Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[mission27]

@ramssuperbowl99 the issue I have here is as soon as we accept the idea that people can be bucketed and we can restrict people from living their lives because they pose more or less of a risk to society, due to something that is no fault of their own, I think we create a very dangerous precedent and the next time we have a major terrorist attack or war, these same tools will be there and people will be desensitized to their use

"You pose a statistically slightly higher risk than this other type of person, so you have fewer rights" is a very slippery slope imo

I completely agree the people proposing immunity passports have good intentions and are by no means Nazis, but I do think its dangerous, its clearly a major violation of people's rights, and its in no way effective (in fact the opposite... any sane person faced with a low chance of dying and told they can't leave their house without immunity is going to go out and purposefully contract the illness, you are creating a completely perverse incentive if you do this).  So while WHO's communication on this was botched I 100% agree with them that this is a horrible public policy and there are much better ways to fight the pandemic

[mission27]

9 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

11 minutes ago, Shanedorf said:

I also think they wanted the available masks for the healthcare workers - had they suggested masks for the masses earlier - the hospitals would have faced even worse shortages. Rock / Hard Place

I agree with this.

Say “wear masks” and the PPE shortage in hospitals is far, far worse.

Well yes and no.

If people in the US and Europe had been regularly wearing surgical masks on public transit the same way they had in Asia, maybe we never would have seen this level of community spread around the world and wouldn't have needed as much PPE in hospitals.  And maybe we would've scaled up production of those masks in January instead of March.  Who knows, its a catch-22 and there was no great answer.  If people go out and buy masks it hurts the health care workers, but if you save all the masks for hospital workers, you aren't slowing the pipeline of infections and your health care workers never get a breather.  I understand why they did it and agreed with the move at the time but you could definitely make the argument that it has backfired. 

At the end of the day I think WHO is dealing with a lack of trust from the public because they've been wrong or behind on a number of key points.  I don't personally believe there was any ill intent or that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater by destroying the WHO, but its hard to blame people for being skeptical of an organization that said:

- There was no evidence of human to human transmission in late January when Wuhan was about to be locked down

- Masks don't help slow the spread (they clearly do)

- The case fatality rate is above 3% (it is probably a tenth of that number) 

- Travel restrictions with China were misguided (if Europe had done a better job screening and monitoring travelers, no doubt we could've bought a little more time)

- This wasn't a pandemic in early March (there were clearly already millions of cases around the globe)

- There is no evidence of immunity (which is false, and to rams point, I totally understand the report itself was much more nuanced than this, but they badly botched the communication) 

On all of these things they were trying to be cautious and there was clearly no ill intent but from a communications perspective they couldn't have possibly handled this worse and its the reason there is a lack of trust right now.  Its not surprising, this was a once in a generation crisis that nobody was ready for, although tbf I think a big part of the reason we have a WHO is for them to be ready for these types of things, and they were slower to react than they should have been.  Its fair to be critical of that.

[ramssuperbowl99]

20 minutes ago, mission27 said:

@ramssuperbowl99 the issue I have here is as soon as we accept the idea that people can be bucketed and we can restrict people from living their lives because they pose more or less of a risk to society, due to something that is no fault of their own, I think we create a very dangerous precedent and the next time we have a major terrorist attack or war, these same tools will be there and people will be desensitized to their use

"You pose a statistically slightly higher risk than this other type of person, so you have fewer rights" is a very slippery slope imo

I get it. I really do. 

We all agree the theoretical "good" version of this legislation would be highly cautious and reflective that it's not intended to be precedent-setting. No one is (or should be) running up to hand over human rights without guarantees that it will be temporary and is done with the right intentions. And we've seen that in the stay-at-home orders that have been deployed so far. They have expiration dates, they're data driven, and they're things that were done out of necessity, not opportunity.

And I also get that it's not fair to exempt people based on things they can't control, but this is hardly the first time in US history that things aren't fair. We already restrict people from living their lives based on their potential risk to society or any number of other factors outside of people's control. 

Meanwhile, you've gone on and on in this thread about how we can't wait for 18 months, if we do society is going to collapse, etc. etc. If you really believe that, then "well it's a slippery slope" doesn't stand any more as a way to dismiss something out of hand. 

20 minutes ago, mission27 said:

I completely agree the people proposing immunity passports have good intentions and are by no means Nazis, but I do think its dangerous, its clearly a major violation of people's rights, and its in no way effective (in fact the opposite... any sane person faced with a low chance of dying and told they can't leave their house without immunity is going to go out and purposefully contract the illness, you are creating a completely perverse incentive if you do this).  So while WHO's communication on this was botched I 100% agree with them that this is a horrible public policy and there are much better ways to fight the pandemic

The simple truth is that we don't have enough information to know whether or not it would be effective yet. And if it would be effective, we aren't sure it would be worth the cost. Before anything we'd have to see what the specifics of the proposal would be, model with and without, and see what we get. 

 

One of my first questions would be the incentives this creates, like you said. How we prevent people who are destitute and need to get back to work seeking out infection would be a huge problem, and while that sounds very pie in the sky, it's actually a fairly similar to a documented phenomenon nowadays for HIV/AIDS.

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by ramssuperbowl99

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

5 minutes ago, mission27 said:

Well yes and no.

If people in the US and Europe had been regularly wearing surgical masks on public transit the same way they had in Asia, maybe we never would have seen this level of community spread around the world and wouldn't have needed as much PPE in hospitals.  And maybe we would've scaled up production of those masks in January instead of March.  Who knows, its a catch-22 and there was no great answer.  If people go out and buy masks it hurts the health care workers, but if you save all the masks for hospital workers, you aren't slowing the pipeline of infections and your health care workers never get a breather.  I understand why they did it and agreed with the move at the time but you could definitely make the argument that it has backfired. 

At the end of the day I think WHO is dealing with a lack of trust from the public because they've been wrong or behind on a number of key points.  I don't personally believe there was any ill intent or that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater by destroying the WHO, but its hard to blame people for being skeptical of an organization that said:

- There was no evidence of human to human transmission in late January when Wuhan was about to be locked down

- Masks don't help slow the spread (they clearly do)

- The case fatality rate is above 3% (it is probably a tenth of that number) 

- Travel restrictions with China were misguided (if Europe had done a better job screening and monitoring travelers, no doubt we could've bought a little more time)

- This wasn't a pandemic in early March (there were clearly already millions of cases around the globe)

- There is no evidence of immunity (which is false, and to rams point, I totally understand the report itself was much more nuanced than this, but they badly botched the communication) 

On all of these things they were trying to be cautious and there was clearly no ill intent but from a communications perspective they couldn't have possibly handled this worse and its the reason there is a lack of trust right now.  Its not surprising, this was a once in a generation crisis that nobody was ready for, although tbf I think a big part of the reason we have a WHO is for them to be ready for these types of things, and they were slower to react than they should have been.  Its fair to be critical of that.

This is the point I’m making.  Expecting them to have every answer for something new is not reasonable.

The last time the world saw anything like this was 102 years ago.

I understand the skepticism, but you have to apply context for their errors.

[WizeGuy]

https://fortune.com/2020/04/26/bill-gates-coronavirus-vaccine-covid-19/

 

Pretty encouraging to hear Bill Gates is becoming more optimistic that a vaccine will come sooner rather than later. He's in with a lot of the top scientists trying to curb stomp this virus, so I hold his opinion pretty high. 

 

Some notable quotes:

“If everything went perfectly, we’d be in scale manufacturing within a year,” Gates said on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” “It could be as long as two years.”

“Dr. Fauci and I have been fairly consistent to say 18 months to create expectations that are not too high,”

"The best scientists [are] working hard on this," Gates said. "In fact, in the last few weeks I've seen signs that we may get to the optimistic side of that time projection" for a vaccine."

I believe Gates sounded more pessimistic a couple of weeks ago saying a vaccine wouldn't be ready within a year, so it certainly sounds like progress is being made. The vaccine out of Oxford is the most interesting to me. It's an altered form of the meningitis vaccine, so it should be relatively safe. If it does provide protection, then we could see mass production in the fall though Gates doesn't think that's likely.  

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by WizeGuy

[ramssuperbowl99]

9 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

This is the point I’m making.  Expecting them to have every answer for something new is not reasonable.

The last time the world saw anything like this was 102 years ago.

I understand the skepticism, but you have to apply context for their errors.

And, maybe above all, when you look at the American public who is simultaneously distrusting the media for blowing this out of proportion/fear mongering, and distrusting the WHO for not doing more earlier to combat this serious disease, maybe it's just that people are mad and "the media" is an easy scapegoat.

[mission27]

17 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Meanwhile, you've gone on and on in this thread about how we can't wait for 18 months, if we do society is going to collapse, etc. etc. If you really believe that, then "well it's a slippery slope" doesn't stand any more as a way to dismiss something out of hand. 

I dont really see the connection tbh

 

 

 

 

18 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

The simple truth is that we don't have enough information to know whether or not it would be effective yet. And if it would be effective, we aren't sure it would be worth the cost. Before anything we'd have to see what the specifics of the proposal would be, model with and without, and see what we get. 

By 'effective' though the issue is not immunity.  I'm willing to stipulate that there will be immunity and that in theory if only folks who were immune left their homes, you'd slow the spread.  Thats obvious imo.

But people will not stay inside and people will purposefully infect themselves if this becomes public policy and nobody could blame them.  How do you factor that into a model?  How do you model people's behavior in the face of a completely unreasonable public policy? 

For the vast majority of people, the risk of serious illness or death from COVID is very low.  Like 1 in 2000.  Its reasonable to ask some short term sacrifice from these people to protect the small percentage of the population for whom this is a higher risk.  It is not reasonable to ask these people to give up their entire lives for years and give up their economic futures.  If someone is young and healthy and wants to go back to their lives we need a way for that to happen very soon or people are going to rightfully freak out.  That should be the main goal right now tbh.  And immunity passports don't help at all, which is my issue  95% of people have not had COVID-19.  You can't keep 95% of 20-something to 40-something healthy people inside for the next 2 years. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

2 minutes ago, mission27 said:

35 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Meanwhile, you've gone on and on in this thread about how we can't wait for 18 months, if we do society is going to collapse, etc. etc. If you really believe that, then "well it's a slippery slope" doesn't stand any more as a way to dismiss something out of hand. 

I dont really see the connection tbh

It undermines the argument of society collapsing. Someone who says "people need to go outside or the financial implications will result in the apocalypse*" (I know that's not the argument, I'm reducing it for ease of consumption) shouldn't immediately dismiss anything that might get more people outside faster in a responsible way. Otherwise, "society is going to collapse" starts to sound more like "I just really want a haircut".

I'm not saying you have to agree to it. But if things are that bad, you have to at least listen and try and draw out anything positive you can from it.

Edited April 27, 2020 by ramssuperbowl99

[mission27]

Just now, ramssuperbowl99 said:

3 minutes ago, mission27 said:

36 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Meanwhile, you've gone on and on in this thread about how we can't wait for 18 months, if we do society is going to collapse, etc. etc. If you really believe that, then "well it's a slippery slope" doesn't stand any more as a way to dismiss something out of hand. 

I dont really see the connection tbh

It undermines the argument of society collapsing. Someone who says "people need to go outside or the financial implications will result in the apocalypse*" (I know that's not the argument, I'm reducing it for ease of consumption) shouldn't immediately dismiss anything that might get more people outside faster in a responsible way. 

I'm not saying you have to agree to it. But if things are that bad, you have to at least listen and try and draw out anything positive you can from it.

Yes but my response would be 5% of people leaving their homes doesn't help at all. It doesn't prevent the worst economic depression in history and it doesn't prevent the 95% of people you are locking up from losing their freaking minds. 

We need a solution that gets the vast majority of people back to their lives in the next couple of months, in a balanced way.  Spending time and resources pursuing an idea that doesn't help the vast majority of low risk people who want to go back to their lives is counter-productive, right?

[ramssuperbowl99]

4 minutes ago, mission27 said:

For the vast majority of people, the risk of serious illness or death from COVID is very low.  Like 1 in 2000.  Its reasonable to ask some short term sacrifice from these people to protect the small percentage of the population for whom this is a higher risk.  It is not reasonable to ask these people to give up their entire lives for years and give up their economic futures.  If someone is young and healthy and wants to go back to their lives we need a way for that to happen very soon or people are going to rightfully freak out.  That should be the main goal right now tbh.  And immunity passports don't help at all, which is my issue  95% of people have not had COVID-19.  You can't keep 95% of 20-something to 40-something healthy people inside for the next 2 years. 

This is the line of thinking I object to.

"This can't work forever people are going to die"

"Okay what about we consider giving people more freedom depending on an AB test"

"Not good enough and no it's a slippery slope because 80 years ago the worst people in history did something similar."

 

That's not "society is going to collapse we need to find a solution". That's "I'm sick of quarantine and I need a haircut".

[Shanedorf]

20 minutes ago, WizeGuy said:

Pretty encouraging to hear Bill Gates is becoming more optimistic that a vaccine will come sooner rather than later. He's in with a lot of the top scientists trying to curb stomp this virus, so I hold his opinion pretty high. 

Bill & Melinda are funding the COVID19 Therapeutic Accelerator and he's briefed on everything going on in terms of vaccine/drug development
He's also acutely aware of the power his words carry and is trying to be as conservative and circumspect as the situation calls for. He's not trying to get elected, he doesn't care about share prices and he's had a wealth of experience in other global health issues over the last decade.

In short, he's the perfect guy for this effort and I am thrilled to see how he has helped to bring together a coalition of public and private enterprises to fight the fight. You have to remember that Pharma/Biotech companies operate in a world of confidentiality and competition, getting them to work together is no small thing and we'll all benefit in the end, but that doesn't happen without the leadership of a powerful and respected man like Bill.

[mission27]

Just now, ramssuperbowl99 said:

This is the line of thinking I object to.

"This can't work forever people are going to die"

"Okay what about we consider giving people more freedom depending on an AB test"

"Not good enough and no it's a slippery slope because 80 years ago the worst people in history did something similar."

 

That's not "society is going to collapse we need to find a solution". That's "I'm sick of quarantine and I need a haircut".

Its not a solution for 95% of people and it doesn't save the economy or prevent literal revolutions.  So its not a solution. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

Just now, mission27 said:

Its not a solution for 95% of people and it doesn't save the economy or prevent literal revolutions.  So its not a solution. 

It might be part of a solution. And it's getting dismissed before we've gotten past the headline.

[theJ]

7 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

It undermines the argument of society collapsing. Someone who says "people need to go outside or the financial implications will result in the apocalypse*" (I know that's not the argument, I'm reducing it for ease of consumption) shouldn't immediately dismiss anything that might get more people outside faster in a responsible way. Otherwise, "society is going to collapse" starts to sound more like "I just really want a haircut".

I'm not saying you have to agree to it. But if things are that bad, you have to at least listen and try and draw out anything positive you can from it.

I think a far more reasonable solution is to mandate wearing masks in public and then slow open up sectors, for a few reasons.

• We know it slows transmission
• You can do this on a larger scale
• We don't really have the infrastructure to enforce an immunity passport.  You can't post cops at every store or w/e and catch the ones violating the orders.  And it's really too easy to avoid checkpoints like that anyway.
• The tests that test for anti-bodies are extremely unreliable.
• Even if ^ wasn't the case, we don't have millions of them to administer
• What good does it do to allow 5% of the population to go back out anyway?  That's not going to make opening theaters and other recreational businesses viable.

There's probably more.

[TVScout]

Saving Your Health, One Mask at a Time

By Peter S. Tippett, MD, PhD

Source: LinkedIn

https://caremesh.com/blog/2020/4/8/saving-your-health-one-mask-at-a-time