5 ms·

When are we just going to admit that our choices are: 1) indefinite lockdown 2) everyone gets the virus Between a 0.5% chance of dying, and life imprisonment

When are we just going to admit that our choices are: 1) indefinite lockdown 2) everyone gets the virus Between a 0.5% chance of dying, and life imprisonment, I'd take my chances.

greedo 6y ago
Because you're leaving out the third choice: control the rate of infection so that the chance of dying is lowered.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  In practice this seems to be a subset of the first choice. Everyone who has a proposal to control the rate of infection also says we need to lockdown indefinitely until their proposal is fully implemented.
fuckknows 6y ago
Here's the thing though, that binary choice is predicated on what we know right now, tomorrow we may know more, and we will definitely know more in a few weeks, in a month or two we may know enough that we have better choices to make. Our ability to treat this virus is very limited right now, but that may not be true in a month, so just throwing up your hands and saying let everyone die now when we don't have good treatment options is basically just signing peoples death warrant for no good reason.
- mcfunk 6y ago
  This, precisely. Maybe we find better treatment (especially treatment that reduces the incidence of patients needing hospitalization or ventilators). Maybe we get testing technology widespread enough that we don't have to treat everyone like they're positive unless proven otherwise. Maybe we get antibody tests that allow us to figure out who isn't immunologically naive to the virus. Maybe we learn more about how it spreads. Maybe we learn more about why some people are asymptomatic. Basically there are countless ways in which quality of life can be improved over time as we continue to maximize efforts to contain spread.
- elephantscan 6y ago
  Yeah sure. a month, a year, a decade. How much of my life are you willing to steal? The fatality rate for octogenarians is 15%. Octogenarians also have a 10% chance of dying every year anyway. At 18 months of lockdown 15% of them are dead anyway and you took a single digit percentage of my life away
alkonaut 6y ago
Your chance of getting a severe case of you are infected is 5-10% or something similar. That’s a case that you want to have a hospital bed for, maybe an ICU bed. If all beds are taken then many of those severe cases will kill people. Say mortality is 3% instead of 0.5% once hospital capacity runs out. Assume 60% need to get it before we have herd immunity. I don’t think 3% mortality without healthcare is pessimistic. Unfortunately we’ll soon find out if the disease hits Syria and similar places. Not only that, thousands would also die from strokes and heart attacks and other things that they wouldn’t die from if hospitals weren’t full. Hospital staff will simply quit when their job becomes a constant struggle to keep the hallways clear of corpses instead of saving people. It’s not “0.5% dies why are we doing this?”, it’s “we do this so only 0.5% die”. Between a 0.5% chance of dying and a 3% chance of dying I’d happily observe some measure of distancing for 12 months to get 0.5%.
- elephantscan 6y ago
  This state of affairs is not life. I would kill myself if we have to do this for a year.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    I’m sorry. You should try to talk to someone about that. My restrictions at this point (Sweden) shows that with luck, perhaps restrictions don’t have to mean house arrest. Complete lockdowns aren’t sustainable. I think countries will converge on a “new normal” which is far from lockdowns, while not “normal”.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  The data on the Santa Clara (California) stats site shows that 10% of those tested are infected. https://www.sccgov.org/sites/phd/DiseaseInformation/novel-coronavirus/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/phd/DiseaseInformation/novel-co... What your comment is missing is that the mortality of ventilators is 66% - 90%. So they're not a good solution for most patients. ICU doctors have been recommending using non-intrusive methods like cannulas as long as possible before intubating. However, that causes aerosolization of corona, so quarantine buildings are needed. Please see my links for more detailed info.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
asdff 6y ago
The whole plan is number 2. We are waiting until this burns out through the population, most people get better, and move on with their lives. The purpose of social distancing is to slow the burn so our hospitals aren't overwhelmed, and won't have to triage coronavirus patients vs. people with any other sort of emergency coming to the hospital. This practice will save thousands of lives of people with a bad case of coronavirus, but also the people who get into car crashes, or have problems with giving birth, or heart attacks, or any other reason that requires immediate emergency care.

When are we just going to admit that our choices are: 1) indefinite lockdown 2) everyone gets the virus Between a 0.5% chance of dying, and life imprisonment, I'd take my chances.

greedo 6y ago

Because you're leaving out the third choice: control the rate of infection so that the chance of dying is lowered.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
In practice this seems to be a subset of the first choice. Everyone who has a proposal to control the rate of infection also says we need to lockdown indefinitely until their proposal is fully implemented.

fuckknows 6y ago

Here's the thing though, that binary choice is predicated on what we know right now, tomorrow we may know more, and we will definitely know more in a few weeks, in a month or two we may know enough that we have better choices to make. Our ability to treat this virus is very limited right now, but that may not be true in a month, so just throwing up your hands and saying let everyone die now when we don't have good treatment options is basically just signing peoples death warrant for no good reason.

mcfunk 6y ago
This, precisely. Maybe we find better treatment (especially treatment that reduces the incidence of patients needing hospitalization or ventilators). Maybe we get testing technology widespread enough that we don't have to treat everyone like they're positive unless proven otherwise. Maybe we get antibody tests that allow us to figure out who isn't immunologically naive to the virus. Maybe we learn more about how it spreads. Maybe we learn more about why some people are asymptomatic. Basically there are countless ways in which quality of life can be improved over time as we continue to maximize efforts to contain spread.
elephantscan 6y ago
Yeah sure. a month, a year, a decade. How much of my life are you willing to steal? The fatality rate for octogenarians is 15%. Octogenarians also have a 10% chance of dying every year anyway. At 18 months of lockdown 15% of them are dead anyway and you took a single digit percentage of my life away

alkonaut 6y ago

Your chance of getting a severe case of you are infected is 5-10% or something similar. That’s a case that you want to have a hospital bed for, maybe an ICU bed. If all beds are taken then many of those severe cases will kill people. Say mortality is 3% instead of 0.5% once hospital capacity runs out. Assume 60% need to get it before we have herd immunity. I don’t think 3% mortality without healthcare is pessimistic. Unfortunately we’ll soon find out if the disease hits Syria and similar places. Not only that, thousands would also die from strokes and heart attacks and other things that they wouldn’t die from if hospitals weren’t full. Hospital staff will simply quit when their job becomes a constant struggle to keep the hallways clear of corpses instead of saving people. It’s not “0.5% dies why are we doing this?”, it’s “we do this so only 0.5% die”. Between a 0.5% chance of dying and a 3% chance of dying I’d happily observe some measure of distancing for 12 months to get 0.5%.

elephantscan 6y ago
This state of affairs is not life. I would kill myself if we have to do this for a year.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  I’m sorry. You should try to talk to someone about that. My restrictions at this point (Sweden) shows that with luck, perhaps restrictions don’t have to mean house arrest. Complete lockdowns aren’t sustainable. I think countries will converge on a “new normal” which is far from lockdowns, while not “normal”.
redis_mlc 6y ago
The data on the Santa Clara (California) stats site shows that 10% of those tested are infected. https://www.sccgov.org/sites/phd/DiseaseInformation/novel-coronavirus/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/phd/DiseaseInformation/novel-co... What your comment is missing is that the mortality of ventilators is 66% - 90%. So they're not a good solution for most patients. ICU doctors have been recommending using non-intrusive methods like cannulas as long as possible before intubating. However, that causes aerosolization of corona, so quarantine buildings are needed. Please see my links for more detailed info.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

asdff 6y ago

The whole plan is number 2. We are waiting until this burns out through the population, most people get better, and move on with their lives. The purpose of social distancing is to slow the burn so our hospitals aren't overwhelmed, and won't have to triage coronavirus patients vs. people with any other sort of emergency coming to the hospital. This practice will save thousands of lives of people with a bad case of coronavirus, but also the people who get into car crashes, or have problems with giving birth, or heart attacks, or any other reason that requires immediate emergency care.