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If it's not obvious, I wrote this. The intent is to be a fairly comprehensive coverage of what we know about COVID-19 and what it means for our policy. Note th

If it's not obvious, I wrote this. The intent is to be a fairly comprehensive coverage of what we know about COVID-19 and what it means for our policy. Note that the article is written from a US-based perspective although I suspect it's relevant to a broader audience. In general, I believe that the case against lockdown has been highly stigmatized and thus many people have not been exposed to a convincing argument of why some of us feel that our response has actually made things worse. I encourage any pull requests (see the very final section). If you're short on time, I'd recommend at least reading https://www.ryankemper.io/post/2020-04-29-the_case_for_ending_lockdown/#section-6-tl-dr-simple-words-only https://www.ryankemper.io/post/2020-04-29-the_case_for_endin..., which has a readability score (Flesch-Kincaid, etc) of around a middle school level and is extremely brief and to the point. For those who have a bit more time but still not enough for the whole article, I'd recommend at least reading https://www.ryankemper.io/post/2020-04-29-the_case_for_ending_lockdown/#section-2-how-serious-is-covid-19 https://www.ryankemper.io/post/2020-04-29-the_case_for_endin.... In particular understanding the age-stratified risk distribution, and how it differs from Influenza, is super important. Finally I'd also recommend checking out the proposal, which ironically is the shortest section: https://www.ryankemper.io/post/2020-04-29-the_case_for_ending_lockdown/#section-4-pareto-mitigation-an-evidence-based-approach https://www.ryankemper.io/post/2020-04-29-the_case_for_endin... Thanks for any feedback.

mdasen 6y ago
I'm a bit confused by the Gitlab logo on your site. Do you work for Gitlab? Is Gitlab endorsing your article?
- ryankemper 6y ago
  Oof, good observation and I should definitely clarify here. I have no affiliation with Gitlab whatsoever. This is my personal blog that I made when I quit my previous job a couple months ago. I ended up repurposing the blog because I couldn't figure out how to get a table of contents working on a generic markdown file (i.e. I originally was just going to link to plain markdown in my git repo), but I was able to quickly figure out how to get it working with hugo. I used Netlify / Hugo via Gitlab to do so, so the Gitlab logo just happened to be part of the default theme. I'll look into removing it for clarity later.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  Circling back: https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/nfhugo/-/commit/1a8ead81ff65d730a9032cc14e380fa95a29f550 https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/nfhugo/-/commit/1a8ead81ff65d7...
JadeNB 6y ago
Having, as you suggested, skipped just to the TL;DR, this bit jumped out at me as something that we very much don't know is true, and that it's dangerous to assume is true without proof: > Once you get sick, you can’t get sick again for a long time. Eventually you might be able to get sick again, but it will not be very bad. When enough people have gotten sick and then gotten better, the sickness can’t spread any more. (Incidentally, at one point you leave out the 'z' from "hospitalization".)
- mrfusion 6y ago
  That’s a popular point with the talking heads on the media but I’d encourage you to read up on it. Best estimates look like 1-4 years of immunity [1] 1. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30985-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    I hadn't seen the Lancet article—I was getting my latest information from the Quanta article also on the front page (https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-other-coronaviruses-tell-us-about-sars-cov-2-20200429)—and https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-other-coronaviruses-... I guess it's a matter of language and personal preference, but "this global pandemic will be in abeyance for a year or so" doesn't match my informal understanding of "a long time". I also believe, as sibling postpawl (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23025675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23025675) points out, that there is still at least a divergence of opinions here, and that it is dangerous to get it wrong. (Personally, while I think voicing unpopular opinions is definitely a role we need in society, it seems to me that dismissing widely accepted opinions as due just to "talking heads on the media" puts disputants in an adversarial position that makes it more likely for people to hunker down in their existing opinions, and less likely for anyone's mind to change. Your refutation would have been more, not less, convincing to me if it had just pointed to the Lancet article.)
    - mrfusion 6y ago
      You make a good point. Sorry about my reply. I’m so used to getting downvoted these days I’m trying out different writing styles. (Maybe this one is a fail)
mrfusion 6y ago
I see a lot of good points here. Thanks for creating this.
nostromo 6y ago
I wish you the best. This debate has taken on all the fervor of a holy war, and putting out an contrarian position has been hugely unpopular. One thing I'd add: employment and health insurance are tied together in the US. The lock down dramatically increased unemployment, the majority of whom will not pay expensive Cobra costs, and will soon be uninsured. The opposite of what was intended may happen: we are now less prepared to deal with an increase in demands on healthcare than we were a month ago, as uninsured people tend to avoid hospitals until they're absolutely necessary.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  Thanks. That point about health insurance is great and I think I should weave that into the part that talks about furloughing medical workers. I'll see about doing so after I take a break to eat some food. (As an aside, I'm pretty comfortable writing and can write pretty quickly but as you can imagine just getting to this first draft took a lot out of me.)
japhyr 6y ago
> This is a living document and we encourage contributions in the form of pull requests. Who is "we"? I understand your use of "we" to speak from the perspective of us as a society through most of the article, but this makes it sound like there's more than one author.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  s/we/I I chose to use "we" both because it fits with the semi-formal tone better, but more importantly because I want to give others a chance to open PRs if they choose to do so, so I was basically future-proofing for a possible scenario where I wasn't the only contributor.
  - ryankemper 6y ago
    FWIW, I will probably circle back here and switch to "I", since I think it's probably worth it to avoid confusion.
    - mchusma 6y ago
      I may submit a PR then it would become "we".
      - ryankemper 6y ago
        Thanks. I'm going to leave it as is. As another commentator has mentioned, use of the singular "we" is very common in academic writing anyway, not that I'm saying that this blog post of mine is "real" scientific research or anything
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  This is fairly common for many styles of writing even when it's clearly just one author. Considering he's open to pull requests it makes even more sense. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2945/choice-of-personal-pronoun-in-single-author-papers https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2945/choice-of-...
newbie789 6y ago
>...which has a readability score (Flesch-Kincaid, etc) of around a middle school level... This might not be the most condescending thing I've ever read on HN, but it's definitely gunning for one of the funniest. Genuinely, what is the purpose of making an argument about a complex topic and then suggesting that skipping nuance and detail is an acceptable route to forming an opinion? If you're so certain on this topic and think that your tl;dr section cuts to the quick of the issue so well that people with a middle school reading level should obviously understand and agree with your point, what is the purpose of the post as a whole? To be clear, I think this is silly on multiple levels but the babytalk bit made me lol
ohlookabird 6y ago
Thanks, will definitely read it, but on a first glance I couldn't see any information on your background or experience in the field of epidemiology or a related science. It would definitely help to put your thoughts into context and if you have a background in this field it would give your collection of thoughts more weight. With all the misinformation going around I resorted to mainly listen to scientists in the relevant fields directly (if you speak German, the NDR podcast with Prof. Drosten is really nice in my opinion). Therefore I think it really helpful if research institutions and researchers themselves who are in that field (!) are vocal (but reserved and competent) about studies and thoughts. For instance, today the four big research institutions in Germany (Max Planck, Helmholtz, Leibnitz, Frauenhofer) published a joint message in favor of social distancing and contact restrictions: https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/29/world/europe/29reuters-health-coronavirus-germany-scientists.html https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/29/world/europe/29re... Edit: I only found the German press release so far: https://www.mpg.de/14759871/corona-stellungnahme https://www.mpg.de/14759871/corona-stellungnahme
- ryankemper 6y ago
  I have no directly relevant credentials whatsoever and don't claim to. (I actually considered saying as such in the writeup but it's already so verbose that I felt it wasn't worth it). I'm just a dude that likes to read research papers. As an aside, there is totally an archetype of the software engineer that thinks they're equipped to dive into unrelated fields, and I definitely match that trope. I will say in my defense though, that I try to build simple mental models and take them to their logical conclusion, which is a quality that I see in people I admire, and conversely a quality that I find lacking in people that I feel don't have a lot of insight. Many might disagree but I am a very strong believer that arguments should be evaluated on their merits, rather than credentials. Indeed having credentials makes it that much easier to fall prey to cognitive distortions.
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    > I have no directly relevant credentials whatsoever and don't claim to. IMO this should be a disclaimer in bold right at the very top of the article.
williamstein 6y ago
I found a typo: "incredible stess" --> "incredible stress". This is well written. Thank you. It's wrong that this post is currently flagged.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  Thank you. https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/ca2771bbe1df37512b8e560f540dedb6ac8e4704 https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/ca2771bbe1df...
- dang 6y ago
  We turned off the flags. I haven't read the article, but it seems thoughtful enough, and the thread substantive enough, to count as on topic here.
cjhopman 6y ago
I'm sorry but I can't take serious something that claims to take an impartial look at all the evidence related to the lockdown but then tries its damnedest to present all possible negatives it could without doing the same for positives. For example, there's clear evidence that the lockdown has decreased lives lost to traffic accidents but that appears nowhere here. And then when actually looking at it, it's full of pleas to emotion and claims without any data backing them. Take "Addiction and Overdose", there's no real data discussed (other than historical data about deaths unrelated to lockdowns or distancing or economy). Is there no data that supports the implication (if not outright claim) that lockdown will increase the cost or deaths from addiction/overdose? For anyone reading this, if it feels like it's a good, thorough examination you should absolutely discount any points like this where there's no supporting evidence presented. Or look at one of the following sections "General vaccination on the decline". This is a wonderful example of the only looking at negatives. Imagine that flu vaccination dropped 90% and that flu cases dropped 99%, this thing would report that as a negative because, "hey, look at how many people aren't getting vaccinated". This thing is so littered with bias and lack of facts that it is not useful for any serious consideration of this. I'm sure it's great for people who already have their mind set in one direction, though.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  The positive externalities is not a bad point. Where I'm having trouble is, it seems that if we wouldn't pass a law ordering people to not drive around in normal times, then it feels wrong to point to it as a positive when it's induced by people not being able to do anything. That being said, I think it does make sense to account for positive externalities. Can you think of others that are lockdown-specific? The classic ones right now are pollution. > Or look at one of the following sections "General vaccination on the decline". This is a wonderful example of the only looking at negatives. I'm not sure if that is a great example of only looking at the negatives. This is one dimension where the effects of the lockdown are basically exclusively negative as opposed to being a mixed bag. So this feels like something that absolutely _should_ be mentioned. Particularly when factoring in the irony of it increasing mortality from other non-COVID-19 infectious diseases. > Imagine that flu vaccination dropped 90% and that flu cases dropped 99%, this thing would report that as a negative because, "hey, look at how many people aren't getting vaccinated". I don't think this is at all fair either, but I must admit I chuckled a bit. It is a funny thought. > And then when actually looking at it, it's full of pleas to emotion and claims without any data backing them. Take "Addiction and Overdose", there's no real data discussed (other than historical data about deaths unrelated to lockdowns or distancing or economy). Is there no data that supports the implication (if not outright claim) that lockdown will increase the cost or deaths from addiction/overdose? For anyone reading this, if it feels like it's a good, thorough examination you should absolutely discount any points like this where there's no supporting evidence presented. So, this is the biggest hole that I personally see in my argument, so I very much agree here. The trouble I ran into is, this is such an unprecedented situation that it would have felt ridiculous if I just started making up mortality predictions. So it felt like a good balance to highlight the _potential_ for increased mortality. I do think that means I likely need to soften the language around lockdown causing more mortality to accentuate the fact that it's merely _likely_ that it does. -- Is there anything else you can think of? Thanks for the feedback.
new_realist 6y ago
Do you think that your experience of looking for a job in the middle of the lockdown might have introduced subconscious bias into your argument?
- ryankemper 6y ago
  No, not at all. I quit my job of my own volition, and have several years of living expenses in liquid financial assets. Most people are not that lucky. Additionally, the two companies that I had narrowed the search down to did not freeze hiring. Pretty lucky, since tons of companies did, although I constrained my search to remote jobs only so that's probably why. I accepted a job offer and start soon, actually. That being said, I do think that the general experience of being jobless during this has made me more sympathetic of those that truly lost their jobs than I otherwise would have. Which is not to say that I wouldn't have been sympathetic, I absolutely would have, but the fact that I had to deal with COBRA and other fun artifacts definitely made things a bit more tangible for me. Excellent point/question.
deleted 6y ago
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diffeomorphism 6y ago
The mortality rates you quote are for the case when the number of cases is low and the hospital system is working. To see what happens otherwise look at Madrid, look at the UK aiming to "protect the NHS". If you had unlimited hospital capacities your analysis would make sense, but that is the whole point(!). If you can flatten the curve, then covid is manageable, if you can't your hospital system collapses and suddenly everything not just covid is much more deadly.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, to what extent do you feel we successfully flattened the curve in New York? Given that recent serology results showed between 15-20% prevalence, it does seem like it could have been significantly worse. But just to be clear we should note that we ended up having a massive excess of capacity as far as ventilators and beds were concerned (I'm guessing the real bottleneck is trained staff but am not sure)
  - scott_s 6y ago
    I am unaware of a "massive excess of capacity" in NY; quite the opposite. Where do you make that conclusion from? NY, to my knowledge, has been well over capacity and has had to take severe measures. Hospitals have had more patients than they can deal with and the staff is overworked. Elective procedures have been cancelled, no visitors are allowed, doctors and nurses who ordinarily work elsewhere are working in Covid-19 units. Chicago is not doing well either. To put my chip down: yes, I do think we succeeded in flattening the curve in NY. We started the lockdown late, so we could not prevent it from getting very bad, but had we not done a lockdown, it probably would have been worse for longer.
    - ryankemper 6y ago
      By massive excess I was referring to vents/tents. Estimates of vents needed were far too high due to the models being relied upon (i.e. not because we surprised ourselves with how flat the curve got given the seroprevalence was not expected from policymakers as far as I can tell). Still, I _don't_ know about how we are doing in terms of healthcare workers. That's almost certainly the bottleneck and it may be that it's still a bottleneck. I'd have to do some research to say for sure. It's very possible my statement was not correct in that light. Meta: I'm currently constrained to using one arm since I had a not-so-fun ER visit today, so I'm not really firing on all cylinders right now. So, if you happen to look into the NY capacity matter on your end, I would love to hear your findings.
etherio 6y ago
I am sorry, but you are repeatedly presenting positives aspects for opening up without presenting any of the negatives. And even these positives are very hypothetical: > Sometimes lightning does strike twice On the other hand, you say > Remember, flattening the curve does not reduce deaths in the long-run, except insofar as it avoids overrunning hospitals, which we have already achieved. If some countries have achieved this containment in the hospitals, not all, it is only by doing the lockdown, I can't believe you would think that opening up would not overrun the hospitals, if we open up, they will be flooded with new victims and those deaths will NOT be hypothetical. Although you bring up many valid points, in my opinion this is where your statement fails. Opening up WILL cause new deaths. I believe a gradual opening would be much more efficient only once the rise has already been slowed down.
hkai 6y ago
I've read the whole thing and I have these comments: - I think the part about the freedoms is unnecessary because I feel the vast majority of the pro-lockdown people do not share your enthusiasm for freedom and public discourse. While your main argument may shift their opinion, the part about liberty may cause them to stop reading and discard your other arguments. - I think some claims would sound more persuasive if there were more links to research. For example, the claim about 0.1-0.7% mortality. There's a study about China (0.66% mortality) and a bunch of others that could support your point. You could also add mortality stats for influenza in the US from the CDC website (I think it's 0.13% on average). - The TLDR sounds bitter and childish, in my opinion. Overall a great summary and I'll share that with others.
- UncleSlacky 6y ago
  I laughed at this: > Other countries do not even have the concept of freedom of speech/assembly embedded into their founding documents. as it was clear that the author hadn't done any research on this - many countries explicitly or implictly have these in their founding documents.
  - ryankemper 6y ago
    Yes, the statement as I wrote it was imprecise enough to be false. I am going to circle back and fix it. In short, the important distinction is not that it's embedded into the founding documents, but that we do not place the limitations on free speech that other countries do. i.e. places like UK, germany, france - while they may have the phrase "free speech" in their documents, the limitations put on it are extreme enough that they're basically referring to a totally different concept. So, it would be more accurate to say that other countries do not share our concept of free speech, in that ours has _very_ few limits put on it.
  - ryankemper 6y ago
    Circling back: https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/6daa56a4a05f9903b51f78133deaad584243eb64 https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/6daa56a4a05f...
arh68 6y ago
I think your argument is well-written (aside from s/effects/affects/ in effects an extremely limited..) but just not convincing. I think this part goes way too far presuming intent, really hurts your case without a qualifier. > Those advocating a policy of containment, and with it, totalitarian-style lockdown, are not doing so based upon scientific evidence, but rather upon superstition and tribalism. And to be so critical of "omission", the TLDR says nothing of air-to-air transmission while eating, like in a restaurant.

mdasen 6y ago

I'm a bit confused by the Gitlab logo on your site. Do you work for Gitlab? Is Gitlab endorsing your article?

ryankemper 6y ago
Oof, good observation and I should definitely clarify here. I have no affiliation with Gitlab whatsoever. This is my personal blog that I made when I quit my previous job a couple months ago. I ended up repurposing the blog because I couldn't figure out how to get a table of contents working on a generic markdown file (i.e. I originally was just going to link to plain markdown in my git repo), but I was able to quickly figure out how to get it working with hugo. I used Netlify / Hugo via Gitlab to do so, so the Gitlab logo just happened to be part of the default theme. I'll look into removing it for clarity later.
ryankemper 6y ago
Circling back: https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/nfhugo/-/commit/1a8ead81ff65d730a9032cc14e380fa95a29f550 https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/nfhugo/-/commit/1a8ead81ff65d7...

JadeNB 6y ago

Having, as you suggested, skipped just to the TL;DR, this bit jumped out at me as something that we very much don't know is true, and that it's dangerous to assume is true without proof: > Once you get sick, you can’t get sick again for a long time. Eventually you might be able to get sick again, but it will not be very bad. When enough people have gotten sick and then gotten better, the sickness can’t spread any more. (Incidentally, at one point you leave out the 'z' from "hospitalization".)

mrfusion 6y ago
That’s a popular point with the talking heads on the media but I’d encourage you to read up on it. Best estimates look like 1-4 years of immunity [1] 1. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30985-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- JadeNB 6y ago
  I hadn't seen the Lancet article—I was getting my latest information from the Quanta article also on the front page (https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-other-coronaviruses-tell-us-about-sars-cov-2-20200429)—and https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-other-coronaviruses-... I guess it's a matter of language and personal preference, but "this global pandemic will be in abeyance for a year or so" doesn't match my informal understanding of "a long time". I also believe, as sibling postpawl (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23025675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23025675) points out, that there is still at least a divergence of opinions here, and that it is dangerous to get it wrong. (Personally, while I think voicing unpopular opinions is definitely a role we need in society, it seems to me that dismissing widely accepted opinions as due just to "talking heads on the media" puts disputants in an adversarial position that makes it more likely for people to hunker down in their existing opinions, and less likely for anyone's mind to change. Your refutation would have been more, not less, convincing to me if it had just pointed to the Lancet article.)
  - mrfusion 6y ago
    You make a good point. Sorry about my reply. I’m so used to getting downvoted these days I’m trying out different writing styles. (Maybe this one is a fail)

mrfusion 6y ago

I see a lot of good points here. Thanks for creating this.

nostromo 6y ago

I wish you the best. This debate has taken on all the fervor of a holy war, and putting out an contrarian position has been hugely unpopular. One thing I'd add: employment and health insurance are tied together in the US. The lock down dramatically increased unemployment, the majority of whom will not pay expensive Cobra costs, and will soon be uninsured. The opposite of what was intended may happen: we are now less prepared to deal with an increase in demands on healthcare than we were a month ago, as uninsured people tend to avoid hospitals until they're absolutely necessary.

ryankemper 6y ago
Thanks. That point about health insurance is great and I think I should weave that into the part that talks about furloughing medical workers. I'll see about doing so after I take a break to eat some food. (As an aside, I'm pretty comfortable writing and can write pretty quickly but as you can imagine just getting to this first draft took a lot out of me.)

japhyr 6y ago

> This is a living document and we encourage contributions in the form of pull requests. Who is "we"? I understand your use of "we" to speak from the perspective of us as a society through most of the article, but this makes it sound like there's more than one author.

ryankemper 6y ago
s/we/I I chose to use "we" both because it fits with the semi-formal tone better, but more importantly because I want to give others a chance to open PRs if they choose to do so, so I was basically future-proofing for a possible scenario where I wasn't the only contributor.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  FWIW, I will probably circle back here and switch to "I", since I think it's probably worth it to avoid confusion.
  - mchusma 6y ago
    I may submit a PR then it would become "we".
    - ryankemper 6y ago
      Thanks. I'm going to leave it as is. As another commentator has mentioned, use of the singular "we" is very common in academic writing anyway, not that I'm saying that this blog post of mine is "real" scientific research or anything
DarthGhandi 6y ago
This is fairly common for many styles of writing even when it's clearly just one author. Considering he's open to pull requests it makes even more sense. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2945/choice-of-personal-pronoun-in-single-author-papers https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2945/choice-of-...

newbie789 6y ago

>...which has a readability score (Flesch-Kincaid, etc) of around a middle school level... This might not be the most condescending thing I've ever read on HN, but it's definitely gunning for one of the funniest. Genuinely, what is the purpose of making an argument about a complex topic and then suggesting that skipping nuance and detail is an acceptable route to forming an opinion? If you're so certain on this topic and think that your tl;dr section cuts to the quick of the issue so well that people with a middle school reading level should obviously understand and agree with your point, what is the purpose of the post as a whole? To be clear, I think this is silly on multiple levels but the babytalk bit made me lol

ohlookabird 6y ago

Thanks, will definitely read it, but on a first glance I couldn't see any information on your background or experience in the field of epidemiology or a related science. It would definitely help to put your thoughts into context and if you have a background in this field it would give your collection of thoughts more weight. With all the misinformation going around I resorted to mainly listen to scientists in the relevant fields directly (if you speak German, the NDR podcast with Prof. Drosten is really nice in my opinion). Therefore I think it really helpful if research institutions and researchers themselves who are in that field (!) are vocal (but reserved and competent) about studies and thoughts. For instance, today the four big research institutions in Germany (Max Planck, Helmholtz, Leibnitz, Frauenhofer) published a joint message in favor of social distancing and contact restrictions: https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/29/world/europe/29reuters-health-coronavirus-germany-scientists.html https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/29/world/europe/29re... Edit: I only found the German press release so far: https://www.mpg.de/14759871/corona-stellungnahme https://www.mpg.de/14759871/corona-stellungnahme

ryankemper 6y ago
I have no directly relevant credentials whatsoever and don't claim to. (I actually considered saying as such in the writeup but it's already so verbose that I felt it wasn't worth it). I'm just a dude that likes to read research papers. As an aside, there is totally an archetype of the software engineer that thinks they're equipped to dive into unrelated fields, and I definitely match that trope. I will say in my defense though, that I try to build simple mental models and take them to their logical conclusion, which is a quality that I see in people I admire, and conversely a quality that I find lacking in people that I feel don't have a lot of insight. Many might disagree but I am a very strong believer that arguments should be evaluated on their merits, rather than credentials. Indeed having credentials makes it that much easier to fall prey to cognitive distortions.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  > I have no directly relevant credentials whatsoever and don't claim to. IMO this should be a disclaimer in bold right at the very top of the article.

williamstein 6y ago

I found a typo: "incredible stess" --> "incredible stress". This is well written. Thank you. It's wrong that this post is currently flagged.

ryankemper 6y ago
Thank you. https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/ca2771bbe1df37512b8e560f540dedb6ac8e4704 https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/ca2771bbe1df...
dang 6y ago
We turned off the flags. I haven't read the article, but it seems thoughtful enough, and the thread substantive enough, to count as on topic here.

cjhopman 6y ago

I'm sorry but I can't take serious something that claims to take an impartial look at all the evidence related to the lockdown but then tries its damnedest to present all possible negatives it could without doing the same for positives. For example, there's clear evidence that the lockdown has decreased lives lost to traffic accidents but that appears nowhere here. And then when actually looking at it, it's full of pleas to emotion and claims without any data backing them. Take "Addiction and Overdose", there's no real data discussed (other than historical data about deaths unrelated to lockdowns or distancing or economy). Is there no data that supports the implication (if not outright claim) that lockdown will increase the cost or deaths from addiction/overdose? For anyone reading this, if it feels like it's a good, thorough examination you should absolutely discount any points like this where there's no supporting evidence presented. Or look at one of the following sections "General vaccination on the decline". This is a wonderful example of the only looking at negatives. Imagine that flu vaccination dropped 90% and that flu cases dropped 99%, this thing would report that as a negative because, "hey, look at how many people aren't getting vaccinated". This thing is so littered with bias and lack of facts that it is not useful for any serious consideration of this. I'm sure it's great for people who already have their mind set in one direction, though.

ryankemper 6y ago
The positive externalities is not a bad point. Where I'm having trouble is, it seems that if we wouldn't pass a law ordering people to not drive around in normal times, then it feels wrong to point to it as a positive when it's induced by people not being able to do anything. That being said, I think it does make sense to account for positive externalities. Can you think of others that are lockdown-specific? The classic ones right now are pollution. > Or look at one of the following sections "General vaccination on the decline". This is a wonderful example of the only looking at negatives. I'm not sure if that is a great example of only looking at the negatives. This is one dimension where the effects of the lockdown are basically exclusively negative as opposed to being a mixed bag. So this feels like something that absolutely _should_ be mentioned. Particularly when factoring in the irony of it increasing mortality from other non-COVID-19 infectious diseases. > Imagine that flu vaccination dropped 90% and that flu cases dropped 99%, this thing would report that as a negative because, "hey, look at how many people aren't getting vaccinated". I don't think this is at all fair either, but I must admit I chuckled a bit. It is a funny thought. > And then when actually looking at it, it's full of pleas to emotion and claims without any data backing them. Take "Addiction and Overdose", there's no real data discussed (other than historical data about deaths unrelated to lockdowns or distancing or economy). Is there no data that supports the implication (if not outright claim) that lockdown will increase the cost or deaths from addiction/overdose? For anyone reading this, if it feels like it's a good, thorough examination you should absolutely discount any points like this where there's no supporting evidence presented. So, this is the biggest hole that I personally see in my argument, so I very much agree here. The trouble I ran into is, this is such an unprecedented situation that it would have felt ridiculous if I just started making up mortality predictions. So it felt like a good balance to highlight the _potential_ for increased mortality. I do think that means I likely need to soften the language around lockdown causing more mortality to accentuate the fact that it's merely _likely_ that it does. -- Is there anything else you can think of? Thanks for the feedback.

new_realist 6y ago

Do you think that your experience of looking for a job in the middle of the lockdown might have introduced subconscious bias into your argument?

ryankemper 6y ago
No, not at all. I quit my job of my own volition, and have several years of living expenses in liquid financial assets. Most people are not that lucky. Additionally, the two companies that I had narrowed the search down to did not freeze hiring. Pretty lucky, since tons of companies did, although I constrained my search to remote jobs only so that's probably why. I accepted a job offer and start soon, actually. That being said, I do think that the general experience of being jobless during this has made me more sympathetic of those that truly lost their jobs than I otherwise would have. Which is not to say that I wouldn't have been sympathetic, I absolutely would have, but the fact that I had to deal with COBRA and other fun artifacts definitely made things a bit more tangible for me. Excellent point/question.

deleted 6y ago

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diffeomorphism 6y ago

The mortality rates you quote are for the case when the number of cases is low and the hospital system is working. To see what happens otherwise look at Madrid, look at the UK aiming to "protect the NHS". If you had unlimited hospital capacities your analysis would make sense, but that is the whole point(!). If you can flatten the curve, then covid is manageable, if you can't your hospital system collapses and suddenly everything not just covid is much more deadly.

ryankemper 6y ago
Out of curiosity, to what extent do you feel we successfully flattened the curve in New York? Given that recent serology results showed between 15-20% prevalence, it does seem like it could have been significantly worse. But just to be clear we should note that we ended up having a massive excess of capacity as far as ventilators and beds were concerned (I'm guessing the real bottleneck is trained staff but am not sure)
- scott_s 6y ago
  I am unaware of a "massive excess of capacity" in NY; quite the opposite. Where do you make that conclusion from? NY, to my knowledge, has been well over capacity and has had to take severe measures. Hospitals have had more patients than they can deal with and the staff is overworked. Elective procedures have been cancelled, no visitors are allowed, doctors and nurses who ordinarily work elsewhere are working in Covid-19 units. Chicago is not doing well either. To put my chip down: yes, I do think we succeeded in flattening the curve in NY. We started the lockdown late, so we could not prevent it from getting very bad, but had we not done a lockdown, it probably would have been worse for longer.
  - ryankemper 6y ago
    By massive excess I was referring to vents/tents. Estimates of vents needed were far too high due to the models being relied upon (i.e. not because we surprised ourselves with how flat the curve got given the seroprevalence was not expected from policymakers as far as I can tell). Still, I _don't_ know about how we are doing in terms of healthcare workers. That's almost certainly the bottleneck and it may be that it's still a bottleneck. I'd have to do some research to say for sure. It's very possible my statement was not correct in that light. Meta: I'm currently constrained to using one arm since I had a not-so-fun ER visit today, so I'm not really firing on all cylinders right now. So, if you happen to look into the NY capacity matter on your end, I would love to hear your findings.

etherio 6y ago

I am sorry, but you are repeatedly presenting positives aspects for opening up without presenting any of the negatives. And even these positives are very hypothetical: > Sometimes lightning does strike twice On the other hand, you say > Remember, flattening the curve does not reduce deaths in the long-run, except insofar as it avoids overrunning hospitals, which we have already achieved. If some countries have achieved this containment in the hospitals, not all, it is only by doing the lockdown, I can't believe you would think that opening up would not overrun the hospitals, if we open up, they will be flooded with new victims and those deaths will NOT be hypothetical. Although you bring up many valid points, in my opinion this is where your statement fails. Opening up WILL cause new deaths. I believe a gradual opening would be much more efficient only once the rise has already been slowed down.

hkai 6y ago

I've read the whole thing and I have these comments: - I think the part about the freedoms is unnecessary because I feel the vast majority of the pro-lockdown people do not share your enthusiasm for freedom and public discourse. While your main argument may shift their opinion, the part about liberty may cause them to stop reading and discard your other arguments. - I think some claims would sound more persuasive if there were more links to research. For example, the claim about 0.1-0.7% mortality. There's a study about China (0.66% mortality) and a bunch of others that could support your point. You could also add mortality stats for influenza in the US from the CDC website (I think it's 0.13% on average). - The TLDR sounds bitter and childish, in my opinion. Overall a great summary and I'll share that with others.

UncleSlacky 6y ago
I laughed at this: > Other countries do not even have the concept of freedom of speech/assembly embedded into their founding documents. as it was clear that the author hadn't done any research on this - many countries explicitly or implictly have these in their founding documents.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  Yes, the statement as I wrote it was imprecise enough to be false. I am going to circle back and fix it. In short, the important distinction is not that it's embedded into the founding documents, but that we do not place the limitations on free speech that other countries do. i.e. places like UK, germany, france - while they may have the phrase "free speech" in their documents, the limitations put on it are extreme enough that they're basically referring to a totally different concept. So, it would be more accurate to say that other countries do not share our concept of free speech, in that ours has _very_ few limits put on it.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  Circling back: https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/6daa56a4a05f9903b51f78133deaad584243eb64 https://gitlab.com/ryankemper/writings/-/commit/6daa56a4a05f...

arh68 6y ago

I think your argument is well-written (aside from s/effects/affects/ in effects an extremely limited..) but just not convincing. I think this part goes way too far presuming intent, really hurts your case without a qualifier. > Those advocating a policy of containment, and with it, totalitarian-style lockdown, are not doing so based upon scientific evidence, but rather upon superstition and tribalism. And to be so critical of "omission", the TLDR says nothing of air-to-air transmission while eating, like in a restaurant.