Anybody else thinking the cure is worse than the disease?

[jeff1234]

So we 'flattened the curve' and kept our hospitals from being overwhelmed. Now what?
The virus is still out there waiting for us There not going to be a vaccine this year.
Testing, which is the media's current obsession, isn't practical. How do you test hundreds of millions of people? The tests aren't that accurate, some take 3 days to get results and besides what do you do when someone is positive, tell them to go home and lay down? By that time they are probably feeling symptoms anyway.
So IMHO we're all going to get the virus now anyway (except maybe seniors and people with compromised immune systems.who continue to isolate). And as we go back to our places of employement many will find doors locked and vacancy signs. We have essentially recreated the Great Depression of the 1930's.
Wealthier people will not be as affected. Nor will politicians, opinion writers, talking heads on tv,
Both Argentina and the US were unable to manage their economies during good times, I don't have much faith that they'll do better in the next couple of years.

 

[samsam]

Absolutely. I'm not a young man but I think the facts clearly show we have a low percentage of death, regardless of age.

The virus is still out there waiting for us There not going to be a vaccine this year.

This is so simply and well put. A great reminder.
Also as you said, we 'flattened the curve'.

With those things in mind, the choice is either end quarantine now, or announce we will quarantine until the vaccine is available/there are no cases worldwide.

They can prohibit flights from other regions, require masks, suggest/enforce social distancing while ending quarantine and resume business.

 

[Alby]

I don't think the intention of the quarantines/lockdowns (with the associated economic costs) anywhere is to erradicate the virus and save us from being infected. I think most governments and experts expect the infection to reach in excess of 50% of people eventually (possibly well in excess). The quarantines seek to spread that out over a longer period instead of it all happening in two or three months and devastating the health system and health workers in the process. I think it has always been clear that most of us are going to get it; the only question has been at what point in the next year or two. So if we are measuring the economic cost of the cure, we need to be clear about what we were seeking to cure. It isn't (and hasn't been, and won't be) to cure us from getting the virus. The cure seeks to to manage when we get it. I don't know whether the economic cost is justified for those countries/states/cities that learned the lessons of Italy, Spain, UK, and New York, applied quarantines and thus did not see their health systems and health workers collapse. But that, I think, it what we need to examine to decide if the cure was worse than the illness.

Separately, there is very strong evidence to suggest that we ought to stop looking ahead to the mythical vaccine. Apparently none has ever been developed for a corona virus, and even if it were, this article shows the significant limitations there will be to producing it in the numbers necessary, and then distributing it and administering it and anything like a timely manner.

The Coronavirus in America: The Year Ahead (Published 2020)

There will be no quick return to our previous lives, according to nearly two dozen experts. But there is hope for managing the scourge now and in the long term.

www.nytimes.com

I suggest we each reorient our thinking about our individual path forward by not imaging that a vaccine will save us. It is not quite clear why there is so much attention on a vaccine even by the experts. If it is 2-4 years away (and it probably is), I imagine the virus will have done it evil work long before, and have weakened or disappeared. If each of us as individuals want to be amongst that small of the population who doesn't ultimately get the infection, we now have pretty good information about what to do, but I, for one, I not even considering a vaccine as the solution to hold out for.

The silver lining that I see is increasing evidence that the virus may have already asymptomatically been and gone in many of us, all around the world. We will know this only some months from now, when antibody testing is more reliable and more widespread. If that proves to be the case, the death rates will ultimately prove to be quite close to those for seasonal flu, and we may well question, at that point, whether the economic and other (e.g., civil liberties) harm that we caused was worth it all in the end.

 

[Alby]

This is the guy who wrote the NYTimes article referred to above. Worth an investment of 8 minutes to watch.

Why getting the U.S. back to normal in the next couple months is a 'fantasy'

As the novel coronavirus pandemic wears on, debate is brewing over how long the associated shutdowns should last. The New York Times’ Donald McNeil has covered epidemics for close to two decades and reported recently on why American society could continue to be disrupted by COVID-19 for the next...

www.pbs.org

 

[ventanilla]

The point is to keep hospitals from being overloaded. To do this we won't need full quarantine forever. Social distancing with masks and a limited re-opening may be enough.

 

[Somewhereinba]

So we 'flattened the curve' and kept our hospitals from being overwhelmed. Now what?
The virus is still out there waiting for us There not going to be a vaccine this year.
Testing, which is the media's current obsession, isn't practical. How do you test hundreds of millions of people? The tests aren't that accurate, some take 3 days to get results and besides what do you do when someone is positive, tell them to go home and lay down? By that time they are probably feeling symptoms anyway.
So IMHO we're all going to get the virus now anyway (except maybe seniors and people with compromised immune systems.who continue to isolate). And as we go back to our places of employement many will find doors locked and vacancy signs. We have essentially recreated the Great Depression of the 1930's.
Wealthier people will not be as affected. Nor will politicians, opinion writers, talking heads on tv,
Both Argentina and the US were unable to manage their economies during good times, I don't have much faith that they'll do better in the next couple of years.

Agreed, Governments basically decided that a spike in death rates was worse than putting the global economy into recession and having millions out of work.. they have severely underestimated the fallout from that decision. They will be printing money for years and this decision to take away people's jobs will lead to civil unrest/depression, social problems and possibly wars. Countries turned into sheep like always because they fear making hard decisions that might sound bad in a paper but really provide more long term taking everything into account.

 

[Fiscal]

Yep

 

[Ries]

I guess I dont agree.
I find staying at home and being bored far superior to being dead.

In the USA, I am experiencing more and more people I know, even if just tangentially, dying.
I know no one who has died from boredom at home yet.

If, and its a big If, governments in Argentina or the US do nothing in terms of food banks, supplemental checks, rent suspensions, and utility suspensions, then, sure, in the long run, people will starve to death.

I do not see that as politically viable, in either country.

 

[Pierre Smith]

Like we've seen pointed out elsewhere (and including by me): the deadliness of this virus is far far lower than what people currently perceive it to be, at least a couple orders of magnitude.

Here's just the latest: https://laist.com/latest/post/20200...angeles-county-antibody-testing-early-results

It's becoming increasingly clear that this lockdown was a far blunter and more extreme form of action than necessary.

 

[Ries]

I think the deaths are far from over, especially in rural areas and in less developed countries.
And I dont see how you can project what the death toll would have been if there had been no cuarentino.

Lets see if you still feel the same way, in, say, August.
I am guessing that Brazil will be awash in mass graves by then.
Brazil vs Argentina statistics in August or September will be very telling.