U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#51

Post by mlyle » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #49

mlyle wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a reasonable somewhat pessimistic (but not worst-case) assumption is that immunity is similar to common-cold coronaviruses; lifelong partial protection, total protection for 24-36 months, some degree of cross-strain reactivity. Kissler et al published a really good analysis of kinematics and transmission dynamics in Science based on what we know about human coronaviruses, cross-immunity, etc. (Now that we are…

> I believe that if you took one of the existing common cold coronaviruses, and introduced it to an immunologically naive population, you'd get a huge incident wave and a whole lot of excess death. Doubtful or you'd see waves of death in children from cold viruses. Common cold viruses have had lots of time to evolve so that they transmit well but don't kill very much. Presumably it's also why our immune systems don't…

> Doubtful or you'd see waves of death in children from cold viruses.

We don't see waves of death in children from COVID-19. The juvenile immune system is different. Children right now have the opportunity to pick up SARS-COV-2 antibodies without a whole lot of personal risk. Elderly adults, not so much.

> Doubtful or you'd see waves of death in children from cold viruses. Common cold viruses have had lots of time to evolve so that they transmit well but don't kill very much.

Everyone assumes that viruses evolve towards lower virulence, but this is only one direction that things can be pressured to evolve. COVID-19 manages to have a very high R0 by a high latent period. Producing a higher viral load enhances spread / R0 but also causes eventual severe illness.

COVID-19's fatality rate is only a disadvantage inasmuch as it causes population-wide behavior changes. It doesn't make people get excessively sick and stay home in a way that they spread the disease less, so we can't really be sure that it will evolve towards lower pathogenicity/virulence.

> There's much more of an evolutionary pressure to be permanently immune to something that can kill or maim you, if you survive.

We have plenty of things we don't build permanent immunity to that kill or maim us-- including SARS-COV-2, MERS, malaria, etc. I doubt this is mankind's first encounter with a really nasty coronavirus.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#52

Post by amalter » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #48

bsder wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead we won't even talk about it until May 4th, and I worry we'll either take too much of a step at once or make a tiny movement much later than we should have tried it. The problem is we STILL don't have enough equipment for healthcare workers if that ICU starts filling up. Part of the reason for the lockdown was to give time for all the equipment industries to spin up. Unfortunately, the US federal government…

Right now in the SF Bay Area, ICUs are below typical seasonal usage and the usage has been declining slowly for 3 weeks. I'm not saying we should "relax", but I think we have evidence that the slightly looser controls employed from mid-March to early April were effective-- that would be a good first step to go to now. Odds are that results in continued reduction, but if it results in slow growth instead we'd be OK in…

ICUs are below occupancy, but hospitals even in the Midwest are declining to do elective procedures because they can’t get enough PPE to handle run of the mill stuff.

The US had been losing actual Hospital capacity every week, even with empty beds.

When those beds fill in wave 2, get ready to donate your rain ponchos and industrial garbage bags.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#53

Post by throwlaplace » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:21 AM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #50

throwlaplace wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Food falls under the economy, the economy isn't just the stock market or things rich people do rich people things in. i'm not a vegetarian but if the choice is between people living and me having access to pork i choose the former.

Luckily, this kind of supply shock isn't possible with produce. This isn't a problem specific to meat at all; the same kind of interruption to supply chains can occur anywhere through the economy. So you don't necessarily have the option of falling back on veggies.

>Luckily, this kind of supply shock isn't possible with produce.

Vegetables have a longer shelf life than meat and grains a longer shelf life still. So you're just wrong.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#54

Post by mlyle » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:22 AM UTC

amalter wrote: post #52

mlyle wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now in the SF Bay Area, ICUs are below typical seasonal usage and the usage has been declining slowly for 3 weeks. I'm not saying we should "relax", but I think we have evidence that the slightly looser controls employed from mid-March to early April were effective-- that would be a good first step to go to now. Odds are that results in continued reduction, but if it results in slow growth instead we'd be OK in…

ICUs are below occupancy, but hospitals even in the Midwest are declining to do elective procedures because they can’t get enough PPE to handle run of the mill stuff. The US had been losing actual Hospital capacity every week, even with empty beds. When those beds fill in wave 2, get ready to donate your rain ponchos and industrial garbage bags.

PPE is a real issue-- I'm not arguing with that. I've been manufacturing a number of things at moderate quantity on my printer farm and cutting lasers.

On the other hand, a whole lot of measures seem to be consuming PPE at a fixed rate-- per personnel-day when COVID is present. That is, PPE usage is not strictly proportional with disease load, because the virus imposes a large fixed load.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#55

Post by williamstein » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

ZainRiz wrote: post #23

More stories about how covid19 is really screwing up other parts of the supply chain Farmers being forced to pour milk down the drain: https://twitter.com/freshairfarmer/status/124787620556452659... Retail toilet paper manufacturers not setup to handle load from people pooping at home instead of work (and corporate TP factories don't know how to sell to grocery stores): https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-gettin…

61,000 chickens killed -- https://www.startribune.com/egg-demand-shifted-and-61-000-mi...

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#56

Post by vkou » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #11

hpoe wrote: post #2

This is what concerns as many people have acted like the economy only effects rich people, or any move that trades the economy for lives is inherently immoral. Food falls under the economy, the economy isn't just the stock market or things rich people do rich people things in. The economy is the vast network stretching across the globe that works to supply goods and services in the places they are needed, when the ec…

That becomes an exercise in defining essential services. I'd be interested in seeing the web of dependency for the absolute basics like food, and what other seemingly non-essential services are required in the production and distribution of food. Then, just within food itself, what of people with allergies and special needs, and separating the "real" from the "I think gluten free means healthier" types. It's the kind…

> That becomes an exercise in defining essential services. I'd be interested in seeing the web of dependency for the absolute basics like food, and what other seemingly non-essential services are required in the production and distribution of food.

There aren't any. If you grow food, you're essential. If you ship food, you're essential. If you fix the trucks that ship food, you're essential. If you fix the air conditioner in the auto shop that fixes the trucks that ship food, you're essential. If you make screws for the air conditioner that gets installed in that auto shop, you're essential.

Read the shutdown orders. They enumerate essential industries, and the list of them is incredibly broad. In Washington state (Which has one of first, and furthest reaching shutdown orders), if you make literally anything that the military uses... You're essential. The list is incredibly broad.

These disruptions are caused directly by the virus getting people sick, and taking them out of work (And their workplaces, until people can get tested, and their workspace can be sanitized) - not the shutdown.

The shutdown actually serves to keep these facilities open, because it has reduced the virus's spread through the population.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#57

Post by HuShifang » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:28 AM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #20

flomk wrote: post #13

I wonder if a meat shortage that causes people who previously hadn't eaten plant substitutes, will be enough to let plant substitute companies take a bigger chunk of the meat market for good.

Are any of those plant substitute companies in a position to help offset a meat supply shortfall in any meaningful way? Are the substitutes less labor-intensive to produce or otherwise less affected by the coronavirus?

Impossible Foods is expanding its grocery store presence right now, and says that its production plant is less susceptible than meatpacking plants due to increased amounts of automation....

https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/amp/Impossible-Burger-comes...

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#58

Post by vkou » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:30 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #38

ZainRiz wrote: post #23

More stories about how covid19 is really screwing up other parts of the supply chain Farmers being forced to pour milk down the drain: https://twitter.com/freshairfarmer/status/124787620556452659... Retail toilet paper manufacturers not setup to handle load from people pooping at home instead of work (and corporate TP factories don't know how to sell to grocery stores): https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-gettin…

Obviously you got to distinguish between problems that are going to get better over time and those that are going to get worse. It seems like people are just randomly assigning things to those categories. I mean, switching products from B2B to B2C (toilet paper, milk, flour, etc) is obviously something that can't happen instantly, but must be taking place as fast as humanly possible, right? So if you're writing an ar…

>. I mean, switching products from B2B to B2C (toilet paper, milk, flour, etc) is obviously something that can't happen instantly, but must be taking place as fast as humanly possible, right?

No, because half the business world thinks that we're going to all re-open in two weeks, and isn't willing to spend money on any kind of retooling/restructuring for such a short period of time.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#59

Post by markdown » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #28

markdown wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or any move that trades the economy for lives is inherently immoral. I'd love to see some rich people forced to work in meat packing plants alongside men and women infected with this coronavirus. It's inherently immoral to force people to work at great risk to themselves and their families just because "the economy", as would be the case in states where the abhorrent practice of at-will employment is law.

Of course, this raises the question-- what's an unacceptable level of risk? We obviously don't shut everything down because of 1 in 1,000,000 risks. We don't shut everything down for 250 in 1M risks (the flu). Here we have what's likely to be a 1,800 in 1M risk, based on the latest infection fatality rate numbers and the estimate of how many people would be infected before herd immunity. It's 7x worse than the flu. I…

Which is why shutting down non-essential services is a good half-measure.

Meat-packing plants are an essential service, so they are allowed to remain open, but they are temporarily shut down once it becomes evident that a few workers have been infected and the risk of infection for the other workers rises to... as you put it "unacceptable".

Sadly, in at-will employment states, only the rich get to decide what is an acceptable level of risk.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#60

Post by mlyle » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #58

perl4ever wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously you got to distinguish between problems that are going to get better over time and those that are going to get worse. It seems like people are just randomly assigning things to those categories. I mean, switching products from B2B to B2C (toilet paper, milk, flour, etc) is obviously something that can't happen instantly, but must be taking place as fast as humanly possible, right? So if you're writing an ar…

>. I mean, switching products from B2B to B2C (toilet paper, milk, flour, etc) is obviously something that can't happen instantly, but must be taking place as fast as humanly possible, right? No, because half the business world thinks that we're going to all re-open in two weeks, and isn't willing to spend money on any kind of retooling/restructuring for such a short period of time.

Certainly it is happening. My local stores have small amounts of yeast in little beverage cups with improvised seals, made by yeast manufacturers that usually sell large quantities to restaurants and industrial bread producers.

They've also briefly had shitty 1ply commercial toilet paper with big plastic bag and twist-tie packaging.