America is giving up on the pandemic? • Hacker News Board

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#381

Post by thu2111 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #77

charliemil4 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also a case for reopening - or better never closing the economy - an abrupt stop and socializing losses will leave scars for decades.

Maybe people are just sick of being told they have to put the economy above all else. Can't have single payer healthcare because economy , can't have more days off because economy , can't have a higher minimum wage because economy , etc. Ask me to take a risk because it is good for the economy and I'll tell you to fuck off. Ask me to take a risk to help reform violent police forces that oppress minorities and I'm mor…

Like quite a lot of lockdown supporters you appear to believe that there's this optional bit of frippery called the economy which can be switched off like a light switch, without consequence.

Let me explain some of the consequences.

In the UK people have been pulling out their own teeth with pliars because the dentists weren't allowed to be open, not even for emergency surgery. It was "too dangerous" for dentists to be close to their patients.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-52321910

https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/20/mum-tried-pull-tooth-when-cou...

In India, all the factories and shops were closed. But because it's India the government wasn't able to replace people's incomes overnight. Those people started to starve so they tried to go back to their home villages, in the hopes of getting some food from the land. But because of the lockdown they couldn't get transport either, so they started to walk, in some cases they tried to walk hundreds of miles. And some of them died because of it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52086274

In the UK there's now a backlog of 2.4 million cancer tests or treatments. There's no obvious way to catch up and some people will die because of it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8374697/2-4-million...

The economy is defined, literally, as every service or product people sell each other. But sure, it's also just a minor thing that doesn't matter.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#382

Post by Gibbon1 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #374

Gibbon1 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the 1980 Miami Riots and the 1992 LA riots. This is basically nothing like that. Fundamental difference the protestors aren't the ones engaging in violence, the cops are.

I seem to have missed the police setting buildings on fire and beating up shopowners. Not to say that the police haven't committed a ton of violence in these protests, but it's not all them.

There are looters and then there are protestors.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#383

Post by technofiend » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

daffy wrote: post #360

dang wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stub comment to collect replies in one place, so that it can be collapsed and prevent too much offtopicness at the top of the thread.

What's wrong with cross-examination?

Cross-examination can be perceived as hostile, particularly if conducted as you might see in a court of law.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#384

Post by zarathustreal » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #352

kadoban wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is _far_ more harm in unjust policing than is counted in deaths per year.

And far more harm than just one year's worth. We've seen 400 years of structural anti-black racism here, with no end in sight. The USA has had more than 240 years to fix that. If people are finding the timing of the current protest inconvenient, well, they've had their whole lives to fix the problem. They shouldn't blame the protesters for their own lack of action. I'll note that in 1964, people were calling civil ri…

>We've seen 400 years of structural anti-black racism here, with no end in sight.

The idea that 400 years of structural racism can be proven seems highly doubtful to me. Do you really have 400 years worth of evidence of literal outright racism? How can we hope to inspire change with rhetoric like this? This is the equivalent of simply screaming louder to get a point across. Highly ineffective unless annoying them into submission is your goal.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#385

Post by gridlockd » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

iso947 wrote: post #338

noobaccount wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unarmed police in other countries seem to handle those situations just fine.

Americans are far more heavily armed, and there’s a belief that the only defence against a gun is someone with a bigger gun.

I can tell you what isn't a defense against a gun: A baton, a taser, teargas, or any of the other toys that ordinary police get to use in the UK.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#386

Post by s3cur3 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #358

caconym_ wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where'd they "tell us there is no risk from these protests"? The letter you linked explicitly advises us to "prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest [and] provide increased access to testing and care for people in the affected communities, especially when they or their family members put themselves at risk by attending protests." They just seem to think protesting America's rampa…

> They just seem to think protesting America's rampant institutionalized police brutality is more worthy than protesting the lockdowns themselves That can’t possibly be a valid scientific opinion on the basis of public health data — until recently the virus was killing more people per day than the police kill in an entire year. It’s a political opinion and this was a political letter. From now on, when public health…

I don’t have a particularly strong opinion here either way, but I think it’s worth pointing out that all medical advice is (or at least should be) sensitive to the broader context of a person’s life. Consider: is it safe to take morphine? If I’m a healthy 20-something looking for escape, absolutely not. On the other hand, if I’m an 85 year old hospice patient, anything harm morphine causes is vastly outweighed by the good it does.

It doesn’t seem an irresponsible or unprecedented extension of that principle to say that if your country is rocked by civil unrest, dealing with that is more important than preventing the spread of disease.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#387

Post by chrisseaton » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

jabedude wrote: post #351

chrisseaton wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Not Police would be in grave danger. There is a reason that the Police Police are armed. That don't need to be armed with firearms. That's overkill (literally overkill, unfortunately) for community policing. They could have batons. Firearms should be restricted to specialists deployed only when needed for a specifically authorised task.

> That don't need to be armed with firearms You're asking police officers to be less armed then the general public. 43 states are "shall-issue" and allow residents to conceal carry a firearm after completing required training and submitting an application.

> You're asking police officers to be less armed then the general public.

But most policing tasks don't involve interactions with people looking to fight to the death. Do people really react to being stopped for speeding by starting a firefight? Is that genuinely a routine concern?

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#388

Post by smsm42 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

meritt wrote: post #278

metrokoi wrote: post #90

Quoted from a letter from 1,000 health professionals on the virus and protests [0] >However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from…

> Don't tell us there is no risk from these protests, but there is a risk from stay-at-home protests. The difference is the stay-at-home protesters overwhelmingly didn't wear masks [1] and the BLM protesters are overwhelmingly wearing masks [2]. Hong Kong has proven it's possible to have massive protests while wearing masks and not being vectors of infection. [3] [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-upda…

I've watched dozens of videos from the protests, and while some people are wearing masks, many do not, and of those that do, many routinely remove them - e.g. to chant, or wear them only on part of the face, or even move them to the neck or forehead for extended times. A lot of them frequently readjust them with their hands - without washing the hands of course, which kinda defeats the whole purpose. Regular masks aren't super-efficient at long-time mass close contact anyway - they are lowering risk when you are walking on the street passing another person, with contact time measuring in seconds, but I don't think they would provide significant defense when staying in close contact for hours, especially while moving around, running, chanting, etc. Even less goes for homemade cloth masks, which many are wearing, which provide even less protection than surgical ones.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#389

Post by zarathustreal » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #355

manfredo wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

another ~140 were armed with "toy weapons", such as the infamous shooting of Tamir Rice. But it's unclear whether that should go into the category of "unarmed" since this is still a threat perceived by police. Here is an image of Rice's toy gun: https://www.cleveland.com/resizer/CbjnPy-8-HkfIl1ApQ431f_Dlh...

Weirdly, hundreds of people were wandering around state capitols with much more dangerous looking weapons, and no cop shot them on site. It's almost like going by "perceived threat" (as determined after the fact by cops) is a giant hole that allows racial bias free reign.

Racial bias is absolutely disgusting. Nothing about the color of a person's skin or their family lineage could ever give indication of the actions they're likely to take. Culture on the other hand, which by definition includes behavior, can be a pretty good indicator. Either way, the room for error grows as the time taken to make a judgement decreases and unfortunately in the situations police find themselves in they have very little time for consideration.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#390

Post by metrokoi » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

stevoski wrote: post #290

dang wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stub comment to collect replies in one place, so that it can be collapsed and prevent too much offtopicness at the top of the thread.

@dang, Maybe the text in italics ("Be kind. Don't be snarky...") should be always shown above the HN comment box? It'd be nice to get the reminder every time we are starting to write something unkind or snarky...

I don't think we should have to be constantly reminded to be kind and discuss in good faith. Maybe it is necessary for some, but I expect better of HN users than to need their hands held. The regulator of HN behavior should be the users themselves; that responsibility should not have to fall on the administrators.