Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[mission27]

1 minute ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

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

I think you are missing the forest for the trees.  A large portion of society is getting incredibly frustrated with these lockdowns and are rightfully not going to tolerate this going on much longer.  We shouldn't be spending time on solutions that don't help 95%+ of society.  5% of people can't live their lives without the other 95%.  Its unrealistic and has zero benefit to the economy while creating huge perverse incentive and dividing people into a caste system.  Its a bad idea.

[ramssuperbowl99]

2 minutes ago, theJ said:

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.

We cannot think things like "it's only 5% of the population". There is not an easy solution to this that gets everyone back outside right away without consequences. If there was, we'd know it already. We need every "5% of the population" sized win we can get our hands on.

[ramssuperbowl99]

Just now, mission27 said:

Its unrealistic and has zero benefit to the economy while creating huge perverse incentive and dividing people into a caste system.  Its a bad idea.

Oh man I can't believe we'd ever live in an America that had a group of second class citizens. Wonder what that would be like.

[mission27]

2 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

We cannot think things like "it's only 5% of the population". There is not an easy solution to this that gets everyone back outside right away without consequences. If there was, we'd know it already. We need every "5% of the population" sized win we can get our hands on.

Its not a win though.  Thats not how the economy works.  You cant restart the parts of the economy that are closed with 5% of the population. 

We do have a solution, its the one every single country is now pursuing, which is we slowly open up the economy, we try to mitigate as best we can, but we accept some people will get sick and die as a result.  Its a tradeoff. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by mission27

[ramssuperbowl99]

3 minutes ago, mission27 said:

Its not a win though.  Thats not how the economy works.  You cant restart the parts of the economy that are closed with 5% of the population. 

We do have a solution, its the one every single country is now pursuing, which is we slowly open up the economy, we try to mitigate as best we can, but we accept some people will get sick and die as a result.  Its a tradeoff. 

You can't restart an entire economy, but you could start to re-open parts of it. Baby steps, shades of grey, etc. etc.

3 minutes ago, mission27 said:

We do have a solution, its the one every single country is now pursuing, which is we slowly open up the economy, we try to mitigate as best we can, but we accept some people will get sick and die as a result.  Its a tradeoff. 

Get ready for groundhog day. You just said it yourself, 95% of the population is naive. Take your time and let the restrictions lift as slow as you want, this thing hit critical mass a long time ago, so when restrictions go away, infections are going to go way up and we'll be back inside again.

[theJ]

4 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

You can't restart an entire economy, but you could start to re-open parts of it. Baby steps, shades of grey, etc. etc.

Well, not really.  The analogy i'll use, while not perfect, is that trying to restart 5% of the economy is like pulling the starter on your push mower at 5% of speed.  The mower will never start that way.

EDIT: which is, to say, that 5% of people can't get back to work without the other 95%.

[MWil23]

I'm not a medical person at all, so I will always gladly defer to those that are. My takes are basically off of being informed and those that pertain to my career/content field and expertise:

From a purely sociological perspective, we will gradually reopen things. I wouldn't be surprised to see gradual reopening, reopening, a spike, gradual closing, closing, and gradual reopening/opening again in the next 12 months.

Fair or not, the reality is, you can't quarantine people for much longer the way that we are in a capitalistic society, or people, small businesses, etc. will practice civil disobedience and then you'll have things like mob mentality/riots. That's an absolute reality of what will happen.

[TVScout]

2 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Oh man I can't believe we'd ever live in an America that had a group of second class citizens. Wonder what that would be like.

IMO it is not that stark or harsh. There would be 2 groups I and V.

Group I would be immune. They would be cut off from the rescue funds and would have to go back to work.

Group V would be vulnerable having no immunity and could continue receiving money. i.e. take pay offs to stay inside.

Both statuses would be roughly equal in terms appeal/appall.

[ramssuperbowl99]

2 minutes ago, theJ said:

Well, not really.  The analogy i'll use, while not perfect, is that trying to restart 5% of the economy is like pulling the starter on your push mower at 5% of speed.  The mower will never start that way.

EDIT: which is, to say, that 5% of people can't get back to work without the other 95%.

I know what you're trying to say. And what we could agree on is that 5% of the economy has some positive benefits, but it's not a linear relationship between % of population back to normal and % of economy that is back to normal.

[theJ]

Just now, ramssuperbowl99 said:

I know what you're trying to say. And what we could agree on is that 5% of the economy has some positive benefits, but it's not a linear relationship between % of population back to normal and % of economy that is back to normal.

Yes, absolutely.

 

My problem with the idea doesn't come from the stance of "it's not helpful enough" or "it creates two classes of society".  It's just impracticable on a larger scale.  We don't have the reliable tests for it (which i think you pointed out a few pages back), nor the infrastructure to enforce it.

[ramssuperbowl99]

11 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

From a purely sociological perspective, we will gradually reopen things. I wouldn't be surprised to see gradual reopening, reopening, a spike, gradual closing, closing, and gradual reopening/opening again in the next 12 months.

This is precisely what is going to happen, but I bet it's way less gradual on at least the first boom-bust cycle. If you look at polling data, there are more than enough idiots who are going to immediately endanger themselves that cases will spike back up.

Something to keep in mind when it does is that we've put in 5 weeks social distancing/quarantine already just to get this back on the downswing. We're gambling with a lot of progress when we open things back up.

[MWil23]

Just now, ramssuperbowl99 said:

This is precisely what is going to happen, but I bet it's way less gradual on at least the first boom-bust cycle. If you look at polling data, there are more than enough idiots who are going to immediately endanger themselves that cases will spike back up.

To be blunt, I don't really care if those idiots endanger themselves. I care if/that they endanger others, and their ignorance will impact plenty of other people doing their part, as well as children, the elderly, etc.

Just now, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Something to keep in mind when it does is that we've put in 5 weeks social distancing/quarantine already just to get this back on the downswing. We're gambling with a lot of progress when we open things back up.

People don't see the danger because what we are doing/have done is working/has worked, so it'll be spun by them as "overreacting/overblown". People still don't understand flattening the curve.

[mission27]

2 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

You can't restart an entire economy, but you could start to re-open parts of it. Baby steps, shades of grey, etc. etc.

Again its just not how the economy works.  What business that is closed today could open if 5% of people were free to go about their lives?  Its like trying to revive a corpse by fixing a broken leg.

The stuff that is closed right now (restaurants, shopping, most hotels, airline routes, sports, auto, movie theaters, barbershops, etc.) will not re-open at 5% capacity.  It is not profitable enough for any of those businesses if only 5% of their customers are coming in.  We are a consumer spending driven economy, in the US in particular but really all over the world.  

And even if those businesses did re-open, it would not benefit 95% of people who would still be jobless, socially isolated, and cutoff from their lives. 

The only real benefit to immunity testing is knowing which critical workers can continue to work in the future if we need to institute limited lockdowns in limited geographical areas to respond to new, large scale outbreaks in a city / metro area.  But when we talk about giving ordinary people 'immunity passports' and continuing to force others to shelter in place, thats not gonna fly

10 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Get ready for groundhog day. You just said it yourself, 95% of the population is naive. Take your time and let the restrictions lift as slow as you want, this thing hit critical mass a long time ago, so when restrictions go away, infections are going to go way up and we'll be back inside again.

Thats why we just bought ourselves two months to get ready for future waves.  That was the rationale for flattening the curve.  It was never about staying home for 2 years until there is a vaccine.  That is an extremist position that has popped up in the last few weeks that is completely disconnected from the original public health rationale for the lockdowns and completely disconnected from what every government in the world from Asia to Europe to the US is now doing and completely disconnected from what the vast majority of the population is willing to accept. 

Ramping up testing, contact tracing, masks, temp checks, ramping up ventilator and PPE production, banning very large public events for a while, putting billions of dollars into researching therapeutics and vaccines all makes sense.  18 month lockdown for 95%+ of the population is crazy and will not be accepted. 

[mission27]

16 minutes ago, theJ said:

Well, not really.  The analogy i'll use, while not perfect, is that trying to restart 5% of the economy is like pulling the starter on your push mower at 5% of speed.  The mower will never start that way.

EDIT: which is, to say, that 5% of people can't get back to work without the other 95%.

THIS ^

This is what I was trying to get across.  Much better analogy than mine.  There is no economic benefit to getting 5% of people 'back to work.'  There is no work for those 5% to get back to. 

It needs to be 80% or 90% of people and immunity doesn't get you there.  What would get you there?  Suggesting (not forcing) older people to stay home and supporting that.  And allowing younger people without serious conditions to go back to their lives.  Its not prefect but its our only option.

[ramssuperbowl99]

5 minutes ago, theJ said:

Yes, absolutely.

 

My problem with the idea doesn't come from the stance of "it's not helpful enough" or "it creates two classes of society".  It's just impracticable on a larger scale.  We don't have the reliable tests for it (which i think you pointed out a few pages back), nor the infrastructure to enforce it.

Yeah the logistics seem difficult for much of anything beyond international travel. But let's take the general idea, which at it's most vague would be something like "immune people could get a head start", and instead of dismissing it or bringing up WW2, let's brainstorm off of it. 

Instead of a documented antibody test, a decent proxy would be a previous positive COVID test. Will that work often enough that we could save the logistical tests? 

Alternatively, how about non-contact thermometers instead of mAb tests?

How about designing seating recommendations for public events (when they do start back up) where you sell limited tickets/section so there is enough space, and then encourage people to go immune - not immune - immune - not immune - etc. to try and artificially make us look more herd immune than we are

You could go on and on like this. Will all of the ideas be good? No. Do antibody passports seem like the world's most feasible idea? Definitely not. But the thought process for a problem this complicated has to be more constructive than what's been shown in this thread so far.