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California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

ucdavis.edu

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Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#141

Post by CathedralBorrow »

nostromo wrote: post #89
WD-42 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better the dollar number is staggering than the death number. Would you rather it be reversed?

For 6T I feel like we could prevent the half a million malaria deaths that happen each and every year since forever and have money left over to tackle the 100k obesity deaths each yeah in the US. I’m not saying our response is wrong by the way. But it’s a jaw dropping number. It’s a building a moon base, or universal healthcare for a decade, or a mission to mars, or high speed trains up and down America’s coasts numb…

> But it’s a jaw dropping number.

I mean yes, of course it is. But does it do anything to stare and point at it with your jaw dropped? What does the alternate timeline look like where the government had no need to distribute significant amounts of money to employees and businesses?

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#142

Post by xienze »

briandear wrote: post #121
asveikau wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I hope so, but it is also pretty deeply ingrained. Cities and towns have also already been built spread out and many homes are completely dependent on getting in a car as a necessary first action. Around cities, many are also priced out of where they work with transit not up to the task. But perhaps those who are able to WFH are getting a glimpse of what it can be like.

Spread out homes sound like a feature not a bug. Population density increases infectious disease R0.

Trying to undo your downvote brigade. People don’t want to hear it, but it’s the truth. Density without serious mitigation efforts results in massive spread, see New York.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#143

Post by BubRoss »

hannob wrote: post #60
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I've been meaning to ask in /r/theydidthemath if the quarantine is actually reducing violent crime, car accidents, pollution, other infectious diseases, STDs, etc. so that we may come out break even or even ahead compared to covid deaths. Just trying to find the silver lining here.

The more interesting question is: Will we come ahead in lives saved without the covid measurements. Because it tells a very interesting story how many lives we're willing to accept to be lost in normal circumstances. Cars, air pollution, avoidable infections, ... - there's a lot of harm society could avoid and doesn't.

The problem here is overwhelmed hospitals.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#144

Post by hf8665 »

kevingadd wrote: post #19
Scoundreller wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m also expecting some long term after-effects that will increase diabetes and heart disease as most people are locked up.

non-essential procedures and doctor's visits have also been cancelled, and some medicines are now rationed also. Both will have a negative impact on the health of some people. I personally had a month long series of treatments scheduled that got cancelled, and now I have no idea when I'll be able to get that treatment. Better than dying from the virus, though.

A lot of these "elective" "nonessential" services are really preventative.

This was plainly brought into view for me with a dental procedure I had to cancel/reschedule. It's deemed non-essential, but is necessary to prevent me from losing an entire tooth or two. If it's not done reasonably soon it's only a matter of time before it turns into an emergency dental procedure.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#145

Post by toomuchtodo »

_bxg1 wrote: post #110
dragonwriter wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of daily runners in my neighborhood has easily increased 10x. Those are probably largely people that probably did just as much activity somewhere other than their home neighborhood (physical-but-nonessential labor, gym, athletic hobbies that rely on now-closed businesses, etc.)

I went running the other day for the first time in over a year, just as a way of getting fresh air. And before that I'd already lost 8 pounds since quarantine started, just because I haven't been eating restaurant-portions.

Congratulations! Keep it up!

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#146

Post by zaroth »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #141
nostromo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 6T I feel like we could prevent the half a million malaria deaths that happen each and every year since forever and have money left over to tackle the 100k obesity deaths each yeah in the US. I’m not saying our response is wrong by the way. But it’s a jaw dropping number. It’s a building a moon base, or universal healthcare for a decade, or a mission to mars, or high speed trains up and down America’s coasts numb…

> But it’s a jaw dropping number. I mean yes, of course it is. But does it do anything to stare and point at it with your jaw dropped? What does the alternate timeline look like where the government had no need to distribute significant amounts of money to employees and businesses?

The truth of it all is still very much not known.

Early antibody studies have shown that prevalence is much, much higher than positive case count would indicate.

Potentially 50x - 85x more cases than positive tests based on the Santa Clara / Stanford study.

In Boston last week they mass tested at the Pine St homeless shelter and found 50% of them positive and 100% of those were asymptomatic.

If when the dust settles the reality is that the curve wasn’t flattened at all, most everyone was already exposed, and the true IFR was more like 0.25%.... then we flushed $6 trillion down the toilet.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#147

Post by scottlocklin »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I've been meaning to ask in /r/theydidthemath if the quarantine is actually reducing violent crime, car accidents, pollution, other infectious diseases, STDs, etc. so that we may come out break even or even ahead compared to covid deaths. Just trying to find the silver lining here.

CDC all deaths data is available. FWIIW; the overall death rate is inarguably going down last time I checked.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#148

Post by zaroth »

BubRoss wrote: post #143
hannob wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more interesting question is: Will we come ahead in lives saved without the covid measurements. Because it tells a very interesting story how many lives we're willing to accept to be lost in normal circumstances. Cars, air pollution, avoidable infections, ... - there's a lot of harm society could avoid and doesn't.

The problem here is overwhelmed hospitals.

It’s interesting also to note that even hospitals are going bankrupt during all of this, as the vast majority of the money is made on “elective” procedures.

Elective in this case doesn’t mean cosmetic, it means an appointment was booked at a certain time. The procedures are still necessary.

Hospitals are in fact mostly empty. It’s just the COVID units which were overwhelmed, and even there, most EDs across the US were never overwhelmed, and none of them across the country are currently overwhelmed.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#149

Post by javierluraschi »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I've been meaning to ask in /r/theydidthemath if the quarantine is actually reducing violent crime, car accidents, pollution, other infectious diseases, STDs, etc. so that we may come out break even or even ahead compared to covid deaths. Just trying to find the silver lining here.

If we look at the per-capita deaths, many affected countries seem to be moving towards surpassing the leading cause of death in the US, heart desease. At that magnitude, seems unlikely we are saving net lives.

See https://twitter.com/javierluraschi/status/125160533393750016...

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#150

Post by asveikau »

briandear wrote: post #121
asveikau wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I hope so, but it is also pretty deeply ingrained. Cities and towns have also already been built spread out and many homes are completely dependent on getting in a car as a necessary first action. Around cities, many are also priced out of where they work with transit not up to the task. But perhaps those who are able to WFH are getting a glimpse of what it can be like.

Spread out homes sound like a feature not a bug. Population density increases infectious disease R0.

If we consider the pandemic an exceptional event... Why should we optimize for exceptional events and ignore the cost on a normal day? We should destroy our own health and the health of our planet so that you can feel good about not catching once-in-a-century infectious disease?

Density has many upsides. Economists have shown that denser cities are correlated with productivity gains at a rate surpassing the density increases.

The lack of it has many costs, and not just the economic ones or less efficient use of resources. Increased motor vehicles on a personal scale leads to obesity, stress.

On a global scale, it is harmful to the planet. Note the news reports of clearer skies from a very cease in this activity.

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