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I keep coming back to since we don't know the details very well right now and risk of catastrophe is high then executing the laundry list of interventions is th

I keep coming back to since we don't know the details very well right now and risk of catastrophe is high then executing the laundry list of interventions is the most prudent option until we have better data. Maybe we figure out that children and teenagers basically don't get it or spread it. Then we can guardedly reopen schools. But not before we aren't certain it isn't going to blow up in our faces.

__blockcipher__ 7y ago
Unemployment directly leads to suicide over the long run, and that’s not even mentioning the extra suicide and overdose-related deaths from the unique conditions of isolation and constant fear mongering we are all collectively being exposed to. It’s not clear that our interventions are going to help, given that the economic damage is going to introduce mortality (dud to the aforementioned suicide/overdose) in individuals who never would have been harmed by covid. Meanwhile, it’s still a reality that majority of the globe will be exposed to this, so the lockdown is not avoiding death but instead just _postponing_ it. We need to hunker down insofar as we are close to exceeding medical capacity, but when we are not on the brink of medical collapse we need to be opening up. Unfortunately the public policy has been built around irrational fear rather than “straight talk”. Thus why people are scared shitless that their teenage children, or elementary school children, will did if they return to school (rather than merely being a vector to infect their parents). I’m on mobile but I have citations for the link between unemployment vs suicide that I’ll try to edit and stick in here in an hour or so. Last thing is that people should understand that the serological data, while not entirely reliable, is indicating from multiple sources that true IFR is .2-.8%, and furthermore that relative risk varies massively as a function of age/obesity/etc. So this seems to be one of the worst diseases to be practicing national lockdown for. (Avoiding hospital overrun was a great goal but the goalposts have now moved over time). Also the IMHE model is so laughably bad that I actually am shocked that the authors are considered “experts”. It predicts 0 deaths after some point in June (I forget the day, I think june 6) because it naively assumed a .3 R_0 based off of the wuhan data, which they apparently assumed would hold for the US. In other words my understanding is the model is pretending that we’re going to contain covid. And they actually were crazy enough to lower the estimated deaths to 60,000 which we can already see is ridiculous. I really wish I was in Sweden right now...
- __blockcipher__ 7y ago
  I forgot you can't edit comments on HN later. Here's a study linking unemployment and suicide: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1732539/pdf/v057p00594.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1732539/pdf/v05... Note that they call it "causal" but it's still using statistical magic, but I think the idea that unemployment leads to suicide is one of those that seems like a sane default assumption, so as much as I distrust these kinds of analyses in general, I think it's relevant here.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    I have question. If you don't care about one out of 20 of your friends, family and neighbors drying, people you know. Why do you pretend to care about some out of work schmuck you don't know offing himself? Seems like your argument is trying to abuse the fact that I care.
    - __blockcipher__ 7y ago
      Where are you getting that 5% mortality rate? That is an order of magnitude higher than what the data currently indicates, and is exactly what I meant about widespread fear mongering. BTW the rhetorical technique you are using seems to basically be concern trolling. It’s the debate equivalent of a thought terminating cliche. It will never lead to a useful discussion.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        Because 5% morality is what you get when the healthcare system breaks down. Which would be a direct result of letting the pandemic rip. It's easy, take the 0.7-1% measured fatality rate. Double that to account for under counting. Then triple it to account for complete breakdown of the healthcare system There 5%. Advice: None of this is hard to sort out and you are flailing at it.
        __blockcipher__ 7y ago
makomk 7y ago
These interventions aren't harm-free, though, even putting aside the obvious effect on children's education. Nurses, doctors and other key workers have children and shutting down all the schools is going to be very disruptive to them. A surprising number of countries rely on schools to make sure some children are actually fed. There's also the problem of policing what those children do when they're out of school. And on a darker note, schools are a very important early warning system for domestic violence and abuse against kids, and there are some frankly very worrying claims that murders of kids have spiked dramatically in at least some parts of the US. It's likely that there are children who are dead now that wouldn't be if countries hadn't taken the "prudent option" of imposing a probably-ineffective intervention, quite possibly a substantial number.

__blockcipher__ 7y ago

Unemployment directly leads to suicide over the long run, and that’s not even mentioning the extra suicide and overdose-related deaths from the unique conditions of isolation and constant fear mongering we are all collectively being exposed to. It’s not clear that our interventions are going to help, given that the economic damage is going to introduce mortality (dud to the aforementioned suicide/overdose) in individuals who never would have been harmed by covid. Meanwhile, it’s still a reality that majority of the globe will be exposed to this, so the lockdown is not avoiding death but instead just _postponing_ it. We need to hunker down insofar as we are close to exceeding medical capacity, but when we are not on the brink of medical collapse we need to be opening up. Unfortunately the public policy has been built around irrational fear rather than “straight talk”. Thus why people are scared shitless that their teenage children, or elementary school children, will did if they return to school (rather than merely being a vector to infect their parents). I’m on mobile but I have citations for the link between unemployment vs suicide that I’ll try to edit and stick in here in an hour or so. Last thing is that people should understand that the serological data, while not entirely reliable, is indicating from multiple sources that true IFR is .2-.8%, and furthermore that relative risk varies massively as a function of age/obesity/etc. So this seems to be one of the worst diseases to be practicing national lockdown for. (Avoiding hospital overrun was a great goal but the goalposts have now moved over time). Also the IMHE model is so laughably bad that I actually am shocked that the authors are considered “experts”. It predicts 0 deaths after some point in June (I forget the day, I think june 6) because it naively assumed a .3 R_0 based off of the wuhan data, which they apparently assumed would hold for the US. In other words my understanding is the model is pretending that we’re going to contain covid. And they actually were crazy enough to lower the estimated deaths to 60,000 which we can already see is ridiculous. I really wish I was in Sweden right now...

__blockcipher__ 7y ago
I forgot you can't edit comments on HN later. Here's a study linking unemployment and suicide: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1732539/pdf/v057p00594.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1732539/pdf/v05... Note that they call it "causal" but it's still using statistical magic, but I think the idea that unemployment leads to suicide is one of those that seems like a sane default assumption, so as much as I distrust these kinds of analyses in general, I think it's relevant here.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  I have question. If you don't care about one out of 20 of your friends, family and neighbors drying, people you know. Why do you pretend to care about some out of work schmuck you don't know offing himself? Seems like your argument is trying to abuse the fact that I care.
  - __blockcipher__ 7y ago
    Where are you getting that 5% mortality rate? That is an order of magnitude higher than what the data currently indicates, and is exactly what I meant about widespread fear mongering. BTW the rhetorical technique you are using seems to basically be concern trolling. It’s the debate equivalent of a thought terminating cliche. It will never lead to a useful discussion.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      Because 5% morality is what you get when the healthcare system breaks down. Which would be a direct result of letting the pandemic rip. It's easy, take the 0.7-1% measured fatality rate. Double that to account for under counting. Then triple it to account for complete breakdown of the healthcare system There 5%. Advice: None of this is hard to sort out and you are flailing at it.
      - __blockcipher__ 7y ago

makomk 7y ago

These interventions aren't harm-free, though, even putting aside the obvious effect on children's education. Nurses, doctors and other key workers have children and shutting down all the schools is going to be very disruptive to them. A surprising number of countries rely on schools to make sure some children are actually fed. There's also the problem of policing what those children do when they're out of school. And on a darker note, schools are a very important early warning system for domestic violence and abuse against kids, and there are some frankly very worrying claims that murders of kids have spiked dramatically in at least some parts of the US. It's likely that there are children who are dead now that wouldn't be if countries hadn't taken the "prudent option" of imposing a probably-ineffective intervention, quite possibly a substantial number.