Over 13,000 deaths, that’s 600,000 times less the population of the entire world. I think we’ll be fine. 95,000+ recovered
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The problem is how it’s happening all at once and overwhelming the system. Flu season, for example, is less of a ‘tsunami’
And also, it is important to save lives if we can, as a society. It’s bad to grow too callous to these things.
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@bpc I never said there were “substantial quantities of healthy people” dying from this. In fact, I said in my earlier post the young and healthy had a “very, very small chance of ending up on a ventilator” but there are many people in their 20s-40s who are very much suffering as I type this. And you explicitly said “There is no risk to anyone except those with severe health conditions” which is just not correct. Firstly, someone can have asthma or high blood pressure and live a non-debilitating life (so not a severe health condition) and getting COVID 19 will not be fun for them.
Please read: https://twitter.com/bradleyziffer/status/1240676575168921600
I will try to dig up a model for you later, there was one recent one showing age tiers (eg. 20-29, 30-39, etc) and predicted rates for infection, hospitalization, icu, and death… The % for icu for the younger groupings were very small but not 0. And there is also some research indicating blood type can make a big difference (I think type A had worst outcomes)
The biggest single reason younger people should fear this is because they can unwittingly spread this to someone and kill them.
Let’s take this seriously and not kill our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Let’s also minimize risk to our health care professionals and first responders who are at a greater threat just from more susceptibility to ingesting a high viral load.
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Lol our parents and grandparents want this fortnite dancing toilet seat licking generation dead
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ok fair, I shouldn’t refer to asthma or HBP as ‘severe’, but they’re definitely not minor issues and generally those who have it get extra medical attention to stay safe.
I’m not against stopping this disease, I’ve been more just vexed by people’s blind praise of the obviously shitty job that all levels of gov’t have done. Anti-Trumpers are out everywhere blaming the feds for everything, but I think local preparedness and the weirdly inconsistent decisions at state and municipal levels reek of equal incompetence.
I’m also sick of the cliche single examples of a healthy person going to the ICU or something; this happens with most illnesses and public policy and popular opinion shouldn’t be determined by edge cases, but instead by statistical reasoning. These examples, or ‘anecdotes from Italy or China’ do nothing except fear-monger and cause people to do stupid things like panic buy. I kind of wonder if they’re being produced on purpose to wreak havoc.
Trust me, I know plenty of old people and I don’t want to see any harm come to them. I’m all for taking measures to stop this. But I hate watching government people act like they’re taken aback and caught off-guard in these ‘uncertain times’ when there has been plenty of warning time and their entire job as government is to prepare for worst-case scenarios.
“you’re not taking it seriously” is used as a blanket strawman argument to attack anyone who disagrees with anything which is done, when I think its important to not hold back critique at a time when we should have high expectations
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Who is praising government?
Trump has been completely over matched and is a total buffoon. And yes he did call it a hoax or insinuate it. Trump Administration certainly gets a F- but it’s clear that Mike Pence is a lot better equipped to speak to the public about this.
de Blasio was wavering on canceling the st. patrick’s day parade until his hand was forced, an easy no brainer decision and then tens and tens of thousands of young people still went to bars that night, de Blasio gets a D- or F in my book too
Cuomo has been much better, I’ll give him a A-
It’s much harder to grade the overall machinations of our huge, multi-layered government and assign grades. Obviously our govt failed to protect us and there were some colossal f-ups w/ testing in a period where ever second counts. Not everybody who works for gov’t is incompetent. It’s hard to see that when you don’t work for govt. But I worked 13 years in the private sector, post-college, so I know it’s easy to think that. There’s just a lot more bureaucracy and red tape, so even if you’re a rockstar worker or a genius whatever, you’re not going to shine like a diamond. Goodnight.
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I’d give Cuomo a lower grade, maybe B- because I think it’s a little reckless to shut all the stuff down without a clear plan for financial relief. Obviously the state doesnt have infinite money like the Fed does, but so many New Yorkers are out of work without any help. And meanwhile construction workers continue to go to work with full pay and staffing. So it seems a little arbitrary and I just know I’d be upset if I lost my job. Delaying evictions doesn’t fix it.
But anyway, you have good points. I appreciate having conversations like this, even if the mods will probably delete it all. Take care
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If we have to choose between saving lives or saving the economy… and that is the choice in front of us… I’ll take lives every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
I can’t even with anyone who would choose differently.
When it comes to the economy, we’re in totally new territory. I think a lot of assumptions that our global economic system is based on, which we assume are set in stone, are about to become surprisingly flexible, as governments get creative to deal with the economic impacts of this pandemic.
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You cant separate it into lives versus economy. The economy is lives. Many many lives will suffer from an economic collapse. The rich will always find a way out of trouble when it collapses, the people who suffer are always the poorest individuals. I have inside knowledge of the hedge funds and big banks, their people aren’t scared about a crash at all. They are already capitalizing on the stock markets demise. But the average New Yorkers working on hourly wages or the gig economy have literally no help except the paltry unemployment benefits.
Unless the government provides relief before it gets worse, unemployment will skyrocket and there will be plenty of lives on the line, a comparably scary predicament to the virus itself. The only reason Americans didn’t starve in droves during the Great Depression is because of the New Deal stuff… but meanwhile our idiot government in Washington is turning help into a partisan issue and stalling.
People like to make things into black and white issues, but this one, like many others, is nuanced. It’s important to consider both sides to every argument- there is a fine line to be balanced here
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The government can and will provide relief. We can only hope they overcome partisanship and dysfunction to provide enough. While the White House seems pretty useless right now, pretty much every other politician in the country is feeling intense pressure to provide the right kind fo relief.
As we know here at YIMBY, politicians listen to people who have time to write letters, call pols’ offices, and show up to meetings. That used to mean old NIMBYs. Now, suddenly, it’s going to mean a whole lot of young people laid off from hospitality and similar jobs.
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Well you’re one of the more optimistic people I’ve seen in a while. Maybe you’ll be right, who knows
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So I agree with this, but it’s more nuanced. Almost any type of activity costs lives. Driving cars costs lives. Working costs lives. We need to have a balance, where we minimize risk for a short, intense period of social distancing, and then gradually go back to normal. We can’t shut everything down for half a year, or the cure will be worse than the disease. Millions of lives will be ruined, there will be dramatic increases in suicides, substance abuse, child abuse, etc. There has to be a balance; a managed risk.
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That frame was so different 5 years ago
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