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"Disagree strongly. I am currently in Australia, which shut down early and has been serious about fighting this from the beginning, despite repeated outbreaks f

by timr 6y ago

"Disagree strongly. I am currently in Australia, which shut down early and has been serious about fighting this from the beginning, despite repeated outbreaks from international travel, most recently in Victoria, which prompted a hard and long shutdown...that worked." Except that it didn't work. You did it once, and it came back. So now you're doing it again. And you'll keep doing it again and again, unless you plan on keeping Australia isolated from the world until a vaccine has been administered to some huge percentage of the world population. Even if you do keep Australia isolated, it's clearly not a cure, either: the current outbreak happened in spite of your country's travel ban. Reasonable people can certainly disagree about the trade-offs involved here, but you have to start from facts.

titzer 6y ago
> Except that it didn't work. You did it once, Look, I know the comments section of hackernews is not going to contain a long, nuanced conversation about what did and did not work, and I probably overstated it "working", but let's be clear; the lockdown in Victoria absolutely brought the outbreak under control, from over 500 per day to now nearly zero. If you want to see graphs, please browse: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704?nw=0 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-dat... It's been a long, hard slog. It sucks. Lockdowns aren't binary, and I hope I didn't represent them as so. Unfortunately they are only effective to the extent that they don't let infections slip through the cracks. To be effective, the actual numbers need to be low enough, and kept low enough, that contact tracing and quarantining work, so that the economy can function at all. That ship has sailed for America. It is sad. Victoria is an example of what happens when the thing gets out and starts spreading. Here in the ACT where I am, and the seat of government is, things are in much better shape, with only a few hundred cases overall through the pandemic, and a handful of deaths. A phased reopening has meant life here has gone back to nearer to normal, and even mask wearing isn't required. Canberra has been very lucky and I can actually live my life like the virus doesn't exist, because right now, right here, it pretty much doesn't. But I can't stay here forever, I'll be out in the wild with the rest of ya soon enough. Thanks for letting the virus run rampant over my homeland. Cheers!
- timr 6y ago
  I never claimed that Australia didn't bring cases down. It did. Then cases shot back up. Like I said: it "worked" once, then it came back, and now you're doing it again. So it didn't actually work...it just postponed things for a while. We've eliminated one human virus in all of history, and it took two hundred years and a vaccine. The final push took a really effective vaccine, and decades of intensive effort to weed out the last cases. You're not going to eliminate this one by locking people in their homes for a few months.
  - titzer 6y ago
    > So it didn't actually work...it just postponed things for a while. Lockdowns are not a permanent solution, duh. Yeah, of course they postpone things for a while, if the virus is still spreading and the population is just as susceptible. I thought that part was clear to people from the outset, but apparently not. Lockdowns buy time, slow or hopefully even stop the spread, identify and isolate cases in order to focus efforts, and then quarantine those people so it does not get out of hand. If you don't isolate the virus during the lockdown then it was pointless as it will just escape again. Unfortunately the logistics of doing that are pretty involved and it takes a serious effort and little to no defection from people escaping quarantines. It helps a lot when political leaders understand and explain the basic strategy instead of being more concerned about their political fortunes and the fragility of the economy and calling it a hoax. Mixed messages confuse people. The US government completely fumbled that one. You want to protect people's jobs? Then do it. Provide unemployment benefits, provide wage subsidies, provide support to businesses so they don't go under. Impose a rent moratorium so people aren't evicted. Banks will not go under because of a rent moratorium. The financial system doesn't crash because of a rent moratorium. The financial system will crash if millions default, though. But instead America's political leaders chose poorly and did none of those things, or did them poorly. They bailed out absolutely the wrong people. Instead everyone's been in a rush to open everything back up, because fuck it, or something. And the defections, the arguing, the denial. Unfortunately along with "you can't lock us in here forever"--a semi-reasonable argument which I will generously spot you--there are lots of irresponsible people out there who can't even do the bare minimum to slow or stop the spread, or who just plain don't care, who rationalize away hundreds of thousands of people dying, because fuck it, or something. So we are in a situation where these people spread the virus everywhere. And every step of the way there were so many voices of dissent like this that sound subtly different on the surface but all pretty much amount to "fuck it, that sounds hard". And yeah, now it is exponentially harder to fix this problem. And yes it's still a global pandemic killing thousands and millions of people, despite how tired we are all of the whole mess, despite how our news cycle ADD attention span. And it will absolutely keep getting worse. > You're not going to eliminate this one by locking people in their homes for a few months. Like I said, that alone wouldn't have been sufficient. But anyway, not now. It's far too late for America. It would have worked in February to get this under control, get effective testing and tracing programs in place, and keep numbers from spiking. But now the massive number of tests being done just finds this blasted thing is everywhere; a total failure of containment.
com2kid 6y ago
A bunch of countries in Asia are evidence that 100% contact tracing and then targetted quarantines work.
- timr 6y ago
  "A bunch of countries in Asia are evidence that 100% contact tracing and then targetted quarantines work." Are they? China still has cases. So do ~all of the southeast Asian nations, Korea, Taiwan and Japan. The virus is endemic, and while these countries may have controlled it temporarily, they have not eliminated it. Save for perhaps Korea (and maybe China, but it's not clear), most of these countries aren't testing at high rates, so they don't really know what is happening. Unless you believe the virus is hiding out in cats, the only other logical conclusion is that it's spreading asymptomatically, and they're simply not detecting it until it pops up in a symptomatic way.
  - com2kid 6y ago
    When case count is super low, you can do contact tracing and keep it from flaring up, all while having live return to mostly normal. Vietnam had had 35 deaths in total. Singapore, an international transit hub, 27 deaths. Thailand, 59. Read about how Vietnam handled coronavirus. Heavy lock downs at the very beginning quarantine for everyone entering the country, and then localized lockdowns in areas that had breakouts combined with extreme levels of contact tracing. People in other countries are back to school, back to work, back to living normally.
    - timr 6y ago
      You're shifting the goalposts. None of those countries have returned to "mostly normal". Maybe people aren't trapped in their houses by police, but that's "normal" only if you have a twisted view of normalcy. All of them have stopped international travel and closed their borders. Vietnam has a mandatory quarantine -- in government-run centers -- for most people who do enter the country. Singapore is similar. Thailand has a two-week quarantine, and their economy is devastated, as essentially all tourism has stopped. All of those countries have extensive restrictions in place, and have only recently begun to re-open their own businesses. For example, Vietnam just started re-opening businesses in mid-September: https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/vietnam-business-operations-and-the-coronavirus-updates.html/ https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/vietnam-business-opera... Singapore, while much better than before, still has widespread community transmission: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3103353/singapore-turns-corner-covid-19-fight-experts-warn-battle-not https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3103353/sin... It still has restrictions on group gatherings, people can't to to restaurants in groups larger than 5, and alcohol can't be sold after 10:30. I guess this counts as "mostly normal", right? So basically, all of those countries are still locked down, or have just barely re-opened, and even then, there's no suppression, just a lower level of community transmission than before. It's far too early to be declaring victory. You can control the virus for a time when you trap your society inside, deprive them of their livelihood and otherwise accumulate huge social and economic costs. Then you stop, and the virus comes back.

by timr 6y ago

titzer 6y ago

> Except that it didn't work. You did it once, Look, I know the comments section of hackernews is not going to contain a long, nuanced conversation about what did and did not work, and I probably overstated it "working", but let's be clear; the lockdown in Victoria absolutely brought the outbreak under control, from over 500 per day to now nearly zero. If you want to see graphs, please browse: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704?nw=0 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-dat... It's been a long, hard slog. It sucks. Lockdowns aren't binary, and I hope I didn't represent them as so. Unfortunately they are only effective to the extent that they don't let infections slip through the cracks. To be effective, the actual numbers need to be low enough, and kept low enough, that contact tracing and quarantining work, so that the economy can function at all. That ship has sailed for America. It is sad. Victoria is an example of what happens when the thing gets out and starts spreading. Here in the ACT where I am, and the seat of government is, things are in much better shape, with only a few hundred cases overall through the pandemic, and a handful of deaths. A phased reopening has meant life here has gone back to nearer to normal, and even mask wearing isn't required. Canberra has been very lucky and I can actually live my life like the virus doesn't exist, because right now, right here, it pretty much doesn't. But I can't stay here forever, I'll be out in the wild with the rest of ya soon enough. Thanks for letting the virus run rampant over my homeland. Cheers!

timr 6y ago
I never claimed that Australia didn't bring cases down. It did. Then cases shot back up. Like I said: it "worked" once, then it came back, and now you're doing it again. So it didn't actually work...it just postponed things for a while. We've eliminated one human virus in all of history, and it took two hundred years and a vaccine. The final push took a really effective vaccine, and decades of intensive effort to weed out the last cases. You're not going to eliminate this one by locking people in their homes for a few months.
- titzer 6y ago
  > So it didn't actually work...it just postponed things for a while. Lockdowns are not a permanent solution, duh. Yeah, of course they postpone things for a while, if the virus is still spreading and the population is just as susceptible. I thought that part was clear to people from the outset, but apparently not. Lockdowns buy time, slow or hopefully even stop the spread, identify and isolate cases in order to focus efforts, and then quarantine those people so it does not get out of hand. If you don't isolate the virus during the lockdown then it was pointless as it will just escape again. Unfortunately the logistics of doing that are pretty involved and it takes a serious effort and little to no defection from people escaping quarantines. It helps a lot when political leaders understand and explain the basic strategy instead of being more concerned about their political fortunes and the fragility of the economy and calling it a hoax. Mixed messages confuse people. The US government completely fumbled that one. You want to protect people's jobs? Then do it. Provide unemployment benefits, provide wage subsidies, provide support to businesses so they don't go under. Impose a rent moratorium so people aren't evicted. Banks will not go under because of a rent moratorium. The financial system doesn't crash because of a rent moratorium. The financial system will crash if millions default, though. But instead America's political leaders chose poorly and did none of those things, or did them poorly. They bailed out absolutely the wrong people. Instead everyone's been in a rush to open everything back up, because fuck it, or something. And the defections, the arguing, the denial. Unfortunately along with "you can't lock us in here forever"--a semi-reasonable argument which I will generously spot you--there are lots of irresponsible people out there who can't even do the bare minimum to slow or stop the spread, or who just plain don't care, who rationalize away hundreds of thousands of people dying, because fuck it, or something. So we are in a situation where these people spread the virus everywhere. And every step of the way there were so many voices of dissent like this that sound subtly different on the surface but all pretty much amount to "fuck it, that sounds hard". And yeah, now it is exponentially harder to fix this problem. And yes it's still a global pandemic killing thousands and millions of people, despite how tired we are all of the whole mess, despite how our news cycle ADD attention span. And it will absolutely keep getting worse. > You're not going to eliminate this one by locking people in their homes for a few months. Like I said, that alone wouldn't have been sufficient. But anyway, not now. It's far too late for America. It would have worked in February to get this under control, get effective testing and tracing programs in place, and keep numbers from spiking. But now the massive number of tests being done just finds this blasted thing is everywhere; a total failure of containment.

com2kid 6y ago

A bunch of countries in Asia are evidence that 100% contact tracing and then targetted quarantines work.

timr 6y ago
"A bunch of countries in Asia are evidence that 100% contact tracing and then targetted quarantines work." Are they? China still has cases. So do ~all of the southeast Asian nations, Korea, Taiwan and Japan. The virus is endemic, and while these countries may have controlled it temporarily, they have not eliminated it. Save for perhaps Korea (and maybe China, but it's not clear), most of these countries aren't testing at high rates, so they don't really know what is happening. Unless you believe the virus is hiding out in cats, the only other logical conclusion is that it's spreading asymptomatically, and they're simply not detecting it until it pops up in a symptomatic way.
- com2kid 6y ago
  When case count is super low, you can do contact tracing and keep it from flaring up, all while having live return to mostly normal. Vietnam had had 35 deaths in total. Singapore, an international transit hub, 27 deaths. Thailand, 59. Read about how Vietnam handled coronavirus. Heavy lock downs at the very beginning quarantine for everyone entering the country, and then localized lockdowns in areas that had breakouts combined with extreme levels of contact tracing. People in other countries are back to school, back to work, back to living normally.
  - timr 6y ago
    You're shifting the goalposts. None of those countries have returned to "mostly normal". Maybe people aren't trapped in their houses by police, but that's "normal" only if you have a twisted view of normalcy. All of them have stopped international travel and closed their borders. Vietnam has a mandatory quarantine -- in government-run centers -- for most people who do enter the country. Singapore is similar. Thailand has a two-week quarantine, and their economy is devastated, as essentially all tourism has stopped. All of those countries have extensive restrictions in place, and have only recently begun to re-open their own businesses. For example, Vietnam just started re-opening businesses in mid-September: https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/vietnam-business-operations-and-the-coronavirus-updates.html/ https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/vietnam-business-opera... Singapore, while much better than before, still has widespread community transmission: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3103353/singapore-turns-corner-covid-19-fight-experts-warn-battle-not https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3103353/sin... It still has restrictions on group gatherings, people can't to to restaurants in groups larger than 5, and alcohol can't be sold after 10:30. I guess this counts as "mostly normal", right? So basically, all of those countries are still locked down, or have just barely re-opened, and even then, there's no suppression, just a lower level of community transmission than before. It's far too early to be declaring victory. You can control the virus for a time when you trap your society inside, deprive them of their livelihood and otherwise accumulate huge social and economic costs. Then you stop, and the virus comes back.