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Unfortunately yes. Even if one wants to keep the quarantine at all costs, it should be a political decision, not only medical, after weighing everything. In It

Unfortunately yes. Even if one wants to keep the quarantine at all costs, it should be a political decision, not only medical, after weighing everything. In Italy, where I'm in my third week being shut in, experts and doctors are being quoted tiredlessly by the news: the problem is that they're doing their job (which is good!) however they do not realize the impact of their suggested measures. Not their fault by any means, but: a. They're effectively scaring the population (an WHO advisor here suggested 6-9 months lockdown, which is likely impractical and will have devastating consequences on the social fabric, even without thinking about the economy) b. The politicians are so scared of the virus that they're completely abdicating their functions (in Italy the Parliament was closed for two weeks, and the judicial system has been completely shut down as well) and doing whatever they're being told.

ntsplnkv2 7y ago
The fact is this is a good pandemic to practice on. We are very very lucky, to even be debating the economy right now. If this virus was far deadlier and affected young people, I think the tone on this very site would change in a heartbeat.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Sure, it's great practice, but practice that comes with heavy costs. And who knows when/where/if the next pandemic hits. If it's not within the next 10 years, the lessons may have been forgotten and the practice was expensive and useless.
  - milkytron 7y ago
    My hope is that after this pandemic (assuming it slows down or we gain control over it), governments around the world will enact policies that prepare us for future pandemics. Like a postmortem type of thing where they document what went wrong, what could be done better, and what they can do to mitigate the impacts of future pandemics, in a rational and blameless manner. Similar to what happened after the financial crisis with additional financial regulation. I have no doubt another pandemic will happen, and we'll likely have forgotten what it's like, so having policies in place becomes even more important.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > Similar to what happened after the financial crisis with additional financial regulation. But that's only temporary. It's like developers starting over and promising themselves that they won't accrue technical debt this time. And then life happens and you need to push that feature quickly and a few years down the line, you're sitting there saying "we need to start over, this is too much trash held together by hopes and dreams". Companies will cut corners, because that's their main focus. Politicians will reduce regulations, because that's how they stimulate locale economy, and we're back at square one in no time. The only lasting shift, aside from potentially more work from home, is people making sure they'll always have an extra package of toilet paper. They won't flee the cities (where viruses can spread much better), even though the rent is killing them, and they won't go into voluntary lock down the next time a thousand people die in China of some lung disease.
  - ntsplnkv2 7y ago
    A lot of things come with heavy costs - the US military is funded billions upon billions year after year for a threat that may never come. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan probably at this point are more costly than the bailout we are giving to the economy. In fact, most of the hard problems the world faces will require investments that take longer than 10 years to return on. The economy is important - but maybe our economy needs to be a little less growth oriented and a little more resilient.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      The US military isn't funded to respond to potential threats, it's funded to be a threat. It's like Google giving Android away, they'll make that money back multiple times on other deals. > The economy is important - but maybe our economy needs to be a little less growth oriented and a little more resilient. I absolutely agree, but I also believe that's not going to happen. And it's not because there's some cabal that won't let it, it's just that everybody wants more and I don't see that changing. Our economic setup with the constant demand for growth is just the result of that. I don't believe you can put the genie back in the bottle, few people are at a point in life where they'd be happy to stay at that level for the rest of their days.
      - ntsplnkv2 7y ago
        > The US military isn't funded to respond to potential threats, it's funded to be a threat. This is pointless, circular logic. It is funded to be a threat to defend its interests, from threats, that may never materialize. It will change in the right circumstances. We may be closer to them than most think.
        luckylion 7y ago
        The point of being the guy with the largest stick is primarily that everybody has to do what you say. A secondary function that emerges after you do that is to ensure that those with the smaller sticks don't gang up on you and pay you back. My point is that "defend its interest" isn't it, it's "advance its interest". The US wouldn't be where they are today if there was no military on earth, their huge success is based on the military being there to bully other countries to comply with political demands, or to simply regime change if they don't. That sure might change, and it won't be pretty for US citizens, but it will be great for plenty of countries. Until they get under China's rule, of course.
- dan_quixote 7y ago
  Agreed. It's the same reason why I think we'll learn essentially nothing from it and be back to business-as-usual (with poor safety net and tiny stockpile of medical essentials) in just a couple years.
marcosdumay 7y ago
Isn't Italy in a pretty bad shape to restart the virus spread right now? As soon as the government can detect a 16-times increase in the number of cases, act, and still be soon enough for the next 200-times increase not to be a tragedy, it is a good time to leave the quarantine. Right now Italy can't stand the first increase. The good news is that each time the disease spreads, those numbers become smaller, the bad news is that we don't know by how much.
- lbeltrame 7y ago
  > Isn't Italy in a pretty bad shape to restart the virus spread right now? It won't be able to hold a long-standing quarantine. Probably a couple of months tops. That's not even mentioning the economy. As I said, endured isolation will have very bad side effects.
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    You know, after a short search and calculation, it looks like today there are about 4 times more people dying in your country than usual. That's pretty big. In a couple of weeks, there will probably be nearly no new cases, so you can detect growth without it immediately being a disaster. Yes, there are economic consequences, but the alternative is quite a lot of avoidable deaths.

ntsplnkv2 7y ago

The fact is this is a good pandemic to practice on. We are very very lucky, to even be debating the economy right now. If this virus was far deadlier and affected young people, I think the tone on this very site would change in a heartbeat.

luckylion 7y ago
Sure, it's great practice, but practice that comes with heavy costs. And who knows when/where/if the next pandemic hits. If it's not within the next 10 years, the lessons may have been forgotten and the practice was expensive and useless.
- milkytron 7y ago
  My hope is that after this pandemic (assuming it slows down or we gain control over it), governments around the world will enact policies that prepare us for future pandemics. Like a postmortem type of thing where they document what went wrong, what could be done better, and what they can do to mitigate the impacts of future pandemics, in a rational and blameless manner. Similar to what happened after the financial crisis with additional financial regulation. I have no doubt another pandemic will happen, and we'll likely have forgotten what it's like, so having policies in place becomes even more important.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > Similar to what happened after the financial crisis with additional financial regulation. But that's only temporary. It's like developers starting over and promising themselves that they won't accrue technical debt this time. And then life happens and you need to push that feature quickly and a few years down the line, you're sitting there saying "we need to start over, this is too much trash held together by hopes and dreams". Companies will cut corners, because that's their main focus. Politicians will reduce regulations, because that's how they stimulate locale economy, and we're back at square one in no time. The only lasting shift, aside from potentially more work from home, is people making sure they'll always have an extra package of toilet paper. They won't flee the cities (where viruses can spread much better), even though the rent is killing them, and they won't go into voluntary lock down the next time a thousand people die in China of some lung disease.
- ntsplnkv2 7y ago
  A lot of things come with heavy costs - the US military is funded billions upon billions year after year for a threat that may never come. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan probably at this point are more costly than the bailout we are giving to the economy. In fact, most of the hard problems the world faces will require investments that take longer than 10 years to return on. The economy is important - but maybe our economy needs to be a little less growth oriented and a little more resilient.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    The US military isn't funded to respond to potential threats, it's funded to be a threat. It's like Google giving Android away, they'll make that money back multiple times on other deals. > The economy is important - but maybe our economy needs to be a little less growth oriented and a little more resilient. I absolutely agree, but I also believe that's not going to happen. And it's not because there's some cabal that won't let it, it's just that everybody wants more and I don't see that changing. Our economic setup with the constant demand for growth is just the result of that. I don't believe you can put the genie back in the bottle, few people are at a point in life where they'd be happy to stay at that level for the rest of their days.
    - ntsplnkv2 7y ago
      > The US military isn't funded to respond to potential threats, it's funded to be a threat. This is pointless, circular logic. It is funded to be a threat to defend its interests, from threats, that may never materialize. It will change in the right circumstances. We may be closer to them than most think.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        The point of being the guy with the largest stick is primarily that everybody has to do what you say. A secondary function that emerges after you do that is to ensure that those with the smaller sticks don't gang up on you and pay you back. My point is that "defend its interest" isn't it, it's "advance its interest". The US wouldn't be where they are today if there was no military on earth, their huge success is based on the military being there to bully other countries to comply with political demands, or to simply regime change if they don't. That sure might change, and it won't be pretty for US citizens, but it will be great for plenty of countries. Until they get under China's rule, of course.
dan_quixote 7y ago
Agreed. It's the same reason why I think we'll learn essentially nothing from it and be back to business-as-usual (with poor safety net and tiny stockpile of medical essentials) in just a couple years.

marcosdumay 7y ago

Isn't Italy in a pretty bad shape to restart the virus spread right now? As soon as the government can detect a 16-times increase in the number of cases, act, and still be soon enough for the next 200-times increase not to be a tragedy, it is a good time to leave the quarantine. Right now Italy can't stand the first increase. The good news is that each time the disease spreads, those numbers become smaller, the bad news is that we don't know by how much.

lbeltrame 7y ago
> Isn't Italy in a pretty bad shape to restart the virus spread right now? It won't be able to hold a long-standing quarantine. Probably a couple of months tops. That's not even mentioning the economy. As I said, endured isolation will have very bad side effects.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  You know, after a short search and calculation, it looks like today there are about 4 times more people dying in your country than usual. That's pretty big. In a couple of weeks, there will probably be nearly no new cases, so you can detect growth without it immediately being a disaster. Yes, there are economic consequences, but the alternative is quite a lot of avoidable deaths.