8 ms·

I think an argument can be made the government ordered lockdowns (stay at home / shelter in place) orders were appropriate in March when we knew much less about

by zaroth 6y ago

I think an argument can be made the government ordered lockdowns (stay at home / shelter in place) orders were appropriate in March when we knew much less about who was most vulnerable, and did not have a well vetted treatment protocol / decision tree or any known therapeutics. Given the tremendous public health and economic costs of lockdowns, the fear of the unknown (e.g. predicted 2% demographic wide CFR) may have justified the multi-trillion dollar cost, and an unknown number of lives lost, due to lockdowns. Forced mandatory lockdowns today would be unethical and actually counter-productive. Given our vastly increased knowledge of the highly stratified risk profile of SARS-CoV-2, the public health case cannot be ethically made to forcibly confine the general population to their homes; separating them from their livelihoods, their community, their ordinary healthcare, and their mental and physical wellness routines. Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors and risk tolerance. Government programs could better support at-risk populations which are self isolating by focusing on the minority of people who are acutely at-risk. IFR Age 0.003% 0-19 0.02% 20-49 0.5% 50-69 5.4% 70-79 5.4%++ 80+ https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

sdesol 6y ago
> Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors and risk tolerance you forgot to include "provided they can afford to".
- mb7733 6y ago
  True, but re-introducing lockdown doesn't help anyone afford anything. More like the opposite.
  - sdesol 6y ago
    I think "doesn't help anyone" is a bit of a stretch, since many tech workers actually did quite well during the lockdown, since they were forced to spend less due to a lack of options. I'm in Ontario so what is being discussed does have an affect on me and I really don't know if a lockdown is the answer. What I do know is our Premier (Doug Ford) is a fuck up. We should be much more prepared by now and this lock-down talk is him panicking because we have no way better way to manage outbreaks.
- GhostVII 6y ago
  If they can't afford to self-isolate on their own, they also can't afford to self-isolate under government orders. Locking everyone else down doesn't help those who are at risk afford isolation, it actually makes it much more difficult because the government has less money to work with to support those who are at risk.
  - nrmitchi 6y ago
    What you (Edit: not _you_ in particular, but what a country does by making self-isolation opt-in) are doing here is shifting the blame of who is responsible. If the government says that you must stay home for public health, then it is reasonable to expect that the government assists in covering costs associated with that. As soon as the government says "You can go to work if you feel it best, the choice is up to you" a non-trivial amount of people are going to be forced to go back to work, whether they feel like they should or not. Because "you're allowed to, staying home was your choice", these people will not be compensated for making the public-safety choice. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be in a situation where the person who is making my lunch (or stocking grocery shelves, etc) should have stayed home, knows they should have stayed home, but couldn't afford to stay home because "it's not mandatory".
    - GhostVII 6y ago
      Then the government should compensate those who are staying at home because they are at risk. If the choice is between locking everyone down and compensating everyone, and just compensating those who are at risk the second option is obviously cheaper. And regardless, I think the vast majority of those who are at risk were not working before the pandemic, so do not really need to be compensated. More than 60% of people who have died so far in Ontario are in long term care facilities. Over 85% of people who have died in Ontario are in their 70's or older (so likely retired). So the number of at-risk people we are talking about here is actually pretty small.
      - jtbayly 6y ago
        In which case, locking just them down would accomplish nothing, since they are already “locked down.”
- zaroth 6y ago
  You’re absolutely right. Unemployment benefits should absolutely be available to anyone who can’t do their job as a consequence of choosing to shelter-in-place. Countries can much better afford to offer unemployment benefits to the “at-risk sheltering” population than they can to offer the same benefits across their entire working population. Most working age people are not at high risk. Provided you’re not paying people more to not work than they would earn working, you can let the market decide.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  As if the tooth fairy is going to pay if there’s a general lockdown. Either the government forces employers to keep paying their workers so they all get fired or the businesses go under, or they allow them to curtail wages. The government can’t afford to pick up the tab.
soperj 6y ago
USA has had a 7 day average of around 40000 new cases a day for the month of september, and around an average of 750 deaths a day (more actually but for sake of argument.) That's a 2% CFR.
- tmp538394722 6y ago
  Intuitively, Id think the infection rate is underreported relative to the death rate.
  - abraxas 6y ago
    More than likely but it's probably not an order of magnitude difference.
    - logicchains 6y ago
      If 90% of cases are unsymptomatic or have minimal symptoms we'd expect an order of magnitude underreporting of cases, assuming people were only tested when they go to the doctor/hospital.
      - soperj 6y ago
        If 90% of cases are unsymptomatic and not showing up in the cases, then 75 million people in the US will have already had covid, and you're also getting 400 thousand new cases a day. Sorry, but that's nonsense.
        logicchains 6y ago
        For some states the population infection rates are 20-30%, so it's not an unreasonable number (https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563/rr-5 https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563/rr-5)
        soperj 6y ago
        It is. All states would have to be in that range.
zzleeper 6y ago
> I think an argument can be made the government ordered lockdowns (stay at home / shelter in place) orders were appropriate in March when we knew much less about who was most vulnerable, and did not have a well vetted treatment protocol / decision tree or any known therapeutics. Sure. Lockdowns bought us time. > Forced mandatory lockdowns today would be unethical and actually counter-productive. Given our vastly increased knowledge of the highly stratified risk profile of SARS-CoV-2, the public health case cannot be ethically made to forcibly confine the general population to their homes; separating them from their livelihoods, their community, their ordinary healthcare, and their mental and physical wellness routines. I mean, partly. We know that sticking to outdoors, wearing masks, etc. helps a lot. So we should try to avoid situations such as offices with central AC, indoor restaurants, indoor gyms, etc. That is not confining people to their homes, just using what we've learned so far to reduce infection rates in the least painful way.
- timr 6y ago
  "I mean, partly. We know that sticking to outdoors, wearing masks, etc. helps a lot. So we should try to avoid situations such as offices with central AC, indoor restaurants, indoor gyms, etc." We don't "know" any of this, except in the sense that it gets repeated a lot, uncritically. The actual published data is mainly anecdotal and/or ambiguous. Consider restaurants -- South Korea still doesn't consider them to be high-risk facilities, and they're largely open: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200819005400320 https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200819005400320 That case, in particular, is enlightening about the quality of the data: they blame the transmission on aerosols, but can't rule out droplet or surface contamination, either. It's a judgment call. Most of these stories are like this. The famous "Chinese restaurant" case-study that is cited all over the place to justify shutting down restaurants presents a grand total of nine infected (even though 73 "close contacts" in the restaurant were not infected), of which three may have possibly been infected at home: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article Then you have studies like this, which suggest a fairly low attack rate (3.5%), even if you're sitting right next to an infected passenger on a train, for hours: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1057/5877944 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... The authors characterize this risk as "high"...but is it, really? I mean, clearly, being in a sealed tube next to someone for hours increases the risk, but how far are we willing to go for a risk that can be characterized in fractions of a percent for face-to-face interactions that aren't measured in hours? I feel like people don't know these numbers, and most people would be shocked if they did.
apatters 6y ago
> in March when we knew much less about who was most vulnerable If this is the falsehood we need to perpetuate in order to let guilty politicians save face and restore a semblance of sanity to our society, then so be it, but let's be unambiguously clear, this statement is incorrect. The correct statement is: researchers knew, leaders ignored them, and media distorted them. The WHO China joint mission released both CFR data (3.8%) [1] and IFR estimates (0.3%-1%) [2] in February, based on ~44,000 confirmed cases. They were both broken down by age and very similar to later studies based on other cases. There were no surprises after February, unless you were reading news headlines instead of actual research. CFR as of February 11 [1]: CFR Age 0.2% 10-19 0.2% 20-29 0.2% 30-39 0.4% 40-49 1.3% 50-59 3.6% 60-69 8.0% 70-79 14.8% 80+ Very similar age curve to the IFR estimates you posted. It was already very clear in February that this disease rarely killed anyone under 60, or even 70. Leaders just didn't listen. To use the USA because I know it best, the first big cluster of fatalities was at a nursing home in Kirkland, WA which wasn't up to code. So leaders had hard data based on tens of thousands of cases showing that this disease was dangerous to the elderly, and not so dangerous to everyone else. And then the first outbreak kills a bunch of elderly people. Amazingly, they responded to this by locking down the general population, and failing to take targeted measures which would protect the elderly (not sure right now but at one point 50%+ of US Covid deaths were in nursing homes). It's the biggest failure of leadership in our lifetimes. [1] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-chi... (page 12) [2] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200219-sitrep-30-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=3346b04f_2 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... (page 2) [3] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-cov2-wuhan-china-virus-disease-risks-fatality-rates/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-c...
- nepthar 6y ago
  That's really fascinating. I was indeed reading headlines instead of actual research. Lesson learned.
  - bonchicbongenre 6y ago
mattigames 6y ago
Lifelong damage to the lungs and other organs should come into the equation before jumping to conclusions, it could be within an acceptable range for you but so far the data for that is pretty much non-existent so you can't know for sure.
- T-hawk 6y ago
  How can you state anything about lifelong damage for a virus that's existed for only eight months?
  - tomjakubowski 6y ago
    We have studied tissue damage for a lot longer than Covid-19 has been around and in many cases presumably know which kinds will eventually heal and which kinds won't.
spfzero 6y ago
Back then, we were told that the lockdown was a temporary measure to avoid overloading the hospital infrastructure. We needed to allow time for hospitals to add beds, respirators, etc. “Flattening the curve”. Then the goalposts were moved. What is desperately needed is an honest, open discussion of costs and benefits. Its true also that there were some very scary predictions based on early models that turned out to be flawed. We do know quite a bit more now, but we don’t seem to be applying it.
- nostoc 6y ago
  The goal posts were not changed. Once the curve was flattend, the lockdowns were lifted, and measures relaxed. While we did manage to flatten the curve in spring, growth is back on an exponential curve in Canada, which means the threat of overwhelming the health infrastructure is still looming. A sweeping lockdown may not be the best answer, but measures needs to be taken to slow the growth. Exponential growth is no joke. Hospitals are more prepared, but exponential growth means that even if you double the hospital capacity, they will still be outmatched rapidly if nothing is done to slow down the spreading.
  - timr 6y ago
    "The goal posts were not changed. Once the curve was flattend, the lockdowns were lifted, and measures relaxed." I think you should tell that to the residents of New York City, who only today got back the privilege of eating indoors (and only at 25% capacity). The governor wouldn't have granted that, had he not been sued (twice). The case count has been flat since June: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      I think it's probably worth comparing NY to Madrid, for a counter-example of what could have happened if lockdown had been ended earlier. There's a really good FT article on this here: https://www.ft.com/content/b9653470-8779-4037-86ad-96edfcd6f3c3 https://www.ft.com/content/b9653470-8779-4037-86ad-96edfcd6f... Overall, Madrid opened much quicker and is now in the grip of another outbreak.
staticautomatic 6y ago
I’m in my 30’s and am not worried about dying. I’m worried about my health insurance annual out of pocket max.
jariel 6y ago
"Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors and risk tolerance." The problem with this statement is that COVID is not a 'personal' issue. It's a systematic issue. Your disease affects everyone. To put in a different kind of 'Liberty / Responsibility' context - how about we allow anyone who contracts COVID to sue the person they got it from for damages! Then how many people are going to go out, and how careful they are going to be? While we may not need 'shelter in place' for <70 populations, we are inevitably going to face social distancing etc.. We need to 'get smart'. ... And 0.5% IFR already at the age of 50 is scary. In this 'new era' there are a lot of people over 50 probably nearing 40% of the population or something like that.
legulere 6y ago
Yeah let’s sacrifice our old for the economy! Also only deaths count, fuck weak people with long term effects of COVID-19
- logicchains 6y ago
  More like, let's sacrifice the young in poor countries to protect the elderly in rich countries: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-children-un-idUSKBN21Y2X7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-childr...
- tjs8rj 6y ago
  The current solution is to sacrifice the jobs, opportunities, mental health, education, and futures of the young, where the young is anyone not retired. Why should new graduates lose their offers and join a massively setback economy with 40 mil unemployed, millions of families lose labor income, pupils lose a year of education while forcing their parents into a difficult situation of trying to work while their children are home alone all day, businesses shutter and many shutdown, all compounded with the mental health effects of vast isolation, loss of social events, and outings - because the elderly, relatively rich retiree can't stay home for a few months instead while we make a vaccine and slide checks under their door? In the same breath: "Yeah let's sacrifice out old for the economy!", you simultaneously encourage the current situation: sacrificing the current and future prospects of the entire rest of the population for no other reason than you believe the old can't quarantine without taking everyone else with them? The economy isn't just some GDP numbers and the DOW - that crap helps the hefty 401(k)s of the retirees anyway, it's people's jobs, savings, ability to afford food, rent, and vacations, and so on.
- nate_meurer 6y ago
  Of all possible responses to the GP, I think yours is the dumbest and least helpful. You've combined two strawmen, a false choice, and the least charitable interpretation of the GP into a single brain-dead one-liner. The "economy" you speak of is not merely investment income for wealthy people, or whatever other expendable construct you made for yourself. It is our livelihoods. It's how we feed our children, provide shelter, education, security, and hope for the future. A destroyed economy destroys lives, and carries as many or even more risks to our physical and mental health as does the virus itself. I'm someone who cares about people. The choice is not simply between the elderly and the economy, and we have enough tools and resources such that we don't have to sacrifice any group for any other. But if your strawman + false-choice were our reality, your priorities are fucked up. If, theoretically, you'd be willing to sacrifice the health and wellbeing of the vast majority of the worlds population to whom this virus is no more a threat than a severe seasonal flu, to preserve the few reamining years or months of life for the "elderly" (whatever that means to you), I would honestly feel justified in calling you heartless and irrational.
usrusr 6y ago
> Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors Nobody can self-isolate 100%. The strong may only need supplies, but others will also need care or medical assistance. This puts an upper limit on individual isolation. The good news is that isolation compounds: reaching 99% in isolation, in an environment of zero general isolation is much less valuable than reaching 95% in an environment where everybody else does as well.

by zaroth 6y ago

sdesol 6y ago

> Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors and risk tolerance you forgot to include "provided they can afford to".

mb7733 6y ago
True, but re-introducing lockdown doesn't help anyone afford anything. More like the opposite.
- sdesol 6y ago
  I think "doesn't help anyone" is a bit of a stretch, since many tech workers actually did quite well during the lockdown, since they were forced to spend less due to a lack of options. I'm in Ontario so what is being discussed does have an affect on me and I really don't know if a lockdown is the answer. What I do know is our Premier (Doug Ford) is a fuck up. We should be much more prepared by now and this lock-down talk is him panicking because we have no way better way to manage outbreaks.
GhostVII 6y ago
If they can't afford to self-isolate on their own, they also can't afford to self-isolate under government orders. Locking everyone else down doesn't help those who are at risk afford isolation, it actually makes it much more difficult because the government has less money to work with to support those who are at risk.
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  What you (Edit: not _you_ in particular, but what a country does by making self-isolation opt-in) are doing here is shifting the blame of who is responsible. If the government says that you must stay home for public health, then it is reasonable to expect that the government assists in covering costs associated with that. As soon as the government says "You can go to work if you feel it best, the choice is up to you" a non-trivial amount of people are going to be forced to go back to work, whether they feel like they should or not. Because "you're allowed to, staying home was your choice", these people will not be compensated for making the public-safety choice. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be in a situation where the person who is making my lunch (or stocking grocery shelves, etc) should have stayed home, knows they should have stayed home, but couldn't afford to stay home because "it's not mandatory".
  - GhostVII 6y ago
    Then the government should compensate those who are staying at home because they are at risk. If the choice is between locking everyone down and compensating everyone, and just compensating those who are at risk the second option is obviously cheaper. And regardless, I think the vast majority of those who are at risk were not working before the pandemic, so do not really need to be compensated. More than 60% of people who have died so far in Ontario are in long term care facilities. Over 85% of people who have died in Ontario are in their 70's or older (so likely retired). So the number of at-risk people we are talking about here is actually pretty small.
    - jtbayly 6y ago
      In which case, locking just them down would accomplish nothing, since they are already “locked down.”
zaroth 6y ago
You’re absolutely right. Unemployment benefits should absolutely be available to anyone who can’t do their job as a consequence of choosing to shelter-in-place. Countries can much better afford to offer unemployment benefits to the “at-risk sheltering” population than they can to offer the same benefits across their entire working population. Most working age people are not at high risk. Provided you’re not paying people more to not work than they would earn working, you can let the market decide.
tinus_hn 6y ago
As if the tooth fairy is going to pay if there’s a general lockdown. Either the government forces employers to keep paying their workers so they all get fired or the businesses go under, or they allow them to curtail wages. The government can’t afford to pick up the tab.

soperj 6y ago

USA has had a 7 day average of around 40000 new cases a day for the month of september, and around an average of 750 deaths a day (more actually but for sake of argument.) That's a 2% CFR.

tmp538394722 6y ago
Intuitively, Id think the infection rate is underreported relative to the death rate.
- abraxas 6y ago
  More than likely but it's probably not an order of magnitude difference.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    If 90% of cases are unsymptomatic or have minimal symptoms we'd expect an order of magnitude underreporting of cases, assuming people were only tested when they go to the doctor/hospital.
    - soperj 6y ago
      If 90% of cases are unsymptomatic and not showing up in the cases, then 75 million people in the US will have already had covid, and you're also getting 400 thousand new cases a day. Sorry, but that's nonsense.
      - logicchains 6y ago
        For some states the population infection rates are 20-30%, so it's not an unreasonable number (https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563/rr-5 https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563/rr-5)
        soperj 6y ago
        It is. All states would have to be in that range.

zzleeper 6y ago

> I think an argument can be made the government ordered lockdowns (stay at home / shelter in place) orders were appropriate in March when we knew much less about who was most vulnerable, and did not have a well vetted treatment protocol / decision tree or any known therapeutics. Sure. Lockdowns bought us time. > Forced mandatory lockdowns today would be unethical and actually counter-productive. Given our vastly increased knowledge of the highly stratified risk profile of SARS-CoV-2, the public health case cannot be ethically made to forcibly confine the general population to their homes; separating them from their livelihoods, their community, their ordinary healthcare, and their mental and physical wellness routines. I mean, partly. We know that sticking to outdoors, wearing masks, etc. helps a lot. So we should try to avoid situations such as offices with central AC, indoor restaurants, indoor gyms, etc. That is not confining people to their homes, just using what we've learned so far to reduce infection rates in the least painful way.

timr 6y ago
"I mean, partly. We know that sticking to outdoors, wearing masks, etc. helps a lot. So we should try to avoid situations such as offices with central AC, indoor restaurants, indoor gyms, etc." We don't "know" any of this, except in the sense that it gets repeated a lot, uncritically. The actual published data is mainly anecdotal and/or ambiguous. Consider restaurants -- South Korea still doesn't consider them to be high-risk facilities, and they're largely open: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200819005400320 https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200819005400320 That case, in particular, is enlightening about the quality of the data: they blame the transmission on aerosols, but can't rule out droplet or surface contamination, either. It's a judgment call. Most of these stories are like this. The famous "Chinese restaurant" case-study that is cited all over the place to justify shutting down restaurants presents a grand total of nine infected (even though 73 "close contacts" in the restaurant were not infected), of which three may have possibly been infected at home: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article Then you have studies like this, which suggest a fairly low attack rate (3.5%), even if you're sitting right next to an infected passenger on a train, for hours: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1057/5877944 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... The authors characterize this risk as "high"...but is it, really? I mean, clearly, being in a sealed tube next to someone for hours increases the risk, but how far are we willing to go for a risk that can be characterized in fractions of a percent for face-to-face interactions that aren't measured in hours? I feel like people don't know these numbers, and most people would be shocked if they did.

apatters 6y ago

> in March when we knew much less about who was most vulnerable If this is the falsehood we need to perpetuate in order to let guilty politicians save face and restore a semblance of sanity to our society, then so be it, but let's be unambiguously clear, this statement is incorrect. The correct statement is: researchers knew, leaders ignored them, and media distorted them. The WHO China joint mission released both CFR data (3.8%) [1] and IFR estimates (0.3%-1%) [2] in February, based on ~44,000 confirmed cases. They were both broken down by age and very similar to later studies based on other cases. There were no surprises after February, unless you were reading news headlines instead of actual research. CFR as of February 11 [1]: CFR Age 0.2% 10-19 0.2% 20-29 0.2% 30-39 0.4% 40-49 1.3% 50-59 3.6% 60-69 8.0% 70-79 14.8% 80+ Very similar age curve to the IFR estimates you posted. It was already very clear in February that this disease rarely killed anyone under 60, or even 70. Leaders just didn't listen. To use the USA because I know it best, the first big cluster of fatalities was at a nursing home in Kirkland, WA which wasn't up to code. So leaders had hard data based on tens of thousands of cases showing that this disease was dangerous to the elderly, and not so dangerous to everyone else. And then the first outbreak kills a bunch of elderly people. Amazingly, they responded to this by locking down the general population, and failing to take targeted measures which would protect the elderly (not sure right now but at one point 50%+ of US Covid deaths were in nursing homes). It's the biggest failure of leadership in our lifetimes. [1] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-chi... (page 12) [2] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200219-sitrep-30-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=3346b04f_2 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... (page 2) [3] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-cov2-wuhan-china-virus-disease-risks-fatality-rates/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-c...

nepthar 6y ago
That's really fascinating. I was indeed reading headlines instead of actual research. Lesson learned.
- bonchicbongenre 6y ago

mattigames 6y ago

Lifelong damage to the lungs and other organs should come into the equation before jumping to conclusions, it could be within an acceptable range for you but so far the data for that is pretty much non-existent so you can't know for sure.

T-hawk 6y ago
How can you state anything about lifelong damage for a virus that's existed for only eight months?
- tomjakubowski 6y ago
  We have studied tissue damage for a lot longer than Covid-19 has been around and in many cases presumably know which kinds will eventually heal and which kinds won't.

spfzero 6y ago

Back then, we were told that the lockdown was a temporary measure to avoid overloading the hospital infrastructure. We needed to allow time for hospitals to add beds, respirators, etc. “Flattening the curve”. Then the goalposts were moved. What is desperately needed is an honest, open discussion of costs and benefits. Its true also that there were some very scary predictions based on early models that turned out to be flawed. We do know quite a bit more now, but we don’t seem to be applying it.

nostoc 6y ago
The goal posts were not changed. Once the curve was flattend, the lockdowns were lifted, and measures relaxed. While we did manage to flatten the curve in spring, growth is back on an exponential curve in Canada, which means the threat of overwhelming the health infrastructure is still looming. A sweeping lockdown may not be the best answer, but measures needs to be taken to slow the growth. Exponential growth is no joke. Hospitals are more prepared, but exponential growth means that even if you double the hospital capacity, they will still be outmatched rapidly if nothing is done to slow down the spreading.
- timr 6y ago
  "The goal posts were not changed. Once the curve was flattend, the lockdowns were lifted, and measures relaxed." I think you should tell that to the residents of New York City, who only today got back the privilege of eating indoors (and only at 25% capacity). The governor wouldn't have granted that, had he not been sued (twice). The case count has been flat since June: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    I think it's probably worth comparing NY to Madrid, for a counter-example of what could have happened if lockdown had been ended earlier. There's a really good FT article on this here: https://www.ft.com/content/b9653470-8779-4037-86ad-96edfcd6f3c3 https://www.ft.com/content/b9653470-8779-4037-86ad-96edfcd6f... Overall, Madrid opened much quicker and is now in the grip of another outbreak.

staticautomatic 6y ago

I’m in my 30’s and am not worried about dying. I’m worried about my health insurance annual out of pocket max.

jariel 6y ago

"Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors and risk tolerance." The problem with this statement is that COVID is not a 'personal' issue. It's a systematic issue. Your disease affects everyone. To put in a different kind of 'Liberty / Responsibility' context - how about we allow anyone who contracts COVID to sue the person they got it from for damages! Then how many people are going to go out, and how careful they are going to be? While we may not need 'shelter in place' for <70 populations, we are inevitably going to face social distancing etc.. We need to 'get smart'. ... And 0.5% IFR already at the age of 50 is scary. In this 'new era' there are a lot of people over 50 probably nearing 40% of the population or something like that.

legulere 6y ago

Yeah let’s sacrifice our old for the economy! Also only deaths count, fuck weak people with long term effects of COVID-19

logicchains 6y ago
More like, let's sacrifice the young in poor countries to protect the elderly in rich countries: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-children-un-idUSKBN21Y2X7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-childr...
tjs8rj 6y ago
The current solution is to sacrifice the jobs, opportunities, mental health, education, and futures of the young, where the young is anyone not retired. Why should new graduates lose their offers and join a massively setback economy with 40 mil unemployed, millions of families lose labor income, pupils lose a year of education while forcing their parents into a difficult situation of trying to work while their children are home alone all day, businesses shutter and many shutdown, all compounded with the mental health effects of vast isolation, loss of social events, and outings - because the elderly, relatively rich retiree can't stay home for a few months instead while we make a vaccine and slide checks under their door? In the same breath: "Yeah let's sacrifice out old for the economy!", you simultaneously encourage the current situation: sacrificing the current and future prospects of the entire rest of the population for no other reason than you believe the old can't quarantine without taking everyone else with them? The economy isn't just some GDP numbers and the DOW - that crap helps the hefty 401(k)s of the retirees anyway, it's people's jobs, savings, ability to afford food, rent, and vacations, and so on.
nate_meurer 6y ago
Of all possible responses to the GP, I think yours is the dumbest and least helpful. You've combined two strawmen, a false choice, and the least charitable interpretation of the GP into a single brain-dead one-liner. The "economy" you speak of is not merely investment income for wealthy people, or whatever other expendable construct you made for yourself. It is our livelihoods. It's how we feed our children, provide shelter, education, security, and hope for the future. A destroyed economy destroys lives, and carries as many or even more risks to our physical and mental health as does the virus itself. I'm someone who cares about people. The choice is not simply between the elderly and the economy, and we have enough tools and resources such that we don't have to sacrifice any group for any other. But if your strawman + false-choice were our reality, your priorities are fucked up. If, theoretically, you'd be willing to sacrifice the health and wellbeing of the vast majority of the worlds population to whom this virus is no more a threat than a severe seasonal flu, to preserve the few reamining years or months of life for the "elderly" (whatever that means to you), I would honestly feel justified in calling you heartless and irrational.

usrusr 6y ago

> Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors Nobody can self-isolate 100%. The strong may only need supplies, but others will also need care or medical assistance. This puts an upper limit on individual isolation. The good news is that isolation compounds: reaching 99% in isolation, in an environment of zero general isolation is much less valuable than reaching 95% in an environment where everybody else does as well.