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Hence I said to expand healthcare capacity. If there's not enough personnel, we should educate and hire more personnel. I'm not saying this is something we shou

Hence I said to expand healthcare capacity. If there's not enough personnel, we should educate and hire more personnel. I'm not saying this is something we should do tomorrow -- only in the hypothetical case that we haven't found an effective prevention and/or cure in 5 years or so.

maxerickson 6y ago
Pausing the entire global economy for 5 weeks would be vastly less costly than training personnel while we deal with it for 5 years. I do get that it would never happen, because people would refuse to do it (their belief that it wouldn't work would, in a sublime irony, prevent it from working).
- giantDinosaur 6y ago
  Can you put a figure on 'pausing the global economy for 5 weeks'? How do you know it would be less expensive? The global economy is massive so you'll have to provide some well reasoned figures to support such a claim. Such a pause could easily trigger much larger problems, how do you know it wouldn't? And why did you pick five weeks? The disease won't be eliminated in five weeks of everyone doing nothing; plus a lot of the global economy is essential to human civilisation.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    The net cost would be very small. There would be a planned period of increased activity prior and a period of make up after. And then you'd have 5 years of the economy running without a pandemic to make up any loss. Substitute some other plan of coordinated action for the five weeks if you want. I don't care to argue about it, it's clear from New Zealand and Taiwan and so on that coordinated action works very well, if it is made to happen. It's also reasonably clear that it's cheaper than dealing with a raging pandemic.
    - giantDinosaur 6y ago
      You said 'pause the global economy', and now wish for me to substitute in any other effective plan, which kind of begs the question, doesn't it?
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        Right, I was just suggesting a severe coordinated action for the sake of making the comment. I don't care about convincing you.
        giantDinosaur 6y ago
        So not only do you admit it would never happen, you cannot even provide any actual figures to support your claim. New Zealand and Taiwan have had success because they effectively eliminated the disease at the start of the pandemic, they didn't shut down with 30% of their population infected and millions of current infections, which is why that particular comparison is poor. It isn't unreasonable to ask for justification of your claim that it'd be so much cheaper to shut down the global economy or take 'severe' action at this time. So, thanks for providing absolutely nothing beyond some vague claims about ideal actions that won't happen?
        maxerickson 6y ago
        Yeah, you should probably discount my comment if those are problems for you.
        j4yav 6y ago
        It may be helpful to look at HN comments more as a discussion forum than a peer reviewed journal with documented justification for claims and so on.

maxerickson 6y ago

Pausing the entire global economy for 5 weeks would be vastly less costly than training personnel while we deal with it for 5 years. I do get that it would never happen, because people would refuse to do it (their belief that it wouldn't work would, in a sublime irony, prevent it from working).

giantDinosaur 6y ago
Can you put a figure on 'pausing the global economy for 5 weeks'? How do you know it would be less expensive? The global economy is massive so you'll have to provide some well reasoned figures to support such a claim. Such a pause could easily trigger much larger problems, how do you know it wouldn't? And why did you pick five weeks? The disease won't be eliminated in five weeks of everyone doing nothing; plus a lot of the global economy is essential to human civilisation.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The net cost would be very small. There would be a planned period of increased activity prior and a period of make up after. And then you'd have 5 years of the economy running without a pandemic to make up any loss. Substitute some other plan of coordinated action for the five weeks if you want. I don't care to argue about it, it's clear from New Zealand and Taiwan and so on that coordinated action works very well, if it is made to happen. It's also reasonably clear that it's cheaper than dealing with a raging pandemic.
  - giantDinosaur 6y ago
    You said 'pause the global economy', and now wish for me to substitute in any other effective plan, which kind of begs the question, doesn't it?
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Right, I was just suggesting a severe coordinated action for the sake of making the comment. I don't care about convincing you.
      - giantDinosaur 6y ago
        So not only do you admit it would never happen, you cannot even provide any actual figures to support your claim. New Zealand and Taiwan have had success because they effectively eliminated the disease at the start of the pandemic, they didn't shut down with 30% of their population infected and millions of current infections, which is why that particular comparison is poor. It isn't unreasonable to ask for justification of your claim that it'd be so much cheaper to shut down the global economy or take 'severe' action at this time. So, thanks for providing absolutely nothing beyond some vague claims about ideal actions that won't happen?
        maxerickson 6y ago
        Yeah, you should probably discount my comment if those are problems for you.
        j4yav 6y ago
        It may be helpful to look at HN comments more as a discussion forum than a peer reviewed journal with documented justification for claims and so on.