3 ms·

The question in a lot of ways is how many exponential doublings do we have to have before this situation switches in peoples' minds from a peace-time inconvenie

The question in a lot of ways is how many exponential doublings do we have to have before this situation switches in peoples' minds from a peace-time inconvenience to essentially real war. Right now, the death rate still isn't higher than a flu epidemic but just the number of known infections promises a lot worse and the potential doublings after that are terrifying. It seems like there's an endless dialogue of: A: How would you accomplish X? B: I wouldn't, X is not what I do. But we need to give the final answer: A: I didn't ask whether you can do X. I'm telling you, "do X or many people die, you are all we have at this point. Think outside the box".

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
"The question in a lot of ways is how many exponential doublings do we have to have before this situation switches in peoples' minds from a peace-time inconvenience to essentially real war." The millions of people who would die in a worst-case scenario are mainly demographics that society is already used to neglecting: the elderly, the terminally ill, those with lifelong chronic illnesses where any infection could be a killer, etc. Therefore, I would expect this to continue to be considered more of a peacetime inconvenience than a real war. A frequent response to this is, "But they could overwhelm the healthcare system so you or me couldn't be treated for our needs!" Well, if the bulk of the population is left inconvenienced and unemployed for too long, I can imagine some ugly scenarios where the population demands, broadly speaking, that those demographics simply be triaged out of treatment so that they don't overwhelm the healthcare system for everyone else. This is said to be already happening in Italy to a degree.
- empath75 7y ago
  That’s not true. Once you start getting into the tens of millions of deaths worldwide, that’s going to include a lot of young people and medical staff and people who will die of other treatable diseases or injuries because half of the doctors in the country are sick or otherwise occupied.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  Well, if the bulk of the population is left inconvenienced and unemployed for too long, I can imagine some ugly scenarios where the population demands, broadly speaking, that those demographics simply be triaged out of treatment so that they don't overwhelm the healthcare system for everyone else. People imagining such triaging seem to think that a willingness to be appalling brutal means such brutality could be achieved with limited costs. Italy's situation is far from the worst-case scenario. It's death rate is not that much higher than a seasonal flu, it's just the death-process that is far more messy. Which is to say, let the infection rate get high enough and you'll have hospitals crowded with the young and healthy even if carry the old directly to the morgue. Moreover, authorities shouting "all clear" in the midst of this dreck isn't going just summon a phalanx of consumers ready to go to restaurants, death chance or not. In short, just because you're evil doesn't mean you aren't stupid too.
  - greedo 7y ago
    The death rate is in no ways comparable to the seasonal flu. It's quite higher: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#case-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-compared-to-other-diseases https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#case-fatality-rate-of...
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      Indeed, If you read my parent post in context, I hope it's clear that I mean currently in Italy, people are not dying at a rate higher than the seasonal flu BUT this has a big potential change if the infection rate were to shoot up (we know this is prevented by extreme quarantine measures, enforced by the army).
      - greedo 7y ago
        Your point still isn't clear or accurate. The worldwide CFR is over 4%. In Italy, it's currently at over 11%. The flu is nowhere near that level of risk. It's normally around 0.1% depending on demographic. Are you saying that the seasonal flu in Italy normally kills 11% of those who become infected? If that's the case, the facts don't bear that out.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 7y ago
  The switch to war footing is already happening in the places hardest hit, for others it may be days or weeks away.
mhb 7y ago
The question in a lot of ways is how many exponential doublings do we have to have before this situation switches in peoples' minds from a peace-time inconvenience to essentially real war. Indeed. I was organizing some people to make face shields and was looking for a big room. When I talked to the city about using a school gym, one of the criteria was that everyone needed to have background checks. Because it would be in a school!
- jjeaff 7y ago
  An empty school, at that.
- mistermann 7y ago
  I wonder if that decision was optimal for the circumstances, and if not, what actions we could take as a society to improve upon it?
thepangolino 7y ago
I don’t think there’s going to be a mindset change in the population. The absolute worst estimates are between 0.5 and 1 percent of the population dying.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > Thr absolute worst estimates are between 0.5 and 1 percent of the population dying. There are news reports right now on HN on how the real death rate on countries that are not falsifying reports might be up to 4 times the assumed rate. The hypothesis is supported by the increase in total deaths compared with the baseline, and after subtracting deaths linked to covid19. This being true, we might be looking into 2 to 4% of the population. Link to the HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22723647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22723647
- ido 7y ago
  1% of the world's population is almost 800m people. That's >10x the death-toll of WW2 (which took 6 years to achieve).
  - malandrew 7y ago
    76 million.
    - ido 7y ago
      Damn! That's what I get for posting while tired.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
The problem is that X includes a nonzero risk to human life/limb that is the responsibility of the person doing X. If you are in charge of a hospital and just let Y people die because there's not enough qualified doctors to run ventilators then you can easily wash your hands of it as though it's not your fault. If you let less-qualified people run ventilators and Y/10 die from human error but you prevent 8Y/10 people from dying then all the families of the Y/10 that died from error are going to hold you responsible even though you minimized the number of overall deaths. We have spent decades holding people systemically dis-incentivizing people from doing positive things in bad situations by assigning responsibility in this perverse "who was the last one to touch it" manner. Society has made its bed and now it gets to lay in it. Nobody is gonna be the one that bucks the trend and reduces and sort of real or perceived safety standard in order to increase volume of care until the situation becomes so obviously bad that not doing so is indefensible.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago

"The question in a lot of ways is how many exponential doublings do we have to have before this situation switches in peoples' minds from a peace-time inconvenience to essentially real war." The millions of people who would die in a worst-case scenario are mainly demographics that society is already used to neglecting: the elderly, the terminally ill, those with lifelong chronic illnesses where any infection could be a killer, etc. Therefore, I would expect this to continue to be considered more of a peacetime inconvenience than a real war. A frequent response to this is, "But they could overwhelm the healthcare system so you or me couldn't be treated for our needs!" Well, if the bulk of the population is left inconvenienced and unemployed for too long, I can imagine some ugly scenarios where the population demands, broadly speaking, that those demographics simply be triaged out of treatment so that they don't overwhelm the healthcare system for everyone else. This is said to be already happening in Italy to a degree.

empath75 7y ago
That’s not true. Once you start getting into the tens of millions of deaths worldwide, that’s going to include a lot of young people and medical staff and people who will die of other treatable diseases or injuries because half of the doctors in the country are sick or otherwise occupied.
joe_the_user 7y ago
Well, if the bulk of the population is left inconvenienced and unemployed for too long, I can imagine some ugly scenarios where the population demands, broadly speaking, that those demographics simply be triaged out of treatment so that they don't overwhelm the healthcare system for everyone else. People imagining such triaging seem to think that a willingness to be appalling brutal means such brutality could be achieved with limited costs. Italy's situation is far from the worst-case scenario. It's death rate is not that much higher than a seasonal flu, it's just the death-process that is far more messy. Which is to say, let the infection rate get high enough and you'll have hospitals crowded with the young and healthy even if carry the old directly to the morgue. Moreover, authorities shouting "all clear" in the midst of this dreck isn't going just summon a phalanx of consumers ready to go to restaurants, death chance or not. In short, just because you're evil doesn't mean you aren't stupid too.
- greedo 7y ago
  The death rate is in no ways comparable to the seasonal flu. It's quite higher: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#case-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-compared-to-other-diseases https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#case-fatality-rate-of...
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    Indeed, If you read my parent post in context, I hope it's clear that I mean currently in Italy, people are not dying at a rate higher than the seasonal flu BUT this has a big potential change if the infection rate were to shoot up (we know this is prevented by extreme quarantine measures, enforced by the army).
    - greedo 7y ago
      Your point still isn't clear or accurate. The worldwide CFR is over 4%. In Italy, it's currently at over 11%. The flu is nowhere near that level of risk. It's normally around 0.1% depending on demographic. Are you saying that the seasonal flu in Italy normally kills 11% of those who become infected? If that's the case, the facts don't bear that out.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 7y ago
The switch to war footing is already happening in the places hardest hit, for others it may be days or weeks away.

mhb 7y ago

The question in a lot of ways is how many exponential doublings do we have to have before this situation switches in peoples' minds from a peace-time inconvenience to essentially real war. Indeed. I was organizing some people to make face shields and was looking for a big room. When I talked to the city about using a school gym, one of the criteria was that everyone needed to have background checks. Because it would be in a school!

jjeaff 7y ago
An empty school, at that.
mistermann 7y ago
I wonder if that decision was optimal for the circumstances, and if not, what actions we could take as a society to improve upon it?

thepangolino 7y ago

I don’t think there’s going to be a mindset change in the population. The absolute worst estimates are between 0.5 and 1 percent of the population dying.

rumanator 7y ago
> Thr absolute worst estimates are between 0.5 and 1 percent of the population dying. There are news reports right now on HN on how the real death rate on countries that are not falsifying reports might be up to 4 times the assumed rate. The hypothesis is supported by the increase in total deaths compared with the baseline, and after subtracting deaths linked to covid19. This being true, we might be looking into 2 to 4% of the population. Link to the HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22723647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22723647
ido 7y ago
1% of the world's population is almost 800m people. That's >10x the death-toll of WW2 (which took 6 years to achieve).
- malandrew 7y ago
  76 million.
  - ido 7y ago
    Damn! That's what I get for posting while tired.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

The problem is that X includes a nonzero risk to human life/limb that is the responsibility of the person doing X. If you are in charge of a hospital and just let Y people die because there's not enough qualified doctors to run ventilators then you can easily wash your hands of it as though it's not your fault. If you let less-qualified people run ventilators and Y/10 die from human error but you prevent 8Y/10 people from dying then all the families of the Y/10 that died from error are going to hold you responsible even though you minimized the number of overall deaths. We have spent decades holding people systemically dis-incentivizing people from doing positive things in bad situations by assigning responsibility in this perverse "who was the last one to touch it" manner. Society has made its bed and now it gets to lay in it. Nobody is gonna be the one that bucks the trend and reduces and sort of real or perceived safety standard in order to increase volume of care until the situation becomes so obviously bad that not doing so is indefensible.