4 ms·

This is the thing that is so crazy about the economic suicide and authoritarian lockdowns we are all doing. Evidence from China and Italy is that they don't ac

by vanniv 7y ago

This is the thing that is so crazy about the economic suicide and authoritarian lockdowns we are all doing. Evidence from China and Italy is that they don't actually work. It's been three months, and China still can't let people leave their front door or the virus will return full force, with no expectations that another month or even another year of lockdown will help. In Italy, with two weeks of lockdown, the exponential growth of new infections hasn't even slowed. Now they are predicting that "just three more weeks" and the exponential growth might start to slightly decline. Wealth and freedom are declining around the world, but it doesn't even slow the virus' spread. Meanwhile, places like Korea have no trouble stopping the virus without the authoritarianism. And yet, all people here call for is ever-more economic destruction, and ever more authoritarian controls, all to no detectable effect. Except, of course, the end of our free and prosperous societies.

ksk 7y ago
What other method do you propose, and how do you know it would work?
- natmaka 7y ago
  I hardly know how to tackle the current ordeal, however in order to prevent such disaster we may quit living in highly densely populated areas, and decentralize power in order to let local people react adequately.
  - ksk 7y ago
    How do you simultaneously decentralize power right down to the local level, and then tell people to do as you say, or even expect everyone to co-operate on a common goal? All it takes is one group having extremely different ideas to break the cohesion. Its just wishful thinking IMHO. Anti-vaxers can only come about when one is granted the autonomy of parenting ones child and making decisions about their immunizations.
    - natmaka 7y ago
      A local authority is able to tell people to do as it says. It is even more efficient at this than a central one, as it usually tries harder to obtain a consensus (people willing to be involved are, nobody has to remain a mere cog) because it cannot coerce as efficiently as a central gov (for various reasons, one being that transforming locals into guards of other locals is difficult, another that it is more easy to escape from a little group...). The common goal is to survive and to pursue the quest for happiness, I doubt it is better set by a central government. As for the approach (the way to tackle the problem), having groups choosing various ways is a way to discover what works or not, and which new challenges are raised by each approach. When everybody everywhere applies the same approach, everything may break simultaneously if it is not the perfect approach (perfect approaches are pretty rare), and progress towards new solutions is slow.
      - ksk 7y ago
        >A local authority is able to tell people to do as it says. It is even more efficient at this than a central one, as it usually tries harder to obtain a consensus (people willing to be involved are, nobody has to remain a mere cog) because it cannot coerce as efficiently as a central gov (for various reasons, one being that transforming locals into guards of other locals is difficult, another that it is more easy to escape from a little group...). You're responding to something else. The point I made is that you WANT to coerce people into vaccinating their kids, into educating their kids, etc, etc. Those should not be things where one crosses their fingers and hopes that people get convinced into doing that. >The common goal is to survive and to pursue the quest for happiness, I doubt it is better set by a central government. Sorry, are we even talking about the same thing here? I thought the conversation was about healthcare/vaccination/infectious diseases/. >As for the approach (the way to tackle the problem), having groups choosing various ways is a way to discover what works or not, and which new challenges are raised by each approach. When everybody everywhere applies the same approach, everything may break simultaneously if it is not the perfect approach (perfect approaches are pretty rare), and progress towards new solutions is slow. Okay, but nothing about having a central government precludes you from running local experiments w.r.t new policy. I believe RCT economics received a nobel prize either last year or the year before that.
jacobolus 7y ago
> Evidence from China and Italy is that they don't actually work. Don’t work for what purpose? They work well at shutting down the virus in the short term. In Wuhan the reproductive number of the virus is estimated to have dropped from above 3 to ~0.3 after the lockdown. > In Italy, with two weeks of lockdown, the exponential growth of new infections hasn't even slowed This is definitely not true. If you plot Italian cases or deaths on a logarithmic scale it’s easy to see the curve slowly bending down. Keep in mind it takes ~2 weeks for public health interventions to start showing up in data about identified cases, and ~3 weeks for them to show up in data about deaths. > places like Korea have no trouble stopping the virus without the authoritarianism Places like South Korea have had plenty of “trouble”, but have stopped transmission through nationwide testing, contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine, along with early school closures and a mass social distancing effort among the public, pervasive use of face masks, etc. The South Korean public health response (and we might add also Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) was much faster and more decisive than the response in the US or Europe. As a result they have avoided the situation of widespread community spread, and not needed to undertake a total societal shutdown as became necessary in Hubei or Italy. What other countries should be learning from South Korea is to act quickly and stay on top of the virus before it gets out of control.
- vanniv 7y ago
  If the Wuhan lockdown had worked, they wouldn't have to continue it until the end of time to prevent the virus coming back. As it stands, there is no reason to expect the virus to stay away no matter how long the lockdown continues. Meanwhile, the richest country in the history of the world has been reduced to breadlines in only weeks -- and it does nothing (except guarantee more poverty and starvation)
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    The Wuhan lockdown clearly worked insofar as it stopped the exponential spread of the epidemic in the short term, saving millions of lives throughout China and by now allowing temporary hospitals to empty, overworked imported medical staff to return home, transportation networks to restart, etc. Over the coming months economic activity should slowly ramp up (already has in most of the country), hopefully without restarting widespread community spread of the virus. Yes this is an extremely economically painful kind of response, more or less pausing all economic activity for months. But if the alternative is the death of >1% of the population, all drowning alone at home while the overwhelmed medical system collapses, it’s hard to counterfactually guess at the relative effects on the economy.
spookthesunset 7y ago
I sure wish you wouldn’t get downvoted. People on forums like HN refuse to entertain that this might not be the end of the world and perhaps officials are overreacting. I mean face it, the media, social media, forums like this... everybody is blasting down into our heads 24/7 that the end is near for at least a week in the states. I get we are all panicking but I cannot help but to feel that we’ve created a gigantic echo chamber. My skepticism will wane when I see videos of hospitals all across the country with patients in the halls. Until than, we really have no clue what happens next.

by vanniv 7y ago

ksk 7y ago

What other method do you propose, and how do you know it would work?

natmaka 7y ago
I hardly know how to tackle the current ordeal, however in order to prevent such disaster we may quit living in highly densely populated areas, and decentralize power in order to let local people react adequately.
- ksk 7y ago
  How do you simultaneously decentralize power right down to the local level, and then tell people to do as you say, or even expect everyone to co-operate on a common goal? All it takes is one group having extremely different ideas to break the cohesion. Its just wishful thinking IMHO. Anti-vaxers can only come about when one is granted the autonomy of parenting ones child and making decisions about their immunizations.
  - natmaka 7y ago
    A local authority is able to tell people to do as it says. It is even more efficient at this than a central one, as it usually tries harder to obtain a consensus (people willing to be involved are, nobody has to remain a mere cog) because it cannot coerce as efficiently as a central gov (for various reasons, one being that transforming locals into guards of other locals is difficult, another that it is more easy to escape from a little group...). The common goal is to survive and to pursue the quest for happiness, I doubt it is better set by a central government. As for the approach (the way to tackle the problem), having groups choosing various ways is a way to discover what works or not, and which new challenges are raised by each approach. When everybody everywhere applies the same approach, everything may break simultaneously if it is not the perfect approach (perfect approaches are pretty rare), and progress towards new solutions is slow.
    - ksk 7y ago
      >A local authority is able to tell people to do as it says. It is even more efficient at this than a central one, as it usually tries harder to obtain a consensus (people willing to be involved are, nobody has to remain a mere cog) because it cannot coerce as efficiently as a central gov (for various reasons, one being that transforming locals into guards of other locals is difficult, another that it is more easy to escape from a little group...). You're responding to something else. The point I made is that you WANT to coerce people into vaccinating their kids, into educating their kids, etc, etc. Those should not be things where one crosses their fingers and hopes that people get convinced into doing that. >The common goal is to survive and to pursue the quest for happiness, I doubt it is better set by a central government. Sorry, are we even talking about the same thing here? I thought the conversation was about healthcare/vaccination/infectious diseases/. >As for the approach (the way to tackle the problem), having groups choosing various ways is a way to discover what works or not, and which new challenges are raised by each approach. When everybody everywhere applies the same approach, everything may break simultaneously if it is not the perfect approach (perfect approaches are pretty rare), and progress towards new solutions is slow. Okay, but nothing about having a central government precludes you from running local experiments w.r.t new policy. I believe RCT economics received a nobel prize either last year or the year before that.

jacobolus 7y ago

> Evidence from China and Italy is that they don't actually work. Don’t work for what purpose? They work well at shutting down the virus in the short term. In Wuhan the reproductive number of the virus is estimated to have dropped from above 3 to ~0.3 after the lockdown. > In Italy, with two weeks of lockdown, the exponential growth of new infections hasn't even slowed This is definitely not true. If you plot Italian cases or deaths on a logarithmic scale it’s easy to see the curve slowly bending down. Keep in mind it takes ~2 weeks for public health interventions to start showing up in data about identified cases, and ~3 weeks for them to show up in data about deaths. > places like Korea have no trouble stopping the virus without the authoritarianism Places like South Korea have had plenty of “trouble”, but have stopped transmission through nationwide testing, contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine, along with early school closures and a mass social distancing effort among the public, pervasive use of face masks, etc. The South Korean public health response (and we might add also Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) was much faster and more decisive than the response in the US or Europe. As a result they have avoided the situation of widespread community spread, and not needed to undertake a total societal shutdown as became necessary in Hubei or Italy. What other countries should be learning from South Korea is to act quickly and stay on top of the virus before it gets out of control.

vanniv 7y ago
If the Wuhan lockdown had worked, they wouldn't have to continue it until the end of time to prevent the virus coming back. As it stands, there is no reason to expect the virus to stay away no matter how long the lockdown continues. Meanwhile, the richest country in the history of the world has been reduced to breadlines in only weeks -- and it does nothing (except guarantee more poverty and starvation)
- jacobolus 7y ago
  The Wuhan lockdown clearly worked insofar as it stopped the exponential spread of the epidemic in the short term, saving millions of lives throughout China and by now allowing temporary hospitals to empty, overworked imported medical staff to return home, transportation networks to restart, etc. Over the coming months economic activity should slowly ramp up (already has in most of the country), hopefully without restarting widespread community spread of the virus. Yes this is an extremely economically painful kind of response, more or less pausing all economic activity for months. But if the alternative is the death of >1% of the population, all drowning alone at home while the overwhelmed medical system collapses, it’s hard to counterfactually guess at the relative effects on the economy.

spookthesunset 7y ago

I sure wish you wouldn’t get downvoted. People on forums like HN refuse to entertain that this might not be the end of the world and perhaps officials are overreacting. I mean face it, the media, social media, forums like this... everybody is blasting down into our heads 24/7 that the end is near for at least a week in the states. I get we are all panicking but I cannot help but to feel that we’ve created a gigantic echo chamber. My skepticism will wane when I see videos of hospitals all across the country with patients in the halls. Until than, we really have no clue what happens next.