Various people are arguing that we should let Wuflu rip ( for the economy !), eschewing strategies that would likely get it under control at fairly high economic cost. This would ending up causing the death of a lot of people’s parents and it’s at least possible that some wouldn’t understand and accept that it was all for the greater good. Some people are just soreheads, impossible to please.
I’m just saying.
I notice that even the Chinese didn’t go that far. You need a really good reason to get the Chi-Coms to care about a population subset.
Or the South Koreans, who used GPS location to figure out where someone testing positive went. It sounds like the entire population was being tracked by GPS because they could identify the infected person’s contacts, since everyone’s position was known.
The SK method sounds pretty bad to Westerners but would they prefer to just let it burn through the whole population?
In fact, weren’t the Brits toying with the idea of letting it burn through the young and healthy population? The idea was to keep the vulnerable sheltered in this stage. By the time it burned through the young & healthy, herd immunity would hopefully kick in.
They abandoned the idea.
I speak as someone who is considered vulnerable, although I don’t want to admit it.
One addendum: In reading tales of those killed by the virus, I found several examples of people who had had cancer that were quite young. That seems to be a vulnerability that’s affects even the young. Just anecdotal observation, I know.
Exactly, the Chinese reaction is telling. Initially not doing anything (other than suppressing “fear-mongering rumors”) and just letting the epidemic run its course seemed like a good idea to them either.
In a sense they did just let it run its course in Wuhan. They shut everyone up in 30-storey blocks with common systems of heating and air-conditioning for the apartments, and just let it rip in there. They did, it is true, quarantine one block from another. To some extent the apartments were quarantined from each other but I gather that the essential policing was done at the entrance to the “compound” in which each block was located.
Maybe the modellers at Imperial College could tell us how many dead that might be expected to generate.
Anyway, if this account that I’ve seen O/L is wrong, do correct it.
I saw one interview at RFE/RL of a woman from the nation of Georgia who was working in Wuhan when the epidemic started. She kept a diary and described mostly boredom. She lived alone in a small apartment, allowed out only to get food. She did not catch the disease.
But she didn’t know much about the Chinese residents. (She was working for a company with a connection to Georgia.)
Your are showing your white privilege. Chinese apartments do not have central air conditioning. Each apartment have their own separate small individual air con unit. Looking from outside they are eye sores. The type as shown in the photo below,
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/li-xinghao-director-of-chigo-air-conditioner-pictured-in-news-photo/1126284782?adppopup=true
This is a typical view.
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/low-angle-view-of-apartments-in-urban-setting-royalty-free-image/87310267?adppopup=true
“Your are showing your white privilege.” Don’t be such an arsehole. I said I was repeating what I’d read O/L and invited correction.
Dr. Seheult (who makes the MedCram videos seems pretty sharp. His Mar 22 vid is linked below.
For one thing, it seems the current test is pretty inaccurate. Work needed there.
He also notes how extremely useful it would be have a reliable test for antibodies. If we had an accurate test for them, and if it the case that one attack confers immunity, such people could be employed in the more risky positions.
It is not that simple. As Mr. Carvalho, one of Brazil’s President Captain Bolsonaro’s top advisers pointed out, it is not clear yet an epidemics is ongoing. It is possible it is simply a flu whose effects abe being overemphasized by the mainstream media. Panicking and throwing away our economy will not help.
Lay off, Thiago.
My name is James. I am a private tutor.
For God’s sake, aren’t we past this “It’s just the flu” BS? I yield to no one in my dislike of the MSM, but some things are true, even though CNN says them. If you want to see how to fight this thing without destroying your economy, look at Japan and Taiwan. It’s not an either/or situation…
“I yield to no one”
Brought a smile to my lips. This has seeped into common usage – it started out as Commie party talk.
Brought a smile to my lips. This has seeped into common usage – it started out as Commie party talk.
Terminus was not a commie. Neither were the ancient Romans. Nor was Erasmus.
https://latin-quotes.blogspot.com/2010/09/concedo-nulli.html
I have been proved right. Brazil’s President Captain Bolsonaro has demanded an end to lockdowns and has proposed to isolate old people so the economy can keep working. One must remember that, while spending a fraction of what America spend on healthcare, Brazil has had fewer coronavirus-induced deaths and has been able ro send humanitarian aid to Italy.
Brazil is kind of off then beaten track. North America, Europe and Asia has seen heavy air traffic back and forth, to their regret now.
Not convinced about Brazil. Maybe they are just late to the party. For their sake I hope I’m wrong.
The point is, the situation is basically under control and, according to President Captain Bolsonaro, normal living can resume.
Others in Brazil feel more concern:
According to Bolsonaro, yes. When you made your original post, there were about 2500 cases, now there’s 3900 and it’s doubling every 4-5 days. Three doublings takes it to 20,000, 6 more doublings to over a million. Shall you repost in 3 weeks, to show how this is working out?
It’s not a simple flu, and when the virus is prevalent enough you can see the spike in death rates…
But on the other hand I do not see the kind of lockdown we have now in Europe tenable more than a few weeks, without transitioning to police states.
I do not think examples from WW1 or WW2 contradict that, because during a war all states turn into police states, that’s what martial law is. Also, the time is different, rule of state was really something during WW1 (so much that the soldiers stories at that time seems alien to me, like if it happened in another world).
WW2 seems less alien, but western state were still more powerfull and hierarchies more explicit and generally acknowledged. After, not so much. When was conscription last used by a modern state? Vietnam kind of prove my point, Falklands maybe? not even sure it was conscripts on the Bristish side….
So yes, the government/populations today are not the one of the 40s, they probably can not get into martial law as easily, and once in, not sure they can get out as easily either….
“When was conscription last used by a modern state? Vietnam kind of prove my point, Falklands maybe? not even sure it was conscripts on the Bristish side….”
Depends of what ounts as a modern state? Does the Soviet Union/Russian Federation qualify? Afghanistan, Chechnya. I don’t think the South Koreans or the Taiwanese would have many problems using conscription at war. They probably are better prepared to use policial measures than most developed democracies.
If you are from one of the western state (europe, USA, Canada, Australia,….) obviously Russia do not count, and is well into police state if not a full blown dictature. Didn’t you listen to MSM?
South Korea and Taiwan are debatable. I have been there far too little to have a good judgement, but they certainly feel like much more authoritarian and more tightly integrated than the western states. South Korea is still officially at war (with N. Korea), and Taiwan probably is also, not sure what there offical status is (with China), so there that also. Ditto for Israel.
Among western state I would have bet on the Swiss to maybe be able to do a real lockdown for a while. Apparently not, they are even on the slow side.
Maybe Norway?
Will be interesting to see how a soft military junta (Thailand) will do. They are quite dependent on tourism and assembly industry, the junta is fragile but the country is (I think) self sufficient for food and quite nationalistic.
“Falklands maybe? not even sure it was conscripts on the Bristish side….”
No: conscription in Britain ended in 1960 having been introduced in 1939 (in the teeth of opposition from the Labour Party, which changed its mind only after the German invasion of Poland!)
There would be a backlash against the Chinese.
It would be a whole new world, with increased life tempo. It would be best to meet someone good now, and have babies
Still in the midst of morning reverie, so I’ll just quote myself:
An alternative to crashing the economy with no survivors is quarantining at risk categories only (elderly, comorbidities etc)
Perhaps we can do so and also treat infections effectively with hydroxychloroquine and the like so there’ll be no sequelae
I too give this a timeframe of several months in the best case scenario, with improvement beginning in several weeks if ’15 days to slow the spread’, hydroxychloroquine work
Until effective vaccines / herd immunity + border control and inspection / testing, the virus will continue to rebound and reemerge in encores, perhaps to meld into the seasonal background of our regular endemics
Thanks, but I do not think the plague is the better time for bringing children to this world.
“sorehead”
Some of these people haven’t got the humanity of a Neanderthal.
In Italy, they can’t bury the dead. Can’t give a proper Catholic funeral to these grandparents, some of whom died horribly, and alone.
This is inhuman. We accept that death is a part of life. Giving the dead a dignified goodbye, in your culture’s religious norms, is part of being human.
I think the econobabblers, these guys who get paid to ramble and foam at the mouth about numbers that mean fairly little to most, are enriched for high-functioning sociopathy. These same parasites wanted infinite immigration because they thought it would drive up GDP or, or… something? Whatever it was, it must have been good for the people who fund these think tanks.
Add to that list Heather McDonald, who I used to think was sane.
“Giving the dead a dignified goodbye, in your culture’s religious norms, is part of being human.” What if the dead are still shedding the virus? Is that part of your religious norm?
You really are disgusting.
“You really are disgusting”. Oh do grow up. Answer the point: if dead bodies are still capable of shedding substantial amounts of the virus, what then?
You really are disgusting.
That’s an answer worthy of a SJW.
You, too.
I’m 72 going on 73, with diminished immune response and hypertension, all risk factors. I’m not counting on my O blood type countering that. So, when I advocate for more moderate policies of epidemic control than those currently being put in place, it’s not at all out of selfish self-interest.
To control the epidemics in the USA, it should be sufficient to encourage – and enforce as much as possible: (1) the practice of standard personal hygiene; (2) the wearing of mouth and nose masks in public [a leaky condom is better than none at all]; (3) avoiding physical contact; (4) separating from strangers by six feet or so; (5) banning mass gatherings; (6) closing venues where persons might be in close contact and breathing the same air for any extended time period. e.g., schools, sports and entertainment events, movie houses, and sit-down restaurants; and (6) forcibly quarantining all known infected persons.
These measures have proven effective in the past. Going to the extreme of closing all “non-essential” businesses may ultimately have economic effects almost as disastrous as the projected epidemics we are trying to control.
Two side notes:
(1) An obvious economy-boosting policy would be to use presidential powers to divert manufacturers int the production of essential and unavailable medical supplies with guaranteed immediate payment. At the end of the epidemic, surpluses can form the foundation for a federal emergency supply system, permanently availbale in the event of another public health crisis like this one.
(2) Can someone give me a plausible and rational reason why the Governor of Massachusetts has declared that liquor stores are as “essential” as health care facilities and food stores?
(2) he have some drinking issue?
More seriously, I think that the extreme measures (I am from Europe, and most European countries are in effective lockdown, there are nuances but the day-to-day life of many european is quite similar now: assigned to residence, with some still working outside depending on country and type of work. We can still go buy essential stuff, but partial supervision is already in place for some and spreading. I guess shopping is still allowed just because food delivery is hard and costly.)
Those extremes measures do not seems the best looking at effectiveness/annoyance ratio but I think have two reasons, one official and one I think is more important, but that you will never hear officially:
The first is that states are forced to do that, because the only way to reduce contact is to force simple rules on everybody and make exemplary punishing until the amount of rule-breaking is low enough.
It’s probably true, even if I think it can be improved. But this reason is less important than the second one: By forcing stupid rules and constantly reminding that people are not respecting them, you can blame the public if shit hit the fan (R0 stays too high, or the measures were too late).
Hardcore alcoholics have a nasty habit of dropping dead from the DTs if they get cut off suddenly. Not good to have them all going through withdrawal simultaneously just as hospitals are filling up with Wuflu patients.
I have read that the virus resides in the soft palate and throat slowly makes its way to the lungs, and vamonos! So Bourbon gargles ought to work…
You asked for it
–gargling bourbon–
Here is what is bothering me. However bad this turns out to be, the people who advocate for massive government intervention in every aspect of our lives will claim that their massive interventions were the only thing that kept it from being much worse. And if it turns out to be no big deal, they will take the credit. In short, anything that happens will be taken as evidence that the totalitarians are right. .
jbbigf, do you need more evidence than the China vs Covid19 encounter that the totalitarians are right? They reacted immediate and massively and suffocated the epidemic as soon as it was identified. While democracies are still debating and infighting. China deserves respect. Old Europe’s decadence is now more than evident. My hope is America, the world is desperte for the vaccine.
Even with a promising vaccine there will still be a long time before deployment, that is unless things become truly apocalyptic such that the cost benefits analysis changes
“Immediate”? Really? And you won’t know whether it succeeded until the Chinese are all back at work.
Are you talking about the idea we should isolate the elderly and immuno-compromised but let other demographics carry on as before to avoid economic fallout? David Katz penned an op-ed in the Times about this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html
Would be good to get your feedback on his op-ed.
I can see how to isolate the old who are well enough to live in their own homes. Isolating the old in hospitals, nursing homes, and care homes is a bit of a challenge, as people euphemistically say.
The herd immunity plan. I think the Brits were going to try it but changed their minds. Not enough hours in the day to follow the politics in every country but economic hit of closing everything down is a great concern everywhere.
A test to see who had antibodies to the disease would be extremely useful, to find people who could back to work safely. True, we don’t know if one attack confers immunity but we will never know without a test, It should be very high priority.
Dr Seheult notes this in his video above. Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying discuss this at length in their new video. Heather suspects she may have already had it. We need a test.
Masks, masks, masks. It’s beyond crazy that the authorities in the West have not instructed every family to make their own mask at home.