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> So let me ask: on what basis did you arrive at your opinion? I will answer this, although more than likely my comment will get killed soon: I believe that t

> So let me ask: on what basis did you arrive at your opinion? I will answer this, although more than likely my comment will get killed soon: I believe that the high-risk people (elderly, immuno-compromised, people with diseases that put them at risk) should go into voluntary quarantine if they wish, together with a government package to support them. Anyone who wishes to undergo lockdown can also do so, although with no package beyond what they would normally get. The rest can do as they please. This will not stop the ICU beds from filling up obviously, which is why they should be triaged to high-risk patients, frontline staff, and people who underwent quarantine and lockdown. When capacity allows, other people too. The people who chose not to lockdown deal with it, or die. This is probably unimplementable in the real world. That said, it would mean the lowest amount of economic stress (which kills silently) for the following years. On some level, it also appeals to the human need for cause: those people that died of corona and didn't get treatment "did it to themselves". The high-risk people do not get sacrificed.

patrec 6y ago
> That said, it would mean the lowest amount of economic stress (which kills silently) for the following years What makes you think so? Did you look at the life-expectancy impact of severe economic downturns and compare them to likely excess fatality figures due to your proposed policy? I suspect not, because last I looked for it I didn't seem to find much evidence for silently killing economic stress. > This will not stop the ICU beds from filling up obviously, That's a bit of a problem, because those ICU beds are also known to be useful for people suffering from urgent non-covid related problems. Even if you managed to turn away all the non-lockdowners (how would you even check? Police patrols tattooing people spotted on the street during voluntary lockdown?), you might still find that just the "legitimate" cases are enough to really mess up urgent health care for a lot of other people.
- dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
  > What makes you think so? Did you look at the life-expectancy impact of severe economic downturns and compare them to likely excess fatality figures due to your proposed policy? I suspect not, because last I looked it didn't seem to find much evidence for silently killing economic stress. Not the point I was making. I do not know which option will lead to less death, neither do you, neither do really the scientists (although they have a better idea). However, a full lockdown will lead to more economic loss at least in the short term than a voluntary lockdown. Long-term, as I said, I don't think any of us can say. > you might still find that just the "legitimate" cases are enough to really mess up urgent health care for a lot of other people. Like is currently happening? Yes, my solution wouldn't stop all bad effects. There will be much death regardless, the hope is that the people who are left to die as they chose no protection will "help out" with the number of ICU beds needed in general. > how would you even check ? You are in lockdown until you fill in some sort of form with the government, waiving your rights to hospital care in the case of catching Corona. This list is used to make decisions. This part at least is implementable.
  - patrec 6y ago
    > Not the point I was making. I do not know which option will lead to less death, neither do you, What point were you making then? And yes, I think I do know which option will lead to less death, because I actually took the time to do some minimal research and the relevant information wasn't hard to find or terribly ambiguous. It's fine to have a contrarian opinion, based on some effort to ascertain facts and reason about them and we could then have a productive discussion on why our conclusions differ but from everything you said so far my current impression is that you made no such effort whatsoever. > However, a full lockdown will lead to more economic loss at least in the short term than a voluntary lockdown. Long-term, as I said, I don't think any of us can say. For some farcial definition of "short term" and "can't say" maybe, but for anything a sane person would care about (quarters or longer) we can just try to compare economic stats. I mean to me it seems like the herd-immunity/corona-is-a-hoax/hands-off-response countries weren't doing that hot economically either: https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp vs https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/taiwan/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/taiwan/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp > You are in lockdown until you fill in some sort of form with the government, waiving your rights to hospital care in the case of catching Corona. This list is used to make decisions. This part at least is implementable. Why would anyone in their right mind sign such a form, no matter whether they intend to flout lockdown or not? Not without massive penalities. How would you enforce them?
lazyasciiart 6y ago
So you think we should pursue a strategy that is unimplementable in the real world? Doesn't sound very clever to me.
d4mi3n 6y ago
What do you do about folks who don’t have the luxury to choose to isolate? The majority of US citizens don’t have the funds to stop working for more than a week or so. What about all the nurses who die in the line of duty treating all these new infections? Should they be allowed to opt-out of infection risk? I understand the desire to keep things going, but so long as there is community spread the lockdown can never end, and the virus would never go away.
- dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
  > What do you do about folks who don’t have the luxury to choose to isolate? What's being done about them now? How is this better? They're losing everything they own, their house, and getting $600 from the government? Many would take a chance of corona over that. > What about all the nurses who die in the line of duty treating all these new infections? Should they be allowed to opt-out of infection risk? Nurses (along with all healthcare personnel) should always receive priviledged treatment. One nurse dying is not a person dying, it is many people dying. > but so long as there is community spread the lockdown can never end, and the virus would never go away. Vaccines will hopefully change that. .. all good points though, and I thought of them too as I was writing out my thoughts. I'm not fully satisfied with these answers, but I do not believe the direction we're headed in right now is much better.
  - d4mi3n 6y ago
    Thank you for the thoughtful response. I agree the economic issues are problematic and painful. Sadly, I don’t see a way around a lot of financial pain for everyone over coming months regardless of the status of a lockdown. Depending on your job and industry, there simply isn’t any work to be done while there’s a real risk of death (tourism comes to mind). I think one big sticking point for me around arguments to reopen boil down to our medical care workers—doctors, nurses, and everyone who supports them. I’m not comfortable telling _anyone_ that they need to die to keep the economy going, especially when our medical workers don’t have a say in the matter.

patrec 6y ago

> That said, it would mean the lowest amount of economic stress (which kills silently) for the following years What makes you think so? Did you look at the life-expectancy impact of severe economic downturns and compare them to likely excess fatality figures due to your proposed policy? I suspect not, because last I looked for it I didn't seem to find much evidence for silently killing economic stress. > This will not stop the ICU beds from filling up obviously, That's a bit of a problem, because those ICU beds are also known to be useful for people suffering from urgent non-covid related problems. Even if you managed to turn away all the non-lockdowners (how would you even check? Police patrols tattooing people spotted on the street during voluntary lockdown?), you might still find that just the "legitimate" cases are enough to really mess up urgent health care for a lot of other people.

dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
> What makes you think so? Did you look at the life-expectancy impact of severe economic downturns and compare them to likely excess fatality figures due to your proposed policy? I suspect not, because last I looked it didn't seem to find much evidence for silently killing economic stress. Not the point I was making. I do not know which option will lead to less death, neither do you, neither do really the scientists (although they have a better idea). However, a full lockdown will lead to more economic loss at least in the short term than a voluntary lockdown. Long-term, as I said, I don't think any of us can say. > you might still find that just the "legitimate" cases are enough to really mess up urgent health care for a lot of other people. Like is currently happening? Yes, my solution wouldn't stop all bad effects. There will be much death regardless, the hope is that the people who are left to die as they chose no protection will "help out" with the number of ICU beds needed in general. > how would you even check ? You are in lockdown until you fill in some sort of form with the government, waiving your rights to hospital care in the case of catching Corona. This list is used to make decisions. This part at least is implementable.
- patrec 6y ago
  > Not the point I was making. I do not know which option will lead to less death, neither do you, What point were you making then? And yes, I think I do know which option will lead to less death, because I actually took the time to do some minimal research and the relevant information wasn't hard to find or terribly ambiguous. It's fine to have a contrarian opinion, based on some effort to ascertain facts and reason about them and we could then have a productive discussion on why our conclusions differ but from everything you said so far my current impression is that you made no such effort whatsoever. > However, a full lockdown will lead to more economic loss at least in the short term than a voluntary lockdown. Long-term, as I said, I don't think any of us can say. For some farcial definition of "short term" and "can't say" maybe, but for anything a sane person would care about (quarters or longer) we can just try to compare economic stats. I mean to me it seems like the herd-immunity/corona-is-a-hoax/hands-off-response countries weren't doing that hot economically either: https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp vs https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/taiwan/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/taiwan/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp > You are in lockdown until you fill in some sort of form with the government, waiving your rights to hospital care in the case of catching Corona. This list is used to make decisions. This part at least is implementable. Why would anyone in their right mind sign such a form, no matter whether they intend to flout lockdown or not? Not without massive penalities. How would you enforce them?

lazyasciiart 6y ago

So you think we should pursue a strategy that is unimplementable in the real world? Doesn't sound very clever to me.

d4mi3n 6y ago

What do you do about folks who don’t have the luxury to choose to isolate? The majority of US citizens don’t have the funds to stop working for more than a week or so. What about all the nurses who die in the line of duty treating all these new infections? Should they be allowed to opt-out of infection risk? I understand the desire to keep things going, but so long as there is community spread the lockdown can never end, and the virus would never go away.

dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
> What do you do about folks who don’t have the luxury to choose to isolate? What's being done about them now? How is this better? They're losing everything they own, their house, and getting $600 from the government? Many would take a chance of corona over that. > What about all the nurses who die in the line of duty treating all these new infections? Should they be allowed to opt-out of infection risk? Nurses (along with all healthcare personnel) should always receive priviledged treatment. One nurse dying is not a person dying, it is many people dying. > but so long as there is community spread the lockdown can never end, and the virus would never go away. Vaccines will hopefully change that. .. all good points though, and I thought of them too as I was writing out my thoughts. I'm not fully satisfied with these answers, but I do not believe the direction we're headed in right now is much better.
- d4mi3n 6y ago
  Thank you for the thoughtful response. I agree the economic issues are problematic and painful. Sadly, I don’t see a way around a lot of financial pain for everyone over coming months regardless of the status of a lockdown. Depending on your job and industry, there simply isn’t any work to be done while there’s a real risk of death (tourism comes to mind). I think one big sticking point for me around arguments to reopen boil down to our medical care workers—doctors, nurses, and everyone who supports them. I’m not comfortable telling _anyone_ that they need to die to keep the economy going, especially when our medical workers don’t have a say in the matter.