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Not Online!!! wrote:So again: not only are you in your OWN logical system not coherent or complete enough to form an actual argument, but are also complaining about "virtue signalers".

You, of course, did a better job than me laying all that out. Sqorgar never bothered to respond to me, so I doubt you'll get a well thought out reply either. I really just dislike it when people just take pseudo-Utilitarian approaches as if they are something like a notional "natural law" or somehow self-evident. I also couldn't remember who has the critique of viewing people as primarily just economic units, might just have been a flawed summary I got of Arendt or something though, but I think it applies here too.

Duskweaver wrote:On a lighter note, the Youtube algorithm has apparently become self-aware and is laughing at us. Here's what it suggested to me this morning:

I actually got the same recommendation this morning too,

the_scotsman wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Ah the joys of being stupid enough to smoke, and having little to do. Means you smoke more. Leads to a tight chest.

you could pretend for a second you'd have to pay swiss prices on cigs that scares that nonsense right out of you.

Might actually be the time to give up,

Every three packs you don't smoke is a licence to buy a pack of GW models.
We'll swamp your smoke for bones! Plastic bones....

Three? Damn I'm glad I don't live in Europe. Or are our gw prices that much higher over here?

Wait...how...how much does a pack of cigarettes cost?

Am I having a Bluth moment where I'm just like "I dunno, five dollars?" and it's actually like 20 dollars? I legitimately do not know, never smoked in my life.

About $5.50 as a starting point in the US. But much, much more expensive in many nations. £10-14-ish in the UK. Over $20 in Australia.

Packet of 20 Snouts? £11.49 for Marlboro (cheaper brands exist, but going with an easily recognised name).

Those might last me a day or two. Depends how busy I am and if I’m in the office,

30g Golden Virginia? £14.70. That’ll easily last me a week in ordinary circumstances. When I’m WFH, and can therefore smoke at my desk? Maybe 5 days.

I literally have no idea how anyone can afford a 40 a day Snout habit. Works out to roughly £161 a week.

Christ, I remember back in 2009 when I worked in Morrisons, the regular smokkers could get 40 sticks for £10, 20 Mayfair for £4.90, and 20 lamberts for £5.10. It was like it was planned.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Yes, you're absolutely right. Our priorities should lie with the life of a human being over the financial systems which are there to service us, not the other way around.

I acknowledge you as a morally superior person. Consider your virtue signaled.

But over here in the real world, things are more complicated. Let's say there are two people who need a liver transplant. One is a 20 year old female with her whole life ahead of her and one is a bedridden 80 year old alcoholic. Is the decision of who gets the liver not as obvious to you as it is to me?

A prolonged lockdown would kick us so hard in the recession that our grandchildren will feel it. It will affect every single person in the country. Already, thousands of people have been fired from the service industry and we haven't even technically started a lockdown yet. Who's gonna pay for their unemployment? Most places have a hiring freeze on right now. When will they be able to get jobs again? I guess they could work at Amazon warehouses...

The stock market has wiped out many people's retirement funds - and a lot of them won't be around long enough to see it rebound and come back. Who knows how this will affect them if they need that money for healthcare? There's several industries which are already on the verge of collapse, and local businesses don't have the capital to go several months without income. Many of those unemployed people won't have jobs to come back to.

Isolation is literally considered a form or torture, and the effect on the mental health of people asked to spend a month or longer away from other human contact will be measured in depression and suicide. And with all this will come an increase in crime. And all this for a disease that has taken less lives than the seasonal flu?

It isn't that I don't feel bad for the bedridden 80 year old alcoholic, but if I have to choose who to give the liver to, I'm going to give it to the person with a future, who might have kids one day, and who might survive more than a few more years with it.

--> You have no idea about the consequences yet.

--> you have no idea about potential effects on the market yet.

--> You would sacrifice x ammount of people for a bit of money. Having no idea about potential rebounds through things like historically happened with the "New Deal" or other such instruments.

--> You also assume the "Greater Good" for people with pensions etc is more important then the whole society .

--> Most tyranical systems claim to do things for the "Greater good" including but not limited to the Extreme right wing Nazis to the Terrorregimes of socialist countries to military dictatorships "protecting" from socialist countries. That is a dangerous clause to invoke there lad.

--> Utilitariansim gives you the ilusion of actual decision making based on rationale, let me ask you do you know what happens when x / y surivives? No? then how can you decide?

--> Utilitarianism ALLWAYS has underlying ethics. Even your exemple has, therefore you enter again into subjectivity, scuse me that is not the way to go forwards.

--> Further, the virus damages the lungs, follow sickness will damage the economy and health of the people more throughly if let unchecked and most certainly longterm.

--> further , the vast to be expected losses through overcrowding of the medical system will lead to casualities that were not necessary, and will seriously disrupt local and national live even moreso then anything else. Disrupting the chains of transport which are as off yet thankfully still working.

So again: not only are you in your OWN logical system not coherent or complete enough to form an actual argument, but are also complaining about "virtue signalers".

You realize this applies almost the same to the actions we are taking, its all risk judgement right now there is no certainty either way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Now is definitely the time to stop smoking, although the economy will definitely collapse if everyone stopped now.

have you looked at the economy in the last couple weeks, that ships already sailed, and no i wont feel bad if tobacco companies lose money.

 H wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:So again: not only are you in your OWN logical system not coherent or complete enough to form an actual argument, but are also complaining about "virtue signalers".

You, of course, did a better job than me laying all that out. Sqorgar never bothered to respond to me, so I doubt you'll get a well thought out reply either. I really just dislike it when people just take pseudo-Utilitarian approaches as if they are something like a notional "natural law" or somehow self-evident. I also couldn't remember who has the critique of viewing people as primarily just economic units, might just have been a flawed summary I got of Arendt or something though, but I think it applies here too.

Meh, i dislike arendt for other reasons.

Further, even IF you look at humans as solely economic units, as economics tend to do, it makes 0 SENSE, because supply line disruption is vastly worse. So even if you go with an underlying ethic of humans only as human capital and fully accept that premise as flawed as it may or may not be, it would not lead to the desiered effect of the greater good simply due to casualities and disruptions of supply.

Further, and even adam Smith supports this, human capital has other relevant aspects to it, education f.e. vastly improves productivity , to educate you need to generally spend money. Taxes are another exemple, because roads and infrastructure rarley build themselves and you can look at italy how well certain bridges got maintained.ofcourse in that exemple the organized crime aswell is an issue but in general a state if he says he controlls stuff he does controll stuff. Generally.
Else heads roll-

You realize this applies almost the same to the actions we are taking, its all risk judgement right now there is no certainty either way.

Yes i do, however, as has been shown rather extensively in this thread sofar, understimation is not the way forward.
We know that it damages the lungs.
We also know that it does hospitalizes the younger aswell whilest rarely more often worse if it does.

Yeah, pack of 25 Marlboro is $42.99 over here.
25g Winfield RYO is $45.95.
Gov mandated price hikes on smokes are something I can get behind.

COVID-19 hasn't really had a great effect on life in WA. Social gatherings above 500 people outside/100 people inside have been banned, all the emergency services have cancelled non-essential training. There's been no community transmission in WA, we're basically trying to preemptively halt it.

Shopping centres are still getting flogged, though.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Meh, i dislike arendt for other reasons.

Further, even IF you look at humans as solely economic units, as economics tend to do, it makes 0 SENSE, because supply line disruption is vastly worse. So even if you go with an underlying ethic of humans only as human capital and fully accept that premise as flawed as it may or may not be, it would not lead to the desiered effect of the greater good simply due to casualities and disruptions of supply.

Further, and even adam Smith supports this, human capital has other relevant aspects to it, education f.e. vastly improves productivity , to educate you need to generally spend money. Taxes are another exemple, because roads and infrastructure rarley build themselves and you can look at italy how well certain bridges got maintained.ofcourse in that exemple the organized crime aswell is an issue but in general a state if he says he controlls stuff he does controll stuff. Generally.
Else heads roll-

Well, I pretty much agree with all of that. To me, mind you, a total lay-person, but I don't think there could ever be a univariate manner of moral analysis that could capture the complexity of actual moral Being. If there were, the system would have to be just as complicated as the thing being modeled and that that point, we'd be right back where we started, with the universe as a whole, still vast complex and likely just as unclear. So, a hard-line Utilitarianism only "makes sense" in so far as we jettison all the prospective mitigating factors/concerns.

To me, what Sqorgar expresses is a notion that human sacrifice, that is, the sacrificing of lives (framed, of course, as people who are "objectively" deserving to die, because they were notionally "unwell" to begin with) is well worth the maintenance of economic "normalcy." But, as you (and others) have well pointed out, that is both not guaranteed, nor even a logically sound expectation in all likelihood, because even if that quoted 99% of people who suffer COVID-19 and die had underlying conditions holds, there are vast, second and third-order effects (and so on) that undermine the whole precept that "everything can just stay as "normal if we just keep everything as it was." Even if we run with a, say, 3% fatality rate, that is with intervention, so to suppose that it would hold there minus intervention is, to say it charitably, logically suspect.

But, ethical and moral simplicity is intoxicating and pleasurable, most likely. It's an uphill battle to even get people to evaluate the complexity, let alone grasp the scale and scope and grapple with all of that.

 H wrote:


But, ethical and moral simplicity is intoxicating and pleasurable, most likely. It's an uphill battle to even get people to evaluate the complexity, let alone grasp the scale and scope and grapple with all of that.

Definitely. It's one of the reasons that populism can be so effective at gaining power (and subsequently ineffective at improving things when said power is gained). Human beings as a general collective entity seem to love the idea of simple solutions to complex problems, be those problems ethical, moral, economic etc. Unfortunately most problems we face are not so simple, sometimes due to the human element.

I'd also like to add that I always enjoy reading the philosophical discussions that you engage in

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Definitely. It's one of the reasons that populism can be so effective at gaining power (and subsequently ineffective at improving things when said power is gained). Human beings as a general collective entity seem to love the idea of simple solutions to complex problems, be those problems ethical, moral, economic etc. Unfortunately most problems we face are not so simple, sometimes due to the human element.

I'd also like to add that I always enjoy reading the philosophical discussions that you engage in

Well, thanks, haha. I mean, I try, or at least, I'd like to think I am trying. Not that I think I have anything like an answer, or answers. I just think that a sort of Socratic-method has value and try to apply that. I certainly do not have a real grasp on the complexity of anything, but I try to stay always on the hunt. This is why I, in isolation, as sympathetic to Sqorgar's initial "frame" of some amount of skepticism about induction, or general philosophy of medicine. However, reductive skepticism, or skepticism for a political or economic end without applying the same skeptical lens to that frame itself, seems, how to say it, self-serving?

I guess, in a way, I do think of things you mention in the way Zizek reframes the "religion as the opiate of the masses" as "now we have two opiates: opium and the people." So, drugs themselves and people (i.e. populism). But, to not get political or anything, to bring this back, this pandemic places a ton of stress on a number of systems that were likely not "functionally sound" (that is, not capable of handling the extraordinary) which means that we failed to account of the worst case scenario. Now, since we have not planned for that, we need to take preventative measures to avert that, because just allowing the worst case to happen unmediated makes for even an even worse case going forward. While some might see a path on the left-wall or right-wall as preferable (that is, no action vs. extreme action) even those have second and third order effects. So, we really aren't left with much to do than to play both sides against the middle, which will also have consequences. Just ones that might be more palatable and relative.

In the end, we have to ask, should we literally sacrifice lives to the economy? The powers that be have instead decided to sacrifice the economy to lives. Depending on your subjective valuations, maybe you don't like that trade. The reality is not that cut and dry though. Even if we just let this run wild and lay down all those lives to this virus, the long term effects that could likely tank the economy anyway (not to mention collapse the medical system) and we'd have done nothing, or even less than nothing, but delayed the outcome.

But I think I am likely getting rambly here, let me stop

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 H wrote:


But, ethical and moral simplicity is intoxicating and pleasurable, most likely. It's an uphill battle to even get people to evaluate the complexity, let alone grasp the scale and scope and grapple with all of that.

Definitely. It's one of the reasons that populism can be so effective at gaining power (and subsequently ineffective at improving things when said power is gained). Human beings as a general collective entity seem to love the idea of simple solutions to complex problems, be those problems ethical, moral, economic etc. Unfortunately most problems we face are not so simple, sometimes due to the human element.

I'd also like to add that I always enjoy reading the philosophical discussions that you engage in

Funny. that was allways the argument against any direct democratic process.
The best recipe against this? Education, integration (into the government process) and decentralisation (timely and regionally)

Has worked for us sofar, why, i can only make a educated guess.

Probably because education and the posibility of it allow for an more egalitarian society bridging gaps. Further egalising society via conscription into a government position (even if just sitting around and doing push ups or shooting mostly) serves further to bridge gaps and build trust into authorities whilest also enforcing responsibility through requirement of loyality due to a monopol of force maintained by Militia. Therefore reliably integrating people into political process. And decentralisation, localizing government, making it responsible localy weakening it and therefore having to accept social structure and parallel self organisation in many forms for help, strengthening both transparancy and controll from citizen upward.

 H wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Definitely. It's one of the reasons that populism can be so effective at gaining power (and subsequently ineffective at improving things when said power is gained). Human beings as a general collective entity seem to love the idea of simple solutions to complex problems, be those problems ethical, moral, economic etc. Unfortunately most problems we face are not so simple, sometimes due to the human element.

I'd also like to add that I always enjoy reading the philosophical discussions that you engage in

Well, thanks, haha. I mean, I try, or at least, I'd like to think I am trying. Not that I think I have anything like an answer, or answers. I just think that a sort of Socratic-method has value and try to apply that. I certainly do not have a real grasp on the complexity of anything, but I try to stay always on the hunt. This is why I, in isolation, as sympathetic to Sqorgar's initial "frame" of some amount of skepticism about induction, or general philosophy of medicine. However, reductive skepticism, or skepticism for a political or economic end without applying the same skeptical lens to that frame itself, seems, how to say it, self-serving?

I guess, in a way, I do think of things you mention in the way Zizek reframes the "religion as the opiate of the masses" as "now we have two opiates: opium and the people." So, drugs themselves and people (i.e. populism). But, to not get political or anything, to bring this back, this pandemic places a ton of stress on a number of systems that were likely not "functionally sound" (that is, not capable of handling the extraordinary) which means that we failed to account of the worst case scenario. Now, since we have not planned for that, we need to take preventative measures to avert that, because just allowing the worst case to happen unmediated makes for even an even worse case going forward. While some might see a path on the left-wall or right-wall as preferable (that is, no action vs. extreme action) even those have second and third order effects. So, we really aren't left with much to do than to play both sides against the middle, which will also have consequences. Just ones that might be more palatable and relative.

In the end, we have to ask, should we literally sacrifice lives to the economy? The powers that be have instead decided to sacrifice the economy to lives. Depending on your subjective valuations, maybe you don't like that trade. The reality is not that cut and dry though. Even if we just let this run wild and lay down all those lives to this virus, the long term effects that could likely tank the economy anyway (not to mention collapse the medical system) and we'd have done nothing, or even less than nothing, but delayed the outcome.

But I think I am likely getting rambly here, let me stop

Very well put.
For the record I am for sacrifice economy for people, one can recover the dead cannot (unless you include zombies, none spotted as of yet).

 H wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Definitely. It's one of the reasons that populism can be so effective at gaining power (and subsequently ineffective at improving things when said power is gained). Human beings as a general collective entity seem to love the idea of simple solutions to complex problems, be those problems ethical, moral, economic etc. Unfortunately most problems we face are not so simple, sometimes due to the human element.

I'd also like to add that I always enjoy reading the philosophical discussions that you engage in

Well, thanks, haha. I mean, I try, or at least, I'd like to think I am trying. Not that I think I have anything like an answer, or answers. I just think that a sort of Socratic-method has value and try to apply that. I certainly do not have a real grasp on the complexity of anything, but I try to stay always on the hunt. This is why I, in isolation, as sympathetic to Sqorgar's initial "frame" of some amount of skepticism about induction, or general philosophy of medicine. However, reductive skepticism, or skepticism for a political or economic end without applying the same skeptical lens to that frame itself, seems, how to say it, self-serving?

I guess, in a way, I do think of things you mention in the way Zizek reframes the "religion as the opiate of the masses" as "now we have two opiates: opium and the people." So, drugs themselves and people (i.e. populism). But, to not get political or anything, to bring this back, this pandemic places a ton of stress on a number of systems that were likely not "functionally sound" (that is, not capable of handling the extraordinary) which means that we failed to account of the worst case scenario. Now, since we have not planned for that, we need to take preventative measures to avert that, because just allowing the worst case to happen unmediated makes for even an even worse case going forward. While some might see a path on the left-wall or right-wall as preferable (that is, no action vs. extreme action) even those have second and third order effects. So, we really aren't left with much to do than to play both sides against the middle, which will also have consequences. Just ones that might be more palatable and relative.

In the end, we have to ask, should we literally sacrifice lives to the economy? The powers that be have instead decided to sacrifice the economy to lives. Depending on your subjective valuations, maybe you don't like that trade. The reality is not that cut and dry though. Even if we just let this run wild and lay down all those lives to this virus, the long term effects that could likely tank the economy anyway (not to mention collapse the medical system) and we'd have done nothing, or even less than nothing, but delayed the outcome.

But I think I am likely getting rambly here, let me stop

nono, by all means your onto something here.

We have an issue here due to the federal government placing duty to have a emergency supply of medicaments in the hands of hospitals.
Most hospitals also make not enough money here, and either locally subsidized and have to fight the insurers.
Meanwhile the federal government intervenes against growing costs and cuts ino profit margins of Hospitals.

It seems sofar that they are taking lessons from this and actually planning on improvment.
But "Hinedri si alli Schläuer " is a sad fact of life. (Afterwards we are all smarter.)

Not Online!!! wrote:
--> You have no idea about the consequences yet.

Technically, nobody does. And the WHO doesn't have the best track record for predictions.

But here is what has happened. My sister lost her job as a bartender and has moved back in with my parents. My in-laws' retirement fund has lost half a million dollars. They were going to retire on April 1st. Now they can't. A local pizza joint that has been a staple of my city for as long as I've been alive (seriously, I had my 8th birthday party there) has posted a sign that says if they close for the virus, they won't be able to reopen. My social circle is relatively small - these aren't isolated cases. It's hitting others far worse. And there hasn't even been a lockdown yet.

My state (Florida) doesn't have a state income tax, and several others like estate tax or inheritance tax. The reason for this is because that deficit is made up in sales tax from the truly absurd number of tourists we get every year. With Disney World and Spring Break closed, and the Miami cruise ecosystem dead, the devastation, not just to the local economies of places like Panama City Beach or Orlando, but to the funding of the entire state will be incalculable. This is money that is used to fund schools, sanitation, health, elder care, women's shelters, transportation, and so on. This has the potential to change the entire landscape of Florida, and not in a good way.

California just issued a stay home order. How many people do you think are employed by Hollywood? How many caterers, carpenters, drivers, errand boys, electricians, and so on depend on Hollywood operating to live? These aren't jobs you can telecommute to. Even when the stay order is rescinded, how long will it take Hollywood to get back to full production capability? It won't just be some switch you flick and society will return to normal.

--> you have no idea about potential effects on the market yet.

It's not the market that I'm worried about. Ultimately, I'm worried about society turning into the open of The Last of Us, where we have to display out certificates of travel to be able to move about the city (like the currently use in China, and France) and have quantum barcode tattoos delivered through vaccinations. I don't want an end to encryption on the internet. Basically, if it comes out of a page from Brave New World or 1984, I'm rather against it.

--> You would sacrifice x ammount of people for a bit of money. Having no idea about potential rebounds through things like historically happened with the "New Deal" or other such instruments.

First of all, the New Deal was a sweeping change made during a depression that essentially rewrote American government to move from states rights to a more powerful, centralized federal government. Do you know who the president is right now? Do you think Trump is capable of doing something like the New Deal, or even Biden? They ain't no FDR.

Second, you keep coming back to this money thing. I don't care about money. But we live in a capitalist society, and that means that money is how we operate. You want to eat, you exchange money for food. If you don't have money, you don't have food (we lost the ability to hunt and gather a long, long time ago). More practically, when the government doesn't have money, things like school lunches will be the first things lost. Welfare programs, social security, and so on. Programs to build giant solar panel farms to offset the overuse of fossil fuels. Hiring enough inspectors to check the conditions of all the offshore drilling platforms. Child services to help and support children in the foster care system. Hiring enough police officers to face down the crime wave that immediately follows an increase in poverty.

Shutting down the US for an extended period of time won't hurt my wallet. But it will essentially be the end of socialist policies in America. A large portion of our infrastructure will probably be bought up by corporations for pennies on the dollar, and do you think they are going to pick up the slack on welfare? Detroit shouldn't be the model for the rest of the US. People will die, destitute and sick. A lot more people than the coronavirus will be able to kill.

--> You also assume the "Greater Good" for people with pensions etc is more important then the whole society .

I do not know why this keeps coming back to money for you. You think that if people don't have money that everything else will be the same? A few people losing their saving, sure. But a recession, or even a depression? Holy feth, read a history book.

--> Most tyranical systems claim to do things for the "Greater good" including but not limited to the Extreme right wing Nazis to the Terrorregimes of socialist countries to military dictatorships "protecting" from socialist countries. That is a dangerous clause to invoke there lad.

I am very explicitly against tyrannical systems, as I mentioned above. You think a collapse of our society is going to reduce the number of these, or increase them?

--> Utilitariansim gives you the ilusion of actual decision making based on rationale, let me ask you do you know what happens when x / y surivives? No? then how can you decide?

--> Utilitarianism ALLWAYS has underlying ethics. Even your exemple has, therefore you enter again into subjectivity, scuse me that is not the way to go forwards.

--> Further, the virus damages the lungs, follow sickness will damage the economy and health of the people more throughly if let unchecked and most certainly longterm.

--> further , the vast to be expected losses through overcrowding of the medical system will lead to casualities that were not necessary, and will seriously disrupt local and national live even moreso then anything else. Disrupting the chains of transport which are as off yet thankfully still working.

So again: not only are you in your OWN logical system not coherent or complete enough to form an actual argument, but are also complaining about "virtue signalers".

I'm going to just group the rest of your bullet points in one response. You seem to think that I'm acting selfishly, and that the only thing I care about is money. And I doubt there is anything I can do to dissuade you from such an ignorant notion. So let me just leave you with this final thought before you go off and rage at a cloud about what a terrible, awful person I am:

More people will die from this isolation and economic shutdown than will be saved from it. It won't be over in a month or two when the coronavirus stops killing. It will affect the health and well being of millions for decades.

Ok, let''s see the numbers then Sqorgar.

Recent estimations from Italy and china come to the following conclusion:

40-60% of the population will catch it. depending on the measures taken.
of those about 20% catch a hard case, need a hospital.
of those 20% about 25 % need artifial rebreathing.

That is according to the best numbers we have here estimated by local staff.

Now look at the number of available rebreathers.

There's a non zero chance we are overreacting, but heck if I know what that percentage is. If it was a 99% chance we're overreacting most people here would say that's bad, if it was only a 1% chance Sqorgar would probably say we're doing the right thing. Unfortunately we've got two variables whats the chance we're overreacting and what's an individuals risk tolerance. Just because of the number of unknowns I think there's a decent chance we're overreacting just not high enough to change my preferred risk posture.

In Sqorgars defense the medical experts are not thinking about impacts outside their purview when their making recommendations, you just have to hope the leaders are balancing those impacts against the mitigation strategies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Ok, let''s see the numbers then Sqorgar.

Recent estimations from Italy and china come to the following conclusion:

40-60% of the population will catch it. depending on the
of those about 20% catch a hard case, need a hospital.
of those 20% about 25 % need artifial rebreathing.

That is according to the best numbers we have here estimated by local staff.

Now look at the number of available rebreathers.

The numbers we have don't directly support that, especially that first percentage. In Lombardy 40k cases is significantly less than the 10M people that live there, of course you could try and make the argument that there are 100X more cases than are actually known but then it makes those second two percentages overinflated .

That are literally the numbers estimated over here.

Greece: Close to 500 cases , 9 dead, 20 more in critical. Idiots fleeing capital may transfer virus to rural areas. As of today leisure ships are forbidden to sail from berth, ships bound for islands will no longer carry non- islander passengers. Public parks in the capital are shut down. Public bazaars shut down.
I feel like that scene from the movie Threads where someone is faxing some other about the effects of nuclear falllout.
Stay safe people.

UK pubs ordered to close.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Ok, let''s see the numbers then Sqorgar.

Recent estimations from Italy and china come to the following conclusion:

40-60% of the population will catch it. depending on the measures taken.
of those about 20% catch a hard case, need a hospital.
of those 20% about 25 % need artifial rebreathing.

That is according to the best numbers we have here estimated by local staff.

Now look at the number of available rebreathers.

I feel like I've gone over this before, but in case you missed it, you need to look at how they arrived at those numbers, see why those numbers are those numbers, then identify where those numbers may be wrong or not applicable. As Mark Twain is quoted as saying, there's lies, damn lies, and statistics.

1) There's no way to predict that 40-60% of the population will catch it. For one thing, there are mitigating factors that could greatly affect transmission. Northern Italy is in the perfect climate area for this virus, meaning that if you move a little bit to the north or south of it, the infection rate is considerably slower. The virus is most able to survive in the 40s Farenheit, and even 1 degree can make a huge difference in the spread. The majority of the US is not in this band right now. You could possibly say that New York City will have a similar infection rate, but even that will probably not work out the same because NYC is starting much later and it is getting warmer and warmer. It is possible that we could see similar outbreaks in similar climates in the southern hemisphere, or potentially again in the US next year, but right now during this emergency, the US is not going to resemble Italy.

2) They aren't testing everybody, so we have absolutely no idea how many people have or have had the virus. There is an extreme selection bias in the number of confirmed cases as we are only testing people we think already have the disease (that is, showing symptoms, previously in contact with confirmed cases, and/or at risk). People who are in hospitals are the ones we are overwhelmingly testing, since they have all three conditions. So, if you look at the number of cases of hospitalization from a biased data set that is largely taken from people ALREADY IN THE HOSPITAL, you are going to get some seriously warped numbers. If you look at the numbers in South Korea, where they are testing everybody en masse, you'll find numbers that don't resemble anything like Italy.

3) We know from the Diamond Princess (which is still biased, as a closed environment like that would increase the rate of infection) that about 19% of people caught the disease, of which two thirds were entirely asymptomatic. Literally no symptoms at all. Not even a headache. This means that only about 8% of the passengers showed any signs of illness at all. If 20% of those end up hospitalized (this number is certainly lower because gaps in our testing), that's a whopping 2% of the population - or about 6x less than you are predicting. Again, this is still a biased data set, but it is closer to the testing of a random population sample and is likely more indicative of the actual numbers for this disease.

4) Italy has a biased population. It has the most number of old people in Europe. 1 in 3 people smoke. 56% have hypertension. If age, smoking, and preexisting conditions are a factor in the spread and severity of the disease (and it seems like it - 99% of those who died in Italy had preexistng conditions, most had 3 or more, and the average age was 79.5), then a country with younger people, fewer smokers, and less health problems would naturally have lower numbers anyway. Basically, Italy (specifically northern Italy) is a perfect storm of everything this virus wants and needs... If we don't have the same factors, our numbers won't reach the same highs. Likely by a large margin.

That being said, people will get sick and some of them will die. My dad is 70 years old with diabetes and hypertension, and he thinks he can just take a pill and ignore dealing with them. He'll be the first on the chopping, so I'm not suggesting we just go about life as normal and ignore the disease entirely. Social distancing, face masks, and washing hands should be enough to mitigate the spread of the virus and save thousands of lives - and honestly, that should probably be the new normal going forward during flu season. I'm not advocating we do nothing. I just think a lockdown of our society will be completely disastrous and I think, in that case, the cure will be worse than the disease. And going forward, I'd like to see more care given to how we treat diseases like hypertension and diabetes - and especially how we prevent them - so that next season and every season after that we have fewer and fewer people at risk.

At the very least, I don't think it is possible for another country to look like Italy or have Italy's numbers going forwar

Italian society is also much more extrovert, so people get inside each other's personal space much more often than elsewhere. When I visit my father's hometown in Italy, I basically kiss everyone on the cheek I know over there. Large groups of people dance in the piazettas on weekends, meet in bars every single day, multiple times a day etc.

This is just another factor contributing to the "perfect storm".

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
UK pubs ordered to close.

I'm not surprised, I suspect a lot of pubs/restaurants etc.... were all expecting this news at some point very soon anyway. Though they've left the door open to allow them to keep doing take away food haven't they - so some will be able to maintain some form of business


That said I'd also heard from a newer food outlet that some of their suppliers have been hit hard in some regions with regard to food stocks. Esp where some more industrious retailers have managed to secure bigger portions of the food supply or where individuals have used contacts to let them food hoard at the source rather than at the supermarket.

Jerram wrote:

The numbers we have don't directly support that, especially that first percentage. In Lombardy 40k cases is significantly less than the 10M people that live there, of course you could try and make the argument that there are 100X more cases than are actually known but then it makes those second two percentages overinflated .

Eeh just in case you don't know this is just a start. Of course it's lower than 40%+. If it was that pandemia would be already over.

The thing is Sporgar, if we don't do anything;the economy will take the hit anyway.

Companies and businesses were deciding to do close and lock down themselves anyway. People themselves were no longer going out. We might as well go all in and try to get the lock downs over as quickly as possible than drag it out longer.

It reduces the overall pain on the health system, economy, and lifestyle.

tneva82 wrote:

Jerram wrote:

The numbers we have don't directly support that, especially that first percentage. In Lombardy 40k cases is significantly less than the 10M people that live there, of course you could try and make the argument that there are 100X more cases than are actually known but then it makes those second two percentages overinflated .

Eeh just in case you don't know this is just a start. Of course it's lower than 40%+. If it was that pandemia would be already over.

Exactly they're estimates with a huge error bar and everyone here is treating them like gospel

 BertBert wrote:
Italian society is also much more extrovert, so people get inside each other's personal space much more often than elsewhere. When I visit my father's hometown in Italy, I basically kiss everyone on the cheek I know over there. Large groups of people dance in the piazettas on weekends, meet in bars every single day, multiple times a day etc.

This is just another factor contributing to the "perfect storm".

Same here for some Kantons.
And tendencially we do have comparatively alot issues.

 Easy E wrote:
The thing is Sporgar, if we don't do anything;the economy will take the hit anyway.

Companies and businesses were deciding to do close and lock down themselves anyway. People themselves were no longer going out. We might as well go all in and try to get the lock downs over as quickly as possible than drag it out longer.

It reduces the overall pain on the health system, economy, and lifestyle.

Hit wouldn't have been nearly as big just look at the spring breakers........So from an economic standpoint whats better a quick shock or a long drawn out slowdown and by how much then combine it with the medical risk, there are no simple answers just hard problems.

One thing I wonder with the economic shock being non economic caused how that will effect the recovery.

Jerram wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The thing is Sporgar, if we don't do anything;the economy will take the hit anyway.

Companies and businesses were deciding to do close and lock down themselves anyway. People themselves were no longer going out. We might as well go all in and try to get the lock downs over as quickly as possible than drag it out longer.

It reduces the overall pain on the health system, economy, and lifestyle.

Hit wouldn't have been nearly as big just look at the spring breakers........So from an economic standpoint whats better a quick shock or a long drawn out slowdown and by how much then combine it with the medical risk, there are no simple answers just hard problems.

One thing I wonder with the economic shock being non economic caused how that will effect the recovery.

No one can predict what comes next just because the full effects of the disease are unclear, but economies and markets are capable of steep growth too.

Those pesky spring breakers.

I predict the next panic buy alcohol as pubs are closed!

 Easy E wrote:
The thing is Sporgar, if we don't do anything;the economy will take the hit anyway.

Companies and businesses were deciding to do close and lock down themselves anyway. People themselves were no longer going out. We might as well go all in and try to get the lock downs over as quickly as possible than drag it out longer.

It reduces the overall pain on the health system, economy, and lifestyle.

I'm not so sure that many Americans can just take a two week vacation from society. For instance, I live in a city with about 400,000 people (75,000 of which are college kids - we've got three colleges) and two dozen grocery stores. Each grocery store would have to service maybe 30,000 people full time if all the restaurants, bars, cafes, nightclubs, coffee shops, and whatever else closed. Sure, all that stuff isn't considered "essential services", but collectively, the ease the burden on the essential services considerably. We don't have the food supply through grocery stores to support our population.

Meanwhile, those 75,000 college kids don't have full time jobs. They can't telecommute. They are students, primarily - though right now, the college is closed for the foreseeable future. The main college, at least. No idea about the other two. They are looking into keeping the college closed and doing virtual classes for the rest of the semester. This college employs about 14,000 administrative and and academic people. Many of them won't have anything to do during a virtual semester - how many janitors and parking enforcement officers will they need on an empty campus. And many of those 75,000 college kids are from out of town. If they take classes virtually, many of them will leave.

(just checked and the other two colleges are also virtual for the foreseeable future - something they could always reverse, but at a certain point, people just won't be in a position to come back. I know one college in Georgia is closing the dorms and kicking all the students that live in them out.)

Basically, even without a lockdown, we're looking at a complete devastation of my city's economy just from the decision to make school virtual only. A full quarter of my city is built around these three colleges directly, and who knows how much of the city is indirectly supported by them. Our local economy is built on a workforce of part time college students who then go spend their wages on beer, sports, and food. The entirety of businesses in college town will basically wither and die without students around. This is the equivalent of the local plant closing down.

It's possible that the students might not leave town as a whole, and it is possible that they reopen classes sooner than later. During the summer semester or in the fall, the students should come back as a whole. But how many local businesses can afford to wait for that? How many will be there when they get back? We will probably be able to bounce back from this eventually, but we're going to lose at lot of our local culture and traditions in the meantime. We might lose a portion of our population too, as people have to leave our modestly sized city to go find jobs away from it. And this is WITHOUT a lockdown.