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Hmm. You seem to have repeatedly said that we should stay home, but didn't really make much of an argument for it, the one exception being this point: > we ha

Hmm. You seem to have repeatedly said that we should stay home, but didn't really make much of an argument for it, the one exception being this point: > we have effectively zero buffer in many areas. A sudden increase in cases (which is what "easing up" means!) would push us right over the edge. -- I think that this is not the best way to think about it. We need to contrast the benefit of lockdowns (decreased transmission of the disease) with the economic costs. And just to be clear, this isn't about investment returns, the stock market, etc, it's about the very real fact that poverty, stress, and economic uncertainty all eventually lead to deaths in their own right (either indirectly due to being reluctant to seek medical care, or directly through suicide). If you're willing to discuss further, can we see if we agree on these points? (1) This is a highly transmissible respiratory virus, and thus eradication is impossible (2) Given (1), the purpose of lockdowns and other measures is primarily to prevent us from exceeding our hospital capacity, at which point the number of deaths would go up dramatically (3) The vast majority of the globe will be exposed to this. Avoiding that is not possible, so it's just a matter of when Therefore, we should work to mitigate the _impact_ of Covid (NOT with the goal of eradicating it, which is impossible), but there is a point where the economic damage will far exceed the cost of lifting lockdown. BTW, it's not like ending lockdown means everything goes back to normal. We would still be banning large gatherings, at least for a short length of time, and we would still be advising at-risk individuals to self-isolate (and for a country like the US, I don't have any hard numbers here but that could easily still be 30-50% of the country who's considered at risk). Last point I want to make. Many of us here work jobs that allow us to work from home, and so we kept our jobs during this. We need to recognize that not only have tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs, but a significant chunk of those jobs will not be "coming back". Real value was destroyed. And those who lost their jobs are exactly those who are likely to be in lower socioeconomic classes and thus are much less equipped to weather events like this. (Sorry, the above was pretty rambly, so I hope there's still some value you can get out of it :P)

lifeformed 6y ago
To prevent poverty and stress, it seems much safer and effective to just pause debt (not furlough) for a few months, than force everyone back into the mix and risk a new outbreak.
- macinjosh 6y ago
  > To prevent poverty and stress, it seems much safer and effective to just pause debt (not furlough) for a few months Yes, because debt is the only thing that causes stress. Being cooped in a tiny apartment away from friends and family can be very difficult for those with severe depression and anxiety. In some cases it will and has lead to suicide. > than force everyone back into the mix and risk a new outbreak Just because a lockdown is lifted doesn't mean anyone is forced back into leaving home. The problem with the lockdown is it forces the same solution on to every individual. Individuals have different needs, risk factors, priorities, and appetite for risk. People should be able to these make decisions for themselves.
  - lifeformed 6y ago
    > Just because a lockdown is lifted doesn't mean anyone is forced back into leaving home. Yes it is, without proper economic support. It's go back to work or risk poverty. It's not a fair choice if people can't safely stay home without going broke. > The problem with the lockdown is it forces the same solution on to every individual. Individuals have different needs, risk factors, priorities, and appetite for risk. People should be able to these make decisions for themselves. That's framing this as an individual choice when it's a societal issue. If people can do whatever they want, it's just the tragedy of the commons. People will do what's good for them instead of what's good for public health. In this kind of scenario, individualism often just translates to selfishness.
    - macinjosh 6y ago
      > It's not a fair choice if people can't safely stay home without going broke. Life's not fair bucko.
ajross 6y ago
Do you have a specific policy you're trying to advocate for? You want to release lockdowns at the very moment where we are at peak outbreak size? How is that not the worst possible time to do it? The very definition of "releasing lockdown" is that the rate of spread will increase. Since the exponent now seems to be very close to zero, that means it will rapidly become higher than zero, and we will be growing exponentially again. And we will start not from a dozen cases, but from hundreds of thousands. How does the math work on that? Also, to pick on some of your postulates: > (3) The vast majority of the globe will be exposed to this. Avoiding that is not possible, so it's just a matter of when The fact that we're peaking now, way under universal infection, proves this wrong. We've beaten it, the war just isn't over. We didn't all get Ebola or HIV, which were similarly novel. The world never acquired universal herd immunity to polio either. Some pandemics, like the 2009 H1N1 ("swine flu") outbreak, do work like that and spread effectively uncontained. And it's bad when they do. Swine flu killed a quarter million people, and COVID-19 is about an order of magnitude more dangerous. So it maybe made sense to let one spread where we want to contain the other. Details matter, basically.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  > The fact that we're peaking now, way under universal infection, proves this wrong. Please define "peaking". Really what you mean is that the curve of new infections is starting to flatten, but by definition, we are going to hit a new, higher peak if we lift the lockdown, because we haven't exposed enough of our population yet. It is very important that we either agree on the 3 postulates I provided, or can convincingly explain to each other why we disagree on point (3). The vast majority of the globe will be exposed to this. > We didn't all get Ebola or HIV, which were similarly novel. The world never acquired universal herd immunity to polio either. Hmm. This is just incredibly wrong. It's not the "novelness" that determines whether the majority of the globe will be exposed. You have to look at how the disease is spread and how fast/easily it spreads. HIV is not a respiratory infection. So it's a total red herring. Same thing with polio. It should be really obvious that a disease where you need to be exposed to semen/blood/other fluids of someone infected (HIV), or exposed to fecal matter entering your mouth (polio), is going to behave differently than a disease that spreads via respiratory droplets (covid). Look, the entire world agrees we cannot eradicate influenza, and we also agree that the majority of the world has some level of immunity to these diseases. Whereas with a completely novel virus, we do not have widespread immunity. Any infection that spreads easily enough (which tends to exclusively be respiratory infections since they spread the most) is impossible to eradicate, doubly so if there are natural animal reservoirs as their are with H1N1 and sars-cov-2. > So it maybe made sense to let one spread where we want to contain the other. We cannot contain either of these diseases. It is infeasible. This is another point we really need to agree on to be able to have a productive discussion. Tell me, is there any respected health organization that is advocating a policy of _containment_ towards covid? I am asserting that there is not. Containment has virtually nothing to do with lethality of the disease, except insofar as a disease with a 50% mortality rate will tend to burn itself out. It's all about the transmission rate. I agree that details matter. Which is why I think when the facts of how this virus operates are examined, it is extremely clear that we will neither contain nor eradicate the disease. The approach you are advocating for will lead to the so-called "second wave" that will crush us, and we'll have to close our economy down again to avoid widespread infection, except (a) we won't be able to because we already damaged it too much to have that headroom, and (b) as I believe this "first wave" will show us, economic shutdown is just a bad policy across the board except in areas where we are near peak hospital capacity. Not sure if you're interested, but my thoughts on a "second wave" are that it's an indication that a society totally mishandled the initial outbreak. We need to try to maintain a steady rate of new infections, such that we are near our capacity but not exceeding it. Now, due to how exponents work, it is really easy to mess up that balance. But we have to work towards herd immunity. (BTW, it's not something that you have to "work" towards, it's really a natural process that we can only interfere with by trying to foolishly contain rather than practicing targeted mitigation. -- > Do you have a specific policy you're trying to advocate for? Yeah, I'll give you one to chew on. All at-risk individuals are encouraged to voluntarily self isolate, and hunker down until we have a possible vaccine. Those who are not at risk live life as normal, minus some large gatherings. While those at-risk quarantine, everyone else is developing herd immunity. BTW, it saddens me that "herd immunity" has been turned into a dirty word. It is a natural consequence of the way immunity works in a population, and so the idea that building herd immunity is "callous" or ineffective is just a total disregard of reality. We need to build immunity in as much of the population as possible. That's the only way, and it's what we've done for every Influenza outbreak, because herd immunity isn't even something you can avoid developing without containment. But what we can do via misguided lockdowns is needlessly delay the formation of herd immunity while also destroying our economy (I am using strong language but if you look at the jobless claims, medical workers being furloughed, etc, you realize we are truly _destroying_ tremendous sources of value). This is sort of the pareto principle. We get 80% of the benefits of a mass lockdown, with only a small increase in costs. In fact, I would go one further and say that any policies that prevent the development of herd immunity are actively causing harm since we're postponing the reconciliation into the future while damaging our economy in the present Oh, and just to be clear, I advocate total lockdown in any areas that are nearing medical capacity. New York is the quintessential example here. BTW, New York will be a great example of herd immunity. Their death toll is staggering right now, because massive quantities of people have been exposed. It's hard to know how many, particularly given that the death figures are a little untrustworthy, but I would assume that every death has something like 200 corresponding infections (somewhere around a .5% IFR). Give it another month, and we will see a dramatic dropoff in infection, even if we lift the lockdown, because there won't be many vectors left for covid to spread through. Last thing I'll say is, it's very telling that you have not made any references to the economic impacts of lockdown. A rational decision requires comparing the benefits of lockdown with the costs to our economy, and by not even mentioning the latter, it seems to imply that you're not performing a rational cost/benefit analysis here, but rather are relying on very dubious reasoning.
D_Alex 6y ago
Since you want to discuss, and clearly looked into this: I do not agree on any single one of your numbered points. 1) "eradication is not possible" just does not follow from "this is a highly transmissible respiratory virus". "Eradication will be difficult" follows; but several countries have shown us that "eradication is entirely possible if proper measures are taken" 2) The purpose of lockdowns is to eradicate the virus. https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-deadly-delusion-eea324fe9727 https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-dea... 3) See 1. So my position is that eradication is possible, and - given the possibility of multiple waves if the virus becomes endemic (large virus population --> increased chances of dangerous mutations) - it is vital that we give it a really good try. The discussion should re-focus on how we go about eradicating the virus, while minimizing the damage to the economy. This article outlines an appropriate path forward: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56 https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...

lifeformed 6y ago

To prevent poverty and stress, it seems much safer and effective to just pause debt (not furlough) for a few months, than force everyone back into the mix and risk a new outbreak.

macinjosh 6y ago
> To prevent poverty and stress, it seems much safer and effective to just pause debt (not furlough) for a few months Yes, because debt is the only thing that causes stress. Being cooped in a tiny apartment away from friends and family can be very difficult for those with severe depression and anxiety. In some cases it will and has lead to suicide. > than force everyone back into the mix and risk a new outbreak Just because a lockdown is lifted doesn't mean anyone is forced back into leaving home. The problem with the lockdown is it forces the same solution on to every individual. Individuals have different needs, risk factors, priorities, and appetite for risk. People should be able to these make decisions for themselves.
- lifeformed 6y ago
  > Just because a lockdown is lifted doesn't mean anyone is forced back into leaving home. Yes it is, without proper economic support. It's go back to work or risk poverty. It's not a fair choice if people can't safely stay home without going broke. > The problem with the lockdown is it forces the same solution on to every individual. Individuals have different needs, risk factors, priorities, and appetite for risk. People should be able to these make decisions for themselves. That's framing this as an individual choice when it's a societal issue. If people can do whatever they want, it's just the tragedy of the commons. People will do what's good for them instead of what's good for public health. In this kind of scenario, individualism often just translates to selfishness.
  - macinjosh 6y ago
    > It's not a fair choice if people can't safely stay home without going broke. Life's not fair bucko.

ajross 6y ago

Do you have a specific policy you're trying to advocate for? You want to release lockdowns at the very moment where we are at peak outbreak size? How is that not the worst possible time to do it? The very definition of "releasing lockdown" is that the rate of spread will increase. Since the exponent now seems to be very close to zero, that means it will rapidly become higher than zero, and we will be growing exponentially again. And we will start not from a dozen cases, but from hundreds of thousands. How does the math work on that? Also, to pick on some of your postulates: > (3) The vast majority of the globe will be exposed to this. Avoiding that is not possible, so it's just a matter of when The fact that we're peaking now, way under universal infection, proves this wrong. We've beaten it, the war just isn't over. We didn't all get Ebola or HIV, which were similarly novel. The world never acquired universal herd immunity to polio either. Some pandemics, like the 2009 H1N1 ("swine flu") outbreak, do work like that and spread effectively uncontained. And it's bad when they do. Swine flu killed a quarter million people, and COVID-19 is about an order of magnitude more dangerous. So it maybe made sense to let one spread where we want to contain the other. Details matter, basically.

ryankemper 6y ago
> The fact that we're peaking now, way under universal infection, proves this wrong. Please define "peaking". Really what you mean is that the curve of new infections is starting to flatten, but by definition, we are going to hit a new, higher peak if we lift the lockdown, because we haven't exposed enough of our population yet. It is very important that we either agree on the 3 postulates I provided, or can convincingly explain to each other why we disagree on point (3). The vast majority of the globe will be exposed to this. > We didn't all get Ebola or HIV, which were similarly novel. The world never acquired universal herd immunity to polio either. Hmm. This is just incredibly wrong. It's not the "novelness" that determines whether the majority of the globe will be exposed. You have to look at how the disease is spread and how fast/easily it spreads. HIV is not a respiratory infection. So it's a total red herring. Same thing with polio. It should be really obvious that a disease where you need to be exposed to semen/blood/other fluids of someone infected (HIV), or exposed to fecal matter entering your mouth (polio), is going to behave differently than a disease that spreads via respiratory droplets (covid). Look, the entire world agrees we cannot eradicate influenza, and we also agree that the majority of the world has some level of immunity to these diseases. Whereas with a completely novel virus, we do not have widespread immunity. Any infection that spreads easily enough (which tends to exclusively be respiratory infections since they spread the most) is impossible to eradicate, doubly so if there are natural animal reservoirs as their are with H1N1 and sars-cov-2. > So it maybe made sense to let one spread where we want to contain the other. We cannot contain either of these diseases. It is infeasible. This is another point we really need to agree on to be able to have a productive discussion. Tell me, is there any respected health organization that is advocating a policy of _containment_ towards covid? I am asserting that there is not. Containment has virtually nothing to do with lethality of the disease, except insofar as a disease with a 50% mortality rate will tend to burn itself out. It's all about the transmission rate. I agree that details matter. Which is why I think when the facts of how this virus operates are examined, it is extremely clear that we will neither contain nor eradicate the disease. The approach you are advocating for will lead to the so-called "second wave" that will crush us, and we'll have to close our economy down again to avoid widespread infection, except (a) we won't be able to because we already damaged it too much to have that headroom, and (b) as I believe this "first wave" will show us, economic shutdown is just a bad policy across the board except in areas where we are near peak hospital capacity. Not sure if you're interested, but my thoughts on a "second wave" are that it's an indication that a society totally mishandled the initial outbreak. We need to try to maintain a steady rate of new infections, such that we are near our capacity but not exceeding it. Now, due to how exponents work, it is really easy to mess up that balance. But we have to work towards herd immunity. (BTW, it's not something that you have to "work" towards, it's really a natural process that we can only interfere with by trying to foolishly contain rather than practicing targeted mitigation. -- > Do you have a specific policy you're trying to advocate for? Yeah, I'll give you one to chew on. All at-risk individuals are encouraged to voluntarily self isolate, and hunker down until we have a possible vaccine. Those who are not at risk live life as normal, minus some large gatherings. While those at-risk quarantine, everyone else is developing herd immunity. BTW, it saddens me that "herd immunity" has been turned into a dirty word. It is a natural consequence of the way immunity works in a population, and so the idea that building herd immunity is "callous" or ineffective is just a total disregard of reality. We need to build immunity in as much of the population as possible. That's the only way, and it's what we've done for every Influenza outbreak, because herd immunity isn't even something you can avoid developing without containment. But what we can do via misguided lockdowns is needlessly delay the formation of herd immunity while also destroying our economy (I am using strong language but if you look at the jobless claims, medical workers being furloughed, etc, you realize we are truly _destroying_ tremendous sources of value). This is sort of the pareto principle. We get 80% of the benefits of a mass lockdown, with only a small increase in costs. In fact, I would go one further and say that any policies that prevent the development of herd immunity are actively causing harm since we're postponing the reconciliation into the future while damaging our economy in the present Oh, and just to be clear, I advocate total lockdown in any areas that are nearing medical capacity. New York is the quintessential example here. BTW, New York will be a great example of herd immunity. Their death toll is staggering right now, because massive quantities of people have been exposed. It's hard to know how many, particularly given that the death figures are a little untrustworthy, but I would assume that every death has something like 200 corresponding infections (somewhere around a .5% IFR). Give it another month, and we will see a dramatic dropoff in infection, even if we lift the lockdown, because there won't be many vectors left for covid to spread through. Last thing I'll say is, it's very telling that you have not made any references to the economic impacts of lockdown. A rational decision requires comparing the benefits of lockdown with the costs to our economy, and by not even mentioning the latter, it seems to imply that you're not performing a rational cost/benefit analysis here, but rather are relying on very dubious reasoning.

D_Alex 6y ago

Since you want to discuss, and clearly looked into this: I do not agree on any single one of your numbered points. 1) "eradication is not possible" just does not follow from "this is a highly transmissible respiratory virus". "Eradication will be difficult" follows; but several countries have shown us that "eradication is entirely possible if proper measures are taken" 2) The purpose of lockdowns is to eradicate the virus. https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-deadly-delusion-eea324fe9727 https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-dea... 3) See 1. So my position is that eradication is possible, and - given the possibility of multiple waves if the virus becomes endemic (large virus population --> increased chances of dangerous mutations) - it is vital that we give it a really good try. The discussion should re-focus on how we go about eradicating the virus, while minimizing the damage to the economy. This article outlines an appropriate path forward: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56 https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...