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We’ve had more documented covid-19 deaths in ~6 weeks than we usually have murders in an entire year and it hasn’t even peaked yet. We have no clue how many cas

We’ve had more documented covid-19 deaths in ~6 weeks than we usually have murders in an entire year and it hasn’t even peaked yet. We have no clue how many cases there even are because we’ve utterly failed to do mass testing. Serious question: do you have any family, friends, or even acquaintances that you would prefer not to have 3-6 weeks of terror and complete misery with a non-trivial chance of permanent disability or death?

ceilingcorner 7y ago
Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? This is a complex issue. Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move.
- dx034 7y ago
  In the end no one will know if it was worth it since no country went in the other direction and just lived with it. The UK tried for a bit but then reacted harshly as the situation worsened. Maybe not doing anything would've resulted in a few months of medical chaos and not much more, maybe it would've destroyed whole societies. But the polls I'm aware of show that the majority of people is supportive of measures nearly everywhere (I'm not aware of a poll that shows the opposite). In democracies, you'd expect politicians to act if the majority and experts support it.
  - praveenperera 7y ago
    Isn’t that exactly what Sweden is currently doing?
    - techer 7y ago
      And currently backtracking on.
      - jahaja 7y ago
        Uhm, no? I can't find anything in Swedish newspapers about harsher measures.
      - kitotik 7y ago
        A couple links to support the parent comment. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1268263/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-measures-covid-19-stefan-lofven-gathering-ban https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1268263/sweden-coronavi... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8212365/Swedish-PM-tighten-coronavirus-restrictions-Austria-Denmark-begin-easing-lockdown.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8212365/Swedish-PM-...
        jahaja 7y ago
        Both these are tabloids and uses "considering" & "is looking at" just below the contradictory headlines. I'm Swedish and are browsing Swedish websites. Including the Public Service svt.se.
        Ajedi32 7y ago
        What new measures are they actually imposing? Neither of those articles has anything concrete. The data both articles present for Sweden's death and infection rates also seem to suggest new measures might not be necessary (though admittedly the data seems pretty noisy; the recent drop in new deaths/infections could just be a fluke).
  - ceilingcorner 7y ago
    Sorry, I don't recall being democratically asked whether shutting down everything indefinitely was something I agreed with before it happened. Of course people will agree that it's a good idea when the media is blaring "PANDEMIC" at them 24/7.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      "Of course" what? You're aware that different parts of the US have reacted very differently despite having similar national media blaring at them, right?
      - ceilingcorner 7y ago
        I was replying to this: > But the polls I'm aware of show that the majority of people is supportive of measures nearly everywhere (I'm not aware of a poll that shows the opposite).
    - dx034 7y ago
      You weren't. But I'm sure pretty much all politicians got quick polls before enacting measures. That measures that strictly were enacted was only because politicians knew there wouldn't be large scale protests or riots. Now I don't want to speculate why people are in favor. Maybe because they believe experts but that usually doesn't work well.. I guess public opinion during the outbreak is also going to be a heavily researched area for years to come.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Sweden is. Much of Africa will have little choice but to muddle through. We'll likely get a good idea of what the "no or low response" route looks like.
    - dx034 7y ago
      You're right, but I'd classify Sweden as medium response. They still have measures in place, just not as harsh. With poorer countries (which applies to most of Africa), I guess it'll take several months or years until we know what the excess death rate was. Esp. in rural communities, that data probably often won't be reported as a Covid death. Even Northern Italy had an excess death rate 2x as high as the reported deaths and they had all the attention.
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        Sweden's decidedly more casual than other OECD / Eurozone countries. NPR were carrying a segment on it this morning. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/833623311/in-sweden-a-different-approach-to-coronavirus-control https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/833623311/in-sweden-a-differe...
- kitotik 7y ago
  You are correct that I have an emotional reaction to death, but I was not intending to spew a bunch of hyperbole. Society isn’t a numbers game, it’s a shared set of values, and I find it appalling that we seem to be favoring the economy over human life. We have enough resources to take care of both, but chose to bail out corporations instead of people.
  - ceilingcorner 7y ago
    > we seem to be favoring the economy over human life I really don't agree with this meme at all and the evidence doesn't support it whatsoever. The people that are hurt most by the shutdown are lower class service workers, not Wall Street stockbrokers. As I just mentioned, everyday people are hurting far more from the lockdown than from the virus. If you really cared about the average person, you'd want to get society running as soon as safely possible. The idea that the government can support or pay for the salary of the entire/most of the population for a sustained period of time is also completely ludicrous and impossible.
    - mattmanser 7y ago
      The problem is that as the lock downs work, it's easy to lose sight of what could have been, they stop it getting out of control and it still looks bad as there was the initial clump of infections, but the abstract hundreds per day that are dying are still fairly remote for most of us as only 1%-2% of many of our populations got infected. One can still throw around figures of "it's less death than this" or "the lock down is causing X amount of economic + societal misery". The scientific consensus seems to be that if the disease had just been left to run it's course, even with people being moderately careful given how infectious it is, it would have caused huge death figures. Perhaps that might be proved wrong when we see some countries that simply socially distanced instead of locking down, but was it ever worth the risk? All these "well, it's bad, but look at the economic damage" have to be weighed against what could have been, not what is. And we just can't imagine this, we can say it, but how many of us can imagine 10,000s dead per day? Your Aunt dead, a colleague dead and your best-friend's Dad dead, your Butcher's Grandmother dead, your barista's sister dead, a teacher at your primary school dead, your football team's goalie dead. And more, and more. Of the few hundred people you know you would have known several people who would have died, or the thousand or so you are a 2nd connection to you would have heard of many deaths. On top of that all, New York and the UK only really have Italy and Spain to look at as any sort of predictor. They now have to watch just two countries to see what happens when they start easing the restrictions, and due to the massive lag between infection and hospitalisation/death and insufficient testing capacity, it's all still guess work. Lift it a week or two too early, and you might have to go into another lock down in a few months time.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  The comment was not hyperbolic. Since you believe that, that means you don't believe the projections (or maybe the current statistics). That's fine, but don't respond by denigrating on the wrong basis. Instead of accusing people of exaggerating things as if they have some kind of agenda, just be straightforward and say I don't believe those numbers.
  - ceilingcorner 7y ago
    You've made a ton of huge leaps here. The comment is hyperbolic because it's using the tried-and-true tactic of "People are dying!!" to push their view and denigrate others'. As I said above: it's a complex issue. The consequences of shutting the world down just might be worse than the death toll of COVID. At the very least, it's a discussion worth having.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      People literally are dying. That's not the parent's hyperbole, it's a fact. Official projections from health organizations indicate trends will continue. Again, not the parent's hyperbole. If you think it's hyperbole then that means you don't believe the official death numbers. And "it's not a hyperbole" does not mean "it's not a complex issue" or "the alternative is better" or "it's not a discussion worth having". By all means, have your discussion. Point out that it's a complex issue like you already did. And if you dispute the claimed facts, dispute them and bring your own facts. If you don't, then just don't falsely accuse people of exaggerating them. Don't sling mud at factual arguments made in good faith; it's not difficult for others to reciprocate.
- gwd 7y ago
  > Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move. But isn't that what you just did here? > Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? So let's do some math instead. The last stats I had were that 5% of people who catch it will die without a ventilator, 0.5% will die with it. So suppose we go "fast burn" to try to get "herd immunity" as quickly as possible, forget about overwhelming the health care system. 80% of your friends, family, acquaintances, and coworkers will catch it, and 5% of those will die. I reckon most people have about 500-1000 people they feel connected to. So think about your network: which 20-40 people do you want to die so that the rest can go back to work?
  - ceilingcorner 7y ago
    > But isn't that what you just did here? No, because I'm not drowning out the discussion, simply pushing back on the usage of hyperbole for pushing an opinion. > The last stats I had were that 5% of people who catch it will die without a ventilator, Your stats are way off and I suggest doing better research. They also don't factor in the idea that the virus is far more widespread than initially thought, and that these death rates only account for people that are sick enough to get tested in the first place.
    - gwd 7y ago
      > Your stats are way off and I suggest doing better research. I've been reading [1] daily more or less since early February, as well as lots of things posted here. I'm certainly no professional, but I think I'm reasonably well-informed for a layperson. If you think there's something I've missed, I think you'd do much better to actually point me to a resource you think is better. I realize that "number reported" is an issue, and varies a lot from country to country. But consider Germany, who have [EDIT: ramped up to 400k+ tests per week] now. The most recent numbers from the situation report says that Germany has 125k reported cases, with 3k reported deaths -- a death rate of 2.3%. EDIT: Also consider Korea, which is alleged to have instituted a massive testing infrastructure as well. Their numbers are currently 10,564 cases, 222 deaths -- again, 2.1% death rate. It's possible that both the German and Korean numbers of cases are massively underreported, but it can't be by much. That puts the death rate with non-overwhelmed hospitals at significantly higher than 0.5%. If you want to convince me that the death rate for overwhelmed hospitals is less than 5%, you're going to have to do better than waving your your hands and saying "but what about people not sick enough get tested". EDIT2: Been challenged on the "500k tests per day", acknowledging that while I look for support for that claim. EDIT3: I slightly mangled my numbers from [2]. The numbers from that are that Germany has been doing 160K tests per week since 20 March; and that the government's goal is 200k per day. [2] According to [3], on the week ending April 5, Germany did 393k tests. [1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... [2] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-germany-has-managed-to-perform-so-many-covid-19-tests https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-germany-has-managed-... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#germany https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#germany
- GnarfGnarf 7y ago
  Even if we are willing to accept a certain number of deaths in order for the economy (and many families) to survive, the problem is that our hospitals can't handle the number of sick people that will result. You will have bodies abandoned in the streets, like in Ecuador.
LeoTinnitus 7y ago
I've read doctors have just been attributing deaths that look like Covid 19 to exactly that. Even without proper verification. Also it's only what is reported. There could've been a million people with it in the US but nobody knew...and still don't. I really agree that we used a tsunami to put out a campfire. There was no reason to close everything basically. If this was like a 25% mortality rate of all those who got it, then yeah, the response would've been appropriate. This is like less than a percent for the majority of the population, a few percent for infants, and a few extra percent for old people. Which already have been at risk just for the sake of being old. This whole event is just the media at large and social media blindly following as well overexaggerating this "crisis." 2008 was a crisis cause a bubble burst and banks defaulted. This was something made up that really did not need to be this drastic.

ceilingcorner 7y ago

Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? This is a complex issue. Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move.

dx034 7y ago
In the end no one will know if it was worth it since no country went in the other direction and just lived with it. The UK tried for a bit but then reacted harshly as the situation worsened. Maybe not doing anything would've resulted in a few months of medical chaos and not much more, maybe it would've destroyed whole societies. But the polls I'm aware of show that the majority of people is supportive of measures nearly everywhere (I'm not aware of a poll that shows the opposite). In democracies, you'd expect politicians to act if the majority and experts support it.
- praveenperera 7y ago
  Isn’t that exactly what Sweden is currently doing?
  - techer 7y ago
    And currently backtracking on.
    - jahaja 7y ago
      Uhm, no? I can't find anything in Swedish newspapers about harsher measures.
    - kitotik 7y ago
      A couple links to support the parent comment. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1268263/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-measures-covid-19-stefan-lofven-gathering-ban https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1268263/sweden-coronavi... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8212365/Swedish-PM-tighten-coronavirus-restrictions-Austria-Denmark-begin-easing-lockdown.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8212365/Swedish-PM-...
      - jahaja 7y ago
        Both these are tabloids and uses "considering" & "is looking at" just below the contradictory headlines. I'm Swedish and are browsing Swedish websites. Including the Public Service svt.se.
      - Ajedi32 7y ago
        What new measures are they actually imposing? Neither of those articles has anything concrete. The data both articles present for Sweden's death and infection rates also seem to suggest new measures might not be necessary (though admittedly the data seems pretty noisy; the recent drop in new deaths/infections could just be a fluke).
- ceilingcorner 7y ago
  Sorry, I don't recall being democratically asked whether shutting down everything indefinitely was something I agreed with before it happened. Of course people will agree that it's a good idea when the media is blaring "PANDEMIC" at them 24/7.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    "Of course" what? You're aware that different parts of the US have reacted very differently despite having similar national media blaring at them, right?
    - ceilingcorner 7y ago
      I was replying to this: > But the polls I'm aware of show that the majority of people is supportive of measures nearly everywhere (I'm not aware of a poll that shows the opposite).
  - dx034 7y ago
    You weren't. But I'm sure pretty much all politicians got quick polls before enacting measures. That measures that strictly were enacted was only because politicians knew there wouldn't be large scale protests or riots. Now I don't want to speculate why people are in favor. Maybe because they believe experts but that usually doesn't work well.. I guess public opinion during the outbreak is also going to be a heavily researched area for years to come.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Sweden is. Much of Africa will have little choice but to muddle through. We'll likely get a good idea of what the "no or low response" route looks like.
  - dx034 7y ago
    You're right, but I'd classify Sweden as medium response. They still have measures in place, just not as harsh. With poorer countries (which applies to most of Africa), I guess it'll take several months or years until we know what the excess death rate was. Esp. in rural communities, that data probably often won't be reported as a Covid death. Even Northern Italy had an excess death rate 2x as high as the reported deaths and they had all the attention.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Sweden's decidedly more casual than other OECD / Eurozone countries. NPR were carrying a segment on it this morning. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/833623311/in-sweden-a-different-approach-to-coronavirus-control https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/833623311/in-sweden-a-differe...
kitotik 7y ago
You are correct that I have an emotional reaction to death, but I was not intending to spew a bunch of hyperbole. Society isn’t a numbers game, it’s a shared set of values, and I find it appalling that we seem to be favoring the economy over human life. We have enough resources to take care of both, but chose to bail out corporations instead of people.
- ceilingcorner 7y ago
  > we seem to be favoring the economy over human life I really don't agree with this meme at all and the evidence doesn't support it whatsoever. The people that are hurt most by the shutdown are lower class service workers, not Wall Street stockbrokers. As I just mentioned, everyday people are hurting far more from the lockdown than from the virus. If you really cared about the average person, you'd want to get society running as soon as safely possible. The idea that the government can support or pay for the salary of the entire/most of the population for a sustained period of time is also completely ludicrous and impossible.
  - mattmanser 7y ago
    The problem is that as the lock downs work, it's easy to lose sight of what could have been, they stop it getting out of control and it still looks bad as there was the initial clump of infections, but the abstract hundreds per day that are dying are still fairly remote for most of us as only 1%-2% of many of our populations got infected. One can still throw around figures of "it's less death than this" or "the lock down is causing X amount of economic + societal misery". The scientific consensus seems to be that if the disease had just been left to run it's course, even with people being moderately careful given how infectious it is, it would have caused huge death figures. Perhaps that might be proved wrong when we see some countries that simply socially distanced instead of locking down, but was it ever worth the risk? All these "well, it's bad, but look at the economic damage" have to be weighed against what could have been, not what is. And we just can't imagine this, we can say it, but how many of us can imagine 10,000s dead per day? Your Aunt dead, a colleague dead and your best-friend's Dad dead, your Butcher's Grandmother dead, your barista's sister dead, a teacher at your primary school dead, your football team's goalie dead. And more, and more. Of the few hundred people you know you would have known several people who would have died, or the thousand or so you are a 2nd connection to you would have heard of many deaths. On top of that all, New York and the UK only really have Italy and Spain to look at as any sort of predictor. They now have to watch just two countries to see what happens when they start easing the restrictions, and due to the massive lag between infection and hospitalisation/death and insufficient testing capacity, it's all still guess work. Lift it a week or two too early, and you might have to go into another lock down in a few months time.
mehrdadn 7y ago
The comment was not hyperbolic. Since you believe that, that means you don't believe the projections (or maybe the current statistics). That's fine, but don't respond by denigrating on the wrong basis. Instead of accusing people of exaggerating things as if they have some kind of agenda, just be straightforward and say I don't believe those numbers.
- ceilingcorner 7y ago
  You've made a ton of huge leaps here. The comment is hyperbolic because it's using the tried-and-true tactic of "People are dying!!" to push their view and denigrate others'. As I said above: it's a complex issue. The consequences of shutting the world down just might be worse than the death toll of COVID. At the very least, it's a discussion worth having.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    People literally are dying. That's not the parent's hyperbole, it's a fact. Official projections from health organizations indicate trends will continue. Again, not the parent's hyperbole. If you think it's hyperbole then that means you don't believe the official death numbers. And "it's not a hyperbole" does not mean "it's not a complex issue" or "the alternative is better" or "it's not a discussion worth having". By all means, have your discussion. Point out that it's a complex issue like you already did. And if you dispute the claimed facts, dispute them and bring your own facts. If you don't, then just don't falsely accuse people of exaggerating them. Don't sling mud at factual arguments made in good faith; it's not difficult for others to reciprocate.
gwd 7y ago
> Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move. But isn't that what you just did here? > Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? So let's do some math instead. The last stats I had were that 5% of people who catch it will die without a ventilator, 0.5% will die with it. So suppose we go "fast burn" to try to get "herd immunity" as quickly as possible, forget about overwhelming the health care system. 80% of your friends, family, acquaintances, and coworkers will catch it, and 5% of those will die. I reckon most people have about 500-1000 people they feel connected to. So think about your network: which 20-40 people do you want to die so that the rest can go back to work?
- ceilingcorner 7y ago
  > But isn't that what you just did here? No, because I'm not drowning out the discussion, simply pushing back on the usage of hyperbole for pushing an opinion. > The last stats I had were that 5% of people who catch it will die without a ventilator, Your stats are way off and I suggest doing better research. They also don't factor in the idea that the virus is far more widespread than initially thought, and that these death rates only account for people that are sick enough to get tested in the first place.
  - gwd 7y ago
    > Your stats are way off and I suggest doing better research. I've been reading [1] daily more or less since early February, as well as lots of things posted here. I'm certainly no professional, but I think I'm reasonably well-informed for a layperson. If you think there's something I've missed, I think you'd do much better to actually point me to a resource you think is better. I realize that "number reported" is an issue, and varies a lot from country to country. But consider Germany, who have [EDIT: ramped up to 400k+ tests per week] now. The most recent numbers from the situation report says that Germany has 125k reported cases, with 3k reported deaths -- a death rate of 2.3%. EDIT: Also consider Korea, which is alleged to have instituted a massive testing infrastructure as well. Their numbers are currently 10,564 cases, 222 deaths -- again, 2.1% death rate. It's possible that both the German and Korean numbers of cases are massively underreported, but it can't be by much. That puts the death rate with non-overwhelmed hospitals at significantly higher than 0.5%. If you want to convince me that the death rate for overwhelmed hospitals is less than 5%, you're going to have to do better than waving your your hands and saying "but what about people not sick enough get tested". EDIT2: Been challenged on the "500k tests per day", acknowledging that while I look for support for that claim. EDIT3: I slightly mangled my numbers from [2]. The numbers from that are that Germany has been doing 160K tests per week since 20 March; and that the government's goal is 200k per day. [2] According to [3], on the week ending April 5, Germany did 393k tests. [1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... [2] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-germany-has-managed-to-perform-so-many-covid-19-tests https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-germany-has-managed-... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#germany https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#germany
GnarfGnarf 7y ago
Even if we are willing to accept a certain number of deaths in order for the economy (and many families) to survive, the problem is that our hospitals can't handle the number of sick people that will result. You will have bodies abandoned in the streets, like in Ecuador.

LeoTinnitus 7y ago

I've read doctors have just been attributing deaths that look like Covid 19 to exactly that. Even without proper verification. Also it's only what is reported. There could've been a million people with it in the US but nobody knew...and still don't. I really agree that we used a tsunami to put out a campfire. There was no reason to close everything basically. If this was like a 25% mortality rate of all those who got it, then yeah, the response would've been appropriate. This is like less than a percent for the majority of the population, a few percent for infants, and a few extra percent for old people. Which already have been at risk just for the sake of being old. This whole event is just the media at large and social media blindly following as well overexaggerating this "crisis." 2008 was a crisis cause a bubble burst and banks defaulted. This was something made up that really did not need to be this drastic.