COVID-19

[Riggerjack]

@ZAF

I don't know whether the lockdown was or is good policy.

Honestly, given the known unknowns; the range of potential outcomes, and the local variability of outcomes; I don't think good policy is even possible. Every option involves asymetric sacrifice. Where one exists on that asymetry, and how things are working out locally, is how one judges good policy...

Hence the debate mindset or the adapt mindset. There is no win available for the debate mindset.

[Jason]

Public policy vs. existential reality is a false dichotomy. Who can create a new reality when public policy precludes basic "Aristotelian" activity? At some point you have to go beyond thinking.

The government has bi-furcated essential vs. non-essential. That in and of itself makes this a public policy reality not a mere existential reality. The government has evacuated students from institutions for the first time in 175 years. That means The Civil War, WWI, The Depression, WW II, 9-11 came and went without such action. There was government enforced vaccination of healthy people. There has never been government enforced isolation of healthy people. With this in mind, to claim all debate is a distraction is fallacious and dangerous. Constitutional rights co-exist. To remove public assembly or the rights to protest when the government has thrown a gauntlet down on a populace is from any perspective, totalitarian in nature when considering a liquor store can open its doors. The right of the public to be protected during a health crisis is a real one, and has properly taken its place on the front burner. But that doesn't mean the other burners get turned off only to be turned on when the high priority issue is solved.

[Riggerjack]

Cultural differences means that "yeah, whatever" and individualism is celebrated in the US to the point that very many (just admit it ) feels a natural impulse towards breaking the rules as minor act of rebellion insofar the rules don't make [common] sense to them [personally]. Some even think it's they "god damn duty" to do so.

I plead guilty as charged.

For instance, in the midst of this lockdown, I have been crossing county lines 2 days a week, dealing with my Marysville house. I'm staying home, at my other home. I go out when I want something. I wear a mask, and use hand sanitizer, but I have followed my own rules since before this lockdown. I will continue to do so. It's the rational thing for adults to do.

It's probably why I don't understand how everyone else is feeling. I am constrained by the way the world is, not the recess lady.

Maybe that's why everyone else is focused on policy.

Maybe that makes me a bad person. I don't know, but I don't seem to have the anger that others are feeling about this.

[ZAFCorrection]

Hence the debate mindset or the adapt mindset. There is no win available for the debate mindset.

What if the debate mindset takes a break after getting off the internet? People are not so one-dimensional that debating something here means they are at risk of fucking up their lives because only debate is possible.

[7Wannabe5]

“Constrained by the Recess Lady”

[Riggerjack]

@ ZAF

I read that through a few times, and I am still missing what you are saying. I'm sure the confusion is all at my end.

Could you please try that again?

@7 it was the best analogy I could come up with, for someone creating rules enforced by disapproval, based on group behavior akin to quietly standing in line, waiting for a solution for everyone.

Authority is more persuasive to the kind of people who would use the term "social contract" without any sense of irony.

[Ego]

Last night the CDC revised the provisional death count from Covid down.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm



I can't find the number they were previously reporting but Mrs. Ego seems to think it was in the 60K range. Does anyone here know?

[Jason]

Authority is more persuasive to the kind of people who would use the term "social contract" without any sense of irony.

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.

[theanimal]

@Ego- Using the wayback machine, yesterday's page showed just over 33,000 deaths at 5 am. and at 27,674 at 5 am on April 24.

[Ego]

Animal, thanks! My bad.

[CS]

nCovid2019.live has 66,640 US deaths.

The John Hopkins website is a f-ing mess. They seems to be intentionally hiding a quick look at the stats, or I'm just not getting it. Their site used to look like the above. Some else might be able to figure it out.

More than Vietnam, that is for sure.

Why would the CDC be so low?

[Ego]

Spot on....

https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/12 ... 1960003585

[Laura Ingalls]

Well the immunodeficiency member of my extended family that spent 5 days as inpatient in a hospital that was caring for a massive local outbreak seems to have not contracted Covid.

Another family member works in a manufacturing setting as a safety manager. They have had positive cases and are still open.

[Riggerjack]

@ Jason.

The only time I hear social contract, it's from someone who feels that their position of privilege may change. They followed the rules, and "this outrage is going to break the social contract..."

The idea is amusing on its face. The idea that there is a part of society that agreed to be the ones sacrificed, imprisoned, denounced is ridiculous. Or maybe they aren't covered...

What people are objecting to when they worry about the social contract, is that suddenly they will be treated as we treat the poor. What an absolute travesty that would be.

These are good people. Well domesticated. Fine citizens, all. I have no objection to them. I am merely amused by the way they think.

[ZAFCorrection]

@rigger

My point is that you seem to be implying that an effort towards debate is a rejection of an adaptive attitude, which is a questionable notion. People can keep more than one thing in their minds, particularly on the time scale of days, months and years.

Otherwise, I'm not sure of the reason for responding to policy opinions with personal strategy opinions. It's very non sequitur-y. It also seems to be part of a larger trend of derailing pandemic policy critiques with thought stoppers and other derailments. You're either a sober-minded proponant of some variation of lockdown or you are the MAGA jackass trying to besiege government buildings in Michigan. No middle ground/nuance.

Edit:

The thing that really has my silly senses tingling is the modelling and other analysis of lockdown only takes covid-related health parameters into account Forget economic parameters. Even people needing treatment or evaluation for cancer have been getting left out of the equation. This is not a serious effort at choosing the best option. For whatever reason, people have their thumb on the scale in favor of lockdown.

[Jason]

(@) RIggjerack

Practice never lives up to principle. Individuals never live up to their professed ideologies. But just because the house is in disarray doesn't mean the foundation is faulty. We exchanged certain individual rights in order to obtain certain protections by an elected government body. That is social contract theory. That is the basis of the constitution that rule not only our Federal government but the constitutions of our state governments. And that is the basis of our agreement or disagreement with the qualitative and quantitative limits of public policy. The governor of my state when asked whether his orders comported to our state constitution responded "that's above my pay grade." I would argue that it's not above his pay grade not only in terms of his role of governor but in his role of private citizen. I have no idea who the "we" and the "they" are in your argument(s) or experiences in discussing the topic. But if either thinks that the validity or applicability of social contract theory is solely determined by holding a mirror up to their individual circumstances, they are in affect merely kissing or slapping the face of a dispassionate, theoretical father who's lap everyone has no choice but to sit on.

All of life is political. And all political life in the US is an argument rooted in social contract theory and how it applies to individual rights. And that is the argument today. I have a right to be healthy. I have to right to work. I have a right to protest. I have a right to free assembly. I have a right not to be coughed on by a person with a virus. And those rights are inextricably tied to public policy and at no time in this country's history has public policy taken such a large role in our lives. And whether someone knows it or not, social contract theory, if not the basis of this entire thread, at minimum, permeates it, at least when the US is addressed.

[Ego]

Hence the debate mindset or the adapt mindset. There is no win available for the debate mindset.

@Rigger Debating that we shouldn't debate is itself debating, no?
If you believed what you say then the last thing you would do is debate the point.

[Ego]

Another Unherd.com video.

Nobel prize-winning scientist: the Covid-19 epidemic was never exponential

https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize- ... ponential/

He takes specific issue with the Neil Ferguson paper. “In a footnote to a table it said, assuming exponential growth of 15% for six days. Now I had looked at China and had never seen exponential growth that wasn’t decaying rapidly.”

The explanation for this flattening that we are used to is that social distancing and lockdowns have slowed the curve, but he is unconvinced. As he put it to me, in the subsequent examples to China of South Korea, Iran and Italy, “the beginning of the epidemics showed a slowing down and it was very hard for me to believe that those three countries could practise social distancing as well as China.” He believes that both some degree of prior immunity and large numbers of asymptomatic cases are important factors.

[jacob]

The thing that really has my silly senses tingling is the modelling and other analysis of lockdown only takes covid-related health parameters into account Forget economic parameters. Even people needing treatment or evaluation for cancer have been getting left out of the equation. This is not a serious effort at choosing the best option. For whatever reason, people have their thumb on the scale in favor of lockdown.

That's a general problem or issue with scientific modelling that has policy impact. There are integrated models that attempt to do both(*), but in general, whenever scientists incorporate economic considerations, they're told to leave it to the politicians to weigh the various concerns so as not to introduce their own political bias into their recommendations.

Effectively, epidemiologists make epidemic models and give their recommendation for saving as many people as possible. Economists make economic models and give their recommendation for saving as much as the economy as possible. Politicians then weigh these recommendations and make a decision. The situation in the US is a bit unusual in that we have a reality TV star as a president and so ... Point being, at some point a politician has to take responsibility and make a decision. This is also how it has worked out. After the president said he didn't want the responsibility. The governors were ultimately the ones to balance the scales. Consequently, various states have weighed differently with some prioritizing health and some the economy, practically along predictable party lines. I'd declare that a success in terms of how models make it into policy.

(*) Adaptive systems are pretty hard to model. In particular, experts tend to see other fields as fixed or at least simple parametrized boundary conditions. For example, the epidemiologists likely presume that the economy will remain more or less functioning. Conversely, the economists likely presume that labor isn't going to die or freak out and stay at home. These "boundaries" need to be updated on a regular basis. For example, both epidemiologists and economists now need to take into account that a significant fraction of the public are making their own decisions to either isolate or not irrespective of what the rules are.

I'm speculating that a significant feedback mechanism could be the coverage and public focus on this. A simple meat algorithm would explain why R0 is converging on 1:

If news about hospitals, deaths, etc. dominate and are getting worse => people will self-isolate, change their behavior, ...
If news about hospitals, deaths, etc. are getting better or fading => people will start slacking and venturing out, ...

The lag time is about 10 days which is a fast response, so insofar the state of the health care system is widely communicated the public response will eventually converge to a point where the health system is right at capacity. Thereby stabilizing so that the number of tests per day stay constant (because test supply/demand is maxed out) and the number of dead per day also stay constant (because people have reached their tolerance in terms of good news bad news).

[nomadscientist]

With an optimistic squint one could say the equilibrium is below 1.0 because the media have a commercial incentive to play up the dramatic catastrophic scenario and play down the boring business-as-usual scenario. Maybe people already know to correct for that though.