COVID-19

[ToFI]

By looking at the active cases, it seems the COVID-19 will peak around mid May to end of May even for the whole world. Many western countries already peaked.With strict lock down like China, Italy, it peaks in 1 month. With relaxed policy like Sweden, it will peak in 2 month. The difference between the two is the number of deaths.

[George the original one]

By looking at the active cases, it seems the COVID-19 will peak around mid May to end of May even for the whole world. Many western countries already peaked.With strict lock down like China, Italy, it peaks in 1 month. With relaxed policy like Sweden, it will peak in 2 month. The difference between the two is the number of deaths.

Peak threat does not mean the threat is over. Just like peak oil does not mean the end of oil availability.

[George the original one]

Exactly! So we agree! Lock down the vulnerable. Get everyone else out and spread the infection faster so we can reopen for all because otherwise it will take forever if we keep the lockdown in place.

Except we've already noted that the most vulnerable are dependent on the less vulnerable, so you can't decouple them.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jason:

He does have upper-crusty accent and nice collection of credentials. I am trying to be done with derailing thread, but speciation isn’t even a thing anymore and obviously Darwin has been needfully revised many times over the course of the last almost 200 years. IOW, even the premise of the argument presented in that video is dust-drenched archaic.

[George the original one]

I still stand by my current position that lockdown should be lifted for most of the U.S.A., because we are clearly not trying to eliminate the virus and hospital overrun has been avoided for now. I still think death rates are closer to 1% with an intact hospital system. Regardless, I think there is going to be a really bad second wave, though Sweden provides a small ray of hope.

USA lockdown is nowhere near as severe as people would have you believe. In most places, you can go shopping and/or fetch take-away food while encountering plenty of people doing the same thing. Here in tourist-land, all the locals are shopping and if the weather is nice, then you see tourists taking long drives. You can still go boating, find some beaches to walk, and use dispersed camping, though not everywhere. You can even ride a bus, take a train, or hop on a jet flight provided you're willing to abide by any quarantine where you land. You can have your vehicle serviced and even buy a new one. Real estate, banking, & stock market transactions are still available.

What you can't do is sit inside a restaurant, go to a theater unless it's a drive-in, shop for clothes, get a haircut, work out in a gym, add to your tatoo, be a lounge lizard, or gamble in a casino. You can't go to a sports spectacular, concert, church, or have a convention. You can't stroll an indoor mall (you know, the ones that were already dying before COVID-19, right?).

Most places are already opening up additional medical services if they were restricted. What is only slowly happening is people adapting to a way of life where standing next to other people is not a good idea.

[Jason]

(@) 7W%

In the "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" view of the world, I personally do not believe it is wise to sleep on one's intellectual opponents. Resorting to ad-hominem dismissals is always an option. But it certainly doesn't sharpen one's iron. There is usually serious intelligence on both sides of the aisle especially when a theory is being debated. Labelling your opponents "Stupid" when as you yourself stated, Darwin's theory has been updated innumerable times since he originally postulated it, seems rather short sighted. I am not a scientist, but I do not think that holds true for Eintein's theory of relativity. There are too many detractors and questioners of this topic with serious credentials to equate it to flat earth status. I mean, I'm sitting here all locked up because apparently some people think eating bats is a good idea and the greatest minds on the planet equipped with unlimited resources can't seem to do anything about it. Well, except to tell people to sit at home. Which, of course leads to increase in all types of unseemly and potentially dangerous behavior, as is expected when humans are forced to stare down the barrel of their own existential gun while watching roommates do the same. So, unless I'm missing something, this entire situation doesn't exactly seem like a monument to unfettered human progress to me. More of same old shit, actually.

Ok. Apologies for pre-empting. Back to regular scheduled programming.

[jacob]

Interview with Laurie Garrett. I've recommended her books---the one on public health and the one on zoonosis---a few times prior in this giant thread.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/opin ... rrett.html

Highlights: Localized subsequent waves, that is, NYC repeating in other cities. Risk of "collective rage".

[George the original one]

I am curious to know how those of you who are engaged in the wishful thinking of .1% fatality rate and 70% herd immunity would explain the fact that 91 humans out of total population of 100,800 humans have already died of Covid in the zip code* where I currently reside?

*Fairly affluent suburban area north of Detroit

0.1% fatality rate is definitely wishful thinking as NYC deaths have already risen to 18,000 in a city of 18 million and we know that not all of NYC was infected. But the innumerate will come up with all sorts of reasons to believe their favored number, so let's make them face other parts of reality.

[ZAFCorrection]

@Jacob

As I said, kvetching about policy is reasonably outside the wheelhouse of the ERE framework. A lot of people here are just happy they are prepared for a crisis. It's also stipulated here at that bitching about policy won't change anything. If anything, the Openers will have their way soon enough because human nature isn't going to put up with a lockdown for years.

But if you find yourself primarily overcome with relief about being prepared for the crisis, it's reasonable to just stick with that point and not badger people who have some additional opinions about it for being concerned about the wrong thing.

Note the ideas people took from your book are numerical in nature. I'm guessing its probably a legibility problem for people with conventional optimization sensibilities. Number shit can be tracked in Excel. Renaissance networks can't really be plotted. It's the same situation as in coronavirus. People are loud and proud about only paying attention to direct coronavirus statistics despite those clearly not being the full story. Seeing like a state is seeing like any other "numerate."

[7Wannabe5]

@Jason:

I agree it is not nice to call other people stupid. I hurt myself by reading for too many hours in a stupid IKEA chair. I meant to mention that I respect your take on Zinn etc. I’ve actually never read him, I was going off of something Ronald Wright wrote in “A Short History of Progress.” It seemed believable to me because in contemporaneous memoirs I have read, it did seem like many of the early French and English explorers and frontiersmen were intrigued by the Native American culture.

@Gtoo:

I am done with public education efforts. It just makes me sad that this forum isn’t a couple quantum levels better than all the 8th graders who kept trying to show me memes that proved that black people can’t get Covid (written by a doctor!)

[7Wannabe5]

@ZAFCorrection:

I grok what you are saying. It’s not that economics aren’t important. It’s just that it’s such a weak-ass predictive science compared to virology and epidemiology. Obviously, human behavioral psychology also important and relevant, but still in bare butt infancy in terms of predictive powers.

[jennypenny]

@Gtoo:

I am done with public education efforts. It just makes me sad that this forum isn’t a couple quantum levels better than all the 8th graders who kept trying to show me memes that proved that black people can’t get Covid (written by a doctor!)

Agreed. It also seems pointless to waste so much energy arguing about policies over which we have no control. Working the system is a much more effective strategy than trying to change it.

I'm also struck by how people who previously praised the more tightly-controlled states vis-a-vis health/healthcare are now complaining that those same states are being authoritarian for locking everything down to control the spread of the virus. It's all the same logic/focus -- public health is paramount -- so it shouldn't have been a complete surprise. People might now choose to move to states that are more laissez faire wrt public health, but then they shouldn't complain about the higher rates of obesity and self-induced disability in those states because, again, all the same game.

The lockdowns are lifting, or are increasingly being ignored, so the argument is moot. It was anyway since it's hard to know with any certainty how badly things would have gone without the harsh measures.

[Freedom_2018]

In reading this thread .... something came to mind:

We try and argue/discuss with one another using tools such as logic, data, reports etc. Yet it mostly seems a case of ' A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.'

I feel we are using tools of logic to defend our positions to others on issues on which we have a deep subconscious position that we arrived at either in our formative years or through life epiphanies or life experiences (impressions not arrived at by logical analysis and reading statistical reports). Maybe some of us are afraid for the future of our kids, others are angry at how life and society treated them despite their intellect and learning. Maybe some of us are afraid of dying with a lot of regrets before being able to get around to doing much of what we think we should have done etc.

We humans have been emotion based creatures for far longer than we have been analytical/rational beings. Yet we almost solely use the language of rational analysis to express our thoughts and convictions on issues of life and death and who we are as a society (Covid 19 after all strikes at some of the deepest tenets of being human and social) and try and convince one another of our viewpoint.

I wonder if communication that is more (not necessarily exclusively) based on confessing our own vulnerabilities and expressing deeply held fears/hopes would lead to better understanding of where we each come from and what underlying subconscious drive informs the external position we display to the world.

Fact and date based communication seems to me to have limitations that personal testimony and narrative can overcome. Though I am guessing that approach is anathema to many here.

[7Wannabe5]

I had severe asthma as a child. Every time I had strep throat I ended up in a hospital in an oxygen tent. One time a nursing aid left me by myself in a bathtub and seemingly forgot about me and I was too weak to get out by myself. Even at home, I would often be up in the middle of the night by myself struggling to breath and frightened of the dark. I would read my Child’s Encyclopedia to comfort me, because it had a calm adult “voice.”

I saw videos of Covid patients in prone position, naked except for adult diaper, with tube down throat. That’s not how I want to die, especially not at the age of 55. I want to die when I am older than 85, after tripping and falling slowly into a soft mound of snow on the way to my homemade garden sauna.

[Riggerjack]

Acknowledging the source and nature of authority that one lives under and being persuaded by it are two separate issues. That's why those like myself who use term "social contract" sans irony, recognize that debate over authority and its possible overreach are essential and not mere distraction, as opposed to those who believe that just because they can still drive between point A and B with a face mask on are operating independently from it.

Thank you, and I don't disagree.

The part that exists before the social contract is effectuated i.e. a Hobbsesian vs. Lockean state of nature which is essentially an argument as to whether man has natural rights before the social contract takes effect or whether the social contract bequeaths said natural rights. Where one falls on that issue is mostly based on a positive vs. negative view of man.

Thank you, I agree.

And I'm sorry. I was posting between tasks, yesterday, and I was exceptionally unclear.

One of the ways I classify people I know, within my mind is "people who would use "social contract" in a conversation, without irony" As contrasts with "people who would use "social contract" in a conversation, but only with irony" and "people who wouldn't use "social contract" in a conversation."

It's not an exact definition, but there is remarkably little overlap between the three groups, in my experience.

I sometimes forget to translate out of my personal lexicon when trying to connect distant patterns.

In this case, the overlap of education, class, and earnestness that people who would use social contract in a conversation (many of us here), have a way of looking at problems and exploring policy. This is a very Progressive (not politically progressive, but culturally progressive) viewpoint. The idea that policy is vaguely rational, can be tuned for better effect, and is generally in the interests of the governed. (This opens up great debates over policy, which I very much enjoy, and have taught me alot.)

These are also generally people for whom the institutions have worked, and who have greater than average faith in those institutions, and respect for hierarchies.

Really, I have no issue with enlightenment philosophy. This is just one of my normal communication failures. Thank you for the quality posts, though.

Sorry for the derailing, confusion, and further derailing.

[Mister Imperceptible]

I think Freedom 2018’s post above really captured that emotion and not logic drives our responses.

People with deep pantries and land and tools and skills and weapons are completely ok with collapse. And perhaps express a little schadenfreude. I certainly have enjoyed seeing the likes of Ray Dalio have their risk parity funds blow up, Warren Buffett forced to take massive losses on airliners, oil speculators be forced to pay people to take oil delivery contracts off their hands, and watch all of the people that live by the swipe of their credit cards without so much as $500 saved for an emergency get thrown into disarray. I admit it. Oh the tears of unfathomable sadness. Yummy, yummy you guys.

It is no surprise that a female polyamorist wants women over 50 and men over 40 to be isolated and paid stipends, presumably so 50+ year old women can sleep with 40 year old men on the taxpayer’s dime. Shocker.

Self interest is the driver. If I own an oil well, I want the government to bail me out. If I am a small business owner watching what I built get crashed into the rocks because of the cessation of economic activity, I want the economy to open again. If I am CNBC or Bloomberg I want to paint a narrative of a V shaped recovery the need for bailouts. If I have the luxury of working from home I can scold people who do not have that same luxury of working from home, because I do not feel the pain of the shutdown.

Enlightenment ideals are great but there is no playbook for resource exhaustion, collapse of financialization and society, and asymmetrical sacrifice. I am deaf to locusts ravaging the land in East Africa, desertification and rising sea levels, drone strikes in the Middle East, the kids in Africa mining cobalt for my iPhone, and the dude in China getting paid 10 cents an hour to assemble it with a suicide net ready to catch him and put him back to work when he throws himself out the window. But now *I* am being asked to compromise/shut down business/put my health at risk/watch my 401(k) tank/live without an income? Why, it is a crime against humanity I say!

So we have successfully gotten meta but that is the strength of the forum. But really how can there be a top down prescription for what to do? Your self interest is not my self interest. Are we supposed to draw straws? Who is ‘us’? Where are ‘we’ going? Is it fair to say that humanity has no plan for itself whatsoever?

[7Wannabe5]

@MI:

Good attempt, but dead wrong. I am a year into menopause and no longer have a sex drive. It’s quite relaxing. Just books and playing in the garden for me now. My relationship with my “BF” is purely companionate of convenience. I was simply creating age segregation model adjusted for much higher male death rate in every cohort.

[Ego]

Except we've already noted that the most vulnerable are dependent on the less vulnerable, so you can't decouple them.

But the goal was to flatten the curve enough so that hospitals are not overwhelmed, right? We did that, right?

Most hospitals are so UNDERwhelmed that they have laid off staff. Now the goalposts are getting moved. Now the argument is we must remain locked because we cannot 100% decouple the los vulnerables from those who might have gotten exposed?

[Mister Imperceptible]

@7

We have done our fair share of sparring but I really hope you stay healthy. I have three grandparents aged 70+ and I realize that my intellectual and emotional prescriptions for what should be done are counter to one another.

At the end of the day I have scorn for myself whenever I feel I am deceiving myself into thinking I am a good person (as opposed to someone self-interested) and that is a kind of continuous intellectual self-vivisection. Virtue and virtue-signaling are two different things. And yet I cannot bring myself to be “unselfish” because from what I have learned is that leads to making oneself the tool of someone else’s self-interested agenda.

I try to explain to the other white collar WFH types what it is like for the people who live on the other side of the river. They still think we are going back to BAU. I think it is a new game now so we should try and figure out the rules.

[ZAFCorrection]

@freedom

I was pointing out which way the biases were running like a month ago, or something.

In total terms, the choice of lockdown or not lockdown (and various flavors in between) is not really answerable from a scientific perspective due to the extreme complexity of the issue (a lot more facets than just epidemiology). At least, I haven't seen anyone make an honest attempt, and I have been looking. And yet lockdown is treated as an incontrovertibly good idea........because science. Or because every life is infinitely valuable. Or because....wait...look over here! Basically Facebook reasoning.

Like JP, I'm also surprised by some attitudes expressed here. I expected a lot more intellectual humility.