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

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

#321

Post by MisterTea » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #282

MisterTea wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of sounding stupid, why hasn't anyone been talking about making makeshift masks using clothing or cloth? There's plenty of that in everyone's home. What about a scarf? Fine, it's not N95 but it can't be any less effective than a simple surgical mask that does blocks spittle.

A scarf (and other soft cloths) sounds problematic, because it traps droplets and then gives them more time to get into your airways. Though it probably helps with someone coughing at you directly. (But you have to instantly remove the scarf, and should wear glasses too, and then remove that too, and then wash your face, then the glasses and then the scarf.)

The surgical masks are disposable which I get but worst case wash your makeshift mask or carry multiple and keep them segregated in bags. It's not as easy as tossing a surgical mask but a viable alternative in a pinch.

And a further thought, I wonder how many surgical masks we'll find floating in the great garbage patch in the next few years. At my work they also threw out all the plastic cutlery so assuming there is a massive trash surge happening. I'm interested in the environmental impact of this outbreak.

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

#322

Post by scotty79 » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

DCKing wrote: post #304

scotty79 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US military dominates in expenses only and gear money can buy. When it comes to successful military actions recent conflicts don't show this dominance. Does USA really prevented more wars since WWII than they caused?

> Does USA really prevented more wars since WWII than they caused? Absolutely. This is not just my opinion, it's also the opinion of historians and geopolitical experts. And moreover, it has historical precedent. The Roman Empire's dominance also ushered in a period of peace and prosperity, coining the original term Pax Romana. It might be a hard view to accept while having background knowledge of the suffering cause…

Even if that's the case any gain would be instantly wiped out if one Russian at one time made a decision he, according to rules, should make instead of doubting and waiting things out.

But I forgot already what my original point was. :-) I'll try to educate myself about historical evaluation of Pax Americana.

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

#323

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:12 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #120

simonh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, that book is terrible and most of those jobs are perfectly valid. However lets assume we 'eliminate all the bullshit jobs', what do those people do, go home and self-isolate until there's a safe cheap vaccine? No, in this theoretical ideal perfect world you are proposing we conjured into existence in a matter of months, they would take up productive jobs. So they would be going to work, meeting people, soc…

The Wikipedia reference OP provided suggests Universal Basic Income as the solution. I believe the argument is that UBI could be conjured in to existence.

With what money? The US population is 327 million.

$1,000 * 12 * 327,000,000,000 = $3,924,000,000,000

Collected US tax revenue for 2019 was $3.46 trillion. Even if you could afford it in terms of money, it still wouldn't change anything, because you still have the same amount of goods available.

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

#324

Post by neuronic » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #285

neuronic wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bioinformatician here (well, former): I would never say something is impossible but the way these things are tested right now, it pretty much is impossible. We need to amplify some molecules and run a process called PCR on them for which you need a full lab setup. It would take nothing short of a revolution in detection to achieve this.

What would the cost be to set up testing machines every few blocks? People just get a swab, drop it into the machine, and get a code (just take a picture of a QR code) that they can later check for results.

> What would the cost be to set up testing machines every few blocks?

Where are you getting near infinite qualified and trained lab personnel from? Machines that can mostly automate the process cost $500k - $1m easily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P-jaC3_d3o (Roche commercial!)

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

#325

Post by JeremyNT » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

nec4b wrote: post #294

marcus_holmes wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Masks do protect you from getting sick. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30229968

The idiotic meme that "masks don't protect you from getting the virus" is incredibly frustrating.

I know H/N loves binary thinking, but the either/or fallacy is harmful and dangerous, especially in this scenario. People fall into it with the age-based impact of the virus too: young people feel completely immune, so why care? The same with masks: they don't protect you 100%, so people just mentally consider them worthless, and then there are dozens of HN posts repeating the misinformation in short order.

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

#326

Post by scotty79 » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #315

scotty79 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social interaction doesn't require breathing the same air. Internet is wonderful place of bustling social interaction. I'm doing way more social interaction with you just by writing this comment than I usually do by going outside and apparently Zuckerberg has no say in it. Solitary confinement is a torture not because of the solitary part. It's because of the boredom part. How unpleasent do you think would be solitar…

It's not the same thing though. We know that there are chemical responses for things such as touch and other physical interactions. You don't get that online. It's a vastly different thing.

There are vastly more chemical responses to having sex and yet most of us don't do it casually with large group random people, only with the the closest ones and often with one any given period of life.

Touch could be also culturally restricted to closest family with ill effects milder than caused by mild infections you get through that, let alone ncov19.

Some human cultures are less touchy some more. All survive.

Chemical responses to anything less than touch are way less documented and I suspect easily replicated with good quality audio-video connection.

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

#327

Post by scotty79 » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #308

scotty79 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution doesn't care directly about spreading. Just about survival and this virus is currently at no danger of being eradicated by measures in effect.

More spreading means more survival. A virus that we could reasonably live with would have more surviving copies than this one.

If you can infect all hosts you can't do better. And I think this virus can, even being twice as lethal as it is.

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

#328

Post by scotty79 » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #311

scotty79 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authority is not authoritarian if it tries to make you do the most scientifically reasonable thing.

Yes it is. Science advances one funeral at a time. The most scientifically reasonable thing can still be wrong. If an authority forces everyone to do the same, then everyone would be wrong. And this is all assuming that there is zero corruption at play, which is unlikely. Everyone should do the scientifically proven swab test every morning. The test has very strict requirements that were created by politicians and in…

> The most scientifically reasonable thing can still be wrong.

Yes, it can be. But you still should do what science says because relying on science is the only way you could make knowledge base decision, because science is the only way we actually know things.

If you decide to act other way to what science dictates and it leads to better outcome, then you were right by sheer luck and can't really claim that you made the right call. You made the wrong one which by sheer luck turned out well.

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

#329

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #302

sokoloff wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the money comes from the employer, there is incentive to root out and eliminate significant fraud. When the money comes from the sky/government, there is much less. We have a nice wooden fence that was (properly) built around/over the roots of a city-owner tree. The city later removed the tree and the fence now looked dumb where it had been trimmed around the roots. A neighbor stopped by and advised me that I sh…

The money actually comes from the employer. Employers are obliged to keep paying until the sickness is over. (The details are complicated, but this guarantee generally lasts two years from onset.) Employers have insurance against longer episodes but short-term they usually eat the cost directly. It's in the budget. When employers suspect employees of fraud they will investigate. They can ask for a sick note but most…

From what employer? Many people who need to stay home when they’re sick are the employer.

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

#330

Post by panarky » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

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…

It helps to understand the relative sizes of the particles masks are expected to filter from the air.

A coronavirus is about 0.1 µm while surgical masks start to become effective at around 200 µm and up.

So a coronavirus is about 2000 times smaller than what a surgical mask can filter.

I imagine a chain link fence which is pretty effective at stopping basketballs.

A pollen spore is about 2000 times smaller than a basketball.

Chain link fences are useless in stopping pollen spores, just like surgical masks are useless in filtering coronaviruses.

The only benefit to a surgical mask is to prevent the infected person from spraying large drops of saliva and mucus onto surfaces, there is zero benefit for the uninfected.

If you're uninfected, you don't need a mask unless you're caring for sick patients. And even then a surgical mask is pretty useless, you'd need a quality N95 or N100 mask and eye protection.