6 ms·

Covid Lockdown versus Economy Was Always False Trade-Off

13 points by gHeadphone 6y ago

troughway 6y ago
Tried to bring out this salient point here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635489) but seems like HN is more interested in pushing the up and down arrows than they are in using that thing between their ears.
- sojournerc 6y ago
  > If a vaccine is not found, you're bound to have a catastrophe on your hands. > Whether or not you quarantined, the economy would collapse because you would have a massive death toll and paranoia throughout the country. You make assumptions in these two statements without a lot of nuance or support. I think the economy would be much better off if we had encouraged self- quarantine for at risk groups, but allowed otherwise healthy people to go about their business. Giving people information to make their own decisions, encourage social distancing etc etc Why will we have a catastrophe if a vaccine is not found?
  - bavell 6y ago
    Agreed. IMO an economic collapse similar or worse than the great depression is much more catastrophic than this pandemic. At least with the pandemic many people are able to make decisions to protect themselves as needed or opt to risk exposure depending on their situation.
  - fzeroracer 6y ago
    > I think the economy would be much better off if we had encouraged self- quarantine for at risk groups, but allowed otherwise healthy people to go about their business. Giving people information to make their own decisions, encourage social distancing etc etc We tried to do just that in Texas. It failed. Badly. There are multiple reasons why this idea of opening up simply won't work: 1. Many Americans are fundamentally unwilling to go along with social distancing and mask wearing protocols. All it takes is one or two people refusing to self-quarantine to get an entire business sick and force them to shut down. 2. We did nothing to ramp up our testing. In fact our president has been signalling that he wants to reduce testing so that the numbers look better. When individuals were given their own decisions, they went to bars packed in like sardines and caused a second wave to appear.
    - sojournerc 6y ago
      Right, but the people who went to the bars made that decision despite being aware of the risks. I would much prefer a society that allows people to do dumb things than a nanny-state that purports to keep us "safe". Living is a risky situation. That's just the way it is. If my 97 year old grandma wants to go have a mimosa and socialize, I think that should be her choice, even considering the risk. We drive on highways, I go outside where mosquitoes carry West-Nile disease, I eat food prepared by someone else at a restaurant, I smoke a cigarette. These are all risk trade-offs that we allow individuals to make their own decision on. Why is _this_ disease, this risk, so different? We're encouraging a sort of generalized agoraphobia - if _you_ don't want to take the risk of going out, then stay home and you'll be perfectly safe. Don't impose that fear on others...
      - fzeroracer 6y ago
        Except we don't allow people to do dumb things when it puts other people at risk. If your grandma decides to go drive after downing a few mimosas she'll be arrested for driving intoxicated. If she decides to go 80mph on a 30 speed limit road she'll be arrested for putting others at risk. And you can't smoke a cigarette anywhere you want because other people don't want your second hand smoke mucking up the area. And this disease much like those is not about you. Arguments you make are inherently selfish because it's about your freedoms but not about the freedoms you take away from others. You are essentially arguing for those that are at risk to remain in permanent lockdown because others can't be bothered to take basic protective measures. You're demanding to take away other people's freedom so you can have marginally more freedom.
        sojournerc 6y ago
        How does going to a bar take away freedom from others? I'm not suggesting "permanent lock-down", rather the opposite - those who are at risk are perfectly capable of managing that risk themselves as they see fit - wear a mask - sanitize hands - avoid people - great! no one's stopping that. There were diseases before this one, and there will be others to follow it. If becoming a vector of transmission is equivalent to "taking away freedom from others" than we'd better never leave home again since we can never know what pathogen might be hiding out there in the world. If I want to expose myself to such vectors, that's my prerogative. My example of my Grandam willingly taking risk to socialize is nothing like outright dangerous behavior that puts others at risk (speeding 80 in a 30). They are not equivalent.
eiji 6y ago
What is missing is that no country, not Denmark, or any other country besides maybe New Zealand has eradicated the virus. So we are exactly where we were in February or March. With one difference. We know what groups of people are at risk, and which groups aren't. Any country that decides to relax restrictions will see a surge in cases, not necessarily deaths, but cases for sure. That's true for sun belt States just as much as for Denmark. Those advocating for low case counts at all costs are basically advocating to close parts of public life for good. Which can be a meaningful public policy position to have. But then say so. Don't talk about flattening the curve and hospital capacity. That's disingenuous. If you are a governor or president anywhere, communicate clearly what your objective is. Are you working towards a kind of heard immunity situation while not overextending hospitals? Okay. In that case rising case counts can be expected. Some states are doing that. But say so. We are not stupid. Are you trying to keep new cases below 10 per million and you hope to wait it out for a vaccine? Okay. Say so. In that case, I'll probably close my gym and skip that state for my concert tour. But I know what I'm in for. I know who is accountable for the decisions being made. You probably want to extend direct financial support to those businesses that you are preventing from opening. Otherwise they will sue you and eventually they will win, albeit might take some time for courts to get there. The approach taken will be very different regionally. It's very likely that people in Texas have different preferences than people in New York or Michigan. They have a very different makeup and think and live differently. What I'm missing is clear strategy communicated by governors to which their constituents can hold them accountable.
- bavell 6y ago
  I think you're absolutely right. Some people seem to have forgotten that the plan was never to completely stop by the spread of infection (impossible) but to slow it down so the health system isn't overwhelmed. It's a global pandemic, there's gonna be suffering and death no matter what actions we take - mitigation is our only option. The sad part is our incompetent government was supposed to get their act together in the meantime (more testing, etc), which hasn't happened.
- dopylitty 6y ago
  "Those advocating for low case counts at all costs are basically advocating to close parts of public life for good." This is not true. Once cases are low enough a competent government can prevent outbreaks from spinning out of control, as has been seen in South Korea, China, and even Australia where new outbreaks have happened but haven't lead to exponential growth. The problem in the US is that the governments in many states, and certainly at the federal level, aren't even trying to a competent response and instead threw up their hands. That's why they're seeing exponential increase. A several month lockdown is necessary to get cases low enough that a competent government response and protective measures can keep them low even with increased economic activity.
nappa-leon 6y ago
The US government failed on many fronts, but the main one is testing. I think that people misunderstood the point of the lockdowns, possibly due to bad marketing from the flatten the curve people. The truth is that without a vaccine reopening would always spike cases, but a robust testing system, with possibly maybe 10x the number of daily tests, would allow us to remove contagious individuals from public and flatten the curve while reopening. Without testing we do have to choose lockdown or hospital overload, but we can still boost testing. The lockdown was like telling your kid a task would take ten minutes, and they would be in timeout until they completed it. If they choose not to do the task, you don't just let them out. Governors can have all the plans they want, but telling them all to come up with their own testing plan without federal use of the DPA is ludicrous.
- eiji 6y ago
  Our tests per Capita don't seem to be behind other countries. It seems to me the "more testing needed" rhetoric is similar to the "we start dieing like flys in three weeks" position. Just triple tests another tenfold and we will be fine? It ignores reality.

13 points by gHeadphone 6y ago

Tried to bring out this salient point here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635489) but seems like HN is more interested in pushing the up and down arrows than they are in using that thing between their ears.

sojournerc 6y ago
> If a vaccine is not found, you're bound to have a catastrophe on your hands. > Whether or not you quarantined, the economy would collapse because you would have a massive death toll and paranoia throughout the country. You make assumptions in these two statements without a lot of nuance or support. I think the economy would be much better off if we had encouraged self- quarantine for at risk groups, but allowed otherwise healthy people to go about their business. Giving people information to make their own decisions, encourage social distancing etc etc Why will we have a catastrophe if a vaccine is not found?
- bavell 6y ago
  Agreed. IMO an economic collapse similar or worse than the great depression is much more catastrophic than this pandemic. At least with the pandemic many people are able to make decisions to protect themselves as needed or opt to risk exposure depending on their situation.
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  > I think the economy would be much better off if we had encouraged self- quarantine for at risk groups, but allowed otherwise healthy people to go about their business. Giving people information to make their own decisions, encourage social distancing etc etc We tried to do just that in Texas. It failed. Badly. There are multiple reasons why this idea of opening up simply won't work: 1. Many Americans are fundamentally unwilling to go along with social distancing and mask wearing protocols. All it takes is one or two people refusing to self-quarantine to get an entire business sick and force them to shut down. 2. We did nothing to ramp up our testing. In fact our president has been signalling that he wants to reduce testing so that the numbers look better. When individuals were given their own decisions, they went to bars packed in like sardines and caused a second wave to appear.
  - sojournerc 6y ago
    Right, but the people who went to the bars made that decision despite being aware of the risks. I would much prefer a society that allows people to do dumb things than a nanny-state that purports to keep us "safe". Living is a risky situation. That's just the way it is. If my 97 year old grandma wants to go have a mimosa and socialize, I think that should be her choice, even considering the risk. We drive on highways, I go outside where mosquitoes carry West-Nile disease, I eat food prepared by someone else at a restaurant, I smoke a cigarette. These are all risk trade-offs that we allow individuals to make their own decision on. Why is _this_ disease, this risk, so different? We're encouraging a sort of generalized agoraphobia - if _you_ don't want to take the risk of going out, then stay home and you'll be perfectly safe. Don't impose that fear on others...
    - fzeroracer 6y ago
      Except we don't allow people to do dumb things when it puts other people at risk. If your grandma decides to go drive after downing a few mimosas she'll be arrested for driving intoxicated. If she decides to go 80mph on a 30 speed limit road she'll be arrested for putting others at risk. And you can't smoke a cigarette anywhere you want because other people don't want your second hand smoke mucking up the area. And this disease much like those is not about you. Arguments you make are inherently selfish because it's about your freedoms but not about the freedoms you take away from others. You are essentially arguing for those that are at risk to remain in permanent lockdown because others can't be bothered to take basic protective measures. You're demanding to take away other people's freedom so you can have marginally more freedom.
      - sojournerc 6y ago
        How does going to a bar take away freedom from others? I'm not suggesting "permanent lock-down", rather the opposite - those who are at risk are perfectly capable of managing that risk themselves as they see fit - wear a mask - sanitize hands - avoid people - great! no one's stopping that. There were diseases before this one, and there will be others to follow it. If becoming a vector of transmission is equivalent to "taking away freedom from others" than we'd better never leave home again since we can never know what pathogen might be hiding out there in the world. If I want to expose myself to such vectors, that's my prerogative. My example of my Grandam willingly taking risk to socialize is nothing like outright dangerous behavior that puts others at risk (speeding 80 in a 30). They are not equivalent.

eiji 6y ago

What is missing is that no country, not Denmark, or any other country besides maybe New Zealand has eradicated the virus. So we are exactly where we were in February or March. With one difference. We know what groups of people are at risk, and which groups aren't. Any country that decides to relax restrictions will see a surge in cases, not necessarily deaths, but cases for sure. That's true for sun belt States just as much as for Denmark. Those advocating for low case counts at all costs are basically advocating to close parts of public life for good. Which can be a meaningful public policy position to have. But then say so. Don't talk about flattening the curve and hospital capacity. That's disingenuous. If you are a governor or president anywhere, communicate clearly what your objective is. Are you working towards a kind of heard immunity situation while not overextending hospitals? Okay. In that case rising case counts can be expected. Some states are doing that. But say so. We are not stupid. Are you trying to keep new cases below 10 per million and you hope to wait it out for a vaccine? Okay. Say so. In that case, I'll probably close my gym and skip that state for my concert tour. But I know what I'm in for. I know who is accountable for the decisions being made. You probably want to extend direct financial support to those businesses that you are preventing from opening. Otherwise they will sue you and eventually they will win, albeit might take some time for courts to get there. The approach taken will be very different regionally. It's very likely that people in Texas have different preferences than people in New York or Michigan. They have a very different makeup and think and live differently. What I'm missing is clear strategy communicated by governors to which their constituents can hold them accountable.

bavell 6y ago
I think you're absolutely right. Some people seem to have forgotten that the plan was never to completely stop by the spread of infection (impossible) but to slow it down so the health system isn't overwhelmed. It's a global pandemic, there's gonna be suffering and death no matter what actions we take - mitigation is our only option. The sad part is our incompetent government was supposed to get their act together in the meantime (more testing, etc), which hasn't happened.
dopylitty 6y ago
"Those advocating for low case counts at all costs are basically advocating to close parts of public life for good." This is not true. Once cases are low enough a competent government can prevent outbreaks from spinning out of control, as has been seen in South Korea, China, and even Australia where new outbreaks have happened but haven't lead to exponential growth. The problem in the US is that the governments in many states, and certainly at the federal level, aren't even trying to a competent response and instead threw up their hands. That's why they're seeing exponential increase. A several month lockdown is necessary to get cases low enough that a competent government response and protective measures can keep them low even with increased economic activity.

nappa-leon 6y ago

The US government failed on many fronts, but the main one is testing. I think that people misunderstood the point of the lockdowns, possibly due to bad marketing from the flatten the curve people. The truth is that without a vaccine reopening would always spike cases, but a robust testing system, with possibly maybe 10x the number of daily tests, would allow us to remove contagious individuals from public and flatten the curve while reopening. Without testing we do have to choose lockdown or hospital overload, but we can still boost testing. The lockdown was like telling your kid a task would take ten minutes, and they would be in timeout until they completed it. If they choose not to do the task, you don't just let them out. Governors can have all the plans they want, but telling them all to come up with their own testing plan without federal use of the DPA is ludicrous.

eiji 6y ago
Our tests per Capita don't seem to be behind other countries. It seems to me the "more testing needed" rhetoric is similar to the "we start dieing like flys in three weeks" position. Just triple tests another tenfold and we will be fine? It ignores reality.