You said it again, and I’m still confused. What exactly do you think is going to happen sooner if we all comply with distancing guidelines?
See, I can’t see any reason to go to the grocery store. Pickup is safer for everyone. That’s the problem with this. I look at you going to the grocery store and feel like you’re risking my safety because you want to pick your own produce out. But I let the housekeeper in every two weeks, because it seems like a very small risk (she isn’t around many people in a given day) and I really, really like a clean house.
But notice the focus on economic activities. Except for weddings and funerals (which are large and honestly, pretty economically signficiant), they don’t exist. “Taking the grandkids over to grandma and letting the cousins play together outside, while the 3 adults sit six feet apart” isn’t anywhere on there. That sort of low-level social contact makes all the difference in the world in terms of sustainability, but because no money changes hands, no one gives guidance. So on one hand you’ve got people saying “just in case, cut your widowed mother out of your life entirely; push her to go months with no human contact. Raise your only child in a vacuum, never talking or playing with anyone else. And do this, with perfect fidelity, for a year or more. Anything else is reckless, socially irresponsible folly little better than Frat boys doing keg stands without even wiping off the nozzle”.
You know what I think people need? A risk allowance. Some sort of guidance, relative to the community spread in their area, that they can use to develop a risk profile society and they can live with. So I keep a housecleaner twice a month and let my son play with one friend, once a week at the park, you go to the grocery store, my mom keeps going camping. One person doing five low-risk things is a much bigger deal than 5 people each doing one low-risk thing.
We’ll have slower spread and less deaths. That seems self-evident after 8-9 months of news and advice about this virus.
Maybe “a lot better” would have been a better choice of words instead of “a lot faster”, but the sentiment is the same.
It seems to me those two statements mean two very different things.
The data from Chicago, where the spread of infection is rising, shows that 2 out of 3 people knew who they got the virus from and the interactions were from within a home.
If this data is true and people are upset about people going to bars, should they (or not) be as upset that people are going to family or in home gatherings where the majority of infection is being spread? If not, why not?
[I realize that these infections include family members who live together where one person brings the virus home from work and infects the rest of the family, for example. But given the high numbers, I don’t believe that accounts for every case.]
Which deaths are the necessary deaths? That would be a helpful distinction to draw, to better set the terms of the discussion. We should get that out of the way first.
As I’ve claimed before, and am happy to do again, it is wrong to claim that would-be ‘innocent victims’ do not have a choice in the matter. They certainly do. They can choose to drive their exposure to strangers down to a very bare minimum, such that their risk of exposure is next to nil.
College kids are out there rubbing up against each other and spreading it like crazy? Then don’t be around any college kids. Next-door neighbor is a teacher at the local high school? Then don’t talk to the next-door neighbor. People at your church aren’t acting responsibly? Then don’t go to church. Daughter is getting married? Don’t attend. Your job is public facing? Quit the job. Want to see a doctor? Wait till this all blows over. (Which it will a whole lot faster, by the way, the more that college kids rub up against each other.) Get an account with Amazon Prime. Fire the housekeeper. You can isolate if you want. Don’t make it like you can’t. Countless people already are. And many, many more people cannot. So maybe think about those people, too, instead of trying to minimize your own exposure to the human race.
That’s how they can take their fate into their own hands, and act with responsibility for their own wellbeing, rather than place all that responsibility in the hands of others – others who may even see the world differently than they do.
Are you seriously claiming that you thought I meant specific people?
I meant that, given the situation as it currently is, expecting to magically get to zero covid-19 deaths starting tomorrow is not going to happen. So there will be some.
Ah, so we’re back to ‘some people should shut themselves up in their houses/apartments and not step outside the door, possibly for years, so that others can hang out at crowded bars without masks’?
As has been said over and over: for many people that isn’t even possible. Some people at risk must have contact with others in order to stay alive: they need physical help with essential activities, and/or they need to go to the doctor – and no, not everyone can wait to see the doctor until “this all blows over”. And many others must have contact with other people in order to keep others alive: they’re doing essential work that requires contact with others and/or taking public transport to get to work.
Nobody’s remotely suggesting putting all the responsibility in the hands of others. We’re saying that everyone has the responsibility to behave as well as they reasonably can. We are pointing out that one can’t ditch one’s own responsibility for acknowledging the effect that one’s actions have on other people. You can pretend that you don’t have that responsibility: but you do.
Would you say that people who don’t want to be hit by drunk drivers should just stay off the roads and never go anywhere?
Well, but how many? How many are just unavoidable no matter what we do? You don’t know that, do you? You can’t really say how many lives are being saved, or not saved, can you?
How about so others can get out together and get the global economy moving, so that millions upon millions of people can be saved from hunger, disease, and other life-taking depravities brought on by mitigation measures? How about we state it that way, rather than paint it in the way you did? Would that change the emotions surrounding the arguments?
You are damn right about that. But countless people have had to. And not to good effect. We’ll be finding out to just how bad effect for many, many years.
I would guess that there is some correlation between time of day and risk of being harmed by a drunk driver, and that someone gravely concerned about that risk might do well to avoid the roads during those hours. As much as they can, of course. But I also don’t view the spread of a virus as the same as that kind of human behavior.
So what?
It makes no difference whatsoever to anything that I’m saying that neither I, nor anyone else, can hang a precise number on the amount of deaths we’ll have before this goes back to background levels; or a precise number on exactly how many of them could have been avoided by taking which measures.
Look at the thread title. I’m just staying on-topic.
And people engaging in non-essential high-risk activities put in danger exactly those people who have to do essential work in order to save others from hunger and disease and “other life-taking depravities”.
You didn’t say that people could protect themselves by avoiding going out at certain limited times of day. You said they ought to protect themselves by not going out at all.
And we put people in jail for driving drunk: because we hold them responsible for their actions. I’m not suggesting putting people in jail for sneezing drunk: but I am saying they’re responsible for those actions.
Honestly, the issue is not people who are going back to work and behaving as safely as they can while they’re back at work. The issue is the people who are behaving irresponsibly, convinced that “COVID is no worse than the flu,” “Even if I get it, I won’t get really sick,” “masks don’t work,” and/or “it’s all a hoax.” It’s those people who are, frankly, the problem.
Secondarily, there is, for certain, an issue that certain kinds of “normal” activities are inherently going to be riskier for COVID spread, particularly those in which you’re indoors for an extended period of time, are in close-ish quarters with other people, and where masking is more difficult – that’s bars and restaurants, among other places.
I’m not at all sure that there’s a way to “open things up” all the way for those kinds of businesses with a level of safety for both patrons and employees that would make me comfortable right now. I have little interest in dining indoors at a restaurant for the foreseeable future – and that’s not just me being scared, that’s me listening to what experts are saying. Back in July, the Washington Post interviewed Anthony Fauci and five other experts on what precautions they, themselves are taking; all six specifically said that they are not eating indoors at restaurants, and most won’t fly on airplanes.
I didn’t mean precisely. It would make a gargantuan difference whether the ‘necessary’ deaths, in your parlance, were 75 percent as opposed to 25, say. Gargantuan. Which number do you think it is closer to?
No, that is twisting the point. The point is that all those activities are essential, if the aim is to repair the unprecedented devastation that has been wreaked upon underprivileged people all over the world. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot agree that we should try to do something about starvation and disease and despair while at the same time draw a line that we can’t add incremental risk to grocery clerks or health care personnel. It does not work like that. And the sooner we get rid of that unrealistic notion, the better. We’re all going to have to take some incremental risk, if we have any hope of getting out of this mess. That is a responsibility we cannot hide from.
The issue is not that people are believing the messaging they hear - almost everybody had to rely on that. The issue is what sources are you getting your messaging from? Are you listening to Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and Dr. Redfield, or are you listening to President Trump? Are you paying attention to infectious disease experts, or are you getting your messaging from the “my freedom, government tyranny” folks?
Where are the folks saying, “It’s just a flu,” and “If your worried, don’t come out,” getting their ideas?
You seem to be ignoring why that initial plan didn’t work - the lack of full implementation and the lack of federal coordination and the active undercutting of the plan by the highest government officials, the politicians in charge.
Regardless, we are here now, so figuring out the forward strategy is more important than lamenting the past. But we do need to understand the causes of the failure, because they are still around to sabotage any new forward plan.
The shut down was supposed to be short lived, predicated on assumptions like high levels of compliance, widespread testing, and following sensible guidelines on reopening. We did get reasonably high levels of compliance at first, at least in the highest hit areas, but not the testing to the levels required, and which state or municipality has actually followed the reopening guidelines about at least 14 days per phase with definite reductions in cases and hospitalizations before advancing to the next phase?
And partly because covid19 is not just a simple respiratory disease - it has systemic effects like blood clotting issues that make the standard medical procedures less effective.
Getting through what faster? The shut down, or the entire pandemic? Those aren’t the same question.
I think they are getting them from looking at the same naked evidence that everyone else is. Well, those who are looking (and not just listening), that is.
That’s going to depend on how we behave.
So we have to fight disease and despair by causing more of it?
Your arguments are nonsensical.
Definitely nonsensical. Anybody looking at the evidence isn’t going to be concluding that covid-19 is “just a flu.”
We have to consider all the issues at play, and all the effects of our actions, if we want to minimize the destruction caused by both the virus and our response to it. I’m sorry if that makes no sense to you. It seems obvious enough, on the face of it.
Speak for yourself. And let others do the same, from their own perspectives.
What’s that line about everybody being entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own “facts”?
Would we agree that US schools, colleges, and universities have identified this fall something like 70,000 students with positive PCR tests and something like a handful of hospitalizations and even fewer deaths? If so, whose “facts” would those be?
Do you have a cite for your 70,000 number? Cites for “a handful of hospitalizations and even fewer deaths?” If you want to argue that these are the facts (and that we should agree with them), please show your sources.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has had 2,286 positive COVID tests among their student body so far. The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa has had 2,612 positives. The University of Texas at Austin has 1,169 cases among students. That’s 6,067 cases, or 8.7% of the claimed “70,000”, just at three college campuses.
I can’t believe we are this far into the pandemic and some people still don’t understand that people getting the virus is only part of the problem. People SPREADING the virus among the community is the major problem. Cases have started going up in the US since school started in September.
Here’s an article that may have relevance:
It suggests that schools are not driving spread in communities.
Now, positive tests may well be going up among college students who report to school and get forced to take a test, sure. Or, were going up, as they were returning, I suppose. And yes, I do imagine that they are doing a pretty decent job of rubbing up against one another and spreading it in their own little communities. They still don’t seem to be suffering anything at all like they would with the flu, though, which is what started this line of discussion.