Coronavirus

[DuckIII]

What you advocated it sacrificing the lives of at risk Americans because they already have lower life expectancies in order to buttress the economy. That isn’t medical triage. And it’s a repugnant notion in this country.

Not what I'm advocating, because I'm not advocating anything other than measuring the full impact of whatever choices you make and that when measuring that impact life years is a better indicator than lives. In a triage situation, a hospital will measure in life years not lives, well we are in a triage situation as a country right now. We've sacrificed the economy to buy time on saving lives without a guarantee that it will be successful. Might be the right long term move, might not be.

The alternative you provided was doing nothing and just letting it play out to mitigate against economic consequences. Which you provided while illustrating a fundamental misunderstanding of suppressing the curve and why we do it. And then you said that the economic decisions being made should consider “life years” rather than lives (which means attributing a quality of life value to an economic analysis).

So if I misunderstood and you aren’t actually advocating that we do those things, good. Because if you were advocating those things, not good.

[DuckIII]

I'm 66 and my kids, their spouses and their friends are asking me whether I've ever seen anything like this (it's weird being the wizened sage). My answer is an unequivocal no, but the no is based on the level of disruption of everyday life, not the loss of life resulting from the pandemic...at least to this point. The 1968-69 Hong Kong flu is estimated to have taken 1,000,000 lives...I lived through that and while I certainly remember it, it's not one of the top-5 news stories from that period. Maybe Covid-19 will top this...maybe not. If you think you know the answer to this, you don't. That's at the heart of the problem...even our best and most knowledgeable minds don't know more than they do know.

Personally, I'm hoping that when we come out of this tunnel we're in that we're wondering in retrospect if all these costly preventive measures were worth it 'cause that'll mean that the disease wasn't as deadly as we currently fear.

No it won’t necessarily mean that at all. It may mean that the strategies employed specifically to reach that desired outcome, worked. In fact, that’s much more likely because it will be linked with intentional behaviors rather than random fortune.

To be clear, I didn't say that that if the virus isn't as deadly as we currently fear then the measures we're taking should be considered as having been unnecessary. However, if this (relatively) positive result occurs, there's no doubt that many will question the actions taken. You may not, but many will. My point is that I'd rather have this situation than one where the actions are deemed to have been insufficient because of an underestimation of deaths.

Understood and an important distinction.

[Nikola]

so you've been speaking with the politicians that are making these decisions?

what seems certain is that you have no clue that politicians constantly have business leaders in their ears who know a thing or two about supply chain. they are tasked with balancing business concerns and public health concerns

unfortunately, business operations are intertwined with the public health outcome here. saying that politicians should not be making decisions for businesses isn't much different than saying that it should be left to businesses to make the public health decisions. and how could that possibly go wrong?

Please with the condescending tone. Yes that is what they are tasked for but they do not have the ability. Even an expert from a single industry can make mistakes.

yes, everybody can make mistakes. including your own business when making decisions for itself. particularly when you, like all of us, lack data and certainly about potential adverse business impacts of the virus

No one in the government has contacted my company. We produce machinery to process food(essential goods). Companies that produce millions of pounds of food a year depend on us. Exclusively.

there are business leaders that represent companies, including yours. the government is not going to contact every company individually to ask their opinion

There are no business leaders that know everything about all aspects of an industry. What details do you see them working out on these blanket shut downs? Grocery stores needs people to produce food, processing, packaging, raw material, transportation, distribution, insurance, medical. You could break all these down into subcategories and I'm probably leaving a bunch out. This is just to keep a grocery store going. Now consider this for all essential businesses. Not many people working to create fun stuff we can live without.

[dougthonus]

The alternative you provided was doing nothing and just letting it play out to avoid economic consequences. Which you provided while illustrating a fundamental misunderstanding of suppressing the curve and why we do it. And then you said that the economic decisions being made should consider “life years” rather than lives (which means attributing a quality of life value to an economic analysis).

So if I misunderstood and you aren’t actually advocating that we do those things, good. Because if you were advocating those things, not good.

I've said it's possible that doing nothing is a viable alternative, because the impact of our actions are worse whereas I don't think others see that as even a possibility.

I don't know that it's a likely possibility, because as I've said, it's also possible that nearly 100% of the economic impact was going to happen no matter what you did, because people were going to start self distancing anyway and act responsibly regardless, and the same loss would have occurred (or nearly the same loss).

My understanding of flattening the curve is that you aren't necessarily making way less people sick, but you're slowing the rate down so you don't overwhelm your medical system which will ultimately save lives.

You have brought up something in a light which I appreciate and didn't really consider well prior to you mentioning it which is that we can flatten the curve by delaying the start and then being more prepared. Ie, social distancing isn't flattening the curve by stopping the spread, but by allowing us to prepare and take better steps to keep the curve flat while doing normal things after social distancing ends.

And yes, I do think you should attribute an economic value to life years when figuring things out, but even if you switch to using lives, it's still a game of measure and compare opportunity costs. Say you spent 2 trillion dollars to save 2 million lives, if you could use that 2 trillion in another way then could you save more? We could save 500k a year forever by making smoking illegal which would have an impact of 785 billion as an example (think smoking while ending lives really cuts about 6years per life it ends on average, so you'd take that into account too).

Maybe we'd be better off putting 2 trillion dollars into government funded research to make new drugs that won't have patents on them and will be cheap for everyone. Maybe we should spend 2 trillion dollars to start a socialized health care (not sure really how far 2 trillion goes in that direction).

It is ultimately about resource allocation and doing the most good you can with the resources you have.

[Nikola]

Thats because it’s monstrous. You can’t evaluate quality of life to minimize negative economic outcomes. Those of you stating that people are going starve to death, riot and start committing suicide in huge numbers are the ones spreading irrational fear, not the other way around. And doing so based on what are highly likely personal concerns with individual finances and not macro considerations for the good of all.

Fortunately this is not a dystopian novel and the government is not going to sacrifice the lives of the elderly and infirm as part of its “macro” strategy to battle the economic evils of the corona virus.

Economic problems can cost lives too. For example almost no one currently retires will see their 401K bounce completely back. They will have less money for healthcare. The shutdown has already cost lives in this way. We will see what supply chain issues arise. It won't be none. People are going to start losing jobs like crazy if the lockdown continues very much longer. Followed by losing their homes.

If you honestly think crunching numbers to find the best possible outcome is monstrous I probably can't say much to you.

You just completely changed the argument from what it was to a completely different thing. Obviously the economy is a consideration in all this and must be heavily considered in the decision making process. But not by throwing the elderly and infirm on the pyre so we can all go back to work sooner.

And no, shelter in place has not “already cost lives.” That’s just a lie. On the other hand, about 30 people died from coronavirus in New York. Today.

I've been wondering why we didn't just have those at risk self quarantine and have the healthy keep society going.

[dougthonus]

I've been wondering why we didn't just have those at risk self quarantine and have the healthy keep society going.

There's no real easy way to implement that, but it would be interesting to do something like "If you are over 60, you are self quarantined, you can not see anyone even family, and we will have 100% of your food/needs delivered to you free of charge" and then in hospital/nursing home settings come up with some rigid way to keep thing sanitary.

The problem, of course, is many high risk people live with low risk people making feasibility of implementation extremely low. London had a plan of purposefully mass infecting the low risk population for awhile, and it would be interesting to see how that would have panned out in a mirror universe, but I think that plan has too much risk and downside to be seriously considered.

[Dresden]

IT's not so clear cut who will become seriously ill from this and who won't. that's why it's very risky to say if you are under 60, you have nothing to worry about, just go about your business. Something like 20% of people in ICU's are ages 22-40, I read. Another stat was that 50% of people who become very sick will be under 50. So it's just too hard to tell who is in serious risk.

[coldfish]

Ohio shut down as of midnight tomorrow. My customers are all over the US and I will no longer be able to supply them. I'm trying to get a crew in to finish every part we can to ship out everything in inventory tomorrow. The states that are shutting down are going to have a knock on effect on others.

I bring this up because the national supply chain is going to shut down for all kinds of things. Replacement parts is one. People don't think about this but stuff breaks. We take it for granted that in the US, broken stuff will be repaired or replaced in a timely manner. With no functioning supply chain, day by day more stuff won't work. These are the little things that would become big things on an extended national shutdown.

IT's not so clear cut who will become seriously ill from this and who won't. that's why it's very risky to say if you are under 60, you have nothing to worry about, just go about your business. Something like 20% of people in ICU's are ages 22-40, I read. Another stat was that 50% of people who become very sick will be under 50. So it's just too hard to tell who is in serious risk.

How are you feeling Dresden?

[coldfish]

You have brought up something in a light which I appreciate and didn't really consider well prior to you mentioning it which is that we can flatten the curve by delaying the start and then being more prepared. Ie, social distancing isn't flattening the curve by stopping the spread, but by allowing us to prepare and take better steps to keep the curve flat while doing normal things after social distancing ends.
.

If we had been better prepared, we could have flattened the curve by mass testing. Anyone who has symptoms, gets a test and results immediately and the positives get quarantined. Then you test everyone they came in contact with. That by itself would slow down the exponential growth.

I hope that in a few weeks we are in a much better position and we can turn back on. I really don't think the country can handle a long term complete lockdown.

[transplant]

Maybe we'd be better off putting 2 trillion dollars into government funded research to make new drugs that won't have patents on them and will be cheap for everyone. Maybe we should spend 2 trillion dollars to start a socialized health care (not sure really how far 2 trillion goes in that direction).

It is ultimately about resource allocation and doing the most good you can with the resources you have.

There is little doubt that if our government had allocated 2 trillion dollars to pandemic preparedness, the US would pretty much be able to shrug off Covid-19. This said, and you being one of the smarter posters on this here board, you know that the officeholder(s) who proposed said allocation (and the resulting taxation) would be summarily tossed to the curb.

We are not a proactive society at least partly due to the fact that we don't trust our leaders regardless of their party affiliation. It's all a Catch-22, but I'll be damned if I can find a way out of it.

[League Circles]

Without any doubt IMO, the greatest failure here is that we haven't had literally one billion masks stockpiled basically since we started understanding microbiology. we should have had this before we all had air conditioning, and certainly before we all bought and trashed like 6 smartphones each. It's a failure of every american, but especially every political leader.

[Dresden]

Ohio shut down as of midnight tomorrow. My customers are all over the US and I will no longer be able to supply them. I'm trying to get a crew in to finish every part we can to ship out everything in inventory tomorrow. The states that are shutting down are going to have a knock on effect on others.

I bring this up because the national supply chain is going to shut down for all kinds of things. Replacement parts is one. People don't think about this but stuff breaks. We take it for granted that in the US, broken stuff will be repaired or replaced in a timely manner. With no functioning supply chain, day by day more stuff won't work. These are the little things that would become big things on an extended national shutdown.

IT's not so clear cut who will become seriously ill from this and who won't. that's why it's very risky to say if you are under 60, you have nothing to worry about, just go about your business. Something like 20% of people in ICU's are ages 22-40, I read. Another stat was that 50% of people who become very sick will be under 50. So it's just too hard to tell who is in serious risk.

How are you feeling Dresden?

I'm feeling just about 100% again, thanks! It was probably just a sinus infection that lingered, but who knows. I never did get a cough or shortness of breath. Maybe I'll be able to get an anti-body test one day to see if I have any immunity.

[Dresden]

Maybe we'd be better off putting 2 trillion dollars into government funded research to make new drugs that won't have patents on them and will be cheap for everyone. Maybe we should spend 2 trillion dollars to start a socialized health care (not sure really how far 2 trillion goes in that direction).

It is ultimately about resource allocation and doing the most good you can with the resources you have.

There is little doubt that if our government had allocated 2 trillion dollars to pandemic preparedness, the US would pretty much be able to shrug off Covid-19. This said, and you being one of the smarter posters on this here board, you know that the officeholder(s) who proposed said allocation (and the resulting taxation) would be summarily tossed to the curb.

We are not a proactive society at least partly due to the fact that we don't trust our leaders regardless of their party affiliation. It's all a Catch-22, but I'll be damned if I can find a way out of it.

As they say, too, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we had just taken this as seriously when the outbreak in China was first being reported in late December, early January, we could have saved ourselves untold billions or even trillions that we will now be spending to fight the effects. South Korea sprang into action after just 4 cases were reported in the country.

[johnnyvann840]

My wife and I just found out she’s pregnant...

Congratulations! Keep them safe.

[dougthonus]

If we had been better prepared, we could have flattened the curve by mass testing. Anyone who has symptoms, gets a test and results immediately and the positives get quarantined. Then you test everyone they came in contact with. That by itself would slow down the exponential growth.

Would be interesting to see how well this would flatten the curve given the reports of people spreading it while asymptomatic. If we could make wearing masks mandatory fall all public employees that would probably help a lot too.

[AKfanatic]

I'm 66 and my kids, their spouses and their friends are asking me whether I've ever seen anything like this (it's weird being the wizened sage). My answer is an unequivocal no, but the no is based on the level of disruption of everyday life, not the loss of life resulting from the pandemic...at least to this point. The 1968-69 Hong Kong flu is estimated to have taken 1,000,000 lives...I lived through that and while I certainly remember it, it's not one of the top-5 news stories from that period. Maybe Covid-19 will top this...maybe not. If you think you know the answer to this, you don't. That's at the heart of the problem...even our best and most knowledgeable minds don't know more than they do know.

Personally, I'm hoping that when we come out of this tunnel we're in that we're wondering in retrospect if all these costly preventive measures were worth it 'cause that'll mean that the disease wasn't as deadly as we currently fear.

No it won’t necessarily mean that at all. It may mean that the strategies employed specifically to reach that desired outcome, worked. In fact, that’s much more likely because it will be linked with intentional behaviors rather than random fortune.

Yep. I said it earlier in this thread.... many of those downplaying the risk of the virus and railing against the NBA shutting down, cities essentially shutting down, and much of society shutting down will all yell about how right they were and how wrong the “panic” was if this passes without tremendous losses of life... they’ll do so, completely disregarding how much of the reactions - shutting things down, quarantines - likely played a massive role in allowing this to pass without that tremendous loss of life.

Many pundits know this and continue to downplay the risks of COVID because they know they’ll likely be able to continue attacking the response when the smoke clears.

(Not pointing this at you Transplant, but there are many like this out there.... a few in this thread)

[dougthonus]

As they say, too, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we had just taken this as seriously when the outbreak in China was first being reported in late December, early January, we could have saved ourselves untold billions or even trillions that we will now be spending to fight the effects. South Korea sprang into action after just 4 cases were reported in the country.

Part of that was that MERS, SARS, H1N1, ZIka, and whatever other viruses that initially looked bad didn't have that big an impact.

Odds are we will make cultural changes due to this, much like South Korea and other countries that had experience with SARS did.

[dougthonus]

Yep. I said it earlier in this thread.... many of those downplaying the risk of the virus and railing against the NBA shutting down, cities essentially shutting down, and much of society shutting down will all yell about how right they were and how wrong the “panic” was if this passes without tremendous losses of life... they’ll do so, completely disregarding how much of the reactions - shutting things down, quarantines - likely played a massive role in allowing this to pass without that tremendous loss of life.

Many pundits know this and continue to downplay the risks of COVID because they know they’ll likely be able to continue attacking the response when the smoke clears.

Like all things in life, you won't be able to play it two ways, so there's no way to know what would happen with other choices.

I hope we hit a point where those saying this was unnecessary are complaining about how it did nothing and those who said it was are saying we stopped 200 million cases and saved 3 million lives. That'd be a great debate to have when this is over compared to one where we are arguing about how we failed and what we could have done to prevent millions of lives lost.

[AKfanatic]

Yep. I said it earlier in this thread.... many of those downplaying the risk of the virus and railing against the NBA shutting down, cities essentially shutting down, and much of society shutting down will all yell about how right they were and how wrong the “panic” was if this passes without tremendous losses of life... they’ll do so, completely disregarding how much of the reactions - shutting things down, quarantines - likely played a massive role in allowing this to pass without that tremendous loss of life.

Many pundits know this and continue to downplay the risks of COVID because they know they’ll likely be able to continue attacking the response when the smoke clears.

Like all things in life, you won't be able to play it two ways, so there's no way to know what would happen with other choices.

I hope we hit a point where those saying this was unnecessary are complaining about how it did nothing and those who said it was are saying we stopped 200 million cases and saved 3 million lives. That'd be a great debate to have when this is over compared to one where we are arguing about how we failed and what we could have done to prevent millions of lives lost.

The problem with that debate is one side of it is ignoring some serious facts about how viruses spread and how operating as if everything is fine, would absolutely spread the virus much quicker... overwhelming the system and leading to larger losses.... and such a debate risks being unprepared and not taking the correct steps when the next pandemic inevitably comes.


How many NBA players have been diagnosed as having COVID after the games were stopped?

How many players would have came into contact with them in a game?

How many fans?

Staff and stadium employees?

How many people would have come in contact with fan A after his contact with player B? How many contacts are made by contact C, D, E?

Keeping life going normally puts lives at risk.

[SimonFish]

A third of coronavirus cases may be ‘silent carriers’, classified Chinese data suggests
- More than 43,000 people in China had tested positive without immediate symptoms by the end of February and were quarantined
- It is still unclear what role asymptomatic transmission is playing in the global pandemic

More at link:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076323/third-coronavirus-cases-may-be-silent-carriers-classified