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This is a general reply, not only to the parent comment. I’m indeed cherry-picking though I didn’t carefully check the numbers. My point is we need to sacrifice

This is a general reply, not only to the parent comment. I’m indeed cherry-picking though I didn’t carefully check the numbers. My point is we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things and make minimal efforts to ride this out, and by not changing our lifestyles, we are passing the risk on to others, some of whom may be vulnerable and some of whom don’t have any option to not go to work (for example) to reduce their risk. You are making their risk higher by going to the gym and potentially contracting the virus, infecting your kids, and sending them to school where one of the teachers maybe has an underlying condition (for example). I’m not arguing for total lockdown. I’m arguing for avoiding the more risky activities that involve heavy breathing in close quarters so total lockdown can be avoided. Local governments mostly know this, and have set policies accordingly. In general they should do a better job of compensating businesses in the short term since it’s not the gym owner’s fault (for example) that his business happens to have been risky right now. I don’t think it’s good behavior to go out of your way to circumvent a public health policy based on a personal risk tolerance.

centimeter 6y ago
> we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things The "more trivial things" like normal social interaction, employment, and healthy exercise? I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. If you think causing at least tens of thousands of suicides since the start of the lockdowns, impoverishing millions of people for years to come, and drastically reducing almost everyone's quality of life is a reasonable tradeoff for buying (on expectation) an extra few months of life for geriatrics, you are not rational.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwout_covid 6y ago
  Wow. I think you're political leanings have beaten out utilitarian reasoning. 10k suicides < 200k covid deaths We certainly have the money to support millions of people losing payroll, but stimulus payments to give people room to properly isolate are a bargaining chip. Quality of life in a crisis??? Are you kidding me? How far from the "Greatest Generation" can you get when you can't ask people to wear a mask and skip the gym for a while to save lives? An extra few months for geriatrics??? Again, wow. I'm sorry you hate your gramma. But, we still don't understand the long term consequences to people to have been sick, or the lasting effects it will have on children that contract it. You're the one that's not rational, and I expected the HN crowd to be better at digesting statistics.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    > 10k suicides < 200k covid deaths If you think an 85 year old dying 3 months earlier is the same as a 27 year old killing themselves, you’re beyond help. > Again, wow. I'm sorry you hate your gramma... You're the one that's not rational, and I expected the HN crowd to be better at digesting statistics. Absolutely moronic emotional appeals and accusations of being irrational within a few sentences of each other? You are a hopeless midwit.
- laurex 6y ago
  Where are you getting your data about suicides? My impression is that an increase of tens of thousands is quite an overstatement. See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/health/pandemic-coronavirus-suicide-health.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/health/pandemic-coronavir...
  - centimeter 6y ago
    Based strictly on estimated unemployment/suicide causal relationship. Actual numbers are probably higher than I've estimated due to depression caused by non-unemployment factors like social isolation. As I understand, this comports with the recent rise in e.g. opiate deaths.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. Yep, me neither. If more people could, we wouldn't have this problem, because people who could would stay home. And going to the gym is indeed one of the "more trivial things". I suppose the problem is that it's hard to impress on people the seriousness of the situation. If instead of a virus, you had a madman or enemy soldiers going through the street and shooting every two hundredth person at random (even with a heavy bias towards the elderly), everyone would stay home and keep crying the government needs to do more.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    I’ve done the risk analysis of the health effects of the virus on myself and people I care about and decided that the negligible marginal increase in risk of death or serious injury is not even close to sufficient to justify becoming a shut-in. If a single-basis-point-scale increase in annual death rates is enough to make you “stay home”, you should never go outside in the first place. On expectation, my marginal increase in risk of death from depression from becoming a shut-in is higher than the marginal increase in risk of death from contracting covid.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      It's not about you. It's about everyone else you come in contact with. The primary problem with this disease is the asymptomatic spread.
      - centimeter 6y ago
        Did you miss the part where I said "risk analysis of the health effects of the virus on myself and people I care about"? I've included everyone I come into contact with. The risk to them is insufficient to justify me becoming a hermit. If they have a vastly different risk profile from me, they'll become a hermit of their own accord and I don't have to worry about them catching it from me. > The primary problem with this disease is the asymptomatic spread. If that's the "primary problem", then it's probably not something to worry about, don't you think?
- alexryan 6y ago
  I'm not sure why people prefer to cling to tribal preferences rather than actually resolve disputes in a mutually agreeable fashion. Surely there is a way for everyone's needs to be met with creative solutions?
nradov 6y ago
And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria? Obviously there is not going to be a total lockdown in the the US no matter what happens. Regardless of the potential benefits, that option isn't even remotely politically feasible. People simply won't comply, and there aren't enough police to enforce it.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria? There are some obvious ones, like: no new cases in the city/county reported in 14 days. For some reason, it seems people thought this would take a month or two, and then everything will be back to normal. But it wouldn't. Two months is a ramp-up period, a default if you do nothing. "Flattening the curve" measures were always going to extend the partial lockdowns until late this year. We knew that in March.
  - nradov 6y ago
    That is a ridiculous standard, totally unachievable in any populous region. It's simple numbers. There are 10M people in Los Angeles county alone and we will never see zero new cases there per 14 days in our lifetimes no matter what we do. So what are exit criteria that would actually be possible in the real world?
- johnwalkr 6y ago
  Look at Asian cities, they generally set criteria, and open and close activities in stages based on the criteria. I live in Tokyo and without much of a lockdown (I’d argue for a bit more action myself), things are OK. Right now bars are supposed to close at 10pm and people are going out less. But they’re still going to work (with masks). Obviously the political situation and what’s feasible is different, but I hope restrictions on group sizes and a small number of activities is not infeasible. They are not “lockdown”, they are the way to avoid lockdown.
  - nradov 6y ago

centimeter 6y ago

> we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things The "more trivial things" like normal social interaction, employment, and healthy exercise? I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. If you think causing at least tens of thousands of suicides since the start of the lockdowns, impoverishing millions of people for years to come, and drastically reducing almost everyone's quality of life is a reasonable tradeoff for buying (on expectation) an extra few months of life for geriatrics, you are not rational.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwout_covid 6y ago
Wow. I think you're political leanings have beaten out utilitarian reasoning. 10k suicides < 200k covid deaths We certainly have the money to support millions of people losing payroll, but stimulus payments to give people room to properly isolate are a bargaining chip. Quality of life in a crisis??? Are you kidding me? How far from the "Greatest Generation" can you get when you can't ask people to wear a mask and skip the gym for a while to save lives? An extra few months for geriatrics??? Again, wow. I'm sorry you hate your gramma. But, we still don't understand the long term consequences to people to have been sick, or the lasting effects it will have on children that contract it. You're the one that's not rational, and I expected the HN crowd to be better at digesting statistics.
- centimeter 6y ago
  > 10k suicides < 200k covid deaths If you think an 85 year old dying 3 months earlier is the same as a 27 year old killing themselves, you’re beyond help. > Again, wow. I'm sorry you hate your gramma... You're the one that's not rational, and I expected the HN crowd to be better at digesting statistics. Absolutely moronic emotional appeals and accusations of being irrational within a few sentences of each other? You are a hopeless midwit.
laurex 6y ago
Where are you getting your data about suicides? My impression is that an increase of tens of thousands is quite an overstatement. See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/health/pandemic-coronavirus-suicide-health.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/health/pandemic-coronavir...
- centimeter 6y ago
  Based strictly on estimated unemployment/suicide causal relationship. Actual numbers are probably higher than I've estimated due to depression caused by non-unemployment factors like social isolation. As I understand, this comports with the recent rise in e.g. opiate deaths.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
> I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. Yep, me neither. If more people could, we wouldn't have this problem, because people who could would stay home. And going to the gym is indeed one of the "more trivial things". I suppose the problem is that it's hard to impress on people the seriousness of the situation. If instead of a virus, you had a madman or enemy soldiers going through the street and shooting every two hundredth person at random (even with a heavy bias towards the elderly), everyone would stay home and keep crying the government needs to do more.
- centimeter 6y ago
  I’ve done the risk analysis of the health effects of the virus on myself and people I care about and decided that the negligible marginal increase in risk of death or serious injury is not even close to sufficient to justify becoming a shut-in. If a single-basis-point-scale increase in annual death rates is enough to make you “stay home”, you should never go outside in the first place. On expectation, my marginal increase in risk of death from depression from becoming a shut-in is higher than the marginal increase in risk of death from contracting covid.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    It's not about you. It's about everyone else you come in contact with. The primary problem with this disease is the asymptomatic spread.
    - centimeter 6y ago
      Did you miss the part where I said "risk analysis of the health effects of the virus on myself and people I care about"? I've included everyone I come into contact with. The risk to them is insufficient to justify me becoming a hermit. If they have a vastly different risk profile from me, they'll become a hermit of their own accord and I don't have to worry about them catching it from me. > The primary problem with this disease is the asymptomatic spread. If that's the "primary problem", then it's probably not something to worry about, don't you think?
alexryan 6y ago
I'm not sure why people prefer to cling to tribal preferences rather than actually resolve disputes in a mutually agreeable fashion. Surely there is a way for everyone's needs to be met with creative solutions?

nradov 6y ago

And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria? Obviously there is not going to be a total lockdown in the the US no matter what happens. Regardless of the potential benefits, that option isn't even remotely politically feasible. People simply won't comply, and there aren't enough police to enforce it.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
> And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria? There are some obvious ones, like: no new cases in the city/county reported in 14 days. For some reason, it seems people thought this would take a month or two, and then everything will be back to normal. But it wouldn't. Two months is a ramp-up period, a default if you do nothing. "Flattening the curve" measures were always going to extend the partial lockdowns until late this year. We knew that in March.
- nradov 6y ago
  That is a ridiculous standard, totally unachievable in any populous region. It's simple numbers. There are 10M people in Los Angeles county alone and we will never see zero new cases there per 14 days in our lifetimes no matter what we do. So what are exit criteria that would actually be possible in the real world?
johnwalkr 6y ago
Look at Asian cities, they generally set criteria, and open and close activities in stages based on the criteria. I live in Tokyo and without much of a lockdown (I’d argue for a bit more action myself), things are OK. Right now bars are supposed to close at 10pm and people are going out less. But they’re still going to work (with masks). Obviously the political situation and what’s feasible is different, but I hope restrictions on group sizes and a small number of activities is not infeasible. They are not “lockdown”, they are the way to avoid lockdown.
- nradov 6y ago