I’m an older guy at 58 in a month, so presumably “higher risk”.
While I think @everybodygetsone’s example with cars is poor, and not applicable to The Virus, I do think there is a lot of validity to what he says. For example, there is a fairly direct correlation between unemployment rate and suicide rate. And the whole mask thing…FUBAR is all I’ll say.
I especially think this “one size fits all” mentality of shutting everything (define “non-essential” LMAO) down, regardless of factors like cases in region, population density, hospital capacity, etc. lacks greatly in nuance, and smacks more of do what the high profile people are doing, CYA.
The truth probably lies in the middle, I’m shocked.
I think leaders, policy makers and health pros will learn a lot of lessons from this episode and be much better prepared the next go around to better balance preventing health issues while mitigating harm to the economy. They erred on the side of health… And looking at the early models I don’t blame them.
I think testing will be a thing to focus on early so we can more accurately model the virus. I also think that telecommuting infrastructure is in place now so the quarantine ing will be earlier, but on a mostly voluntary basis. We will learn what policies worked and what didn’t.
Unfortunately, I also think a large portion of the population thinks this whole thing was a joke and will blow off all recommendations and warnings and effectively negate the positive effects of people voluntarily taking steps to stop transmission.
Also research shows it lowers as minimum wage rises. I believe it’s been about 11 years since an increase?
Firearms rates have also increased which is another significant risk factor. Most people who attempt suicide and don’t die don’t end up dying from suicide. But those who reach for a gun in that troubled time usually do.
And restrictions on mobility between geographical entities such as counties or states.
The French built walls against plague in the Middle Ages for the exact same reason. You can quarantine either a region with an outbreak or the one without one, thereby reducing the number of people that need to shelter in place. And testing - lots of testing.
Actually, when you look at the known super spreaders for Covid-19, it’s mind boggling - one bartender with a fever in an Austrian ski resort was the cause of the majority of causes in Scandinavian countries, over half of the cases in South Korea were due to an elderly lady who is a member of a Christian Evangelical cult, and so on.
thought I’d give you guys an update as for what the situation in Italy is currently like…
our government has announced that, effective of May the 4th, we’ll enter “phase 2.” numbers don’t seem to suggest that it’s safe yet to just go out and socialize, but we are being given much more freedom than during the first phase of the lockdown, so long as social distancing rules are abided by.
it’s now permitted to go out to:
do physical activity (it was previously only allowed if in proximity of your place)
just walk (however, this is interestingly only allowed from 6am to 10pm)
meet with the “conjugated ones.” the government literally used our equivalent of this word, which left room for lots of ambiguity. they later had to clarify that includes “de facto couples, and stable love relationships,” aside from one’s relatives
go fishing or ride a horse (thank you, we needed this)
the mind-blowing thing is that “self-certifications” that were employed up to now (a form you have to fill when stopped by the police to state you are out for one of the previously allowed reasons, which were basically buying the groceries and health emergencies, but now include all of the above) are still going to be required. you’ll have to sign a document saying “I’m taking a walk.”
on top of that, individual regions in Italy have the power to enforce stricter rules than those the government outlined on their own, so none of this could end up applying to some parts of the country.
most stores will re-open right away, barber shops and some other similar services will re-open on June 1st, and no date of re-opening has been announced for gyms.
it’s all… so confusing. it’s almost like someone had mushrooms and then wrote the new rules while utterly high. am I the only one that got this impression?
When all is said and done; I think that we will look back on all of this; and after sincere public debate and discussion; (not just the keyboard critics)…we will find that some things were done right…and some things were absolutely FUBAR.
My hope is 1) that we learn and 2) we don’t get caught sucking our thumbs with our pants down again…and 3) hopefully will move some of our essential manufacturing back to the U.S. (I guarantee you that Private corporations will be looking very closely at their dependence on the Chinese supply chain).
I also understand the anger of @everybodygetsone and many Americans. I hope they stay pissed off and are part of the public discourse when we are looking back and analyzing all that was done.
One thing about the Swedish model. The population of Sweden is ~10.0 million people , while 316.7 million more people live in United States. Which not only means we have places with greater population density; we have many more elderly; and many more with comorbidities, which are the prime targets of this virus.
Does this not make any difference? (for those of you who know; please share your thoughts). It is the Swedish model; and the arrogant sounding proclamations of their “Health Minister?”…that so many are using to really point out the stupidity of the U.S. response.
I’m not sure if you’re being serious or not, but I’ll play the part of the dour teacher without a sense of humor just to be sure. Age cohorts are divided into rows, while columns denote the environment in which the social contacts take place (total/home/school/work/transportation/free time/other activity) while the cells contain the average number of social contacts.
This explains some counterintuitive measures @samul complained about, as the Italian PM was swayed by this report.
Ah, Giesecke, the new conservative darling. His sudden rise to fame, alongside Ioannidis, on the sites that contain the name “liberty” is primarily due to his opposition to lockdowns.
Firstly, from the service industry data I’ve seen for Sweden (I’ve written about the same data for Belarus) they’re not in a business as usual mode. The service industry seems to be taking a very similar beating to ones in other countries.
(@loppar…I had no idea of the numbers and what was actually happening in Sweden. Listening to these people, you would think that Sweden’s response, and their results, were “the” model to emulate throughout the World).
Opposition to what the response to the Pandemic has been I’m all for, @loppar…(because as we look back, I think the “best” response will probably be found somewhere between extremes).
What I am against are using the terms/names idiots, imbeciles, Nazi’s, Stalin, police State, sheeple, people with half a brain, etc. to describe what has been the approach in the U.S. (imperfect as I am sure it will be found to be).
Listening to these individuals it’s all a grab for power and control over the people by the Government.
In the final irony of ironies…they tend to speak of our Governors and Health officials of peddling fear and anxiety to keep the sheeple in line…as they peddle fear and anxiety.
It’s not doom and gloom if it’s facing facts. Doom and gloom is Eyeore from Winnie the Pooh. Facing reality is realistic, and smart. Ignore all the stuff about Trump in the article–the bare facts are:
The data on both chloroquine forms and remdisivir is not positive. It’s not the cure, even though there are still some trials pending for remdisivir and we need to analyze the data to make sure we’re not missing something.
Reaching herd immunity–if it’s even possible–requires very likely at least 2.5 million people to die at a fatality rate of 1%. There is also no firm data that long-term herd immunity is even possible yet–other coronaviruses are notable for not conferring long lasting immunity after getting them (though still possible, because we don’t have the data yet). Not to mention that pandemics are quite famous for reigniting from some small patch of people (or animals) that wasn’t carefully watched. The frequency and volume of international travel under business as usual scenarios is an obvious flash point.
We are ridiculously behind in testing volume, and contact tracing/containment ONLY works with extremely high coverage of testing. Period, full stop.
We are still woefully behind on both PPE and ventilator volume, which are both absolutely required to either open up the economy and face a probable second wave or to even think about attempting something as stupid as a herd immunity approach. Both require far more resources than we have right now.
