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>Over the next 38 days, the virus spread to 176 other people. Seven of them died. Seven people died. This isn't some hypothetical where people are acting like

• war1025 6y ago
  People die. I'm becoming more and more callus about the whole thing and beginning to think we just need to adjust our expectations and accept that people die. I was told recently that my town is in terrible shape and the hospitals are nearly overwhelmed. Listening further, I learned that "nearly overwhelmed" meant we had capacity for two or three people to be really sick with Coronavirus. If we need to decimate our economy because only two or three people can be really sick at once, then that is the wrong trade-off in my opinion.
  • sequoia 6y ago
    'fighting the virus harms the economy' Would you believe it if I told you that not fighting the virus has an even bigger toll on the economy? Imagine if we'd aggressively addressed this problem back in March, how much less economic impact would have resulted. But then, as now, we wanted to "protect the economy" and avoid restrictions as long as possible. But this time the strategy will work? I have trouble believing that.
    • war1025 6y ago
      > Imagine if we'd aggressively addressed this problem back in March, Europe had about the strictest lockdown you can imagine and their economy isn't exactly peaches and cream right now. And they have spiking case counts just like the US right now.
      • maxerickson 6y ago
        Why are you conflating "aggressively addressed this problem" with a strict lockdown? The spring lockdown made sense, in that we didn't really have much information. At this point, we have a bunch of other tools that we aren't using, because people have decided that doing anything is somehow the equivalent of a strict lockdown.
        • war1025 6y ago
          > Why are you conflating "aggressively addressed this problem" with a strict lockdown? The hypothetical was "Imagine if we had addressed the problem in March?" We did in fact lock the country down for several months. People seem quick to forget it for political reasons.
          • maxerickson 6y ago
            Yes, but it's a failure of imagination to assume that a strict lockdown is the only measure that would be part of aggressively addressing the problem.
            • war1025 6y ago
              You are putting words in my mouth. I was responding to an accusation that we didn't act strictly enough back in March. I agree we know much more about the virus now and should be tailoring our mitigation efforts accordingly. I would say that in general we are failing on that front however.
              • maxerickson 6y ago
                I have not put words in your mouth, I've questioned your interpretation of the comment you replied to. You stick to that interpretation here, because they didn't say anything about 'strictly enough', they said we didn't aggressively address the situation, and we didn't. The 'lockdown' such as it was, was a significant measure, but it apparently was also in many minds all we needed to do.
          • sequoia 6y ago
      • sequoia 6y ago
        > And they have spiking case counts just like the US right now. What lead to this recent spike, in your opinion? "peaches and cream" it's a global pandemic, I don't think "peaches and cream" is on the table right now. What we need is to survive to have peaches and cream another day, and that takes discipline and PERSONAL SACRIFICE not everyone whining and moaning about how they can't just pretend nothing is going on and do everything as normal, as some people seem so desperate to do. I weep for how spoiled and entitled our society is, living in the lap of luxury but still complaining.
        • war1025 6y ago
          > What we need is to survive to have peaches and cream another day, Great news! As a collective we will survive this just fine no matter what happens. Individually some people won't be so lucky. Coronavirus is a tragedy, but it is far from an existential threat.
          • sequoia 6y ago
            > And they have spiking case counts just like the US right now. What lead to this recent spike, in your opinion?
            • war1025 6y ago
              > What lead to this recent spike, in your opinion? The virus is seasonal just like the flu would be my guess.
              • sequoia 6y ago
                OK you must be yanking my chain now, I can't believe you're commenting on this so boldly and are completely unaware of the last huge spike in cases when occurred in July. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/world/coronavirus-covid-1... over & out
                • 6y ago
      • pjc50 6y ago
        Europe is not a single country with a single policy. Heck, even the UK isn't a single country with a single policy; we've had on-and-off lockdowns and nightlife restrictions all over the place.
      • dougmwne 6y ago
        I think that Europe is not the correct comparison to draw. From what I understand from friends and family, the lockdown in the EU was not particularly different than the US. It varied from region to region. There was some resistance to wearing masks in some places. People did not stop traveling, holding events or eating out. I think the best comparison to draw is China and New Zealand. They have the strictest lockdowns you can imagine and the virus has been completely contained in those countries. Whole cities are locked down after just a few cases. China has been limiting and disinfecting frozen food imports as it is one of the few remaining vectors the virus has been reentering the country. As far as I understand, their economies and daily life have been saved, but it comes at a huge cost to individual freedom, a cost that North America or Europe would never accept. There is no point in imagining Chinese disease control measures in America. It's beyond the realm of possibility. We need other solutions.
      • mnw21cam 6y ago
        > Europe had about the strictest lockdown you can imagine Um, no. No, we didn't. The lockdown in Europe (which was different in every single different country in Europe) was sloppy in the extreme. You shouldn't be looking at Europe as an example of a good way to deal with the virus and protect the economy, you should instead look at South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia. Lockdowns should be early and hard, until there are no unknown cases left in the population (that is, all cases have been tracked down and isolated, and there are no new surprise infections popping up). The earlier and harder the lockdown, the lower the number of deaths, the sooner the virus is eradicated, and the quicker the economy can go back to making money.
    • abduhl 6y ago
      Would I believe someone who works at Postmates with over a decade of experience in the software industry bubble when they offer an opinion on the effects of a novel virus pandemic on the overall economy due to high level policy decisions? Absolutely not.
      • sequoia 6y ago
        I appreciate that you want to hear from experts. Instead of me, why not listen instead to Dr. Michael Osterholm, PhD MPH, "an American epidemiologist, regents professor, and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota." His podcast is here: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-osterholm-update-covid-19/id1504360345 https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-osterholm-update-c... give it a listen and let me know what you think!
  • maxerickson 6y ago
    Are there significant restrictions in place in your town, or is it the pandemic that is hurting the economy? Also, the word for "cruel disregard" is callous.
  • RationalThought 6y ago
    I'm becoming more and more callous about people who don't give a shit if their selfishness kills others. Guess what, that goes two ways. If you can't be bothered to wear a mask and socially distance, and you are fine with people dying because they've committed the sin of having asthma. If you're ok with perfectly healthy young adults having heart issues because they survived covid-19, then I'm ok with YOU suffering while the civilized world tries to save lives.
    • dang 6y ago
      We've banned this account for breaking HN's guidelines. Can you please not create accounts to do that with? It will eventually get your main account banned as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      • RationalThought 6y ago
        The others in the thread were talking about killing people like me, yet they are not banned. That's horrible. Truly.
  • dougmwne 6y ago
    I am going to jump to your aid, because I suspect the downvotes are coming. I think it is ok to question if we are doing the right thing. There are intellectually honest ways to do that and intellectually dishonest ways. I do think we should do everything we can to avoid becoming callous. Some amount of of emotional fatigue is to be expected though. We are talking about nearly 250k deaths so far. That is a completely overwhelming number. And the lockdowns and general fear has created an immeasurable impact on the the future world economy, political stability and mental health. The science is clear that the risk of COVID morbidity and mortality is not evenly distributed. There could be more than one good way to manage this risk and keep our healthcare system functioning. As we start distributing the vaccine, we are going to have a great opportunity to mitigate a large portion of the risk for some people, while accepting a lower risk for others as the price to pay for getting back to normal as soon as possible. We make these kinds of population risk decisions all the time and no one bats an eye. Simply getting in your car every day and trusting your life to its imperfect safety systems is one example. Soon we will need to draw that line of what risk we, as a society will accept, and then get on with it.
  • theplague42 6y ago
    It's a lot more than two or three people. And the decimation would be a lot less bad if stimulus relief was passed. How large is your town, that the hospital only has a couple ventilators?
  • ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    Why can you accept people dying, but not accept the economy not doing well? The economy goes up and down. It's a fact of life. Why worry about it?
    • war1025 6y ago
      > Why can you accept people dying, but not accept the economy not doing well? In the grand scheme of "the economy", my portfolio is up something like 8% for the year last time I checked. My job is stable. In the locality of "the economy", I have heard multiple businesses in my area say that they are barely hanging on by a thread and will be forced to close permanently if the state forces them to shut down again. People might not be dying from the shutdowns, but it sure is an uneven load we're asking people to carry. Particularly from this high pulpit of HN, where we nearly all have cushy tech jobs where we don't have to interact with anyone to get paid.
      • dougmwne 6y ago
        People are almost certainly dying from the shutdowns. Hopefully less than we save from virus, but this is a difficult thing to measure.
      • ntsplnkv2 6y ago
        > People might not be dying from the shutdowns, but it sure is an uneven load we're asking people to carry. Particularly from this high pulpit of HN, where we nearly all have cushy tech jobs where we don't have to interact with anyone to get paid. Seems like a perfect opportunity for the government to continue supporting people. Perhaps some taxes on your high pulpit would do some good. But heaven forbid we do that - because the real answer isn't "oh people die in a bad economy." It's "I'm unwilling to support my fellow americans in a proper way, I'd rather them risk their lives instead of providing some support during difficult times." e.g. "my taxes!". It's a bad faith argument. The economy has been bad before and we never cared about the poor then.
    • dougmwne 6y ago
      I think it is a valid concern. A bad economy kills. The so-called diseases of despair[1] kill more than 150k a year in the US. And much suffering is caused by limited opportunities and limited hope. These limited prospects can and have have taken down many governments in the past. And regime change is rarely a bloodless process. There are no perfect solutions when it comes to governance. We must do our best to promote good outcomes and mitigate the bad. I very much want my government to worry about the economy, just as I want it to worry about the virus. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_despair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_despair