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Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

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Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#901
post #896

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heart scarring too https://www.smh.com.au/national/seizures-and-battered-heart-...

Just like the flu. Here is a nice paper that goes through all the cardiac, neurological, renal and other organ complications of influenza.[1] [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/irv.12470

Just like the flu... which we vaccinate for and doesn’t sweep through the population.

So... not like the flu in scale or scope.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#902
post #879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general reply, not only to the parent comment. I’m indeed cherry-picking though I didn’t carefully check the numbers. My point is we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things and make minimal efforts to ride this out, and by not changing our lifestyles, we are passing the risk on to others, some of whom may be vulnerable and some of whom don’t have any option to not go to work (for example) to reduc…

And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria? Obviously there is not going to be a total lockdown in the the US no matter what happens. Regardless of the potential benefits, that option isn't even remotely politically feasible. People simply won't comply, and there aren't enough police to enforce it.

> And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria?

There are some obvious ones, like: no new cases in the city/county reported in 14 days.

For some reason, it seems people thought this would take a month or two, and then everything will be back to normal. But it wouldn't. Two months is a ramp-up period, a default if you do nothing. "Flattening the curve" measures were always going to extend the partial lockdowns until late this year. We knew that in March.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#903
post #623

Wow with these comments. You going to the gym is not saving the economy. Yes, we can't shut everything down but you'd think the article was about shutting down grocery stores or the stock market. And by not doing your part, your whole community could be stunted for 2 years. Also congratulations for not caring about a 1 in 200 chance of death (pretty high by the way) because you're healthy and passing on the risk to s…

I travelled all over Europe past two months and I must say Europe is quite laxed. And there cases haven’t really gone up. Pretty much every outdoor cafes in Europe were open with a few exceptions and I didn’t see much difference other than people wearing masks and social distancing between tables. I think in US everything is polarized and politicized. To the point that wearing masks is somehow considered against free…

> It’s airborne, at least we know that part but the clusters in nursing homes and indoor parties also indicate there is some mechanisms in play when indoor.

No, the clusters in nursing homes and indoor parties indicate that airborne transmission is a lot easier when you have high risk people who can't avoid close contact with others, or a lot of people in close contact in a small space, in a closed environment where air is recirculated.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#904

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general reply, not only to the parent comment. I’m indeed cherry-picking though I didn’t carefully check the numbers. My point is we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things and make minimal efforts to ride this out, and by not changing our lifestyles, we are passing the risk on to others, some of whom may be vulnerable and some of whom don’t have any option to not go to work (for example) to reduc…

> we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things The "more trivial things" like normal social interaction, employment, and healthy exercise? I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. If you think causing at least tens of thousands of suicides since the start of the lockdowns, impoverishing millions of people for years to come, a…

> I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic.

Yep, me neither. If more people could, we wouldn't have this problem, because people who could would stay home. And going to the gym is indeed one of the "more trivial things".

I suppose the problem is that it's hard to impress on people the seriousness of the situation. If instead of a virus, you had a madman or enemy soldiers going through the street and shooting every two hundredth person at random (even with a heavy bias towards the elderly), everyone would stay home and keep crying the government needs to do more.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#905

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe can relax because they worked hard in the beginning to get everything under control. Where do you see that COVID19 is over? > under control A very steep second wave of infection is, to me, the opposite of "under control". Do you actually check data? https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/fr Also, just routinely mentioning: "No country knows the total number of people infected with COVID-19. All we know…

I'm curious about the death rates in the European countries on your WHO link; both France and Spain have clear resurgence in cases but very near zero deaths. Did they actually reduce the morbidity by 100x, or is there some other fundamental difference?

Morbidity has definitely reduced some, both because testing is now covering non-severe cases and because treatment protocols have improved.

But a major factor is that deaths have consistently been a lagging indicator for this disease, both because the progression is quite long and because the most active spreaders tend to be younger and healthier. It's likely that they'll see a matching resurgence in deaths over the next few weeks, as other areas of the world with case surges have consistently seen.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#906
post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there. I have seen recently that serology tests in Italy have shown the same outcome for people who were locked down than essential workers who were not locked down (and mortality stats in the UK told a sim…

I’ve heard the evidence is mixed for lockdown but I believe most of that evidence is very fuzzy comparing various (poor) degrees of compliance from ok to bad. Didn’t NYC peak almost exactly 2-3 weeks after the lockdown just as would have been expected? And at the extreme of everyone isolated in their apartment 24 hours a day the virus could not really spread.

Same timing as Sweden who didn’t do a lockdown, and all other European countries. Not convinced it is the lockdown.

https://mobile.twitter.com/yinonw/status/1295152579941249024

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#907
post #879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria? Obviously there is not going to be a total lockdown in the the US no matter what happens. Regardless of the potential benefits, that option isn't even remotely politically feasible. People simply won't comply, and there aren't enough police to enforce it.

> And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria? There are some obvious ones, like: no new cases in the city/county reported in 14 days. For some reason, it seems people thought this would take a month or two, and then everything will be back to normal. But it wouldn't. Two months is a ramp-up period, a default if you do nothing. "Flattening the curve" measures w…

That is a ridiculous standard, totally unachievable in any populous region. It's simple numbers. There are 10M people in Los Angeles county alone and we will never see zero new cases there per 14 days in our lifetimes no matter what we do. So what are exit criteria that would actually be possible in the real world?

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#909

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, there are many types of training you can't do without the right equipment, so it's at least a bit more than just wanting to be with others. Strength training/powerlifting/olympic lifting all come to mind. It's often really difficult to keep a rack, barbell and hundreds of kilos of weight at home, and obviously not something people had just lying around in case of an emergency. Yeah, this is pretty import…

> In normal times it's incredibly wasteful for each individual to stockpile their own redundant junk, rather than share a common pool with others This has not been my experience at all. I used to have a membership to my local gym for my wife, myself, and their childcare program (basically watch your kids while you exercise for 1 hour). I cancelled that membership and instead put that same amount of money into buying…

Wasteful on a societal level, not an individual level. If everyone did what you did, we'd all need more space, and a non-trivial amount of steel. Hard to do that if you live in a studio apartment, etc. You just can't apply your situation across the population.

Personally I can walk to my gym, and I get far greater quality and variety of equipment by not having to pay for, maintain and store it myself. There are no duplicate machines at my gym, yet it spans a whole warehouse, and I've used every machine at some point as my programme evolved.

As a renter, when I move I don't have to lug hundreds of kg of weights and equipment with me.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#910

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general reply, not only to the parent comment. I’m indeed cherry-picking though I didn’t carefully check the numbers. My point is we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things and make minimal efforts to ride this out, and by not changing our lifestyles, we are passing the risk on to others, some of whom may be vulnerable and some of whom don’t have any option to not go to work (for example) to reduc…

> we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things The "more trivial things" like normal social interaction, employment, and healthy exercise? I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. If you think causing at least tens of thousands of suicides since the start of the lockdowns, impoverishing millions of people for years to come, a…

I'm not sure why people prefer to cling to tribal preferences rather than actually resolve disputes in a mutually agreeable fashion. Surely there is a way for everyone's needs to be met with creative solutions?
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