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The plans to reopen the economy are scary

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Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#131

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ztjio wrote: post #96
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #43

I'm extremely skeptical of any analysis that discusses political non-viability at this point. If you asked any commentator 2 months ago whether it was politically viable to issue general stay at home orders, or to give every American a bunch of free money, or to pass a multi-trillion dollar stimulus bill, they would have told you no.

Giving every American a token cash handout is something Republicans have done before, it's hardly unbelievable if you actually have historical context. And by far most of that bill is corporate handouts. And the oversight has been fired. Everything about this aligns exactly with what you'd expect politically. It's a debacle. Furthermore, while there has been a lot of shutdown, it's not equal across the board. Tons of…

You're not wrong, but the first part is largely what I'm talking about. When people say something is "light-years beyond the kind of political leadership and public-private coordination we’ve seen thus far", I don't think they're doing a principled analysis of what political leadership or coordination has been able to accomplish in the past.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#132

Post by jshevek »

siscia wrote: post #70
superkuh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We are basically pausing the life of younger people, indefinitely, to protect the elders. No, we're pausing the life of everyone to protect everyone. If you overload the hospital systems then everyone dies. If you pause and keep things barely managable then mostly only old people die.

I believe we both agree that locking down 20/30 years old people who still have to study, to meet people, to make experience, to find lovers and to find themselves is very different that lock down 70/80 years old people right? Then there is no doubts that the virus hit hardest the elders. Again, what I am saying is that younger people are hit by the lockdown much more than the elders while being the less concerned ab…

You think that old people have less of a need to socialize and have experiences?

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#133

Post by desc »

Bad shit happens to a minority of people every day, permanently disrupting their lives and forcing them to abandon long-term plans. The majority remain oblivious and see an enduring status quo.

Suddenly a Black Swan craps on everyone at once, and a great many people are whining 'why is this happening to me' and 'when will someone fix this so I can go back to my routine'.

Guess what? Your routine is probably fucked. Throw it out, get used to the new normal, and accept that no one knows how to fix this (yet?), just like every other time we get hit by a context-changing problem.

Of course some people get too attached to their context, and those who come later and find their remains might label such events as 'out-of-context problems'...

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#134

Post by a_tractor »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #61
eloff wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had just closed their borders earlier could this have all been avoided? Seems like that would have been a lot cheaper. Definitely border restrictions plus testing seems to be effective in keeping it out, see Taiwan. Once you get enough local transmission going then it didn't matter anymore. Every western country reacted too slowly in this regard.

No because you cannot close borders off to American citizens. Even travel bans aren't terribly effective because you can pass through other countries or be infected in other countries.

We'd just need something like Ellis Island to quarantine returning travelers who are American citizens, simple as that.

But realistically unless they imposed a blanket 2 week quarantine, they would just be letting the asymptomatic carriers through anyway. Nobody was prepared that early to go to such extreme measures.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#136

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

blihp wrote: post #124
siscia wrote: post #40

For how much I understand the need to lower the curve and reduce the R0 of the infection, I start to see also another argument. We are basically pausing the life of younger people, indefinitely, to protect the elders. Again, since the quarantine started in my area I exist twice to buy groceries and that's all. So I understand the need and the importance of it. But should I really throw away on year of my life? Should…

You misunderstand the current exercise. The only thing these stay at home policies are designed to do is keep the healthcare system from collapsing by slowing the spread of the virus. That's it since we are way past the point of having any hope of containing it. Sure, the immediate beneficiaries are those at highest risk from the virus. But younger people who fall on the extreme end of the symptoms would also be dyin…

I agree with what you're saying, but it's not a misunderstanding - the original article really is saying that the stay at home policies are designed to contain the virus and won't end until a containment plan is in place.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#137

Post by mcnamaratw »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #98
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been making this argument since before the lock down. But on the contrary to your prediction, the argument has seemed sillier and sillier the more we see the effects of the virus. Things are really freakin bad, and that's with a lockdown. I suspect that all but a very small minority will be able to see the sense in spending serious effort on mitigation for the foreseeable future. Even if people somehow ma…

The argument against a few weeks of lockdown has seemed sillier and sillier. The situation's very bad, and it's worth spending serious effort to mitigate for the foreseeable future. A ban on all social activity for years is far beyond "serious effort to mitigate". Millions of lives isn't worth a global dystopia.

Years of lockdown really would be draconian and I think we could start to compare it to the value of human lives. I think we need much more focus on how and when the isolation ends.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#138

Post by greedo »

elephantscan wrote: post #135

When are we just going to admit that our choices are: 1) indefinite lockdown 2) everyone gets the virus Between a 0.5% chance of dying, and life imprisonment, I'd take my chances.

Because you're leaving out the third choice: control the rate of infection so that the chance of dying is lowered.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#139

Post by ashildr »

siscia wrote: post #70
superkuh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We are basically pausing the life of younger people, indefinitely, to protect the elders. No, we're pausing the life of everyone to protect everyone. If you overload the hospital systems then everyone dies. If you pause and keep things barely managable then mostly only old people die.

I believe we both agree that locking down 20/30 years old people who still have to study, to meet people, to make experience, to find lovers and to find themselves is very different that lock down 70/80 years old people right? Then there is no doubts that the virus hit hardest the elders. Again, what I am saying is that younger people are hit by the lockdown much more than the elders while being the less concerned ab…

On wednesday I was shown the obduction pictures of a ~30yo regular guy from my city, who had holes in his lung, by a friend who‘s working in ICU.

This friend basically said that if you are young and need to be ventilated you enter ICU with a better lung than older people.

So when you leave ICU you have enough lung left to not die. You would have died with an overwhelmed ICU, though, and you‘ll likely need a long time to get back the health you had before. If ever.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#140

Post by crispyambulance »

viklove wrote: post #130
nostromo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, this context is important. Swine flu killed between 150,000 to 575,000 globally in 2009, and almost nobody even remembers it. HIV is a recent pandemic that many living people have lived through, from discovery to treatment. And of course the flu, which is different than SARSCoV2, kills between 250,000 and 500,000 each and every year. If you're 30 years old, between 7 and 15 million people have died from fl…

Coronavirus has already killed 100k, and we're still in the first quarter.

Yep, and also we don't have overloaded hospitals, young people critically ill, mass graves, and unplugged global economy for the flu.

It's hard to argue that this isn't _VASTLY_ worse than the flu in both scope and intensity.

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