Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

Post by pfdietz » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 11:53 AM UTC

afiori wrote: post #598

pfdietz wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point I was raising was that calls to not panic suppress non-panic activities. They are sending the message that there's nothing much to worry about. This is extraordinarily dangerous. If necessary precautions will also cause some to panic, so be it. 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.

But then the counterpoint is that once panic steps in it becomes hard to manage. People should be called to take this seriously and to proper civic duties. Panic is was caused the toilet paper craze.

Post by cjbprime » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 11:56 AM UTC

pmayrgundter wrote: post #593

cjbprime wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Both Italy and the US are below average. South Korea and Japan, currently taking extremely drastic measures like mass-closing schools, have around 5x as many beds as either. I'm in the US, but if you think that makes me think the US is prepared, you have it backwards. I'd guess that if we're not in worse shape than Italy in two weeks, we'll be very lucky.

Agreed. For the country as a whole, I have it at 20 days until we run out of beds. Like Italy, seems reasonable to expect some areas will hit it sooner. Here's my growth equation: BedsNeeded = CurrentCases * DailyGrowthRate ^ DaysOfGrowth * SevereAndCriticalRate 708 = CurrentCases, the number of COVID-19 cases in the US as of March 9, 2020. [1] 1.6 = DailyGrowthRate, Number of today's cases / Number of yesterday's ca…

Post by johnchristopher » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 11:57 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #709

hef19898 wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so you suggest every single person in Germany to be quarantined. Whether they have symptoms or not. Now that's what I call an over reaction.

Well, let's just wait for a million dead like they expect in Italy then... that would be a proper, timid, reaction...

Post by chopin » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 12:02 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #632

ben_w wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is just as vulnerable to Goodhart's law as everything else. I don’t have any well-thought-out solutions, but I am tickled by the idea of frequently anarchically randomising the way power gets donated from the people to the government.

I somewhat like the idea of having a democracy without parliament or elections. Instead, whenever a law needs to be made (either because the administration identifies the need or because something akin to a ballot initiative gets enough signatures) 100 people are drawn from the population at random and tasked with writing that law. They are allowed to summon/subpoena as many experts as they like to help them with dra…

Post by gpderetta » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 12:09 PM UTC

afiori wrote: post #708

gpderetta wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Panic is was caused the toilet paper craze. If that's the extent of the damage caused by panic, then we are going to be fine.

To this I would point out that two months ago you could say that about COVID-19