It's time for Draconian Chinese measures in this country!

[Colleen27]

The area under the curve will be the same. There will be the same number of cases, but they will occur over a longer period of time so that hospital surge capacity will not be surpassed. Flattening the curve will save lives. I’ll look for a picture of the graph if you give me a minute.

I understand that. It works by spreading out the cases. But to stay within our health care system's capacity, we're talking about spreading cases out in a slow trickle over many, many months, because the minute isolation procedures are relaxed (assuming the majority of the population has not yet been exposed), exponential case growth resumes. The 18 month projection comes in if we take measures to keep the infection rate under that catastrophic line on the graph, letting the pandemic run its course would take longer than it is expected to take to develop a vaccine.

 

[fly girl]

My question (and it is an honest one, not snarky) is to those of you who are more concerned with the economy. Say our country said, eh forget flattening the curve, let's just do business as usual and ride this thing out. What do you think would have happened when we spiked out of control and when your entire family got sick -- and yes, healthy people are getting really sick too, not just old people with previous health conditions -- and it came down to the hospital deciding who to save: you, your kid, or your Dad? That's what they are doing in Italy. Do we really want that? Do you not think the economy would have tanked when this hit the peak anyway and we had mass hysteria?

You know how ugly people can be, good Lord we saw it over TP!! Imagine what would happen in these hospitals fighting to save family members?

Like I said earlier, my families livelihood is wrapped up the in airline industry. Yeah! It ain't pretty, 70% reduction just announced today. But I believe we will get through this. You can disagree. But I am on the side with flattening the curve.

No option is a good option, but I am going with the option that I feel will cause let chaos in the long run.

 

[quandrea]

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Read that. That's the science.

Already read it yesterday

 

[erc]

being stressed that I may lose my house is nothing compared to thinking that I may be dead and not available to help my children grow up

But that is what is amazing about this country - we all have different opinions/priorities

I think my kids would be fine at this point. I purposefully purchased more life insurance than I really need because I believe in taking care of the future in case something happened. I was layed off from my 6-figure job 5 years ago. Even though it happened in the beginning of the summer and I had 3 months severance and everyone just told me to enjoy my summer and not worry, I smiled on the outside but I did not sleep more than 3 hours that entire summer. In modern American life you either have a job or you are dead and so is your family. This is not 100 years ago where you lived on a farm providing your own food and livelihood. Unemployment hits double digits and people die. I hope it was all worth it to try to save those at most risk in this pandemic. Because other will die due to economic circumstances well after the pandemic is over.

 

[fsjking]

Already read it yesterday

Then you need to get someone to explain it to you.

"Overall, our results suggest that population-wide social distancing applied to the population as a whole would have the largest impact; and in combination with other interventions – notably home isolation of cases and school and university closure – has the potential to suppress transmission below the threshold of R=1 required to rapidly reduce case incidence. A minimum policy for effective suppression is therefore population-wide social distancing combined with home isolation of cases and school and university closure.
To avoid a rebound in transmission, these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available to immunise the population – which could be 18 months or more."

 

[embracejg]

Let's calm down with the survivalist talk here, folks. Some of you sound like you're about to ready to drink Jim Bakker's toxic silver crap.

 

[quandrea]

Then you need to get someone to explain it to you.

"Overall, our results suggest that population-wide social distancing applied to the population as a whole would have the largest impact; and in combination with other interventions – notably home isolation of cases and school and university closure – has the potential to suppress transmission below the threshold of R=1 required to rapidly reduce case incidence. A minimum policy for effective suppression is therefore population-wide social distancing combined with home isolation of cases and school and university closure.
To avoid a rebound in transmission, these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available to immunise the population – which could be 18 months or more."

No I do not. I completely understand that to avoid another spike these uncomfortable measures will be in place for a very long time. This is a long game. I’m Boeing our now because I intensely dislike the time of this discussion. Don’t appreciate being insulted.

 

[erc]

Then you need to get someone to explain it to you.

"Overall, our results suggest that population-wide social distancing applied to the population as a whole would have the largest impact; and in combination with other interventions – notably home isolation of cases and school and university closure – has the potential to suppress transmission below the threshold of R=1 required to rapidly reduce case incidence. A minimum policy for effective suppression is therefore population-wide social distancing combined with home isolation of cases and school and university closure.
To avoid a rebound in transmission, these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available to immunise the population – which could be 18 months or more."

Imagine living in a la la land where suggesting shutting down all life for 18 months is a good solution to anything.

 

[Farro]

Anyone who thinks this is going to go on for 18 months has lost their mind.

Eventually the notion of sacrifice a few to save many will take hold. Now I'm not even thinking it will even come to that, but playing along with possible scenarios...I think the world will end up trying to save the future rather than sacrifice it to save a few.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

There’s a part of me that thinks we’re already too late in America. We tried to give everyone a chance to do the right thing & STAY HOME except for essential employees & essential errands. And it’s not working.

The complicated thing we probably need to remember is we have 50 states plus several territories. That on the surface is common knowledge but to enact measures and quickly you have to realize that plays an important role. We value a measure of governmental distance; this set up is however different than other countries. Do we really want to blame our citizens on the fact that this country typically embraces the concept of being an individual? Anyways if you want to blame someone, and I'm not advocating for all the people to go out and about like crazy, blame primarily the complete lack of common advice given to people.

I mean I couldn't even keep up with the changes here. Sure social distancing at its core was common advice but so many other things were all over the spectrum. And that made sense to a degree for some places because they had different issues to overcome. One day the Federal government tells us to do this and the next it's different. One day your state is doing this but your county is doing that and your city is doing something completely different and your work something else. Heck I live in a metro split between two states..they were each doing different things but I could easily drive to the other state. We're a community in this metro but there were differences in certain things.

Catch 22 on how we have our system set up but I also don't think that equates to comparing a different societal makeup and how another country opts to control its citizens. Individual people def. have shared blame here but I'm not laying it all on their feet without laying more of it elsewhere.

 

[spiders]

Anyone who thinks this is going to go on for 18 months has lost their mind.

Eventually the notion of sacrifice a few to save many will take hold. Now I'm not even thinking it will even come to that, but playing along with possible scenarios...I think the world will end up trying to save the future rather than sacrifice it to save a few.

Yes. I don't want to sound rude but the very people who are most at risk will probably be dead from natural causes in 18 months.

 

[Party.Of.4-NY>>>FL]

You have the belief that hospital care is saving lives of the critically ill coronavirus patients? Has that been proven?

Do you believe hospital care saves the lives of heart attack patients? Stroke patients? Car accident patients? There will be patients in these categories that will die because hospitals are too full to properly care for them.

 

[Colleen27]

My question (and it is an honest one, not snarky) is to those of you who are more concerned with the economy. Say our country said, eh forget flattening the curve, let's just do business as usual and ride this thing out. What do you think would have happened when we spiked out of control and when your entire family got sick -- and yes, healthy people are getting really sick too, not just old people with previous health conditions -- and it came down to the hospital deciding who to save: you, your kid, or your Dad? That's what they are doing in Italy. Do we really want that? Do you not think the economy would have tanked when this hit the peak anyway and we had mass hysteria?

You know how ugly people can be, good Lord we saw it over TP!! Imagine what would happen in these hospitals fighting to save family members?

Like I said earlier, my families livelihood is wrapped up the in airline industry. Yeah! It ain't pretty, 70% reduction just announced today. But I believe we will get through this. You can disagree. But I am on the side with flattening the curve.

No option is a good option, but I am going with the option that I feel will cause let chaos in the long run.

I really don't know. There are no good choices, that's for sure. I suspect no matter how it is handled, we're trading one kind of misery for another. But the callousness with which I see people dismissing the very real suffering that this will inflict on poor and moderate income working people is revolting. I'm not saying "Let Granny die, she's lived her life" but people who bring up the human toll of economic chaos are treated as though they're saying just that, being dismissed left and right as having a materialistic disregard for human life... the implication, unintended I'm sure, is that the lives of those who can't survive homelessness or losing their medical insurance didn't even merit a thought. The lives that matter are the ones who would be taken by the virus, not those who would be taken by poverty.

But generally speaking... I think our economy and our society can better handle a short-term shock than a prolonged one. We can tolerate or even support short-term stimulus but have no appetite for long-term reform. Our government doesn't have the tools in its existing toolbox to handle a year or more of mass unemployment, and our memories are short one way or the other. I think the recovery from an immediate panic is likely to be more rapid with less upheaval than the recovery from a protracted crisis. Also, I'm not at all convinced that we're doing anything to avert those hard choices - I think the most likely outcome, on our current trajectory, is those hard medical decisions still needing to be made while also dealing with mass (20-30% or more) unemployment for at least the remainder of this year. I also think we're risking long-term structural changes coming from this that further exacerbate all of the conditions that make this crisis so uniquely bad in America as we see another mass transfer of American real estate into the hands of a small number of wealthy investors and an outsourcing trend spurred by the realization that many of these jobs that conventional wisdom said couldn't be done remotely actually can.

 

[fsjking]

Imagine living in a la la land where suggesting shutting down all life for 18 months is a good solution to anything.

It goes on to say in many countries its not feasible and that 3 months could cut deaths in half. It's more about what the science says would have to be done to get through this with minimal virus casualties. I think the people that wrote it know that it would never happen.

 

[erc]

Yes. I don't want to sound rude but the very people who are most at risk will probably be dead from natural causes in 18 months.

It sucks but I do wonder what would happen if they instituted more measures to isolate the elderly and not shut absolutely everything else down. Because according to every data point so far, this coronavirus is not any deadlier than the seasonal flu for anyone under 65.

 

[3threebabies]

It sucks but I do wonder what would happen if they instituted more measures to isolate the elderly and not shut absolutely everything else down. Because according to every data point so far, this coronavirus is not any deadlier than the seasonal flu for anyone under 65.

I think any longterm plan will require this in some form.

eta typo

 

[Farro]

I think any longterm plan will require this in some form.

eta typo

My parents are 81. They are mostly aggravated at not being able to meet friends for breakfast. if restaurants can set up a seniors only time and things like that....

 

[shelemm]

We need to try to get 7/8 of the country to greatly curtail their movements. The USA will be Italy, just as Spain and France and Germany are getting there. There are millions of lives at stake, and it will be just a question of time before everyone takes it deadly seriously. Stop moving about before it is mandated plus so many are dying. Worldwide mortality rates have already gone up dramatically.

On Monday, the company I work for said they have no work from home policy and everyone is expected to show up for work. Two days later, they told everyone to go home and plan on telecommuting.

 

[avengerspoilerer]

There are things that the medical community can do to raise the bar but the fact is the numbers that you are seeing are 11 days behind Italy. The numbers of infecting people in the United States and around the world are probably 10 times higher than the actual number. The only place where the Curve has gone down and the amount of deaths to the accurate number of people who are infected is South Korea. We need to model South Korea it doesn’t matter the population density of the United States because obviously it’s higher in places like New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles. However this has now affected every state in the union. And when I state like Kansas shuts down at school system that is very telling for the rest of the country. I do not believe our government is Telling us the entire truth. They don’t want to panic. I believe a shut down of the domestic air system and closing of interstate motors is coming. You people did not believe me when I suggested the Walt Disney World in Disneyland would be shutting down, just wait at what’s coming in the United States to put a slow down on this virus.

 

[Donzie]

To the original poster China did nothing correct. This isn't their first virus and they let it get out of their country (again). Had they really instituted Draconian measures immediately and had control of this virus it wouldn't be spread through out the world.

No one knows the real infected or dead numbers from China and we never will. At least in Democracies we can get an attempt at real data and eventually get answers. In China the oppressive government oligarchy controls the narrative through violence and even death for those who fall out of line. How many people will die and suffer (unintended consequences) due to an inability to respond quicker and contain this.

The attached article says for weeks after the initial outbreak the Chinese government said this virus showed no proof of spreading from human to human. Even though health officials were telling them the opposite.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/1...ing-chinas-incompetence-endangered-the-world/