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No one should realize that because lockdowns are to contain and minimize impacts of the virus and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests no matter what the econom

No one should realize that because lockdowns are to contain and minimize impacts of the virus and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests no matter what the economy gets impacted, this is the way to reduce harm to economic activity the best. Without restricting high spread activities the economy suffers even more as everyone gets sick and hospitals get overwhelmed. What you’re saying is just like saying evacuation orders for a hurricane cause businesses to lose customers before and after the hurricane so never evacuate.

dilap 6y ago
We are locking down far in excess of simply not overwhelming our hospitals.
- Scipio_Afri 6y ago
  You don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a highly contagious virus with long incubation time without symptoms that is most contagious when you’re asymptomatic. It has the ability to rapidly overwhelm areas very quickly. What I’m saying is completely factual and in line with epidemiologists and expert medical body assessments of the disease, of which you are likely not one of and are certainly not in line with. You simply are wrong.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    >It has the ability to rapidly overwhelm areas very quickly. What I’m saying is completely factual and in line with epidemiologists and expert medical body assessments of the disease, of which you are likely not one of and are certainly not in line with. The data is not on your side: statistically lockdowns have little effect on reducing covid deaths (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-important-than-lockdowns-in-covid-19-fight-tau-644754 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-imp...). If there was a significant risk that it would "overwhelm areas very quickly" without lockdowns, we'd have seen this in places like Sweden, South Dakota and Japan which didn't have lockdowns, but we didn't.
- untog 6y ago
  Based on what?
- tehjoker 6y ago
  We may have to aim for virus extinction. Simply flattening the curve means we are aiming for herd immunity, but there are worrying signs that immunity may only last a few months, making it possible to recirculate. The science isn't settled, but I think until we know more we should be more conservative. https://bgr.com/2020/08/11/coronavirus-immunity-common-cold-t-cell-fauci-interview-5863206/ https://bgr.com/2020/08/11/coronavirus-immunity-common-cold-...
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    No expert I'm familiar with believes that it's possible to drive the virus extinct, at least not without decades of work.
    - tehjoker 6y ago
      Well, give me another strategy in the case that re-circulation is possible. We can wait for a vaccine, which sometimes (highly variable!) is better than getting the bug itself, but that's all I can think of.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean. There's no perfect strategy, only tradeoffs - how much are we willing to spend and how much are we willing to sacrifice for what degree of suppression? The ideal scenario is for Covid-19 to end up something like tuberculosis or HIV, a serious public health issue but not one that the average person necessarily needs to think about day to day. If someone tells you that they have a plan to stop the coronavirus from being a public health issue at all, they're misinformed or untruthful.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Virus eradication is flatly impossible. That will never happen in our lifetimes, even with an effective vaccine. The best evidence we have indicates that recovered patients will retain a high level of immunity for at least several years. https://www.jimmunol.org/content/early/2020/09/03/jimmunol.2000839 https://www.jimmunol.org/content/early/2020/09/03/jimmunol.2...
- geofft 6y ago
  Yes, but the point is to not have people get sick and die. Many people die even if they go to the hospital and there's plenty of respirator capacity - respirators are a last-ditch effort for someone who's hardest hit by the disease. This isn't an RPG with inns that always work and take you back to 100% health no matter what. If we want to say the lockdowns have been worse, let's start by answering: 1. What is the value of a human life, in dollars? 2. What is the cost of a preventable long-term injury? (In terms of diminished inherent value of life, diminished economic impact, whatever.) 3. What is the cost of a life spent without indoor restaurants for months to years? Take 1 and 2, and weigh them against 3 + the economic losses due to lockdown.
  - nradov 6y ago
    For federal regulatory purposes the value of a human life is about $10M. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/07/17/870483369/your-life-is-worth-10-million-according-to-the-government https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/07/17/870483369/your...
    - logicchains 6y ago
      That's the value of an average life. For public health issues, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year is often used instead (e.g. by the NHS).
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    10,000 children per month are starving to death due to second and third order effects of the lockdowns. https://www.rt.com/news/496482-study-covid-hunger-children-lancet/ https://www.rt.com/news/496482-study-covid-hunger-children-l... The median life-span of an American is 78. The median age of death from Covid is 82. The more rational statistic is life-years lost than # of deaths. If a toddler dies, they have lost 70+ years of life. If an 80 year old dies, they might have lost just a couple years of life. Economic hardships for young adults will reduce their lifespans by several years, not counting drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, etc. If I could trade a few of my years at 80+ to ensure a better quality of life for my child I would take that in a second. Practically every parent would. The right path forward is to take appropriate precautions to protect the vulnerable while everyone else goes back to work. We may still have a lot to learn, but we know so much more about this disease than we did when we took "14 days to slow the spread." It's time to open up.
- AlanSE 6y ago
  You're right. I've felt a little bitter about the messaging ever since March. From the get-go, there were articles pointing out the numerical reality that it would take 10 years to reach herd immunity with a curve flattened to match ICU capacity. Those calculations were slightly too pessimistic due to a myopic focus on ventilators, and the therapeutics have evolved since then. So we were flattening the curve to delay a mass spread until a vaccine? Doesn't add up. Masks are as effective as the candidate vaccines will be at 100% use. Not everyone will get vaccinated. Maybe we delay until masks+vaccine push R0<1. Also doesn't add up. The new infection numbers are steady NOW, R0 has averaged around unity for months. Look, it's hard to summarize a strategy when there is no strategy. There's just been reaction.
nradov 6y ago
What evidence is that? Some other countries have not forced restaurants to close and yet have low current death rates.
- pgodzin 6y ago
  It's economy also fell more than its neighbors https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-gdp-falls-8pc-in-q2-worse-nordic-neighbors-2020-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-gdp-falls...
  - logicchains 6y ago
    An interesting comparison is Melbourne vs the rest of Australia. Most of the country only shut down down briefly and then reopened, but Melbourne shut down for months and has still not reopened. Melbourne (and its state, Victoria) is doing way worse than the other states economically: https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/6902039/victoria-dragging-down-national-economy/?cs=9676 https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/6902039/victoria-dra....
  - nradov 6y ago
    That's a non sequitur. This discussion is about restaurants, not GDP. And I'm not sure why you're bringing up Sweden? There are other examples of countries with low death rates despite imposing minimal pandemic control measures. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

dilap 6y ago

We are locking down far in excess of simply not overwhelming our hospitals.

Scipio_Afri 6y ago
You don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a highly contagious virus with long incubation time without symptoms that is most contagious when you’re asymptomatic. It has the ability to rapidly overwhelm areas very quickly. What I’m saying is completely factual and in line with epidemiologists and expert medical body assessments of the disease, of which you are likely not one of and are certainly not in line with. You simply are wrong.
- logicchains 6y ago
  >It has the ability to rapidly overwhelm areas very quickly. What I’m saying is completely factual and in line with epidemiologists and expert medical body assessments of the disease, of which you are likely not one of and are certainly not in line with. The data is not on your side: statistically lockdowns have little effect on reducing covid deaths (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-important-than-lockdowns-in-covid-19-fight-tau-644754 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-imp...). If there was a significant risk that it would "overwhelm areas very quickly" without lockdowns, we'd have seen this in places like Sweden, South Dakota and Japan which didn't have lockdowns, but we didn't.
untog 6y ago
Based on what?
tehjoker 6y ago
We may have to aim for virus extinction. Simply flattening the curve means we are aiming for herd immunity, but there are worrying signs that immunity may only last a few months, making it possible to recirculate. The science isn't settled, but I think until we know more we should be more conservative. https://bgr.com/2020/08/11/coronavirus-immunity-common-cold-t-cell-fauci-interview-5863206/ https://bgr.com/2020/08/11/coronavirus-immunity-common-cold-...
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  No expert I'm familiar with believes that it's possible to drive the virus extinct, at least not without decades of work.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    Well, give me another strategy in the case that re-circulation is possible. We can wait for a vaccine, which sometimes (highly variable!) is better than getting the bug itself, but that's all I can think of.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean. There's no perfect strategy, only tradeoffs - how much are we willing to spend and how much are we willing to sacrifice for what degree of suppression? The ideal scenario is for Covid-19 to end up something like tuberculosis or HIV, a serious public health issue but not one that the average person necessarily needs to think about day to day. If someone tells you that they have a plan to stop the coronavirus from being a public health issue at all, they're misinformed or untruthful.
- nradov 6y ago
  Virus eradication is flatly impossible. That will never happen in our lifetimes, even with an effective vaccine. The best evidence we have indicates that recovered patients will retain a high level of immunity for at least several years. https://www.jimmunol.org/content/early/2020/09/03/jimmunol.2000839 https://www.jimmunol.org/content/early/2020/09/03/jimmunol.2...
geofft 6y ago
Yes, but the point is to not have people get sick and die. Many people die even if they go to the hospital and there's plenty of respirator capacity - respirators are a last-ditch effort for someone who's hardest hit by the disease. This isn't an RPG with inns that always work and take you back to 100% health no matter what. If we want to say the lockdowns have been worse, let's start by answering: 1. What is the value of a human life, in dollars? 2. What is the cost of a preventable long-term injury? (In terms of diminished inherent value of life, diminished economic impact, whatever.) 3. What is the cost of a life spent without indoor restaurants for months to years? Take 1 and 2, and weigh them against 3 + the economic losses due to lockdown.
- nradov 6y ago
  For federal regulatory purposes the value of a human life is about $10M. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/07/17/870483369/your-life-is-worth-10-million-according-to-the-government https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/07/17/870483369/your...
  - logicchains 6y ago
    That's the value of an average life. For public health issues, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year is often used instead (e.g. by the NHS).
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  10,000 children per month are starving to death due to second and third order effects of the lockdowns. https://www.rt.com/news/496482-study-covid-hunger-children-lancet/ https://www.rt.com/news/496482-study-covid-hunger-children-l... The median life-span of an American is 78. The median age of death from Covid is 82. The more rational statistic is life-years lost than # of deaths. If a toddler dies, they have lost 70+ years of life. If an 80 year old dies, they might have lost just a couple years of life. Economic hardships for young adults will reduce their lifespans by several years, not counting drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, etc. If I could trade a few of my years at 80+ to ensure a better quality of life for my child I would take that in a second. Practically every parent would. The right path forward is to take appropriate precautions to protect the vulnerable while everyone else goes back to work. We may still have a lot to learn, but we know so much more about this disease than we did when we took "14 days to slow the spread." It's time to open up.
AlanSE 6y ago
You're right. I've felt a little bitter about the messaging ever since March. From the get-go, there were articles pointing out the numerical reality that it would take 10 years to reach herd immunity with a curve flattened to match ICU capacity. Those calculations were slightly too pessimistic due to a myopic focus on ventilators, and the therapeutics have evolved since then. So we were flattening the curve to delay a mass spread until a vaccine? Doesn't add up. Masks are as effective as the candidate vaccines will be at 100% use. Not everyone will get vaccinated. Maybe we delay until masks+vaccine push R0<1. Also doesn't add up. The new infection numbers are steady NOW, R0 has averaged around unity for months. Look, it's hard to summarize a strategy when there is no strategy. There's just been reaction.

nradov 6y ago

What evidence is that? Some other countries have not forced restaurants to close and yet have low current death rates.

pgodzin 6y ago
It's economy also fell more than its neighbors https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-gdp-falls-8pc-in-q2-worse-nordic-neighbors-2020-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-gdp-falls...
- logicchains 6y ago
  An interesting comparison is Melbourne vs the rest of Australia. Most of the country only shut down down briefly and then reopened, but Melbourne shut down for months and has still not reopened. Melbourne (and its state, Victoria) is doing way worse than the other states economically: https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/6902039/victoria-dragging-down-national-economy/?cs=9676 https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/6902039/victoria-dra....
- nradov 6y ago
  That's a non sequitur. This discussion is about restaurants, not GDP. And I'm not sure why you're bringing up Sweden? There are other examples of countries with low death rates despite imposing minimal pandemic control measures. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries