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Muh muh muh means tuh testing - Covid #6


Larry of the Lawn

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Frankly, I’m more concerned about the economic meltdown than the disease itself. I can’t help but feel that those pushing hardest for lockdowns are mostly government employees who have guaranteed jobs either way, while those in the private sector who could lose their jobs as a result of this are just forced to go along with it.

Forced quarantine of older and vulnerable people, while keeping the working age population at work, and saving the economy would frankly have been a better option than the current over reaction and worldwide economic depression to follow.

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7 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Frankly, I’m more concerned about the economic meltdown than the disease itself. I can’t help but feel that those pushing hardest for lockdowns are mostly government employees who have guaranteed jobs either way, while those in the private sector who could lose their jobs as a result of this are just forced to go along with it.

Knowing private employees who have been classified as "essential" for no reason at all, I can assure you that you're wrong.

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7 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Forced quarantine of older and vulnerable people

And how are you gonna determine and identify the vulnerable - or hell even "older" - people subjected to forced quarantine?  Do they need to have at least 15 pieces of flair, or is it they can't work if they have less?

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16 minutes ago, DMC said:

And how are you gonna determine and identify the vulnerable - or hell even "older" - people subjected to forced quarantine?  Do they need to have at least 15 pieces of flair, or is it they can't work if they have less?

All over 65 - mandatory self isolation. All below 65 with pre existing conditions that increase vulnerability - voluntary self isolation.

That still leaves the bulk of the active workforce able to continue working.

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34 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Frankly, I’m more concerned about the economic meltdown than the disease itself. I can’t help but feel that those pushing hardest for lockdowns are mostly government employees who have guaranteed jobs either way, while those in the private sector who could lose their jobs as a result of this are just forced to go along with it.

Forced quarantine of older and vulnerable people, while keeping the working age population at work, and saving the economy would frankly have been a better option than the current over reaction and worldwide economic depression to follow.

Do you  ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, if the solution to something is reasonably simple and also obviously better than what is being done then perhaps, just perhaps, you're really wrong about something? 

Does that ever even come into play there? That maybe every single government is doing something similar because it is the best solution, and that the solution is not 'let 1% of affected population die'? 

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7 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

All over 65 - mandatory self isolation. All below 65 with pre existing conditions that increase vulnerability - voluntary self isolation.

That still leaves the bulk of the active workforce able to continue working.

Your proposal is literally separating who can and cannot work based on their age and medical history.  Not only is that unconstitutional, it's immoral.  As King wrote:

Quote

Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation.

 

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2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Your proposal is literally separating who can and cannot work based on their age and medical history.  Not only is that unconstitutional, it's immoral.  As King wrote:

 

Oh come on, it's totally fine to just kill .5-1% of the total working force population under 65. That's barely a good civil war!

Also not answered: how those 65+ year olds get food, medicine, or anything else without contacting people who are almost assuredly now carrying the disease, how you deal with anyone who needs medical care in that group, or how hospitals handle the 10-13% of  the people under 65 who develop serious issues requiring ventilators but who will make it - all getting sick in the same month, when it takes 6 weeks per person on average to recover.

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Greece goes into complete mandatory lockdown in about 45 minutes. Nobody is allowed outside but for very specific reasons. You need to carry your ID and a special printed permission slip detailing your address, your destination and your purpose for going out. Or, you can send in an SMS with your info and get back the reply/permission. People going to work need a statement from their employer. Everyone caught outside without either of those will be fined, to start with.

Most people have been good about self-isolating in the past 2 weeks. But, the ones not paying attention or not taking this seriously enough and treating this as a vacation have led the government to this very, VERY hard decision.

I've been at home since March 11th. Not much is going to change for me, I think I only went out twice since then, very briefly.

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2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Oh come on, it's totally fine to just kill .5-1% of the total working force population under 65. That's barely a good civil war!

Enough with the hyperbole. The death rate is not 1% for healthy people under the age of 65. Not even close.

And the death rate from a worldwide economic depression is yet to be calculated. It might well be much higher. Not to mention the hardship and suffering that will go along with it.

It’s not about callously writing off x% of the population. It’s about the least worst choice in a situation where there are no good ones.

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Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Enough with the hyperbole. The death rate is not 1% for healthy people under the age of 65. Not even close.

It appears to be anywhere from .2% to 1%. It certainly isn't zero. 

Also, you've still not answered how that 10% of everyone who gets sick - and who had no issues previously - requires ventilators for 6 weeks, and how that's going to work. 

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

And the death rate from a worldwide economic depression is yet to be calculated. It might well be much higher. Not to mention the hardship and suffering that will go along with it. 

Please, do tell - what is the death rate from a worldwide economic depression in the 21st century? 

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

It’s not about callously writing off x% of the population. It’s about the least worst choice in a situation where there are no good ones.

Again, do you ever once wonder whether or not your basis points are wrong? That you're just not actually correct when literally every single other government is not doing what you're suggesting they do? 

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Let's not even include the even older here. Let's just go 20-45. Of those, we have 20% that require hospitalization, and 2-4% of those require ICU care.  There are 82 million people between 25-44 in the US; you're suggesting that it is a reasonable choice to, at best, have 1.6 MILLION of those people be going to the hospital and ICU for the next 6 weeks, and another 16 million of them going to the hospital for some hospitalization. And that's the absolute BEST outcome here, with only 2% requiring ICU and none of them dying. 

 

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1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Forced quarantine of older and vulnerable people, while keeping the working age population at work, and saving the economy would frankly have been a better option than the current over reaction and worldwide economic depression to follow.

This doesn't work for two reasons. First, you need all of the older and vulnerable to live in separate housing because otherwise they'll get sick anyway and many households are not set up this way (nor is there spare housing capacity for reconfiguration). Second, the young and otherwise healthy are not altogether immune -- based on what is happening now, only a small fraction of them would get seriously sick... but still more than enough to overwhelm the hospitals.

Finally, it's not obvious that there will be an economic depression. Large sectors of the economies of many nations are simply... paused. This obviously causes some problems, but most of them can be fixed by the US and EU printing a large amount of cash and handing it out to those affected (which they'll almost certainly do -- they're already doing it). Of course, this has never happened before on such scales, but if the virus can be tamed, there is no reason the economy can't recover. In other words, you're going to see dreadful job numbers this coming week, but quite likely the same large numbers with the opposite sign once everything fully reopens.

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4 minutes ago, Altherion said:

This doesn't work for two reasons. First, you need all of the older and vulnerable to live in separate housing because otherwise they'll get sick anyway and many households are not set up this way (nor is there spare housing capacity for reconfiguration). Second, the young and otherwise healthy are not altogether immune -- based on what is happening now, only a small fraction of them would get seriously sick... but still more than enough to overwhelm the hospitals.

Finally, it's not obvious that there will be an economic depression. Large sectors of the economies of many nations are simply... paused. This obviously causes some problems, but most of them can be fixed by the US and EU printing a large amount of cash and handing it out to those affected (which they'll almost certainly do -- they're already doing it). Of course, this has never happened before on such scales, but if the virus can be tamed, there is no reason the economy can't recover. In other words, you're going to see dreadful job numbers this coming week, but quite likely the same large numbers with the opposite sign once everything fully reopens.

Well let’s hope so.

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29 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Let's not even include the even older here. Let's just go 20-45. Of those, we have 20% that require hospitalization, and 2-4% of those require ICU care.  There are 82 million people between 25-44 in the US; you're suggesting that it is a reasonable choice to, at best, have 1.6 MILLION of those people be going to the hospital and ICU for the next 6 weeks, and another 16 million of them going to the hospital for some hospitalization. And that's the absolute BEST outcome here, with only 2% requiring ICU and none of them dying. 

 

Those percentages are calculated based on confirmed cases, though. Which is dependent on number of tests done. There may be vastly larger numbers of people who already have or had the virus that we don’t know about. Which would bring hospitalisation rates down significantly.

Also, I’m not advocating zero measures to try and slow the spread down amongst the working population. You can still try to flatten the curve without total lockdowns for all.

It’s about where the cost benefit makes most sense. For a government employee that answer is simple - “let me stay home on full pay for as long as it takes.“ 
For someone who will lose his job and perhaps his house, the equation is very different.

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1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Those percentages are calculated based on confirmed cases, though. Which is dependent on number of tests done. There may be vastly larger numbers of people who already have or had the virus that we don’t know about. Which would bring hospitalisation rates down significantly.

It's based on the data we have so far, you're right. That said, it is entirely inline with South Korea, which tested (and is still testing) like gangbusters.

1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Also, I’m not advocating zero measures to try and slow the spread down amongst the working population. You can still try to flatten the curve without total lockdowns for all.

You suggested that anyone who wasn't over 65 or had a health condition carry on working as they were. How do you propose to do that? That is literally what you said. 

Because right now we aren't doing total lockdowns; we're stopping businesses that aren't essential and can't be done remotely (and not even all of those). 

1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 It’s about where the cost benefit makes most sense. For a government employee that answer is simple - “let me stay home on full pay for as long as it takes.“ 

Most government employees are not allowed to just stay home at all (they're essential and must come in) or they are being furloughed.

1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

For someone who will lose his job and perhaps his house, the equation is very different.

How many people are you willing to have die? What is the number that you want to sacrifice? And again, how do you propose that everyone else who is vulnerable quarantine themselves from everyone who is now walking around with the virus in 30 days?

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6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's based on the data we have so far, you're right. That said, it is entirely inline with South Korea, which tested (and is still testing) like gangbusters.

You suggested that anyone who wasn't over 65 or had a health condition carry on working as they were. How do you propose to do that? That is literally what you said. 

Because right now we aren't doing total lockdowns; we're stopping businesses that aren't essential and can't be done remotely (and not even all of those). 

Most government employees are not allowed to just stay home at all (they're essential and must come in) or they are being furloughed.

How many people are you willing to have die? What is the number that you want to sacrifice? And again, how do you propose that everyone else who is vulnerable quarantine themselves from everyone who is now walking around with the virus in 30 days?

I’m not suggesting I have the perfect answer. No one does. It’s a shit situation either way.

Measures like hand washing, social distancing, mask distribution, mass production of ventilators and others I haven’t even thought about can all contribute.

But at some point lockdowns have to end. And I can’t see any economy surviving a 6 month lockdown. So they will have to lift the most draconian restrictions in any case eventually. Deaths or not.

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10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Close. I'm up 7 in SLP. The wind caused me to just take her to the park near by. It was dead. I saw a few people along the way, including a girl who was probably five riding her bike with training wheels. Made me think for a while about what world she'll grow up in. I wish I could smile about how it'll look.

 

10 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

You’re smack in between me and work, that’s the area I was planning on house shopping until the apocalypse

I lurk that area.  I am down in Bloomington over by Dread Scott, but I bike through that area all the time.

I heard through some of my county contacts that we are going to be closing non-essential stuff early this week.

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28 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I’m not suggesting I have the perfect answer.

Your answer is quintessentially fascist:  iniquitous, irrational, and ultimately self-destructive.

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