3 ms·

... because they've been too aggressive, or too passive? I'm still in the "there shouldn't be a lockdown for healthy people under 50" camp (since IFR is so low

... because they've been too aggressive, or too passive? I'm still in the "there shouldn't be a lockdown for healthy people under 50" camp (since IFR is so low for that demographic), but I could see people being mad at states for the opposite reason, too.

yumraj 6y ago
Texas is already opening up. Not sure about other states. People under 50, including kids, may not die in high numbers but they can still make others sick.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  As far as I'm aware, there's three ways that a lockdown can save lives - one is to reduce deaths caused by an overwhelmed health care system, another is to delay things until a paradigm shift occurs (for instance, a vaccine or miracle cure), and the third is to stomp out the disease entirely. The first has been achieved - with a small margin in NYC, but far larger margins elsewhere. The second will take another year at the most optimistic. The third would also take a year+ at current lockdown effectiveness levels - but I'd expect mass disobedience before then. * * * And that is why I'd prefer to have lockdowns lifted for lower-risk populations. Yes, people in contact with the old or at-risk should stay in lockdown - but that does not mean that college students, or young families, or a variety of other groups should not return to normal. The more people that are infected, the lower effective r_0 drops (this is how herd immunity works) and the sooner the world can be made safe for at-risk populations. The fact that this might also let the US avoid an economic downturn that makes the Great Depression look merciful is also a major plus. (Current US unemployment is estimated at around 20% - the Great Depression peaked around 25%)
  - cozzyd 6y ago
    There is the alternative that many countries are attempting, which is to reduce the number of cases and increase testing capability until it is tractable to do case tracking and quarantine only the infected.
    - makomk 6y ago
      The trouble is, this isn't even remotely close to feasible. In order to find a useful proportion of cases via testing, you need to test pretty much everybody with cold-like or disease-like symptoms or maybe even just pretty much everybody, and contact tracing only helps if you have some other way to find most of the active cases in order to trace their contacts. That's why experts in publications like the New York Times keep insisting that the US needs to test people on a scale orders of magnitude larger than any other country has managed, including the ones that are starting to reopen. (Readers don't realize what a big ask this is because the articles carefully don't mention this - most people are left with the false impression that it's just doing what other countries have already managed, and that the only reason the US isn't doing this is because the leadership is incompetent or even deliberately covering up the number of cases.)
      - Marsymars 6y ago
        > The trouble is, this isn't even remotely close to feasible. In order to find a useful proportion of cases via testing, you need to test pretty much everybody with cold-like or disease-like symptoms I was surprised how at quickly my local health authority got to this point. A couple months ago, they had flat-out stated that it would be impossible for the foreseeable future, but cold/flu symptoms have decreased over a regular year by an order of magnitude, they expanded testing to everyone with any symptoms a couple weeks ago, and even with carpet bombing contacts in outbreak locations they're still only running testing at about half capacity.

yumraj 6y ago

Texas is already opening up. Not sure about other states. People under 50, including kids, may not die in high numbers but they can still make others sick.

DuskStar 6y ago
As far as I'm aware, there's three ways that a lockdown can save lives - one is to reduce deaths caused by an overwhelmed health care system, another is to delay things until a paradigm shift occurs (for instance, a vaccine or miracle cure), and the third is to stomp out the disease entirely. The first has been achieved - with a small margin in NYC, but far larger margins elsewhere. The second will take another year at the most optimistic. The third would also take a year+ at current lockdown effectiveness levels - but I'd expect mass disobedience before then. * * * And that is why I'd prefer to have lockdowns lifted for lower-risk populations. Yes, people in contact with the old or at-risk should stay in lockdown - but that does not mean that college students, or young families, or a variety of other groups should not return to normal. The more people that are infected, the lower effective r_0 drops (this is how herd immunity works) and the sooner the world can be made safe for at-risk populations. The fact that this might also let the US avoid an economic downturn that makes the Great Depression look merciful is also a major plus. (Current US unemployment is estimated at around 20% - the Great Depression peaked around 25%)
- cozzyd 6y ago
  There is the alternative that many countries are attempting, which is to reduce the number of cases and increase testing capability until it is tractable to do case tracking and quarantine only the infected.
  - makomk 6y ago
    The trouble is, this isn't even remotely close to feasible. In order to find a useful proportion of cases via testing, you need to test pretty much everybody with cold-like or disease-like symptoms or maybe even just pretty much everybody, and contact tracing only helps if you have some other way to find most of the active cases in order to trace their contacts. That's why experts in publications like the New York Times keep insisting that the US needs to test people on a scale orders of magnitude larger than any other country has managed, including the ones that are starting to reopen. (Readers don't realize what a big ask this is because the articles carefully don't mention this - most people are left with the false impression that it's just doing what other countries have already managed, and that the only reason the US isn't doing this is because the leadership is incompetent or even deliberately covering up the number of cases.)
    - Marsymars 6y ago
      > The trouble is, this isn't even remotely close to feasible. In order to find a useful proportion of cases via testing, you need to test pretty much everybody with cold-like or disease-like symptoms I was surprised how at quickly my local health authority got to this point. A couple months ago, they had flat-out stated that it would be impossible for the foreseeable future, but cold/flu symptoms have decreased over a regular year by an order of magnitude, they expanded testing to everyone with any symptoms a couple weeks ago, and even with carpet bombing contacts in outbreak locations they're still only running testing at about half capacity.