CoronaBro Meltdown/SARS-Covid-19 Spitballing Thread

[CHONGS]

So you did agree with RFK Jr?

Do I agree that we need to analyze vaccines and make sure they're not doing harm?  Absolutely?

Do I agree that we shouldn't have vaccines, no.

What about you Chin?  Should we just put chemicals in our body without question?

Hmmm that didn't seem to be the point of the article you posted.  Did you read it?

[Phil Titola]

So you're taking various self selected incidents and applying it to vast generalizations.

Check-got it

I think they are pretty good examples of what we as a society will accept as a cost of doing nothing until a vaccine hits. I don't know if you're trying to argue or what.

I think we are absolutely coming to terms with it and there may be some localized return to stay home orders but we are going back to biz and, as Drowning Pool said so eloquently...

I've looked at a number of plans by multiple states about re-opening and I'll be damned if I can find one that simply states that everyone should go do whatever they want and it's straight back to business as usual. 

As far as I can tell, for things like nursing homes and assisted living they're still on lock down, and at risk people are still be implored to stay at home.   At most restaurants etc can be at half capacity and some only at one third capacity.   Still no sporting events, concerts or theater events, and gatherings of more than 10 people without social distancing are at minimum frowned upon.

One school of thought is that the despair of isolation and depression over loss of career and jobs may end up killing more people than the virus itself.    Prolonged shut down will only do irreversible harm to the economy that will have a lasting impact that supersedes the impact of the virus itself many times over.

Is there any data supporting this thought out there?  Wouldn't irreversible harm hit the economy with millions of people dying?  Sweden is a pretty famous example of not shutting down much of their economy and their economic numbers are still garbage.

[sonofdaxjones]

So you're taking various self selected incidents and applying it to vast generalizations.

Check-got it

I think they are pretty good examples of what we as a society will accept as a cost of doing nothing until a vaccine hits. I don't know if you're trying to argue or what.

I think we are absolutely coming to terms with it and there may be some localized return to stay home orders but we are going back to biz and, as Drowning Pool said so eloquently...

I've looked at a number of plans by multiple states about re-opening and I'll be damned if I can find one that simply states that everyone should go do whatever they want and it's straight back to business as usual. 

As far as I can tell, for things like nursing homes and assisted living they're still on lock down, and at risk people are still be implored to stay at home.   At most restaurants etc can be at half capacity and some only at one third capacity.   Still no sporting events, concerts or theater events, and gatherings of more than 10 people without social distancing are at minimum frowned upon.

One school of thought is that the despair of isolation and depression over loss of career and jobs may end up killing more people than the virus itself.    Prolonged shut down will only do irreversible harm to the economy that will have a lasting impact that supersedes the impact of the virus itself many times over.

Is there any data supporting this thought out there?  Wouldn't irreversible harm hit the economy with millions of people dying?  Sweden is a pretty famous example of not shutting down much of their economy and their economic numbers are still garbage.

All the economic numbers were garbage, I don't get the point.

Can the economic numbers stay garbage indefinitely?   It doesn't take any kind of deep analysis to understand what the long term impact will be on a lot of things if we enter into a long term economic downturn. 

[DQ12]

It seems like there is a quite a bit of wiggle room between "do nothing/'millions of people dying'" and "continue the lockdown until vaccine/R0 x/full infrastructure for contract tracing, etc."

[DQ12]

BTW, less than 900 reported deaths today.   

Fully expect in the range of >2500 tomorrow, but having two days in a row of less than 1k is nice to see.  I bet our 3 day rolling average is hot AF rn.

[DQ12]

Also, LOL at Cuomo referring to it as "European Virus." 

[michigancat]

So you're taking various self selected incidents and applying it to vast generalizations.

Check-got it

I think they are pretty good examples of what we as a society will accept as a cost of doing nothing until a vaccine hits. I don't know if you're trying to argue or what.

I think we are absolutely coming to terms with it and there may be some localized return to stay home orders but we are going back to biz and, as Drowning Pool said so eloquently...

I've looked at a number of plans by multiple states about re-opening and I'll be damned if I can find one that simply states that everyone should go do whatever they want and it's straight back to business as usual. 

As far as I can tell, for things like nursing homes and assisted living they're still on lock down, and at risk people are still be implored to stay at home.   At most restaurants etc can be at half capacity and some only at one third capacity.   Still no sporting events, concerts or theater events, and gatherings of more than 10 people without social distancing are at minimum frowned upon.

One school of thought is that the despair of isolation and depression over loss of career and jobs may end up killing more people than the virus itself.    Prolonged shut down will only do irreversible harm to the economy that will have a lasting impact that supersedes the impact of the virus itself many times over.

I honestly don't think "lockdowns" as we see them are much more effective than the modified reopenings you mentioned. I don't mind reopening restaurants and gyms and getting kids back to school at all as long as there are clear steps being taken to improve the PPE situation and ramp up test/trace/isolate infrastructure. A robust plan for test/trace/isolate is what I think is required to get confidence in the general public to get the economy back to normal. As far as I can tell, we're half-assing that at best. "Doing nothing" was a bit dramatic.

[michigancat]

Actually, I think I've been saying that we should just do the half-assed reopen if we're not going to do anything with the time the half-assed shelter in place orders bought us for at least a week.

[Phil Titola]

I'm more stressed now that things are opening and trying to decide what I want to do than I was early April staring down a month plus of not being able to do squat and how to make the decision of when it's now okay to do whatever given nothing has really changed other than I think we can kind of get are arms around where people got infected and isolate it a little bit better.

I still don't want it!

[michigancat]

Continuing on the theme that behaviors have changed, a thread on how re-opening will go until people are confident they won't spread the virus

https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1259903233994248193

[MakeItRain]

It seems like there is a quite a bit of wiggle room between "do nothing/'millions of people dying'" and "continue the lockdown until vaccine/R0 x/full infrastructure for contract tracing, etc."

If the point is to flatten the curve, yes there's wiggle room because enough people will practice distancing efforts, wearing masks, washing hands, etc. If the point is to slow the spread to the point where we experience normalcy, then, no there isn't wiggle room because there won't be enough people practicing distancing efforts, wearing masks, washing hands, etc. We just need to face the fact that as a country we don't have the discipline to do what we need to do to return to normalcy. Look at the numbers in Georgia since they reopened, that's coming everywhere else, we're stupid.

[Phil Titola]

It seems like there is a quite a bit of wiggle room between "do nothing/'millions of people dying'" and "continue the lockdown until vaccine/R0 x/full infrastructure for contract tracing, etc."

If the point is to flatten the curve, yes there's wiggle room because enough people will practice distancing efforts, wearing masks, washing hands, etc. If the point is to slow the spread to the point where we experience normalcy, then, no there isn't wiggle room because there won't be enough people practicing distancing efforts, wearing masks, washing hands, etc. We just need to face the fact that as a country we don't have the discipline to do what we need to do to return to normalcy. Look at the numbers in Georgia since they reopened, that's coming everywhere else, we're stupid.

what numbers in Georgia?  Washington Post shows cases and deaths declining since the 24th?

[DQ12]

It seems like there is a quite a bit of wiggle room between "do nothing/'millions of people dying'" and "continue the lockdown until vaccine/R0 x/full infrastructure for contract tracing, etc."

If the point is to flatten the curve, yes there's wiggle room because enough people will practice distancing efforts, wearing masks, washing hands, etc. If the point is to slow the spread to the point where we experience normalcy, then, no there isn't wiggle room because there won't be enough people practicing distancing efforts, wearing masks, washing hands, etc. We just need to face the fact that as a country we don't have the discipline to do what we need to do to return to normalcy. Look at the numbers in Georgia since they reopened, that's coming everywhere else, we're stupid.

what numbers in Georgia?  Washington Post shows cases and deaths declining since the 24th?

"Slow the spread to the point where we experience normalcy" is a pretty vague barometer.  Not trying to be pedantic, but even if we did some ultra intense contact tracing (or whatever measures you envision that would make us non-stupid), it's hard to consider life "normal" when you could be forced/"highly encouraged" to go into isolation for 2 weeks at the drop of a hat. 

There have been 1.3 million positive tests in this country + however many more untested/asyomptomatic.  Totally eradicating the virus outside of a vaccine/herd immunity panacea seems unlikely at this point from my non-expert POV. 

[bucket]

It seems like there is a quite a bit of wiggle room between "do nothing/'millions of people dying'" and "continue the lockdown until vaccine/R0 x/full infrastructure for contract tracing, etc."

If the point is to flatten the curve, yes there's wiggle room because enough people will practice distancing efforts, wearing masks, washing hands, etc. If the point is to slow the spread to the point where we experience normalcy, then, no there isn't wiggle room because there won't be enough people practicing distancing efforts, wearing masks, washing hands, etc. We just need to face the fact that as a country we don't have the discipline to do what we need to do to return to normalcy. Look at the numbers in Georgia since they reopened, that's coming everywhere else, we're stupid.

what numbers in Georgia?  Washington Post shows cases and deaths declining since the 24th?

"Slow the spread to the point where we experience normalcy" is a pretty vague barometer.  Not trying to be pedantic, but even if we did some ultra intense contact tracing (or whatever measures you envision that would make us non-stupid), it's hard to consider life "normal" when you could be forced/"highly encouraged" to go into isolation for 2 weeks at the drop of a hat.

Well, for starters, the CDC did release some guidelines for states.

[sys]

i'd argue that the asian model - most of the population behaving fairly normally, with a very, very small fraction of people in 2 week quarantine is quite a bit more normal than most of the population experiencing a lax lockdown/partial opening with nobody in quarantine as we are doing/seem to be planning on doing.

[DQ12]

i'd argue that the asian model - most of the population behaving fairly normally, with a very, very small fraction of people in 2 week quarantine is quite a bit more normal than most of the population experiencing a lax lockdown/partial opening with nobody in quarantine as we are doing/seem to be planning on doing.

When you say "asian model," can you point to specific countries?  SK and China don't jump out to me as great analogues to the US. 

[michigancat]

i'd argue that the asian model - most of the population behaving fairly normally, with a very, very small fraction of people in 2 week quarantine is quite a bit more normal than most of the population experiencing a lax lockdown/partial opening with nobody in quarantine as we are doing/seem to be planning on doing.

Yep. It's hard for people here to wrap their head around this.

[catastrophe]

Continuing on the theme that behaviors have changed, a thread on how re-opening will go until people are confident they won't spread the virus

https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1259903233994248193

Tons of places in DFW aren’t reopening. Some say it’s because it’s best for the community, but I gotta think it’s also just not economical to operate at 25% capacity, which is still what the law requires.

[sys]

i'd argue that the asian model - most of the population behaving fairly normally, with a very, very small fraction of people in 2 week quarantine is quite a bit more normal than most of the population experiencing a lax lockdown/partial opening with nobody in quarantine as we are doing/seem to be planning on doing.

When you say "asian model," can you point to specific countries?  SK and China don't jump out to me as great analogues to the US.

i'm thinking mostly of south korea, hong kong and singapore, but china also fits.  i believe, but i'm not completely sure, that new zealand and australia are following the same basic plan.  i'll google that in a second.

vietnam, the philippines and i think most of the se asian countries are mostly on the same track in terms of using quarantines - but i'm not sure they fall into the category of life being mostly normal for most people or not.

[bucket]

Continuing on the theme that behaviors have changed, a thread on how re-opening will go until people are confident they won't spread the virus

https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1259903233994248193

Tons of places in DFW aren’t reopening. Some say it’s because it’s best for the community, but I gotta think it’s also just not economical to operate at 25% capacity, which is still what the law requires.

I've read about price markups in certain places, but we're still pickup or delivery only here so I can't really comment on that.

[catastrophe]

i'd argue that the asian model - most of the population behaving fairly normally, with a very, very small fraction of people in 2 week quarantine is quite a bit more normal than most of the population experiencing a lax lockdown/partial opening with nobody in quarantine as we are doing/seem to be planning on doing.

Yep. It's hard for people here to wrap their head around this.

I mean, it also seemed pretty normal here when  Japanese US citizens were put in internment camps to keep the rest of the population safe.

People can rationally think both that forced centralized quarantine is the best way to balance economic and health interests but also that we shouldn’t do it.

[DQ12]

i'd argue that the asian model - most of the population behaving fairly normally, with a very, very small fraction of people in 2 week quarantine is quite a bit more normal than most of the population experiencing a lax lockdown/partial opening with nobody in quarantine as we are doing/seem to be planning on doing.

When you say "asian model," can you point to specific countries?  SK and China don't jump out to me as great analogues to the US.

i'm thinking mostly of south korea, hong kong and singapore, but china also fits.  i believe, but i'm not completely sure, that new zealand and australia are following the same basic plan.  i'll google that in a second.

vietnam, the philippines and i think most of the se asian countries are mostly on the same track in terms of using quarantines - but i'm not sure they fall into the category of life being mostly normal for most people or not.

Including countries like China and Singapore seems like kind of a stretch given the draconian power their governments have -- though I'm only vaguely familiar with the details of Singapore.  If any level of US govt had the power of that of China/Singapore, then yeah I think the boot of the state could stomp this out more efficiently.  But if people are advocating that we ape Singapore/China here, that seems a bit naive to me. 

South Korea and Hong Kong's per capita cases are far, far below where the US is at -- the US per capita cases is something like 20x where SK and HK are.  Not saying it's impossible or that late isn't better than never, just saying that contact tracing <200/1m probably looks quite a bit different than contact tracing >4000/1m.  Had we put together a cohesive contact tracing framework together back in march/april, it obviously would've been a smaller task -- though even then, the nature of a 320 million person country where free travel is constitutionally guaranteed would have presented additional challenges compared to SK/HK.

If you have it handy, let me know about Australia.

[sys]

i'm half a libertarian and i sincerely, absolutely do not understand how "we'd like you to spend a couple of weeks in a hotel, for your own health and for the public good." equates to draconian power.

[sys]

like taxation = theft and "a driver's license, what's next, licenses to make toast?" make more sense to me.

[DQ12]

i'm half a libertarian and i sincerely, absolutely do not understand how "we'd like you to spend a couple of weeks in a hotel, for your own health and for the public good." equates to draconian power.

All I'm saying is that China/Singapore can institute explicit/implied coercion over the populace that wouldn't really correlate to Uncle Sam.  I don't think that's really a contentious POV.

like taxation = theft and "a driver's license, what's next, licenses to make toast?" make more sense to me.

Darryl Perry is my 2020 write-in choice.