At what point did you / will you take the coronavirus epidemic seriously?

[SeattleUte]

As someone with a 95 year old grandfather I am not sure I agree.

it doesn't have to be that way. That is not the choice. You and he are the ones who can and have to keep him safe. Nobody is saying this is the tradeoff, except for people who are addressing this very grave issue dishonestly.

[Northwestcoug]

You mean like young people are getting colds?

Sure, getting colds, and transmitting them to more at risk people before they even feel sick. And then after. And a minority of them are dying from the 'colds'.

[old_gregg]

economic distress is at the root of every terrible thing humans have done to one another in world history and more

[Jeff Lebowski]

[cowboy]

SU, now go find us some medical experts that recommend against social distancing. You are the guy that always appeals to the experts. The experts have been unanimous.

This is what a renowned epidemiologist thinks of the UK herd immunity plan:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/epidemiologist-britain-herd-immunity-coronavirus-covid-19

This is a useless discussion. There is no way in hell the entire world (and that is what it would take) is going to say, "screw this - keep spending money and let people die". At this point you are basically an old man yelling at a cloud.

I'm somewhere in between SU and JL on this, but closer to JL. I think social distancing is absolutely necessary from a simple logistics standpoint. We simply don't have the medical resources to deal with this pandemic unless we flatten the curve.

On the other hand, SU is right that this is going to have a huge economic impact, and we should do everything we can to keep the economy chugging through this. If we can do it without breaking businesses and causing large increases in unemployment, we should see a v-shaped recovery in GDP.

[beefytee]

Did anyone hear the epidemiologist and associate professor at NYU on NPR this morning? I think it was the Takeaway. She says that the travel bans will "slow the virus spread by a few days." Nobody is saying this lockdown will ultimately save lives. It is setting us up for an inevitable second wave as once we emerge from our hovels there will be little immunity. Nobody knows how this will turn out.

Meanwhile, only Lebowski is claiming this is good for the economy.

Did you even read the medium article with all the number?

The short synopsis:

Travel bans will slow the spread by a day or two, but won't flatten the curve. Social distancing will flatten the curve.

[All-American]

What would happen if Congress just said "No one may charge any rent for any reason during the month of April. Mortgages need not be paid. We will pretend that the month of April is just an extension of March. Businesses impacted from this may seek redress with Congress in order to maintain wages of employees affected by this who make less than $150k per year."

That's a rough, rough draft, but, could something like that work? I don't understand the larger ramifications to the economy, but I know that it would save a lot of people who find themselves out of work and no paycheck.

Ultimately, the problem with telling one person they don't have to pay is that you are also telling another person they don't get to receive. You'll alleviate hardship on one end and create it on the other. Maybe you trust one side to be able to bear it more easily than the other in the aggregate, but to me, the general hardship you created on the side of people who were counting on lessees paying their rent almost certainly outweighs the acute hardship you find among individuals whom recent events have impacted. You would almost certainly be better off with measures that target those hardships with more precision.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Did someone already link to this? --- https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/15/us/ph...rnd/index.html

I'm not sure, but I don't think the Spanish Flu came back following its run of 1918-1920. I don't think Philly benefited from its population getting immune quicker than others. The Spanish Flu lasted for around two solid years but it could have been exasperated by soldiers in WWI getting it, the war ending and all the soldiers going home and spreading it all over Europe and North America. I can't imagine that we have the stomach for taking extreme measures for such a long period of time.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Mitt Romney suggesting that we pay each American $1000/mo during the shutdown. Not a bad idea.

[SeattleUte]

Ha. You're older than I am. And you're the one who's screaming. I'm just asking questions.

[Uncle Ted]

That might be what we end up with using social distancing. With no social distancing it would be much greater.

You would need 60% of the population to get it before you get herd immunity. 330M*0.6=198M. Fatality rate is 1-2% under the best case scenario - which obviously would not apply here. Italy is hovering around 7% with a maxed out healthcare capacity. Let's say 5%. 198M*0.05= 9.9M. Suppose only 50M get it - that gives you 2.5M deaths.

You get the picture.

No.

How does one calculate a 7% mortality rate without knowing the number of people that are infected? Let's assume that 30% of Italy is currently infected. That is 18 million people. But we don't know how many are infected because not everyone has been tested. Right now there are about 1,800 dead in Italy contributed to this virus. Nevermind, whatever pre-existing conditions they had (doesn't like half the country smoke?) or how old they were (Italy is full of old people, BTW). So assuming that 30% is infected that would be 0.01% fatality rate so far. Of course, that could really only be a lower bound. The best estimate we have so far is from the cruise ship. Everyone was tested. We know exactly how many were infected and how many died (although the demographics for cruise ship passengers in a lot of old people as well). If you are taking bets for over/under a 5% fatality rate then I'll take under.

[Uncle Ted]

Mitt Romney suggesting that we pay each American $1000/mo during the shutdown. Not a bad idea.

LOL... Romney has joined the Yang Gang.

[SeattleUte]

Did you even read the medium article with all the number?

The short synopsis:

Travel bans will slow the spread by a day or two, but won't flatten the curve. Social distancing will flatten the curve.

I'm not opposed to social distancing. I'm doing it. My parents are in isolation.

[Uncle Ted]

Also, how about when your healthcare system is overloaded dealing with COVID-19 and your wife or kids gets some unrelated disease or illness or heart condition but can't be admitted to the ICU because they are full up?

We just put all the COVID-19 sickies in temp hospitals... Governor Newsom has the right idea. Hopefully the temp hospital won't collapse like it did in China. (What the hell kind of civil engineers do they have in China anyway?)

[Uncle Ted]

I'm not opposed to social distancing. I'm doing it. My parents are in isolation.

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