4 ms·

> lost ability to rationally think about small additional chances of dying What price would you put on a 5% chance of death plus higher chance of permanent chr

> lost ability to rationally think about small additional chances of dying What price would you put on a 5% chance of death plus higher chance of permanent chronic health problems for each of your friends and relatives over age 70? (That may even be an underestimate of the Covid IFR for elderly people.) Even for healthy young people, we are talking about a 1/1000 chance of death and rather higher chance of long-term organ damage. If this virus ends up infecting 60% of the population, as it will if people carry on their pre-pandemic lives, we’ll end up with something on the order of 2–4 million deaths in the USA, and the aggregate healthcare costs over the next few decades will be an outrageously large burden. In my opinion the biggest problem the pandemic has highlighted is that many countries have a limited ability to collectively think rationally before getting into a crisis, and adequately prepare so we don’t get hammered so badly by entirely predictable risks of large-scale problems. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. > usual set of killers, from old age to cancer to traffic, It would be great if we would also spend a significant amount of societal resources on reducing traffic deaths, firearm deaths, set agricultural policy to promote healthy diets and stave off cardiovascular disease, stop companies from dumping carcinogens into the environment, and so on. As a society we could save a lot of money and lives with some systemic changes and investments.

ptero 6y ago
> If this virus ends up infecting 60% of the population, as it will if people carry on their pre-pandemic lives, we’ll end up with something on the order of 2–4 million deaths in the USA, and the aggregate healthcare costs over the next few decades will be an outrageously large burden. On the economics front, USA just printed out $5 trillion of stimulus to fight the slowdown caused by lockdowns. I hear this is just a first step, stay tuned for more. I suspect the burden you mention would be smaller, but would love to hear an estimate. On the spread: how do you plan to avoid it? Every state and every country has carriers. Assuming the proportion of those with no symptoms is high, as recent studies indicate, people will keep spreading it around. Are we going to force folks wear masks (which, by the way they take off completely if eating in a restaurant) for a year? Outlaw all in person schools and university classes? All contact sports? Honest question.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  > how do you plan to avoid it? Look around the world. Many other countries rich and poor are doing a good job containing the virus, while the US is incompetently flailing. The scale of social/industrial changes necessary to stall a pandemic for long enough to get effective treatments and ideally a vaccine pales in comparison to the changes required to e.g. fight WWII. The US is one of the richest and most industrially capable countries on earth, and yet it is barely acting at all, and many official actions (canceling research projects, defunding the WHO, restricting experts at the CDC, the president advising people to just drink bleach, public officials suggesting that the pandemic is a hoax, manipulation of aggregated statistics, ...) are actively harmful. Success requires a large-scale coordinated national response including but not limited to: clear and consistent factual messaging to the public, free widely available tests with quick turnaround time, industrial coordination to produce and distribute necessary supplies (e.g. the state should be sending reusable face masks to every resident), quick ramp-up in necessary human labor like contact tracing and regular check-ins with people isolating at home, enforced quarantines and testing for travelers, temporary limits on travel to/from heavily affected areas, direct monetary transfers to people temporarily unable to work (possibly extending for months), state-supported pauses in expenses like rent and mortgage payments, ... The countries which quickly and effectively control the pandemic are those which will ultimately see the least harmful medium-term economic consequences, while those which dither around will both cause massive suffering to their own citizens, and also crater their economies hardest. > Are we going to force folks wear masks for a year? Outlaw all in person schools and university classes? All contact sports? Honest question. I would say yes, yes, and yes. Wearing masks while visiting indoor public spaces like shops and public transit is not a significant burden. Packing audiences into sporting arenas during a pandemic is absurdly irresponsible.
  - ptero 6y ago
    Can you give examples? I see absolutely no indications that many countries are doing a good job containing the virus. Many are delaying its spread, but they are nowhere near containment; in fact when those countries that supposedly got the COVID under control lift restrictions the disease comes back. I do not see how containment is possible unless you institute a total lockdown and build perimeter around carriers, including those with no symptoms. >> Are we going to force folks wear masks for a year? Outlaw all in person schools and university classes? All contact sports? Honest question. > I would say yes, yes, and yes. I respect your opinion, but I would say "no, hell no, and hell no". Sooner rather than later your opinion and my opinion will have to be reconciled, perhaps not to a solution that makes everyone happy, but at least to a policy that is grudgingly acceptable to both camps. You can make policy by force, which is what we have now, but such enforcement does not work long-term. You need wide buy-in, without which people quickly start breaking rules, en masse. Which is what we are already seeing in the US; just look at cars at open beaches with license plates from states that supposedly keep citizenry in quarantines.

ptero 6y ago

> If this virus ends up infecting 60% of the population, as it will if people carry on their pre-pandemic lives, we’ll end up with something on the order of 2–4 million deaths in the USA, and the aggregate healthcare costs over the next few decades will be an outrageously large burden. On the economics front, USA just printed out $5 trillion of stimulus to fight the slowdown caused by lockdowns. I hear this is just a first step, stay tuned for more. I suspect the burden you mention would be smaller, but would love to hear an estimate. On the spread: how do you plan to avoid it? Every state and every country has carriers. Assuming the proportion of those with no symptoms is high, as recent studies indicate, people will keep spreading it around. Are we going to force folks wear masks (which, by the way they take off completely if eating in a restaurant) for a year? Outlaw all in person schools and university classes? All contact sports? Honest question.

jacobolus 6y ago
> how do you plan to avoid it? Look around the world. Many other countries rich and poor are doing a good job containing the virus, while the US is incompetently flailing. The scale of social/industrial changes necessary to stall a pandemic for long enough to get effective treatments and ideally a vaccine pales in comparison to the changes required to e.g. fight WWII. The US is one of the richest and most industrially capable countries on earth, and yet it is barely acting at all, and many official actions (canceling research projects, defunding the WHO, restricting experts at the CDC, the president advising people to just drink bleach, public officials suggesting that the pandemic is a hoax, manipulation of aggregated statistics, ...) are actively harmful. Success requires a large-scale coordinated national response including but not limited to: clear and consistent factual messaging to the public, free widely available tests with quick turnaround time, industrial coordination to produce and distribute necessary supplies (e.g. the state should be sending reusable face masks to every resident), quick ramp-up in necessary human labor like contact tracing and regular check-ins with people isolating at home, enforced quarantines and testing for travelers, temporary limits on travel to/from heavily affected areas, direct monetary transfers to people temporarily unable to work (possibly extending for months), state-supported pauses in expenses like rent and mortgage payments, ... The countries which quickly and effectively control the pandemic are those which will ultimately see the least harmful medium-term economic consequences, while those which dither around will both cause massive suffering to their own citizens, and also crater their economies hardest. > Are we going to force folks wear masks for a year? Outlaw all in person schools and university classes? All contact sports? Honest question. I would say yes, yes, and yes. Wearing masks while visiting indoor public spaces like shops and public transit is not a significant burden. Packing audiences into sporting arenas during a pandemic is absurdly irresponsible.
- ptero 6y ago
  Can you give examples? I see absolutely no indications that many countries are doing a good job containing the virus. Many are delaying its spread, but they are nowhere near containment; in fact when those countries that supposedly got the COVID under control lift restrictions the disease comes back. I do not see how containment is possible unless you institute a total lockdown and build perimeter around carriers, including those with no symptoms. >> Are we going to force folks wear masks for a year? Outlaw all in person schools and university classes? All contact sports? Honest question. > I would say yes, yes, and yes. I respect your opinion, but I would say "no, hell no, and hell no". Sooner rather than later your opinion and my opinion will have to be reconciled, perhaps not to a solution that makes everyone happy, but at least to a policy that is grudgingly acceptable to both camps. You can make policy by force, which is what we have now, but such enforcement does not work long-term. You need wide buy-in, without which people quickly start breaking rules, en masse. Which is what we are already seeing in the US; just look at cars at open beaches with license plates from states that supposedly keep citizenry in quarantines.