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“I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

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Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#221

Post by lolc »

sokoloff wrote: post #190
londons_explore wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a false positive results in someone staying home and getting paid, one can easily work out the economic cost of that. Then it becomes a simple economics problem - how much should the government spend on improving the test to regain a bit of productivity. A false negative (someone going about their day despite being infectious) is just the status quo, and has served us well for centuries.

I would expect a gaming system to emerge (to force positive test results when people wanted time off without suffering any consequences). Done well, that might be the most valuable purely wasteful invention ever created.

Where I live, it's common for people to just call in and stay home for the day when they are sick. They don't need to game a device or convince a doctor. There is some trust. Maybe this could be tried elswhere?

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#222

Post by iends »

Gupie wrote: post #192
mcsb4 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop spreading this false information and have a look at the infection numbers in China. The masks stop droplets coming from your mouth and nose and if everybody wears them, then they are a very effective mean to massively slowing down the spreading of the virus. No, the masks are not 100% virus tight. Yes, they prevent spreading of diseases. That's why they are worn by surgeons. They are 20 cents a piece, tha…

This is the advise we are getting "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection." https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... "If you are not sick, do not buy a face mask. If you have one already and you are well, it is not recommended that you use it." https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/dont-panic-the-compr... Is this…

The information about masks is from a public health perspective and not a personnel health perspective due to a global mask shortage. Just because it’s better for society as a whole that all PPE go to where they can help the most people, doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the best result for you as an individual.

If there were an infinite supply of masks the advice would be entirely different.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#223

Post by scotty79 »

DCKing wrote: post #116
tasogare wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP doesn't advocate anti-militarism, it's advocate to keep army at home. This is two very different things. A country can keep a top-notch army while not invading another country every decade. Japan is the best example of that, with its use of military largely restricted by the constitution.

Not an American, but the United States and its allies - and actually probably even most of its enemies - derive enormous economic value and peace from its military control of the world, which it achieves by its navy controlling the world seas and general striking power of its armed forces [0]. The United States determines the "world order" by being the remaining world's superpower (China is only beginning to challeng…

> Like it or not, the U.S. armed forces underpin the world's current economic system and its relative peace.

Maybe that was the case before USA clearly displayed its military inaptitude in nearly every conflict it has chosen to involve itself with over the last decades.

People of the world now strongly suspect that USA military underpins peace no more than bullys presence underpins calmness in the playground.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#224

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #210
mcsb4 wrote: post #85

I don't understand why we are not trying to interrupt the transmission vectors with masks and hand sanitizer like the Chinese do. They ramped the daily production from 10M to 100M and even advised the use of make-shift masks. The reaction in the west: masks are not protecting 100% and also we don't have any and we are too lazy to produce them, although they are much cheaper than the economic impact covid-19 has. 1. y…

In Asia, where mask-wearing is common (part of the culture, nothing to do with COVID), sick people wear masks. It's very practical, and also a social signal that "I am ill". As a manager of a business in SE Asia, people coming in sick but wearing masks was awesome. The mask-wearing reduced their infectiousness (because the mask stops saliva-borne virus communication) and made it OK to come in to work if you're feelin…

> when we don't want to get sick. Masks don't really work for this

They do, they decrease the chance to get infected. They don't guarantee it. The previous poster wrote about exactly this.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#225

Post by knolax »

QuesnayJr wrote: post #188
dang wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN regardless of how stupid someone is or you feel they are. Even if you don't owe David Graeber better (though you do), you definitely owe this community better if you're posting to it. Comments like this add rotational momentum to the downward spiral. It's a pity, because your comment also makes some good points. But adding poison to the commons is more significant. If you'd pleas…

So calling jobs of many people here "bullshit", like the original comment did, is okay? Apparently so.

This is HackerNews, you can literally advocate for genocide on here and be upvoted but don't you dare be slightly rude to some humanities charlatan.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#226

Post by scotty79 »

dvdcxn wrote: post #48
bsder wrote: post #25

On 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…

Yes this is my predection too. We are enforcing evolutionary pressure that favours a less dangerous strain of the virus.

Given that this virus can spread well before there are any symptoms and well after symptoms are gone I think there are very little evolutionary pressures on it right now and it can evolve into milder strains with pretty much same probability as more lethal strains.

If we are vigilant then the only thing that the virus might be pressure toward is having even longer asymptomatic spread and even higher survivability in the air and on the surfaces.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#227

Post by nateburke »

scotty79 wrote: post #173
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably accurate. But the assumption that this is a game changer is more questionable. This variant of CV is fairly infectious and makes some people very ill. It also kills a non-trivial percentage. So the worst case is an incredibly dangerous virus that mutates every season. We'd have to get used to taking extreme measures, or losing around 1% of the population every year. But the usual trend is for viruses to…

> But the usual trend is for viruses to mutate in a less dangerous direction. This trend is for viruses that are in danger of killing their hosts before spreading. This coronavirus is so infectious that it's nowhere near that. Hence it can even mutate into more lethal form without risking its ability to spread.

Mutations are random. What is not random is how human society selects from the pool of random mutations.

I am thankful that we do not have a global ground war in progress right now. I believe that political pressure to keep the healthy isolated on the front lines, with the sick going home to society -- this reverse version of containment -- was 1918 society selecting the more lethal mutations for increased reproduction.

From this standpoint, the herd immunity and flatten the curve approaches are no different. Both put severe versions of the mutated virus in an a hospital, which is an environment where eventually most hosts will have the virus, effectively deselecting virulence.

That said, not overwhelming hospitals probably means having more healthy doctors available for the virus to infect-- a slight selective pressure for virulence. This would be in contrast to herd immunity -- letting both a massive spike of people die along with doctors and then turning hospitals into simple pre-death, low-R_0 isolation wards.

The issue there though is that overwhelming hospitals via the herd immunity approach would decrease our ability to learn about the virus scientifically. Our ability to learn about pathogens and modify our behavior accordingly is probably our best hope for survival as a species, I think, so perhaps we should not overwhelm the hospitals with the herd immunity approach.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#228

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

wiz21c wrote: post #98

Interestingly, when we face a problem where deaths can be attributed to a very specific, identifiable killer, politicians don't fail to act in strong ways... Let's talk about action against climate change now...

> Let's talk about action against climate change now...

What do you mean exactly by "talk"? People have been "talking" about it for decades, what are you proposing or predicting will change now?

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#229

Post by geomark »

adrianN wrote: post #162
swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do masks even work on things as small as viruses?

Yes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/ The virus is not airborne, it is spread is small droplets. Those are effectively reduced by all kinds of masks.

Masks also prevent you from absent-mindedly touching your mouth and nose.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#230

Post by geomark »

lolc wrote: post #212
mcsb4 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop spreading this false information and have a look at the infection numbers in China. The masks stop droplets coming from your mouth and nose and if everybody wears them, then they are a very effective mean to massively slowing down the spreading of the virus. No, the masks are not 100% virus tight. Yes, they prevent spreading of diseases. That's why they are worn by surgeons. They are 20 cents a piece, tha…

The mask not only keeps airborne droplets in, or out. It keeps the wearer from touching mouth and nose involuntarily. This helps protect against smear infections! I noticed this when I was wearing one during a flu infection. My fingers were frequently surprised to touch the mask instead of my face, and I went "oh, right, don't do that!"

This. Despite trying to be continuously concious about touching my face I am sometimes surprised that I absent mindedly do it. And now when I do it I am reminded and I immediately pull out my little bottle of hand gel and lather up.
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