Did Sweden end up taking the best approach?

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BiochemAg97
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In reply to SirLurksALot • 8:33p, 8/3/20
AG
Like I said, our half ass approach to trying 15 different directions is probably the least useful approach.

The additional $600 (and they change in definition of who qualified) actually Incentivized some companies to lay off employees. I know some small business owners who felt their employees would be better off on unemployment.

Then we did the PPP loans. Small businesses went to hire their people back because the govt was going to give them money for their paychecks. But there were some employees who were angry about getting their jobs back because the extra $600 meant they made more on unemployment. Yes those were minimum wage workers and not higher paid who were still left a little short.

Taking the $600 away isn't going to magically make people go back to work because lots of businesses closed forever or are still not able to reopen.
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fig96
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In reply to J. Walter Weatherman • 11:14p, 8/3/20
AG
J. Walter Weatherman said:
fig96 said:
RandyAg98 said:
You're right. Your virus is going to kill us all. Board up the windows! You watch too much Today Show. Their lead in yesterday was "On The Brink".
So because I said if we'd been responsible all along we'd be in much better shape with case numbers I now think we're all going to die.

And y'all wonder why we can't have intelligent discussions about this.
Out of curiosity when you say "if we'd been responsible" what would you have liked the plan to be? I see vague statements like this or "we should have done better" all the time but never any actual policies offered. At the end of the day we can't stay shut down forever and, as we're learning now, shutdowns seem to just delay the eventual spike anyways.
Specifically, hard to say, this isn't an area I have expertise in and I'm just going by what I've learned in lots of reading. It's also easy to look back and point at things we know now that we hadn't figured out early on.

But it seems obvious at a base level that we failed on a few levels, both governmental response (which admittedly isn't directly addressed in "if we'd been responsible") and personal response.

Governmentally, especially at the federal level, I don't know how we can look at this as anything more than an abject failure. We shut down most of the country for two months, and in that time developed absolutely no semblance of a national plan for testing, response, etc. The virus was politicized early on on all sides and that didn't help matters, but I feel like the federal government in particular did very little to address the pandemic and left it all up to the states. That's something that the states in general weren't equipped to do, and from the top down the name of the game was passing responsibility down to someone lower in the order.

As far as personal responsibility, a whole lot of people seem to be putting their own personal interests ahead of everyone else and not trying to do simple things like wearing masks (and again, politicized). We've had everything from people throwing fits in stores to cussing out employees to faking ADA badges because of whatever beliefs they have about wearing a mask. We've got tons of people out and about now like nothing ever happened, and when things opened back many seem to have generally ignored any safety protocols in places as evidenced by the spike in cases in early June.

Case numbers are absolutely only an indicator, but when we're 10x-20x more than most western countries and not declining in daily case numbers you can't just chalk that up to us testing more. Yes, early failures in New York definitely hurt the overall numbers and I'm glad to see our mortality rates improving as we learn more about how to treat this, but we don't know much about other long term effects yet. And for all the comments of "those other countries spiked early" those other countries had also at least started to taper off by this point in their cycle, and our numbers aren't doing that yet.

What makes me laugh is that by expressing regret that we didn't handle this better I get intelligent responses about how I think the virus is going to kill us all and that I watch too much of the Today Show. I actually do think some of the fear of this is overblown and that we can find a happy medium of responsibility while carrying on with our normal lives. But that doesn't mean I can't also be disappointed that we're the only country that can't seem to get a handle on this.
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twk
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In reply to fig96 • 7:43a, 8/4/20
AG
Quote:
Governmentally, especially at the federal level, I don't know how we can look at this as anything more than an abject failure. We shut down most of the country for two months, and in that time developed absolutely no semblance of a national plan for testing, response, etc. The virus was politicized early on on all sides and that didn't help matters, but I feel like the federal government in particular did very little to address the pandemic and left it all up to the states. That's something that the states in general weren't equipped to do, and from the top down the name of the game was passing responsibility down to someone lower in the order.
Perhaps you can point out the constitutional basis for the federal government being in complete control of a pandemic? I would find your answer interesting because, in our federal system, the federal government only has such power as is granted to it by the constitution, and that does not include what is referred to as the general "police power." All the feds did with regard to lockdowns, other than securing the borders, was offer advice, and that, legally, is the only role that they should play. While Trump shoots his mouth off a lot, when it comes to actually taking action in areas that really aren't within the purview of the federal government, the administration usually gets that right.

Take schools, for example. If Trump was czar, every school would be open for in person instruction starting immediately. However, the only power he has over schools is, possibly, withholding federal funding, which is only a part of school budgets, and even that is not something he can do simply because he feels like it (have to find a legal basis). So, this decision will be left to the state and local governments.

Could they have done a better job getting testing ramped up and getting materials, like PPE, to state and local governments? Probably. But where the rubber meets the road when it comes to a pandemic, most of those decisions are not made at the federal level for legal reasons.
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tysker
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In reply to fig96 • 7:44a, 8/4/20
AG
Quote:
But that doesn't mean I can't also be disappointed that we're the only country that can't seem to get a handle on this.
If as you say, relative case counts matter then many other countries that were once doing better than the US are now doing worse.
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RandyAg98
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In reply to fig96 • 8:07a, 8/4/20
AG
Quote:
But that doesn't mean I can't also be disappointed that we're the only country that can't seem to get a handle on this.
I would post a lot of verifiable information that says your comment here is BS, but I would like to put the onus on you to prove that we are the "only", or even remotely close to the only, country that "can't seem to get a handle on this". Statements like this are what made me comment that you watch too much Today Show. because mainstream media outlets are the ones peddling this BS.

And don't post USA's raw case numbers compared to Zimbabwe.
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twk
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8:27a, 8/4/20
AG
I also don't understand this claim that we are the only country that can't get a handle on this. Have people not been reading what's happening outside the US? And, I'm not talking about reading US media's conclusory statements that other countries are handling it better than we are--I'm talking about real information about what's going on elsewhere. I read a UK paper online every day, and I assure you that no one in Europe thinks that everything is under control over there. The UK is facing their own dilemma on whether to lock down again or not, and many countries are experiencing the same thing that we are, with a younger cohort now testing positive as things are opened up. Even places like Austraila are having issues.

Outside of the nursing home screwups in the Northeast, I don't think the US has done a particularly bad jobl. The only way you come to that conclusion, in my opinion, is if you think it was possible to completely suppress the spread of covid, rather than merely flattening the curve, which we actually did. If you don't move the goal posts, then by most objective standards, the US had done OK.
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fig96
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In reply to RandyAg98 • 8:44a, 8/4/20
AG
"Only" isn't fair, but I'm not talking about third world countries as I mentioned earlier. The western world in general has virtually eliminated the disease while we're doing the opposite. If our numbers drop off dramatically in the next month than I'll happily eat crow.

And I understand the whole federalism argument, but that doesn't mean that the federal government can't at least show leadership and put programs in place, provide resources, etc. They just didn't seem to do much of anything, rather than being at least supportive of the states it quickly turned into a combative us vs them scenario. And there's certainly blame to go around there.

Like I said I don't have the answers, the US does present some unique challenges in matters like this and there are absolutely tons of factors that have affected it along the way. And I really have no desire to get into a long debate about it nor is this the thread for it.

But if you feel like we've done a great job managing this crisis as a whole then we're seeing very different things.
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twk
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In reply to fig96 • 8:48a, 8/4/20
AG
Quote:
The western world in general has virtually eliminated the disease while we're doing the opposite.
That's simply not correct. Lots of countries are seeing increases.

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fig96
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In reply to twk • 8:54a, 8/4/20
AG
twk said:
Quote:
The western world in general has virtually eliminated the disease while we're doing the opposite.
That's simply not correct. Lots of countries are seeing increases.
There are absolutely countries with more cases. Looking at the countries I'd consider more our contemporaries in western Europe, however, their numbers are as a whole dramatically down.
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cone
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In reply to fig96 • 9:00a, 8/4/20
AG
the most revealing thing in all of this has been how the public health community nuked their credibility from orbit, first over masks and then over mass gatherings
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fig96
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In reply to cone • 9:08a, 8/4/20
AG
cone said:
the most revealing thing in all of this has been how the public health community nuked their credibility from orbit, first over masks and then over mass gatherings
If you actually look at what was said on masks the advice was far less contradictory than it's made out to be. They originally weren't recommended and there were concerns about PPE, then as we learned about how things spread we realized masks could be effectively and the recommendation changed.

As a whole, however, there's lots of blame to go around.
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tysker
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In reply to fig96 • 9:08a, 8/4/20
AG
fig96 said:
twk said:
Quote:
The western world in general has virtually eliminated the disease while we're doing the opposite.
That's simply not correct. Lots of countries are seeing increases.
There are absolutely countries with more cases. Looking at the countries I'd consider more our contemporaries in western Europe, however, their numbers are as a whole dramatically down.
Maybe the US is simply being exposed as a population with a too many of our elderly in LTC and a generally unhealthy population that has one or more comorbity. Its these factors that necessitate and result higher testing and more case counts.
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fig96
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In reply to tysker • 9:09a, 8/4/20
AG
tysker said:
fig96 said:
twk said:
Quote:
The western world in general has virtually eliminated the disease while we're doing the opposite.
That's simply not correct. Lots of countries are seeing increases.
There are absolutely countries with more cases. Looking at the countries I'd consider more our contemporaries in western Europe, however, their numbers are as a whole dramatically down.
Maybe the US is simply being exposed as a population with a too many of our elderly in LTC and a generally unhealthy population that has one or more comorbity. Its these factors that necessitate and result higher testing and more case counts.
100% a factor, totally agree that there's an effect there.
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Beat40
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9:11a, 8/4/20
Fig, I think the problem is we haven't defined failure as context for this discussion. Looking at your posts, case counts seem to be the major driver as to if we have failed or not. Is that how you are determining if the USA is failing or not, by case count?

Also, what western countries are you looking at to compare the USA up against?
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cone
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In reply to fig96 • 9:23a, 8/4/20
AG
yeah, i'm not letting them off the hook

you tell a noble lie, you end up paying for it

i hardly see anyone walking around with surgical masks, let alone n95s

the elite panic over mask availability to front line workers was just that, elite panic

i remember being told explicitly by people on here with loved ones in the HC profession that non-n95 masks were just security theater
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fig96
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In reply to Beat40 • 9:36a, 8/4/20
AG
Beat40 said:
Fig, I think the problem is we haven't defined failure as context for this discussion. Looking at your posts, case counts seem to be the major driver as to if we have failed or not. Is that how you are determining if the USA is failing or not, by case count?

Also, what western countries are you looking at to compare the USA up against?
Totally fair and honestly a good point to clarify.

Case counts are certainly a big factor, but as noted population and other factors make that a complicated metric, same goes for deaths but I am glad to see the mortality rate improving. Daily new cases seems like the easiest way to show trends, but again population and testing rates add lots of variables. In general I'm looking for our trends across all different categories to at least start leveling off as opposed to increasing, that looks to have happened slightly over the last few days so fingers crossed that continues. The fact that different regions of the country are in different stages does make that complicated.

I will also completely admit that some "success" is somewhat arbitrary and subject to opinion (though to the earlier poster I couldn't tell you the last time I've watched the Today Show nor any tv news). The lack of action taken during lockdown is part of it, we opened back up with no real plan at any level (federal, state, or local) and our country as a whole chose to take sides during all this rather than unify. Our current political climate on all sides is certainly to blame as is the election season, the level of combativeness even just in here is disappointing.

For comparison looking at Germany, England, Spain, France, even Italy who are all leveling off and have been for quite some time. Population certainly figures in, but even adjusted for population the case numbers in particular aren't even in the same ballpark.

The simple answer is I don't know specifically what success would look like, but this sure doesn't feel like it. And maybe that's not a fair answer, but unlike some I'm willing to simply say "I don't know". I'd be curious how others would answer that question, but as a layperson in this situation it seems like there's so much we could have done better.

And with that I have work to do but I'll check back later to find out why I'm wrong
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Keegan99
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In reply to fig96 • 9:50a, 8/4/20
AG
To what extent do you consider latitude and seasonality difference impacting trends? Particularly when compared to pubic policy? And how do those factors differ in the US in comparison to Europe?

The central conceit of most is the belief that we have some great control over a very primal natural phenomenon, of which we understand very little.
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Fitch
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In reply to twk • 10:01a, 8/4/20
AG
twk said:
Quote:
Governmentally, especially at the federal level, I don't know how we can look at this as anything more than an abject failure. We shut down most of the country for two months, and in that time developed absolutely no semblance of a national plan for testing, response, etc. The virus was politicized early on on all sides and that didn't help matters, but I feel like the federal government in particular did very little to address the pandemic and left it all up to the states. That's something that the states in general weren't equipped to do, and from the top down the name of the game was passing responsibility down to someone lower in the order.
Perhaps you can point out the constitutional basis for the federal government being in complete control of a pandemic? I would find your answer interesting because, in our federal system, the federal government only has such power as is granted to it by the constitution, and that does not include what is referred to as the general "police power." All the feds did with regard to lockdowns, other than securing the borders, was offer advice, and that, legally, is the only role that they should play. While Trump shoots his mouth off a lot, when it comes to actually taking action in areas that really aren't within the purview of the federal government, the administration usually gets that right.

Take schools, for example. If Trump was czar, every school would be open for in person instruction starting immediately. However, the only power he has over schools is, possibly, withholding federal funding, which is only a part of school budgets, and even that is not something he can do simply because he feels like it (have to find a legal basis). So, this decision will be left to the state and local governments.

Could they have done a better job getting testing ramped up and getting materials, like PPE, to state and local governments? Probably. But where the rubber meets the road when it comes to a pandemic, most of those decisions are not made at the federal level for legal reasons.
Agreed on all legal points, but in the world of political theater a lot of what does and doesn't get passed is arguably optics and CYA. We'll never really know one way or the other, but if there had been a hard line, or even something approaching consistent, tone coming from the federal bully pulpit it would have provided meaningful cover for governors who may be on the fence.
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Cepe
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10:23a, 8/4/20
AG
Wow, I haven't dropped in on this thread since July 8 and what a lesson. July 8 was right in the argument here about how ICU beds were going to be over-run. A lot of posters completely wrong on that even with hospital directors explicitly stating they were fine on capacity, but the doom and gloomers kept on.

Now the arguments have shifted that other countries are doing a better job than Sweden and the US. It's pretty clear now the data is showing that shut downs don't stop the virus, just slow it down and it eventually passes through the population anyway. Places like Australia and Japan, held up as models of control, are now seeing spikes.

Sweden chose to take it all at once while others have spread it out, but in the end it is my opinion that when the dust settles it will look the same for all countries and the only difference being when it passed through the population.

It's important to note that Governments, particularly in the US, don't really have the ability to shut down everything. The people decide if a quarantine is going to work. When it was first presented, "Flatten the curve" made sense to people and they went along. Once it became clear that we were successful, and hospitals were not overrun, the population moved forward based upon their risk tolerance they want to accept.

Unfortunately, once this virus left China we were all marked whether it was going to affect us personally or not. The only path forward is through it and in my opinion (from a non-emotional point of view) its best to get on with it.
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Keegan99
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10:36a, 8/4/20
AG
Virus gonna virus.



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tysker
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In reply to Keegan99 • 10:56a, 8/4/20
AG
Quote:
The central conceit of most is the belief that we have some great control over a very primal natural phenomenon, of which we understand very little.
The extended arrogance of believing you're in control. That's why there is a strong crossover of the people you'd say are living in fear of covid and those that consider themselves 'control freaks.'
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CompEvoBio94
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In reply to J. Walter Weatherman • 10:59a, 8/4/20
J. Walter Weatherman said:

Out of curiosity when you say "if we'd been responsible" what would you have liked the plan to be? I see vague statements like this or "we should have done better" all the time but never any actual policies offered. At the end of the day we can't stay shut down forever and, as we're learning now, shutdowns seem to just delay the eventual spike anyways.
I certainly don't speak for the other poster. But I thought I'd respond, because I think that "lockdown forever" is a straw man argument that I've seen a lot.

Several places (e.g. Germany, Switzerland, South Korea, Australia, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, Czech Republic...) had pretty large outbreaks, but were able to use a variety of interventions (lock-downs, quarantining travelers, masks etc) to move most of the fight against this virus to the realm of testing+contact tracing. There will continue to be flare ups in these places. Some flare ups may even be large enough to require shutting down some businesses again (e.g parts of Australia now). However, those countries all have much lower COVID death rates per capita than the US.

Some of those countries (e.g. Germany and Switzerland) did a poor job on initial surveillance, so they had a lot of deaths early. Looking at their per capita death rates since May vs the US, and the gap in results widens. The US did a poor job of surveillance and then a very poor job of managing the outbreak since April.

We could have advised regional govts: "lock down until you're catching a very large fraction of your cases via contact tracing instead of most new cases lacking a known source." Instead we went into lock-down without good benchmarks for ending them (and then many places ignored the questionable benchmarks that were set). Having the test+trace as the goal would have put us in a much better shape for allowing most people to get back to a normal life and helping the economy. On the economic point, see:
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Matt Hooper
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In reply to Keegan99 • 11:02a, 8/4/20
AG
That is a remarkable graph. Thanks for posting.
I wish we had similar graphs per state here in the US.
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fig96
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In reply to CompEvoBio94 • 11:15a, 8/4/20
AG
Quote:
We could have advised regional govts: "lock down until you're catching a very large fraction of your cases via contact tracing instead of most new cases lacking a known source." Instead we went into lock-down without good benchmarks for ending them (and then many places ignored the questionable benchmarks that were set). Having the test+trace as the goal would have put us in a much better shape for allowing most people to get back to a normal life and helping the economy.
Well put. I had the same thought about benchmarks and lack of adherence to them that I missed including earlier.
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SirLurksALot
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11:22a, 8/4/20
Honestly, the best approach would've been to do what some of the African countries are doing. Which is to just ignore the virus. Only test those in the hospital for treatment purposes and don't report numbers to the public. If people weren't bombarded with fear porn constantly we'd be living normally right now with minimal to no impact from the increased deaths.
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beerad12man
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In reply to twk • 11:30a, 8/4/20
AG
twk said:
I also don't understand this claim that we are the only country that can't get a handle on this. Have people not been reading what's happening outside the US? And, I'm not talking about reading US media's conclusory statements that other countries are handling it better than we are--I'm talking about real information about what's going on elsewhere. I read a UK paper online every day, and I assure you that no one in Europe thinks that everything is under control over there. The UK is facing their own dilemma on whether to lock down again or not, and many countries are experiencing the same thing that we are, with a younger cohort now testing positive as things are opened up. Even places like Austraila are having issues.

Outside of the nursing home screwups in the Northeast, I don't think the US has done a particularly bad jobl. The only way you come to that conclusion, in my opinion, is if you think it was possible to completely suppress the spread of covid, rather than merely flattening the curve, which we actually did. If you don't move the goal posts, then by most objective standards, the US had done OK.
Yep. The goalposts kept shifting and this somehow became a competition to see which country, and even which state within that country, could do the best in terms of least amount of deaths when there are dozens of other factors to consider. Not to mention, different populations in terms of health/age, different strategies/reliabilities in terms of reported covid cases/deaths, and even different beliefs. Just because you order mitigations that appears to work in one country, that doesn't mean it would work here. Americans in general are less likely to lay low and give up their freedoms as quickly as some other areas. Right or wrong. It's the way we are wired. So behavior among your population may also be a big variable in terms of perceived "success".

So the question is, as Fig says, with a different strategy, could we actually be in better shape? Or just delayed things? Or just caused more collateral damage.

Maybe one could argue that bottom line covid deaths aren't the end all be all, and that in reality, 328+ million Americans would arguably be better off with zero mitigation, zero mention from the media, and in general just living a normal life. Yes, even if it meant more bottom line covid deaths. But potentially less job loss, less depression, less suicide, drug overdose, less violent crime, less mental wear and tear on the average person, and maybe even less healing time for the nation as a whole. We lose 2.8 million Americans a year. In reality, the virus is killing off many that would be in that number, as sad as it is. Before someone says "what if it was your family?". Well my family, particularly the elderly in my family, agree. They don't want their kids and grandkids making any more sacrifices for their safety and are ready to move on and take the individual risk assessment as well.

The fact is, no one knows what would truly have worked best overall. We are still in the middle of this thing and it might be 3, 5, 10 years before we know exactly what we SHOULD have done. So at the end of the day, it all comes down to your own personal philosophy. And some still to this day continue to stand on the hill that liberties, freedoms, and living life are better than the collateral that comes with the added safety and mitigation efforts. But in today's day and age, just merely wanting to live your life as you see fit is considered heartless. Even though no one has the true answers to what is best for someone else.
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Complete Idiot
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In reply to SirLurksALot • 11:39a, 8/4/20
SirLurksALot said:
Honestly, the best approach would've been to do what some of the African countries are doing. Which is to just ignore the virus. Only test those in the hospital for treatment purposes and don't report numbers to the public. If people weren't bombarded with fear porn constantly we'd be living normally right now with minimal to no impact from the increased deaths.
A third world country whose inhabitants have an average age half that of America's is certainly a good lead to follow.

Not that I don't agree with your point that a constant barrage of charts, and ticking death counts, and frenzied reports of the 0.1% (I can't back this with data, but I can't find good data on this) with some lasting impact from Covid is causing an unnecessary amount of fear. I do agree. If we tracked influenza this closely we would have people more scared of it - I know that my Covid research led to more reading about viruses in general and yes, Flu has gone from some annual non-concern to "Hey, that actually hurts a lot of people" in my own mind.

But c'mon, pointing to impoverished countries "ignoring it", probably because it's their only alternative, is a bit crazy. Maybe I misinterpreted, can you list the African countries you were specifically referring to?
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SirLurksALot
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In reply to Complete Idiot • 11:52a, 8/4/20
Complete Idiot said:
SirLurksALot said:
Honestly, the best approach would've been to do what some of the African countries are doing. Which is to just ignore the virus. Only test those in the hospital for treatment purposes and don't report numbers to the public. If people weren't bombarded with fear porn constantly we'd be living normally right now with minimal to no impact from the increased deaths.
A third world country whose inhabitants have an average age half that of America's is certainly a good lead to follow.

Not that I don't agree with your point that a constant barrage of charts, and ticking death counts, and frenzied reports of the 0.1% (I can't back this with data, but I can't find good data on this) with some lasting impact from Covid is causing an unnecessary amount of fear. I do agree. If we tracked influenza this closely we would have people more scared of it - I know that my Covid research led to more reading about viruses in general and yes, Flu has gone from some annual non-concern to "Hey, that actually hurts a lot of people" in my own mind.

But c'mon, pointing to impoverished countries "ignoring it", probably because it's their only alternative, is a bit crazy. Maybe I misinterpreted, can you list the African countries you were specifically referring to?


Nope I'm referring to many of the impoverished countries in Africa that likely didn't have any alternatives. In Africa there are 42 countries that have conducted less than 10,000 tests per million. Every country in Europe has tested more than that, 36 have test over 50,000 per million, and 20 have test over 100,000 per million. In the US we have done 184,000 test per million.

The average age of these countries is irrelevant, because the number of deaths is largely irrelevant. Even the worst case do nothing scenario only predicted 2.2 million deaths, and that was back in March when the fatality rate was believed to be higher. Sorry, but the loss of .6% of the population just isn't going to make a significant impact. This is even more true when 80% of deaths occur in those over the retirement age.

We'd have been much better off if we had done nothing and just chalked all the deaths up as an acceptable loss in exchange for keeping life functioning normally.
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beerad12man
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In reply to Complete Idiot • 11:58a, 8/4/20
AG
Complete Idiot said:
SirLurksALot said:
Honestly, the best approach would've been to do what some of the African countries are doing. Which is to just ignore the virus. Only test those in the hospital for treatment purposes and don't report numbers to the public. If people weren't bombarded with fear porn constantly we'd be living normally right now with minimal to no impact from the increased deaths.
A third world country whose inhabitants have an average age half that of America's is certainly a good lead to follow.

Not that I don't agree with your point that a constant barrage of charts, and ticking death counts, and frenzied reports of the 0.1% (I can't back this with data, but I can't find good data on this) with some lasting impact from Covid is causing an unnecessary amount of fear. I do agree. If we tracked influenza this closely we would have people more scared of it - I know that my Covid research led to more reading about viruses in general and yes, Flu has gone from some annual non-concern to "Hey, that actually hurts a lot of people" in my own mind.

But c'mon, pointing to impoverished countries "ignoring it", probably because it's their only alternative, is a bit crazy. Maybe I misinterpreted, can you list the African countries you were specifically referring to?
Well, you're both right. Obviously we can't follow their lead on many things. We are a much better country with better health and a longer living population. Wouldn't want to just copy their lead on any and everything, but I still got his point.

I still say at the end of the day, it all comes back to personal philosophies. NO ONE knows the absolutely best strategy for our entire country, or anyone's individual family. So again, personal beliefs usually confirm biases inherently, one way or another. I grew up in a very conservative family. Even the elderly in my family(and most of my friends I usually associate with) still say giving up their freedoms/liberties and having to change their lifestyle isn't worth the extra safety/security. At least, not to this extent. They understood to wash their hands more, and not be in quite as big of crowds as often. Some common sense, sure. But in terms of schools, job losses and business closures, ie just living daily life? They all agree that no one should have been mandatorily forced to shut down a business or that we should keep kids out of school for something like this. If demand caused some to lose their jobs, well that's unfortunate collateral. But it shouldn't have been government mandated. It's just the way they are wired. Right or wrong, and I know they can't speak for all elderly.

So, it seems sir lurks alot and my opinions, simply doing nothing is what we believe would have been best for 327-328 million Americans even if it would have been worse for a couple hundred thousand. But there's really no way to quantify that, or truly know the damage saved versus caused, and what would have been best for us all. So again, personal beliefs probably alters just about everyone's argument in this conversation. Safety versus freedom, and to what extent is worth it.

I might change my tune if what we did saved 3 million lives(extreme). But if what all we have done has saved 20k(also extreme)? As heartless as it sounds, no. It goes back to the idea that we all have our own cutoff, as harsh as that sounds. For decades, clearly the potential to save 20, 30,40 thousand flu lives a year wasn't worth social distancing and/or masks. WIll it be moving forward? Again, as heartless as it sounds, I sure as hell hope not.

I bet most people would be SHOCKED if they knew that 7600+ Americans die every day, long before covid. And 233,000+ per month, and 2.8 million per year. Sadly, this is necessary. Without it, we would overpopulate. This is just a world view, and it is neither right or wrong.

And yes, even at the risk of this thought process being a member of my family. We lost one ourselves to cancer 2 weeks ago. They all agree along with me in our general world view.
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Zobel
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In reply to SirLurksALot • 12:02p, 8/4/20
AG

Quote:
The average age of these countries is irrelevant, because the number of deaths is largely irrelevant. Even the worst case do nothing scenario only predicted 2.2 million deaths, and that was back in March when the fatality rate was believed to be higher. Sorry, but the loss of .6% of the population just isn't going to make a significant impact. This is even more true when 80% of deaths occur in those over the retirement age.

We'd have been much better off if we had done nothing and just chalked all the deaths up as an acceptable loss in exchange for keeping life functioning normally.

yikes.
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DadHammer
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In reply to SirLurksALot • 12:42p, 8/4/20
AG
The worst part is we will end up with almost the same amount of deaths for nothing but trillions in debt and millions of lost jobs. Lunacy.

You cant hide from the virus and when everyone goes back out the same number total will get sick vs just going about our lives being safe as possible. Taking a couple weeks to see how to bend the curve was fine but now its about politics.

It would probably be over already. NY is over it pretty much already.

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DTP02
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In reply to fig96 • 12:58p, 8/4/20
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fig96 said:
"Only" isn't fair, but I'm not talking about third world countries as I mentioned earlier. The western world in general has virtually eliminated the disease while we're doing the opposite. If our numbers drop off dramatically in the next month than I'll happily eat crow.

And I understand the whole federalism argument, but that doesn't mean that the federal government can't at least show leadership and put programs in place, provide resources, etc. They just didn't seem to do much of anything, rather than being at least supportive of the states it quickly turned into a combative us vs them scenario. And there's certainly blame to go around there.

Like I said I don't have the answers, the US does present some unique challenges in matters like this and there are absolutely tons of factors that have affected it along the way. And I really have no desire to get into a long debate about it nor is this the thread for it.

But if you feel like we've done a great job managing this crisis as a whole then we're seeing very different things.


Our numbers will dramatically drop off in the next month, because what you're seeing now is the peak of the first big spike for much of the country, including TX. European countries dropped down because their first big spikes covered more of their countries where ours was mostly just the NE.

Other than NY and some of the surrounding areas doing a horrible job in LTC facilities, the US is right in line with many/most of the west.
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In reply to fig96 • 1:01p, 8/4/20
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fig96 said:
Quote:
We could have advised regional govts: "lock down until you're catching a very large fraction of your cases via contact tracing instead of most new cases lacking a known source." Instead we went into lock-down without good benchmarks for ending them (and then many places ignored the questionable benchmarks that were set). Having the test+trace as the goal would have put us in a much better shape for allowing most people to get back to a normal life and helping the economy.
Well put. I had the same thought about benchmarks and lack of adherence to them that I missed including earlier.


Or don't lock down UNTIL you hit x benchmark because if you do you're simply prolonging the economic impact by locking down too soon.
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deadbq03
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In reply to Keegan99 • 1:29p, 8/4/20
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Keegan99 said:
To what extent do you consider latitude and seasonality difference impacting trends? Particularly when compared to pubic policy? And how do those factors differ in the US in comparison to Europe?

The central conceit of most is the belief that we have some great control over a very primal natural phenomenon, of which we understand very little.
I don't know why you keep beating the seasonality drum.

That's the exact logic of the folks who thought this would be dead in the water in April when weather got warm and therefore did nothing. Conceit indeed.
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Keegan99
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In reply to deadbq03 • 1:31p, 8/4/20
AG
Except that's not how seasonality works in the tropical and subtropical latitudes.


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