Author Topic: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?  (Read 675243 times)

waltworks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1200 on: April 26, 2020, 03:27:57 PM »
I'm generally not worried about anyone on this forum.

But I'm heavily involved with primary education and the effect on lower income families is hard to imagine if you're sitting in your 3000 square foot house telecommuting. Aah! The kids are driving me crazy... well, yeah, but we on the MMM forums have it really easy.

In our community we have 20+ people living in 400 square foot apartments (and yes, those apartment complexes are huge Covid19 incubators, an unintended but obvious consequence of throwing so many people out of work) because every single adult lost their jobs overnight. Their kids (this is roughly 20% of our student population) are no longer getting any form of education, nor are they getting the routine medical/mental health/vision/food/social help they normally access through the school system. Sack lunches are available but not hot food.  Luckily school was only 2 months from ending, so this will be an extended summer regression so long as they are still able to attend in the fall. But that's a big if given their overall family situation.

The harm being caused to those kids is... it's considerable. And if we're being truthful, they are being harmed (and as to now, not really helped in a commensurate fashion) for the sake of the elderly and sick. I'm not in a position to say if that's right or wrong, but it's not a simple calculation to weigh the harm here vs. saving lives.

-W

bacchi

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1201 on: April 26, 2020, 03:28:22 PM »
I ask because in a lot of countries which publish overall death rates there has been an increase in non-virus death which tracks the increase in virus deaths, and while there could be indirect causes for this the most obvious direct cause would be that these are unrecorded COVID-19 deaths, either because there were lung infection symptoms but no official test or because the virus is killing people other than through lung infections. 

There are rural counties without a hospital or even a doctor. Those counties are also likely under reporting.

waltworks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1202 on: April 26, 2020, 03:29:52 PM »
Yeah, fuck all the obese people and people with diabetes, etc. Especially the poor ones living in food deserts, and without decent medical care, and no access to a gym, or money to afford a membership, and no one who knows about fitness or cooking to teach them better habits. Fuck ‘em all. I got mine.

Those poor people are MORE likely to get C19 if you throw them all out of work, not less, though. Because they will all move into the same insanely overcrowded apartments and stop being able to afford things like food or medical care.

That is exactly what has happened in our community, as a matter of fact.

Of course, if we had a functional social safety net, it would be different...

-W

Kris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1203 on: April 26, 2020, 03:34:11 PM »
Yeah, fuck all the obese people and people with diabetes, etc. Especially the poor ones living in food deserts, and without decent medical care, and no access to a gym, or money to afford a membership, and no one who knows about fitness or cooking to teach them better habits. Fuck ‘em all. I got mine.

Those poor people are MORE likely to get C19 if you throw them all out of work, not less, though. Because they will all move into the same insanely overcrowded apartments and stop being able to afford things like food or medical care.

That is exactly what has happened in our community, as a matter of fact.

Of course, if we had a functional social safety net, it would be different...

-W

Yes, also true.

But according to egillespie, we’re not supposed to care either way. Safety nets are for commies.

bacchi

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1204 on: April 26, 2020, 03:36:05 PM »
I'm generally not worried about anyone on this forum.

But I'm heavily involved with primary education and the effect on lower income families is hard to imagine if you're sitting in your 3000 square foot house telecommuting. Aah! The kids are driving me crazy... well, yeah, but we on the MMM forums have it really easy.

In our community we have 20+ people living in 400 square foot apartments (and yes, those apartment complexes are huge Covid19 incubators, an unintended but obvious consequence of throwing so many people out of work) because every single adult lost their jobs overnight. Their kids (this is roughly 20% of our student population) are no longer getting any form of education, nor are they getting the routine medical/mental health/vision/food/social help they normally access through the school system. Sack lunches are available but not hot food.  Luckily school was only 2 months from ending, so this will be an extended summer regression so long as they are still able to attend in the fall. But that's a big if given their overall family situation.

The harm being caused to those kids is... it's considerable. And if we're being truthful, they are being harmed (and as to now, not really helped in a commensurate fashion) for the sake of the elderly and sick. I'm not in a position to say if that's right or wrong, but it's not a simple calculation to weigh the harm here vs. saving lives.

-W

Do you have a solution?

Keeping school in session requires adults and some of those adults may have an underlying condition (i.e., obesity or asthma).

The very young may not die or even get as sick but they can be carriers. When I was working with underprivileged youth, many lived with their grandparents (usually the grandmother). Doesn't that increase the risk of their sole caregiver getting sick?

So you're right. It's not a simple calculation. In fact, it's not even as simple as school vs. no school.


waltworks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1205 on: April 26, 2020, 03:39:18 PM »
Yes, also true.

But according to egillespie, we’re not supposed to care either way. Safety nets are for commies.

I'm not claiming to speak for him/her, but *my* point was that given the lack of said social safety net, the unintended consequences of suddenly throwing almost every poor/low income working class person out of work might be a lot worse than letting a considerable number of old/sick people die. Heck, it might cause *more* deaths, as at least around here most of the poor households are multigenerational - and simultaneously Covid19 hotspots due to overcrowding caused by the sudden loss of basically every adult job.

-W

Abe

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1206 on: April 26, 2020, 03:46:10 PM »
I’d just like to clarify again that the majority of patients who’ve died at least per the NYP/Columbia report didn’t have significant comorbidities. They were usually older, though. But it’s true the downstream consequences of the shutdown have to be mitigated by eviction freezes, etc. The burden will need to be shifted to those who can afford it, and to the governments calling for lockdowns. That’s generally been the Europeans’ plans and they’re not having as much issues as we are predicted to have.

Kris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1207 on: April 26, 2020, 03:50:31 PM »
Yes, also true.

But according to egillespie, we’re not supposed to care either way. Safety nets are for commies.

I'm not claiming to speak for him/her, but *my* point was that given the lack of said social safety net, the unintended consequences of suddenly throwing almost every poor/low income working class person out of work might be a lot worse than letting a considerable number of old/sick people die. Heck, it might cause *more* deaths, as at least around here most of the poor households are multigenerational - and simultaneously Covid19 hotspots due to overcrowding caused by the sudden loss of basically every adult job.

-W

You may very well be right.

I would certainly wish for more adults in the room at the federal level to have those conversations in a rational manner.

waltworks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1208 on: April 26, 2020, 03:55:26 PM »
The smart thing to do, rather than the "stimulus" money, would have been for the feds to just backstop payrolls.

I think a few people even proposed that, but apparently sending money directly (if slowly) to people was a more popular idea.

Sigh.

-W

Jon Bon

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1209 on: April 26, 2020, 04:12:54 PM »
Fundamental question on flattening the curve.

It is not a function of reducing number of infections, just expanding the timeline of those infections correct?

I've heard my states very own head medical officer say that yes she still expects 40-70% of the population to be infected. Over a few weeks that would be pretty terrible, but over 6 months it might be manageable.

Is that not what we are trying to accomplish? Prevention/Eradication is impossible at this point correct?




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Gremlin

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1211 on: April 26, 2020, 04:15:57 PM »
@Bloop Bloop that’s good that testing is readily available. Does it seem that many are taking advantage of the opportunity?


My state (I’m in the US) has had essentially come one come all testing for just over a week now thanks to the deployment of our state’s national guard. A fair % are taking advantage of it. My neighbor is in another county, more rural than ours, with her unit and said they tested 500 at her station just yesterday, which is heartening to me.

It's too early to know.  Most Australian states only opened up testing for all at the end of last week (I think South Australia may be slightly longer than the rest, but don't quote me on that and "all" doesn't yet mean "asymptomatic testing" in all states - some states still don't yet have capacity to be testing those without some form of flu-like symptoms).  Most testing facilities, other than those attached to hospitals, are only open Monday to Friday.  So, in practice that only really starts from this (Monday) morning. 

T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1212 on: April 26, 2020, 04:22:01 PM »
I'm generally not worried about anyone on this forum.

But I'm heavily involved with primary education and the effect on lower income families is hard to imagine if you're sitting in your 3000 square foot house telecommuting. Aah! The kids are driving me crazy... well, yeah, but we on the MMM forums have it really easy.

In our community we have 20+ people living in 400 square foot apartments (and yes, those apartment complexes are huge Covid19 incubators, an unintended but obvious consequence of throwing so many people out of work) because every single adult lost their jobs overnight. Their kids (this is roughly 20% of our student population) are no longer getting any form of education, nor are they getting the routine medical/mental health/vision/food/social help they normally access through the school system. Sack lunches are available but not hot food.  Luckily school was only 2 months from ending, so this will be an extended summer regression so long as they are still able to attend in the fall. But that's a big if given their overall family situation.

The harm being caused to those kids is... it's considerable. And if we're being truthful, they are being harmed (and as to now, not really helped in a commensurate fashion) for the sake of the elderly and sick. I'm not in a position to say if that's right or wrong, but it's not a simple calculation to weigh the harm here vs. saving lives.

-W

Do you have a solution?

Keeping school in session requires adults and some of those adults may have an underlying condition (i.e., obesity or asthma).

The very young may not die or even get as sick but they can be carriers. When I was working with underprivileged youth, many lived with their grandparents (usually the grandmother). Doesn't that increase the risk of their sole caregiver getting sick?

So you're right. It's not a simple calculation. In fact, it's not even as simple as school vs. no school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lze-rMYLf2E&feature=youtu.be

T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1213 on: April 26, 2020, 04:23:04 PM »
society isn’t being destroyed. I’m not sure where you live, but California, Washington, New York, New Jersey still exists and most people are still working in some capacity. If things start reopening next month, which seems reasonable, there will be short to medium term consequences that are lower than significant deaths.

Your calculation ignores that NYC is in a severe shutdown so you can’t use those numbers to determine fatality rates if there were no shutdowns.

All things aside, I’m sorry if you’re going through a hard time, though. My wife got furloughed and we’re dependent on saving a so it is a bit stressful.

With 20 million newly unemployed and kids not going to school you bet your bippy society is being destroyed.  America has massive social problems and we unfortunately do not have the safety nets that Europe or Oceania does.

Poverty is the biggest factor for poor health outcomes in America.

Jon Bon

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1214 on: April 26, 2020, 04:32:39 PM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lze-rMYLf2E&feature=youtu.be

Wow, that was pretty good.

Can we have that guy in charge over the orange menace?


somebody8198

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1215 on: April 26, 2020, 04:36:23 PM »
They'll riot if the government pushes them.  No jobs, no school, no healthcare.  At this point what do people have to lose?

The experiment of quarantining healthy people has never been done before, and it has likely changed the path of the virus little -- at the same time the dysfunctional policy of governments and the healthcare industry has destroyed the economic and mental health of citizens.  Time for its advocates to declare victory while that’s at least still arguable and retreat.

The politicians need to back down or else there could be large scale civil disobedience and/or a riot. 

One thing is for sure, this type of experiment will not be repeated again.

That's exactly my point. The highest compliance will come from people like me who have employment (for now) and can work from home in a comfortable apartment with no children. I have savings and could just break my lease and live with family for literally years without needing to raid my investments. You don't have to worry about me. The worst I'll do is write an angry blog post and maybe show up to a protest.

The lowest compliance will come from poor young men who have nothing to lose anyway. I saw a bunch of teenagers drinking beer outside my aparment complex the other night. Those are the people you have to worry about. Make them angry and desperate enough, or push them too hard, and you'll have problems.

LightTripper

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1216 on: April 26, 2020, 04:50:04 PM »

T-Money$

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secondcor521

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1218 on: April 26, 2020, 05:13:34 PM »
The smart thing to do, rather than the "stimulus" money, would have been for the feds to just backstop payrolls.

I think a few people even proposed that, but apparently sending money directly (if slowly) to people was a more popular idea.

Sigh.

-W

I'm not too familiar with the details, but I thought that's what the PPP essentially did.  Possibly the EIDL as well.  Both of which were part of the CARES Act.  The supplemental "Phase 3.5" bill, whatever that one was called, also added funds to the PPP and did some other stuff.

So I think we actually did both.

waltworks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1219 on: April 26, 2020, 05:55:06 PM »
The smart thing to do, rather than the "stimulus" money, would have been for the feds to just backstop payrolls.

I think a few people even proposed that, but apparently sending money directly (if slowly) to people was a more popular idea.

Sigh.

-W

I'm not too familiar with the details, but I thought that's what the PPP essentially did.  Possibly the EIDL as well.  Both of which were part of the CARES Act.  The supplemental "Phase 3.5" bill, whatever that one was called, also added funds to the PPP and did some other stuff.

So I think we actually did both.

Not enough and too complex, though. Many businesses had just begun trying to figure it out when the money ran out - before they had even applied.

-W

the_fixer

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How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1220 on: April 26, 2020, 06:15:41 PM »

BiB: I'm not sure what point you are making here: a different lifestyle can avoid most of those issues but not in the timescale of this pandemic.

You seem to suggest that the obese, the type 2 diabetic and the hypertensive are not worthy of having their health protected from a pandemic, and/or that the healthy should not be put to any inconvenience to protect them.
 
That's a pretty jawdropping attitude.


Is it a jawdropping atitude?

I don't think so.  Empathy is a two-way street. 

To me it seems very self-absorbed to knowingly live an unhealthy lifestyle and then demand society destroy itself to avoid the consequences of previous decisions.

I think there is a middle way that could be followed, but locking up healthy people and children isn’t part of that.  The government was given several chances to moderate it's policies, it has chosen to move forward with draconian policies that are irrational and destructive.  Oh well, not my pig, not my farm.

I will not destroy my family to reduce the risk of those I don't know.  Not going to happen, not for a million years.  If the government wanted longer compliance then they should have been "empathetic".

 Draconian policies.... Destroy your family.... you need to step away from the keyboard and find something positive and productive to focus on you seem to be obsessed and letting your mind run wild.

I would hardly consider what is going on in most of the US a lockdown. I went for a 20 mile bike ride yesterday, have been to the grocery store, container store and Home Depot to pickup items to work in home projects this Friday we are going paddle boarding.

Today is day 42 for us “staying home” while it would be great if things could go back to normal that is not the reality probably for the next year or two we can stew about it or make the best of it.

Life has changed instead of focusing on the fact I cannot do everything I want to do right now I am getting caught up on projects around the house, talking to family and friends more than normal and watching Star Wars and marvel universe in order.

If you are in good health and not worried about getting sick you could probably even volunteer to take your mind off things and do something positive.


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« Last Edit: April 26, 2020, 06:26:37 PM by the_fixer »

waltworks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1221 on: April 26, 2020, 07:10:54 PM »
No offense, but the mountain bike and paddleboard crowd (ie, me/you/everyone on this forum) are not the people suffering here. Stay-at-home has been no problem for us either.

Try losing your job, your entire extended family losing their jobs, all your kids being out of school, and all of you crammed into a tiny apartment taking turns standing in line at the food pantry and trying to access online learning via cellphone. That's the reality for a decent number of people now.

I normally get annoyed when people complain about out of touch liberal elites, but man...

-W

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1222 on: April 26, 2020, 07:13:56 PM »
People won't necessarily riot, but they'll just stop listening. I've been breaching lockdown rules for days now in order to see my family and go on dates. There are enough ways for a smart and resourceful person to get around any police enforcement. I just don't care. If Victorian cases spike again (i.e., if we go from 3 cases a day to 4 cases a day, gasp, horror) you can put the blame all on me.

This has been my experience as well. The worst has not come to pass, weather is getting nicer, and people are social animals. Folks are going to start to loosen up all on their own. There are limits to lock-downs.
IMO, this just indicates that the government isn't providing the right incentives. It isn't a surprise that westerners are horrifically short sighted and selfish. This is well known. If the government doesn't provide a self-interest-based reason to stay home, a fraction of the population will of course violate quarantine. Something like, "We'll fine you the greater of $5k or 5% of your net worth" would probably do it.

Since governments aren't taking those steps, I expect the crisis to be prolonged. Human society is half-broken machine. This is probably not the worst example of it, but it is a little sad since it's so immediate.

The government has tried to incentivise staying home but it's not working because people aren't stupid. We've heard the reports. 1 new case in the last 24 hours in my state (out of 5 million people). 10 new cases nationwide (out of 25 million). Yet they still want to enforce a lockdown? It's ridiculous.

There's a $1600 fine for breaching lockdown but it's laughably easy to avoid if you have a little bit of common sense and know how to hold your tongue. Unfortunately, the only people being fined are the ones who are too dumb to provide a good excuse, and they're the ones who can usually least afford to pay it.

Two states have now formally eased lockdown, so we'll see over the next 2 weeks whether their numbers jump (I doubt it), but the reality is that when you have single figure transmission figures every day, you aren't going to be able to enforce lockdown, because the citizenry isn't stupid. We know a beat-up when we see it.

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1223 on: April 26, 2020, 07:16:57 PM »
No offense, but the mountain bike and paddleboard crowd (ie, me/you/everyone on this forum) are not the people suffering here. Stay-at-home has been no problem for us either.

Try losing your job, your entire extended family losing their jobs, all your kids being out of school, and all of you crammed into a tiny apartment taking turns standing in line at the food pantry and trying to access online learning via cellphone. That's the reality for a decent number of people now.

I normally get annoyed when people complain about out of touch liberal elites, but man...

-W

Also worth noting that in some areas of lockdown like my state, while nuclear families are well looked after (and can exercise together), singles and couples living apart are (or were, during height of lockdown) not allowed to see each other or see family, other than for giving care, which is a nebulous definition. So yeah, if you're a family of 5 going to Bunnings every day and then exercising in the park it's just business as usual. If you're a single person not allowed to see your family and having no in-person contact with anyone else, it's much less fun.

bacchi

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1224 on: April 26, 2020, 07:23:51 PM »
No offense, but the mountain bike and paddleboard crowd (ie, me/you/everyone on this forum) are not the people suffering here. Stay-at-home has been no problem for us either.

Try losing your job, your entire extended family losing their jobs, all your kids being out of school, and all of you crammed into a tiny apartment taking turns standing in line at the food pantry and trying to access online learning via cellphone. That's the reality for a decent number of people now.

I normally get annoyed when people complain about out of touch liberal elites, but man...

-W

Working-class people at, say, meat packing plants in the Midwest can also catch the disease.

Do we force Smithfield to re-open the plants? Then what? Smithfield hires new people to replace the 20% out sick?

Still not seeing a solution here.

the_fixer

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How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1225 on: April 26, 2020, 08:02:14 PM »
No offense, but the mountain bike and paddleboard crowd (ie, me/you/everyone on this forum) are not the people suffering here. Stay-at-home has been no problem for us either.

Try losing your job, your entire extended family losing their jobs, all your kids being out of school, and all of you crammed into a tiny apartment taking turns standing in line at the food pantry and trying to access online learning via cellphone. That's the reality for a decent number of people now.

I normally get annoyed when people complain about out of touch liberal elites, but man...

-W
A good portion of my family IS out of work and low income including my Mom, sister (with two boys), Uncle and several Cousins. My mom lives in low income housing in a place that is probably about 300 square ft my sister is in a 2 bedroom with her two teenage boys in low income housing.

I grew up poor, homeless at times and living in shelters at other times. I am not ignorant to the disadvantages that come with being poor and destitute because I lived it.

I can tell you they are doing what they can to stay positive and productive. They do not see this as the government trying to destroy their lives and take their freedoms they realize that this is a virus that everyone wishes never happened and would go away.

They can either be negative, angry and blame others or try and adapt, stay positive and try to get by.

We can choose to be victims and focus on the negative or focus on making a shitty situation better within our own abilities.

As for paddle boarding, riding a bike and stuff like that it is free entertainment for us, they are laid off what are they supposed to do sit at home and wallow in sorrow?


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« Last Edit: April 26, 2020, 08:06:00 PM by the_fixer »

waltworks

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1226 on: April 26, 2020, 08:59:40 PM »
Hey, I'm not the one who claimed this was "hardly a lockdown" because I could go recreate and work from home.

I'm not saying wallow in despair. I'm saying recognize that there ARE people (lots of them) who are really suffering for the sake of saving a very limited number of lives. They are not hanging out at the park and teaching their kids algebra. They are trying to figure out how not to starve this summer.

-W

js82

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1227 on: April 26, 2020, 09:25:07 PM »
Fundamental question on flattening the curve.

It is not a function of reducing number of infections, just expanding the timeline of those infections correct?

I've heard my states very own head medical officer say that yes she still expects 40-70% of the population to be infected. Over a few weeks that would be pretty terrible, but over 6 months it might be manageable.

Is that not what we are trying to accomplish? Prevention/Eradication is impossible at this point correct?

I think different people are trying to do different things, and that's part of what's getting us in trouble and creating confusion.

From a public health perspective, two things fundamentally matter:

1) not exceeding the capacity of the health care system at any point during the epidemic(because this means more deaths for a given number of infections), and
2) the eventual number of infections in the terminal state

The essence of "flatten the curve", temporary hospitals, and ventilators is #1.

#2 you can modify in a couple ways:
A) Late in the game, modest social distancing measures(with low economic impact) can help you get to R <1 at a somewhat lower infection rate.  This might get you down from 60% to 50% of the population infected when the disease dwindles away.  This is probably underappreciated, because while you'll still have a large number of infections/deaths with this approach, shaving 10-20% of the death toll of this epidemic is still many, many lives - but this will likely go unrecognized because of how high the death toll is going to end up being.
B) The Home Run: If you're aggressive enough, early enough it's possible to do what Australia/Korea appear to have accomplished and knocked infections down to a very, very low level - at which point a large part of the risk can be managed via testing and contact tracing.  The thought process here is that at very low infection rates the options for intervention are targeted and much less economically disruptive.

The problem is, to do scenario B effectively, you need to execute it early enough, and aggressively enough.  If you don't do it early enough, and are unwilling to be sufficiently aggressive for a long enough time to drive infections low enough that testing/contact tracing/isolation become feasible, you're basically back to the herd immunity endgame.

The reality is, we've most likely missed our window of opportunity to pull off scenario B in the USA(an earlier stoppage of European travel might have changed this story, but we'll never know...).  You can't "kind of" do this approach, or do a "toned down" version of it - if you do, the lockdown just runs longer and may not even be sufficiently effective - but that's where we're functionally operating in the USA right now.

the_fixer

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1228 on: April 26, 2020, 10:10:39 PM »
Hey, I'm not the one who claimed this was "hardly a lockdown" because I could go recreate and work from home.

I'm not saying wallow in despair. I'm saying recognize that there ARE people (lots of them) who are really suffering for the sake of saving a very limited number of lives. They are not hanging out at the park and teaching their kids algebra. They are trying to figure out how not to starve this summer.

-W

Well forgive me for recommending that maybe egillespie should take a step back and try to focus on things within their control and try to bring some positivity to their situation no matter how small it might be rather than anger and negativity.


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T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1229 on: April 27, 2020, 06:48:05 AM »
Hey, I'm not the one who claimed this was "hardly a lockdown" because I could go recreate and work from home.

I'm not saying wallow in despair. I'm saying recognize that there ARE people (lots of them) who are really suffering for the sake of saving a very limited number of lives. They are not hanging out at the park and teaching their kids algebra. They are trying to figure out how not to starve this summer.

-W

Well forgive me for recommending that maybe egillespie should take a step back and try to focus on things within their control and try to bring some positivity to their situation no matter how small it might be rather than anger and negativity.


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I think your advice was reasonable and I took no offense to it.  However, being able to be outside in a rural part of Colorado with great weather is a much different experience than living in NYC and being locked in an apartment for 40+ days.  There are many people in NYC that have done just that (if they take the government directives seriously) and it is causing quite a bit of mental problems.  The virus is already very widespread in NYC, it is likely that social distancing and other measures were put into place too late.  That is not an indictment, hindsight is 20/20 as data is analyzed.

In other news, the WHO now claims that infection with COVID-19 likely does provide immunity.  I'm surprised they were able to correct their bold faced lie within 24-hours, as it seems like the WHO can't take a successful dump within 24-hours.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/929397

« Last Edit: April 27, 2020, 06:51:53 AM by egillespie »

Jon Bon

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1230 on: April 27, 2020, 06:59:39 AM »
Fundamental question on flattening the curve.

It is not a function of reducing number of infections, just expanding the timeline of those infections correct?

I've heard my states very own head medical officer say that yes she still expects 40-70% of the population to be infected. Over a few weeks that would be pretty terrible, but over 6 months it might be manageable.

Is that not what we are trying to accomplish? Prevention/Eradication is impossible at this point correct?

I think different people are trying to do different things, and that's part of what's getting us in trouble and creating confusion.

From a public health perspective, two things fundamentally matter:

1) not exceeding the capacity of the health care system at any point during the epidemic(because this means more deaths for a given number of infections), and
2) the eventual number of infections in the terminal state

The essence of "flatten the curve", temporary hospitals, and ventilators is #1.

#2 you can modify in a couple ways:
A) Late in the game, modest social distancing measures(with low economic impact) can help you get to R <1 at a somewhat lower infection rate.  This might get you down from 60% to 50% of the population infected when the disease dwindles away.  This is probably underappreciated, because while you'll still have a large number of infections/deaths with this approach, shaving 10-20% of the death toll of this epidemic is still many, many lives - but this will likely go unrecognized because of how high the death toll is going to end up being.
B) The Home Run: If you're aggressive enough, early enough it's possible to do what Australia/Korea appear to have accomplished and knocked infections down to a very, very low level - at which point a large part of the risk can be managed via testing and contact tracing.  The thought process here is that at very low infection rates the options for intervention are targeted and much less economically disruptive.

The problem is, to do scenario B effectively, you need to execute it early enough, and aggressively enough.  If you don't do it early enough, and are unwilling to be sufficiently aggressive for a long enough time to drive infections low enough that testing/contact tracing/isolation become feasible, you're basically back to the herd immunity endgame.

The reality is, we've most likely missed our window of opportunity to pull off scenario B in the USA(an earlier stoppage of European travel might have changed this story, but we'll never know...).  You can't "kind of" do this approach, or do a "toned down" version of it - if you do, the lockdown just runs longer and may not even be sufficiently effective - but that's where we're functionally operating in the USA right now.

Ok I get and agree with Part A: "Save the Hospitals" that seamed mostly reasonable and achievable. The curve has in fact been flattened, and with the exception of a few NYC hospitals no one was overwhelmed in the US.

However Part B: "Eradicate the Disease" is laughably impossible at this point. I just dont know why we are even still trying. This might have been possible at some point, but the cat is truly out of the bag. We have a million cases of a super hidden super contagious disease.

The point now should be keep infections at a manageable number right? Its not going back to zero or nearly zero until heard immunity starts to kick in.

It feels like some folks are recommending lock down until vaccine, which would most likely create massive civil upheaval.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2020, 07:04:34 AM by Jon Bon »

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1231 on: April 27, 2020, 07:49:35 AM »
Probably late to the party on this, but comorbidity can include heart disease, obesity, diabetes, or hypertension. That describes a lot of people, and not all of those are death-bed conditions. They're generalized as pre-existing conditions and painted as the deathbed by people who emotionally leveraged against authority.

The more data we get, the more I'm convinced that we're doing something closely approximating "the right thing".  I'm not indiscriminately rooting for an endless lockdown. I want to get back to normal as much as the next person. We're working on figuring out how to do that. We'll get there.

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1232 on: April 27, 2020, 07:58:23 AM »

BiB: I'm not sure what point you are making here: a different lifestyle can avoid most of those issues but not in the timescale of this pandemic.

You seem to suggest that the obese, the type 2 diabetic and the hypertensive are not worthy of having their health protected from a pandemic, and/or that the healthy should not be put to any inconvenience to protect them.
 
That's a pretty jawdropping attitude.


Is it a jawdropping atitude?

I don't think so.  Empathy is a two-way street. 

To me it seems very self-absorbed to knowingly live an unhealthy lifestyle and then demand society destroy itself to avoid the consequences of previous decisions.

I think there is a middle way that could be followed, but locking up healthy people and children isn’t part of that.  The government was given several chances to moderate it's policies, it has chosen to move forward with draconian policies that are irrational and destructive.  Oh well, not my pig, not my farm.

I will not destroy my family to reduce the risk of those I don't know.  Not going to happen, not for a million years.  If the government wanted longer compliance then they should have been "empathetic".

 Draconian policies.... Destroy your family.... you need to step away from the keyboard and find something positive and productive to focus on you seem to be obsessed and letting your mind run wild.

I would hardly consider what is going on in most of the US a lockdown. I went for a 20 mile bike ride yesterday, have been to the grocery store, container store and Home Depot to pickup items to work in home projects this Friday we are going paddle boarding.

Today is day 42 for us “staying home” while it would be great if things could go back to normal that is not the reality probably for the next year or two we can stew about it or make the best of it.

Life has changed instead of focusing on the fact I cannot do everything I want to do right now I am getting caught up on projects around the house, talking to family and friends more than normal and watching Star Wars and marvel universe in order.

If you are in good health and not worried about getting sick you could probably even volunteer to take your mind off things and do something positive.


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That's nice for you. Many of us are living in complete isolation for months now. You ever see pictures of the unabomber? That's what happens when you live in total isolation. You lose your fucking mind. It's not a natural or healthy way to live. If you have a spouse or a family you're living with, good on you, but remember that there are hundreds of millions  of your  fellow citizens that are either completely alone or living with family in extremely constrained living spaces – for MONTHS.

I'm lucky I have my own place and it's spacious enough that I can setup a home gym  and pace around. I've lived in much smaller spaces where I would not have lasted more than a few weeks. I'm also lucky my city is allowing people to go to parks and walk and run. I've heard some cities – cough, Chicago, cough – are restricting even something as innocuous as riding a bike on a bike path.

GuitarStv

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1233 on: April 27, 2020, 08:07:48 AM »
That's nice for you. Many of us are living in complete isolation for months now. You ever see pictures of the unabomber? That's what happens when you live in total isolation. You lose your fucking mind. It's not a natural or healthy way to live. If you have a spouse or a family you're living with, good on you, but remember that there are hundreds of millions  of your  fellow citizens that are either completely alone or living with family in extremely constrained living spaces – for MONTHS.

Solitude is tough.  It can definitely be emotionally and mentally draining.  That's why the vast majority of places are allowing people go go out and exercise.

You might be overstating your case with comparisons the the unabomber though.  There are millions of people around the world who have been living with or under some sort of isolation.  We have not (yet) been inundated with mass bombings.


I'm lucky I have my own place and it's spacious enough that I can setup a home gym  and pace around. I've lived in much smaller spaces where I would not have lasted more than a few weeks. I'm also lucky my city is allowing people to go to parks and walk and run. I've heard some cities – cough, Chicago, cough – are restricting even something as innocuous as riding a bike on a bike path.

I love to ride my bike . . . but it's not safe to ride on most bike paths, at least around here.  You can't maintain proper social distancing because most bike paths are not made wide enough.  So, while the activity itself is innocuous, there would seem to be a sensible reason for preventing the activity.

somebody8198

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1234 on: April 27, 2020, 08:08:27 AM »
Fundamental question on flattening the curve.

It is not a function of reducing number of infections, just expanding the timeline of those infections correct?

I've heard my states very own head medical officer say that yes she still expects 40-70% of the population to be infected. Over a few weeks that would be pretty terrible, but over 6 months it might be manageable.

Is that not what we are trying to accomplish? Prevention/Eradication is impossible at this point correct?

I think different people are trying to do different things, and that's part of what's getting us in trouble and creating confusion.

From a public health perspective, two things fundamentally matter:

1) not exceeding the capacity of the health care system at any point during the epidemic(because this means more deaths for a given number of infections), and
2) the eventual number of infections in the terminal state

The essence of "flatten the curve", temporary hospitals, and ventilators is #1.

#2 you can modify in a couple ways:
A) Late in the game, modest social distancing measures(with low economic impact) can help you get to R <1 at a somewhat lower infection rate.  This might get you down from 60% to 50% of the population infected when the disease dwindles away.  This is probably underappreciated, because while you'll still have a large number of infections/deaths with this approach, shaving 10-20% of the death toll of this epidemic is still many, many lives - but this will likely go unrecognized because of how high the death toll is going to end up being.
B) The Home Run: If you're aggressive enough, early enough it's possible to do what Australia/Korea appear to have accomplished and knocked infections down to a very, very low level - at which point a large part of the risk can be managed via testing and contact tracing.  The thought process here is that at very low infection rates the options for intervention are targeted and much less economically disruptive.

The problem is, to do scenario B effectively, you need to execute it early enough, and aggressively enough.  If you don't do it early enough, and are unwilling to be sufficiently aggressive for a long enough time to drive infections low enough that testing/contact tracing/isolation become feasible, you're basically back to the herd immunity endgame.

The reality is, we've most likely missed our window of opportunity to pull off scenario B in the USA(an earlier stoppage of European travel might have changed this story, but we'll never know...).  You can't "kind of" do this approach, or do a "toned down" version of it - if you do, the lockdown just runs longer and may not even be sufficiently effective - but that's where we're functionally operating in the USA right now.

Ok I get and agree with Part A: "Save the Hospitals" that seamed mostly reasonable and achievable. The curve has in fact been flattened, and with the exception of a few NYC hospitals no one was overwhelmed in the US.

However Part B: "Eradicate the Disease" is laughably impossible at this point. I just dont know why we are even still trying. This might have been possible at some point, but the cat is truly out of the bag. We have a million cases of a super hidden super contagious disease.

The point now should be keep infections at a manageable number right? Its not going back to zero or nearly zero until heard immunity starts to kick in.

It feels like some folks are recommending lock down until vaccine, which would most likely create massive civil upheaval.

This is exactly right. It is impossible to wait for a vaccine. Imagine if we did that with HIV. Or hepatitis. Or ebola.

Officials have hinted that they expect a large portion of us to  get it anyway. That seems all the more likely when you consider that there may be 10-20x more asymptomatic cases. All of this destruction of society, and in the end we'll still be wearing masks and nervously waiting to see if we develop symptoms for the foreseeable future. In light of that fact, it's time to get back to something like normal life. "Slow the spread", not "stop the spread." Stopping it means either we commit societal suicide or pull a vaccine out of our ass. Slowing it is achievable with the  existing guidelines.

If there is anything we should take from this experience, it's that "the experts" cannot be blindly trusted to figure out the best solution new problems. All those people collecting paychecks from the CDC, WHO, FDA, and so on, and still the worst thing that could happen.. happened. "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."  Yeah, how's  the working out? They didn't prevent or control anything. Their solution is to impose house arrest on the entire world. Absolutely abysmal failure on every level. I hope we fire all of them when this is over.

the_fixer

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1235 on: April 27, 2020, 08:13:00 AM »
Hey, I'm not the one who claimed this was "hardly a lockdown" because I could go recreate and work from home.

I'm not saying wallow in despair. I'm saying recognize that there ARE people (lots of them) who are really suffering for the sake of saving a very limited number of lives. They are not hanging out at the park and teaching their kids algebra. They are trying to figure out how not to starve this summer.

-W

Well forgive me for recommending that maybe egillespie should take a step back and try to focus on things within their control and try to bring some positivity to their situation no matter how small it might be rather than anger and negativity.


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I think your advice was reasonable and I took no offense to it.  However, being able to be outside in a rural part of Colorado with great weather is a much different experience than living in NYC and being locked in an apartment for 40+ days.  There are many people in NYC that have done just that (if they take the government directives seriously) and it is causing quite a bit of mental problems.  The virus is already very widespread in NYC, it is likely that social distancing and other measures were put into place too late.  That is not an indictment, hindsight is 20/20 as data is analyzed.

In other news, the WHO now claims that infection with COVID-19 likely does provide immunity.  I'm surprised they were able to correct their bold faced lie within 24-hours, as it seems like the WHO can't take a successful dump within 24-hours.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/929397
I get it and wish you well, while I do live in a hot spot in Colorado in a high density housing area it is not as populated as NY city. I thank god that I am not there and in that situation.

For me it helps to only watch enough news to be aware of what is going on, try to do the little things to prepare for when we can go back out and do stuff. Cleaning out closets, going through our digital mess of pictures, focusing on our eating and health, learning new things.

This will eventually pass, we just need to be mindful of letting things outside of our control take controlled of us and focus on what we have control of.

Best wishes you will get through this!


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Kris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1236 on: April 27, 2020, 08:31:27 AM »

BiB: I'm not sure what point you are making here: a different lifestyle can avoid most of those issues but not in the timescale of this pandemic.

You seem to suggest that the obese, the type 2 diabetic and the hypertensive are not worthy of having their health protected from a pandemic, and/or that the healthy should not be put to any inconvenience to protect them.
 
That's a pretty jawdropping attitude.


Is it a jawdropping atitude?

I don't think so.  Empathy is a two-way street. 

To me it seems very self-absorbed to knowingly live an unhealthy lifestyle and then demand society destroy itself to avoid the consequences of previous decisions.

I think there is a middle way that could be followed, but locking up healthy people and children isn’t part of that.  The government was given several chances to moderate it's policies, it has chosen to move forward with draconian policies that are irrational and destructive.  Oh well, not my pig, not my farm.

I will not destroy my family to reduce the risk of those I don't know.  Not going to happen, not for a million years.  If the government wanted longer compliance then they should have been "empathetic".

 Draconian policies.... Destroy your family.... you need to step away from the keyboard and find something positive and productive to focus on you seem to be obsessed and letting your mind run wild.

I would hardly consider what is going on in most of the US a lockdown. I went for a 20 mile bike ride yesterday, have been to the grocery store, container store and Home Depot to pickup items to work in home projects this Friday we are going paddle boarding.

Today is day 42 for us “staying home” while it would be great if things could go back to normal that is not the reality probably for the next year or two we can stew about it or make the best of it.

Life has changed instead of focusing on the fact I cannot do everything I want to do right now I am getting caught up on projects around the house, talking to family and friends more than normal and watching Star Wars and marvel universe in order.

If you are in good health and not worried about getting sick you could probably even volunteer to take your mind off things and do something positive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's nice for you. Many of us are living in complete isolation for months now. You ever see pictures of the unabomber? That's what happens when you live in total isolation. You lose your fucking mind. It's not a natural or healthy way to live. If you have a spouse or a family you're living with, good on you, but remember that there are hundreds of millions  of your  fellow citizens that are either completely alone or living with family in extremely constrained living spaces – for MONTHS.

I'm lucky I have my own place and it's spacious enough that I can setup a home gym  and pace around. I've lived in much smaller spaces where I would not have lasted more than a few weeks. I'm also lucky my city is allowing people to go to parks and walk and run. I've heard some cities – cough, Chicago, cough – are restricting even something as innocuous as riding a bike on a bike path.

One of the biggest ironies of the last week or so for me is the astroturfed protests against the "lockdown"...

That are happening outside, in public. Without being restricted.

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1237 on: April 27, 2020, 08:33:35 AM »
The government might not do it but it's sensible public policy to value lives unequally.

Depends upon what the public thinks IMO. And the US Government value of a statistical life attempts to quantify how much the public values life. If there's enough push back, then that says something about the value of life, and the government should rethink the lockdown and the calculation.

Even so, that's a little problematic from a civil liberties perspective. I've seen a lot of argument on the anti-lockdown side regarding civil liberties. But life is also a civil liberty, and in the Declaration of Independence, one of my country's most cited documents, it's actually listed before liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

People trade their own life for liberty and the pursuit of happiness all the time when they take up smoking or skydiving. But since this is a public health crisis, we're talking about trading others lives for our liberty and pursuit of happiness. Or the other way around.

We're talking bout a large number of lives and an even larger number of persons having their pursuit of happiness impacted. It's a tricky situation and we gotta be careful and get it right. Having studied this for months, I think the US response is decently close to "getting it right". And this is coming from someone with absolute contempt for the person in charge right now. No matter how many mind-numblingly stupid things he says though, it's clear to me that really smart people on both the public health side and the economics side are driving the discourse.

Trading other people's lives for the liberty and pursuit of happiness has obvious precedent in the US doesn't it? Didn't the draft send tens of millions of young people into harm's way, with hundreds of thousands dying and many, many more suffering life-long repercussions as a result? All to protect the opportunities for the majority of the population to enjoy liberty and pursue happiness.

GuitarStv

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1238 on: April 27, 2020, 08:53:51 AM »
The government might not do it but it's sensible public policy to value lives unequally.

Depends upon what the public thinks IMO. And the US Government value of a statistical life attempts to quantify how much the public values life. If there's enough push back, then that says something about the value of life, and the government should rethink the lockdown and the calculation.

Even so, that's a little problematic from a civil liberties perspective. I've seen a lot of argument on the anti-lockdown side regarding civil liberties. But life is also a civil liberty, and in the Declaration of Independence, one of my country's most cited documents, it's actually listed before liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

People trade their own life for liberty and the pursuit of happiness all the time when they take up smoking or skydiving. But since this is a public health crisis, we're talking about trading others lives for our liberty and pursuit of happiness. Or the other way around.

We're talking bout a large number of lives and an even larger number of persons having their pursuit of happiness impacted. It's a tricky situation and we gotta be careful and get it right. Having studied this for months, I think the US response is decently close to "getting it right". And this is coming from someone with absolute contempt for the person in charge right now. No matter how many mind-numblingly stupid things he says though, it's clear to me that really smart people on both the public health side and the economics side are driving the discourse.

Trading other people's lives for the liberty and pursuit of happiness has obvious precedent in the US doesn't it? Didn't the draft send tens of millions of young people into harm's way, with hundreds of thousands dying and many, many more suffering life-long repercussions as a result? All to protect the opportunities for the majority of the population to enjoy liberty and pursue happiness.

The worst part is - those men drafted were the people in society "worth saving".  Not useless old folks and those with health conditions.  :P

js82

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1239 on: April 27, 2020, 09:08:23 AM »

If there is anything we should take from this experience, it's that "the experts" cannot be blindly trusted to figure out the best solution new problems. All those people collecting paychecks from the CDC, WHO, FDA, and so on, and still the worst thing that could happen.. happened. "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."  Yeah, how's  the working out? They didn't prevent or control anything. Their solution is to impose house arrest on the entire world. Absolutely abysmal failure on every level. I hope we fire all of them when this is over.

Terrible leaders lash out and place blame, making scapegoats out of others.  Good leaders ask "where should we go from here?/what can we learn from this?/what would we do differently if this happens again?"  Part of the problem is that most leaders/organizations are making things up as they go right now - as opposed to having a plan in place in advance.  It's easier to make the right decision when it's been decided in advance, prior to the heat of the moment.

When this is all over, our leaders need to build a pandemic "playbook" for the next time a virus comes around - and it's not a single protocol - it's a set of if-then statements depending on the scenario they're faced with.  The 3 major inputs are the contagiousness(R) of the virus, its lethality, and the current state of their nation.  There's not a one-size-fits-all solution here.  For a low-lethality virus(Swine Flu) the answer is to keep calm in carry on.  For others (the original SARS) it's deadly enough that you need to aggressively isolate cases.  Covid-19 is in an intermediate space where it's not in "no-brainer" territory on either end - but having the plan defined in advance would help with that.  And nations need to know when a lockdown is or isn't realistic, depending on how widespread the virus is within their borders.  Having this framework makes it easier to defend changing course on the fly as new information becomes available - because the plan was already out there.

The biggest mistake we can make on the other end of this is to assume that the next new virus will be just like this one, and to not have a plan developed for the eventuality of a pandemic with a different set of parameters.  If we don't come out of this public health crisis better prepared for the next one, THAT would be the biggest failure of all.

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1240 on: April 27, 2020, 09:26:01 AM »
B) The Home Run: If you're aggressive enough, early enough it's possible to do what Australia/Korea appear to have accomplished and knocked infections down to a very, very low level - at which point a large part of the risk can be managed via testing and contact tracing.  The thought process here is that at very low infection rates the options for intervention are targeted and much less economically disruptive.

It might be a bit too early to declare "Mission Accomplished" in South Korea and Australia since areas that have knocked infections down to a very, very low level are going to be surrounded by areas where the virus is endemic. I think we'll have a vaccine sooner rather than later, but if one isn't around till say 2025, South Korea and Australia don't stand much of a chance of keeping the infection at bay.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2020, 10:11:34 AM by YttriumNitrate »

Jon Bon

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1241 on: April 27, 2020, 09:30:34 AM »
B) The Home Run: If you're aggressive enough, early enough it's possible to do what Australia/Korea appear to have accomplished and knocked infections down to a very, very low level - at which point a large part of the risk can be managed via testing and contact tracing.  The thought process here is that at very low infection rates the options for intervention are targeted and much less economically disruptive.

It might be a bit too early to declare "Mission Accomplished" in South Korea and Australia since areas that have knocked infections down to a very, very low level are going to be surrounded by areas where the virus is endemic. I think we'll have a vaccine sooner rather than later, but if one isn't around till say 2025, South Korea and Australia stand much of a chance of keeping the infection at bay.

One of the drawbacks of globalization. I think there is only one country capable of doing that, and I dont think any of us want to visit.




T-Money$

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1242 on: April 27, 2020, 09:45:16 AM »
NZ says they have no more transmission of COVID-19.

Hopefully it will not come back.  Living on an island(s) has its benefits.

kei te pai

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1243 on: April 27, 2020, 10:06:51 AM »
Not quite that straight forward. Single digit new cases which are traceable to existing clusters. Govt message is that widespread community transmission is not happening. Testing, tracing and quarantining capability has now been brought up to a standard which can offer reasonable confidence.

But what the future looks like without the international travel considered normal by most NZers, and with a large kiwi diaspora, and a (former) tourism industry is a big unknown. Come for a quarantine holiday anyone?

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1244 on: April 27, 2020, 10:47:40 AM »
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/?arc404=true

Washington Post research more or less cosigns the NYTimes stuff on excess mortality.

Something is killing people in March/April of 2020 in the United States.

boy_bye

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1245 on: April 27, 2020, 10:52:07 AM »
International analysis of excess deaths looks much the same.

mathlete

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1246 on: April 27, 2020, 10:56:33 AM »
International analysis of excess deaths looks much the same.

Ecuador is eye opening. Temperate climate year round with only wet/dry seasons. If their excess mortality is real and COVID driven, that punches a hole in the idea that we could have locked down by regional climate.

The lockdown sucks. And I get the frustration, especially from folks who live in areas with just 1 or 2 new daily cases. But I don't know that there was evidence that we could reliably tell where this would hit the hardest. Most communities going into lockdown nation wide helps them control their own community spread while also not receiving interstate migration from more heavily affected areas.

I'm pretty confident that we're saving lives right now. I am not an epidemiologist, but I think we're doing more than simply flattening the curve.

mm1970

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1247 on: April 27, 2020, 12:30:21 PM »
Yeah, fuck all the obese people and people with diabetes, etc. Especially the poor ones living in food deserts, and without decent medical care, and no access to a gym, or money to afford a membership, and no one who knows about fitness or cooking to teach them better habits. Fuck ‘em all. I got mine.
I am seriously, honestly, terrified.  My stepfather is immuno-compromised (going through regular cancer treatment) and an obese diabetic.   He's been dealing with diabetes for decades, but handling that while living alone, unable to exercise, after 18 months of cancer treatment (and regular trips to the hospital for treatment) is fucking hard.  He's not lazy, stupid, or unworthy of medical care.  (In fact he has great insurance from his pension and his treatment over the last few years has probably been at least half a million bucks.)

"Knowingly living a bad lifestyle" - that guy can just fuck right off.  People get sick and have co-morbidities that have nothing to do with being unworthy, lazy, or terrible people.  Read a few books dude.

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1248 on: April 27, 2020, 12:33:57 PM »
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/?arc404=true

Washington Post research more or less cosigns the NYTimes stuff on excess mortality.

Something is killing people in March/April of 2020 in the United States.
The interesting thing to me is that if they are COVID-19 deaths but not "obviously" COVID-19 then this coronavirus is finding ways to make people ill that are not recognised as serious symptoms - it's doing something other than the classic lung infection and that other something kills people.

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #1249 on: April 27, 2020, 12:49:50 PM »
Obviously it is all suicides due to the lockdown.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!