The Coronavirus, not the beer

nsacpi said:
no I think it was a very good thing people panicked about that time
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Should have always been protect at risk and build herd immunity. But a slowdown needed to correct the spread during the period where they were not protected.
 
striker42 said:
The ultimate worry of people is getting sick from this and dying. It's that fear that is being flamed by the news media. This will result in an even worse problem that you're worried about as panicked people rush to the emergency room with the sniffles demanding a coronavirus test and treatment. The more calmly people approach this, the fewer problems we'll have.
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an opposing view on March 11

i think if everyone had stayed calm and not spontaneously adopted social distancing it would have been catastrophic
 
@thewupk and I were talking about this everyday basically since the first deaths in China in January. I still concretely remember him messaging me on Facebook when the first case was announced in Suburban Seattle and he said "it's here now we all gonna die boy you ready?"

Fascinating to read the comments now in here, but I think he and I were playfully joking about it getting more serious throughout February half-jokingly. Then it started getting worse and worse.

I know he hasn't posted as much in this thread but thewupk has been obsessed with this from the beginning.
 
nsacpi said:
Some large American cities are considering an Italian style lockdown.

I think you either go drastic like that and take the economic hit.

Or you accept that a large part of the population will get infected and avoid taking the economic hit. This seems to be what the Germans are doing. I personally would go with the latter. Just use common sense in avoiding large groups of people. Offer elderly relatives and friends to do their grocery shopping for them. And let the chips fall where they will.

Either way you test aggressively to monitor the situation on the ground.
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me still playing Hamlet on March 12

i must say it only dawned on me slowly how quickly this virus was spreading and what the consequences of doing nothing would have been

we can't rerun history...but one of the unknowables is what would have happened to our society if we had been paralyzed into inaction and many more people died
 
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thethe said:
If I said that hydroxychloroquine would have a 100% death rate then I deserve condemnation.
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thethe said:
Great study paper done on the effectiveness of hydroxycholorquine mixed with another drug.

Study dont by French.

100% cure rate by day 6.
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*insert three weeks of murder accusations*

And just to be clear "I was just reporting what the study said" is not an adequate defense, since the study absolutely did not claim a "100% cure rate."
 
nsacpi said:
28,000 uncounted deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html

At least 28,000 more people have died during the coronavirus pandemic over the last month than the official Covid-19 death counts report, a review of mortality data in 11 countries shows — providing a clearer, if still incomplete, picture of the toll of the crisis.

In the last month, far more people died in these countries than in previous years, The New York Times found. The totals include deaths from Covid-19 as well as those from other causes, likely including people who could not be treated as hospitals became overwhelmed.

These numbers undermine the notion that many people who have died from the virus may soon have died anyway. In Paris, more than twice the usual number of people have died each day, far more than the peak of a bad flu season. In New York City, the number is now four times the normal amount.

The differences are particularly stark in countries that have been slow to acknowledge the scope of the problem. Istanbul, for example, recorded about 2,100 more deaths than expected from March 9 through April 12 — roughly double the number of coronavirus deaths the government reported for the entire country in that period.
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So if I blow my brains out with a gun because I’m depressed from the lockdown, does my death get counted in this COVID death tally?

That’s an extreme counter point, obviously. But it’s very dangerous to conflate total deaths with COVID deaths, especially when measuring policy decisions with unintended consequences.
 
chop2chip said:
So if I blow my brains out with a gun because I’m depressed from the lockdown, does my death get counted in this COVID death tally?

That’s an extreme counter point, obviously. But it’s very dangerous to conflate total deaths with COVID deaths, especially when measuring policy decisions with unintended consequences.
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i think some would say your death is due to the economic recession...great minds would disagree and debate this one endlessly

but imo the recession is due to COVID19...this is not a man-made recession

its like a guy who loses his family to the tsunami and falling into a depression kills himself months later...i count that as a tsunami-related fatality

from a statistical point of view the answer is to count excess deaths...there are some adjustments to be made (due to fewer deaths form accidents, homicides, other infectious diseases), but I think those adjustments will be small compared to the overall death toll
 
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nsacpi said:
i think some would say your death is due to the economic recession...great minds would disagree and debate this one endlessly

but imo the recession is due to COVID19...this is not a man-made recession
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Yes. But indirect COVID deaths =/= direct COVID

The right side of that equation is what should inform the decision to reopen the economy. I’m afraid of the danger of the left being used to justify a lockdown (via grouping direct + indirect deaths) when the lockdown could be the primary cause of some fatalities.

And this recession is definitely a combination of the lockdown and COVID. It’s too simplistic to assign full blame to one vs the other.
 
chop2chip said:
Yes. But indirect COVID deaths =/= direct COVID

The right side of that equation is what should inform the decision to reopen the economy. I’m afraid of the danger of the left being used to justify a lockdown (via grouping direct + indirect deaths) when the lockdown could be the primary cause of some fatalities.

And this recession is definitely a combination of the lockdown and COVID. It’s too simplistic to assign full blame to one vs the other.
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I think there are three categories. Confirmed. Which are mainly deaths at the hospital of people testing positive. There are presumptive. People with the symptoms who die at home or at a nursing home. Both are direct.

Indirect would include people who didn't get treated for stroke, heart attacks, etc. Not all of this is due to hospitals being overwhelmed. Some of it is people afraid of catching COVID if they go see a doctor.

Does reopening the economy affect the indirect death toll. Hard to say.
 
nsacpi said:
I think there are three categories. Confirmed. Which are mainly deaths at the hospital of people testing positive. There are presumptive. People with the symptoms who die at home or at a nursing home. Both are direct.

Indirect would include people who didn't get treated for stroke, heart attacks, etc. Not all of this is due to hospitals being overwhelmed. Some of it is people afraid of catching COVID if they go see a doctor.

Does reopening the economy affect the indirect death toll. Hard to say.
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Fair assessment.

The indirect category is far broader than your description, but honestly it’s a fool’s errand to speculate what that impact could be. We are bound to underestimate. And I agree with your premise that this might not be a lever we can pull by reopening the economy.

But to the article you cited, I am strongly against that method of estimating COVID deaths. I understand what the author is attempting to do, but the conclusion is biased. We don’t need to inflate fear by juicing the death toll.
 
I'm not completely clear on what the counterfactual argument of we are supposed to have done to "save" the economy. I keep hearing that "the at-risk should stay home" but once you've told:

1) Everyone over 50 (45? 55? 60?)
2) Everyone with high blood pressure
3) Everyone with diabetes
4) Everyone with respiratory problems
5) Everyone who has [insert other reasonably common ailment/history]
6) Everybody who lives with one of those people. (or is this not part of it?)

Isn't that like over half the population already? How different do you really see that being? I'm just not sure I'm understanding.
 
Metaphysicist said:
I'm not completely clear on what the counterfactual argument of we are supposed to have done to "save" the economy. I keep hearing that "the at-risk should stay home" but once you've told:

1) Everyone over 50 (45? 55? 60?)
2) Everyone with high blood pressure
3) Everyone with diabetes
4) Everyone with respiratory problems
5) Everyone who has [insert other reasonably common ailment/history]
6) Everybody who lives with one of those people. (or is this not part of it?)

Isn't that like over half the population already? How different do you really see that being? I'm just not sure I'm understanding.
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A subset of those at risk can WFH. Then you provide stimulus to those that cant. Stimulus to the rest that lose their jobs.
 
thethe said:
A subset of those at risk can WFH. Then you provide stimulus to those that cant. Stimulus to the rest that lose their jobs.
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So literally the same as what we are already doing? Not seeing the big difference.

Forgot "obese." That's a big chunk there.
 
Like literally half the country has hypertension.

EDIT: If that was the only risk factor, so half the country + their immediate families had to stay home... you are still basically crippling the economy to the same degree as we are now. But it's actually that plus a bunch of other stuff.

This weird counterfactual world doesn't make sense to me.
 
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