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California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

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Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#151

Post by thawaway1837 »

jfoster wrote: post #95
afthonos wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are unfortunately baked into our accounting, much like “killed by bandits” was accounted for in medieval trade until states started being able and willing to provide meaningful security.

But the assumptions in many of them were made a long time ago and don't necessarily apply anymore. In the case of air pollution for example, there probably exists a price that could be paid to significantly reduce it and improve the overall health of everyone.

The issue is that the price is paid by a set of people who are different from the people who benefit from this.

And the people who benefit are the ones in power, whereas the ones who suffer are the ones without power.

So the trade offs are largely not accepted because they are acceptable to society at large, but because the people who have the power to make the decisions are insulated from it.

In the US wealth is a decent proxy for power, so this claim can actually easily be quantified.

Simply draw maps correlating the wealth of a neighborhood with the adverse effect being discussed. Whether it’s air pollution levels, or it’s deaths due to car accidents, or mercury in water, or lead in walls, it will invariably be the case the problem correlated strongly with the wealth of the area.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#153

Post by jekoeoe9njdjr »

thawaway1837 wrote: post #151
jfoster wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the assumptions in many of them were made a long time ago and don't necessarily apply anymore. In the case of air pollution for example, there probably exists a price that could be paid to significantly reduce it and improve the overall health of everyone.

The issue is that the price is paid by a set of people who are different from the people who benefit from this. And the people who benefit are the ones in power, whereas the ones who suffer are the ones without power. So the trade offs are largely not accepted because they are acceptable to society at large, but because the people who have the power to make the decisions are insulated from it. In the US wealth is a d…

Saying the masses don’t have power is nonsense

The right organizes groups to show displays of power

The general public can too. Lookit teacher strikes and SOPA

Especially right now with bungling dumbass, people already stuck home, with supplies...

WFH workers should absolutely be striking

SOPA style web blackout, except for supplies services

Or be a fatalist and let old people’s demands to keep their figurative life afloat drive the species off the cliff

Congress would absolutely have to step in as Trump would finally just crumple into his chair and drool

Which is how it was supposed to be in the US. Public pressures Congress into compliance, not each other through government rules about HR and accounting

Humans are biologically programmed to avoid things that make them fearful

Sitting on your butt riding along isn’t stoking much fear in privileged turds

That we have no power at scale is a lack of imagination and to be completely frank, rather pathetic

Web chuds used SOPA to stop their pet issue but can’t be bothered to shut the screen off for the species itself?

Off the cliff we go, I guess

“It’s all the elites fault!”

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#154

Post by amalter »

zaroth wrote: post #148
BubRoss wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is overwhelmed hospitals.

It’s interesting also to note that even hospitals are going bankrupt during all of this, as the vast majority of the money is made on “elective” procedures. Elective in this case doesn’t mean cosmetic, it means an appointment was booked at a certain time. The procedures are still necessary. Hospitals are in fact mostly empty . It’s just the COVID units which were overwhelmed, and even there, most EDs across the US we…

I live around 10 blocks from Brooklyn Hospital Center and I assure you the entire hospital, including atriums, waiting rooms, hallways and even meeting rooms are packed with patient beds.

If your hospital is empty, it’s because of the actions you took. Stop doing those actions, and your neighborhood will soon look like mine soon.

This thing of going to come in so many waves because humans seem to be incapable of not just learning from the past, but also the present.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#155

Post by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 »

mantas wrote: post #111
eropple wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

Domestic violence was up 20% in my country in first weeks of quarantine. Police and social services were super worried it will get worse as quarantine takes longer. I can google you some local media articles if you want to double-check via google translate. It makes sense though. People spend more time together in close quarters. People lost jobs. Lots of stress all around. Perfect storm for beating that bastard you…

Let’s be honest. Most of the people on this site work from home (no financial worry) and are unmarried or probably no kids. They wouldn’t have any idea about the real cost of this quarantine to the 22 million unemployed Americans (and growing) who’s families were hurting even before this forced, indefinite unemployment.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#156

Post by aaron695 »

"Saving State $40 Million Per Day"

As a back of the envelope for that "$40 Million Per Day" we used to spend, we would have gotten something of greater value. Probably far far greater value.

So we are also losing over "$40 Million Per Day" through lost traffic.

There is no silver lining, it's just giving us a minimum of the value of traffic.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#157

Post by pokstad »

In Los Angeles, there may be fewer car accidents but I’m afraid the ones that do occur will be more fatal. The lack of traffic is allowing people to drive at unsafe speeds. While there is dramatically less traffic, there are still a lot of cars on the freeway. The few times I’ve driven on the freeway, there have been many high speed impatient drivers weaving unsafely between the many remaining cars.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#158

Post by greedo »

arcticbull wrote: post #68
lisper wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your risk of dying from a COVID infection is 0.37% I'm 55 so I'm pretty sure my risk is higher than that. Also, the covid risk is highly front-loaded. If I'm gong to die from covid, I'm likely to do so now whereas if I'm going to die in a car crash that might happen now or it might happen later. I don't really care about dying per se. Sooner or later it's going to happen. What I care about is dying sooner and more…

Not really actually! In your age category 50-59 your case fatality rate is 1.3% [1] and given the way it affects the older end of the band more significantly than yourself in the middle of the band, it wouldn't be at all unlikely that your case fatality rate is right around 1%. Further, we have been seeing anywhere from 30-80% of cases are asymptomatic or result in mild flulike symptoms and therefore not accounted fo…

Germany's CFR is north of 3% now, and steadily climbing.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#159

Post by afthonos »

dmarchand90 wrote: post #130
afthonos wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are unfortunately baked into our accounting, much like “killed by bandits” was accounted for in medieval trade until states started being able and willing to provide meaningful security.

I didn't know that "killed by bandits" was a standard in medieval trade logs! Is there a book or article you could happen to recommend to learn more about that?

I was not being literal, though I’m fairly sure I’m right for some not-too-loose definition of the term.

Inspiration did come from The Narrow Corridor[1], which has a good history of the building of state capacity in Europe, and how it affected trade. In particular, cost falls, which is one way “attacked and/or killed by bandits” could be proxied. Another thing that drives down cost is reducing the number of tolls along the road, as discussed in this paper:

https://mason.gmu.edu/~mkoyama2/About_files/StateCapacitySur...

So again, while I don’t think that it’s a stretch to assume traders who had to cross dangerous territories accounted for the dangers, I don’t have a direct source. :-)

[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555400/the-narrow-c...

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#160

Post by greedo »

arcticbull wrote: post #98
Exmoor wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your risk of dying is, accepting the 0.37% for the sake of argument, 0.37% if you're infected . The actual chance of anyone, even of someone in a more dangerous demographic, of dying of Covid in their lifetime is significantly lower than that. Additionally, I believe the 1% chance of dying in a car crash is over the course of a lifetime. A 55 year old has likely lived well over half their life and has also aged past…

> Your risk of dying is, accepting the 0.37% for the sake of argument, 0.37% if you're infected. The actual chance of anyone, even of someone in a more dangerous demographic, of dying of Covid in their lifetime is significantly lower than that. I personally believe that given the R0 and the large number of asymptomatic cases, there's no putting this genie back in the bag, and I agree with prominent epidemiologists th…

You support Sweden's model of ignoring the issue? Not only do they still have a high exponential growth rate, as well as exponentially increasing death counts, but their CFR is atrocious. Also the link in your footnote is extremely outdated, and doesn't mention anything about Sweden.
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