Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!
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@lolwhat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There is no empirical evidence for these lockdowns
Comparing US states shows there is no relationship between lockdowns and lower Covid-19 deaths.
This is one of the things where having evidence, one way or another, doesn't make any difference. We're long past the reasonable discussion - the entire world is in "think of the
childrenelderly" mode. There's no convincing them, especially in the face of invincible argument of "well yeah, we've had much higher death count than other places despite stronger restrictions, but if we didn't have them, it would be even higherer!"For better or for worse. It's entirely possible there's no evidence because we suck at data gathering, not because restrictions weren't effective.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
It's entirely possible there's no evidence because we suck at data gathering, not because restrictions weren't effective.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@lolwhat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There is no empirical evidence for these lockdowns
Comparing US states shows there is no relationship between lockdowns and lower Covid-19 deaths.
For better or for worse. It's entirely possible there's no evidence because we suck at data gathering, not because restrictions weren't effective.
Or because the noise in the system is larger than the signal from any single variable. This is one of my big beefs with "believe the science" folks. Clear answers only happen in "physics utopia", were we can ignore all those pesky confounding variables. Life in the real world is way messier, especially when dealing with natural experiments (that aren't, because everything is correlated due to communication). So in any case (about the disease or not), we're going to have to make judgement calls based on what we know.
At the beginning, yeah, locking down made a lot of sense. Now? Less so. Not zero, but less. And doing so uniformly across large areas hit very disparately, or claiming that any lightening means "killing grandma"? No.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Clear answers only happen in "physics utopia", were we can ignore all those pesky confounding variables. Life in the real world is way messier, especially when dealing with natural experiments (that aren't, because everything is correlated due to communication).
I dunno. Physically many Americans (arguably myself included) resemble those supposedly-theoretical spherical cows.
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@Benjamin-Hall + Ꮼ
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@Unperverted-Vixen said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Clear answers only happen in "physics utopia", were we can ignore all those pesky confounding variables. Life in the real world is way messier, especially when dealing with natural experiments (that aren't, because everything is correlated due to communication).
I dunno. Physically many Americans (arguably myself included) resemble those supposedly-theoretical spherical cows.
And inside their heads is a near-perfect vacuum.
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@antiquarian said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
It's entirely possible there's no evidence because we suck at data gathering, not because restrictions weren't effective.
"possible" here implies that that's a possibility.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall + Ꮼ
uh...what? I have no clue what this is supposed to mean.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Ꮼ
Letter of the Cherokee syllabary, transcribed as syllable wo.
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@Benjamin-Hall It means "+1" was not enough. Roughly. A meme that began in the Likes thread, where likes don't mean anything. Uses html hex entities based on the post number, usually.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall It means "+1" was not enough. Roughly. A meme that began in the Likes thread, where likes don't mean anything.
Ah. I don't participate in the likes thread, so it went
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall It means "+1" was not enough. Roughly. A meme that began in the Likes thread
Have any memes started here escaped into the wild? Are there any quarantine measures in place to prevent this?
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@lolwhat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There is no empirical evidence for these lockdowns
Comparing US states shows there is no relationship between lockdowns and lower Covid-19 deaths.
For better or for worse. It's entirely possible there's no evidence because we suck at data gathering, not because restrictions weren't effective.
Or because the noise in the system is larger than the signal from any single variable.
That too. Between unreliable tests that yield massive amounts of both false positives and false negatives, weird perverse incentives in choosing whether to write down coronavirus as a death cause, resulting in both over- and underreporting of cases at the same time, and models that have always been wrong because they used gross oversimplication that included at most 15, 20 different factors out of 1547 that are at play - it's just unimaginable to me that anyone can ever say in good faith that they believe the data and especially the conclusions coming from those data.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
At the beginning, yeah, locking down made a lot of sense. Now? Less so. Not zero, but less.
Honestly? Unless you mean that new data has shown that you were wrong all along, then no, lockdown makes just as much sense right now as it did before. The virus isn't dead. It'll spread again and we'll be back where we began. A spike will happen immediately after people go outside again. To have a lockdown that actually is effective at all, it'd need to last at least 6 months, ideally 12 or more. Anyone who ever thought a 30-day lockdown would help anything is an utter moron, and if they hold any public office, should be immediately kicked and put on a trial for gross incompetence, and banned from holding any public office ever again.
If we reopen now, we've effectively killed the economy for nothing.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Honestly? Unless you mean that new data has shown that you were wrong all along, then no, lockdown makes just as much sense right now as it did before. The virus isn't dead. It'll spread again and we'll be back where we began. A spike will happen immediately after people go outside again. To have a lockdown that actually is effective at all, it'd need to last at least 6 months, ideally 12 or more. Anyone who ever thought a 30-day lockdown would help anything is an utter moron, and if they hold any public office, should be immediately kicked and put on a trial for gross incompetence, and banned from holding any public office ever again.
Are you doing that thing where you equate "lockdown" with "social distancing plus hygiene?"
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@lolwhat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There is no empirical evidence for these lockdowns
Comparing US states shows there is no relationship between lockdowns and lower Covid-19 deaths.
I can't speak for the other non-lockdown states, but while Nebraska is officially not locked down at the state level, in practice it really is, just by the cities instead. Maybe not as much as other states, but our misrepresentation by the media as a completely-open and maybe even defiant state is so far from true that it's not valid to use us for a comparison like this.
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@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall It means "+1" was not enough. Roughly. A meme that began in the Likes thread
Have any memes started here escaped into the wild?
The entire NodeJS ecosystem looks like someone read a few frontpage articles and mistook them for an instruction manual.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@lolwhat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There is no empirical evidence for these lockdowns
Comparing US states shows there is no relationship between lockdowns and lower Covid-19 deaths.
For better or for worse. It's entirely possible there's no evidence because we suck at data gathering, not because restrictions weren't effective.
Or because the noise in the system is larger than the signal from any single variable.
That too. Between unreliable tests that yield massive amounts of both false positives and false negatives, weird perverse incentives in choosing whether to write down coronavirus as a death cause, resulting in both over- and underreporting of cases at the same time, and models that have always been wrong because they used gross oversimplication that included at most 15, 20 different factors out of 1547 that are at play - it's just unimaginable to me that anyone can ever say in good faith that they believe the data and especially the conclusions coming from those data.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
At the beginning, yeah, locking down made a lot of sense. Now? Less so. Not zero, but less.
Honestly? Unless you mean that new data has shown that you were wrong all along, then no, lockdown makes just as much sense right now as it did before. The virus isn't dead. It'll spread again and we'll be back where we began. A spike will happen immediately after people go outside again. To have a lockdown that actually is effective at all, it'd need to last at least 6 months, ideally 12 or more. Anyone who ever thought a 30-day lockdown would help anything is an utter moron, and if they hold any public office, should be immediately kicked and put on a trial for gross incompetence, and banned from holding any public office ever again.
If we reopen now, we've effectively killed the economy for nothing.
Except that lockdowns to extinction never made sense beyond fever dreams. There is absolutely no possibility that those would be anything like practical. Lockdowns to "flatten the curve" and prevent overloading of medical facilities while we ramped up preparations? Sure. Those make sense. But trying to extinguish a virus like this through lockdowns is flat out impossible. Can't happen. Won't happen. Instead, you should (IMO) let it burn through at a stable rate until most people have gotten it. That minimizes both the economic failure (which would be total, as in civilization collapse, if we tried to lock down for 6 months, let alone a year) and the death toll.
As we know now, basically the only serious risks are for people stuck in nursing homes and in super-dense areas like NYC. And even there, it's mostly nursing homes. They account for something like 1/3 or more of all deaths, and they're the only place that cases are rising dramatically. Even after opening. Georgia should be seeing a spike--it re-opened two weeks ago. Yet it isn't. So maybe those theories have issues?
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Lockdowns to "flatten the curve" and prevent overloading of medical facilities while we ramped up preparations? Sure. Those make sense.
As long as you believe that people rapidly develop near-absolute immunity to the virus after first sickness. Which I can only describe as wishful thinking, and only because we're outside garage so I can't use some other epithets.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
But trying to extinguish a virus like this through lockdowns is flat out impossible. Can't happen. Won't happen.
Never meant to say otherwise. I just wanted to point out that a short lockdown is even worse idea than a long lockdown. Because unless immunity develops super fast, there's going to be exactly as many deaths as without lockdowns at all (and that IS taking into account the flattened curve!), but now with a bonus hit to the economy.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Lockdowns to "flatten the curve" and prevent overloading of medical facilities while we ramped up preparations? Sure. Those make sense.
As long as you believe that people rapidly develop near-absolute immunity to the virus after first sickness. Which I can only describe as wishful thinking, and only because we're outside garage so I can't use some other epithets.
The alternative seems like social and economic suicide. No, thanks. That cure really is worse than the disease.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
But trying to extinguish a virus like this through lockdowns is flat out impossible. Can't happen. Won't happen.
Never meant to say otherwise. I just wanted to point out that a short lockdown is even worse idea than a long lockdown. Because unless immunity develops super fast, there's going to be exactly as many deaths as without lockdowns at all (and that IS taking into account the flattened curve!), but now with a bonus hit to the economy.
Possibly. I don't for a second believe your line that we don't know more about the virus now than we did in March. Things looked significantly scarier and less tractable then (to me, at least).
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Lockdowns to "flatten the curve" and prevent overloading of medical facilities while we ramped up preparations? Sure. Those make sense.
As long as you believe that people rapidly develop near-absolute immunity to the virus after first sickness. Which I can only describe as wishful thinking, and only because we're outside garage so I can't use some other epithets.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
But trying to extinguish a virus like this through lockdowns is flat out impossible. Can't happen. Won't happen.
Never meant to say otherwise. I just wanted to point out that a short lockdown is even worse idea than a long lockdown. Because unless immunity develops super fast, there's going to be exactly as many deaths as without lockdowns at all (and that IS taking into account the flattened curve!), but now with a bonus hit to the economy.
We know that most people who get the virus never get sick at all. And most who get sick only get a little sick. Only a tiny fraction (those with comorbidities) get really sick. So letting it burn at a controlled rate while protecting nursing homes (basically the inverse of what we've done, which is protect everyone but nursing homes and just let it burn in those) would maximize the rate at which herd immunity is reached.
And if we don't get at least short-term immunity to it (months, a year), then any attempt to extinguish it is futile and we're all doomed. And there is zero, zip, zilch evidence or even reason to believe that's the case. Because it isn't the case for every other virus related to this one. Sure. We don't get permanent immunity. But we get a year or so worth. Which is enough to make this a seasonal annoyance like the flu, not a "everyone dies" like a hypothetical aerosol ebola would be.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Lockdowns to "flatten the curve" and prevent overloading of medical facilities while we ramped up preparations? Sure. Those make sense.
As long as you believe that people rapidly develop near-absolute immunity to the virus after first sickness. Which I can only describe as wishful thinking, and only because we're outside garage so I can't use some other epithets.
The alternative seems like social and economic suicide. No, thanks. That cure really is worse than the disease.
The long lockdown alternative - yes, it would be. But there's a third alternative - no lockdown at all. Which is strictly superior in every way to a short lockdown, and should be the only option if the long lockdown is out of question. With a short lockdown, you get the worst of both worlds. Because curve flattening works IF AND ONLY IF contracted people rapidly develop immunity - and to date, there's still no evidence of that.
I don't for a second believe your line that we don't know more about the virus now than we did in March. Things looked significantly scarier and less tractable then (to me, at least).
A few days ago they've discovered multiple cases of coronavirus in France dating all the way back in December. That means everyone - literally everyone - has been wrong about when the virus left China by at least two months. You should do a double check of what exactly you believe about coronavirus and why exactly you believe so. Because feelings are just feelings - they don't indicate anything other than feelings themselves. They're not rational. Hard data is rational. And there's next to no hard data of reasonable quality, due to all the factors mentioned upthread.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Lockdowns to "flatten the curve" and prevent overloading of medical facilities while we ramped up preparations? Sure. Those make sense.
As long as you believe that people rapidly develop near-absolute immunity to the virus after first sickness. Which I can only describe as wishful thinking, and only because we're outside garage so I can't use some other epithets.
The alternative seems like social and economic suicide. No, thanks. That cure really is worse than the disease.
The long lockdown alternative - yes, it would be. But there's a third alternative - no lockdown at all. Which is strictly superior in every way to a short lockdown, and should be the only option if the long lockdown is out of question. With a short lockdown, you get the worst of both worlds. Because curve flattening works IF AND ONLY IF contracted people rapidly develop immunity - and to date, there's still no evidence of that.
OK, yea, I agree with you, based on what we know now.
I don't for a second believe your line that we don't know more about the virus now than we did in March. Things looked significantly scarier and less tractable then (to me, at least).
A few days ago they've discovered multiple cases of coronavirus in France dating all the way back in December. That means everyone - literally everyone - has been wrong about when the virus left China by at least two months. You should do a double check of what exactly you believe about coronavirus and why exactly you believe so. Because feelings are just feelings - they don't indicate anything other than feelings themselves. They're not rational. Hard data is rational. And there's next to no hard data of reasonable quality, due to all the factors mentioned upthread.
TDEMSYR. Seriously. You're sticking your head in the sand here.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
As long as you believe that people rapidly develop near-absolute immunity to the virus after first sickness. Which I can only describe as wishful thinking, and only because we're outside garage so I can't use some other epithets.
"other epithets" are, like entire sentences in all caps, or multiple exclamation points (either consecutive or alternating with question marks) usually an indicator that someone's emotion on a subject is stronger than their reasoning abilities. Depending on what you mean by "near-absolute", there is good reason to suspect that a person who has recovered from Covid-19 has a high-enough degree of immunity to substantially affect the mathematics of the discussion.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And inside their heads is a near-perfect vacuum.
Why am I now thinking of vacuum cleaners, vacuum cleaner cleaners, assassins, and cleaners?
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@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Have any memes started here escaped into the wild? Are there any quarantine measures in place to prevent this?
Only in the lounge. We want the rest to spread
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@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
As long as you believe that people rapidly develop near-absolute immunity to the virus after first sickness. Which I can only describe as wishful thinking, and only because we're outside garage so I can't use some other epithets.
"other epithets" are, like entire sentences in all caps, or multiple exclamation points (either consecutive or alternating with question marks) usually an indicator that someone's emotion on a subject is stronger than their reasoning abilities.
I can get very emotional when people are acting stupid for stupid reasons and it makes people die. And to me, a 30 day lockdown is politicians acting stupid for stupid reasons.
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@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Depending on what you mean by "near-absolute", there is good reason to suspect that a person who has recovered from Covid-19 has a high-enough degree of immunity to substantially affect the mathematics of the discussion.
(also @Benjamin-Hall)
As someone who must have missed all the articles about immunity studies (and believe me, I searched), I'm asking you in good faith:
- Has there been any study conducted on COVID-19's immunity after recovery? Could you link them?
- Were similar studies done for other coronaviruses, and if so, could you link them too?
I really want to know if there's something I'm missing here. If immunity really develops at rapid pace, then yes, a short lockdown might actually be good. But if there's no immunity development - lockdown was entirely pointless, because "the curve" is going to be exactly as high as it would be without lockdown.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Are you doing that thing where you equate "lockdown" with "social distancing plus hygiene?"
Honestly, there's such a wide range of styles of "lockdown" and "social distancing" that I'm unsure about the difference at this point. Just seems to be a uniform mess ranging from "maybe stay at home pls" to "only leave your home with the appropriate forms and if you're within less than 2m of another person outside, we'll fine your ass".
Here, we're on lockdown (I think) still, but the lockdown is lighter than it was a week ago. In about two weeks it's supposed to relax further. There's a preliminary plan at least until June, but some restrictions are currently said to be in place until at least September. The latter are mainly on large events and other things that would create a crowd, so maybe that falls under social distancing?
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Depending on what you mean by "near-absolute", there is good reason to suspect that a person who has recovered from Covid-19 has a high-enough degree of immunity to substantially affect the mathematics of the discussion.
(also @Benjamin-Hall)
As someone who must have missed all the articles about immunity studies (and believe me, I searched), I'm asking you in good faith:
- Has there been any study conducted on COVID-19's immunity after recovery? Could you link them?
- Were similar studies done for other coronaviruses, and if so, could you link them too?
I really want to know if there's something I'm missing here. If immunity really develops at rapid pace, then yes, a short lockdown might actually be good. But if there's no immunity development - lockdown was entirely pointless, because "the curve" is going to be exactly as high as it would be without lockdown.
We know that other coronaviruses produce "rapid" (although) short-lived immunity. Within weeks of exposure in most cases. There are no verified cases of re-acquisition of COVID-19, despite that being very plausible. There was one...but turns out it was a false positive.
So yeah. We're pretty sure that we get at least some immunity, almost immediately. Because we do to every other virus out there. And because the antibody tests are showing that lots of people have antibodies to it. So they must be getting at least some degree of immunity.
And my original point was that given what we knew then, lockdowns in early March were reasonable. Given what we know (or think we know) now, continuing the uniform lockdowns doesn't buy us anything but more economic pain. We can't change the past, and worrying about it doesn't change crap.
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@cvi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Are you doing that thing where you equate "lockdown" with "social distancing plus hygiene?"
Honestly, there's such a wide range of styles of "lockdown" and "social distancing" that I'm unsure about the difference at this point. Just seems to be a uniform mess ranging from "maybe stay at home pls" to "only leave your home with the appropriate forms and if you're within more than 2m of another person outside, we'll fine your ass".
I want to especially draw a line between people voluntarily following recommendations vs governments telling businesses to shut down. The former will certainly result in the latter, but not all in the same way and almost certainly not the same ones.
For instance, movie theaters are shut down everywhere, including in Sweden, where they were not ordered to do so. Conflating the results of people's voluntary behavior with a government edict is a massive failure of logic to me.
There's also the issue of parks and beaches. Like...you can walk around but you can't lay down and sunbathe? The only justification that makes any sense there is psychological. It's like telling people not to wear masks because they don't work, but really just trying to keep enough supply for medical workers who need them more. It might be justified but don't pretend that there isn't a cost if you say that you're "following the science" or whatever and pull that sort of thing.
Here, we're on lockdown (I think) still, but the lockdown is lighter than it was a week ago. In about two weeks it's supposed to relax further. There's a preliminary plan at least until June, but some restrictions are currently said to be in place until at least September. The latter are mainly on large events and other things that would create a crowd, so maybe that falls under social distancing?
I agree that it's fuzzy.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I want to especially draw a line between people voluntarily following recommendations vs governments telling businesses to shut down. The former will certainly result in the latter, but not all in the same way and almost certainly not the same ones.
Sure. If I remember correctly, here, we started with voluntary recommendations first. Government regulation followed quickly after, because overall, most people seemed to give zero fucks about the recommendations. I would have liked to stay with recommendations only, but at least early on, that didn't really seem to work to well.
I think Sweden was a bit delayed, so they got to see and hear about the regulations elsewhere first. I would think that probably helped convince people to go voluntarily act instead. (Not that it was perfectly voluntary on all levels either, as e.g. employers enacted policies for their work places.)
There's also the issue of parks and beaches. Like...you can walk around but you can't lay down and sunbathe? The only justification that makes any sense there is psychological.
The problem that I saw here was that people are .. well, people. Probably started out fine, with everybody picking spots well distanced from each other. But, as parks/beaches got more crowded (and they definitively did get that in a few places), distances would shrink and disappear. It's just the way people work - you've just spend X amount of time getting to a park/beach, and for every person that's prepared to turn back because they can't properly maintain the recommended distances, there's a bunch that will squeeze in somewhere (because why shouldn't they get to lay down when others do?).
My friends reported seeing similar things in e.g. Switzerland. Why wouldn't you go out for a hike or something in the mountains? After all, there's more space there than in the middle of the cities. Problem was that quite a few places started being very overrun as a result of this.
It's like telling people not to wear masks because they don't work, but really just trying to keep enough supply for medical workers who need them more.
Mostly agreed. Again, I can see why that would happen. On one hand, it was just different people saying different things (that were then maybe repeated by somebody more central, but still). On the other hands, it's not like the politicians/reporters/leaders really knew (or still, know) either way (to nobodies surprise).
Besides. Do you think telling people that they can't have face masks because medical works need them more would work? I'm unsure - there's a lot of idiots out there...
It might be justified but don't pretend that there isn't a cost if you say that you're "following the science" or whatever and pull that sort of thing.
Agreed.
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@cvi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Besides. Do you think telling people that they can't have face masks because medical works need them more would work? I'm unsure - there's a lot of idiots out there.
Of course. People break all sorts of laws all the time. You're never going to get 100% compliance. Still, you wouldn't have the problem of shredded credibility later on.
I'd also point out that this thing isn't like, say, Ebola. The risks much lower (we now know). Honestly, avoiding large crowds seems like it may turn out to solve 80% of the problem (i.e., an overwhelming infection rate).
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@cvi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Besides. Do you think telling people that they can't have face masks because medical works need them more would work? I'm unsure - there's a lot of idiots out there.
Of course. People break all sorts of laws all the time. You're never going to get 100% compliance. Still, you wouldn't have the problem of shredded credibility later on.
I'd also point out that this thing isn't like, say, Ebola. The risks much lower (we now know). Honestly, avoiding large crowds seems like it may turn out to solve 80% of the problem (i.e., an overwhelming infection rate).
And carefully policing nursing homes (getting/keeping infected people/staff out ASAP) would get another huge fraction.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
The risks much lower (we now know). Honestly, avoiding large crowds seems like it may turn out to solve 80% of the problem (i.e., an overwhelming infection rate).
Maybe, yeah.
That said, I don't think there was anything wrong with the reactions we had here at the time. Nobody knew the exact extents of the risk, so being (perhaps) overly conservative seems reasonable to me (especially considering the situation in Italy at the time). And, we're still not entirely sure about the risks, so relaxing step by step and waiting to see the impact of each relaxation also seems reasonable as well.
I predict that we will get some sort of official guidelines for future pandemics. I hope that those will not be filled with too much BS.
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@cvi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That said, I don't think there was anything wrong with the reactions we had here at the time.
Agreed.
I predict that we will get some sort of official guidelines for future pandemics. I hope that those will not be filled with too much BS.
Also agreed, but I am not terribly hopeful. Alternatively, we'll get some duds like H1N1 and super overreact and then set ourselves up to underreact the next time something serious comes along.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
If we reopen now, we've effectively killed the economy for nothing.
This is exactly the type of thinking that the term "throwing good money after bad" was coined to describe.
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@cvi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I predict that we will get some sort of official guidelines for future pandemics. I hope that those will not be filled with too much BS.
Didn't you guys actually have those?
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There are no verified cases of re-acquisition of COVID-19, despite that being very plausible.
The thing is - how much testing of treated patient was done? Given the shortage of tests even for those who were actually sick - I think the only way that enough tests would be assigned to someone healthy to confirm actual immunity would be in a controlled study.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And because the antibody tests are showing that lots of people have antibodies to it. So they must be getting at least some degree of immunity.
Do the antibodies work? If they do, are they being used for vaccination, and if not, why not? Honest question.
And my original point was that given what we knew then, lockdowns in early March were reasonable. Given what we know (or think we know) now, continuing the uniform lockdowns doesn't buy us anything but more economic pain. We can't change the past, and worrying about it doesn't change crap.
Well, it does change crap in one way - if we can identify the reasons we were misled, we might avoid them in the future. Personally, I believe the politician's syllogism ("we need to do something, this is something, so we need to do this") is a big part of it - both in March ("lockdown is something") and now ("reopening is something").
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I just wanted to point out that a short lockdown is even worse idea than a long lockdown. Because unless immunity develops super fast, there's going to be exactly as many deaths as without lockdowns at all (and that IS taking into account the flattened curve!), but now with a bonus hit to the economy.
Honestly? Unless you mean that new data has shown that you were wrong all along, then no, lockdown makes just as much sense right now as it did before. The virus isn't dead. It'll spread again and we'll be back where we began. A spike will happen immediately after people go outside again. To have a lockdown that actually is effective at all, it'd need to last at least 6 months, ideally 12 or more. Anyone who ever thought a 30-day lockdown would help anything is an utter moron, and if they hold any public office, should be immediately kicked and put on a trial for gross incompetence, and banned from holding any public office ever again.
That would be true if "a short lockdown" meant 30 days of everybody being confined to their homes and thereafter everyone forgetting this was ever a thing. Of course that'd be stupid, but that isn't what's happening at all.
The policy for "flattening the curve" was to get it under control first and since we didn't know how to do it effectively it was only logical to hit hard first. Of course that doesn't mean we can lift everything now, but now that reproduction is kind of under control, we can ease back from the safe side to hit a constant infection rate. And as usual with controlling we'll probably overshoot a bit and have to re-adjust.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Do the antibodies work? If they do, are they being used for vaccination, and if not, why not? Honest question.
My personal theory is that it's a combination of sound reasons (i.e. it takes time even without bureaucratic baloney) and inertia. I suspect there are a lot of procedures and safeguards in place that might make sense when dealing with typical flues, but not with something that's shutting down the whole world.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That would be true if "a short lockdown" meant 30 days of everybody being confined to their homes and thereafter everyone forgetting this was ever a thing. Of course that'd be stupid, but that isn't what's happening at all.
It isn't? I believe Polish government already committed to reopening everything by the end of May. They've already allowed reopening of all retail stores, essential or not - and the dreaded hairdressers are scheduled next Monday. And popularity of wearing masks has already dropped to like 1 in 10 (and that's including people who wear it over the chin), despite them still being mandatory.
@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
The policy for "flattening the curve" was to get it under control first and since we didn't know how to do it effectively it was only logical to hit hard first.
Disagree. If you don't know how to do it, running blindly and throwing bans left and right is the last thing I'd call logical.
Of course that doesn't mean we can lift everything now, but now that reproduction is kind of under control
We're still not testing nearly enough people to know that. We're still at the stage where every few days it turns out there's been way more infections than previously thought. Everyone who says reproduction is under control is either grossly misinformed or deliberately lying. I know you're not a liar type, so I'm going with grossly misinformed.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Do the antibodies work? If they do, are they being used for vaccination, and if not, why not? Honest question.
Yes.
Scientists Explore Coronavirus Plasma Therapy With Promising Results
A century-old solution seems to be helping in the fight against the latest deadly virus.
Market For Blood Plasma From COVID-19 Survivors Heats Up
As many firms and academic researchers vie for blood donations from survivors in hopes of isolating components for new treatments, one project is turning for help from 10,000 Orthodox Jewish women.
One problem is that for each survivor / donor you can't treat very many people.
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@cvi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I think Sweden was a bit delayed, so they got to see and hear about the regulations elsewhere first. I would think that probably helped convince people to go voluntarily act instead. (Not that it was perfectly voluntary on all levels either, as e.g. employers enacted policies for their work places.)
I think we had our first official cases on January 31, and the first confirmed case infected in Sweden on March 6. The first death on March 11, so we weren't that far behind. The government in Sweden is, for the most part, a pragmatic bunch. The people of Sweden is one of the most trusting of our government in the free world, so recommendations on serious matters tend to be followed.
That trust has been earned by previous governments on the whole being fairly pragmatic and stable when the chips are down so it's not entirely misplaced.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
One problem is that for each survivor / donor you can't treat very many people.
I bet that this is not a real problem. Well, maybe it will slow things down a bit. I suspect that there are a lot more people with antibodies out there who haven't been identified.
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@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
One problem is that for each survivor / donor you can't treat very many people.
I bet that this is not a real problem. Well, maybe it will slow things down a bit. I suspect that there are a lot more people with antibodies out there who haven't been identified.
It's still a logistical problem. It's not like mass producing a drug. This sort of thing doesn't scale well at all compared to modern manufacturing. Which even making vaccines (that we know how to make) can take quite a while in terms of dealing with an infectious disease right now.
I've gotten into arguments elsewhere with people who said that the Federal Government should have taken over testing. They have all the military, DHS, etc personnel at their disposal, after all! Practically none of whom have any expertise running or manufacturing tests.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There are no verified cases of re-acquisition of COVID-19, despite that being very plausible.
The thing is - how much testing of treated patient was done? Given the shortage of tests even for those who were actually sick - I think the only way that enough tests would be assigned to someone healthy to confirm actual immunity would be in a controlled study.
Let's put it this way. No one who has recovered after testing positive has been re-admitted for a serious case. At least that I can tell. And yes, lots of them have gone back to work. And in the areas that can actually trace contacts, no one transmission from a recovered patient has been noted.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And because the antibody tests are showing that lots of people have antibodies to it. So they must be getting at least some degree of immunity.
Do the antibodies work? If they do, are they being used for vaccination, and if not, why not? Honest question.
If they don't work, we don't understand immune response at all. So yes, they work. Perfectly? Nothing's perfect. Enough to sharply reduce severity? Almost certainly. And using them as a vaccine is...difficult. There are many candidate vaccines in testing currently. But testing is hard. Like...really hard. Especially when the regulators have a 'one failure is too many' mentality like the FDA.
And my original point was that given what we knew then, lockdowns in early March were reasonable. Given what we know (or think we know) now, continuing the uniform lockdowns doesn't buy us anything but more economic pain. We can't change the past, and worrying about it doesn't change crap.
Well, it does change crap in one way - if we can identify the reasons we were misled, we might avoid them in the future. Personally, I believe the politician's syllogism ("we need to do something, this is something, so we need to do this") is a big part of it - both in March ("lockdown is something") and now ("reopening is something").
There is good logical reason to believe that at minimum social distancing should slow the spread. The direction is assured, the effect size is very not known. By that same logical reasoning, a more stringent lockdown should slow the spread more. So qualitatively, the restrictions are on decent footing. What we now know is that it seems that
- our estimate of the initial severity was significantly high (cf the models)
- our estimate of the effectiveness of the distancing and lockdowns was likely high (in part because it seems the virus has been here longer than we thought)
- our estimates for the destruction to the economy due to these lockdowns was low.
So now, a graduated opening up, realizing that there may be clusters of increased spread and accepting that fact, seems to me to be at least worth trying. Especially if we harden the really vulnerable (nursing homes) against it as much as possible. Save the blame jobs for afterward. Right now we need to unfreeze people's positions (many of which have hardened for partisan reasons, I fear).
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I've gotten into arguments elsewhere with people who said that the Federal Government should have taken over testing. They have all the military, DHS, etc personnel at their disposal, after all! Practically none of whom have any expertise running or manufacturing tests.
One of the problems with this kind of thing is universal and exists at many different scales. The military, etc., would not be willing to assist the people who do have expertise. They would want to be in charge.
I am currently dealing with this kind of problem on a smaller scale. I inherited a task that had been dormant for a couple of years. The existing documentation was minimal. Over the past few months, I know the task better than anyone still here. No one knows the problems I am encountering better than I do. So they assigned someone to take charge, whereas it would be more efficient to have me explain to him the problems I am encountering.
</offTopicRant>
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@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
One of the problems with this kind of thing is universal and exists at many different scales. The military, etc., would not be willing to assist the people who do have expertise. They would want to be in charge.
Even if they didn't, man months are mythical all over, not just in programming projects.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
There are no verified cases of re-acquisition of COVID-19, despite that being very plausible.
The thing is - how much testing of treated patient was done? Given the shortage of tests even for those who were actually sick - I think the only way that enough tests would be assigned to someone healthy to confirm actual immunity would be in a controlled study.
Let's put it this way. No one who has recovered after testing positive has been re-admitted for a serious case. At least that I can tell. And yes, lots of them have gone back to work. And in the areas that can actually trace contacts, no one transmission from a recovered patient has been noted.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And because the antibody tests are showing that lots of people have antibodies to it. So they must be getting at least some degree of immunity.
Do the antibodies work? If they do, are they being used for vaccination, and if not, why not? Honest question.
If they don't work, we don't understand immune response at all. So yes, they work. Perfectly? Nothing's perfect. Enough to sharply reduce severity? Almost certainly. And using them as a vaccine is...difficult. There are many candidate vaccines in testing currently. But testing is hard. Like...really hard. Especially when the regulators have a 'one failure is too many' mentality like the FDA.
And my original point was that given what we knew then, lockdowns in early March were reasonable. Given what we know (or think we know) now, continuing the uniform lockdowns doesn't buy us anything but more economic pain. We can't change the past, and worrying about it doesn't change crap.
Well, it does change crap in one way - if we can identify the reasons we were misled, we might avoid them in the future. Personally, I believe the politician's syllogism ("we need to do something, this is something, so we need to do this") is a big part of it - both in March ("lockdown is something") and now ("reopening is something").
There is good logical reason to believe that at minimum social distancing should slow the spread. The direction is assured, the effect size is very not known. By that same logical reasoning, a more stringent lockdown should slow the spread more. So qualitatively, the restrictions are on decent footing. What we now know is that it seems that
- our estimate of the initial severity was significantly high (cf the models)
- our estimate of the effectiveness of the distancing and lockdowns was likely high (in part because it seems the virus has been here longer than we thought)
- our estimates for the destruction to the economy due to these lockdowns was low.
So now, a graduated opening up, realizing that there may be clusters of increased spread and accepting that fact, seems to me to be at least worth trying. Especially if we harden the really vulnerable (nursing homes) against it as much as possible. Save the blame jobs for afterward. Right now we need to unfreeze people's positions (many of which have hardened for partisan reasons, I fear).
Honestly, I thought it was about as bad as it turned out to be sometime in February/March. It worse than a bad flu. But not lock down everything and kill the economy worse.
There were basically two ways to deal with it, as there always is with infectious disease, close borders and put everyone that has been in contact with a confirmed contact with a confirmed case in quarantine for long enough to determine if they are infected, and quarantine everyone that cross the border. Or basically what Sweden did this time around. The death toll will be the same with insane lockdown and voluntary distancing, more or less. As long as the population does the distancing.
If the lockdowns actually did anything, letting them up will cause a rise. If they didn't, letting them up will do nothing.
In some places I have no doubt there will be a slight increase, in most I do not think there will be.I also do not even think that liberty is worth giving up for a significantly higher death toll than what covid have.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
One of the problems with this kind of thing is universal and exists at many different scales. The military, etc., would not be willing to assist the people who do have expertise. They would want to be in charge.
Even if they didn't, man months are mythical all over, not just in programming projects.
No. That is the reason man months are mythical.
Escalation of commitment - Wikipedia
