14 ms·

Take the Shutdown Skeptics Seriously

79 points by mrfusion 7y ago

wk_end 7y ago
Without commenting on whether I agree or disagree with anything in the article itself, I do find the rhetorical sleight-of-hand curious: the writer is effectively asking the reader to "take the shutdown skeptics seriously" by articulating the same points that "shutdown skeptics" have made and that haven't been taken seriously. Or, put another way: despite the prevarication, the author clearly _is_ a shutdown skeptic, of course they want shutdown skeptics to be taken seriously!
- microcolonel 7y ago
  How exactly are you supposed to make the argument that somebody else's argument is valid without explaining that argument? What you're asking for here is a basically a Tweet: “I mean, maybe they're not wrong.”
  - wk_end 7y ago
    Is it really "someone else's argument" though? If you change the framing a little bit there's no reason this article couldn't have been titled "We Should Start to Think About Ending the Shutdown" or something. But if it had been titled that, most people who don't already agree would just write it off immediately. It's clear the framing was chosen to appear more reasonable and neutral in order to target those a little more open-minded or on the fence, to sneak past the out-grouping that leads people to dismiss the other side instinctively. That's not even really a criticism, given how polarized and partisan political discourse is; it's smart rhetoric. So to answer your question directly: you can explain the argument without uncritically recapitulating it. The latter is what this essay does, which is why I think the idea that it's "someone else's argument" is a front. For comparison, this [1] article showed up here a while ago. The authors repeatedly made clear that they disagreed with the skeptics, that they had "consensus views", that they weren't trying to Trojan horse a contrarian argument in under the guise of a call for open-mindedness and debate. That essay has flaws, and maybe it's naive, but I got the genuine sense when reading it that the authors were being forthright and earnest. I think they succeeded at making the case for the validity and worthwhileness of someone else's argument without looking like they're endorsing it. [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/27/hear-scientists-different-views-covid-19-dont-attack-them/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/27/hear-scientists-differen...
- lux 7y ago
  There's still a valid point in there that we should take the underlying need seriously, not the proposed solution of reopening. For example, a solution could be as simple as America financially supporting its citizens like other countries have done, reducing the desperation that's causing the pressure to reopen sooner than they likely know is safe. Don't make it a lesser of two evils choice in the first place. Reminds me of something I read on here about assuming a strong man version of people's arguments instead of a straw man one. Maybe they're knowingly protesting because they believe those are the only choices they have.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > For example, a solution could be as simple as America financially supporting its citizens like other countries have done Money is not nutritious when eaten.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      I believe the parent's point is this: We need an economy that produces a certain amount of stuff - food, water, electricity, fuel, healthcare. We can't just make that stuff appear by moving or printing money, we have to actually produce the stuff. Now, I know, that was the idea behind "critical infrastructure" - we had to keep those things running, even if we shut down everything else. But the longer we shut down, I suspect the more things we find that are critical. (Made up example: Water is critical, so water treatment is critical, so the chemicals used are critical, so the ingredients to manufacture them are critical, so certain kinds of mining are critical, so eventually mining machinery is critical.)
      - microcolonel 7y ago
        It turns out the majority of things people work on are a critical and fragile component of the supply chain of an essential good or service.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      > Money is not nutritious when eaten. Neither is an empty cupboard, which a lack of money can lead to.
eveningcoffee 7y ago
I do not understand what is going on in US and in UK. Both have reached some plateau but the daily new cases are not going down. This has been going on for over a month. I presume that this is result of too late reaction to the outbreak but perhaps somebody knows better.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  I don't know about the UK, but what's happening in the US is that deaths in major cities are declining because the lockdowns are working, but cases and deaths are exploding in suburban and rural areas. The plateau right now is because those two effects are approximately canceling out, but as deaths in cities bottom out, total deaths will begin climbing again.
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    > deaths in major cities are declining because the lockdowns are working I'm guessing it's because mitigations together with an increasing immunity is lowering the reproduction under 1. In many large cities as many as 10 or 20% are now immune and that's a huge number if the theoretical herd immunity is somewhere around 60, and the practical one is somewhere even lower.
- agd 7y ago
  Possible that it’s simply due to increased testing capacity. Before, many cases did not show up in the figures because there weren’t many tests carried out.
  - watwut 7y ago
    Are you sure testing capacity went up? I don't recall reading about that.
    - tomjakubowski 7y ago
      It's definitely up since early March. It's likely that testing capacity has been the limiting factor on case count for most of this time.
twblalock 7y ago
It's disturbing how the goalposts have been changing around the shelter-in-place orders. The original argument was to "flatten the curve" to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. By that logic, areas where the hospitals have not been overwhelmed (which is most of the United States) should be gradually reducing restrictions, and only maintaining the restrictions necessary to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. Lately, the prevailing argument seems to be that we need to shelter in place because virus cases will increase if we don't. That was not the original justification. Of course cases will increase! The question ought to be, will they increase to the extent that they overwhelm hospital capacity? Most of the people quoted in the article agreed with shelter-in-place orders in the first place, and now they are being labeled as "skeptics" for sticking with the original rationale.
- vwcx 7y ago
  Public health is a constantly changing landscape made up of frequently shifting inputs and analysis. It’s only in recent decades that our desire for absolutes has really given people the idea that these things should be simple. Every country on earth has to move the goalposts during a pandemic — this is a sign the system is still working.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    But then you must provide additional economic support to those impacted accordingly, as you regulate public behavior through updates to public health orders.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Most countries are doing that. The one-off $1,200 in the US is fairly unique.
      - RandomInteger4 7y ago
        Can you provide citations to which countries exactly you're referring to by the phrase "most countries?"
Analemma_ 7y ago
> Denunciations of that sort cast the lockdown debate as a straightforward battle between a pro-human and a pro-economy camp. But the actual trade-offs are not straightforward. The irony here is that these sentences are correct, but the author comes to exactly the wrong conclusion from them. There is no battle between a pro-human and pro-economy camp, because if we just threw the doors open and let the virus rage out of control, everyone would end up staying home out of fear anyway and there'd be no difference, in terms of economic damange, from a state-mandated shutdowns now. Note that there is nothing preventing you from flying right now, but the planes are still empty. Or how the government is ordering meat processing plants to reopen but they are still running way below capacity because workers are just staying home so they don't get sick. It is not a choice between economic damage and lives lost, it's a choice between an orderly lockdown now and a chaotic de facto lockdown later, except the latter has a lot more people dying - the economic damage is inevitable either way. Do not take shutdown skeptics seriously, they don't deserve it.
- dkfjdkfjda 7y ago
  That's not what the article says, though. It merely says that lockdowns do have consequences too, particularly prolonged ones, and we should consider those too. But such discussion is largely impossible because the whole issue got framed as good vs. evil, and even just questioning some aspects of the lockdown (say, school closures) gets you labeled as someone who essentially wants to murder vulnerable people. FWIW I do live in a country which is in lockdown for ~2m now, and I do think it was the right thing to do. But it's not really feasible to stay in indefinite lockdown - not just because of economy, but because of impact on public health etc.
drfrank 7y ago
The U.S. doesn't have to choose between total shutdown and total opening. Targeted opening is feasible. The U.S. also doesn't have to choose between individual destitution and death of the vulnerable. Some combination of financial support covered by bonds with freezing debt collection of various categories would provide significant relief. As in all macroeconomic challenges a combination of approaches is necessary.
- filoleg 7y ago
  Exactly. I think that a lot of “lockdown skeptics” are totally cool with a targeted and phased restriction lift-up that involves clear metrics on how and when each stage should proceed. But it all gets drowned out by people instantly resorting to “they are advocating for an instant lift-up of all restrictions, what a bunch of morons who don’t care for human lives” sort of arguments, as soon as they hear anything but a unanimous agreement with an indefinite lockdown.
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    The current policy for my county, state, and federal government is a targeted and phased restriction lift-up, that involves metrics that unclear because we don't really know enough yet. You might want to re-evaluate the "lockdown skeptics" arguments in that light.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      >that involves metrics that unclear because we don't really know enough yet Not knowing numbers is not the same as vague or unclear metrics. For example, saying "phase 3 will proceed once the hospital occupancy goes below 30%" doesn't qualify as vague in my book (numbers and such obviously made up by me). While we don't know when that happens, the metric itself is very clear and specific. What kind of metrics does your county's lift-up plan use that are unclear just "because we don't really know enough yet"?
gremlinsinc 7y ago
There was an article that I saw yesterday, CBB to dig it up that said if only 80% of Americans wore masks we could nearly rid the country of corona virus. That's all it takes. Such a simple thing. We can't have full re-opening while we have self-ish protesters who revel in spreading the disease and make a mockery of public health. If they'd have some personal responsibility or if stores would just take the initiative nationally to require masks for every patron, we'd be over this by fall, and subsequent waves wouldn't be so bad. A post from someone in my hometown yesterday on facebook had a guy boycotting great clips because they made him put on a mask to step foot inside and he had to make an appointment. (State law now for all stylists/barbers/etc.). All it takes is respect of others AND the virus to stop this thing. Why can't people do this?
- robk 7y ago
  No one can say masks would have that effect. Not enough evidence (yet?)
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/masks-covid-19-infections-would-plummet-new-study-says https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/masks-covid-19-infec... > “One reason is that nearly everyone there is wearing a mask,” said De Kai, an American computer scientist with joint appointments at UC Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute and at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is also the chief architect of an in-depth study, set to be released in the coming days, that suggests that every one of us should be wearing a mask—whether surgical or homemade, scarf or bandana—like they do in Japan and other countries, mostly in East Asia. This formula applies to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence (occasional mask refuseniks) as well as every other official who routinely interacts with people in public settings. Among the findings of their research paper, which the team plans to submit to a major journal: If 80% of a closed population were to don a mask, COVID-19 infection rates would statistically drop to approximately one twelfth the number of infections—compared to a live-virus population in which no one wore masks.
    - 7y ago
microcolonel 7y ago
Reminder to the professional class: Money is not nutritious when eaten. There is only so much that financial support can do when productivity and efficiency are slashed. It may seem like everything will blow over if the Uber Eats fairy magically manifests food in exchange for currency at the homes of Americans, but for money to function there must also be productivity.
kazagistar 7y ago
Almost all these arguments have the same basic structure. 1. We depend on X 2. X is provided by free trade and the open market. 3. Quarantine hurts free trade and the open market. 4. Therefore, ongoing quarantine hurts X. While the argument is sound, removing or reducing the quarantine (ie, solving point 3) is not the only solution. You can also change point 2, on a case by case basis, and remove the supply chain dependence on markets, money, profit, and capitalism. Of course, someone who is "pro opening the economy" will be unable to accept this option on ideological or often self interest grounds, and thus try to reduce the option space to a simple binary, because mass death is better then the replacement of an economic paradigm from which they have benefited so.
yhersk0vitz 7y ago
As a wise man once said - "If no one's making stuff, there won't be any stuff."
jonstewart 7y ago
Friedersdorf has a number of quotes concerning the impact of a long term shutdown (and/or recession). That doesn’t seem like the same thing as being a shutdown skeptic. Part of the point of the safer at home orders is to buy time, not only to avoid oversubscription of hospitals but also for government to ramp up testing, protocols, contact tracing, and so on. Look at South Korea for how that can work. Unfortunately the federal government has squandered the opportunity to plan, prepare, and implement at every step along the way. At the same time, the bulk of the push to open comes not from reasoned argument, but special interests. The protesters seen at state capitols are victims of fake news, astroturfing organizers, and disinformation campaigns. That Friedersdorf doesn’t discuss those dynamics—at all—makes me lose a lot of respect for him. It’s just lazy both-sides journalism, where a contrarian viewpoint is taken up with very little justification, examination of the facts, or assignment of responsibility to important actors. Very disappointing to read this in The Atlantic considering so much of its coverage -has- been so good.
Jabbles 7y ago
This entire discussion seems to miss the point that it is not black-and-white. Every year, tens of thousands of people in the US die from influenza. But the economy is not shutdown to prevent this. We recognise that the cost of tens of millions of dollars per life saved is not worth it. People seem to think it's morally bankrupt to put a cost on saving lives. But that is what we (as a society) do every day. Every healthcare system puts a price on each treatment. In the US the patient (or insurance) pays for it. In the UK an ethics council will determine if that is a good use of the finite money the system has. But in order to have a proper discussion about this, we need to have some numbers. How many lives will be saved, how much will it cost? Is "lives saved" even the right metric? Any article that hand-waves away the numbers is worthless. A thought experiment for both sides: at some point your opinion would change, for/against the lockdown. How much more or how much less deadly would COVID-19 have to be for you to change your mind?
- anoncareer0212 7y ago
  You're repeating the article with some grandiose hand-waving to compare it to the flu, when it's already killed 5x any flu season in just 4 months :/
  - Jabbles 7y ago
    I don't think you read my comment at all.
    - anoncareer0212 7y ago
      Gotcha, in that case I think the point got lost in the mix. Would love to engage with it more though, seems like you're passionate and knowledgable about this.
    - aaomidi 7y ago
      The problem is you start by comparing this to the flu. People are going to stop reading after that because it's generally a pattern of another idiot rambling. Don't write in that pattern if you don't want people to interpret it in that pattern.
greendave 7y ago
> Critics are dismayed. Citing forecasts that COVID-19 deaths could rise to 3,000 per day in June, they say that reopening without better defenses against infections is reckless. The problem at this point is that there is little evidence that shutting down is improving our defenses. The federal effort is not there. The state efforts are haphazard. Worse, while the shutdown was strong enough to destroy the economy, it was enacted unevenly and poorly enforced so that transmission outside of the NY area has barely dropped at all. Without reducing transmissions significantly, there are simply too many cases and too little infrastructure to trace, test and quarantine. The United States will likely serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of the world for a long time to come.
- fxtentacle 7y ago
  I believe the US has been treated as a cautionary tale ever since January 20, 2017 ;)
fxtentacle 7y ago
This article seems to have an odd relationship with nuanced facts. While it is correct that nobody knows for sure how long it will take until medicine or vaccination are available, there are estimates that one can use for planning. But the article goes from "there is a level of uncertainty" to "impossible to know, let's ignore it completely". Similarly, while the article is technically correct that the US is currently doing deficit spending, it really isn't the immutable fact that they present it as. It would be quite easy to levy taxes so that there's no deficit. Taxing the rich could finance the current level of stimulus spending for years, but the article goes from "we'll need to make adjustments to our system" to "it is impossible".
tayo42 7y ago
There's nothing to be taken seriously. These skeptics seem to be the equivalent of anti vax people. They read a couple bias confirming articles and studies and fill in the blanks for the rest of the argument. These skeptics aren't experts, they don't have all of the information. The continue to act enlightened. The internet has given a loud voice to minority. Why would I trust someone who has only just started to read about infections and policy over our actual leaders who are being briefed each day, working with real experts and getting constant data. really this whole think just shows either lack of critical thinking and foresight or that there are a lot of sociopaths that can't have any empathy. For anyone calling for the reopening of cities, even something like try it out and see (maybe this is better on this site, filled with engineers who don't just test stuff out live and see what happens) are you willing to die for this cause? Or are you willing to let a loved one die for this cause?
goodcanadian 7y ago
We are never going to "beat" the virus with lockdown restrictions. We could be in lockdown for two years, and the virus would still be there. We could try to hold out for a vaccine, but the optimistic estimate for a timescale is still on the order of a year or two. Meanwhile, the lockdown has real costs. Setting aside the direct economic effects (which I do believe are also important to consider), isolation and reduction of income cause real mental and physical health problems. At some point, the costs of the lockdown exceed the costs of the virus. I won't pretend to know exactly where that line is. The only real solution, in my mind, is to go for herd immunity as quickly as possible. That doesn't mean relaxing all restrictions, but it does mean tailoring the restrictions to maintain a high, but manageable case load in order to let the virus go through the population as quickly as possible without overwhelming medical systems. Of course, we should do our best to protect vulnerable people both to avoid unnecessary deaths and to limit the strain on health care. I believe the balance can be found, and as we learn more, we will be able to tailor our methods to control the virus while minimizing the impact on society.
lmilcin 7y ago
Take the trucks with bodies seriously. Take doctors deciding who to give the respirator to seriously. Today facts don't matter as much. But I see these things and I remember this is only about 1% (maybe couple) of population getting sick already overwhelming the system and I don't need any more convincing.
htnsao 7y ago
I think the article is spot-on. So far only .03% of the population of Sweden has died from Covid-19. (3.2k/10.2M). Pretty negligible. Does that really justify the consequences of shutting down the world economy? Most of those people were going to be dying soon anyway. Like my grandma, she was 93. I think we are experiencing the modern equivalent of China's disastrous "Great Leap Forward". But instead of being caused by terrified bureaucrats listening to a tyrant, this time it's from terrified politicians listening to the bleeding-heart media. The same folks that are always whining about something have now brought about the "Great Leap Backward". One could say the world is now suffering under the tyranny of the media. Or rather, suffering the tyranny of the meek.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  I think people overestimate how "open" Sweden really is. It's not particularly more open than many states, it's just that businesses and individuals have chosen to take individual responsibility to protect society[0], as opposed to fighting it as a danger to the economy and an infringement on rights. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/apr/21/sweden-covid-19-policy-trust-citizens-state https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/apr/21/...
  - htnsao 7y ago
    Ok so look at Brazil, 11k dead out of 212M = .005%
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      They reported 500 dead today, and 600 yesterday. Let's see where they are in a week or two (it'll be with 3x these death numbers and likely entering a lockdown de facto due to popular support for it).
      - htnsao 7y ago
        >They reported 500 dead today, and 600 yesterday. Brazil normally has 3800 deaths per day [0] so, as Bolsonaro says, so what. Some of the sick and elderly dying a few months earlier does not warrant removing the livelihoods of everyone else. >Let's see where they are in a week or two (it'll be with 3x these death numbers and likely entering a lockdown de facto due to popular support for it). Popular support is a function of media manipulation. And we know what types gravitate to that kind of work. [0]:https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/brazil-population/ https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/brazil-populatio...

79 points by mrfusion 7y ago

Without commenting on whether I agree or disagree with anything in the article itself, I do find the rhetorical sleight-of-hand curious: the writer is effectively asking the reader to "take the shutdown skeptics seriously" by articulating the same points that "shutdown skeptics" have made and that haven't been taken seriously. Or, put another way: despite the prevarication, the author clearly _is_ a shutdown skeptic, of course they want shutdown skeptics to be taken seriously!

microcolonel 7y ago
How exactly are you supposed to make the argument that somebody else's argument is valid without explaining that argument? What you're asking for here is a basically a Tweet: “I mean, maybe they're not wrong.”
- wk_end 7y ago
  Is it really "someone else's argument" though? If you change the framing a little bit there's no reason this article couldn't have been titled "We Should Start to Think About Ending the Shutdown" or something. But if it had been titled that, most people who don't already agree would just write it off immediately. It's clear the framing was chosen to appear more reasonable and neutral in order to target those a little more open-minded or on the fence, to sneak past the out-grouping that leads people to dismiss the other side instinctively. That's not even really a criticism, given how polarized and partisan political discourse is; it's smart rhetoric. So to answer your question directly: you can explain the argument without uncritically recapitulating it. The latter is what this essay does, which is why I think the idea that it's "someone else's argument" is a front. For comparison, this [1] article showed up here a while ago. The authors repeatedly made clear that they disagreed with the skeptics, that they had "consensus views", that they weren't trying to Trojan horse a contrarian argument in under the guise of a call for open-mindedness and debate. That essay has flaws, and maybe it's naive, but I got the genuine sense when reading it that the authors were being forthright and earnest. I think they succeeded at making the case for the validity and worthwhileness of someone else's argument without looking like they're endorsing it. [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/27/hear-scientists-different-views-covid-19-dont-attack-them/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/27/hear-scientists-differen...
lux 7y ago
There's still a valid point in there that we should take the underlying need seriously, not the proposed solution of reopening. For example, a solution could be as simple as America financially supporting its citizens like other countries have done, reducing the desperation that's causing the pressure to reopen sooner than they likely know is safe. Don't make it a lesser of two evils choice in the first place. Reminds me of something I read on here about assuming a strong man version of people's arguments instead of a straw man one. Maybe they're knowingly protesting because they believe those are the only choices they have.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > For example, a solution could be as simple as America financially supporting its citizens like other countries have done Money is not nutritious when eaten.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    I believe the parent's point is this: We need an economy that produces a certain amount of stuff - food, water, electricity, fuel, healthcare. We can't just make that stuff appear by moving or printing money, we have to actually produce the stuff. Now, I know, that was the idea behind "critical infrastructure" - we had to keep those things running, even if we shut down everything else. But the longer we shut down, I suspect the more things we find that are critical. (Made up example: Water is critical, so water treatment is critical, so the chemicals used are critical, so the ingredients to manufacture them are critical, so certain kinds of mining are critical, so eventually mining machinery is critical.)
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      It turns out the majority of things people work on are a critical and fragile component of the supply chain of an essential good or service.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    > Money is not nutritious when eaten. Neither is an empty cupboard, which a lack of money can lead to.

eveningcoffee 7y ago

I do not understand what is going on in US and in UK. Both have reached some plateau but the daily new cases are not going down. This has been going on for over a month. I presume that this is result of too late reaction to the outbreak but perhaps somebody knows better.

Analemma_ 7y ago
I don't know about the UK, but what's happening in the US is that deaths in major cities are declining because the lockdowns are working, but cases and deaths are exploding in suburban and rural areas. The plateau right now is because those two effects are approximately canceling out, but as deaths in cities bottom out, total deaths will begin climbing again.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  > deaths in major cities are declining because the lockdowns are working I'm guessing it's because mitigations together with an increasing immunity is lowering the reproduction under 1. In many large cities as many as 10 or 20% are now immune and that's a huge number if the theoretical herd immunity is somewhere around 60, and the practical one is somewhere even lower.
agd 7y ago
Possible that it’s simply due to increased testing capacity. Before, many cases did not show up in the figures because there weren’t many tests carried out.
- watwut 7y ago
  Are you sure testing capacity went up? I don't recall reading about that.
  - tomjakubowski 7y ago
    It's definitely up since early March. It's likely that testing capacity has been the limiting factor on case count for most of this time.

twblalock 7y ago

It's disturbing how the goalposts have been changing around the shelter-in-place orders. The original argument was to "flatten the curve" to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. By that logic, areas where the hospitals have not been overwhelmed (which is most of the United States) should be gradually reducing restrictions, and only maintaining the restrictions necessary to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. Lately, the prevailing argument seems to be that we need to shelter in place because virus cases will increase if we don't. That was not the original justification. Of course cases will increase! The question ought to be, will they increase to the extent that they overwhelm hospital capacity? Most of the people quoted in the article agreed with shelter-in-place orders in the first place, and now they are being labeled as "skeptics" for sticking with the original rationale.

vwcx 7y ago
Public health is a constantly changing landscape made up of frequently shifting inputs and analysis. It’s only in recent decades that our desire for absolutes has really given people the idea that these things should be simple. Every country on earth has to move the goalposts during a pandemic — this is a sign the system is still working.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  But then you must provide additional economic support to those impacted accordingly, as you regulate public behavior through updates to public health orders.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Most countries are doing that. The one-off $1,200 in the US is fairly unique.
    - RandomInteger4 7y ago
      Can you provide citations to which countries exactly you're referring to by the phrase "most countries?"

Analemma_ 7y ago

> Denunciations of that sort cast the lockdown debate as a straightforward battle between a pro-human and a pro-economy camp. But the actual trade-offs are not straightforward. The irony here is that these sentences are correct, but the author comes to exactly the wrong conclusion from them. There is no battle between a pro-human and pro-economy camp, because if we just threw the doors open and let the virus rage out of control, everyone would end up staying home out of fear anyway and there'd be no difference, in terms of economic damange, from a state-mandated shutdowns now. Note that there is nothing preventing you from flying right now, but the planes are still empty. Or how the government is ordering meat processing plants to reopen but they are still running way below capacity because workers are just staying home so they don't get sick. It is not a choice between economic damage and lives lost, it's a choice between an orderly lockdown now and a chaotic de facto lockdown later, except the latter has a lot more people dying - the economic damage is inevitable either way. Do not take shutdown skeptics seriously, they don't deserve it.

dkfjdkfjda 7y ago
That's not what the article says, though. It merely says that lockdowns do have consequences too, particularly prolonged ones, and we should consider those too. But such discussion is largely impossible because the whole issue got framed as good vs. evil, and even just questioning some aspects of the lockdown (say, school closures) gets you labeled as someone who essentially wants to murder vulnerable people. FWIW I do live in a country which is in lockdown for ~2m now, and I do think it was the right thing to do. But it's not really feasible to stay in indefinite lockdown - not just because of economy, but because of impact on public health etc.

drfrank 7y ago

The U.S. doesn't have to choose between total shutdown and total opening. Targeted opening is feasible. The U.S. also doesn't have to choose between individual destitution and death of the vulnerable. Some combination of financial support covered by bonds with freezing debt collection of various categories would provide significant relief. As in all macroeconomic challenges a combination of approaches is necessary.

filoleg 7y ago
Exactly. I think that a lot of “lockdown skeptics” are totally cool with a targeted and phased restriction lift-up that involves clear metrics on how and when each stage should proceed. But it all gets drowned out by people instantly resorting to “they are advocating for an instant lift-up of all restrictions, what a bunch of morons who don’t care for human lives” sort of arguments, as soon as they hear anything but a unanimous agreement with an indefinite lockdown.
- greglindahl 7y ago
  The current policy for my county, state, and federal government is a targeted and phased restriction lift-up, that involves metrics that unclear because we don't really know enough yet. You might want to re-evaluate the "lockdown skeptics" arguments in that light.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    >that involves metrics that unclear because we don't really know enough yet Not knowing numbers is not the same as vague or unclear metrics. For example, saying "phase 3 will proceed once the hospital occupancy goes below 30%" doesn't qualify as vague in my book (numbers and such obviously made up by me). While we don't know when that happens, the metric itself is very clear and specific. What kind of metrics does your county's lift-up plan use that are unclear just "because we don't really know enough yet"?

gremlinsinc 7y ago

There was an article that I saw yesterday, CBB to dig it up that said if only 80% of Americans wore masks we could nearly rid the country of corona virus. That's all it takes. Such a simple thing. We can't have full re-opening while we have self-ish protesters who revel in spreading the disease and make a mockery of public health. If they'd have some personal responsibility or if stores would just take the initiative nationally to require masks for every patron, we'd be over this by fall, and subsequent waves wouldn't be so bad. A post from someone in my hometown yesterday on facebook had a guy boycotting great clips because they made him put on a mask to step foot inside and he had to make an appointment. (State law now for all stylists/barbers/etc.). All it takes is respect of others AND the virus to stop this thing. Why can't people do this?

robk 7y ago
No one can say masks would have that effect. Not enough evidence (yet?)
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/masks-covid-19-infections-would-plummet-new-study-says https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/masks-covid-19-infec... > “One reason is that nearly everyone there is wearing a mask,” said De Kai, an American computer scientist with joint appointments at UC Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute and at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is also the chief architect of an in-depth study, set to be released in the coming days, that suggests that every one of us should be wearing a mask—whether surgical or homemade, scarf or bandana—like they do in Japan and other countries, mostly in East Asia. This formula applies to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence (occasional mask refuseniks) as well as every other official who routinely interacts with people in public settings. Among the findings of their research paper, which the team plans to submit to a major journal: If 80% of a closed population were to don a mask, COVID-19 infection rates would statistically drop to approximately one twelfth the number of infections—compared to a live-virus population in which no one wore masks.
  - 7y ago

microcolonel 7y ago

Reminder to the professional class: Money is not nutritious when eaten. There is only so much that financial support can do when productivity and efficiency are slashed. It may seem like everything will blow over if the Uber Eats fairy magically manifests food in exchange for currency at the homes of Americans, but for money to function there must also be productivity.

kazagistar 7y ago

Almost all these arguments have the same basic structure. 1. We depend on X 2. X is provided by free trade and the open market. 3. Quarantine hurts free trade and the open market. 4. Therefore, ongoing quarantine hurts X. While the argument is sound, removing or reducing the quarantine (ie, solving point 3) is not the only solution. You can also change point 2, on a case by case basis, and remove the supply chain dependence on markets, money, profit, and capitalism. Of course, someone who is "pro opening the economy" will be unable to accept this option on ideological or often self interest grounds, and thus try to reduce the option space to a simple binary, because mass death is better then the replacement of an economic paradigm from which they have benefited so.

yhersk0vitz 7y ago

As a wise man once said - "If no one's making stuff, there won't be any stuff."

jonstewart 7y ago

Friedersdorf has a number of quotes concerning the impact of a long term shutdown (and/or recession). That doesn’t seem like the same thing as being a shutdown skeptic. Part of the point of the safer at home orders is to buy time, not only to avoid oversubscription of hospitals but also for government to ramp up testing, protocols, contact tracing, and so on. Look at South Korea for how that can work. Unfortunately the federal government has squandered the opportunity to plan, prepare, and implement at every step along the way. At the same time, the bulk of the push to open comes not from reasoned argument, but special interests. The protesters seen at state capitols are victims of fake news, astroturfing organizers, and disinformation campaigns. That Friedersdorf doesn’t discuss those dynamics—at all—makes me lose a lot of respect for him. It’s just lazy both-sides journalism, where a contrarian viewpoint is taken up with very little justification, examination of the facts, or assignment of responsibility to important actors. Very disappointing to read this in The Atlantic considering so much of its coverage -has- been so good.

Jabbles 7y ago

This entire discussion seems to miss the point that it is not black-and-white. Every year, tens of thousands of people in the US die from influenza. But the economy is not shutdown to prevent this. We recognise that the cost of tens of millions of dollars per life saved is not worth it. People seem to think it's morally bankrupt to put a cost on saving lives. But that is what we (as a society) do every day. Every healthcare system puts a price on each treatment. In the US the patient (or insurance) pays for it. In the UK an ethics council will determine if that is a good use of the finite money the system has. But in order to have a proper discussion about this, we need to have some numbers. How many lives will be saved, how much will it cost? Is "lives saved" even the right metric? Any article that hand-waves away the numbers is worthless. A thought experiment for both sides: at some point your opinion would change, for/against the lockdown. How much more or how much less deadly would COVID-19 have to be for you to change your mind?

anoncareer0212 7y ago
You're repeating the article with some grandiose hand-waving to compare it to the flu, when it's already killed 5x any flu season in just 4 months :/
- Jabbles 7y ago
  I don't think you read my comment at all.
  - anoncareer0212 7y ago
    Gotcha, in that case I think the point got lost in the mix. Would love to engage with it more though, seems like you're passionate and knowledgable about this.
  - aaomidi 7y ago
    The problem is you start by comparing this to the flu. People are going to stop reading after that because it's generally a pattern of another idiot rambling. Don't write in that pattern if you don't want people to interpret it in that pattern.

greendave 7y ago

> Critics are dismayed. Citing forecasts that COVID-19 deaths could rise to 3,000 per day in June, they say that reopening without better defenses against infections is reckless. The problem at this point is that there is little evidence that shutting down is improving our defenses. The federal effort is not there. The state efforts are haphazard. Worse, while the shutdown was strong enough to destroy the economy, it was enacted unevenly and poorly enforced so that transmission outside of the NY area has barely dropped at all. Without reducing transmissions significantly, there are simply too many cases and too little infrastructure to trace, test and quarantine. The United States will likely serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of the world for a long time to come.

fxtentacle 7y ago
I believe the US has been treated as a cautionary tale ever since January 20, 2017 ;)

fxtentacle 7y ago

This article seems to have an odd relationship with nuanced facts. While it is correct that nobody knows for sure how long it will take until medicine or vaccination are available, there are estimates that one can use for planning. But the article goes from "there is a level of uncertainty" to "impossible to know, let's ignore it completely". Similarly, while the article is technically correct that the US is currently doing deficit spending, it really isn't the immutable fact that they present it as. It would be quite easy to levy taxes so that there's no deficit. Taxing the rich could finance the current level of stimulus spending for years, but the article goes from "we'll need to make adjustments to our system" to "it is impossible".

tayo42 7y ago

There's nothing to be taken seriously. These skeptics seem to be the equivalent of anti vax people. They read a couple bias confirming articles and studies and fill in the blanks for the rest of the argument. These skeptics aren't experts, they don't have all of the information. The continue to act enlightened. The internet has given a loud voice to minority. Why would I trust someone who has only just started to read about infections and policy over our actual leaders who are being briefed each day, working with real experts and getting constant data. really this whole think just shows either lack of critical thinking and foresight or that there are a lot of sociopaths that can't have any empathy. For anyone calling for the reopening of cities, even something like try it out and see (maybe this is better on this site, filled with engineers who don't just test stuff out live and see what happens) are you willing to die for this cause? Or are you willing to let a loved one die for this cause?

goodcanadian 7y ago

We are never going to "beat" the virus with lockdown restrictions. We could be in lockdown for two years, and the virus would still be there. We could try to hold out for a vaccine, but the optimistic estimate for a timescale is still on the order of a year or two. Meanwhile, the lockdown has real costs. Setting aside the direct economic effects (which I do believe are also important to consider), isolation and reduction of income cause real mental and physical health problems. At some point, the costs of the lockdown exceed the costs of the virus. I won't pretend to know exactly where that line is. The only real solution, in my mind, is to go for herd immunity as quickly as possible. That doesn't mean relaxing all restrictions, but it does mean tailoring the restrictions to maintain a high, but manageable case load in order to let the virus go through the population as quickly as possible without overwhelming medical systems. Of course, we should do our best to protect vulnerable people both to avoid unnecessary deaths and to limit the strain on health care. I believe the balance can be found, and as we learn more, we will be able to tailor our methods to control the virus while minimizing the impact on society.

lmilcin 7y ago

Take the trucks with bodies seriously. Take doctors deciding who to give the respirator to seriously. Today facts don't matter as much. But I see these things and I remember this is only about 1% (maybe couple) of population getting sick already overwhelming the system and I don't need any more convincing.

htnsao 7y ago

I think the article is spot-on. So far only .03% of the population of Sweden has died from Covid-19. (3.2k/10.2M). Pretty negligible. Does that really justify the consequences of shutting down the world economy? Most of those people were going to be dying soon anyway. Like my grandma, she was 93. I think we are experiencing the modern equivalent of China's disastrous "Great Leap Forward". But instead of being caused by terrified bureaucrats listening to a tyrant, this time it's from terrified politicians listening to the bleeding-heart media. The same folks that are always whining about something have now brought about the "Great Leap Backward". One could say the world is now suffering under the tyranny of the media. Or rather, suffering the tyranny of the meek.

joshuamorton 7y ago
I think people overestimate how "open" Sweden really is. It's not particularly more open than many states, it's just that businesses and individuals have chosen to take individual responsibility to protect society[0], as opposed to fighting it as a danger to the economy and an infringement on rights. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/apr/21/sweden-covid-19-policy-trust-citizens-state https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/apr/21/...
- htnsao 7y ago
  Ok so look at Brazil, 11k dead out of 212M = .005%
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    They reported 500 dead today, and 600 yesterday. Let's see where they are in a week or two (it'll be with 3x these death numbers and likely entering a lockdown de facto due to popular support for it).
    - htnsao 7y ago
      >They reported 500 dead today, and 600 yesterday. Brazil normally has 3800 deaths per day [0] so, as Bolsonaro says, so what. Some of the sick and elderly dying a few months earlier does not warrant removing the livelihoods of everyone else. >Let's see where they are in a week or two (it'll be with 3x these death numbers and likely entering a lockdown de facto due to popular support for it). Popular support is a function of media manipulation. And we know what types gravitate to that kind of work. [0]:https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/brazil-population/ https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/brazil-populatio...