PhineasC

Science is strongly moving towards this virus having a much lower IFR but higher infection rate than we thought. All the data is pointing that way now, debate now is over the degree. It wasn't that long ago that some governors made lockdown decisions based on data that showed 10% or more of people could die. We are still dealing with the reverberations of those decisions because of political inertia. It takes time to clear that kind of bad data when political careers are at stake and the voters are very scared because they ingested tons of bad doom porn data from social media.

Would have there been impacts to the economy even without a shutdown? Yes, certainly. We have seen this across the world in places that didn't have mandated lockdowns. It's a matter of scope and scale. We are headed towards historic unemployment numbers. These are not run of the mill 2008-level numbers. 80% of restaurants could go under in places such as tourist destinations. That hasn't happened in any of our lifetimes. I don't think it would have been that bad if we hadn't spun ourselves into a frenzy of fear over hospitals being overwhelmed, patients dying for lack of care, young people dropping like flies, and 200k+ deaths. These were all media-driven narratives from March that have since fallen apart. The new doom is the "second wave."

I'm afraid we will find later after a good QALY analysis that we destroyed the lives of those under 40 with very little risk from the disease to save some lives in the 70+ very sick cohort who had maybe 1-5 bad years more of life at the outside. There is an entire field of study around such analyses. Doctors deal with this every day when helping families make end-of-life decisions on "pulling the plug." I don't think we have this analysis figured out correctly when we talk about massive unemployment and hardship being a necessary evil to "save some lives."

They will only stop dying from this virus if we somehow figure out how to cure it. 30,000-60,000 people will die from the flu in this country next year too. Just like every year. Seems hard to believe for some...

Each state and city needs to make their own decisions. Nothing wrong with that. But then don't be surprised if people start taking their lives elsewhere. I personally see one outcome of this disease being an acceleration of flight from NY/CA etc. The inevitable tax increases due to the huge budget shortfalls that will come after after the smoke clears won't help.

I assume those are the numbers as of today? As I have said, new cases is almost totally irrelevant as a metric. It is heavily tied to testing. We have greatly expanded testing across the country so those numbers will keep climbing. There are probably north of 10-20 million Americans infected right now -- that may be an underestimate. There are many reports of empty testing sites because we overshot the demand, just like we did with ventilators and field hospitals. What you are seeing fluctuate each day are not new cases. They may be weeks old and the people in question may have already spread COVID to their entire family, and none of them have symptoms. There are many stories like that backed by serological data. Deaths are sad, but there is a reason most governors stopped using that as a metric for making policy. Hospitalizations are the best bet right now, albeit imperfect.

The models definitely make stuff like this up all the time.

Remember, going to the beach or standing on the steps of the state house with an AR-15 are way, way more dangerous in terms of catching COVID-19 than spending hours shopping in Walmart, Home Depot, and Whole Foods! That's what the gubmint said so it's my policy!

It doesn't seem like a closed case to me that not forcibly shutting down these businesses still would have led to the same unemployment levels. I was told by all of you that these shutdowns were needed and are still needed because people will otherwise go out and patronize these businesses and spread the virus. Which is it?

Market crashes don't have an immediate impact on employment in restaurants, bars, hair salons, real estate, etc. That's where the biggest job losses are right now. I think maybe you don't realize these are historically bad unemployment numbers? They are enormous, way beyond the 2008 levels, which also had a major market slide. And the markets rebounded some in recent weeks, but job losses have accelerated.

My "agenda" is that this virus isn't as deadly as we thought. Do you even read and comprehend the posts here or just see my name and get triggered?

This isn't at all clear. Plenty of nations are dealing with some unemployment but managing it at lower levels while keeping the economy wide open. We have forcibly closed many businesses and artificially created high unemployment. People are now scared to go to restaurants after 40 days of doom and gloom predictions, but they weren't all that scared even right up until the lockdowns came into force. It wasn't that long ago, we remember early March dude.

If that is driving them to stay closed, it's a pretty dumb rationale that is quickly losing favor with most people.

Some areas have case counts in the low hundreds, 50 times that number is not unreasonable at all and may still be low.

There is a very clear link between rising unemployment and suicides. A single percentage point increase in unemployment leads to 1% more suicides. Imagine what a 30% to 40% increase in unemployment will do... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24925987 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/the-link-between-unemployment-and-suicide/ Your goals are noble, but will also kill a lot of people from economic and social hardship. Again, I don't see the point in discussing hypotheticals that are not occurring here on this planet.

Hogan is very slowly sidestepping towards a reopening. Just a week or so ago he was still focused in on daily case counts as a metric. He’s been so loud about the lockdowns he will need to very slowly ease out of his deep hole to save face.

The idea that rural areas are suddenly seeing a spike in cases because of limited reopenings versus enormously expanded testing capacity is just LOL.

Are we living on the same planet?

The fact remains the same as it has since this started. No one in the western democracies will tolerate a hard lockdown for 2 years waiting for a possible vaccine that may never materialize. Unless you plan to stay locked down indefinitely, reopening has to happen, and it doesn't appear as though delaying it helps all that much with final death counts, assuming you stay under hospital capacity (and we are WAY under).

LOL OK. Thanks for the advice!

Come on, the far greater increase comes from your weekly trip to the grocery store or the Door Dash guy and you know it. You just have a political issue with the protests. Your whole post is silly and out of touch with a realistic assessment of the situation. If you think a guy protesting the lockdown increases your personal risk in a meaningful way, I don't think you have a firm grasp on the actual danger from COVID versus the impacts of the "cure."

We had the closest thing we'd ever have here, similar to the rest of the western democracies. There is no sense in talking about Wuhan here.

Your ideas are noble from a COVID lifesaving perspective (from mental health perspective of those locked down they are not great), I just don't see the point in discussing impossible hypotheticals that haven't happened and won't happen. The lockdowns are ending, and it's clear we won't have a robust test and trace infrastructure here before we open up, nor will most of the west.

That's a silly straw man. A redneck toting a gun standing at the state house doesn't increase your risk of catching coronavirus at all. Whereas dumping toxic waste can easily affect your health. Bad analogy.

If I left the state for a haircut (what a silly statement), I could be accosted at the border and forced to isolate for 14 days upon my return. I most certainly didn't have a choice here.