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For the 'hard lockdown' crowd, how long can we put time on hold? A week? A month? A year? A decade? It is an elementary fact that life rides on the derivative.

For the 'hard lockdown' crowd, how long can we put time on hold? A week? A month? A year? A decade? It is an elementary fact that life rides on the derivative. Stop work and no wealth gets created. No meat, no veggies, no crops, no gas, no electricity, no metal, no lumber, no stone, no plastic, no industrials, no dentists, no medical services, no schools, no nothing. Modern people cannot live subsistence lives off the chickens in their backyard and a plot of land within walking distance. Our stockpiles will last for a while, but not forever. At a second degree, the social connections that enable the amazing collaboration underpinning modern society break down. The longer we are locked down, the harder will be to come back and figure out our place in the grand social puzzle. It is a terrible situation. Most people are going to get infected, and a non-negligible fraction of them [1%] are going to die. Everywhere where the virus got endemic. Perhaps a handful of East Asian countries will manage 100% border shutdowns and 100% contact tracing for years on end. More power to them, the rest of the world lacks the social cohesion to pull off something like that. Worse, the impact is going to be unequal. Some social strata will have more options to stay isolated for longer. It will appear, for a while, that they are somehow performing better than everybody else. Rest assured, there will be very few that can avoid the disease for long enough (~18 months) to be on the upside of a hypothetical vaccine. All we can hope is that, eventually, this disease goes the way of the common cold. Toughen up. This is not Man's making. Nature send a Russian Roulette our way, we have no choice but to play. In the meantime, try to avoid media that does it's best to paint this disease as the second coming of the Black Death. One of the technique is to cherry pick. Say 'one of my co-workers died', implying that they are next. Instead of '1 out of 73,348 of my colleagues' died. It is unavoidable tragedy that there may be anywhere between 73 and 733 of their colleagues that are going to die before we see the end of this.

bandushrew 6y ago
Sure, we cant shutdown forever, but I dont understand the rush to sacrifice. Covid will be with us forever now, and in just a few months we already understand a lot more about it than we did at the start. The longer we can delay mass infection, the more effective our treatment of the disease will be, and the more likely we will have vaccines. Lets delay for a while, figure out the best treatment methods, and then let it through.
- throwawayrcheck 6y ago
  2 months is too early. Can you name a date when we should open? Can you even name a date that is obviously too late? I've struggled with the same questions. I noticed that no matter which date I picked, 'let's delay longer' was always the preferred choice. We've got to wean ourselves from the lockdown.
  - bandushrew 6y ago
    We're in NZ, its feeling likely at the moment that the date will be wednesday. OTOH we have been incredibly lucky with both our leadership and our island status. the US is a huge state, with porous borders so the right choice might be different, but the more controlled the spread is, the fewer lives will be lost and the more likely time will help us understand the best treatment.
- mikem170 6y ago
  >The longer we can delay mass infection, the more effective our treatment of the disease will be You can stay in your house until the treatments get better, which is also a smart thing for vulnerable people to do. Why not let other people off lockdown if they wish as long as the hospitals are not overflowed? A lot of people face a negligable risk from this. What difference would it be to you? And look at the cost to them, tens of millions of people's livelihoods thrown up in the air. Having said the above, I do see the value of lockdowns that prevented hospitals from being overwhelmed. That is different. But it looks to me like we can look at moving past that threat. What do we do next?
  - bandushrew 6y ago
    Its not about me. The benefit comes when the community as a whole does it, there is literally no point to anyone doing it alone, unless they are vulnerable. "What do we do next?" Figure out the best way to treat covid, and talk about the best time to end the lockdown. Im in NZ btw, NZ locked down hard and early. Its been six weeks and so far we have 20 deaths from covid. "What next?" is exactly the question, and I dont think anyone knows the best answer yet. We are likely to be mostly ending our lockdown on this wednesday. We are entering "level 2" which I believe is all businesses open and running, just some rules around congregation. I simply do not understand the chorus of calls to end lockdown (or simply never start it) in countries where absolutely nothing is under control. It will cause incredibly loss of life, and people are doing in a rush. Im really struggling, on a personal level, to understand the rush in some countries to sacrifice people and not economies. Surely the economy is there to serve us?

bandushrew 6y ago

Sure, we cant shutdown forever, but I dont understand the rush to sacrifice. Covid will be with us forever now, and in just a few months we already understand a lot more about it than we did at the start. The longer we can delay mass infection, the more effective our treatment of the disease will be, and the more likely we will have vaccines. Lets delay for a while, figure out the best treatment methods, and then let it through.

throwawayrcheck 6y ago
2 months is too early. Can you name a date when we should open? Can you even name a date that is obviously too late? I've struggled with the same questions. I noticed that no matter which date I picked, 'let's delay longer' was always the preferred choice. We've got to wean ourselves from the lockdown.
- bandushrew 6y ago
  We're in NZ, its feeling likely at the moment that the date will be wednesday. OTOH we have been incredibly lucky with both our leadership and our island status. the US is a huge state, with porous borders so the right choice might be different, but the more controlled the spread is, the fewer lives will be lost and the more likely time will help us understand the best treatment.
mikem170 6y ago
>The longer we can delay mass infection, the more effective our treatment of the disease will be You can stay in your house until the treatments get better, which is also a smart thing for vulnerable people to do. Why not let other people off lockdown if they wish as long as the hospitals are not overflowed? A lot of people face a negligable risk from this. What difference would it be to you? And look at the cost to them, tens of millions of people's livelihoods thrown up in the air. Having said the above, I do see the value of lockdowns that prevented hospitals from being overwhelmed. That is different. But it looks to me like we can look at moving past that threat. What do we do next?
- bandushrew 6y ago
  Its not about me. The benefit comes when the community as a whole does it, there is literally no point to anyone doing it alone, unless they are vulnerable. "What do we do next?" Figure out the best way to treat covid, and talk about the best time to end the lockdown. Im in NZ btw, NZ locked down hard and early. Its been six weeks and so far we have 20 deaths from covid. "What next?" is exactly the question, and I dont think anyone knows the best answer yet. We are likely to be mostly ending our lockdown on this wednesday. We are entering "level 2" which I believe is all businesses open and running, just some rules around congregation. I simply do not understand the chorus of calls to end lockdown (or simply never start it) in countries where absolutely nothing is under control. It will cause incredibly loss of life, and people are doing in a rush. Im really struggling, on a personal level, to understand the rush in some countries to sacrifice people and not economies. Surely the economy is there to serve us?