The World-O-Meter Thread

[Derec]

The universe is under no obligation to contain an option that is viable.

True. But that doesn't mean we need to sacrifice the entire economy.

This is not a negotiation. Economic "necessity" comes second to avoiding mass deaths.

Which is why it would be foolish to open the country right now. But what do you consider "mass deaths" anyway? Note that there is always a trade-off with every public safety issue.
Here the trade-off is between the toll of the disease and the economic, psychological and societal toll of long-term lock-down. As time goes on, the negative effects of the former will likely decrease, but as time goes on the negative effects of the latter will definitely increase. To the level that the current level of restrictions will not be maintainable, as compliance will drop.
So we may not have a choice but to ease restrictions by early June. Which means we need to do what is necessary to minimize another major outbreak after then.

 

[Derec]

Not if the consequences are many of us losing our lives.

How many is many? Obviously there is always a trade-off with these things. That was the point of my example of highway deaths.

This isn't a negotiation. You don't get to reduce the lockdown on the basis of avoiding consequences less important than death, unless you can show that death is not a plausible consequence of those reductions, it's better to fuck the economy, and even the mental health of many citizens, than it is to kill millions.

First of all, fucking the economy and psychological well-being of 327 million people will have very bad consequences of its own, including deaths. Second, I do not think "millions of [additional] deaths" in the US is a likely outcome of relaxing restrictions in June. Can you show me why you think that is a reasonably likely outcome?
I am not talking about scrapping all restrictions and social distancing recommendations overnight. The restrictions will be relaxed gradually, and case numbers monitored. Hopefully we will also have widespread testing by then.

You cannot negotiate with a pandemic disease. The art of the deal is irrelevant in this situation.

Neither can you ignore the reality of psychology and economy. What use is to save some lives from disease if you have destroyed people's livelihoods. Not to mention that the longer the shutdown continues the more difficult it will become to maintain.

 

[Elixir]

It's more plain than that bilby. If there are mass deaths there is no economic anything.

Obviously nobody wants mass deaths. But there is always a trade-off when it comes to public safety. I do not think we can maintain a shutdown of the economy indefinitely.

Might as well call the whole stay home thing off then, as soon as we know that the 2k/day death rate doesn't break the health care system.
Oh wait - it already did.
Fuck it - if you get it and die, that's just tough shit. Leaves more money and more stuff for the rest of us.

 

[Elixir]

Still in the 30k/2k new case / new deaths zone. A little down-tick today but nothing to get excited about.
Seems like reporting might be flaky on the weekends.

 

[Derec]

Might as well call the whole stay home thing off then,

As I said, it's a trade-off. No part of that suggests we just say "fuck it". Just because I do not want this level of shutdown to continue until Christmas or even later does not mean we should end it all now.

 

[Trausti]

 

[Elixir]

04-12

Another Sunday step-down. I hope this doesn't inspire anyone to call off the stay-at-home orders.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Weekends typically have slower reporting. The peak was projected by the experts to be shortly.

 

[Elixir]

Might as well call the whole stay home thing off then,

As I said, it's a trade-off. No part of that suggests we just say "fuck it". Just because I do not want this level of shutdown to continue until Christmas or even later does not mean we should end it all now.

Trade-offs, compromises and half-measures are what is going to keep this thing alive for the rest of 2020 and beyond.

 

[TV and credit cards]

"Final offer: I'll trade you limited economic activity for 20,000 more lives.
Various ages but mostly in low paying jobs.
Take it or leave it."

 

[Trausti]

NYU scientists: Largest US study of COVID-19 finds obesity the single biggest 'chronic' factor in New York City's hospitalizations

Americans are fat.

 

[Elixir]

NYU scientists: Largest US study of COVID-19 finds obesity the single biggest 'chronic' factor in New York City's hospitalizations

Americans are fat.

That's encouraging for when PINO gets it.

 

[Elixir]

Good News? No Monday rebound - numbers are sloping down for three days now.
Bad news - USA has more new cases than the next 12 countries combined. Those 12 countries represent a population more than 7 times that of the USA. Meanwhile, we rank #41 in tests per million people. By the end of the year, the rest of the world will probably view us as the central shithole breeding ground for the pandemic virus. Vlad Putin has already said as much, and the world listens to him far more than than they do the PINO we have clowning around and being fawned over in front of cameras for three hours a day.
Worse news: the guy who got us here thinks he is doing a great job, and intends to keep doing the same great job.

 

[Elixir]

Delayed reporting accounts for most of the drop over the last few days and for the record high in deaths reported today. New cases are now on an established multi-day trend, slowly coming down in the US. US is still by far the biggest source of new cases worldwide but we're now middle of the pack in tests per million people, a big improvement over the last 2 weeks. So that bodes well at least.

 

[Derec]

Trade-offs, compromises and half-measures are what is going to keep this thing alive for the rest of 2020 and beyond.

The "full measures" bilby is proposing would be to keep a full lockdown until the end of the year. Even if this were the best course of action, it is not practicable in the real world.

 

[Derec]

Bad news - USA has more new cases than the next 12 countries combined. Those 12 countries represent a population more than 7 times that of the USA.

Look at those countries. Spain and Italy have already suffered through the brunt of the outbreak (or at least its first wave) and so it's understandable they have fewer new cases now. Then you have Russia, and I would not trust their numbers further than I could throw Putin.

By the end of the year, the rest of the world will probably view us as the central shithole breeding ground for the pandemic virus.

Very unlikely. The dynamic of the disease will have changed several times by then, just like it has changed over the last month.

Vlad Putin has already said as much,

[citation needed]

 

[bilby]

Trade-offs, compromises and half-measures are what is going to keep this thing alive for the rest of 2020 and beyond.

The "full measures" bilby is proposing would be to keep a full lockdown until the end of the year. Even if this were the best course of action, it is not practicable in the real world.

If it's the best option, then any more "practicable" alternative is (by definition) worse.

"Practicable" appears to be code for "acceptable to the wealthy" here. If so, fuck them. Nobody owes the economy their life.

 

[Derec]

"Practicable" appears to be code for "acceptable to the wealthy" here. If so, fuck them. Nobody owes the economy their life.

Not "acceptable to the wealthy" but to the people in general. Wealthy have a lot more cushion than regular working people. And everybody is getting cabin fever, and restrictions will be harder to maintain the longer this goes on.

I do not propose that we should remove restrictions today. The outbreak is way too hot for that. I think by early June it should have simmered down a lot, thanks to the social distancing we are practicing. But then we need to start relaxing restrictions. Not remove everything right away, but relax and monitor.

That is a much better, and more realistic, approach than to keep full restrictions until Christmas.

 

[bilby]

"Practicable" appears to be code for "acceptable to the wealthy" here. If so, fuck them. Nobody owes the economy their life.

Not "acceptable to the wealthy" but to the people in general. Wealthy have a lot more cushion than regular working people. And everybody is getting cabin fever, and restrictions will be harder to maintain the longer this goes on.

I do not propose that we should remove restrictions today. The outbreak is way too hot for that. I think by early June it should have simmered down a lot, thanks to the social distancing we are practicing.

I hope you disinfected that estimate, given where you pulled it from.

But then we need to start relaxing restrictions. Not remove everything right away, but relax and monitor.

Relaxing restrictions while the virus is still active anywhere in the population will just put us back to square one, unless we have a vaccine or a highly reliable and practically universal testing regime.

Neither is yet in evidence, and both will likely take a long time to become sufficiently widely available even after they are developed, tested, and shown to be safe and effective.

That is a much better, and more realistic, approach than to keep full restrictions until Christmas.

It's not "realistic"; It's based on a hugely over-optimistic guess.

There are no realistic forecasts; The only reality is that right now there's no way to prevent exponential spread of the virus except lockdown.

And until that changes, it's not realistic to scale back the lockdown - because that's the only thing keeping a lid on this.

Yes, people are going to go nuts; They are going to hate complying (and will probably require increasingly draconian measures to enforce that compliance). But no matter how much they hate it, their desire to return to normality has exactly zero bearing on the factual question of whether relaxing restrictions will or will not lead to a renewed phase of exponential spread in the population.

Only new medical options, none of which are yet available, and none of which have a currently reliable timescale to becoming available, can change this fact.

This is not a negotiation. You cannot reason with the virus, or ask it to show remorse or pity. It absolutely will not stop because people are fed up with staying home, or because the stock market, or the price of oil, are unacceptably low to those who worry about such things.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Social distancing has worked at slowing down inflections, now we don't need to socially distance any more. Or we can continue social distancing but just without the distance part.

The industries that hurt the most right now... are SOCIAL services. There is no way to have a restaurant open without the risk of transmission. You can't mitigate a restaurant or a bar with masks (except for Dark Helmet's). You'd need to live test every customer, and daily test the workers. Theaters, movie theaters... it just doesn't work, unless we are talking about people sitting far apart for one performer shows, and keeping quiet and only clapping.