Doomsday panic? Ill informed opinion? I'm literally looking at the chart used by the White House that comes from the data generated by the UK government. Look for yourself:
For that one paper you showed me you’ll find another dozen research papers that say something entirely different.
Until we know how many people have this or had it, suggesting multi-month lockdowns is ill informed, dangerous doomsday nonsense.
PS: while bitching about downvotes is lame, it is quite disappointing to see HN devolve into yet another panic fueled echo chamber where only “rooting for” the worst case scenario is tolerated.
Don’t let this place turn into an echo chamber people. There are plenty of subreddits and social media groups where you can get your fill of doomsday scenarios. This place bills itself as full of rational thinking people, let’s put on our critical thinking caps and consider the problem from all angles.
Ps: /r/corvid19 seems to be one of the few places on the internet where people are discussing this stuff rationally and not immediately jumping to the worst case scenario.
FYI You're not alone in observing the echo chamber effect. Those of us who agree with you that some skepticism of the cost/benefit of the intervention is merited have largely avoided posting on our main accounts because of the massive backlash against anything counter-panic-dogma, or our posts have been flagged/deaded with worrying rapidity.
There were posts threatening _physical harm_ to individuals questioning the level of intervention (I believe the words were "I want to throttle the next person who says this isn't a catastrophe") and from typically well-respected users as well.
It's stunning to me to watch this community devolve in this fashion. I take it as a sign of the times, in terms of groupthink and fear-as-contagion, downvote-if-you-don't-agree behavior on the internet, and a broader eternal september effect on this forum.
I only wish individuals showed this much concern surrounding the massive cost in human life we incurred far more willfully via the opioid epidemic, the wars in the middle east, our prison system, etc; I'd go so far as to say I would be more willing to go along with the current overreaction if we didn't seem so hypocritical and self-serving in where and how we assign value to human life.
Makes you wonder if the real “virus” is a mental one? Society got infected with one hell of a meme.
It is like everybody has that X-Files “I want to believe” poster on their wall when they repeat some of this doomsday stuff.
We are all stuck inside all day, bouncing around with nothing better to do than read doomsday porn. And around and around that stuff goes into people’s head until you get where we are now.
People should be much less concerned about this virus and way more concerned about social unrest. Humans are social creatures. You can’t just “lock” people in their homes for an indeterminate amount of time and expect good things to happen.
Those toilet paper memes and work from home memes are funny at first, but once the novelty wears off over the next week or so, shit is going to get very real. It ain’t funny to see empty shelves of toilet paper or baby wipes when you actually need them.... it ain’t funny to have absolutely nothing to do but sit around and obsess about this virus.
You live a very sheltered life if you think all humans need is video conferencing and stocked grocery shelves.
There is a huge world of stuff that cannot be done remote. Sporting events, construction, weddings, restaurants, building maintenance, manufacturing, and millions of other stuff. Stuff that is critical to keeping our global economy happy. Healthy economy == healthy people.
Ps: have any of the doomsayers spouting nonsense stoped to consider what bullshit it is that all the white collar people can remain “safe” at home while all the blue collar grocery workers and the entire supply chain that feeds it gets to go out each day and expose themselves to a virus so deadly we took these extreme measures? Kind of bullshit, ain’t it?
Thanks a lot. My point was that you're being hyperbolic and panicky, and that doesn't help at all. Being stuck at home sucks, but it isn't as bad as you're saying. Talking with friends and family helps a lot.
People staying home don't just protect themselves; the more distancing is done by everyone, the better the outlook. I do agree with you that it's possible extreme lockdown measures won't have to last more than a month or two, but we really don't know at this point. Over the coming weeks we will continue to learn more about the virus and how it spreads, and testing infrastructure will continue to scale up. If the distancing measures work to get control of the outbreaks, and this can be confirmed through more extensive testing, then it should be possible to ease up and to try to find a balance between minimizing risk of spread and maintaining daily activities. Until an effective treatment/vaccine is found though, there is likely to be some level of continuing disruption.
Yes it's all crazed conspiracy and you happen to be one of the few people to see through it all. Your medical pedigree must be amazing. Your scientific prowess beyond imagination. You're not helping.
You may not have intended it, but this level of ad-hominem and dismissive response is exactly what I'm referring to. Ignoring the fact that my post had nothing to do with statements requiring Expert background, (which you know absolutely nothing about whether I have or not) I can assure you the majority of individuals here encouraging panic have what you seek. Once again, the hypocrisy here is laughable.
HackerNews used to pride itself in being better than this. YOU are not helping.
What research papers have you seen with more optimistic projections? You're calling the projections that two governments are relying on as ill informed based on what credentials?
We don’t have enough data or understanding to project anything. Many countries stupidly aren’t doing pervasive testing.
Places that do have pervasive testing (some town in Italy, South Korea, and Singapore) suggest this virus is widespread and has a >1% death rate. But this data is early and subject to change.
Suggesting we are going to be locked for months or years is irresponsible fear mongering at best.
A few times in my career, I have been in a meeting that I didn't want to be in. One of the meeting-runners hinted that the meeting could be shorter than scheduled. Failure to deliver on that was not well received.
If you're going to say anything, you're better off overestimate how long it's going to be.
2 weeks tops. Calling it now. 2 months of this will result in rioting and all kinds of crazy shit. And for what? The data based in SK and Singapore doesn’t suggest this virus is worth risking compete societal collapse. Testing there is showing a >1% death rate and because of how those tests work, it is provably about a half to a full order of magnitude lower.
Sorry doomsayers, you better have some good evidence to suggest a 2 month lockup is worth the massive damage to our society. Better also outline what “lockup” means. Is that in big cities? The whole country? The planet?
What is your exit criteria? Who will have to go out into the world to keep shelves stocked and your Uber eats meals delivered? Who is going to be manufacturing your heart medicine? Who will clean that plugged drain? Who will repair that drain unplugger persons tool when it breaks?
2 weeks tops. Perhaps slightly longer for very small isolated hotspot areas. Any more than that and shit is gonna go down.
Assuming you have a perfect lock down now. People will continue for 7 days to get infected from asymptomatic cases (much longer for some). At the end of that week it will be one week until most symptoms have appeared (but again much longer for some). Now you have hospitalisations of the infected, or home care (as hospitals won't be able to cope). In UK you have to test negative from 3 tests on two subsequent days in order to be cleared for release (report on BBC Radio 4 from an infected patient); assuming a similar standard then we're looking at 7+7+17 days, 31 days until people are starting to be safe to associate with ...
I don't share your "2 weeks top" blind faith.
>Testing there is showing a >1% death rate and because of how those tests work, it is provably about a half to a full order of magnitude lower.
You seem like you're panicking. If you need evidence for the necessity, go read literally anything about what Italy is facing. China locked down cities with 0 infections pretty completely for ~4 weeks, and they still have isolation measures going. I believe the heavily hit cities are still totally locked down. This is what it took to get numbers under control once it had spread, and because of the US' late reaction, it's what's necessary now.
And because China reacted with extreme measures, they got the virus under control, and are now starting to reduce the restrictions, and commerce is starting back up. It's nowhere near normal, but by reacting quickly and decisively you reduce the likelihood of longer lockdowns being required in the future (as well as the likelihood of significant loss of life).
America is not even close to Italy. Not demographically, not density, not medically. Nothing is the same between us. And it isn't "Italy" it is a region in Italy with the problem. Same with china. China isn't locking down "China". Just a small part of it. You cannot take those two datapoints and apply them to the rest of the world. Not even close.
And I'm not panicking, I'm just tired of people running around doomsaying. There is so much trash information out there and people have completely shut down their ability to think rationally. It kinda ticks me off.
You're comparing America to Italy and saying they're different (which I don't fully agree with). You should also be comparing our response to Italy's and seeing they're the same. We're both under poor leadership who downplay and deny basic scientific facts. The spread here will be the same. The timeline will be the same. Our shortage of hospital beds will be here within a week. The interruption to life is not going to be measured in weeks; it'll be months. I'm not trying to stress you out more, but you keep saying "two weeks" without any actual reason for saying so. I'd put $100 that in two weeks all we see is the very well understood and predicted 2-4x in infection rates.
Last point: I live in Seattle. You have previously mentioned how people won't stand for this and there will be riots. What you're failing to grasp is that when people are scared, 90% of them stop going out on their own. Yes, there were some young people still going to bars, but Seattle shut down FAR before any kind of order to do so. People chose to stay in once it became apparent their choice was either staying in or risking needing a hospital that is oversubscribed. That will happen in many, many other places in our country, and there won't be riots because people don't want to be around enough people to riot.
You keep saying people don't think rationally, but you do not make any rational argument.
You say: "lock-down 2 weeks tops", when the incubation period is known to be around that or even more, and we have clearly seen that a 2 weeks period does not have any appreciable effect. You say the situation is different than in Italy, even when the number of people in ICUs and deaths is growing exactly in the same way in every other part of the world, with the only exception of countries who took measures earlier. You say it won't be so bad when you admit it will kill a 1% of the infected and all studies talk about at least ~50% of the population catching it at some point. You are not being rational.
I am also tired of the doomsaying but I have not seen any serious study that is minimally optimistic, and I've seen many pessimistic ones.
I never said "years", 2021 is in less than a year. I think you're contrarian, misinformed and in deep denial. Anyway, facts are what they are and we'll see in due time.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...