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A Third Solution

paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

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Re: A Third Solution

#261

Post by tim333 »

zaroth wrote: post #243
mastermojo wrote: post #223

Why are there so many armchair quarterbacks in this thread spouting dismissive criticism? Paul already acknowledges that "success is far from guaranteed." If this works, great! If it doesn't, I don't think any of us are worse off... This seems like a heavy application of The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

I’d be less inclined to offer negative opinions on someone making a product that helped manage COVID and financially benefiting from that product, if it; 1) Actually helped solve a problem we face with COVID without doing more harm than good, and 2) Did so in a way that didn’t trample civil liberties with invasive daily tests before allowing someone to leave their house.

Odd objections. We test people already with infrared thermometers but they miss many cases. This would be similar but work better.

Re: A Third Solution

#262

Post by toyg »

distantaidenn wrote: post #218

This is essentially what South Korea did. Granted it was done in a different way but everyone was “tested.” I was there just as covid-19 was on the rise and every shop, every station, and every high traffic area had people set up with thermal guns. Shop staff were having their temps checked before their shifts started. Everyone was gloved and masked. And once they had a proper test in place it was made easily accessi…

They learnt from the previous SARS bout, reportedly thanks to a number of political factors aligning properly.

The sad thing is that basically nobody else did, among major players. Even other countries in the area (i.e. Japan and China) just went “phew!” after SARS and didn’t substantially review their response strategies. Which is how China was caught napping, Japan is still fundamentally in denial, and everyone else got their asses handed to them by covid19.

Re: A Third Solution

#263

Post by maxerickson »

not_a_moth wrote: post #190
maxerickson wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arithmetic on that is ~1 million early deaths in the US. The screening in the article would cost billions of dollars. If it worked, we could then reuse the infrastructure to kill the flu. And then start on the colds.

> The arithmetic on that is ~1 million early deaths in the US. Sorry that's baseless histeria. We can easily think through how healthy people go back to normal (exponentially lower fatality rate than elderly/sick), while vulnerable take more precaution, how then getting to 60% of population gives us herd immunity which grinds R0 to a halt. Then a vaccine arrives in 18 months. Not to mention heat/humidity/summer is be…

New York (state) deaths per infection assuming ~10% overall spread:

10000/(0.1 * (20 million)) = 0.005

Arithmetic to scale that to ~60% of the US:

0.005 * 0.6 * 330 million = 990000

Of course that is hugely sensitive to the assumptions about the overall infection rate in New York and the immunity factor, but like I said, the arithmetic on what you said leads to ~1 million early deaths.

Re: A Third Solution

#264

Post by refurb »

philwelch wrote: post #215
refurb wrote: post #191

I think the ubiquitous testing is the right approach, but I don't think we need a new test. Any test that requires a machine is going to be a severe bottleneck in testing. Far better to use one of the antibody test strips. Prick your finger to get blood, or spit some saliva on a strip and you know in 5 minutes if you have antibodies. Just keep testing everyone on a regular basis, and once they test positive, they are…

Someone would be infected and contagious for awhile before developing antibodies though.

True, but that's unavoidable with every test. Even PCR doesn't work until you're body has produced enough viruses to be detected.

Re: A Third Solution

#265

Post by tim333 »

mrfusion wrote: post #256
zaroth wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be less inclined to offer negative opinions on someone making a product that helped manage COVID and financially benefiting from that product, if it; 1) Actually helped solve a problem we face with COVID without doing more harm than good, and 2) Did so in a way that didn’t trample civil liberties with invasive daily tests before allowing someone to leave their house.

I wonder why we always jump to the China approach of forcing people to do things. Why not use an incentive system instead? You’d need a lot of work to design a good system but for example pay $100 for a positive test and proof that you isolated that day. (For proof of isolation maybe a system texts you at random times and asks for a picture of something in your house. Eg. 10:13am you get a text asking for a picture o…

You don't really need to pay. At the infectious disease place in Marseille they offered free tests, hundreds lined up to get tested and the the number of infections in community dropped dramatically.

Re: A Third Solution

#266

Post by zaroth »

notatoad wrote: post #137
chatmasta wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine going out shopping, you’re stopped at the door, and you test positive. What happens then? The government puts you in a car and sends you... back to your apartment? Sounds like a dystopian nightmare, to be honest.

we're in the middle of a pandemic. at some point you've got to accept that dystopia is here, and the dystopian things that are happening are realistic ways of dealing with the situtuation. you can't reject solutions because they sound dystopian unless you've got better, non-dystopian solutions. and everybody has to stay in their homes at all times and all non-essential services are shut down is not a less dystopian s…

The flu comes every year, and it’s not even a order of magnitude less fatal. Maybe COVID will come back every year too.

What “solution” are you looking for to solve this relatively small share of “death from natural causes” that we call COVID? How much damage should we inflict upon ourselves in this moral quandary?

How many people should die because we’re willing to spend trillions of dollars due to our innate fear of a virus rather than our innate fear of much much bigger problems, like poverty or starvation?

Why can we muster so much energy in this case, and so little on much bigger problems? My theory is that you can’t catch hunger on the subway, you can’t catch underprivilege from a doorknob, and you can’t catch climate change from shaking hands with constituents.

There’s a lot wrong with our planet, it’s too bad we’ll all go bankrupt and unemployed chasing such a trifling disease as COVID when there were actual real problems we could have solved with mountains of cash that large, rather that burning the cash in effigy for modest to no effect once COVID has run its course.

Re: A Third Solution

#267

Post by johnnyo »

aianus wrote: post #114
astrophysician wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Death is sad and terrible, but we don't shut down society because people die. Yea, but COVID has the potential to kill a lot of people, quickly -- are you suggesting it's a bad idea to "shut down society" to keep our hospitals functioning? I get the point that the economic cost is severe and also comes with its own share of human cost, but we're talking about saving ~1-2 million people in the US alone by doing this…

> Several trillion dollars is still worth it $2 trillion is 10% of GDP or the losses in ~6 months of a lockdown resulting in 80% productivity (with the assumption that everything goes back to normal immediately after the shutdown, which it won't) So it seems like a ~6 month lockdown is warranted if you crassly value saving a life from COVID at $1 million. That's not long enough for a vaccine. Alternatively, working b…

We’ve already got a “Value of Statistical Life” in the US, and it’s higher than that. So you could justify lockdown on that alone

EPA recommends that the central estimate of $7.4 million ($2006), updated to the year of the analysis, be used in all benefits analyses that seek to quantify mortality risk reduction benefits regardless of the age, income, or other population characteristics of the affected population

https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...

Re: A Third Solution

#268

Post by arcticbull »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #258
dang wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't cross into personal attack, no matter how wrong another commenter is or you feel they are. It makes the thread strictly worse, and you can make your substantive points without that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair enough. I'm out of ideas for countering this particular argument which has been coming up on HN on almost every virus-related thread recently. Ignoring it doesn't make it sound less convincing and engaging it just results in hopelessly-long back-and-forth citefests between two sides that cannot be convinced by anything the other says. I'm open to other suggestions at the email address in my profile.

This might be a "no right answer" situation honestly, I'm here to challenge my own opinions -- so your thoughts, opinions and data are always welcome and appreciated.

Re: A Third Solution

#269

Post by esahione »

mkl wrote: post #253
esahione wrote: post #242

A fourth solution: force the boomers and vulnerable to retire. Let's bail them out. Let the young take control of the economy. Everybody wins.

Younger people get it too, and some die. Not only that but many older or vulnerable people live with or depend on younger people. Separation like you suggest is simply impossible, and your misbelief that young people are invulnerable is dangerous.

It's like the cold for young people. Stop being a pussy. Everything can kill including driving. We are all going to die.

Re: A Third Solution

#270

Post by tim333 »

refurb wrote: post #191

I think the ubiquitous testing is the right approach, but I don't think we need a new test. Any test that requires a machine is going to be a severe bottleneck in testing. Far better to use one of the antibody test strips. Prick your finger to get blood, or spit some saliva on a strip and you know in 5 minutes if you have antibodies. Just keep testing everyone on a regular basis, and once they test positive, they are…

I tried to order some of those off Alibaba in feb. The current ones never took off because they don't work very well, I think.
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