U.S. to close..

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

Yes, because the either the government mandates every detail of your life, and what you are allowed to eat, or refuses to pay.

SO you better keep your health up, because God help you if you get sick, and need to stand in line for up to a year at the government hospital.

You're drowning in misconceptions. All wrong.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Singularity

Below is simply one organ system, but you need to read up on the consequences to young people, people without pre-existing conditions, working age people, whatever. I strongly encourage considering, if not naturally apparent, that when you see what appears to be small numbers effecting younger people, the the aggregate effects routinely snowball...not just disease and healthcare costs, but across the board.

I've posted this before at least once...people tend to not read details and instead offer generalizations neglecting to synthesize the data into the perspective.

So out of 11 million confirmed cases in the US (and how many unconfirmed cases), there is a negligible number who show what may be temporary side effects (still too early to know how many will have longer term impacts).

I do agree it's perspective that is often the problem. We see lots of articles every time a younger person has a serious case and perspective is lost because it leaves the impression that it's far worse than reality.

This reminds me of the stories about stray athletes who randomly die of heart attacks. Sure it happens but doesn't mean we shouldn't exercise.

PS: I would take College Football players heart issues with a huge grain of salt. While the schools do their best to hide it, lots of them take performance enhancing drugs which often leads to heart issues.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Fantasy is pretending that supporting those economically hurt by COVID measures is "unthinkable".

No one said that. Unthinkable is NOT helping them. But we do not have the means to just wipe away the effects of 30 million unemployed, not even close. We don't even have the means to eliminate even hunger. That is my point. There is enormous harm -- and harm far beyond anything we could ever mitigate.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

In fact. it's already happened to a great degree, and is likely to continue. And just about all economists are applauding this and encouraging more of it. Aggressive support now will greatly reduce the harms you're concerned about, and make for a faster recovery. Markets seem to applaud the actions taken to date, including the vaccine progress. So the only variable between our two positions is the extent of supports provided.

Well, you're missing the point of my argument. Of course we must help, and we must help aggressively. But that is NOT a justification for failing to mitigate unemployment itself by being careful with what measures we choose. We don't have the magic wand to just wave it away.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Yay to Finland for seeming to have chosen a minimally harmful path that was also effective. I don't think that what worked in Finland would have been as possible or equally effective in most other countries. But it's not something I hope to see tested again any time soon.

All the Nordic countries took this path. Results are looking good SO FAR but again -- it's too early for ANYONE to declare victory. In my opinion the Nordic way has been optimum, but God knows what tomorrow will bring. Look at Lithuania. There but for the grace of God go we.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

...and likewise, you need to consider the potential damage, economic and otherwise, from increased COVID spread, from long-term effects, including mental illness (1 in 5, according to recent study), and from allowing some groups to suffer (on all fronts), while others are untouched and even profiting from the others' hardships.

I agree completely. All of these things have to be balanced.



But my special plea is not to throw the working poor under the bus. They are farthest away from the experiences of our group -- white, mostly wealthy, mostly retired people who are a lot more afraid of the virus, than we are of the economy. Never forget that for many people, it looks TOTALLY different. And especially -- not to fantasize that their problems are so easily solvable so no need to worry about them. They aren't.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Actually, this is really questionable practice. I can't find the source but I recall something like 75% of all health care dollars are spent on average in the last year of a persons life.

Agreed.

And we are starting to see more of a move towards hospice rather than throwing the kitchen sink at someone on their way out with no real chance of recovery.

Yes and no. First, I'm quite comfortable with the concept of doctors pulling plugs, as are most doctors and frankly most old patients. But families are not. Just a few years ago there was a proposal that if A) a patient created a end of life healthcare plan, B) the doctor followed that plan, that C) the doctor would effectively get a bonus (technically a payment modifier). But this was lambasted as "death panel" type stuff. Can't win for losing.

Hospice started as a good idea....basically "look, we'll give you a nursing home bed or home health, comfort measures only, in exchange to withdrawing care." It has morphed into routine de facto free (except for raised taxes) nursing home care, skilled care in the home, and hospitalizations if "not what was going to kill you" problems crop up. In summary, hospice in some areas has become more expensive than things were before hospice. In healthcare, like the movie Field of Dreams.......if you build it, they will come....but unlike the movie, you can't let the corn grow back. Sunk costs galore.

These big dollar responses really should have a focus on the quality and duration of life they are going to generate based on the patients condition...in fact when you get into expensive organ transplants, an elderly person with other health conditions winds up lower on the list when an organ is available.

I'd love...love it if it were possible to have a reality TV show, with cameras on the wall and microphones on the phones to record what people say....what people expect when no one is around. In public everyone says don't spend money...in private they threaten everything to get what they want.

Not suggesting it is an easy problem and doesn't have moral hazards to address but it's equally wrong not to consider the likely outcome and if the response is worth it.

I hear you, I do.

So the idea that we should consider the age and health of people who contract corona is a valid and ethical approach.

What perhaps is not intuitive is to understand that we already do this to a very, very large degree with every disease state.....but the calls to do this for Covid...the manner in which people oversimplify the calls to do this for Covid....ought to be understood to change the rule book for all the other diseases.

Frankly I could give a chit less if society wants to change the rule book. I just want people to play by the rules behind closed doors as they do in public. Pro-tip: the bigger the complainer against "socialized medicine" the more cry-baby and inflammatory one is when it comes time for them to receive service. Such people see themselves as some kind of John Galt or whatever, "already paid too much into the system, they all got too much, now it's time for me to get too much, and I'm not taking no for an answer."

If you ever have to wait extra for your doctor to see you, this phenomenon might be responsible for the majority of the wait, no kidding.

[a64pilot]

OK, I misspoke, by defeating a virus, I meant without a vaccine.
My point was none have been eradicated by quarantine or responsible behavior, it took a vaccine

[a64pilot]

we will never know the collateral damage from lockdowns.
First we won’t look, and secondly any number you could come up with would be a guess, and as it’s a guess it’s going to be heavily influenced by what the finding source wants to be found.
My guess is the closest answer would be how many died in 2020 compared to the average last say 5 years, increase in violence, murders, child abuse?

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

So out of 11 million confirmed cases in the US (and how many unconfirmed cases), there is a negligible number who show what may be temporary side effects (still too early to know how many will have longer term impacts).

I do agree it's perspective that is often the problem. We see lots of articles every time a younger person has a serious case and perspective is lost because it leaves the impression that it's far worse than reality.

Perspective is ALWAYS the problem. It's metaphysically impossible for two people to see the same thing (i.e. reality) the same way such that all disputes are between people who are correct, from their reference frame (assuming no one is consciously lying).

So what I showed you were studies that showed that out of a fairly random sample of people who had Covid, with an age probably younger than you, 48% of them showed inflammatory changes in the heart that is associated with twice the relative risk of cardiac events and death. The people in the studies weren't exceptional Covid cases, they were just plucked from cohorts of hospitalized/not in one study, university athletes in the other.

To end around the "association is not causation" business...it's metaphysically impossible to ever find causation in the most simple of systems, such that this 'association is not..." stuff is nonsense. Everything is about probability.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

...Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease

Here's the logic problem with that statement.

The reason that the #1 cure is the #1 cure is because it's the #1 cure. This doesn't mean that people will execute the #1 cure correctly, such that you have to make the policy idiot-proof. And herein is the US's (in particular) problem with the Covid response....there practically was no policy. The people responsible for making things idiot-proof....simply didn't do it...no policy book was on the shelf 100 years after Spanish flu. As far as I'm concerned, Trump saved their bacon (so far) by acting as a distraction...wherein some good amount of his criticism of CDC folks was quite fair (even when he didn't know how to bring resources together to overcome CDC failure).

But the #1 cure worked in China and other countries to a very high degree. This cannot be overlooked, discounted, etc, if we are to learn anything.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

... we do not have the means to just wipe away the effects of 30 million unemployed, not even close.

... my special plea is not to throw the working poor under the bus.

The working poor ARE under the bus, now, in more ways than one. They deserve more consideration for doing most of the getting sick and dying, and the way that their hardships keep the rest of us safe and solvent through the pandemic, AND for the fact that their wages and working conditions have stagnated or declined over the past couple of decades.

While we complain about rising boat prices.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

we will never know the collateral damage from lockdowns.

First we won’t look, and secondly any number you could come up with would be a guess, and as it’s a guess it’s going to be heavily influenced by what the finding source wants to be found.
My guess is the closest answer would be how many died in 2020 compared to the average last say 5 years, increase in violence, murders, child abuse?

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease

It IS measurable, and those who are most concerned about this collateral damage are quite motivated to find it... so I read much into the fact that so far, the non-COVID collateral death rate seems to be a very small fraction of the COVID deaths.

Also note that the deaths this year from otherwise treatable illness were caused by either avoiding seeking care out of fear of catching COVID-19, or because of the overload to healthcare capacity from COVID cases. Not from the lockdowns.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

we will never know the collateral damage from lockdowns.
First we won’t look, and secondly any number you could come up with would be a guess, and as it’s a guess it’s going to be heavily influenced by what the finding source wants to be found.
My guess is the closest answer would be how many died in 2020 compared to the average last say 5 years, increase in violence, murders, child abuse?

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease

We can get close.

A $20 trillion a year economy shut down for several months requiring $5 trillion in emergency spending.

That's 3 months of no stuff being made.

Take an average of 25% off of everyone's net worth, with the bulk of that minimum wage fast food workers.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

A more like an old person with a heart problem dying from fright during turbulence and blaming it on turbulence.

If they are scarping your body off a mountain side, there's really no question what got you. That's not comparable to what we are seeing with corona.

~150,000 Americans haven't died of turbulence. They are dying because they have encountered a novel coronavirus. Trying to claim that their deaths are caused by something else is to intentionally obfuscate the impact of this new disease.


This discussion over the last few pages seems to turn on those who believe we can influence the trajectory of the pandemic, and those who believe it is beyond our capabilities, or the cost is too high. It's fascinating reading ... carry on.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

We can get close.

A $20 trillion a year economy shut down for several months requiring $5 trillion in emergency spending.

That's 3 months of no stuff being made.

Take an average of 25% off of everyone's net worth, with the bulk of that minimum wage fast food workers.

in that (your idea of a shut down) case all the problems are solved just in few weeks, as there's no food either so most would die for hunger during the first month.. Get real man!

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

The working poor ARE under the bus, now, in more ways than one. They deserve more consideration for doing most of the getting sick and dying, and the way that their hardships keep the rest of us safe and solvent through the pandemic, AND for the fact that their wages and working conditions have stagnated or declined over the past couple of decades.....

Indeed. The "but what about the poor" and "what about the economy" concerns are Marie Antoinette-esque, lacking appreciation for the status quo of people's health vs economy in the first place, before Covid. So where the economy is fundamentally sick, then dies because of Covid, this subset of people detached from economic reality of average Americans will blame the economy's death on the Covid response.

Sorry, but the economy had a pre-existing condition...so don't blame all the economic problems on Covid. After you account for all the economic problems, then only like 9,000 people lost their job due to Covid, which is less than a single large plant closure.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Singularity

Here's the logic problem with that statement.

The reason that the #1 cure is the #1 cure is because it's the #1 cure. This doesn't mean that people will execute the #1 cure correctly, such that you have to make the policy idiot-proof. And herein is the US's (in particular) problem with the Covid response....there practically was no policy. The people responsible for making things idiot-proof....simply didn't do it...no policy book was on the shelf 100 years after Spanish flu. As far as I'm concerned, Trump saved their bacon (so far) by acting as a distraction...wherein some good amount of his criticism of CDC folks was quite fair (even when he didn't know how to bring resources together to overcome CDC failure).

But the #1 cure worked in China and other countries to a very high degree. This cannot be overlooked, discounted, etc, if we are to learn anything.

There WAS policy book. The White House threw it out.


At the current pace, by the time Trump leaves office, more than 300,000 Americans will have died of covid-19. And even after he departs, every day more will die because Trump politicized simple public health measures, convincing his supporters that refusing to wear a mask to protect yourself and those around you is a great way to own the libs.