine.
- ms512 7y ago
  > I today saw the number ... https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Note that the number for the current day isn't yet necessarily complete. For example, as of this writing, Washington and Illinois were not yet in the table [1]. Washington numbers get released at 3pm PST [1] and Illinois numbers don't specifiy an update time [2]. It looks like the number should end up around 8.5k today, so better than yesterday's 14k. Of course, with all the back-and-forth on test availability, comparing numbers day-to-day is challenging, since more testing is likely to reveal a higher absolute number of cases. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [2] https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus [3] https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19 https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19
alkonaut 7y ago
> until it is BY DEFINITION TOO LATE. There could surely have been faster responses (testing, movement restrictions...) But hospitals? They are by definition too late when people die from lack of Hospital capacity. Doesn’t hurt to have some margin, but from what I have heard it doesn’t sound like NY has run out of capacity just yet.
dang 7y ago
Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

ep103 7y ago

Just a reminder that trump still has a 43% approval rating among Americans. If you want to solve the problems you're talking about, you have to solve the underlying reason for this one first.

fma 7y ago
A quick video on the "underlying reason" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA
1996 7y ago
You should not worry about the current low approval ratings. I'm sure it will easily go >50% once people see results coming - like field hospitals, hydroxychloroquine available to treat patients, etc. Even below 50%, everyone seems to comply and follow up on the lockdown at the moment. I don't know about the precise situation in Europe, but I've been told France had to go to martial law because people were not complying with the voluntary lockdown.
twomoretime 7y ago
The structural rot in American society that are leading to cascading failures across all industries and efforts began long before Trump was even a republican. And the depths of complacency and ignorance to which our society has fallen is such that individuals are culpable as well. Our culture has grown totally void - the average person is a helpless adult child. You all know the sorry state of our schools, churning out children who cannot perform basic Civic duties. This goes far beyond petty R-D politics.

tekkk 7y ago

I today saw the number of infected for US jump 8k (it seemed to have been reduced from 14k, which was really alarming). https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ A quite worrying turn that rate of cases is ramping up so quickly in US. Don't know what else to say. And there isn't really that much you can do as an individual, if the other people are not taking it that seriously. Just yesterday I saw a child with his parent cough with a rattling sound in a supermarket without covering his mouth. It is these types of small actions of neglectedness that compound, making this virus so hard to stop from spreading. Hopefully you at least build antibodies when you get sick. Otherwise this will never stop spreading until we get a working vaccine.

ms512 7y ago
> I today saw the number ... https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Note that the number for the current day isn't yet necessarily complete. For example, as of this writing, Washington and Illinois were not yet in the table [1]. Washington numbers get released at 3pm PST [1] and Illinois numbers don't specifiy an update time [2]. It looks like the number should end up around 8.5k today, so better than yesterday's 14k. Of course, with all the back-and-forth on test availability, comparing numbers day-to-day is challenging, since more testing is likely to reveal a higher absolute number of cases. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [2] https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus [3] https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19 https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19

alkonaut 7y ago

> until it is BY DEFINITION TOO LATE. There could surely have been faster responses (testing, movement restrictions...) But hospitals? They are by definition too late when people die from lack of Hospital capacity. Doesn’t hurt to have some margin, but from what I have heard it doesn’t sound like NY has run out of capacity just yet.

dang 7y ago

Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.