111–120 of 393 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The side effects of exponential growth. It changes minds quickly.
I think the growth is a result of a focused effort to ramp up testing. Meanwhile if we are to have any confidence in the numbers (we probably shouldn't), according to the John's Hopkins counts, New York state currently has a surprisingly low CFR. 38 deaths / 5715 cases = 0.7% CFR
There is currently no plan in place to penalize individuals for gathering socially Then people won't take the rules seriously. Lots of people in this country still don't believe or understand how much damage this virus can inflict.
> > There is currently no plan in place to penalize individuals for gathering socially > Then people won't take the rules seriously. What should the government do to these people? Arrest them? Already there are news headlines saying "US jails begin releasing prisoners to stem Covid-19 infections" [1][2] and from that article, specifically relating to New York: "New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday tha…
In France, people get a fine for being outside without a good reason. In some cases, they also get arrested. Police can be dissuasive, even if (almost) no one will be put into jail.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the growth is a result of a focused effort to ramp up testing. Meanwhile if we are to have any confidence in the numbers (we probably shouldn't), according to the John's Hopkins counts, New York state currently has a surprisingly low CFR. 38 deaths / 5715 cases = 0.7% CFR
38 / 5715 = 0.007 = 0.7%. Which is roughly what we expect. Edit: originally post I replied to said 0.007%
Earlier quoted context omitted.
USA is huge, and the virus is hitting different areas with different intensities. Its spread is heavily impacted by population density and rates of random social encounters. A Nationwide lockdown might make sense if the goal was to snuff the infection out, but as of now the goal is to lower the peak of the curve. If you lock down too early, you extend the infection to a length of time that makes the lockdown impossib…
> A Nationwide lockdown might make sense if the goal was to snuff the infection out The goal needs to be to snuff the infection out. Otherwise, we will be like this for the next year and a half while we wait for the vaccine, which IMO is not acceptable when a little extra short-term sacrifice can get us near eradication inside two months. Also, even if the curve is mediated by density, it seems clear enough that a la…
"Near eradication" is not enough if you want to "snuff it out". COVID-19 started with only a couple of cases. There was a patient zero.
So no, "a little extra short-term sacrifice" would not be enough, because you are very unlikely to catch everything, especially worldwide. Health workers would inevitably catch it by treating patients, and you can't just tell the entire world to stay home for 3 weeks. Even if you could snap your fingers and do that and have everyone obey, we don't have the infrastructure to provide worldwide basic needs, for free, for everyone, in an automated way; billions would die.
Mitigation until vaccine is the only sensible way we know of at this time. Gradual lockdowns to help contain the virus for cities and countries that don't have the testing infrastructure available to seriously prevent spread.
We're lucky that this is treated in days/weeks (rather than months/years), and that we have already found a promising treatment (hydroxychloroquine). It'll help the mitigation phase a lot.
Edit: To address "If we adopt a stance that makes R0 ": This is untrue if you're time-bounding this to "before we make a generally-available vaccine".
There is currently no plan in place to penalize individuals for gathering socially Then people won't take the rules seriously. Lots of people in this country still don't believe or understand how much damage this virus can inflict.
Cuomo is a pragmatist above all else. The mission is flatten the curve. If some asshole decides to have a party and get people sick, that is awful, but the 10 other people who follow the rules will be at lower risk. Instead of the California approach, where you say "don't this, except for reasons 1 ... n", he's attacking the demand side. You can go out, but you don't have anywhere to go. All of the problems get worse…
Facebook and Google sometimes use the expression "one in a million" to describe edge/exception cases which occur every day when you serve many users. The density of NYC is a real-world equivalent, there are continuous exceptions that cannot be centrally predicted and must be micro-locally responded.
There has to be non-zero social interaction of young people who are least at risk, and can recover most quickly. Otherwise the only people being exposed will be essential workers. After recovery, these young people can volunteer to train/run errands for hospitals, reducing load on the system and keeping them active.
In times of crisis, civilians working with each other can make a difference. Wish they had used the language "physical distancing" since people can still coordinate socially (including online).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the growth is a result of a focused effort to ramp up testing. Meanwhile if we are to have any confidence in the numbers (we probably shouldn't), according to the John's Hopkins counts, New York state currently has a surprisingly low CFR. 38 deaths / 5715 cases = 0.7% CFR
Given the exponential growth curves, wouldn't it be more appropriate to compare the number of deaths right now to the number of cases a few days ago? On March 16 (4 days ago) there were 950 identified cases in New York state, yielding a 4% CFR. https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2020/03/how-fast-is-cor...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A Nationwide lockdown might make sense if the goal was to snuff the infection out The goal needs to be to snuff the infection out. Otherwise, we will be like this for the next year and a half while we wait for the vaccine, which IMO is not acceptable when a little extra short-term sacrifice can get us near eradication inside two months. Also, even if the curve is mediated by density, it seems clear enough that a la…
> a little extra short-term sacrifice can get us near eradication inside two months. "Near eradication" is not enough if you want to "snuff it out". COVID-19 started with only a couple of cases. There was a patient zero. So no, "a little extra short-term sacrifice" would not be enough, because you are very unlikely to catch everything, especially worldwide . Health workers would inevitably catch it by treating patien…
> To address "If we adopt a stance that makes R0 Depends on what we get the value to. If we get it to 0.5 or below, as it appears China has done, then probably before we get the vaccine ready. But sure if it's at 0.95 then we will have to wait for the vaccine.
There is currently no plan in place to penalize individuals for gathering socially Then people won't take the rules seriously. Lots of people in this country still don't believe or understand how much damage this virus can inflict.
> > There is currently no plan in place to penalize individuals for gathering socially > Then people won't take the rules seriously. What should the government do to these people? Arrest them? Already there are news headlines saying "US jails begin releasing prisoners to stem Covid-19 infections" [1][2] and from that article, specifically relating to New York: "New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday tha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't this fall under 'martial law'? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_the_United_Stat... "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." I guess the legal argument comes down to a lack of a comma between 'invasion' and 'the public safety'. Or whether a virus constitutes 'invasion'.
Habeas corpus isn’t the issue here. It’s 1st / 5th / 14th amendment issues: - 1st: Right to peacefully assemble - 14th “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” 5th has similar text to 14th. To be clear: I’m not arguing that the various govts. can’t impose quarantines or isolation orders, I’m just outlining which parts of the constitution are relevant to the le…
There is currently no plan in place to penalize individuals for gathering socially Then people won't take the rules seriously. Lots of people in this country still don't believe or understand how much damage this virus can inflict.
Man, I hate this take. I get where it's coming from. In times of significant stress, it's important that we all pull together and do work to benefit society as a whole. And part of the way we incentivize that is by calling out people who don't do their part. I get it. But we are already inundated by outrage journalism, cancel culture, and public shaming. The last thing we need is more of that. We've already got enoug…
People seem to be taking it seriously here, but I'm sure there are plenty of places where people are not.