Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control • Hacker News Board

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#91

Post by SuoDuanDao » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #79

seeTheAstroturf wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we will always drive cars, and in 5 years there will be no coronavirus. Would it have been better to spend our resources on more complex airbag systems that would last as long as humans drive or a lockdown to save our oldest population for 3 years? I think this math problem is easier than we would like, but politically it's unpopular.

Let's assume cars kill N people a month, and the next pandemic kill N-1 old people a month and cancer kills N-2 people a month. We do nothing until we solve the cars? What if it kills N-1 children we still do nothing? I do not see the argument that the resources should go to cars, if you want to solve car accidents you can do it for free, I have the secrets here: - don't give a diving license that easy. have decent t…

I think the point is, Forcing people to stay home is a solve against cars and coronavirus. The death rate for cars is higher, so why haven't we forced a lockdown to deal with car deaths? What makes the Coronavirus different, besides that it's been 100 years since we've had a serious pandemic?

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#92

Post by Mc_Big_G » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

altcognito wrote: post #65

kyuudou wrote: post #51

Dr. Michael J. Burry, M.D. (Vanderbilt) , setup a twitter account[1] just to address some of the negative consequences of overreacting to covid-19. He's not normally a social media type, to say the least. [1] https://twitter.com/michaeljburry

Yeah he’s pitching that California has already reached herd immunity. The premise is that covid-19 arrived in fall and that unlike everywhere else in the world, it arrived, spread without so much as being noticed at the ER.

This is because he can't accept the face that CA implemented SIP before everyone else and what that implies about the administration's failure to recommend it. His politics are clearly driving his assertions.

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#93

Post by simion314 » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #91

simion314 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume cars kill N people a month, and the next pandemic kill N-1 old people a month and cancer kills N-2 people a month. We do nothing until we solve the cars? What if it kills N-1 children we still do nothing? I do not see the argument that the resources should go to cars, if you want to solve car accidents you can do it for free, I have the secrets here: - don't give a diving license that easy. have decent t…

I think the point is, Forcing people to stay home is a solve against cars and coronavirus. The death rate for cars is higher, so why haven't we forced a lockdown to deal with car deaths? What makes the Coronavirus different, besides that it's been 100 years since we've had a serious pandemic?

I think your assumptions might be wrong though, if I use the numbers from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... and calculate for Italy I get 3600 car fatalities, and there are aprox 18000 deaths by covid with a lockdown on. Let me know if my numbers are wrong.

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#94

Post by eeZah7Ux » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #53

bilbo0s wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Exercise is good for your immune system. But I think the public health experts probably meant for us to exercise alone. You still see lots of groups of 4 or 5 or more people out there in my area. And based on what people are saying, this must happen in other areas as well. Or my favorite are the groups of bicyclists exercising and keeping 6 ft away from each other. Think about it, one cyclist towards the front…

Don't be too hasty to judge groups of people unless you are certain they don't live together. "Think about it, one cyclist towards the front of the pack coughs and what's gonna happen?" Probably nothing. The virus spreads more easily than some, but it's not magic. The original WHO guidance was to stay 3 feet away, not 6 feet, because even at 3 feet transmission is extremely unlikely. It's not impossible to transmit i…

> 3 feet transmission is extremely unlikely

Not at all. This is what makes COVID a pandemic.

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#95

Post by lurquer » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #82

altcognito wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah he’s pitching that California has already reached herd immunity. The premise is that covid-19 arrived in fall and that unlike everywhere else in the world, it arrived, spread without so much as being noticed at the ER.

If this actually happened, why did we not observe other incidents like what happened in the Live Care Center in Kirkland, Washington? 35 people died. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/us/coronavirus-nursing-ho... This has ripped through like wildfire in highly vulnerable communities. Also, would we not have observed a lot of medical staff becoming sick like they are now? I just find it very hard to believe that this…

"as many as 380,000 people die of the infections in LTCFs [long-term care facilities] every year."

https://www.cdc.gov/longtermcare/index.html

An increase of a several percent would not be noticed.

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#96

Post by standardUser » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #94

standardUser wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be too hasty to judge groups of people unless you are certain they don't live together. "Think about it, one cyclist towards the front of the pack coughs and what's gonna happen?" Probably nothing. The virus spreads more easily than some, but it's not magic. The original WHO guidance was to stay 3 feet away, not 6 feet, because even at 3 feet transmission is extremely unlikely. It's not impossible to transmit i…

> 3 feet transmission is extremely unlikely Not at all. This is what makes COVID a pandemic.

Droplets don't travel farther just because they have this coronavirus in them.

Droplet transmission is in fact possible over distances far greater than 6 feet, it just becomes extremely unlikely. Similarly, droplet transmission is less likely at 6 feet than at 3 feet. But even 3 feet reduces the chances substantially, which is why it is the default recommendation for avoiding droplet transmission.

https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-t...

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#97

Post by cameldrv » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

kyuudou wrote: post #51

Dr. Michael J. Burry, M.D. (Vanderbilt) , setup a twitter account[1] just to address some of the negative consequences of overreacting to covid-19. He's not normally a social media type, to say the least. [1] https://twitter.com/michaeljburry

The thing is, yes, he's an MD, but his job is an investor. I don't know what his book looks like, but many funds carry leverage. It's possible that having the lockdown continue wipes out his considerable fortune.

Under these circumstances, even very intelligent people can fall prey to seemingly nonsensical motivated reasoning.

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#98

Post by cameldrv » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

kyuudou wrote: post #73

__s wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify why that's a crazy premise: Italy

I'd say it's a bit disingenuous comparing Italy with California demographically - we're talking about one of the largest population per capita of elderly who are well-known for living with multiple generations on the same property if not the same household AND who have traditional body language mannerisms that involve lots of hand-to-face and lips-to-face contact. Bit less of all that in Cali.

They've done sampled serological tests in at least one town in Italy. If you compare that against excess deaths in March, you get an Infection Fatality Rate of 2%.

Perhaps it will be better in the U.S. due to age structure, but perhaps it will be worse due to the high prevalence of obesity and diabetes.

Either way, California won't have reached herd immunity until approximately 600,000 people are dead, barring some therapeutic breakthrough.

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#99

Post by sharken » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

kyuudou wrote: post #73

__s wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify why that's a crazy premise: Italy

I'd say it's a bit disingenuous comparing Italy with California demographically - we're talking about one of the largest population per capita of elderly who are well-known for living with multiple generations on the same property if not the same household AND who have traditional body language mannerisms that involve lots of hand-to-face and lips-to-face contact. Bit less of all that in Cali.

Indeed, if anything you should be comparing Italy with New York.

The data for Corona virus points to elderly in poor health and people with pre-existing illnesses being at risk.

If you don’t agree please explain how Monaco with a very old but rather healthy population has seen one death so far and how come Bangladesh and Pakistan with a population of 300M+ have seen a total of 80 deaths.

Re: Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control

#100

Post by summerlight » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

I'm seeing strong tensions between values considered to be fundamental; privacy, safety, freedom, etc. To me, it looks like COVID-19 has introduced a kind of CAP theorem for civil rights and we don't really have a good answer here.

Let's assume an ideal case of a perfect government with a good will. If a centralized authority have the perfect information and perfectly execute a quarantine measure, it will be so accurate that minimizes fatality and restrictions on freedom, but at the cost of extreme privacy invasion. If the government have less than perfect information or execution, you gotta choose either accuracy or recall for infected. The former will give you more freedom of action at a higher cost of life. The latter will restrict more freedom of action which also potentially leads to larger economical disasters, but will save more lives.

Even worse, this is not even a ternary choice but more of continuous, multi-dimensional one. Also, the good-will assumption made above distorts the reality in a very incorrect way. The solution space is likely much more complex (e.g. those values are not really mutually exclusive and interact each other in a subtle way) and we don't really understand what shape it is. Neither I know the right answer. But I can say that even values/rights that we assumed fundamental may conflict in the extreme situation like COVID-19 and we don't really understand what trade-offs we're forced to make and its consequences.