5 ms·

While I agree with the methodology in general, assuming all of us have "lost" a year in a way that is equivalent to being dead is ridiculous.

hervature 5y ago
Right, but given all the debate about COVID, we still don't have a number and agree a 1-to-1 is ridiculous. Policy makers need a number to convert lost time to death time. What are they using? It seems one side is using infinite and the other side is using 1-to-1. As with everything, the answer probably is probably somewhere in between the extremes.
- xkjkls 5y ago
  I don't think one side is using infinity. The issue here is that lockdowns, if done effectively, don't have to last for a full year. Look at Australia. Look at New Zealand. They managed to lock down for substantially less than a year, get the disease under control, and resume life mostly as normal. The US was not, but that also needs to be included in the tradeoff. It wasn't obvious that applying enough pressure wouldn't have prevented the uncontrolled explosion that we now have to deal with.
  - hervature 5y ago
    I don't know how people compare two isolated islands that are multi hour flights to any other nation to the USA with a straight face. Think of the backlash at even proposing locking the Mexico border. Also, Australia and New Zealand just broke their travel bubble, I don't know if that still constitutes as a "short lockdown" if you haven't been allowed to leave your country the entire time. > It wasn't obvious that applying enough pressure wouldn't have prevented the uncontrolled explosion that we now have to deal with. I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here, but I think we agree. Nothing about this pandemic has been obvious.
    - xkjkls 5y ago
      > I don't know how people compare two isolated islands that are multi hour flights to any other nation to the USA with a straight face. Think of the backlash at even proposing locking the Mexico border. Very little of our COVID infections have been linked to either of the geographic borders in this country. While I understand there are greater risks with those borders, it doesn't make the situation incomparable. > Also, Australia and New Zealand just broke their travel bubble, I don't know if that still constitutes as a "short lockdown" if you haven't been allowed to leave your country the entire time. Bars and restaurants and sports have been available the whole time. Even if there wasn't a travel ban from the country, where would people even go? Most other countries aren't allowing visitors.
      - makomk 5y ago
        I'm not sure how easy it'd be to link Covid infections to the Mexican border - they were having serious trouble even reporting accurate Covid death numbers, never mind anything more useful: https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-mexico-underreported-coronavirus-deaths-by-60-toll-now-stands-at-321-000-12259410 https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-mexico-underreported-cor... The Covid outbreak there was really bad and would no doubt have screwed the US if something else hadn't earlier. Though it does look like the immediate source of US infections was an unfortunately large amount of travel from a global epicenter of infections which was somehow reporting zero cases at the time. (Something went really wrong in Italy, and the English-language media has completely failed to examine what happened there - probably because their leader is a boring technocrat these days.)

hervature 5y ago

Right, but given all the debate about COVID, we still don't have a number and agree a 1-to-1 is ridiculous. Policy makers need a number to convert lost time to death time. What are they using? It seems one side is using infinite and the other side is using 1-to-1. As with everything, the answer probably is probably somewhere in between the extremes.

xkjkls 5y ago
I don't think one side is using infinity. The issue here is that lockdowns, if done effectively, don't have to last for a full year. Look at Australia. Look at New Zealand. They managed to lock down for substantially less than a year, get the disease under control, and resume life mostly as normal. The US was not, but that also needs to be included in the tradeoff. It wasn't obvious that applying enough pressure wouldn't have prevented the uncontrolled explosion that we now have to deal with.
- hervature 5y ago
  I don't know how people compare two isolated islands that are multi hour flights to any other nation to the USA with a straight face. Think of the backlash at even proposing locking the Mexico border. Also, Australia and New Zealand just broke their travel bubble, I don't know if that still constitutes as a "short lockdown" if you haven't been allowed to leave your country the entire time. > It wasn't obvious that applying enough pressure wouldn't have prevented the uncontrolled explosion that we now have to deal with. I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here, but I think we agree. Nothing about this pandemic has been obvious.
  - xkjkls 5y ago
    > I don't know how people compare two isolated islands that are multi hour flights to any other nation to the USA with a straight face. Think of the backlash at even proposing locking the Mexico border. Very little of our COVID infections have been linked to either of the geographic borders in this country. While I understand there are greater risks with those borders, it doesn't make the situation incomparable. > Also, Australia and New Zealand just broke their travel bubble, I don't know if that still constitutes as a "short lockdown" if you haven't been allowed to leave your country the entire time. Bars and restaurants and sports have been available the whole time. Even if there wasn't a travel ban from the country, where would people even go? Most other countries aren't allowing visitors.
    - makomk 5y ago
      I'm not sure how easy it'd be to link Covid infections to the Mexican border - they were having serious trouble even reporting accurate Covid death numbers, never mind anything more useful: https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-mexico-underreported-coronavirus-deaths-by-60-toll-now-stands-at-321-000-12259410 https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-mexico-underreported-cor... The Covid outbreak there was really bad and would no doubt have screwed the US if something else hadn't earlier. Though it does look like the immediate source of US infections was an unfortunately large amount of travel from a global epicenter of infections which was somehow reporting zero cases at the time. (Something went really wrong in Italy, and the English-language media has completely failed to examine what happened there - probably because their leader is a boring technocrat these days.)