US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16% • Hacker News Board

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#61

Post by mikem170 » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 2:27 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #33

eric_b wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for not even trying. What you should see if you open your eyes and your mind is that anyone under 54 is many times more likely to die from something else other than COVID. Surely even someone such as yourself could imagine a scenario where not EVERYONE needs to be locked down? Perhaps just those in the higher risk brackets?

The elderly still need to interact with society. Infected but asymptotic people are even more dangerous to them, because they can still get infected. If the 22 year old check stand worker at the market goes to a bar and gets COVID-19 and then spreads it to the elderly patron they serve, that's bad. How can you protect against that? Also, they are now finding that COVID-19 causes strokes in young people. Those deaths…

>Why are we the only country that is begging to reopen?

Because as time goes on we learn that the virus is not as bad as first feared. And more people are being negatively impacted by the varied costs of the lockdown.

Do you think that a continued lockdown will have a significant effect on the final death rate from this disease? As long as the hospitals are not overwhelmed, what will be the difference in the end?

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#62

Post by mikem170 » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #57

eric_b wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The faster the young and less vulnerable get the disease and get over it, the faster the older folks can be let out. It's really not complicated. This disease is too contagious to contain. The only way forward is through. Lockdowns merely delay the inevitable. Yes, some people will die. We can't stay home forever. It's not just the US that wants out, but you go on thinking like you do and enjoy your privileged bubble…

There is no evidence that getting the disease prevents you from getting it again. Furthermore there are currently four known strains, so you’d have to get it four times if you even can get immunity.

>There is no evidence that getting the disease prevents you from getting it again

It's normal for exposure to a coronavirus to confer a couple years of immunity.

I've read that it would be typical for something like this to become endemic, decreasing in severity, possibly circulating as another one of several coronaviruses that already make up 15% of common colds.

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#63

Post by ptero » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

germinalphrase wrote: post #55

ptero wrote: post #37

Seems that both sides, lock-down-until-proven-safe and stop-all-restrictions-yesterday, at least in the US are more focused on spin than facts. What we need is an open and honest discussion, where conflicting opinions are not ridiculed or shut down but vigorously debated. This would put a premium on clear logic substantiated by numbers and estimates on error bounds. And explanations that an average engineer can follo…

We don’t have a (publicly facing) political system that rewards nuance.

I am not even talking about nuance, just some basic engineering clarity; and just between friends, no politicians nearby. I have seen a couple of times that the topic got discussed between otherwise calm, smart people. Both times it very quickly got into name calling, no technical arguments involved.

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#64

Post by tdhoot » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #59

tdhoot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying health officials are wrong, but they're rightfully focused primarily on health implications. Politicians should be responsible for determining policy -- balancing economic, legal, and health considerations after listening to experts.

Politicians are supposed to represent the people. The majority of people want to stay home.

I don't see how this is relevant to my comment at all. And politicians are free to and often should disagree with their constituents. We have a representative democracy and you're free to not vote for them the next election but they don't have to follow every poll for every decision.

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#65

Post by FuckButtons » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 2:48 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34

newacct583 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is: not much more than the cost of "opening up" right now. Because "lockdown" isn't magic the government can control at a whime. People aren't going to engage in a full employment economy if they're justifiably scared of dying. Or, possibly but not probably: the cost of opening up is vastly higher if we end up looking at 2-300k needlessly dead Americans.

It sounds like you're saying it's not easy to calculate and we don't know whether or not it's "doomsday" in scope.

We don’t know much, and we won’t know much for a long time yet. One thing we have a reasonable handle on is how many people went in to a hospital in the last week. We know less well how many people died last week. Anything beyond that is somewhere between speculation and an educated guess. That means our policy is always going to be some amount of trial and error. Trial and error that will cost billions and the lives of thousands, but we have no other choice.

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#66

Post by mewpmewp2 » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #58

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But further lockdown can also mean more deaths from low economic activity. How do you know which deaths are worse?

Is there any reasonable modelling that puts worst case US recession deaths in the hundreds of thousands? I saw a pretty spun looking number in (I think) The Federalist back in March that claimed a staggering 40k deaths if we didn't open up right away. Needless to say that spin didn't survive reality well, that's not only the median worst case of the viral outbreak it's the status quo.

I would be interested in seeing such model as well

Some things to consider is also the type of deaths. Now I haven't calculated myself which decision is the correct one here, but just throwing out some factors that might (or might not) be favourable towards the decision to open markets sooner.

If most people who die are elderly and they would die in few years anyway are these deaths comparable to younger people who commit suicides or die from poverty due to recession - who otherwise might be productive members of society for the following 30 years?

If 75%+ of people who die are non-working elderly and maybe 80-90% of those would have died in the following 0-8 years would that mean 0-8 years of saved resources/care/medicine costs meaning economy would be better off and in the following 0-8 years we can expect proportionally fewer deaths?

Probably more factors here, but I would like to go to the next point now...

The steps on how to decide should be:

1. Predict deaths (and what kind of deaths) for each following week/month due to economic recession, plus any other damages. Lost technological advancements etc which can indirectly also mean more deaths. Consider all the things that can indirectly cause deaths. There's also decrease in some type of deaths like traffic accidents during quarantine. Should we consider these?

I tried to Google for how many deaths 2008 caused - first thing I found was 260,000 extra cancer deaths, but I have no idea about validity: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do... This is 2.5x more than current deaths from coronavirus and probably within more productive demographic. Just citing that to suggest there's some possibility that recession could cause more deaths.

2. Consider the pace on how fast can hospitals increase their capability to handle steeper curve.

3. Predict how fast Corona would spread after opening. How would hospitals fare? Would this mean more deaths overall from Corona or same amount as if we had keeping a flatter curve. I think the only real way to know this is to start touching the waters, so in this case it seems like reasonable to try with few places first and get measurements from there to see if it's worth it.

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#67

Post by fred_is_fred » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 3:17 AM UTC

shirro wrote: post #52

Just another Pearl Harbor/9-11 for the US. They could have responded early and mitigated this like Australia/NZ/Taiwan but now there is massive community spread there is no right answer. You open things up and more people die. You close them down and people likely die from poverty related things. The only sane solution was to act early and prevent this. Why even have intelligence services, scientific expertise, gover…

Mistakes were made, but it's a lot easier on an island.

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#68

Post by bufferoverflow » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 3:19 AM UTC

paypalcust83 wrote: post #18

Testing first, scientific analysis next, and opening last. Or people can go to an Oklahoma restaurant packed shoulder-to-shoulder without masks with their governor and expedite the restart the pandemic curve to end up with 100k more deaths.

Oh, it will be more than 100K deaths if there are no measures at all. Once you run out of healthcare capacity, you're on your own.

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#69

Post by mythrwy » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 3:25 AM UTC

ptero wrote: post #63

germinalphrase wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t have a (publicly facing) political system that rewards nuance.

I am not even talking about nuance, just some basic engineering clarity; and just between friends, no politicians nearby. I have seen a couple of times that the topic got discussed between otherwise calm, smart people. Both times it very quickly got into name calling, no technical arguments involved.

Engineering clarity and politics apparently don't mix. Not a good state to be in. How did democracy ever become "the loudest bullshitter calls the shots"? How sustainable is this?

Re: US states set to reopen as coronavirus could push jobless rate to 16%

#70

Post by mythrwy » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

Seibai wrote: post #12

It's worth noting that reopening early will also cause economic damage, and possibly more that not doing so would. People dying costs money, both in the lost productivity of the dead and reduced productivity among those emotionally affected. More people will die with an early end to lockdown than would if it was maintained for another month or two. I expect lots of grim economics research to come out of this.

I don't think so.

I believe with some precautions (masks specifically and distancing and prohibit mass gathering for a bit) most places could open right now and the amount of additional hospitalizations and deaths would likely be economically inconsequential. People in general are going to be careful for a while.

Yes, opening would likely lead to more deaths, that is true, and perhaps we should not open for a bit for safety, but the key concept here is "economically inconsequential".