M-m-m-my Corona! NCOVID-19 #5

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yes, it's panicking. Because you're not planning for the worst likely outcome - you're planning for some bizarre The Road McCarthyesque grimdark fantasy. And that actually hastens problems. That leads to overbuying at the grocery store, of not trusting others, of mistrusting government and people who can help. And it makes you less likely to help as well.

There's no sign that supply chains are going to stop. There's no sign that agriculture - which is one of the most socially distant things around - is going to be particularly impacted. While it is infectious, it isn't insanely so, and based on actual data like in South Korea and China we can see what happens with sane, rational, science-based treatment and control plans. 

We aren't going to get back to 'normal' for 18 months - until the  vaccine is widely ready. But that doesn't mean the end of the  fucking world.

I haven’t overbought.  My local grocery store had bread available.  I bought a loaf.

What businesses can survive 18 months with little or no income?  The job I was supposed to start 3/30 is gone because the business has no income right now.  We’ev got to get to some degree of economic normalcy.  We cannot survive like this (everyone holed up in our homes) for 18 months.

 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I haven’t overbought.  My local grocery store had bread available.  I bought a loaf.

What businesses can survive 18 months with little or no income?  The job I was supposed to start 3/30 is gone because the business has no income right now.  We got to get to some degree of economic normalcy.  We cannot survive like this (everyone holed up in our homes) for 18 months.

 

I think this is an absolute worst case scenario for what it would take to contain the virus and that if it really were to come to that (unlikely), the difficult choice would have to be made to let the virus spread rather than endure an unprecedented global depression.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

I think this is an absolute worst case scenario for what it would take to contain the virus and that if it really were to come to that (unlikely), the difficult choice would have to be made to let the virus spread rather than endure an unprecedented global depression.

Even 4 months like this will be too much for most small, medium, even some large businesses.  This is not sustainable.

[Zorral]

We wouldn't have had to hole up for 18 months or at all, even, if any of this if the country were in a state of wellness instead being a sick country.  This is both emblematic and metaphorical, and alas, also physical.  For decades the national policies have been to equate crisis = health and medical care.  That is no policy at all except to enrich insurance hospital corporate moguls.

The constant argument over health care for all / single payer / MC4A while conditions from the homeless to the mentally ill, for the poor and catastrophically ill have increased and gotten worse or the nation exponentially,  is the huge symptom and consequence of this crisis - health and medical care.

 

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

What businesses can survive 18 months with little or no income?  The job I was supposed to start 3/30 is gone because the business has no income right now.  We’ev got to get to some degree of economic normalcy.  We cannot survive like this (everyone holed up in our homes) for 18 months.

The worst case scenario is that we'll be holed up for 2-3 months at max. The best case is that we're holed up for a few months, we have some areas that might need to quarantine depending on local outbreaks, and the rest of the country and the world goes on. Why is the worst case only 2-3 months? That represents us not doing much of anything to stop it and results in massive casualties, followed by it being basically done. 

But again, we've already seen what 'success' looks like. South Korea is not stopping all business. South Korea isn't locking down their entire nation. Hell, Italy isn't either, and they've got it MUCH worse than we do. 

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And I am not seeing people taking it seriously. I’m seeing the media take it seriously, but tell that to the kids party on South Beach. Or better yet, to our managers, who yesterday led a large meeting about how we need to stay six feet apart from no another and proceeded to talk face to face a foot away from one another.

I am not trying to be an alarmist, you should know from our long interactions that I’m very laid back, but this is getting incredibly serious and recent developments are making things much worse.

I agree that people need to take things a LOT more seriously, but simply doing a good job is probably enough for most things. Concerts cancelled, school closures, businesses going remote or doing other work at distance - these things help. They aren't going to be perfect, but just because they are not perfect doesn't mean they won't help. To put this in perspective, again - one person in South Korea caused over 6000 infections, due to going to a major set of gatherings - but take out those gatherings and they have something like 5500 fewer cases. 

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Even 4 months like this will be too much for most small, medium, even some large businesses.  This is not sustainable.

It's not nearly as bad as you think in that way, either. If the government wanted to, it could remove all costs on rents/mortgages/leases/utilties. The businesses could stop running for months and then people could just come back to it. As long as people have enough money for necessities, we can survive and then come back. It would suck, and it would cost a lot of money, but it also means we'll spring back like the Serengeti. 

I will say things are going to be different and it isn't going to be easy for everyone. But it doesn't mean things have to fail into catastrophe. There are solutions - at the local, state, and federal level - that can and will work. 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Even 4 months like this will be too much for most small, medium, even some large businesses.  This is not sustainable.

Speaking only for the United States, I think we do have the means to keep businesses and individuals afloat over that time frame, and it seems like the political will is there too. 

[S John]

1 hour ago, Darzin said:

Though Americans living in spread out suburbs will make it harder to check everyone's temperature constantly and keep stuff locked down.

True, but the positive side of this is that suburban Americans aren’t packed together in a high density apartment building with shared hallways, staircases, and elevators.  A lot of Americans don’t use public transportation either (much to my overall dismay, but it is a boon in this circumstance).

It seems logical that population density will be a major factor in the spreading of COVID19 and, in general, the US is probably much less dense than places like China, South Korea, and Italy.  Outside of a handful of big cities, of course.  I guess what I foresee happening are pockets of really nasty outbreaks all over the country, but these will probably be easier to handle in suburban and rural communities than they will be in the dense urban cores as long as the locals take isolation orders seriously.

If you live in a detached house, or a duplex, or a townhouse it’s just easier to social distance than it would be in a huge apartment building.  I’d wager a guess that the living situation for Americans nationwide is in higher proportion of the house/ duplex/ townhouse variety vs. apartments than almost anywhere else in the world.  We’ll find out how much this matters but I think it could be a significant variable with regard to America.

[DMC]

I agree with Maith, Ormond, Fez, Kal et al. that there is an important and significant middle ground from being an alarmist and completely ignoring the threat.  Yes, the spring breakers in south Florida is a sad thing to watch - and so is plenty of older people I've interacted with the past week that still think this is all bullshit.  And yes, things are going to get worse before things are going to get better.  But crowing about "societal breakdown" and "the system collapsing" is not particularly helpful either.  As has been said, we've gotten through worse than this.  This is certainly unique in my lived experience - it's not especially similar to either 9/11 or the GFC.  But that's no reason to abandon all hope - especially when you see plenty of public and private groups actively responding to the crisis in productive ways in spite of the criminally negligent incompetence at the top levels of government.

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I know people want to hope for the best, but my backgrounds are in political science and psychology, and I have little faith that people en masse will work together to get through this.

Please cite a political science empirical work that finds people do not work together in times of crisis.  From what I recall most studies find exactly the opposite.

[JGP]

Kind of an interesting conversation: 

I had to pick up my brother from the airport the other day. First time I'd left the house in the 5 days previous [et since] and I told him I'd be in the parking lot as there was no fucking way I was going in. Anyway. Bit of background. My brother has PhD in microbiology, and since went on to his MD then specialized. He's generally a calm guy, doesn't have my temper, but he went off on how absolutely stupid the more or less universal plan on dealing with covid-19 is. 

Cat's out of the bag of course, but he said basically that everyone who was immunocompromised, had underlying medical conditions, and those above 55 should've been given a week to get what they needed then ordered to self quarantine for three weeks, and then everyone else should've partied and gotten the spread out of the way. 

At first I thought he was crazy as he was spouting off, but the guy convinced me that we've extended the duration of this outbreak [and everything else that has come along with it, economic, etc] for several months longer than we had to. 

[Kalbear]

Here, have a porcupine meeting penguins.

 

 

[DaveSumm]

26 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Cat's out of the bag of course, but he said basically that everyone who was immunocompromised, had underlying medical conditions, and those above 55 should've been given a week to get what they needed then ordered to self quarantine for three weeks, and then everyone else should've partied and gotten the spread out of the way. 

That was basically Britain’s initial strategy, but we quickly changed tact when it became apparent how many people require hospitalisation, many under 55 and with no other health issues. Even with an airtight quarantine of the vulnerable (which isn’t really possible) the hospitals would get overwhelmed and people would die.

[JGP]

1 minute ago, DaveSumm said:

That was basically Britain’s initial strategy, but we quickly changed tact when it became apparent how many people require hospitalisation, many under 55 and with no other health issues. Even with an airtight quarantine of the vulnerable (which isn’t really possible) the hospitals would get overwhelmed and people would die.

I brought this up specifically during our back and forth. He said that the majority of the people crowding hospitals and tying up medical resources don't need to be there, don't need to go to emerge, etc. It's fear. Got sick? Stay home and take some flu meds. If it progresses to serious chest congestion and/or pneumonia, now you see your doctor.    

[Relic]

Quarantine, day 5 - 

 

We're all going mad. 

[DaveSumm]

2 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

I brought this up specifically during our back and forth. He said that the majority of the people crowding hospitals and tying up medical resources don't need to be there, don't need to go to emerge, etc. It's fear. Got sick? Stay home and take some flu meds. If it progresses to serious chest congestion and/or pneumonia, now you see your doctor.    

I don’t know, but you would think if a doctor thought someone didn’t need to be there they would immediately turn them away. That doesn’t appear to be the case. I mean there’s plenty of articles around doing the numbers; even a moderate increase in hospital demand drastically outstrips the actual beds.

[Kalbear]

Just now, DaveSumm said:

I don’t know, but you would think if a doctor thought someone didn’t need to be there they would immediately turn them away. That doesn’t appear to be the case. I mean there’s plenty of articles around doing the numbers; even a moderate increase in hospital demand drastically outstrips the actual beds.

He's Canadian, they have like 10 beds for every person just in case

[Relic]

41 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

 

Cat's out of the bag of course, but he said basically that everyone who was immunocompromised, had underlying medical conditions, and those above 55 should've been given a week to get what they needed then ordered to self quarantine for three weeks, and then everyone else should've partied and gotten the spread out of the way. 

 

I HAD been saying that as well. But...we had no failsafes in pace to make sure that would actually happen. No system to care for the elderly and compromised. Look at what happened in Italy. Because we elect fucking morons to lead us. 

On the other hand, you see stories of young healthy people getting super sick, in some cases dying, and you wonder...

[JGP]

Just now, Relic said:

I HAD been saying that as well. But...we had no failsafes in pace to make sure that would actually happen. No system to care for the elderly and compromised. Look at what happened in Italy. Because we elect fucking morons to lead us. 

Aye. It would've had to happen 3-4 weeks ago [in NA] and the local and federal governments would've had to be draconian, but it would've likely seen us through this much sooner than what we're currently doing.

Anyway.

Not going mad here. I'm fine. Totally good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[eye twitches]

[Relic]

What i don;t understand is why we aren't mobilizing to protect the most at risk among us NOW, and allowing this to play out with them safely hidden away? And since when do governments care if their citizens die? I don't want to engage in any conspiracy chatter but we have relinquished so many freedoms in a matter of days. Makes me uneasy...

[Kalbear]

This is a good longform article on what we can do to actually stop this. Basically - lots of infrastructure, testing, and taking it seriously in the longer term (3-9 months) while buying us some time right now to get that implemented.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/how-we-beat-coronavirus/608389/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

[Relic]

2 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Aye. It would've had to happen 3-4 weeks ago [in NA] and the local and federal governments would've had to be draconian, but it would've likely seen us through this much sooner than what we're currently doing.

Anyway.

Not going mad here. I'm fine. Totally good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[eye twitches]

In theory these systems should have been in place ages ago, really. I know that we are generally a species with very little foresight, but ...