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A case for ending lockdown

ryankemper.io

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Re: A case for ending lockdown

#171

Post by TeMPOraL »

wegs wrote: post #169
docdeek wrote: post #128

> Encourage at-risk groups to self quarantine, and utilize testing to protect them...Those with obesity and COPD Author suggests self-quarantine for the obese instead of quarantine/lockdown for everyone. The CDC suggests that +42% of the US adult population is obese [0]. Are we really going to isolate or quarantine 4 out of 10 US adults and imagine the economy can get back on track? [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/d…

Hey, I switched to working from home seamlessly. Many other people did too. There's plenty of at-home work. If I bought the assumption that getting COVID19 was relatively safe for me, I'd gladly swap jobs to keep someone else safe, especially if it meant moving up in the world. An at-risk individual could do my job, and I'd take their in-person job. While I think there are better mechanisms, free markets could take c…

What you describe would work if jobs were so commoditized that everyone could jump between them without any kind of onboarding or training. As it is, a new employee almost always provides negative value to the company for the first weeks or months, depending on the job particulars. So what would happen in many (most?) places is companies preferring to force the existing employees to come to work, rather than let them swap the job with someone else.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#172

Post by jedimastert »

yostrovs wrote: post #162
docdeek wrote: post #128

> Encourage at-risk groups to self quarantine, and utilize testing to protect them...Those with obesity and COPD Author suggests self-quarantine for the obese instead of quarantine/lockdown for everyone. The CDC suggests that +42% of the US adult population is obese [0]. Are we really going to isolate or quarantine 4 out of 10 US adults and imagine the economy can get back on track? [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/d…

"Are we really going to isolate or quarantine 4 out of 10 US adults and imagine the economy can get back on track?" Better than everyone pulling their hair out at home. Plus, why not have people choose themselves whether they're healthy enough to take chances and go out to work?

> Plus, why not have people choose themselves whether they're healthy enough to take chances and go out to work?

Three reasons immediately spring to mind:

1. It's a very well established fact that C19 can transmitted by asymptomatic people. "Healthy enough" does not mean "safe"

2. Ignoring that fact, I know can personally name several people who would absolutely go to work sick.

3. I've have several employers who would say "Do totally have a choice...come in or you're fired and I'll find someone else who will do it". This includes a very vivid memory of a manager telling one employee that she doesn't not have a valid excuse to miss her shift while she was still weeping because her grandmother had died.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#173

Post by frostburg »

pwpwp wrote: post #157
stupidcar wrote: post #121

What about the situation in northern Italy? In the absence of a lockdown, the healthcare system did collapse, or came very close to doing so and this was only averted when the government implemented draconian quarantine policies. The article claims that the survival of the healthcare system in places that implemented a lockdown has nothing to do with the lockdown, but then gives no evidence at all to back up that ass…

Northern Italy's health system also collapsed in 2018 (and probably other years, too) from the flu: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&u=https%3...

The term "collapse" isn't used correctly there. The accurate title would have been "somewhat strained locally".

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#174

Post by lloeki »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #166
yostrovs wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Are we really going to isolate or quarantine 4 out of 10 US adults and imagine the economy can get back on track?" Better than everyone pulling their hair out at home. Plus, why not have people choose themselves whether they're healthy enough to take chances and go out to work?

> Plus, why not have people choose themselves whether they're healthy enough to take chances and go out to work? Because people who chose to take that risk will still go back to their homes and infect people who'd rather not, or can't afford to.

Because "healthy enough" doesn't mean not contagious.

Because people go to work sick otherwise they can't put food on the table, especially in a country where not going to work massively means losing your job in a country without a sensible, humane healthcare system.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#175

Post by watwut »

np_tedious wrote: post #100
chente wrote: post #3

Everyone is an epidemiologist in a pandemic.

I have yet to find a directionally-lockdown-lessening argument from an epidemiologist. Are you aware of any? This and David Katz are the closest things I've read. It seems to me these are big questions that necessitate a healthy debate considering all the pros and cons of lockdown measures. There's a lot of moving parts and dimensions: time, which activities should be resumed or kept closed, who should observe what p…

The imperial college recommended interminnent lockdowns - lock, release, lock, release and so on depending on how you keep it under control. Does that count?

Germany is having this discussion and Czech republic too. In both cases, epidemiologist recommend slight release of rules (not a big one, but still lowering lockdown).

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#176

Post by wheelerwj »

> I’m a software / site reliability engineer

okay, thanks.

Seriously, the list of scientist and medical organizations advising through this period is so long, I don't know why anyone who isn't at equally experienced tries to counter-claim their insights.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do our own research and arrive at our own conclusion, but if you arrive at a different conclusion, you're almost certainly the one whose incorrect. It's so likely that you're wrong, that you must question the logic and data you used to arrive at your conclusion.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#177

Post by q084yn39cptyth »

katktv wrote: post #123
stupidcar wrote: post #121

What about the situation in northern Italy? In the absence of a lockdown, the healthcare system did collapse, or came very close to doing so and this was only averted when the government implemented draconian quarantine policies. The article claims that the survival of the healthcare system in places that implemented a lockdown has nothing to do with the lockdown, but then gives no evidence at all to back up that ass…

I also just have to point out that Sweden, the country that didn't implement lockdown, has 6 times higher amount of COVID-19 cases than other Scandinavian countries when adjusted. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-fatality-r...

The missing variable in this is what happens when you lift lockdown in the absence of a treatment or vaccine.

Comparisons with eg Sweden at this point have always seemed strange to me because the whole point of a herd immunity approach is to increase exposure initially, which will necessarily involve deaths being less spread out. The real question is, after a year, what's the total excess mortality including non-COVID cases due to delayed treatments due to lockdown etc. (which are never included in the models, which focus on one disease, and would take time to manifest) ?

I'm not opposed to shelter in place but the endgame logic has always been unclear, and as such, classist. The right way to do it, for example, is to pay people to stay home.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#178

Post by icebraining »

jedimastert wrote: post #172
yostrovs wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Are we really going to isolate or quarantine 4 out of 10 US adults and imagine the economy can get back on track?" Better than everyone pulling their hair out at home. Plus, why not have people choose themselves whether they're healthy enough to take chances and go out to work?

> Plus, why not have people choose themselves whether they're healthy enough to take chances and go out to work? Three reasons immediately spring to mind: 1. It's a very well established fact that C19 can transmitted by asymptomatic people. "Healthy enough" does not mean "safe" 2. Ignoring that fact, I know can personally name several people who would absolutely go to work sick. 3. I've have several employers who wou…

I think they're saying about "healthy enough to withstand the virus", not virus-free.

(3) is still a valid concern. Government policy could help, but it'd be weird (and provoke a major public backlash, no doubt) if us fat people got a stipend for being fat.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#179

Post by mchusma »

mchusma wrote: post #160

Thank you for the time and effort in the write up as well as your engagement, it is what we need. 2 points: while I sort of get your "order of magnitude lik a flu" point I think it undermines your argument because you get lumped in with crazies. In your comments you also seem to conflate pandemic flu with seasonal flu, so I would suggest using "seasonal flu" if that is what you mean to avoid confusion. I think there…

One other quick note on my point above about case for lockdown. I am sure there are a ton of unknowns on the actual costs of the lockdown, but a back of the envelope suggest maybe 2 weeks of GDP seem directionally correct for the US, or about $1T. Assuming a QALY value of $100k. If you assume the official lockdown saved even 500k lives (only considering official lockdown, not other measures like voluntary social distancing, etc). If you assume the QALY for the group that died is 6 (I read this estimate somewhere but don't have source, seems to make ballpark sense because deaths are weighted towards elderly with comorbitities).

Then you have a value of 100k500k6=$300B vs about $1T cost.

You can play around with these variables, for example if you feel in the US our value for a QALY should be 2x Canada and 4x UK, then use $200k. If you feel that the majority of the viral suppression was from masks, distancing, and other voluntary efforts, then you might reduce the lives saved by the lockdown estimate down to 100k.

Again, I dislike "like the flu" arguments, because I think we can just debate the actual merits of a policy. In this case, using almost any assumptions, the lockdown doesn't make sense versus other health measures we could be spending money on.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#180

Post by aga98mtl »

empath75 wrote: post #146
dxsh wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden has much larger nursing homes than, for example, Norway, and most deaths in Sweden are from nursing homes. The time integral of the curve over 1 year will tell the real story.

Most deaths in most countries are in nursing homes. Do we not care if older people die?

I think the point was that the total death count at this time is related with the size of nursing homes. Norway has numerous very small nursing home. Sweden has very big nursing home. All over the world we see that big nursing homes are impossible to protect. Belgium locked down harder than Sweden but has the worst stats in Europe. The nursing home death are often 80% to 90% of all death.

COVID-19 is bad, but if you exclude the nursing homes from the stats it doesnt justify the lockdown damage. Is there a realistic plan to isolate big nursing homes somewhere?

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