I remember you saying this.

Makes me think of the Workaholics episode.

Why do we have to quit on it? They help even when half-assed like we are doing.

lol, it's SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE GUYS


Once again, I'm astounded at what terrible introverts people are. Play a ****ing video game, jesus christ. I would love to be at home right now.

Yes, South Korea was able to contain the virus. But the US today had 3.5 times as many confirmed new cases than SK’s total number of cases. When you consider that most cases are never confirmed, we probably have 20-30x new cases a day than SK has had in total.

We’ve failed to contain it and it’s not going to change. Look at the data. 6 weeks into lockdown, the US hit a new peak yesterday.

Since the lockdown can’t contain the virus, it needs to be gradually eased. If we continue this until the vaccine is widely available (1-3 years most likely), the economy and entire country will simply collapse. It’s not sustainable.

Easing it will just make it worse, tho

How many deaths is a better economy worth?

1. If we fall into an unprecedented depression and the country disintegrates, many more people will die. The unemployment rate is going to keep rising. Do you think this is sustainable for years?

2. The virus is still spreading anyway. If the end point is herd immunity, it’s not clear we’re actually going to save lives by continuing the lockdown. We might just be slowing the inevitable.

3. If lockdowns are gradually eased, we can ensure the infections are concentrated in the least vulnerable and aim to slow/stop the spread before the most vulnerable become infected. (Vulnerable people would have to remain on lockdown of course.)

Herd immunity seems unlikely

Why?

Georgia is the science experiment in the US if Herd immunity is going to work.


Glad I live far far away from Georgia. Once the fire starts down there they aren't going to be able to put it out.


I'm guessing we should be able to know by June 1st how it's going.

OTT in March 2020, this VIRUS WILL KILL MIRRRRRRRIOOOONSS. OTT in may 2020, just wait one more month for SUUUUUUUURGE

Olav, are you having a stroke?

He sounds like the idiot I work with.

"How many people do you even KNOW who are sick??"

If quarantine works, people will say there wasn't a reason to. It's a lose/lose scenario.

There is certainly a valid cost/benefit argument for keeping the elderly/people with underlying conditions isolated, and letting herd immunity build among everyone else. Yes there are cases of healthy young people dying from this but a)it is still overwhelmingly more dangerous to the elderly and b)absent a vaccine we are merely delaying infections, not eliminating them.

So the question becomes, how much economic damage is worth it, for shifting people's infections a few months into the future?

The only valid counterarguments are that we may get a treatment or vaccine while we wait, but neither is a guarantee, and there is a limit to how long we can all stay locked down at home anyway. And that limit is far shorter than the time to develop a magic bullet treatment or vaccine. There is also the valid flatten the curve for hospitals argument, time to produce more PPE, testing, etc... however if only young healthy people were interacting, and others were protected, the strain on healthcare would be lessened.

And how are you isolating the elderly and the at risk?

Are they being taken from their family homes with younger people who go out and put into an elderly hotel somewhere? Are the staff at the elderly hotel and the nursing homes etc all isolating also or also all elderly?

Test every person who works or lives with the elderly every day?

Old people may still get the disease and die (as they are now, with lockdown in effect). Any strategy undertaken will be the least bad of several undesirable options. There is no perfect answer.

This has become OOT's thread and is no longer my thread.

But because we now know how contagious the virus generally is, and that the virus seems to largely only effect the elderly severely, and that youthful people rarely die, we have a pretty good indication of how fatal the virus is among the general population.

The CDC has now posted death rates for people of various ages with 698 total US deaths for people under the age of 45 out of 24,555 total US deaths. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

Having said that, I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on:

How long with these shutdowns last? A month? Years?

What will happen to the economy? How many will go homeless?

What will happen to food and starvation rates worldwide and nationwide?

How many will die from the virus if we continue the lockdowns or if we reopened the economy and went for herd immunity?

Will the population continue to want these lockdowns for the months to come or will people demand that we reopen the economy?

I think as soon as testing is figured out(probably has to increase 20 fold in the US) and the virus is contained is when everything will open again. A system of contact tracing most likely needs to be setup as well. Health care workers should be tested at least once per week, prison guards, cops and there are probably some other fields that would require being tested often.


3 to 9 months is my guess. At least in my state the lockdown is kind of a half measure. Yes, many businesses are shutdown but many are still opened.


Studies have to be done whether having Coronavirus gives immunity from getting it again. The jury is still out on this. My guts thinks you should have immunity but my gut isn't science.

I think the biggest indicator right now is the restaurants, followed closely by retail.
When do the restaurants open? And then what the numbers do afterward.


Because we haven't even gotten to the bloodbath yet. When the restaurants start dissolving, the jobs dissolve with them, and then the cards will begin to fall.

Oh man, and here it is, straight from old school 2+2er Joe Tall:

I predict the bars on the graph get wider as a means to flatten the curve.

I predict today's presser is going to be interesting. Trump was just hot-mic'd at a CEO meeting and he could barely produce words.

Oh, the ironing!

DANG IT!

Ok I'll go ahead and predict that this will wear Trump down. I think there's a >50% chance. This is something he can't bullshit away, he's way over his head, and it's just too much. Especially if you keep in mind that this will go on for months.