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The plans to reopen the economy are scary

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191–200 of 214 posts

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#191
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 year old guy died where I live, recently. He leaves behind a young family. Do not pretend this can't hurt young people, badly.

There's also a 12 years old girl dead in Belgium. https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/12-year-old-belgian-girl-becom... The article also contains accounts of two more youngsters dead, at 14 and 16. This thing can kill anyone.

Sure, it can. But its very unlikely.

0.2% chance of death for 30 year olds is roughly the same as a 30 year old's chance of dying in any given year.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#192
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clearly a case of more right leaning areas taking less cautious measures in favor of money. While I see where you’re coming from with this statement, I’m not sure I agree. From where I stand - a town of 13k people surrounded by a large rural area - it makes sense that we’re taking less aggressive action because the virus is not yet endemic here. Given the growth of confirmed cases in my area (northern Arkansas…

Literally everyone in this scenario thinks this way at first because they can't comprehend exponential growth. Nobody can, there are actual studies that show nobody can understand it so it's not a slight. The only way you can convince me based on evidence elsewhere that your scenario is going to be any better than anywhere else is if your leadership in your area is doing aggressive testing, contact tracing and target…

I'm not sure why it's a question of "going to be". The scenario in most states is better than New York, and has been for a while, even though many of them confirmed their first case earlier.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#193
post #186

> "The CAP and Harvard plans both foresee a digital pandemic surveillance state in which virtually every American downloads an app to their phone that geotracks their movements, so if they come into contact with anyone who later is found to have Covid-19, they can be alerted and a period of social quarantine can begin." If this refers to the bluetooth supported apps I've seen developed by several institutions, does t…

> Let's say two people walk past each other on the street or stand close in a shop, as far as we know the risk of transmission is non-existent or extremely low. WTF? What we know is exactly the opposite.

We don't. The primary transmission path is droplets through people in close contact (less than two meters, inhaling aerosols etc..). There is no current evidence that people simply walking past each other can somehow infect others at a meaningful rate, and surface tranmission is negligible as well.

See most recent results from the German researchers in Heinsberg.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a 12 years old girl dead in Belgium. https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/12-year-old-belgian-girl-becom... The article also contains accounts of two more youngsters dead, at 14 and 16. This thing can kill anyone.

Sure, it can. But its very unlikely. 0.2% chance of death for 30 year olds is roughly the same as a 30 year old's chance of dying in any given year.

Which means doubling your chance of death in a year. Can you think of any activity you would willingly engage in that doubles your risk of death in a year? Most people won't even stand outside unprotected in a lightning storm - and this is much worse.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#195

Trump flip-flops within one briefing, let alone over a few days. He'll be saying America's got the bestest, most wonderful, mass-testing that he helped invent and he'd always said mass testing was the way to go within a week or two and everything else is fake news.

The political food fight is hogging bandwidth to the point that it's difficult to discuss how to restart the economy... or even how to get protective equipment to medical professionals. We're all tempted to feed that, but please resist. Thank you.

Daring Fireball's argument is that "Trump is saying X". So of course it's relevant, you can't trust a single thing that man says because he changes his mind within hours if not minutes.

It's a pretty objective truth if you watch any press conference he does.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#196
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…

To protect the elders, yes, but also the young, the frail, the immunocompromised, the asthmatics, the poor, the homeless; human life in general. Also, we are attempting to ensure people going to the hospital for anything else are still actually able to receive care, as healthcare labor is limited and resources are strained. Screw the market.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#197

> "The CAP and Harvard plans both foresee a digital pandemic surveillance state in which virtually every American downloads an app to their phone that geotracks their movements, so if they come into contact with anyone who later is found to have Covid-19, they can be alerted and a period of social quarantine can begin." If this refers to the bluetooth supported apps I've seen developed by several institutions, does t…

Are CAP and Harvard so far in their bubble to realize that not every American has an updated smartphone that can even install new applications, let alone a cell phone at all? This also relies on people having the responsibility to keep their phone charged on their person with the app running at all times.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#198

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.

The whole plan is number 2. We are waiting until this burns out through the population, most people get better, and move on with their lives.

The purpose of social distancing is to slow the burn so our hospitals aren't overwhelmed, and won't have to triage coronavirus patients vs. people with any other sort of emergency coming to the hospital.

This practice will save thousands of lives of people with a bad case of coronavirus, but also the people who get into car crashes, or have problems with giving birth, or heart attacks, or any other reason that requires immediate emergency care.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#199
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK they're now making noises about letting the 20-30 year olds who live alone go back to work first. I imagine this is really code for "if we infect all these low-risk people first, we get a large proportion of our workforce immunised, for a fairly low hospitalisation proportion". I don't know enough about the models, but I also guess having a large chunk of your low-risk population already immune reduces R0 f…

Current plan for Norway is to start gradually opening up after Easter: * Opening up kindergartens, physiotherapy, hair salons and allowing cottage holidays from 20th April * Opening schools for 4 youngest classes, After School and some higher education in final years from 27th April So you go after lowest-hanging fruits gradually, but it's a learning phase and could need rollback if people don't follow restrictions e…

I'm going to be pretty miffed if hair salons here are able to reopen before dentists.

Re: The plans to reopen the economy are scary

#200
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it can. But its very unlikely. 0.2% chance of death for 30 year olds is roughly the same as a 30 year old's chance of dying in any given year.

Which means doubling your chance of death in a year. Can you think of any activity you would willingly engage in that doubles your risk of death in a year? Most people won't even stand outside unprotected in a lightning storm - and this is much worse.

A quick Google suggests that if your risk is representative, a 0.2% additional risk of death equates to going skydiving around 3-400 times in a year.

Or, based on overall fatalities from motorcycles per mile, it would equate to about 8,000 miles per year.

Or, based on light aircraft fatalities per hour, it would be around 200 flight hours in a year.

Of course, you could argue that the casualties from both activities are skewed upwards by people who do stupid things early and don't live long enough to engage in the activity a lot.

Anyway, I'm not particularly agreeing or disagreeing. The risks above are considered reasonable by a lot of people and unreasonable by others.

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