381–390 of 499 posts
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https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ Looks fairly exponential to me. (log y axis) And that's just confirmed cases.
Try to fit it. More easier is to look at daily new cases. For past 4 days they are increasing linearly (meaning total is quadratic)
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China's Red Cross supposedly advised Italy yesterday that 'total economic shutdown'[1] is the only way to contain the COVID-19 situation in the country now. It all comes to what part of the curve the country is now, the choice being total lockdown incl. economic shutdown vs aggressive testing. Considering US lapsed on aggressive measures in the beginning and that proper test kits are just being flown in from Italy[2]…
> total economic shutdown seems to be the only option left That's quite the overreaction. Italy found that among fatalities the median age is over 80 (older than the average lifespan of an Italian man). 99% of fatalities were among people with a prior illness. About 50% of the deaths were people suffering from at least three other illnesses. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-tho... To put it an…
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People can take ibuprofen prior to going shopping.
People can do a lot of things. It's not a big deal that measures won't be perfectly effective - in the presence of any suppression measures, once the case count stabilizes, there's a lot of room between "literally impossible to spread the virus" and exponential growth.
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> It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time. Thinking abstractly, why not? If the businesses are open, the money is there to pay everyone. If you send everyone in the economy home, where has that money that would have been used for salary gone? Someone is holding it rather than distributing it, that's the only reason. So, take a lo…
You can easily find the person who is holding rather than distributing the money. In fact, you looked at them in the mirror this morning. I am voluntarily (10% family-preservation, 90% community service) staying in my house. I’m now “hoarding” (to use your hyperbolic term) all the money that would normally go to fuel, eating out, and entertainment. The restaurant, movie theater, and gas station owner would, circumsta…
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Current situation in Geneva, Switzerland - 2 critical male patients, one 27, one 29, no prior comorbidities at all. Not sure they will make it. Wife is a doctor and just checked this in their information system. The idea that relatively young (most of folks here) will be just fine is not true. With overwhelmed healthcare, most criticals will simply die. Once doctors will get sick (and they will), it will make everyth…
>Current situation in Geneva, Switzerland - 2 critical male patients, one 27, one 29, no prior comorbidities at all. Not sure they will make it. Wife is a doctor and just checked this in their information system. I don't know about the law in Switzerland but unless you are lying that is something she could be fired for in many countries.
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You can easily find the person who is holding rather than distributing the money. In fact, you looked at them in the mirror this morning. I am voluntarily (10% family-preservation, 90% community service) staying in my house. I’m now “hoarding” (to use your hyperbolic term) all the money that would normally go to fuel, eating out, and entertainment. The restaurant, movie theater, and gas station owner would, circumsta…
You could buy gift cards for future service at these bars and restaurants. The business gets cash now and you get a discount.
As a moral issue, we are choosing to continue to pay our every-other-week house cleaner to not clean our house. Everyone else is getting paid iff they provide current goods/services. We have our own financial survival to look out for until more is clear about the economic outlook.
The virus is terrible. But our solution could turn into an economic catastrophe. It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time. The solution is aggressive, continuous testing so that people can feel safe going back out. 1. Make hundreds and millions of the rapid tests available. 2. Deploy them to every business, every institution. 3. T…
That's what happened in South Korea, as far as I understand. They missed just one guy out of 31, and he started a massive infection.
Yes, massive testing is indeed better than what we do now, but if you let people to just walk around, it will do absolutely nothing.
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It's not just old people though. Infants. Immunocompromised individuals. People with asthma. People undergoing chemotherapy. The narrative that this disease only affects the economically unproductive is dangerous at best, and inhumane at worst.
Honestly, what do you think is going to happen to these people if the economy totally shuts down? it's going to be easy to have a chronic & serious health condition? The same? My feeling is that I'd rather be chronically sick in a good economy than in a depression. What happens when medicine becomes unavailable due to supply chains being cut off?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/505995/adults-with-hyper...
The state with the lowest incidence of hypertension still has roughly 1 in 4 adults with hypertension. West Virginia is at the top with more than 1 in 2 adults. What do you think happens to them when they develop COVID-19? Hypertension is at the top of the list of co-morbidities that worsen outcomes. Medication to treat hypertension is often extremely inexpensive even without insurance ($10-$20/mo at the low end) and thus hypertension is often easy and inexpensive to manage.
How many folks working at pharma companies do you think have hypertension? What happens to the supply chain when people are incapacitated?
Even if a minority of the population will need hospitalization (hell, even if the minority is small enough to avoid overwhelming hospitals)... how many do you think will work through a SARS-CoV-2 infection?
The gravity with which I treat this pandemic is in large part based on government action. China quarantined nearly 100 million people. Iran is building mass graves. The uber-pro-business trump crony that serves as the secretary of the treasure took one look at the GOP plan and essentially said "double it, and make it cash with no means testing."
The folks arguing for immediately disruptive action aren't ignoring the economic consequences, they've decided that the economic consequences of doing nothing will be worse.
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Not to mention complications. Little is known yet, but there are indications that some surviving patients get permanent lung damage. Especially when intensive care is not available. Imagine having 30 million 40-year-olds who will be short of breath for the rest of their lives.
There is no need to imagine, we have the forecasts from the Imperial College report: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... There are 40 million 40-somethings in the USA, you're proposing that 100% of them will have lung damage. Let's imagine that 80% of the population is infected, that 80% of cases are symptomatic, and that 80% of the 4.90% of hospitalised cases (this 4.90 is direct from the…
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> It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time. Why not? This is a matter of survival. If the economic system breaks because of one pandemic that will last less than a year maybe that economic system needs to die and be replaced by something more solid and useful for most.
It's not about abstract "economic system". Let me put it in simple word: you'll loose your job. Your friends and family will loose their jobs. As a result, when your savings run out, you'll loose your appartement. And so will your friends and family. You won't be able to afford food without government assistance. And even if shutdown lasts only 30 days, it'll wreck the economy for a long time. Once a restaurant defau…
Even without this pandemic, we live in a World where there is enough shelter, food and drugs for everyone but we still have homeless people, people starving or at the least malnourished and people dying in a rich country because they have to ration fucking insulin.
This economic system is not working at all. People die every die directly because of this system[0]. This pandemic just brings it to light.