COVID-19

[theanimal]

Wow! Although I suspect there may be a baby boom too.

only for those with no kids

[Bankai]

concentration camp.

Another strawman. Here's how it's done in the UK: a list of around 1.5M people was prepared based on GP/hospital records, age, etc. Those people were lettered with strong advice to not leave their home (it's not a ban on leaving home since the UK is a free country) for an initial period of 3 months. In the meantime, they have food and other necessities delivered regularly at the government's cost. They also have volunteers visiting them regularly to check how they are doing/for mental health etc.

I'm not saying this is the best way to do this and obviously in case of vulnerable people living with non-vulnerable people some serious thought and planning would be required, but I don't see why it would be impossible in principle to implement.

[George the original one]

No one is postulating letting old people die.

You must have missed the Texas Lt. Governor who said grandparents would willingly die for the economy! https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 905990001/

[Jin+Guice]

I was for the shutdown or, more specifically, I thought by the time action was taken, drastic action was appropriate. The (U.S.) reaction felt like sitting in a house while all houses around us caught on fire and pretending that nothing was happening. Then once our house was on fire, we were debating whether or not to turn on the hose* because we didn't want our stuff to get fucked up.

*Not a perfect analogy, because I don't think the case for shutdown was ever quite this strong, but the case for doing something drastic, even at great cost was close, at least in my mind.

A month ago the information we had was that hospitals were collapsing anywhere the disease was uncontrolled. The death rate estimates were something like <0.1% to >5% (so largely meaningless for the decision at hand) and the virus was spreading fast. Given all the unknowns, drastic action seemed appropriate. I'm not saying we took the correct drastic action (though, like the action we took, all other methods suggested would have ethical concerns and second and third order effects not fully examined), but doing nothing (or not that much, not that quickly) looked like a disaster (again, it's important that decision makers really didn't have complete information).

In hindsight, on 4/19/2020, it looks to me like I was wrong. Did anyone favoring costly action think the death rate would be this low? I was expecting a death rate at least 10x as high at the peak (which appears to be now to a week ago, if you are in the U.S. or Europe). When U.S. shutdowns started, Italy and Spain were taking drastic measures and their death and case numbers continued to climb at an alarming rate. Does anyone believe that the U.S. handled up on this so well that we averted >90% of deaths? Does anyone still believe that this would've caused 2.2 million deaths by August (which I felt at the time was a low estimate for "worst case") if we did nothing?

Was I missing something and this was the risk all along? This is an unprecedented economic move,** did we do this just to avoid two months at 5x the death rate for cancer (I just made this up, but I thought we were trying to avoid tens of millions of deaths worldwide, not several hundred thousand)?

**As with the virus, we are now forecasting economically, so who knows what will happen? There are arguments as to why this will not be as bad as economic worst case scenarios, just as there were many arguments that the virus was not as bad as initially thought. The point is, as with the virus a month ago, we don't know what will happen and the (economic) house is already on fire.

Does anyone think we should keep the lockdown in place anywhere but areas that are highly affected? Why?

Some things that still don't add up to me: Shit hits the fan in Italy/ Spain/ NY/ France?/ U.K.?/ Boston area? but Sweden/ Brazil/ other places that didn't lock down don't appear to be imploding? What explains this? Is it population density? An incredibly high R0? Everyone is locking down regardless of orders? If the virus works how it appeared to work a month ago, I thought Sweden, Brazil or a country that couldn't afford to lockdown would have totally collapsed by now (I know Ecuador is supposed to be pretty bad, but it's hard to gauge how bad it is there, and it's still only one small country)?

Something else I'm mystified by: Large parts of the world have very probably torpedoed their economies, their fast-tracking a new vaccine with unprecedented coordination, and the U.S. passed a $2 TRILLION stimulus bill, but somehow we still lack the capability to coordinate testing on a large enough population (or populations) to determine 1) the death rate and 2) the infection rate? These are the numbers needed to make decisions, but we're incapable of producing them.

[theanimal]

There are interesting suggestions that the recent protests are a result of an astroturfing campaign.

https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comme ... e/fnstpyl/

[Ego]

There are interesting suggestions that the recent protests are a result of an astroturfing campaign.

https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comme ... e/fnstpyl/

I believe it. The images from the protests are of complete idiots in military fatigues carrying guns and.... well... you know. The number of supposedly reasonable, prominent people mocking them has surprised me. The implicit message here is, if you are thinking of even suggesting that our policies are not quite correct then here are your bedfellows.



---------------

South Africa, Botswana and parts of Thailand have instituted alcohol bans in response to Covid-19. The thinking behind the bans is the number of labor and time intensive trauma emergencies in the Emergency Departments involving alcohol (car accidents, gunshots, stabbings, fights). If we are really concerned about hospital overwhelm then maybe we ought to consider alcohol bans.

[George the original one]

Some things that still don't add up to me: Shit hits the fan in Italy/ Spain/ NY/ France?/ U.K.?/ Boston area? but Sweden/ Brazil/ other places that didn't lock down don't appear to be imploding? What explains this?

One thing is for certain, if Brazilians were paying attention to world news, the populace possibly took the threat more seriously and voluntarily began social distancing because they started out 2 weeks behind the US (like the US started 2 weeks behind Italy). The reported numbers would indicate slower growth in Brazil, but that's only if you believe their reporting/testing is as good as the US. We also know that US had 4 locations seeding early cases... I'm not sure how many international hubs Brazil has or if/when international flights were cut.

Brazil reported 52 cases on March 12 and US reported 51 cases on February 25 --> 16 days difference.
Brazil reported 33,682 cases on April 17 while US 33,276 cases on March 22 --> 26 days difference.

Brazil reported 59 deaths on March 25 and US reported 54 deaths on March 14 --> 10-11 days difference.
Brazil reported 2,462 deaths on April 19 and US reported 2,467 deaths on March 29 --> 20 days difference.

Sweden vs. it's peers is easily seen on the Covid Trends site:
https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?locati ... ion=Sweden
Don't forget to also change the "Confirmed Cases" dropdown to "Reported Deaths"

[thrifty++]

Some things that still don't add up to me: Shit hits the fan in Italy/ Spain/ NY/ France?/ U.K.?/ Boston area? but Sweden/ Brazil/ other places that didn't lock down don't appear to be imploding? What explains this? Is it population density? An incredibly high R0? Everyone is locking down regardless of orders? If the virus works how it appeared to work a month ago, I thought Sweden, Brazil or a country that couldn't afford to lockdown would have totally collapsed by now (I know Ecuador is supposed to be pretty bad, but it's hard to gauge how bad it is there, and it's still only one small country)?

I have been reading news about Brazil and the reports seem to be that the reporting is grossly understated due to a lack of testing being undertaken. Also see posts from Bigato. In the news I have seen news reports saying things like like Brazil has 10 times the numbers reported.

Compare say Australia and NZ which had more notice for lockdown and had quick lockdowns. Especially NZ which has one of, perhaps the most, comprehensive combination f measures in the world, ordered on rapid 48 hour notice for the whole country. The curve is not only flattening but is being smashed out of existence before it really had a chance to start. See the last graph https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

[slsdly]

Someone started tracking the layoffs due to COVID in the tech startup scene. Steady trickle nearly every day since this begin (that said I don't know the background noise for startup layoffs): https://layoffs.fyi/tracker/

[George the original one]

My quick estimate says even if USA COVID-19 deaths peak this week, don't be surprised when the death toll reaches 60,000 deaths next Monday and probably 100,000 deaths before end of May.

I wonder what the repercussions will be in the press conferences...

[theanimal]

I'd be fine if lockdown ended if everyone had and wore masks and there was widespread testing available to all. Masks are becoming more common but I don't think they're prevalent enough and the number of tests has started to decline and seems to have plateaued. There is no plan.

@Augustus- why do you think people are going to die because of lockdown? Lack of money for food?

[slsdly]

I guess I fall more on the pro-lockdown side -- that is to say, I'm willing to wait and see what the Canadian government decides to do and follow the directives given. I do not anticipate a scenario where I am protesting for things to open up. The true death rate is unknown, and the future impact of lockdown vs caution to the wind is also unknown. I'm sure lives are being saved just from traffic accidents (short term) and pollution reduction (long term), so lockdown is not one-sided. I think we should have some humility when it comes to making bold assertions and predictions on this.

I don't think a full lockdown will remain in force, only until we are able to test much larger segments of the population quickly and effectively. In an ideal world, you don't get to go out into society without a negative result from a test, I'm not sure how they will implement their testing plans.

However until the vaccine is ready, I would mentally prepare myself for the measures such as the following to remain in place: Anybody who can work from home will be asked to do. I also would expect air travel to be seriously curtailed as well, as well as travel by land to be strongly discouraged. Self quarantine after such acts will be required, regardless of destination. Universities may only offer remote courses, and when required, rotational access to labs and such; K-12 is messier, given maturity and tight classroom settings. Maybe even no concerts, no live sports, no dance clubs. No conferences. (We won't need to worry about restaurants, they will all go out of business before long .)

This sort of thing is predicted to happen more frequently with climate change. It will require us to change how we do things to mitigate the impact in the future. Future viruses may kill the strong and spread through the weak. Masks while on buses, trains, planes, at stations, etc may need to become common courtesy -- probably reusable in some form given the quantity we would need. Maybe self-quarantining after any international travel will become the norm. If you feel a sniffle, it will be faux pas to go to the office, and you will be shamed by all. It may end the open concept office in the name of public health, as well as pushing remote work more into the limelight where possible. Maybe HVAC will get new standards. I don't know. I wish I did. But the world should probably change a lot as a result of this (I'm not sure if it will though.)

[George the original one]

Is everyone pro extended lockdown thinking that there'll be a vaccine at the end of it?

First reason for extended lockdown is to get the tranmission rate under control. There are darn few countries that have reached that point so far because most lockdowns are extremely "leaky" (e.g. USA). Remember, it took 2 months of a much stricter lockdown to drive Wuhan to zero new cases and most of the USA is less than a month into ours while we're not even aiming for zero new cases.

Second reason is to find a way to live with an uncontained virus. Buying time to increase testing (administration plan does not rely on testing except for healthcare workers, but states want more). Find better treatments that can be used with confidence. Create the paraphrenalia & infrastructure to adapt our lives (curbside retail, safer haircuts, entertainment, etc.) and prepare for future waves.

[George the original one]

++

Los Angeles is currently at 50% unemployment according to local news, so it's looking like I was not exaggerating, which sucks.

Look at the positive. All those people have an excellent reason to become entrepreneurs, to reinvent themselves. Actually, I think at least half of them will be working in some way next month once companies adapt. They won't be working in the hospitality business or travel industry or movie theatres because even if the lockdown ended today, there will not be enough demand to employ all the people that used to work there.

[theanimal]

@Augustus- Do you think consumer demand would be return to what it was or within say 10% of what it was if a lockdown was lifted this week?

If you do, I think that's a big difference in perspectives. I don't think most people advocating for lockdown see that as being the case. That individuals will continue to act like they don't want to contract the disease and not go out shopping or buying things.

[thrifty++]

NZ is coming out of a 5 week lockdown on Tuesday 28th April.

However its not a full release but rather a very gradual one. Its still kind of a lockdown. But less restrictive. Called alert level 3 (rather than alert 4). The focus is really on allowing some businesses to resume. But the social side of things is not changing. Have to still isolate. Not permitted to meet other people. Work at home if it is possible. Only contact-less business can resume. Strangely, schools will be open, but its voluntary to go to school or stay home. Interestingly the reasoning was that research shows infection rates are much lower among children.

The plan is to be under a reduced level 3 alert lockdown for 2 weeks to see if we go down to alert level 2 after that or not or extend it.

9 new cases today for a total of 1,440 confirmed and probable cases. New cases have been in single digits for a few days now.

86,305 tests done so far (1.8% of population).

12 deaths (0.83% death rate).

974 recovered cases and 454 active cases.

1 person has been put in jail for breaching lockdown rules.

The rate of infection is 0.48 per person whereas average is 2.5 infections per person.

I saw that New Caledonia went out of lockdown today. The virus has virtually been stamped out there. Maybe we could open borders with New Caledonia later on. It is the closest place to NZ.

[theanimal]

According to the survey, 61% of LA county was employed in mid March so employment is down 16% within a month (employment for mid-April is reported at 45%).

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... rus-survey

Mass gatherings over 250 and social gatherings over 10 were banned on March 12 and the governor asked for voluntary closures of bars and recommended shelter in place on March 15.

So it seems like the 61% is not very reflective of changes due to any governmental mandated closures. I'd be curious who they consider workers as I have a very hard time imagining LA county had ~40% unemployment prior to this pandemic.

I do think there will be very high unemployment. I would just be very surprised if it was this much this soon.

[Jin+Guice]

Compare say Australia and NZ which had more notice for lockdown and had quick lockdowns. Especially NZ which has one of, perhaps the most, comprehensive combination f measures in the world, ordered on rapid 48 hour notice for the whole country. The curve is not only flattening but is being smashed out of existence before it really had a chance to start.

Ha, ya, I mean Australia and especially NZ actually handled this so they're sort of not relevant to the discussion of countries who didn't handle it. It looks like Alaska is going to be able to pull this off too. The strategy of early containment was obviously the winner, but most countries punted on first down (sorry for the American football reference) so now we pay with money and lives.

@GTOO: I know Sweden is doing way worse than their Scandinavian brethren, the point is their shit is not falling apart. Italy's first death was Feb. 22 and Sweden's was March 11th., so by this metric, Sweden is 18 days behind. 18 days ago Italy was around 220 deaths/ million, Sweden is currently at 152/ million. Italy's nationwide lockdown started March 9th (they had regional before this), and their death peak had just passed. By April 1, it's clear that Italy had been in full panic mode for awhile, and for good reason. I know Sweden has been following voluntary social distancing policies and everyone lives alone, but unless their deaths blow up in the next two weeks, IMO, it's hard to make the case that major shutdowns weren't an overreaction (except major hotspots). What's confusing to me is how to explain the trajectory of Italy, Spain and NY vs. Sweden? It's like a different disease.

I think 60,000* by next Monday and 100,000 by the end of May (assuming lockdown continues) are high estimates (not unrealistic, just upper end of realistic). The major hotspots in the U.S. look like they've already peaked or are peaking now. Are you seeing something I'm not @GTOO?

I'm trying to think about the tradeoffs here, and, obviously I'm just spitballing an incredibly tough problem, but I'd say shutting down the economy in the manner we're doing now (assuming no better options were/ are feasible for at least the short-term) for ~3 months, I'd want to be saving ~1,000,000 U.S. lives (sorry for the American bias, but I live here so I'm most familiar with what's going on in the U.S. and its policies and numbers). And those ~ are hyper-approximate, I'm not trying to calculate the days of quarantine to lives tradeoff exactly, the point is, if we are saving ~200,000 lives, I don't think the economic risk of 3 months of shutdown is worth it. Before you attack me as an economy loving monster, remember that, at some point $$=lives, a relevant percentage of the lives lost are people who didn't have long to live and that around 2.8 million Americans die every year. So how many lives do we think we're currently saving by continuing quarantine and do you think it's worth it?

*How do we feel about NYC adding in all of those presumptive deaths? Do they count? I think they're closing in on 5,000 at this point, which is 1/8 of all U.S. deaths (using worldometer).

Brazil: My understanding is that, like Sweden, the efforts in Brazil are not strict enough to do much more than slightly delay the disease. Unlike Sweden, many Brazilians can't afford to stop working, Brazilians live in very dense areas and, my impression is, the lockdown measures are not being strictly followed when compared to even Sweden's voluntary measures (I'm not on the ground there and I don't think their reporting is trustworthy, so I could be wrong). I don't think things are going well there, but, let's be honest here, with the projections for rich countries, I'd expect hospitals to be totally over run and death in the streets. It's possible they are far enough behind that this hasn't really hit yet or I could be grossly misunderstanding what's going on there.

The main point is, there are a lot of poor countries with some combination of dense population, inadequate healthcare funding, the inability to afford a major shutdown and a lack of strong or decisive leadership. Is no one surprised that a worst case scenario hasn't played out in at least a few of these countries yet?


For those outside the U.S.: Jacob has mentioned this before, but a big part of what's happening in the U.S. is that we have a MASSIVE distrust of our government. It's almost the only thing that cuts across party lines. Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem like the U.S. is using the extra time we bought to develop much of a plan on how to deal with the world we are likely to face after the lockdown... Oddly there is a lot of trust that this virus isn't as bad as it seems and that the government printing money will hold the economy together. Amazingly, this seems to be sort of working for now.


RE: U.S. Unemployment

The new unemployment benefits are fucking insane. They massively expanded who was eligible to apply for unemployment and if you can show you lost ANY W2 or 1099 income, the federal government will send you $600/ week! I have to imagine this is strongly influencing the numbers.

[classical_Liberal]

We're locking down for the sake of locking down. We aren't benefitting from it.

I disagree, because lockdown buys time. Time to organize for potential mass hospitalizations. Time to run some trials on existing drugs to see if they are beneficial. Time to try alternative treatments. Time to experiment with mass testing. Time to develop accurate serology tests. Time to hire and train contact tracers. So, even without a vaccine, this initial lockdown has purchased most of the country time to prepare. Obviously not the hotspots, they were caught with their pants down, but now the rest of the country has had time to prepare and learn. There will be less chaos and fear. This will make a difference, I see the preparations unfolding on a local scale.

I do agree continuing lockdown until a vaccine is a horrible idea. A year is too long. May or June, depending on the local/regional curve isn't going to make much of a difference economically at this point. We should use the time wisely, then let people make their own choices. I predict many will voluntarily remain mostly isolated until effective treatment or vaccine though.

[classical_Liberal]

The new unemployment benefits are fucking insane. They massively expanded who was eligible to apply for unemployment and if you can show you lost ANY W2 or 1099 income, the federal government will send you $600/ week! I have to imagine this is strongly influencing the numbers.

My GF's temporary contract got canceled two weeks early. Now she's eligible for $600 week + normal unemployment through July or something crazy like that. Normally she wouldn't have even qualified for unemployment. I'd like to get a taste of that type of deal myself!