> How long immunity lasts for following covid-19 infection is the biggest unknown. Comparison with other Coronaviridae suggests it may be relatively short-lived (i.e. months). Anyone have sources for this? I've been skeptical of the rumors about reinfection, because they seem to be based on tests coming back positive after recovery, but the tests are rt-PCR based, and your body will be shedding leftover bits of RNA a…
“I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
21–30 of 373 posts
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#22Is covid-19 the biggest world event since WW2?
Depends how you measure and what you call a "world event".
* Mao Zedong killed 40 to 80 million people during his rule after WW2, but "only" in China.
* 2-5 million died in the Second Congo Civil War between 1998-2003, but to a first approximation only Congo and its immediate neighbors even noticed.
* The US response to 9/11 killed around 500,000 people directly (war violence) and a lot more indirectly (health, economy, etc).
The direct death toll of COVID-19 is unlikely to get anywhere close to this, but the indirect economic impact will clearly be global and massive.
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#23Original source: https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/12388371580074475...
Threader's version (if you want to read it without ads and fake news recommendations): https://threader.app/thread/1238837158007447558
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#24I don't agree with the conclusion. We can scale down our economies and still maintain production of essentials by ` `drumroll` ` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Starting with an overblown healthcare admin system in the US, IMHO, but also including less inflammatory non-essential things like yet another range of plastic toys and luxury perfumes and and and. Essentially in this scenario, we should take this as an…
> ``drumroll`` scaling back shit that nobody needs.
Maybe, but what do you do with people whose livelihood depend on those superfluous bullshit jobs?
Until we have a system that guarantees a right to life even if you do nothing productive, those busyworks are used to justify giving food, shelter and healthcare to those people.
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#25On what basis is anybody predicting a second wave which gets worse? This seems completely backwards from everything we know.
The Spanish Flu accidentally had an inverted forcing function--we sent the worst cases back to their home countries which helped spread the most severe cases rather than the mildest.
For Covid-19, the cases most likely to spread are going to be the mildest. The worse you feel, the more likely you will pull yourself out of circulation. And, if you are obviously unwell, people are going to force you home.
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#26Heavy testing and aggressive isolation of infected persons and areas seems to be effective.
In the absence of heavy testing, broad quarantine seems to be effective.
The answer at this point seems to be heavy, widespread quarantine until testing infrastructure is sufficient to closely track every active case. Once that testing is in place, most quarantines can be lifted, and any second wave can be managed.
There are numerous promising treatments as well in development. HIV drugs, Ebola drugs, and Malaria drugs are all showing promise in pre-print research. If any of those pan out, it's likely that the mortality rate will go substantially down so long as we can suppress the spread until treatment infrastructure has scaled up.
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#27In this event, the solution will be the creation of a permanent, South Korea and China inspired infrastructure for testing, tracking and constraining infectious citizens by all developed countries. Regardless of the privacy and civil liberty concerns, I think that's where we'll eventually end up, and to your children it will one day seem crazy that a person with an infectious illness was once able to freely walk the…
Imagine a future where you do a swab test every morning while brushing your teeth. If you had any of thousands of infectious diseases, you're required to stay home. The test would take only 5 minutes, and you get fined if you don't do it, and receive sick pay if you test positive.
I imagine that within a few years of rolling this out, common colds might be a thing of the past, and overall worker productivity higher rather than lower.
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#28I don't agree with the conclusion. We can scale down our economies and still maintain production of essentials by ` `drumroll` ` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Starting with an overblown healthcare admin system in the US, IMHO, but also including less inflammatory non-essential things like yet another range of plastic toys and luxury perfumes and and and. Essentially in this scenario, we should take this as an…
But the countries where almost everyone is participating in the production of essentials, and nobody is doing Bullshit Jobs, are the poorest in the world with the lowest life expectancies.
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#29I don't agree with the conclusion. We can scale down our economies and still maintain production of essentials by ` `drumroll` ` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Starting with an overblown healthcare admin system in the US, IMHO, but also including less inflammatory non-essential things like yet another range of plastic toys and luxury perfumes and and and. Essentially in this scenario, we should take this as an…
> You know where the downvote button is.
Don’t do this. It makes for boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Your post was otherwise filled with pretty bog-standard leftist stuff that does just fine on HN.
Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”
#30I don't agree with the conclusion. We can scale down our economies and still maintain production of essentials by ` `drumroll` ` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Starting with an overblown healthcare admin system in the US, IMHO, but also including less inflammatory non-essential things like yet another range of plastic toys and luxury perfumes and and and. Essentially in this scenario, we should take this as an…
Are you proposing a centrally planned economy, or how do you intend to ensure that people work only in allowable jobs and produce only acceptable products and services?