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> Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what n
by birken 6y ago
> Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions?
Then we'd actually put real effort into controlling it so we could go back to life as normal even with the virus not fully eradicated.
The problem with all of these simple "risk profile" analyses is that we as a country are being forced to accept risk we don't have to. With cars, we understand there is some amount of risk but also we as a society also care about those deaths and make tons of regulations and improvements to make driving safer. As such, death rates have fallen over the decades even as miles driven have accelerated.
Whereas with the pandemic we seemingly are just accepting high death rates and hoping for the best instead of putting in the level of effort to fix it. That makes it not just about risk tolerance, but frustration with the level of concern the country is putting into fixing the problem.
- gjs278 6y ago> Then we'd actually put real effort into controlling it so we could go back to life as normal even with the virus not fully eradicated. ok now imagine the virus lives on surfaces for 5+ years and never dies. now what? you can’t eradicate this virus by quarantining, someone, and it only takes one, is going to spread it somehow. now answer with that in mind. “we would just fix it” is a cop out, we can’t fix it.
- fapjacks 6y agoYour comments are all dead and I vouched for this one, but it's clear from your comment history why. Nobody likes reading "angry programmer" comments here because you're just not special around here, so nobody has to bear the cost of your malice in order to divine the meaning behind your words. "Shut the fuck up" and "delete your account" are really intolerable, stupid ass comments for HN, and if your response to this is that you know but you don't care, I would suggest finding a technical community that places more emphasis on free speech absolutism (like EFNet maybe) than just wasting bandwidth as you are here on HN.
- gjs278 6y agothanks for the vouch!
- matz1 6y ago>Whereas with the pandemic we seemingly are just accepting high death rates Except the death rates are very low. The risk due to lockdown are greater than this virus.
- Vvector 6y agoThe thing is, a lock down isn't required to stop the virus.
- matz1 6y agoagree, i wish government around the world would think the same.
- zuminator 6y agoA plan for dealing with the virus is necessary to stop the virus. At least in the US, hard lockdowns have resulted as a last resort because the Federal government has been in denial all along about the severity of the disease, and has failed to provide the kind of support and leadership that would mitigate the need for major lockdowns.
- staplers 6y agoYou can see the death rate dropping while cases are dramatically going up which one could argue is that exact mitigation happening. Masks, sanitation, and distance have likely lowered the overall viral load even if one does contract it. Obviously higher testing rates contribute to the decreasing death rate but given the blind studies from asia I don't think it would be that drastic of a reduction. It gives me some hope we can lower the risk enough to have children interact with the caveat being adults actually enforce masks/sanitation/distance.
- nico_h 6y agoThe big question marks are "Long COVID", which I haven't seen mentioned about kids (so, good news?), and ADE reaction (Antibody Dependent Enhancement , of the virus) which we'll see in the second wave, when people get re-infected.