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A case for ending lockdown

ryankemper.io

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Re: A case for ending lockdown

#281

Post by [deleted] »

wlll wrote: post #237
grumple wrote: post #165

The premise of this post is extremely flawed: > Weeks and months later, facts on the ground show that the purported collapse of the healthcare system did not occur. Yes, because we locked down population centers quickly. That's the whole point. ICUs have still been over capacity though. Without the lockdowns, it's obvious we'd have a lot more dead people the past month. > Moreover, this was not due to success in seri…

"I don't understand it, I surrounded my house with sandbags and the flood waters didn't get in, clearly sandbags do nothing"

[deleted]

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#282

Post by whatisthiseven »

ryankemper wrote: post #20
ohlookabird wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, will definitely read it, but on a first glance I couldn't see any information on your background or experience in the field of epidemiology or a related science. It would definitely help to put your thoughts into context and if you have a background in this field it would give your collection of thoughts more weight. With all the misinformation going around I resorted to mainly listen to scientists in the rel…

I have no directly relevant credentials whatsoever and don't claim to. (I actually considered saying as such in the writeup but it's already so verbose that I felt it wasn't worth it). I'm just a dude that likes to read research papers. As an aside, there is totally an archetype of the software engineer that thinks they're equipped to dive into unrelated fields, and I definitely match that trope. I will say in my def…

> Indeed having credentials makes it that much easier to fall prey to cognitive distortions

And having no credentials makes it even easier to make blatantly wrong assessments, to read the data incorrectly, to completely misunderstand terms of art, to accidentally believe that because you are smart, you can evaluate another field easily with some hard thinking.

Having no credentials means you are likely to not know what you don't know, and so gloss over an entire section of a field when making conclusions. It means not having worked with similar data before to help build a "sniff test" for when something in your work doesn't look right.

The difference between no credentials and credentials in assessing a complex topic and communicating that to a broad audience is as a vast as the difference between the seasonal flu and coronavirus.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#283

Post by mistersquid »

ryankemper wrote: post #59
mistersquid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I am not arguing for containment but for graduated exposure while maintaining health care capacity. While it is true that some health care providers are experiencing a decline in demand due to, for example, people no longer seeking medical attention for (e.g.) coronary problems and other non-respiratory ailments, this is not the health care capacity that matters with regard to coro…

> While it is true that some health care providers are experiencing a decline in demand due to, for example, people no longer seeking medical attention for (e.g.) coronary problems and other non-respiratory ailments, this is not the health care capacity that matters with regard to coronavirus infections. Right, but in this case it's leading to workers getting furloughed. So that is a direct lowering of capacity, alth…

Yes, the same to you: thank you for engaging with me and thinking carefully about what the data--poor though they may be--might mean.

I'm more reconciled to the idea of "ending lockdown", and would characterize my position as one of guarded reluctance, especially until such a time that medical and public infrastructure can provide widespread testing.

That said, I think the value of our discussion is more intellectual than practical given the data are secondhand, the data are unreliable, we are not medical experts, even medical experts disagree, and much remains unknown and unknowable about how the coronavirus epidemic will mitigate or exacerbate in response to human behavior.

That said, perhaps you might find the current Federal guidelines for reopening economies interesting if not heartening. [0] I found two things especially interesting: 1) the articulation of criteria for assessing whether, 2) the outline of a phased approach to reopening.

[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/openingamerica/

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#284

Post by cbHXBY1D »

rootusrootus wrote: post #213
ashtonkem wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve started explicitly telling people in my life that I’m not interested in their non-expert opinions when they weigh in on when we should open up.

Do you tell that to everyone, as soon as they open their mouth with a thought, or only the folks who suggest we should ease the lockdown sooner? It would be interesting on HN if we developed a habit of interrogating everyone for their credentials and shouting them down immediately if they're just another software engineer.

>It would be interesting on HN if we developed a habit of interrogating everyone for their credentials and shouting them down immediately if they're just another software engineer.

That would be horrible but anyone who is a specialist in a field knows how consistently wrong the HN hivemind is on any subject outside the realm of software. This place is perhaps the biggest community of people who overestimate their knowledge on any subject when in reality they have little knowledge/expertise in said subject.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#285

Post by ashtonkem »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #279
vonmoltke wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's offline because someone at those plants got sick and the companies can't operate the plants safely or effectively without additional PPE or modifications. The vast majority of the workforce itself is fine, and people are not what is needed to restart the plants.

The plant is shut down because it's a safety hazard to operate in its current form. It's a transmission hotspot, 200 people have tested positive, according to the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/13/south-dakota...

6.5% of the plant is already sick, and that’s half of the states positive cases. That’s ... less than great.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#286

Post by TeMPOraL »

bluGill wrote: post #210
TeMPOraL wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fortunately at will employment works both ways. I can't be forced to come to work. They of course can refuse to allow me to come back in a few years after this is over but if they want someone today they need to entice them somehow. If things are now risky than they may need to offer hazard pay. Note that a company giving a bad reference because you refuse the terms is likely to lose a lawsuit (in the US) since court…

> Note that a company giving a bad reference because you refuse the terms is likely to lose a lawsuit (in the US)

How often do these kinds of lawsuits happen anyway? I'm imagining that engaging in one is also a career-limiting move in itself, but maybe the situation is better?

> Fortunately at will employment works both ways

This pandemic is really turning the world upside down; things that were favoring one group of people suddenly turn around and favor the previously exploited one...

> courts will find it reasonable for someone to refuse to come into work given the experts advice at this time

One of the things I've noticed during this crisis is how big a responsibility rests on the shoulders of government and NGOs alike. I could describe the behavior of most of the market in February and March as a large responsibility deflection game. So many companies knew what should be done, and were ready to do it, but were openly waiting until relevant governments started issuing emergency rulings that gave them no other choice. For instance, late March I was still getting messages from a travel agency that boiled down to, "we understand that you think it's bad out there, and safety of everyone is paramount, but the government's foreign affairs bureau did not issue a ban on travel to Italy, so all is fine and everyone's going to Rome as scheduled". And yes, there was no travel ban issued; it was only "highly discouraged" for ~2 weeks before the country went into lockdown.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#287

Post by areyousure »

gbrown wrote: post #218
grumple wrote: post #165

The premise of this post is extremely flawed: > Weeks and months later, facts on the ground show that the purported collapse of the healthcare system did not occur. Yes, because we locked down population centers quickly. That's the whole point. ICUs have still been over capacity though. Without the lockdowns, it's obvious we'd have a lot more dead people the past month. > Moreover, this was not due to success in seri…

Yeah, if you model New York with an appropriate epidemiological model using just mortality (which is more reliable than cases), the lockdown event is massive and trivial to detect. Anyone who claims otherwise is either dishonest or foolish.

Here is some data on travel and transit in New York: https://visitdata.org/bydatesel/New%20York/New%20York/Travel...

Can you detect the lockdown, which took effect at 8PM on Sunday, March 22?

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#288

Post by rootusrootus »

cbHXBY1D wrote: post #284
rootusrootus wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you tell that to everyone, as soon as they open their mouth with a thought, or only the folks who suggest we should ease the lockdown sooner? It would be interesting on HN if we developed a habit of interrogating everyone for their credentials and shouting them down immediately if they're just another software engineer.

>It would be interesting on HN if we developed a habit of interrogating everyone for their credentials and shouting them down immediately if they're just another software engineer. That would be horrible but anyone who is a specialist in a field knows how consistently wrong the HN hivemind is on any subject outside the realm of software. This place is perhaps the biggest community of people who overestimate their kno…

The encouraging thing about HN is that much of the community seems aware of the propensity for software engineers to think they have the answer to all the problems of the world. IMO, acknowledging that and not taking ourselves too seriously helps keep this forum from completely degenerating into another Reddit.

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#289

Post by Balgair »

gbrown wrote: post #218
grumple wrote: post #165

The premise of this post is extremely flawed: > Weeks and months later, facts on the ground show that the purported collapse of the healthcare system did not occur. Yes, because we locked down population centers quickly. That's the whole point. ICUs have still been over capacity though. Without the lockdowns, it's obvious we'd have a lot more dead people the past month. > Moreover, this was not due to success in seri…

Yeah, if you model New York with an appropriate epidemiological model using just mortality (which is more reliable than cases), the lockdown event is massive and trivial to detect. Anyone who claims otherwise is either dishonest or foolish.

The Washington Post had a good article a while ago on the issues with estimating death rates. The math is a bit complex, so I'll let them explain it to you (instead of a HN comment box). It's nuanced, as these pandemic things tend to be.

TLDR: We're undercounting deaths due to covid-19 by ~60% nationally, and 40% in NYC.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/cov...

Re: A case for ending lockdown

#290

Post by chente »

ryankemper wrote: post #24
chente wrote: post #3

Everyone is an epidemiologist in a pandemic.

I don't pretend to bear credentials. I submitted a writeup asking for feedback from those who might disagree with my conclusions; i.e. people like you. I am encouraging you to poke holes in what I've written, and I can tell you straight up that there are holes. So...do you have any feedback about the content here?

Stick to software development.
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