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I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

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Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#101

Post by brundolf »

zinekeller wrote: post #86
brundolf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not especially "intune with Europe", and that conflict ended when I was a small child, but I knew the violence extended to civilians. Not sure why you assume people wouldn't know that.

I'm referring to the average American populace and not to the average HN poster. For example, I knew the details of the Tokyo Sarin Gas attacks and know that it was caused by a "new religion" cult but an average person outside Japan wouldn't really remember that as clearly as I am (unless you are somehow in Western Australia since a farm area there was refurbished to produce sarin). It is like 9/11 outside America: a…

If a person has watched Derry Girls on Netflix they know about as much as I do

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#102

Post by nradov »

mcbits wrote: post #56
jdminhbg wrote: post #33

This is really poorly reasoned. To take a couple examples: > Using data from flu monitoring programs in prior years, the CDC models project that 70 MILLION Americans have already gotten sick with symptomatic Covid, but decided to just write it off as a bad cold and never got tested. I am not making this up. Why is this hard to believe? Covid testing, especially depending on where you live, can be difficult to obtain.…

Until we have more precise IFR numbers, my simplistic "model" is just to divide the current death count by 0.005, which suggests around 78 million have had an infectious exposure in the US so far. The CDC number doesn't feel surprising. Unfortunately a large number of those infections (far more than recorded cases) happened last spring, so millions of people could be losing their immunity if they've managed to avoid…

The CDC has published their best estimates of IFR by age range.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

SARS-CoV-2 is very similar to other endemic human coronaviruses like HCoV-OC43. Immunity isn't a binary yes or no condition and there are other components to the human immune system beyond just antibodies. The vast majority of recovered patients will likely retain a high level of immunity for many years. As with most viral diseases a small fraction of patients will suffer reinfections but even those typically experience less severe symptoms.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/06/1015822/covid-19...

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#103

Post by legerdemain »

stretchcat wrote: post #75
legerdemain wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russet Burbank potato is 70% of the US market. A blight of this cultivar would be devastating .

How devastating? I expect few if any would starve; we grow more than enough grain to keep people alive. Potatoes farmers would be put in a hard financial situation, but they'd probably get bailed out and could replant with other varieties for the next season.

I don't think the bar is as low as "could the government make enough gruel to keep you from starving." And, given the current experience with vaccine distribution, even that is not certain.

Think of all commercial food products that contain potatoes that could no longer be produced for a time. Potatoes are a significant source of cattle feed. Potato starch has many non-food industrial applications.

Perhaps we wouldn't have millions of deaths, but a year without potatoes would be an historic catastrophe that Americans would remember for decades.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#104

Post by anewaccount2021 »

protoman3000 wrote: post #31

Assuming all it takes is a strict 3 week shutdown, why can’t we have that? Or is the assumption wrong? Why weren’t we able to produce enough stock for 3 weeks of total halt?

There is nothing about the severity of covid that merits shutting down the entire economy.

A full shutdown of the entire economy (i.e. you can't get food or water if you need them) would only be warranted in the case of an existential threat.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#105

Post by jedimastert »

Atlantium wrote: post #5

When I read the headline I thought this article might be about domestic terrorism in the US. When I clicked on the article I saw it it was in fact about COVID-19. This is how I test my assumptions.

I was just thinking about a comment about how the current situation could lead to a US "Troubles"

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#106

Post by Barrin92 »

ls612 wrote: post #73
lynchdt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Irish. +1 on your assessment here. The virulent strain narrative was peddled by the Irish government who went against medical advice and tried to deflect blame. The evidence doesn’t support the narrative. I think the COVID-fatigue angle is quite interesting though. As critical as I am of the government they were under a lot of pressure from the populous to provide some sort of respite.

Isn’t this last bit in some sense a good thing? Representative government changing policies to reflect a shift in the population’s preference after ten months of dealing with these restrictions?

Representative government caving to demands when the demands are terrible, like in this case, is not a good thing. In that moment what is needed is enough guts to see the measures through and fend interest groups off. Loss of leadership and movement towards "the customer is king" politics is responsible for a lot of mistakes in the response to this virus.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#107

Post by bklaasen »

brundolf wrote: post #11
Atlantium wrote: post #5

When I read the headline I thought this article might be about domestic terrorism in the US. When I clicked on the article I saw it it was in fact about COVID-19. This is how I test my assumptions.

I thought the exact same thing- "The Ireland Event" being the Catholic-Protestant conflict in the latter part of the 20th century

We euphemistically call that "The Troubles".

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#108

Post by lern_too_spel »

School-Cotton wrote: post #60

The author’s argument for why it’s implausible that a lot of people don’t get tested is literally “c’mon, man.” That not satisfying to me. I was sick for a few days over the summer. Was it a mild case of Covid? I don’t know, or care. Why should I get tested when that information will change literally nothing about my life?

The author's argument only relies on people being more likely to getting tested for Covid-19 than for the flu, not on them always testing, so your anecdote does not work as a refutation.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#109

Post by nradov »

captain_price7 wrote: post #78

> Using data from flu monitoring programs in prior years, the CDC models project that 70 MILLION Americans have already gotten sick with symptomatic Covid, but decided to just write it off as a bad cold and never got tested. I am not making this up. In Bangladesh, a well-regarded study found that 45% of people in Dhaka, one of the most densely populated regions in the world, had antibodies. This study was conducted b…

A similar study in part of India found an antibody seroprevalence rate of 57% and a corresponding IFR under 0.1%.

https://www.cnbctv18.com/healthcare/57-sero-prevalence-in-sl...

There could be other explanations beyond widespread existing immunity. For example could diet be a factor?

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#110

Post by 8note »

scarmig wrote: post #80
jdminhbg wrote: post #33

This is really poorly reasoned. To take a couple examples: > Using data from flu monitoring programs in prior years, the CDC models project that 70 MILLION Americans have already gotten sick with symptomatic Covid, but decided to just write it off as a bad cold and never got tested. I am not making this up. Why is this hard to believe? Covid testing, especially depending on where you live, can be difficult to obtain.…

>> ...the CDC models project that 70 MILLION Americans have already gotten sick with symptomatic Covid, but decided to just write it off as a bad cold and never got tested... > Why is this hard to believe? I don't agree with the article more broadly, but it does make the point that 70 million prior infections isn't consistent with hospitalization numbers over the summer vs now. The only way I can reconcile those numb…

There's another assumption you can add - that some people are more susceptible than others.

A good portion of hospitalizations and deaths have been the elderly via nursing homes. If those have become safer, it'd make sense that we can have more cases without heavily increasing hospitalizations

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