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Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

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Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#41

Post by tonyedgecombe »

wrnr wrote: post #4

C2 are really fun to drive if you are at the wheel, but the back seat is like a big beach chair. The ones with a piece of cloth suspended on a frame. Do you think in a world of autonomous driving cars, we can make the cars lighter again? I suspect that in the future, around 2100, there will probably be a lucrative industry around turning old-timers into self driving vehicle. Once a technology is commoditised it needs…

A friend of mine had one which went up in flames. There was a lot of paper ducting around the engine that eventually got soaked in oil with inevitable results.

It was interesting to drive, mostly I remember it would lean a long way over going round bends.

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#42

Post by throwaway743 »

pjc50 wrote: post #25
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #3

Something that seems not to be considered by many observers is that if a disease is not eliminated, it will continuously either claim lives or reduce efficiency (which claims lives).

Yes, people are really underestimating the effects of the virus that aren't fatal. While I know nobody that's died from it I know several who've been off sick for weeks.

To add, it's a bit concerning seeing that the military has put a ban on enlisting those who have tested positive, were hospitalized, and recovered without the ability to be waivered. (I mentioned this in another post about a week ago when it was reported).

Then just a few days ago, it was reported that ~13 sailors who were positive, recovered, isolated, then tested negative two times in a row, retested positive and some were showing symptoms again.

It could be due to inaccuracies in testing, but given that some showed symptoms again and tested positive, it seems possible that they either didn't develop an immunity and caught it again, or this could be a chronic illness.

The reason for banning enlistees being a vague "as a precaution", is a little suspicious. Who knows though. Regardless, it's a something to keep an eye on as it develops.

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#43

Post by mirimir »

Lazare wrote: post #2

Some good points, although I'd toss another thought into the mix. The confinements and shutdowns and shelter in place orders also cost lives. We know that recessions cost lives. One study (published in The Lancet, so worth taking a second look at) suggested 500k excess cancer deaths from the global financial crisis[1], and another study (published in the BMJ) suggested that excess suicides in 2009 alone across the US…

Haven't they also cost lives from hindered access to medical care for stuff unrelated to Covid-19?

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#44

Post by js8 »

I find the complaint that it is harder to do something today, for safety reasons, a bit odd. Isn't the attempt to eliminate more and more human suffering a sign of moral progress?

It seems to me that inevitably, if you attempt to save marginally more lives, the technology to do so will become more complex.

But conversely, why have all the associated complexity of technology, if the human suffering is not reduced? What is the goal then?

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#45

Post by pjc50 »

throwaway743 wrote: post #42
pjc50 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people are really underestimating the effects of the virus that aren't fatal. While I know nobody that's died from it I know several who've been off sick for weeks.

To add, it's a bit concerning seeing that the military has put a ban on enlisting those who have tested positive, were hospitalized, and recovered without the ability to be waivered. (I mentioned this in another post about a week ago when it was reported). Then just a few days ago, it was reported that ~13 sailors who were positive, recovered, isolated, then tested negative two times in a row, retested positive and s…

> just a few days ago, it was reported that ~13 sailors who were positive, recovered, isolated, then tested negative two times in a row, retested positive and some were showing symptoms again.

It's unfortunate that the guy who highlighted the problems on the Roosevelt was also fired.

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#46

Post by rswail »

leereeves wrote: post #20
drapred7 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That likely depends on how effective we are at eliminating it in the coming months. I doubt it will become endemic in Korea or Singapore. I wonder if even influenza could be erraticated in the coming years with mass testing and contact tracing. The lockdowns ended flu season early this year.

We'd have to eliminate it worldwide, or it would travel from country to country like the flu does. In particular, from Mexico. There's too much travel between the US and Mexico to prevent it from crossing the border, and there are 50,000 confirmed cases in Mexico already, with roughly 2000 more being found every day.

Given the relative number of cases, Mexico should be stopping travel from the US, not the other way around.

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#47

Post by Lazare »

pmiller2 wrote: post #29
Lazare wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They undoubtedly do cost lives but: 1) You're looking at net lives, and there's no particular reason to think we're net negative yet . Let's imagine a brief lockdown to avoid overwhelming the emergency rooms with people needing ventilators is very net positive. And let's imagine crippling the economy by fully locking down everything until a vaccine passes clinical trials in 18 months is very net negative. Even if you…

Regarding point 3, I think your examples, being individual sports that people choose to participate in, are kind of straw men. For one, relatively few people die doing them. For another, as I mentioned, they're activities that people participate in, knowing that there are some serious risks. A better example would be "let's end all farm subsidies for sugar and tobacco." You could arguably include corn here, as well.…

My point isn't that they're equivalent (they're not), but that the analysis never stops at "this will save lives, so we should do it". There's always more layers, such as here your very valid analysis of whether people are choosing to participate.

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#48

Post by watwut »

ekianjo wrote: post #40
watwut wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have incredible amount of regulations on what personal vehicles can do and how they can be made. We did not just accepted deaths from automobiles, we wrote driving rules, mandate seat bells, automobile makers have to prove their cars pass safety tests.

Yet we still have dozens of thousands of people dying from them every year and nobody stops sleeping at night at the same time.

Unites States have 35,000 to 40,000 car crashes deaths per year. It is what we get. Cumulative Covid deaths so far were 90,694 and it is not done yet.

> nobody stops sleeping at night at the same time

When driving deaths go up, people do react. There are driving safety campaigns, dont drive drunk campaigns, wear seatbelts campaigns. The roads are changed, signs are put up, speed limits are placed.

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#49

Post by Normal_gaussian »

pmiller2 wrote: post #30
luckylion wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there reasonable hope for a virus like this to be completely eliminated? I figure if it's in that sweet spot of contagiousness, incubation time and mortality, it's hard to eradicate completely. And unless it's eradicated completely, we'll absolutely have to live with reduced efficiency in hyper-alert testing of anyone with symptoms, unless we find that it ceases to be a serious problem once humans have had contact…

I'm not sure the person you're responding to was using it in this sense, but the word "eliminate," in epidemiological terms, means to get the virus under control such that outbreaks are reduced in scope to local clusters that can be dealt with using methods like contact tracing. In that sense, yes, we absolutely can, and should, eliminate this virus.

You're right - I was using it in a totality sense. While I know enough to know it won't get there the point was to draw the extreme and highlight that deaths aren't the only cost on the scale from here to there.

Re: Deconfinement: The Price of Human Life

#50

Post by lbeltrame »

sigotirandolas wrote: post #32
boomboomsubban wrote: post #28

>The Hong Kong Flu caused more deaths than are projected for this current pandemic and yet, at the time, no one thought of bringing entire economies to a halt. The other way to look at it, even with the quarentine this pandemic will kill a similar number of people. If the reports were true that "half the workers were in bed," that would mean there were millions of cases, yet only ~50k deaths. Compare that to the curr…

There have been many, many more cases than the official confirmed (=medically tested/diagnosed positive) cases. For example data in Spain points to 5% prevalence (~2M infected) with ~25k deaths (official number, may be higher due to unverified and side cases).

Do you know if the serological data in Spain has also per-city estimates? I doubt the 5% is evenly distributed across the population, I'm expecting higher percentages in Madrid, for example.
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