COVID-19: Chapter 4 - OPEN FOR BUSINESS

I find it pretty appalling that pretty much the entire forum is now on to the phase of arguing about exactly how bad the catastrophe will be. Meanwhile the general population is pumped to go to house parties and get an awesome blossom at Chili’s completely unaware of what is coming.

Either we are all being chicken littles or there are going to be a couple hundred million people in for a big surprise. Which is why I assume all of the propaganda about how this isn’t worse than the flu and outright lies like PLANDEMIC are going viral and being cranked to 11. I see people talking about reaching herd immunity by the end of the year. That is at least (probably more) 200m infected by the end of the year. To hit that we need almost 1m people A DAY on average to be contracting this. At a .5% IFR that implies an average of 50k dead per day.

That’s why morons like Ben Shapino bleeting about herd immunity are so dumb. If that were to actually happen we already have half the country or more who thinks this is some globalist or anti-vax conspiracy theory. All bets are off as to how those people would react in that situation. Cosplaying at the capitol buildings would probably not be the limit as to what we would see happen.

16 Likes

Also I know anecdotal evidence is not evidence so obviously take this with a grain of salt. I posted yesterday about how for the first time in my wife’s 11 year career as an ICU nurse all of her patients died. The story she told me about it definitely raised an eyebrow.

Of course they were pozzed up with Covid(or in the case I am going to talk about previously positive) but one of the people who died had already been in the hospital a few weeks prior positive with Covid, recovered, tested negative and then came back and died a few weeks later with respiratory failure. According to my wife they didn’t retest the patient so I am not implying that the person recontracted it. Just that we really don’t know the long term damage being done while people have Covid. If that person suffered lung damage so severe he died a few weeks later from Covid they probably aren’t the only one and there are going to be related deaths down the road from this thing that might take months or years to peek their head out.

4 Likes

I’d say it’s quite like climate change on 50x fast-forward

17 Likes

I see the opinion polls that push 2/3 saying to stay locked in. The problem is 1/3 of 340 million is till a fuck ton and they have oversized levers of power due to the US senate and gerrymandering in state legislatures (so dem governors have to battle R legislatures).

But yes a 100,000,000 people are in for a surprise.

Maybe I am the only one who see many of my pro lockdown friends resuming some level of normalacy over the last week? I wouldn’t be surprised to see those polls shift as we move through May.

2 Likes

Well let the Mother’s Day coronathon shit show begin! I just went to a supermarket right at open and 50 people were also there buying flowers for their mothers. There were 2 lines for
checking out and they both went down an entire aisle to the back of the store and it had only been open for 10 minutes

2 Likes

Yes, I’m getting a lot of neighborhood vibes of, “We did the lockdown, we prevented hospitals from becoming overrun, and now it’s time to get back to normal.” I was on a work call last week and one of my colleagues who I thought was on board with the quarantine was like, “Can’t wait for the 15th. First thing I’m going to do is get my hair cut.”

Echoing the earlier point, I have no idea if I’m being an enormous pessimist or just being realistic, but it’s becoming obvious that my views are way out of sync with my neighbors’.

4 Likes

And here is what’s coming. X 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000

For people who aren’t watching the data it’s inevitable. Even in Los Angeles where numbers are still headed in the wrong direction things are loosening, which combined with openings around the country is making people think “we’re coming out of this”. I understand what people mean when they say that it will be very hard to return to a lockdown now that so many people perceive it as having been unnecessary and the disease “not that bad”. But on the other hand a real surge where everyone everywhere is a degree of separation or two from somebody who dies or gets really sick may be the only way for people to get it through their heads that things are not going back to normal anytime soon, if ever.

1 Like

Exactly this. I look at the “flatten the curve” argument as a pretty effective and compelling counterargument to Team WAAF circa February: “Look, even if ~everyone is going to get the disease, it’s still worth doing something about it. Do the lockdown so at least there’s a doctor to treat you if need be. There’s no sense in just giving up.”

At present time, it looks like Team WAAF was even more wrong. Many countries, through effective testing and tracing, lockdowns, and widespread behavioral changes have done far better than slowing an inevitable spread to everyone. Reducing the area under the curve – dramatically so – is an achievable. goal. South Korea, Czechia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Oz, and many more have shown it’s possible, but eradication is probably not possible on a timeline that is viable with economic realities. So, it’s not unreasonable to start doing some coldhearted math about the statistical value of human lives and how much of the economy can we reopen while still maintaining what can hopefully be a slow simmer of infections before we get to a vaccine. South Korea’s model, where you open some things up, and then with effective testing, monitoring local flareups and shutting down certain classes of businesses responsible for them looks reasonably viable.

America isn’t doing this. It doesn’t look like we’ve had that many people get sick, so we’re nowhere near the threshold where we can just go back to how things were in January and also not overwhelm our hospitals. Delaying that point has value, as we have better testing capacity and better PPE production at this point, but by failing to get our active case numbers down before opening up, the residual social distancing behavioral changes are less effective when there are more people out there spreading the disease. We can’t try to lockdown hotspots in a limited and focused fashion when everywhere is a hotspot and no longer wants to lockdown. I mean FFS, our “lockdowns” have been less lockydowny than the openings up of many places.

8 Likes

This, in addition to having full access to all citizens movements via GPS cmobined with access to bank accounts via an already existing law for pandemics - UK and more so US have no chance of implementing anything vaguely similar to South Korea.

CZ, Vietnam, New Zealand and OZ did a great job keeping numbers low initially by closing borders and limited track / trace but were all locked down to some extent.

I mean, I would be fine with something like “Well, South Korea is doing well, but as a matter of principle, their contact tracing is too invasive. Let’s do the best we can without full Big Brother.” Perhaps we’d need a tighter lockdown in trade, but instead, we’re opting not to do any of that.

1 Like

We don’t have the tech or bank account piece here in Canada but have flattened the curve pretty well though social buyin and effective government. Alberta is starting to open this week in 4 stages.

1 Like

Restaurants going to be packed. 25% capacity going to have a lobby of crushed patrons waiting for tables. It is all so ridiculous.

2 Likes

The point is all countries have flattened the curve (except maybe US -NY) but all those who have relaxed lockdowns have seen immediate rise in Ro, except SK with it’s big brother technology.

So, we’re either in and out of lockdown or perhaps we should go big brother as that’s seems the only way to effectively manage this

I just know all dystopian future and apocalyptic movies get it wrong. They rarely mention hair cutting but it turns out it is being added to the hierarchy of needs.

1 Like

I think at this point the pessimism in the thread is almost entirely pointed at the USA. It seems like most of Europe and Asia realizes how big of a deal and is taking appropriate steps. As you pointed out none of that is happening here and the appetite for future lockdowns is gone. Mostly because a ton of people think its the flu, almost over, a hoax, etc.

So the best argument that the USA botched “lockdown” was counterproductive is that there is no evidence that if things get really bad here we have anything other than widespread unrest if there are additional lockdown attempts. In that way letting it get noticeably horrible and then locking down would be better than what happened here. And that is mostly because this country is full of morons.

I agree in a vacuum delaying the same number of people dying by 2 months has some moderate benefit but I worry it will be completely outweighed by the paralysis the government will likely have going forward because of how horribly it was executed.

It’s a genuine concern if we trust the State to do the Dark Knight thing and disassemble the surveillance infrastructure once it’s served its purpose.

2 Likes

One thing I really like about this place

Everyone here is smart. Above average nationally smart

I get better info here in digest form than anywhere

So if the question is. Are we wrong, or are people who still support trump wrong

I feel like we are good.

As an aside. Can someone explain to me in a paragraph or two why the I model is so bad.

1 Like

Yeah. You don’t get all four of it’s incredibly infectious, almost nothing has been done to stop it, there’s inadequate testing, and there aren’t tons of infected people who haven’t been counted.

1 Like