531–540 of 915 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something we can all do as individuals is stop going out to unnecessary things. I'm avoiding restaurants, bars, gyms and large groups.
ah, the joys of being deeply introverted. avoiding restaurants, bars, gyms, and large groups -- why, that's my ideal day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with this is that a 14 day total economic halt will be devastating. Even assuming all office workers work remote basic social structure will be endangered. The hospitals need to stay open, people need to keep operating water and electricity utilities, food distribution needs to continue as many do not have 14 days of stock at home. It is not about those dams politician that only care about reelection numb…
Quarantine for everything but the very bare minimum services (the ones you mention but the food which can be distributed home to home) seems the only logical path to the resolution of the matter. The spread of the virus caused by a relaxed quarantine (as the one enforced now, based on people good will) will certainly cause the collapse of the system you are describing due to the saturation of the hospitals. During to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of the phenomenon where a slowdown in traffic on a road causes all of the cars to bunch up. And then after the blockage is gone, the bunch up continues to cause more cars to bunch up and the slowdown exists long after the issue is gone. It seems like the fact that toilet paper is gone causes people to buy it whenever its available which causes it to be gone.
I see this on I88 outside of Chicago all the goddamn time. Takes a little bit of aggressive driving to get past it, but eventuallually you'll find a point where there is a mile gap in the left lane, becausr people dont accelerate after a slowdown. Its fruatrating and caises me easily 10 minutes per day. I'm fine if you want to drive below the speed limit, but move put of the way (I'm talking people driving 45 in a 60…
https://math.mit.edu/projects/traffic
It’s basically a normal occurrence in dense traffic.
The US really really /really/ needs to get out in front of this. We have the lowest per-capita testing rate in the world, there are likely already significant outbreaks in Seattle, Santa Clara co, NYC, and DC. Probably elsewhere. We are literally like 12 days behind and can see into our future. If this virus does indeed require such intense hospital resources (as in Wuhan and now Northern Italy) letting it spike is j…
The only thing that be called reasonable statistic is the number of deaths and that hasn't spiked - I hate to say - yet. It's possible hospitals are even missing those, it's a big country. And it's a dispersed country so things might not spread as quickly.
But other, what you say. Stopping large public events and doing mass testing seems crucial. South Korea seems to have gotten a handle on their infection process at the moment things are out-of-hand in Italy. South Korea has done mass testing for a while.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Exponential growth" in itself isn't really the issue. If every week you have 10,000% as many cases as last week, you're screwed. If every week you have 105% as many cases as last week (i.e. 5% more), that's exponential, but after a year there would be less than a 13X increase, by which point there could be a vaccine or other measures that cause the weekly number to go from 105% to 95%. You can also have non-exponent…
Calls to not panic are worse that useless. They are dangerous, extremely dangerous now. They lead to complacency and they will lead to death.
So no, panic never helps. Staying calm and level headed does.
But if you want to panic, do it. But do it in private, panic itself is rather contagious as well. Maybe self-quarantine.
For anybody living in quarantined areas of Italy. How much has your daily life been affected?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think pointing out business connections between individuals belonging to particular nation states is an example of "casual racism". It's no kind of racism at all. But the rest of the information you provided is very interesting! That the "Chinese capital" of Italy has no cases is very interesting, in particular.
> It's no kind of racism at all. The political situation in Italy has been an absolute powder-keg of not-even-casual racism for years now, not unlike some areas of the UK. The "political boss" of those two regional administrations I mentioned, Matteo Salvini of Lega Nord, tried to scapegoat Asian communities pretty brutally at the onset of the epidemic, with the usual result (Asian-looking people being shouted at in…
You could say the same of the left-wing, that promoted for weeks a reckless attitude, pushing the message that we just needed to do business as usual, and to "overcome the fear".
The secretary of the most prominent left-wing party, Zingaretti is now infected. About two weeks ago was posting picture of him drinking at a bar with other people. On top of the picture he wrote: "Our slogan is: normality. [...] Our economy is stronger than fear: let's go out and drink an aperitif, a coffee or have a pizza".
While I wish him a speedy recovery, it's undeniable the left wing downplayed the risks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calls to not panic are worse that useless. They are dangerous, extremely dangerous now. They lead to complacency and they will lead to death.
No, panic is making it much more difficult to implement counter measures. It also takes away crucial man power from fighting the disease to fighting the panic. And finally, panic makes it harder for health care professionals to actually care for patients. So no, panic never helps. Staying calm and level headed does. But if you want to panic, do it. But do it in private, panic itself is rather contagious as well. Mayb…
At this point, things are so looking so grim that there's no way to tell people not to panic without unacceptable downplaying of the gravity of the situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Politicians have no understanding of exponential growth. They look at low numbers and think "we have a lot of time" then are surprised later when they in fact don't.
> Politicians have no understanding of exponential growth To be fair, that is true of 95% of humanity. These politicians are representative of their voters, as democracy should be.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be clear, I don't believe the following (Hanlon's razor, etc), but it would make a good dystopian/thriller: As some point one might consider if governments see COVID-19 as an opportunity to "cull the herd". Japan and Italy have the two largest aging populations of any countries. The US has a large number of citizens with COVID-19 comorbidities. I'm not sure if the long term savings on entitlements and health care…
What makes you assume that the economic output of these old people, on total, is negative? They might be holding/running investments, collected massive knowledge along their careers or have enough savings and are making money for the private healthcare system. If they go away, we might lose on the knowledge or their investments might stop working and the new youth might not manage it any better. So a total loss of so…
Massive knowledge -- retired and not using it
Making money for the healthcare system -- fundamental life science advances could be lost or slowed down, but most healthcare spending is pure consumption, the labor could be better deployed to something more productive