I’ve been in record that the cure could be worse than the disease. There are real consequences to health and safety to a long term shut down if society like we have now. I honestly don’t know how bad those might be compared to letting Covid 19 running unchecked. I read a summary of the Imperial college paper that seemed to be what got the Is and UK governments to change their tune and that paints a pretty dire picture. What’s happening in Italy is pretty dire too. If we’re still shutdown like this in 6 months I’m not sure where our economy and supply chains are. For that matter how long with people who don’t believe this is much of a threat continue to put up with the restrictions without deciding to challenge them forcefully?
your opinion isn’t that strange . but IMO it a question of how much precaution can we take .... and in this case , if you chose a level of precaution (aka shutting things down) that isn’t high enough .... then the virus would do more damage to the economy (by causing the workforce to be unable to work due to illness) than would even stringent shutting down of things . I think it’s inevitable that a virus like this will cause a spike in our economy (don’t forget that healthcare is like 20% of our freakin GDP) With an estimated incubation time of 5-14 days , being able to spread while asymptomatic, and limited ability to treat patients .... this is something that if it was unchecked would absolutely cause many preventable deaths , be much more unpredictable, and cause even more panic. The idea behind the government, or businesses making the choice themselves to shutdown is like trying to get punched in arm vs shot in the face . You’d rather take a smaller , more predictable hit than face the uncertainty and magnitude of what happens if you don’t take preventative measures . At least , in my opinion . You have to shut things down to increase social distance otherwise you are basically in favor of culling the herd ... which is another discussion entirely I guess .
China also shut down their economy with a hard quarantine....they didn't just build hospitals in isolation (bada bump!)
we are gonna find out in a week or so how bad things really are (virus wise) now that states like NY have ramped up testing we are seeing the #of reported case rise. The real issue comes from the fact that you could have contracted the virus 3 days ago and not know anything until next week . we will see how far it has spread and how long it takes for new cases to start popping severe and critical . I think people will eventually get together on how “serious” it is because like i said , in a week or so we should have legitimate numbers to look at. How many cases are there in NY ? 4K ... how many cases next week would you think it takes for people to think it = large number or take it seriously ? the economic damage is real , it’s gonna be realer .. I study economics . I get it (some of it anyways ) but the health effects AND the economic effects interact . If you don’t take the appropriate level of precaution health wise then the economy will suffer regardless. keep in mind , the governments first response to this was pumping money in the markets and trying to calm financial investors .... they kinda did that before ramping up testing and closing **** down . I don’t have sympathy for people who are angry at the govt for acting on the health aspect right now (at the expense of the economy) ... when in fact the first move was to shore up the economy not the health aspects . (Not saying this is you)
Thats exactly what I’ve been saying. Until we have that though then we have very few choices unless we want to break our healthcare system and highly valuable medical professionals. Let this be evidence that we are failing to create a system that allows for the “accepted risk” that you are alluding to.
Everything you buy that doesnt need refrigerator : handle with gloves, and leave them in a corner of the house for 3 days. In 3 days the virus will die even if the products were contaminated. Likewise if something needs refrigeration , better consume it 3 days at least later. The virus will survive longer in the fridge but at least it will be less virulent.
Hmm... senator burr may be in more trouble that simply not saying publicly what he knew about Coronavirus (that he told people privately)... Senate Intel chair unloaded stocks in mid-February before coronavirus rocked markets https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/03/burr-unloaded-stocks-before-coronavirus/
Very soon there will be a working cure. Very very soon, think by the end of April. Then when things quiet down a bit, there will be test availability and antibody tests widely available. Everyone will be able to get a visit from a healthcare professional that will check if they are actually already recovered and immune and be sent back to work. The risky populations though will for sure have to be sheltered and in quarantine for many months. No matter how good the cure we find is, it will not be a magical potion.
Didn't Martha Stewart do hard time for something like that? This current self quarrantine also serves the purpose of letting "14 day incubators" blow up without surprise infecting everyone else. Asians won't be the only group wearing face masks anymore...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics...hteningly-unprepared-for-the-coronavirus.html Looks like Mexico and last week's Sean Hannity are finally on the same page! COVID19 is no biggie until it gets bad. That's why this is going to last way longer than most people think. Even if we contain here and in Europe with only 10s of 1000s dead, it's going to rage unchecked in the developing world bc they can't fight it. Hell we can't fight it. You have to become north Korea to keep it out. That's not the way our world is built.
I initially thought I’d be ordering a lot of takeout, and when I thought about it, decided not to. You just don’t know how the food is being handled. The person making it could be infected and simply not know, which isn’t his or her fault. Having said that, if those people aren’t wearing N95 masks, surgical gloves, etc., they shouldn’t be in that restaurant handling the food you are going to eat. My concern is the food, etc., being delivered to us. I have the same concern about the chain of people involved as I do about ordering takeout. This stuff is so damned contagious, yet you have to be able to eat. Disinfecting products are nearly impossible to find and get delivered, along with masks. It’s nightmare. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Argh!
Jeebus, this is almost like the last 20 years of the climate change "debate" compressed into two months
Death rates are dependent on the capacity of the healthcare systems to deal with overflow of demand of the sick. Look at Italy. What measures would you suggest that are better than the academics? What knowledge do you base your decision on?
I don't think decreasing the restrictions which would increase the cases and deaths are good for the economy in the long-term. People seeing family and friends hospitalized and dying isn't the best thing for the economy either. I believe it's better to be as careful in the short-term and then gradually ease restrictions as it goes forward.
African nations couldn't control Ebola which is far easier to contain -- it took years to finally burn out completely with assistance from the world. With China so involved on the continent now I'm really surprised we haven't seen a big hotspot pop up yet. Maybe it's the climate but it seems to be just a matter of time along with all the severely overpopulated Asian nations.
The problem you have is that you don't believe in science - you think you know better then the experts - it's a common problem that people with big egos have, and you have a big one. You say well, 80% are mild. That's not good news, that's the problem. If none of the cases were mild, we would not have a pandemic. It's because 80% of the cases are mild that this spreads, because people who unwittingly feel great but are carriers get on planes and travel and spread the virus to 100's of other people. And this has been happening for weeks, this virus is incubating in untold numbers. And the numbers are about to explode.
Science is a process. Question - do you look back 200 years ago and think "man, they didn't know much at all". What do you think people 200 years in the future will say of us? Probably the same thing.