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So, at what point can we declare the lockdown to be a harmful overreaction and start opening countries up? Will we hold anyone accountable for models which prov

So, at what point can we declare the lockdown to be a harmful overreaction and start opening countries up? Will we hold anyone accountable for models which proved to be pessimistic by orders of magnitude, causing implosion of economies around the world?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
chasd00 7y ago
has anyone modeled at one point deaths from economic collapse overtake deaths from Covid19?
- bbarn 7y ago
  That was the first thing I said, 2 months ago, and got told I was a selfish asshole and had no clue what I'm talking about. This is going to be a real big history lesson for our grandchildren on how not to handle a situation in one way or another, unless the media rewrites the narrative. Oh, wait.
- robocat 7y ago
  I would be very sceptical about any models produced in the US, since the issue is so partisan, and one can tweak variables to prove whatever outcome one wants from a model. I think the lost life-years of economic hardship could easily outweigh the lost life-years of Covid deaths. That is because economic hardship affects younger people, while Covid deaths primarily affect people with not many years left to live. But there are many other external costs (social costs if your grandma dies) and economic benefits to deaths (lower pension payments, home availability?). However, given current information, a lockdown for weeks to months seems to make sense, since the consensus is that economic collapse is not yet immanent, and that steps can be taken to help keep the economy spinning when lockdown restrictions start to be relaxed.
  - watwut 7y ago
    Economic hardship affects middle aged and old people too.
sacred_numbers 7y ago
I think,if anything, that this new data validates the lockdown. New York City has been hit hard by this virus (0.2% of the population; for comparison 0.3% of the US population died in WW2) and there are still approximately 80% of the population that hasn't gotten it yet. If 70% of the population of NYC ends up getting it over the next few months, that would mean something like 50k to 60k dead just in NYC. If 70% of the US population ends up getting it that would be 1-2 million dead. Locking down in the face of those numbers is not an overreaction, although maintaining lockdown until a vaccine may be an overreaction. I think we should be devoting huge amounts of resources to manufacturing face masks and testing kits so that we can safely ease out of lockdown without causing more outbreaks like we saw in New York or Italy. Ending the lockdown without a plan, though, is highly unethical in my opinion
outworlder 7y ago
Sure, let's ignore the hospitals getting overloaded.
luckydata 7y ago
you're getting the wrong message from all of this.
thehappypm 7y ago
This data might suggest that the lockdowns suppressed the infection rate down to 20% at this moment in time. Without a lockdown, a month more of infections would have likely bumped NYC to achieving herd immunity, or 60-ish percent, since 20% to 60% does not take long with exponential growth. This means two things. One, it would mean that we would have almost certainly overwhelmed the hospitals with triple the rate of infections. We've be leaving people dead in the streets and it would be a humanitarian disaster as every hospital was at double capacity. It would also have meant that the curve would be flattened for good.
- joe_maley 7y ago
  >It would also have meant that the curve would be flattened for good. I have yet to see any evidence that covid antibodies provide long-term immunity. We can't say with any certainty that the curve would be permanently flattened. It may just be flattened for a few weeks, a few months, or a few years.
  - thehappypm 7y ago
    With no long-term immunity, lockdowns need to be permanent until we have a vaccine or treatment. That's not feasible. If there's no immunity we might as well end the lockdowns.
esoterica 7y ago
0.18% of the entire NYC population is already dead from the coronavirus and by the time this is over the number will probably reach or exceed 0.3%. If you want the whole country to get herd immunity you will probably see similar mortality rates across the country. 0.3% of the US population is 1 million people. How have the models been proven to be "pessimistic by orders of magnitude?
- cdash 7y ago
  Just so you know, around 3 million people die in the US every year, many of the million people you expect to die would have ended up being counted in that 3 million background statistic. More importantly, herd immunity is the ONLY solution on the table right now, the lockdown is not about stopping the virus in its tracks. It is about spreading it out over a period of time.
  - esoterica 7y ago
    >the lockdown is not about stopping the virus in its tracks. It is about spreading it out over a period of time. It's unclear what the lockdown is about at all since the government messaging has been incoherent. Many countries have (so far) succesfully contained the virus without herd immunity through contact tracing, and the US government has been making vague comments about pursuing something along those lines despite not doing anything to increase testing volumes to the levels necessary for contact tracing.
    - usaar333 7y ago
      Depends where you are. The Bay Area is contact tracing every case and as a result is at a really low new case count (Santa Clara County is at 11 per million/day over the last week, significantly lower than successful country's peaks (NZ/SK), while still having tighter restrictions.
bbarn 7y ago
At the point where more deaths are caused by the global socio-economic collapse than COVID-19 would have caused at even pessimistic projections. At this point, I'm not convinced in either direction.
- greedo 7y ago
  You're assuming the economy wouldn't have collapsed in the faced of the pandemic.
amalter 7y ago
That the 0.5% death rate in NYC is not higher is _because_ of the pause. We saw the death rates spike at the peak of the curve. We saw the hospitals near total collapse. We even have an example of what would happen if we didn't flatten the curve (Northern Italy). We have another counterexample of California that shows NY's pause was late. I guess Sweden is the counter-counter example. I think the US would have needed to have built out a far different medical system to achieve what they have. For a few days at the end of March and beginning of April, the hospitals came so, so close to collapsing. Just a few more days up the curve and we would have run out of beds. (In reality, we did run out of beds, as you can see stories of many turned away from hospitals in those dark days, but it wasn't quite a systematic collapse). All of this happened, we were here to record it. Models are models, and we're in the early days of a deadly, virulent, confusing pandemic. But there is no doubt that our reactions and solidarity saved lives. The imperfect models helped us get there. Now, there is a more reasonable question of where do we go from here. For urban metropolis like NYC, I think a slow re-open like Germany. We slightly open the spigit so that 20% becomes 40% becomes 60% (and hopefully immunity is immunity) and we achieve herd protection (at great cost). And likely the less dense, the slower we'll need to go (depending on hospital saturation). I certainly will cheer the scientists who took the best information they had at the time and worked with the leaders to make the best decisions they could. Yes, I will indeed hold them "accountable".
- greedo 7y ago
  I'm holding judgement on Sweden since their numbers don't look as good as people are claiming, and the pandemic is still young.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

chasd00 7y ago

has anyone modeled at one point deaths from economic collapse overtake deaths from Covid19?

bbarn 7y ago
That was the first thing I said, 2 months ago, and got told I was a selfish asshole and had no clue what I'm talking about. This is going to be a real big history lesson for our grandchildren on how not to handle a situation in one way or another, unless the media rewrites the narrative. Oh, wait.
robocat 7y ago
I would be very sceptical about any models produced in the US, since the issue is so partisan, and one can tweak variables to prove whatever outcome one wants from a model. I think the lost life-years of economic hardship could easily outweigh the lost life-years of Covid deaths. That is because economic hardship affects younger people, while Covid deaths primarily affect people with not many years left to live. But there are many other external costs (social costs if your grandma dies) and economic benefits to deaths (lower pension payments, home availability?). However, given current information, a lockdown for weeks to months seems to make sense, since the consensus is that economic collapse is not yet immanent, and that steps can be taken to help keep the economy spinning when lockdown restrictions start to be relaxed.
- watwut 7y ago
  Economic hardship affects middle aged and old people too.

sacred_numbers 7y ago

I think,if anything, that this new data validates the lockdown. New York City has been hit hard by this virus (0.2% of the population; for comparison 0.3% of the US population died in WW2) and there are still approximately 80% of the population that hasn't gotten it yet. If 70% of the population of NYC ends up getting it over the next few months, that would mean something like 50k to 60k dead just in NYC. If 70% of the US population ends up getting it that would be 1-2 million dead. Locking down in the face of those numbers is not an overreaction, although maintaining lockdown until a vaccine may be an overreaction. I think we should be devoting huge amounts of resources to manufacturing face masks and testing kits so that we can safely ease out of lockdown without causing more outbreaks like we saw in New York or Italy. Ending the lockdown without a plan, though, is highly unethical in my opinion

outworlder 7y ago

Sure, let's ignore the hospitals getting overloaded.

luckydata 7y ago

you're getting the wrong message from all of this.

thehappypm 7y ago

This data might suggest that the lockdowns suppressed the infection rate down to 20% at this moment in time. Without a lockdown, a month more of infections would have likely bumped NYC to achieving herd immunity, or 60-ish percent, since 20% to 60% does not take long with exponential growth. This means two things. One, it would mean that we would have almost certainly overwhelmed the hospitals with triple the rate of infections. We've be leaving people dead in the streets and it would be a humanitarian disaster as every hospital was at double capacity. It would also have meant that the curve would be flattened for good.

joe_maley 7y ago
>It would also have meant that the curve would be flattened for good. I have yet to see any evidence that covid antibodies provide long-term immunity. We can't say with any certainty that the curve would be permanently flattened. It may just be flattened for a few weeks, a few months, or a few years.
- thehappypm 7y ago
  With no long-term immunity, lockdowns need to be permanent until we have a vaccine or treatment. That's not feasible. If there's no immunity we might as well end the lockdowns.

esoterica 7y ago

0.18% of the entire NYC population is already dead from the coronavirus and by the time this is over the number will probably reach or exceed 0.3%. If you want the whole country to get herd immunity you will probably see similar mortality rates across the country. 0.3% of the US population is 1 million people. How have the models been proven to be "pessimistic by orders of magnitude?

cdash 7y ago
Just so you know, around 3 million people die in the US every year, many of the million people you expect to die would have ended up being counted in that 3 million background statistic. More importantly, herd immunity is the ONLY solution on the table right now, the lockdown is not about stopping the virus in its tracks. It is about spreading it out over a period of time.
- esoterica 7y ago
  >the lockdown is not about stopping the virus in its tracks. It is about spreading it out over a period of time. It's unclear what the lockdown is about at all since the government messaging has been incoherent. Many countries have (so far) succesfully contained the virus without herd immunity through contact tracing, and the US government has been making vague comments about pursuing something along those lines despite not doing anything to increase testing volumes to the levels necessary for contact tracing.
  - usaar333 7y ago
    Depends where you are. The Bay Area is contact tracing every case and as a result is at a really low new case count (Santa Clara County is at 11 per million/day over the last week, significantly lower than successful country's peaks (NZ/SK), while still having tighter restrictions.

bbarn 7y ago

At the point where more deaths are caused by the global socio-economic collapse than COVID-19 would have caused at even pessimistic projections. At this point, I'm not convinced in either direction.

greedo 7y ago
You're assuming the economy wouldn't have collapsed in the faced of the pandemic.

amalter 7y ago

That the 0.5% death rate in NYC is not higher is _because_ of the pause. We saw the death rates spike at the peak of the curve. We saw the hospitals near total collapse. We even have an example of what would happen if we didn't flatten the curve (Northern Italy). We have another counterexample of California that shows NY's pause was late. I guess Sweden is the counter-counter example. I think the US would have needed to have built out a far different medical system to achieve what they have. For a few days at the end of March and beginning of April, the hospitals came so, so close to collapsing. Just a few more days up the curve and we would have run out of beds. (In reality, we did run out of beds, as you can see stories of many turned away from hospitals in those dark days, but it wasn't quite a systematic collapse). All of this happened, we were here to record it. Models are models, and we're in the early days of a deadly, virulent, confusing pandemic. But there is no doubt that our reactions and solidarity saved lives. The imperfect models helped us get there. Now, there is a more reasonable question of where do we go from here. For urban metropolis like NYC, I think a slow re-open like Germany. We slightly open the spigit so that 20% becomes 40% becomes 60% (and hopefully immunity is immunity) and we achieve herd protection (at great cost). And likely the less dense, the slower we'll need to go (depending on hospital saturation). I certainly will cheer the scientists who took the best information they had at the time and worked with the leaders to make the best decisions they could. Yes, I will indeed hold them "accountable".

greedo 7y ago
I'm holding judgement on Sweden since their numbers don't look as good as people are claiming, and the pandemic is still young.