vanniv

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151.
by vanniv 7y ago
Other that for China, do you have any evidence the numbers are doctored? Especially South Korea, which has been very transparent and done a ton of testing.
152.
by vanniv 7y ago
Others may change how fatal the infection is (in either direction) This is actually one of the reasons that viruses generally become less deadly the longer they circulate through a population. A less-deadly version will spread faster (by n
153.
by vanniv 7y ago
The economy is the method by which humans live a life other than that of animals. Moving multi-colored pieces of paper is a small part of that process, but it is highly visible because it is near the top of the stack.
154.
by vanniv 7y ago
Reducing economic activity kills people too. You do realize that the economy isn't just a game of moving multi-colored pieces of paper around
155.
by vanniv 7y ago
Yep. Critical cases and fatal cases are way more likely to be detected for this reason -- but during the 3 weeks I was talking about, it was believed that there was no COVID in the US, except for folks evacuated from China to quarantine si
156.
by vanniv 7y ago
That also makes a ton of sense.
157.
by vanniv 7y ago
That's a really good dataset (with a really clunky visualization, but hey!) Indeed. There are typically above 3000 deaths/week due to Pneumonia and 200/week due to influenza at this time of year. We had a smallish spike in
158.
by vanniv 7y ago
Oh, that's probably true. They're optimized for throughput rather than speed. Ocean liners that carry passengers take 4-5
159.
by vanniv 7y ago
You can sail across the Atlantic in 4-5 days on an ocean liner
160.
by vanniv 7y ago
It seems very likely that many people (especially in areas with lots of travel to/from China) who had "a bad flu" followed by a chest infection in January or early February actually had COVID. We are unlikely to ever find out
161.
by vanniv 7y ago
There is no way to know what actually happened in China, due the way they control information.
162.
by vanniv 7y ago
Yeah, there may be one more delivery to the typical store before the end, but without workers, warehouses will empty, and without an economy, generally everything will collapse. Economies aren't just playthings for little pieces of mul
163.
by vanniv 7y ago
Italy is already working on doing exactly that. They've closed everything except the food stores -- most of which are running out of food with no prospects towards resupply, since roads are closed and workers aren't permitted to
164.
by vanniv 7y ago
These actions will kill 10x or more as many people as covid would even if no action was taken.
165.
by vanniv 7y ago
It has been 2 days. Now, all businesses except grocers are closed, and grocers are mostly out of food. Roads are closed. People are going to be very, very hungry very, very soon. Hunger will create desperation, which will create violence,
166.
by vanniv 7y ago
Especially since the source here is New republic, I'm going to go with Betteridge's Law of Headlines, and say: "No"
167.
by vanniv 7y ago
It's been 2 days, and already the food markets are running out. With no resupply available for weeks at a minimum, people are.going to get mighty hungry. Funny how quickly the HN crowd cheers for these incredible restrictions on life a
168.
by vanniv 7y ago
I love how everyone uses Japan as an example of central bank success. Their economy crashed in the 1980s and still hasn't recovered. If that "success", I'll stick with failure.
169.
by vanniv 7y ago
In the context of this post: the kind of quarantine where nobody is allowed to venture far from their homes. Where goods can't travel from where they are made to where they could be sold, or worse can't be made because nobody is a
170.
by vanniv 7y ago
Yes, hundreds fewer Chinese will die from the virus. Maybe thousands fewer. Of course, the CCP has killed millions of them itself in order to maintain power, so there's that to consider.
171.
by vanniv 7y ago
Stopping the world economy will kill many millions more people than COVID-19 could dream of
172.
by vanniv 7y ago
Italy's quarantine will probably kill many more people than the virus ever could
173.
by vanniv 7y ago
Permabear/crisis geek complains that people not panicking just don't understand that we are all gonna die again. News at 11.
174.
by vanniv 7y ago
True, but... every company of more than about 100 people has some dead weight. Often, low level managers know who they are. In good times, it might not be worth doing anything much about it. In bad times, the rest-and-vesters are out. We
175.
by vanniv 7y ago
Depends heavily on where you were. For myself, I was at a startup that was clearly failing (for reasons utterly unrelated to the economy), and jumped ship. I found a solid dev position in under 30 days in the fall of 2008, right at the peak
176.
by vanniv 7y ago
Recovery is expensive -- but we are already spending a fortune (about $18,000/homeless person/year in LA). The problem is that the current plan is all about enabling the animals to continue being animals. Letting them have perman
177.
by vanniv 7y ago
It only takes one homeless person to ruin any amount of publicly-available space or service.
178.
by vanniv 7y ago
Yes. Lots of homeless people are "happy" with their drugged-out life. Shelters that require people to stop doing drugs or require even the most bare minimum amount of being willing to not act like an animal are often mostly empt
179.
by vanniv 7y ago
There is a difference between "you know, we should try to do something about this" and the "OMG, the best-case scenario is that 10% of the population is dead in six months! We're all gonna die! Summon the army and weld
180.
by vanniv 7y ago
Just in time for all air travel to cease! (Airlines have grounded huge numbers of aircraft already anyway -- the last thing any of them care about now is having more planes)

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