Do we Cancel Everything? You still Travelling??

[KevinAu 441]

2 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Do you know the percentage of those under 60 years of age that have long term effects from Covid-19?  If it's more than a few percent then I might have to alter my position a bit.

Where are you getting your figure that 10% of those under 60 who contract Covid-19 need icu care?  I'm reading reports from all over the country that the hospitals are practically empty. These are eyewitness reports from not only the public but doctors and nurses as well.

Lastly, what is your solution?  What do you recommend?

It's easy to criticize and poke holes in everyone else's opinions and suggestions.

Put your cards on the table.

Dave

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105420/covid-icu-admission-rates-us-by-age-group/

I posted that link in reply to you six pages ago. Did you not look at it? It is from the same site you posted stats from. I post it again.

I do not know what the percentage suffering from long term effects are.  I don’t think anybody has thought to collect that statistic. People are only just recovering now. This disease only became known a few months ago. Not enough time for ‘long term’. There are however, plenty of anecdotals of people who are still suffering effects after recovery. Common sense should lead one to think, even before anybody has put a long term behind them, that the kind of inflammation and damage being caused to the lungs would cause some kind of permanent effect.

Put my cards on the table? Where are my solutions? That sounds like a put up or shut up challenge. Honey, I’ve had nothing but solutions. What was I doing here the first 50 pages of this thread? Who was the ‘lone voice in the wilderness’ arguing for mask requirements weeks ago, well before any were in place? You’re all, except for a few rebels, wearing masks now, right? I wonder who?

Edited May 22, 2020 by KevinAu

[Bob Scott 7,720]

I try to keep around 10 nanoseconds of distance.

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, one of the early pioneers of computing, came to speak to my USAF Squadron Officer's School class back when I was a young captain in the mid-80s.  She would hand out "nanoseconds" to members of the audience...optical fiber segments cut to the length light travels through the fiber in a nanosecond (~30 cm, or just under a foot).  She was a great speaker...not a snore was to be heard in the auditorium we dubbed "the Big Blue Bedroom."  😀

 

[birdguy 3,943]

Bob, Grace Hopper was one of my early role models when I was in the Air Force.  I watched her being interviewed on television one evening.  One of the things she said stuck with me throughout my Air Force Career.

"Sometimes it's easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission."

I went from E-5 to E-8 in 6 years doing things that only NCOs could get away with without asking permission first.

The Navy named a ship after her.  The sailors call her 'Amazing Grace'.

Noel

Edited May 22, 2020 by birdguy

[Alan_A 1,650]

Really interesting discussion.

I like the idea of trying to model automobile accident fatalities as an infectious disease.  That's a good exercise.  It breaks down at one important point, though - in the case of automobile accidents, there's no onward transmission.  For the analogy really to hold, this would have to happen: After your accident, you'd have to go collide with two other people. And each of them would need to collide with two other people.  And so on.  Depending on the rate (we're assuming a transmission rate - an R0 - of 2 here, but that could go up or down), within a few weeks, all the highways would be completely blocked with wrecked automobiles.  That's contagion, and that's exponential growth.  It's the hardest thing to grasp about a pandemic because it's not something we see in most other diseases.  It's the reason for all the concern and all the precautions.

The question about what steps we take to prevent automobile fatalities - and what we're willing to accept - is also worth having.  I'm repeating myself from a while ago, but since "a while" means fifty or a hundred pages of posts, I'll take the risk - in every case we decide as a society how to balance risk and benefit.  In the US, when it comes to automobiles, we've decided to favor mobility (and the resulting economic gain) at the risk of a higher number of fatalities.  That's why driver training is pretty basic, there's no recurrent training requirement, and as a result there are a lot of marginally qualified people on the road.  Other countries do it differently - they have more stringent training requirements and lower accident rates, at the cost that it's harder and more expensive to become and stay qualified as a driver.  Every risk-taking activity involves that kind of tradeoff - including covid-19.  Right now, we're trying to figure out how to strike that balance.  This is an area where I really think we all have more in common than we sometimes want to let on.  I don't think that in real life - as opposed to cable TV or talk radio or the interwebs - you'll find people who are absolutely on one side ("open everything up, there'll be mass death but it's OK in the long run") or the other ("lock everybody up and accept economic catastrophe until there's a vaccine"). We're mostly trying to balance somewhere between those two.  That's why that German study was so interesting - the idea that there's an optimal point above with you get increasing deaths, and below which you don't have much impact on the death rate - it sticks at that level.  So the idea is that you can manage to that point - again, it's a transmission level of R0=0.75 - and get some level of restored economic activity with the lowest possible risk. Different modeling might lead you to a different figure but that kind of data-driven approach is what's most likely to produce the best result.

One area where I'm not sympathetic is the excuse that "we're doing the best we can, nothing is optimal." No, nothing is optimal, but there's ample evidence - both from this pandemic and previous ones - that certain approaches get certain results.  In the present pandemic, some countries have produced good results, but the vast majority haven't. We can rightly talk about differences from one country to another - other countries aren't South Korea - but there are still lessons to be learned, and maybe applied in future.  There's nothing wrong with holding leadership - and I'm talking about all leadership, globally - to the highest possible standard.  We have a good handle on what that standard is.  Managing a contagious respiratory illness isn't a new, unprecedented demand.  This isn't an invasion from Mars.  It's a phenomenon that people and authorities have faced many times, for millennia.  There's a body of knowledge about what works and what doesn't.  So it's OK to apply that standard.  We do this in other domains.  Is anyone really going to say that the Learjet crew in the Teterboro crash was doing the best they could?  The only way you could say that was if you added that their best wasn't up to the accepted standard.  There's an established way to manage a high-performance airplane in that airspace under those conditions, and they didn't do it.  We study the accident to try to prevent future ones.  I can't see how the dynamic here is any different.

Here's another thing to read - just forwarded by my Houston-based hospital physician friend.  The author, Jeffrey S. Morris, is Director of Biostatistics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His website is a very good resource for data and interpretation.  The article examines risk factors in a reopening.  He finds low risk in most jurisdictions, but reasons for concern in Texas.  It's a long read but very clear and well-reasoned.  Interestingly, he's very much against total lockdowns - he describes them as necessary in the very early stages but an excessively blunt instrument for where we are now.  But he's alarmed about some of the behavioral dynamics he's seeing.  Again, operating in the gray areas.  Very much worth your time.

That's all for now.  I'm sure there'll be more.  The day is young... 😎

[KevinAu 441]

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

Lastly, what is your solution?  What do you recommend?

Dave

1. Mask mandate. Strict. 100% participation required.

2. Government supplies masks to populace to ensure participation. Use DPA as necessary.

3. Increase testing and tracing capability. Ideally, we should continue the stay at home until the ability to test and trace matches the number of cases there are. That can’t happen in the usa unless the government is willing to step in to backstop the economy with steps like rent, mortgage, utility payment forbereances. Otherwise, the economy will have to reopen, disease or no disease. It is going to happen.

4. Reopen the economy, but with social distance restrictions in place. Adjust those restrictions according to how much testing and tracing is available and how well people comply with the mask mandate. The better people do with the masks and the more testing and tracing that can be done, the more social distancing can be relaxed. These social distancing requirements will be a drag on the economy. And resurgences of the disease will also dampen the economy. But the better that people comply with distancing and masks, the lower the disease spread will be, and the sooner that the economy can recover.

[MartinRex007 390]

For those who were wondering about what the long term heath effect of COVID-19 are, here is a good look behind the numbers.

Life after COVID-19: The Road to Recovery. 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/930547?nlid=135555_5322&src=WNL_mdplsnews_200515_mscpedit_wir&uac=118298BN&spon=17&impID=2382853&faf=1

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by MartinRex007

[KevinAu 441]

3 hours ago, w6kd said:

This brings to mind the ongoing scourge of texting while driving.  We certainly have the technical means, for example using GPS already embedded into every phone to detect motion/speed and electronics that can detect proximity of a device to a sensor (mostly used for keyless ignitions now), and yet nothing has been done to implement technical safeguards that might curb the deadly practice of texting while behind the wheel.  Frankly, anyone who has ever sent or read a text while driving has no right whatsoever to lecture any of us about masks, social distancing, etc.

And then one has to ask why any bar is allowed to have a parking lot...we know that even one drink impairs driving ability, and that impaired driving, whether above or below the legal DUI threshold, kills and maims tens of thousands of people every year.  Shouldn't we mandate that cars be impounded in the parking lot and only be released to leave with a driver who blows 0.0?

I mention these two because some people I know think the above control measures would be an affront to their free choices, yet they rabidly advocate mandatory quarantine of entire regions and an endless supply of free gub'mint cheese for the duration.

 

Those people are hypocrites. There are devices that can be installed in your car that requires you to blow clean before it allows you to start it. Your phone can also be set to suppress text alerts snd such while driving.

Places that have been quarantined should be quarantined until the disease has dropped to a level, say R0<=0.75 in that area before they reopen, otherwise the quarantine would have been for naught. It should not have even been placed. You might as well just have let it run wild.

Once the disease was allowed to run free in this country, your choices are limited to either let it take a couple million citizens or save them and use up that cheese to backstop whatever needs backstopping in order to save the economy, or hold on to the gubmint cheese and let the economy fall wherever it may.

It’s apparent to me that there are three phases to this experience. Before, during and after. The price asked of this disease we were willing to pay before will affect the price we pay during. The price we pay during will affect the price we will pay afterwards. As with most costs, it looks like it  increases the longer you try to put if off.

Edited May 22, 2020 by KevinAu

[birdguy 3,943]

1 hour ago, KevinAu said:

That can’t happen in the usa unless the government is willing to step in to backstop the economy with steps like rent, mortgage, utility payment forbereances.

I'm  not criticizing this, I'm all for it.  I'm just wondering how long the government will have to backstop the economy.  How much it will cost.  And how it will be paid for.  How much this will contribute to inflation.  Will taxes have to be increased for the people who still have the ability to pay them?

There is no cornucopia of wealth to pay mortgages, rent, groceries, utilities and, most importantly, healthcare costs.  Will healthcare providers and institutions lower costs?  What about healthcare insurance companies?  Will they forgive premiums and lower them for those who are stricken?  Will mortgage companies have to forgive the missed payments until the patient is able to start paying them again?  Will landlords have to lower rents?  How much will business and corporations be willing to sacrifice financially?  Will automobile finance companies declare a holiday from repossessions until a patient has recovered enough to start earning a paycheck again?

There were no such programs during the Great Depression.  People just suffered economically.  Have we moved beyond that?  This is bigger than charities can handle by themselves.  

It will be interesting to see how well this is handled.  Be mindful that the top marginal tax rate during the depression was 63%.  In 1944, after the war, that jumped to 94% to pay for the war.  Is the pandemic important enough to raise taxes for?  Does the government have guts to raise taxes?  Will what's raised here be talked about in the upcoming election campaign?  Will any candidate take a definitive position on these issues?  

These are questions that are going to have be addressed if the government is going to strengthen and enlarge the safety net.  And how much is business and industry willing to cooperate?  Is the government willing to declare a national emergency to do this?

Noel

Edited May 22, 2020 by birdguy

[MartinRex007 390]

42 minutes ago, birdguy said:

There were no such programs during the Great Depression.  People just suffered economically.

Not completely true, there was great economic hardships for sure, but the Federal Government did step in with some major programs, and most were under the Great New Deal put in place by FDR. These were mostly job creation programs but not all of them.

Major federal programs and agencies included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA),and many others.

 

Martin

Edited May 22, 2020 by MartinRex007

[KevinAu 441]

12 minutes ago, birdguy said:

I'm  not criticizing this, I'm all for it.  I'm just wondering how long the government will have to backstop the economy.  How much it will cost.  And how it will be paid for.  How much this will contribute to inflation.  Will taxes have to be increased for the people who still have the ability to pay them?

Noel

All good questions. For which nobody has the answers. Suffice to say that the cost WILL be paid. Between being spread out amongst many over time in terms of taxes or sharply by some in terms of death, sickness or destitution. Where in between those two ends depends on us and the government.

[dave2013 1,130]

2 hours ago, KevinAu said:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105420/covid-icu-admission-rates-us-by-age-group/

I posted that link in reply to you six pages ago. Did you not look at it? It is from the same site you posted stats from. I post it again.

I do not know what the percentage suffering from long term effects are.  I don’t think anybody has thought to collect that statistic. People are only just recovering now. This disease only became known a few months ago. Not enough time for ‘long term’. There are however, plenty of anecdotals of people who are still suffering effects after recovery. Common sense should lead one to think, even before anybody has put a long term behind them, that the kind of inflammation and damage being caused to the lungs would cause some kind of permanent effect.

Put my cards on the table? Where are my solutions? That sounds like a put up or shut up challenge. Honey, I’ve had nothing but solutions. What was I doing here the first 50 pages of this thread? Who was the ‘lone voice in the wilderness’ arguing for mask requirements weeks ago, well before any were in place? You’re all, except for a few rebels, wearing masks now, right? I wonder who?

OK.  Well, it's not 10% for everyone under 60.

It's about 3% for those aged 20-44, and 8% for ages 45-54, and again 8% for ages 55-64.  I used the average of the upper and lower bounds of the range.  Even if you only used the upper bound numbers it would still be less than 10% for most people under 60.

Having said that, the numbers are higher than I would have thought.  Like I said before, I'm 50 and in pretty good health, but I'd rather not catch Covid-19.

I agree with all of your recommendations, by the way.  I would also include mandated sanitation and hygiene requirements for all establishments. 

My only concern deals with testing and tracing.  I worry that in order to improve our ability to conduct testing and tracing, we will lose our privacy and be required to have location monitoring and some sort of verification that we've been tested, and that without these we lose our right to travel, to enter some establishments, go to work, etc.  This could really happen.  I suppose one could say it's necessary to prevent another large-scale outbreak and the subsequent awful consequences, but it's scary nonetheless to be monitored like that and give the govt. even more surveillance powers. 

Dave

[dave2013 1,130]

1 hour ago, Alan_A said:

I like the idea of trying to model automobile accident fatalities as an infectious disease.  That's a good exercise.  It breaks down at one important point, though - in the case of automobile accidents, there's no onward transmission.  For the analogy really to hold, this would have to happen: After your accident, you'd have to go collide with two other people. And each of them would need to collide with two other people.  And so on.

Good point.

Dave

[dave2013 1,130]

37 minutes ago, birdguy said:

I'm  not criticizing this, I'm all for it.  I'm just wondering how long the government will have to backstop the economy.  How much it will cost.  And how it will be paid for.  How much this will contribute to inflation.  Will taxes have to be increased for the people who still have the ability to pay them?

Government cannot backstop the entire economy.  It can only provide some temporary assistance to cushion the fall a bit so to speak.  All those big govt. programs didn't really end the Great Depression.  They certainly helped, though, and we got a lot of good infrastructure out of them.  We should be doing something like that now instead of just borrowing and printing money and handing it out to everybody.  That's extremely short-term thinking.

There is no intention of ever paying off the debt.  Values have changed since before the 1970s with regard to debt.  Plus, there's no real benefit to paying it off if you can just borrow money at artificially low interest rates forever and keep the debt to GDP ratio about the same due to chronic inflation.

Dave

Edited May 22, 2020 by dave2013

[dave2013 1,130]

45 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

OK.  Well, it's not 10% for everyone under 60.

It's about 3% for those aged 20-44, and 8% for ages 45-54, and again 8% for ages 55-64.  I used the average of the upper and lower bounds of the range.  Even if you only used the upper bound numbers it would still be less than 10% for most people under 60.

Having said that, the numbers are higher than I would have thought.  Like I said before, I'm 50 and in pretty good health, but I'd rather not catch Covid-19.

I agree with all of your recommendations, by the way.  I would also include mandated sanitation and hygiene requirements for all establishments. 

My only concern deals with testing and tracing.  I worry that in order to improve our ability to conduct testing and tracing, we will lose our privacy and be required to have location monitoring and some sort of verification that we've been tested, and that without these we lose our right to travel, to enter some establishments, go to work, etc.  This could really happen.  I suppose one could say it's necessary to prevent another large-scale outbreak and the subsequent awful consequences, but it's scary nonetheless to be monitored like that and give the govt. even more surveillance powers. 

Dave

Forgot to mention: I wonder what percentage of those 3% and 8% of Covid-19 ICU patients under 64 have underlying health problems like diabetes, heart disease, asthma, etc? 

Need more data.

Dave

[birdguy 3,943]

26 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

They certainly helped, though, and we got a lot of good infrastructure out of them.  We should be doing something like that now instead of just borrowing and printing money and handing it out to everybody.  That's extremely short-term thinking.

Our infrastructure could certainly use some repair-rebuilding.  That would put people to work too.  

That stimulus money should only have been sent out to people who need it.  I didn't but got that check last week.  A chunk will be gong to St Jude's Children's Hospital.

Noel