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Despite the uncertainty, just that the current pandemic can drive a country so extremely wealthy as the US to a point where such a humanitarian crisis on US soi

Despite the uncertainty, just that the current pandemic can drive a country so extremely wealthy as the US to a point where such a humanitarian crisis on US soil is a somewhat realistic possibility, it's crazy. 11 million households, what a number. After all, in the larger context, this pandemic is pretty benign among disasters of that magnitude. History is riddled with cataclysms – decades-long droughts over whole continents? Been there, bought the studded leather shirt, got murdered by Mongols. The Black Death, Mount Tambora, a Carrington Event in modern times, Tunguska (but larger), ... This sort of thing has happened lots and lots of times and will happen again. If anything, our recent past has been extraordinarily calm. If it turns out the US government can't keep, something like a tenth of the population? in secure housing during this, good luck with climate change, good luck with the next big one that maybe won't be so benign. This is deeply disconcerting.

thu2111 6y ago
The virus is indeed pretty benign compared to many other disasters. Very benign when you take into account the various statistical distortions e.g. most COVID deaths being more like "tested positive at time of death" rather than actual additive deaths. But the over-reaction to it is on an ahistoric scale. It's quite cataclysmic. You've had people pulling their own teeth out with pliers because the dentists were all closed [1], you have people being locked in their homes for weeks or even months without being able to go outside [2], people being welded inside buildings [3], you have half of all restaurants on Yelp permanently closing [4], you have the elderly being abandoned in care homes to die [5] [6] So whilst I agree diseases have happened before, the kind of global end-of-days mentality we're seeing here is extremely rare. It's not driven by the actual facts of the virus, there's something else at work. [1] https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/people-are-pulling-their-own-teeth-with-dentists-on-lockdown/ https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/people-are-pulling-their-own-t... [2] https://www.abc.es/sociedad/abci-hombre-permanece-aislado-italia-tras-17-test-positivos-covid-19-202007231415_noticia.html https://www.abc.es/sociedad/abci-hombre-permanece-aislado-it... [3] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-inside-their-own-home/ https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-insi... [4] https://mashable.com/article/yelp-restaurants-temporary-permanent-closures/?europe=true https://mashable.com/article/yelp-restaurants-temporary-perm... [5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52014023 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52014023 [6] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/26/canada-care-homes-military-report-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/26/canada-care-ho...
- flunhat 6y ago
  My understanding is that it’s the other way around — both cases and deaths are being undercounted substantially. And testing capacity has been intentionally kneecapped by the govt (if you test fewer, you’ll find fewer cases, which looks good). All told, COVID looks to be about 10x deadlier than the flu. Which is still low, but not trivial given how quickly it spreads.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    I don't think your understanding is up to date. 10x deadlier than the flu would require it to have an IFR of 1%. Even the US CDC, which has been over-exaggerating the dangers from the start, peg it at much less than that, more like 0.3% and many studies are putting it even lower, like between 0.08% (low end, Denmark) and 0.36% (Germany, Heisenberg). But those IFRs are also calculated using the standard definition of a COVID death - someone who died, and was testing positive. If you look at Italy, early on they realised there was a conflation going on, and so they did proper studies of some sample of COVID deaths to see why they really died. They concluded only 4% of the patients had no other medical conditions, and I recall reading (but don't have a link right now) that they concluded about 12% had really died of COVID. The rest all just happened to be infected when they died of something else, which would make sense given the first stat. So you can cut a digit off most of the reported death rates. All suggestions of undercounting are based on the assumption that all excess death is caused by COVID, and nothing else, even though in some countries e.g. the UK many excess death certificates don't even mention COVID, and in other countries like Germany there basically isn't any excess death: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Society/population_death.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Socie...
    - malyk 6y ago
      If you look at the CDC data on Excess Deaths[1] then you can see that COVID and the response to COVID has been responsible for a significant number of excess deaths in every week since the week ending on 3/28. So, maybe not 10x deadlier, but certainly way deadlier in total count of deaths. 1 - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

thu2111 6y ago

The virus is indeed pretty benign compared to many other disasters. Very benign when you take into account the various statistical distortions e.g. most COVID deaths being more like "tested positive at time of death" rather than actual additive deaths. But the over-reaction to it is on an ahistoric scale. It's quite cataclysmic. You've had people pulling their own teeth out with pliers because the dentists were all closed [1], you have people being locked in their homes for weeks or even months without being able to go outside [2], people being welded inside buildings [3], you have half of all restaurants on Yelp permanently closing [4], you have the elderly being abandoned in care homes to die [5] [6] So whilst I agree diseases have happened before, the kind of global end-of-days mentality we're seeing here is extremely rare. It's not driven by the actual facts of the virus, there's something else at work. [1] https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/people-are-pulling-their-own-teeth-with-dentists-on-lockdown/ https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/people-are-pulling-their-own-t... [2] https://www.abc.es/sociedad/abci-hombre-permanece-aislado-italia-tras-17-test-positivos-covid-19-202007231415_noticia.html https://www.abc.es/sociedad/abci-hombre-permanece-aislado-it... [3] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-inside-their-own-home/ https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus-residents-welded-insi... [4] https://mashable.com/article/yelp-restaurants-temporary-permanent-closures/?europe=true https://mashable.com/article/yelp-restaurants-temporary-perm... [5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52014023 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52014023 [6] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/26/canada-care-homes-military-report-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/26/canada-care-ho...

flunhat 6y ago
My understanding is that it’s the other way around — both cases and deaths are being undercounted substantially. And testing capacity has been intentionally kneecapped by the govt (if you test fewer, you’ll find fewer cases, which looks good). All told, COVID looks to be about 10x deadlier than the flu. Which is still low, but not trivial given how quickly it spreads.
- thu2111 6y ago
  I don't think your understanding is up to date. 10x deadlier than the flu would require it to have an IFR of 1%. Even the US CDC, which has been over-exaggerating the dangers from the start, peg it at much less than that, more like 0.3% and many studies are putting it even lower, like between 0.08% (low end, Denmark) and 0.36% (Germany, Heisenberg). But those IFRs are also calculated using the standard definition of a COVID death - someone who died, and was testing positive. If you look at Italy, early on they realised there was a conflation going on, and so they did proper studies of some sample of COVID deaths to see why they really died. They concluded only 4% of the patients had no other medical conditions, and I recall reading (but don't have a link right now) that they concluded about 12% had really died of COVID. The rest all just happened to be infected when they died of something else, which would make sense given the first stat. So you can cut a digit off most of the reported death rates. All suggestions of undercounting are based on the assumption that all excess death is caused by COVID, and nothing else, even though in some countries e.g. the UK many excess death certificates don't even mention COVID, and in other countries like Germany there basically isn't any excess death: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Society/population_death.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Socie...
  - malyk 6y ago
    If you look at the CDC data on Excess Deaths[1] then you can see that COVID and the response to COVID has been responsible for a significant number of excess deaths in every week since the week ending on 3/28. So, maybe not 10x deadlier, but certainly way deadlier in total count of deaths. 1 - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm