# Are you willing to go broke to maintain the present lockdown? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 23, 2020, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471 "2020-04-23T22:27:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/121 "2020-04-26T02:18:49Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > There is an assumption that the economy will still be as bad off if we lift the restrictions. I don’t think that has played that way in Sweden has it? Sweden is an ongoing experiment and has its own thread, so I don’t want to declare Sweden a better or worse path, but for this discussion is the unemployment rate in Sweden spiraling out of control? I had heard they did stay away from public gatherings in droves, so seem better at self isolating than the US might be. One thing Sweden has going for it is: it’s a lot easier to try to go for herd immunity when your society has already achieved herd intelligence. What is herd intelligence and how do you know that you’ve got that? Everyone in a society can’t and won’t be a genius. That’s true in Sweden, USA, and everywhere else. But you know that you’ve achieved a critical mass of society-wide intelligence when that society as a whole does smart things like universal healthcare, universal secondary education opportunities, etc. Here in the US that’s taking longer than we thought so freely opening up society isn’t an option. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/122 "2020-04-26T02:48:51Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > What would _I_ know about how the situation is and has evolved in the place I live? :dubious: Anecdotes are not data. I replied with what the authorities in Thailand reported. > [@Ale](#): > > Choosing to go by as **GIGObuster** you should know that using incomplete or unreliable data to effect outcomes is bad practice. That would be your opinion, and you are going for, if not the unreliable one, the more incomplete one from you. > **[Economists are united in support of the coronavirus lockdown](https://www.ft.com/content/e593e7d4-b82a-4bf9-8497-426eee43bcbc)** > > Abandoning stringent measures now will lead to worse damage in the long term, they believe > [@](#): > > Economists are united in support of the coronavirus lockdown > Abandoning stringent measures now will lead to worse damage in the long term, they believe. > [@](#): > > ``` > Some ask whether the cure might be worse than the disease. But the reply from economists is a resounding “no”. > > ``` > > “In times of great uncertainty, most economists think the government should intervene,” said Rachel Griffith, president of the UK’s Royal Economic Society and professor of economics at the University of Manchester. > > Surveys show a striking degree of consensus among top economists in favour of the lockdowns. And the latest from China is that after relaxing their lockdowns new infections are happening and more restrictions were put in place in some locations. > **[China Imposes New Limits as Coronavirus Fears Return (Published 2020)](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/world/asia/china-coronavirus-new-infections.html)** > > Some northern cities have reported fresh cases and put restrictions on movement, a sign of how hard it will be for China to fully recover from the outbreak. > [@](#): > > Some northern cities have reported fresh cases and put restrictions on movement, a sign of how hard it will be for China to fully recover from the outbreak. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/123 "2020-04-26T04:48:32Z")
MrsRico and I live within our means and are unlikely to go broke\* during shelter-in-place\*\* so my answer is abstract, without immediate impact. Would we rather go broke, reduced to living in a 25-foot RV in a parking lot, or die because our jurisdiction opened-up prematurely and our old selves are infected by contagious [del]morons[/del] desperadoes?\*\*\* Hmm, let me think about that… 😕 - Unless power, propane, and water rates skyrocket. \*\* The situation here isn’t “lockdown” or quarantine, which are STAY HOME OR ELSE! \*\*\* We have nobody to visit in the local state prison. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/124 "2020-04-26T05:33:03Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > To address the op: > Hell no. > > To forestall similar questions: > Shit no. > For the love of god, no way. > What the fuck? Of course not. > Let me think about it for a minute nope. > Possibly. Oh goody. Another one who thinks sacrifices are great if other people do them. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/125 "2020-04-26T05:48:07Z")
> [@Monocracy](#): > > **Aspidistra** ’s reply in post [104](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=22269271&postcount=104) said a lot of what I was going to say. I’d just add that they have the death toll dropping over 100 per day so that by May 1st, it projects just 1,000 deaths. This seems insanely optimistic. I don’t know what type of model they’re using, but it is clearly wrong. > > As for the data and sources I use, I’ve just been looking at the numbers every day for the U.S., individual states, and other countries. I can’t predict what the actual number of deaths will be, but it will clearly exceed 70k. > > So, who is the IHME? With a quick Google search, I found this article from April 14: [US COVID-19 deaths “poorly predicted” by IHME model](https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/04/14/us-covid-19-deaths-poorly-predicted-by-ihme-model.html) I’m picking your post out of several just because… it is convenient. IHME is, as far as I know, as scientific analysis as we are going to get. When I look at the “about” part of the IHME website it is filled with academia types that are, without question scientists and analysis experts in their respective fields. It is, by and large, the exact template for “experts” in this type of field. And now people are calling into question their predictions. Science is like that. People make models and predictions and then it is reviewed and subject to further scrutiny. But the thing that gets me is that if I were to say, “science gets things wrong”, I’d be obliterated on this board as being a denier and castigated for questioning the results as offered by experts in the field. And now here we are. There are experts with predictions that are wildly variable. If I offer a scientific site with certain predictions, it is questioned and refuted. In short, at this point in time it would seem there are no defacto experts on any of this. Only those that align with our own personal conceptions. We need to accept that and realize the error bars on all of this are so wide that science is not going to be the one to find our best path. Science cannot help us because we just do not know enough to leave it up to science. It can guide us, but that is the best we can do. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/126 "2020-04-26T06:49:54Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > But the thing that gets me is that if I were to say, “science gets things wrong”, I’d be obliterated on this board as being a denier and castigated for questioning the results as offered by experts in the field. I think that you miss that those are scientists too, the ones that are finding the issues with a model, pushing science to become better. Nothing wrong with that. > [@cmosdes](#): > > And now here we are. There are experts with predictions that are wildly variable. If I offer a scientific site with certain predictions, it is questioned and refuted. > > In short, at this point in time it would seem there are no defacto experts on any of this. Only those that align with our own personal conceptions. We need to accept that and realize the error bars on all of this are so wide that science is not going to be the one to find our best path. Science cannot help us because we just do not know enough to leave it up to science. It can guide us, but that is the best we can do. As I learned in many climate change discussions, uncertainty is not your fried,\*\* it is not really good to assume that in this case one cite or model refutes others, in modeling, one has to look at several models to get a better picture. \*\* In past discussions it was clear that people that dismissed science could not do much about the evidence, so the uncertainty was pumped up. Unfortunately in those discussions it was clear that making the uncertainty to be so high while they made rosy predictions about how little the emitted CO2 was going to warm the earth, they also made just as likely the possibility that worst warming scenarios were just as likely. In this case I see the similarity coming from people that would insist on dismissing science, while there is uncertainty, dismissing the lot of it is not a good thing to do, one thing to realize is that while climate models are more accurate nowadays it is because they have constant and more reliable data to work with, a lot of the problems of the epidemiology models in the USA have are related to the scandalous lack of more testing, problems with reporting and one big fly in the ointment added: the uncertainty of when and how politicians will change policy. > **[What 5 Coronavirus Models Say the Next Month Will Look Like (Published 2020)](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/22/upshot/coronavirus-models.html)** > > The least pessimistic model is the one most frequently cited by the White House. > [@](#): > > Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician who runs a seasonal flu forecasting lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said it was important to collect outputs from all the models, because of the uncertainty around all the projections. > > “If you’re just looking at one model, you’re not seeing the full diversity of what could happen,” said Mr. Reich, who leads the team that aggregated the data. > [@](#): > > A review of all these models shows how much they are adapting to new information. The projections change, as new death counts and public health research bring them closer to understanding how the disease, and the people it affects, are behaving. Most of the projections have reduced their expected number of cases and deaths in the coming weeks. > > Although some politicians like to treat the models as precise, all of them include large bands of uncertainty around their principal projections. In some cases, the real numbers have ended up outside these ranges more often than they should, a sign that the modelers have underestimated how little they know. > > Samuel Clark, a demographer at Ohio State University, says he has been closely watching the model from Imperial College London for a sense of how the epidemic might respond to different scenarios, but he does not currently expect any of the models to function like crystal balls. > > “They’re basing their model on very few data, and because of that you have very large uncertainty,” Mr. Clark said. > > Errors may come from methodological flaws in the models. And they may come from errors in assumptions about the disease, like its fatality rate. But they may also come because no mathematical model can be sure what actions governments and individuals will take in the face of a prolonged epidemic. > [@](#): > > Dimitris Bertsimas, a co-author of a model from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said his team had declined to make very long-term predictions, given the policy uncertainty. > > “We are reasonably certain until approximately June 15 there will be significant measures” to contain the spread of the virus, said Mr. Bertsimas, an associate dean of business analytics at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management. “After that, God knows.” ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/127 "2020-04-26T07:47:54Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > Oh goody. Another one who thinks sacrifices are great if other people do them. Once we reach herd intelligence we will understand that we all must sacrifice at times, but it might not be at the same times. It’s part of the cycle of life in an intelligent society. The society itself collectively acts intelligently–not every individual in it, but all benefit. Again, it’s like herd immunity. Not everyone is personally immune but all benefit. One personally doesn’t have to be very intelligent but one does have to be sufficiently enculturated and civically responsible for herd intelligence to be achieved. Here in the USA we don’t have that so we do not have herd intelligence. Sad. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/128 "2020-04-26T07:56:31Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > Not sure of the exact date. Not long ago. A quick google search should turn it up for you. It’s your assertion. The [article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-22/fed-s-bullard-says-u-s-jobless-rate-may-soar-to-30-in-2q) I pulled up on the St. Louis’ Fed chair’s prediction is dated March 22, 2020, way before any other predictions, before much of the reality played out and was out of line with other people’s predictions cited in the article, even back then. > [@cmosdes](#): > > Fair enough. I’ve seen other places that said it would be much higher. It is pure speculation, so pick a number you like and find a cite for it. This could go back and forth a lot because no one really knows. If no one knows, there isn’t a way to make a reasoned decision on your plan. It’s not hypocritical to not follow a plan based on your pure speculation because anyone else can claim a number lower than yours and claim it to be fact without evidence. > [@cmosdes](#): > > Yep, I’ve read that many times. St. Louis vs. Philadelphia, I think. I’m just not going to put a lot of trust in a study that is looking at events over 100 years old dealing with economies that were VASTLY different. As between old evidence and no evidence, it’s more reasonable to start with old evidence and try to account for the differences. It’s not reasonable to handwave away old evidence in favor of no evidence and expect other people to agree. > [@cmosdes](#): > > I can equally point to studies that link deaths to unemployment. Again, we can play the game of finding cites as much as you’d like. And yet you’ve come up with only one cite and even that cite contradicted one of your other claims. > [@cmosdes](#): > > I never claimed higher deaths were due to suicide rates. I suspect they are due to uninsured, which is what my original claim was about, not directly because of a recession. So there is a huge difference in what you are citing vs. what I’m claiming. Additionally, I don’t have a study to show that people are more likely to suffer stress, anxiety and fear when they are laid off. Is that not self-evident? No, it’s not self-evident. People who are getting laid off are getting[unemployment benefits plus $600/wk](https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/unemployment-benefits-cares-act-covid-pandemic/index.html). For some people, that’s more than they were making before, and it’s guaranteed for 4 months, which is more than some employers could guarantee at this point in time. I read [a thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=893170) where a part-time worker asked to be laid off so he could get the increased benefits and avoid the risk of getting laid off. Those people also get the advantage of being able to shelter in place and not risk a higher probability of getting sick and perhaps dying. On the flip side, I’ve seen people who are essential workers and therefore forced to work and who are really anxious and stressed out about their health. It’s an uncertain time. There’s plenty of anxiety to go around. > [@cmosdes](#): > > You are saying we can’t take the money from those that are working and there isn’t enough money from those that are rich enough to not have to work. Where is the money going to come from? MANY of the people who have been laid off were living paycheck to paycheck and now THEY have no paycheck at all. Again, my stance is that if you went to many of those people and asked if they were willing to work for benefits only for the next several months, they’d take it in a heartbeat. Why would they? Right now, people getting laid off get unemployment benefits plus $600/wk for at least 4 months. They’d be eligible for COBRA or could get subsidized health insurance off the exchanges or Medicaid if their state has it. They wouldn’t be getting a 401K matching if they weren’t getting paid, so there’s no benefit there. And there’s no guarantee their job would be there if the economy did open back up as you noted in post #3 where you say: > [@cmosdes](#): > > I never pretended there is a guarantee that opening things will return the economy to normal. That is why the requirement you give up your paycheck is contingent on the lockdowns being lifted, not that jobs are recovered. > > It is one thing to have an open economy that is depressed because people are restricting themselves. It is another to be forced to close the economy because it is for the good of us all. If it is for the good of us all, those still working should, likewise, be doing so for the good of us all. If not, you are a hypocrite. The part about this quote you haven’t proven or even shown any evidence of is that opening of the economy is for the good of us all. Without showing how opening the economy is for the good of us all, your whole theory falls apart. > [@cmosdes](#): > > Did you read that cite? It says no such thing. It says they are considering it and may adopt a stricter enforcement. It doesn’t come close to saying they are actively going into lockdown. I wrote that Sweden is going the opposite direction of opening up the economy. Stricter enforcement of social distancing is in the opposite direction of opening up the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/129 "2020-04-26T12:48:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > This is staggeringly illogical. Yep. I already pointed out this very problem with **Magiver** ’s argument and he never even acknowledged it. And here you point it out again, but when he responded to your post he clipped out everything about population densities. I doubt we’ll hear back from him about it. 1. Make flawed argument 2. Receive feedback that negates said argument 3. Pretend nobody wrote anything and change the topic ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/130 "2020-04-26T12:51:54Z")
Oh \*\*Jackknifed Juggernaut \*\*pointed it out too. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/131 "2020-04-26T13:12:44Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > But the thing that gets me is that if I were to say, “science gets things wrong”, I’d be obliterated on this board as being a denier and castigated for questioning the results as offered by experts in the field. Yes, science gets things wrong. However what gets people castigated as a “denier” or whatever is when they replace science with their own personal beliefs. > [@I Love Me](#): > > Once we reach herd intelligence we will understand that we all must sacrifice at times, but it might not be at the same times. It’s part of the cycle of life in an intelligent society. > > The society itself collectively acts intelligently–not every individual in it, but all benefit. Again, it’s like herd immunity. Not everyone is personally immune but all benefit. > > One personally doesn’t have to be very intelligent but one does have to be sufficiently enculturated and civically responsible for herd intelligence to be achieved. Here in the USA we don’t have that so we do not have herd intelligence. > > Sad. Because here is the USA we have too many people who think that “freedom” means “I can do whatever I want and everyone else can fuck themselves”. No one wants to be inconvenienced or told to…not even make “sacrifices”…just do common sense things like “not throw or go to parties” and “stay as home as much as possible”. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/132 "2020-04-26T13:12:45Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Anecdotes are not data. I replied with what the authorities in Thailand reported. Argument from authority is also a fallacy. Besides, I brought up data, which of course you ignored entirely, so we can throw a strawman into the pile as well. > [@Magiver](#): > > I get your perspective except I think it’s missing some detail. When this started we didn’t know what to expect. Based on different versions of the virus it was thought that it would double every 6 days. However, when you look at the death rate it was doubling at less then 3 days. > > Starting with 115 actual deaths on March 17 and doubling it every 6 days we would be at 15,000 by the end of April. But doubling every 3 days puts the number at 1.8 million. > > If we knew that young healthy people tended to survive the disease we might have chosen a different path and diverted funds to the elderly and those with per-existing conditions. But we didn’t. All we knew is New York city spun out of control in a matter of weeks and we would be overwhelmed if that continued to other cities. We would have run out of medical personnel and that would have been it. Here the deaths so far are 51 or so since the first one on March 1st, doubling every 3 days it should be 416,000 deaths by now, and every 6 days 645. Half the total cases for Thailand have happened in the capital, Bangkok’s population is roughly the same as New York, packed subways and public transportation, crowding, you name it. Yet vastly different outcomes even with Bangkok having a six week headstart, 25 vs 17.000. New York reported infections took 10 days, March 7 to March 17, to get to similar level of cases (1700) in Bangkok today after 103 days, with the first 60 or so days having no lockdowns of any kind and adding up to at most 50 reported cases. To make it clear, after two months in Bangkok with no lockdowns reported infections added up to about 50, in New York it hasn’t been two months yet since the first case and the number is close to 300.000. Can anyone explain that… let me get the calculator… _six hundred thousand percent_ difference? What I’m saying is that unless such wild discrepancies can be explained there’s no way of claiming with any certainty what the impact of different variables, such as lockdowns, are. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/133 "2020-04-26T14:44:06Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Yep. I already pointed out this very problem with **Magiver** ’s argument and he never even acknowledged it. The moderator responded for me. If you want to attack people as you just did again, then your expectations of a response are unrealistic. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/134 "2020-04-26T15:19:02Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Can anyone explain that… let me get the calculator… _six hundred thousand percent_ difference? > > What I’m saying is that unless such wild discrepancies can be explained there’s no way of claiming with any certainty what the impact of different variables, such as lockdowns, are. You’re right. We can’t explain what’s going on in real-time. However, the lockdowns were a response to unknown variables of transmission. We didn’t know how deadly it was, lag time before symptoms showed, the rate it spread, how to treat it, etc… I’m looking at a press conference for my state as I type this. the doctor giving the update used the word “blunt-instrument” to describe the lock down. Personally, I think masks in public look like the best bang-for-the-buck to lower the spread of the disease in public venues. It won’t surprise me to find out there’s a solid relationship between high levels of masks used in public and lower death rates. But again, we didn’t know the variables of the virus ahead of time so lock-downs are the first response. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/135 "2020-04-26T15:39:58Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > The moderator responded for me. If you want to attack people as you just did again, then your expectations of a response are unrealistic. We’re talking about Sweden now. You brought up the population of Sweden vs NYC, prompting now three people to explain how population density works. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/136 "2020-04-26T15:40:37Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You’re right. We can’t explain what’s going on in real-time. > > However, the lockdowns were a response to unknown variables of transmission. We didn’t know how deadly it was, lag time before symptoms showed, the rate it spread, how to treat it, etc… > > I’m looking at a press conference for my state as I type this. the doctor giving the update used the word “blunt-instrument” to describe the lock down. > > Personally, I think masks in public look like the best bang-for-the-buck to lower the spread of the disease in public venues. It won’t surprise me to find out there’s a solid relationship between high levels of masks used in public and lower death rates. But again, we didn’t know the variables of the virus ahead of time so lock-downs are the first response. Better safe than sorry, wouldn’t you say? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/137 "2020-04-26T15:54:26Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > We’re talking about Sweden now. You brought up the population of Sweden vs NYC, prompting now three people to explain how population density works. Specifically: > [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > You’re attempting to compare Sweden, a country of 10 million, to NYC? Manhattan itself has a weekday population of 4 million (all in a 20 sq.mi. area). > [@Magiver](#): > > Yes, I’m comparing a city of 8.8 million to a country of 10 million. > [@Ruken](#): > > Of course we all know that the population density of Stockholm is one fifth that of NYC, and the population density of Sweden is one one-thousandth that of NYC. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > This is staggeringly illogical. > > We’re talking about a virus that spreads primarily among closely-packed population groups and is extra-deadly to old folks. > > In your first paragraph, you compare the death rates for some of the most closely-packed Americans to the death rates for an entire country. Sweden has a population density of 26 people per square mile. NYC, by contrast, has a population density a little above 26 THOUSAND people per square mile. And you’re gonna try to compare the death rates in these two geographic areas? Pointing out your error is not an attack, nor is pointing out that you have neglected to address any of the three different time posters have pointed out population density to you. Maybe you don’t want to respond to me because I pointed out the unsettling content in your posts about Chinese people. But that’s no excuse for the other two posters. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/138 "2020-04-26T16:02:31Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > Oh goody. Another one who thinks sacrifices are great if other people do them. I thought my meaning was plain, but apparently not. So let me make it plainer. I am in favor of sacrifices **that make a difference** , and I am willing to make such sacrifices myself, and to ask them of others. But you’re fundamentally misunderstanding cause and effect here. “Going broke” isn’t the cause of “maintaining the present lockdown.” Nor is it the cause of reducing deaths. Rather, reducing deaths and SOME PEOPLE going broke both are the effects of similar causes, i.e., extreme social distancing. One effect is good, the other is bad, and we should be working like hell to maximize the good effect and minimize the bad effect. When you ask me if I’m willing to get an extreme version of one effect in order to get the version of the other, you’re jumbling everything up into nonsense. Now, your OP could be fixed. One way to fix it would be to ask the question something like this: > [@](#): > > Take these premises as given: > > 1. The pandemic is going to be really bad unless extreme social distancing kicks in. > 2. There’s no alternative to your giving up your job if extreme social distancing kicks in. > 3. There’s nothing our society can do for your income if you lose your job. > > With these premises, would you be willing to advocate extreme social distancing? Under those parameters, yes, I would be willing to make that sacrifice. It would really suck, but would be better than the alternative. HOWEVER, I strongly dispute premise 2 and 3: they assume late-stage unregulated capitalism to an extreme degree unmatched even by Mitch McConnell. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/139 "2020-04-26T16:06:09Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > yes the social distancing brought the rates down. That’s not the argument. The argument is whether it was the most cost effective method. > > If we focused on nursing homes early on we may have cut the death rate in half and at a much smaller cost. > > You can smother a fire with bundles of $100 bills or you can throw .25 cents worth of water on it. The results are the same. It’s important to get the best results for the least amount of money because those efficiencies mean lives. As for this, can we agree that your nonsensical comparison to Sweden is to be discarded, so we can focus on nursing homes instead? If you’d like to talk about an approach involving nursing homes and explain why you think you’ve got a better understanding of epidemics than epidemiologists, please do so, with details of your alternative plan (including how you’re going to keep disease from spreading in the general population). Keep in mind that we have such comparatively high rates in nursing homes **because it’s harder to practice social distancing there**. If we weren’t shutting down the economy everywhere, the rates of death among elderly not in nursing homes would likely surpass the rates of death among the nursing home elderly, given the comparative lack of medical treatment in the former group. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-willing-to-go-broke-to-maintain-the-present-lockdown/852471/140 "2020-04-26T16:42:10Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > It’s your assertion. > > The [article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-22/fed-s-bullard-says-u-s-jobless-rate-may-soar-to-30-in-2q) I pulled up on the St. Louis’ Fed chair’s prediction is dated March 22, 2020, way before any other predictions, before much of the reality played out and was out of line with other people’s predictions cited in the article, even back then. If anything, the Fed’s predictions are much closer to reality than any we’ve seen from that time. The unemployment predictions back that I recall from that time were far less severe than what we’ve seen played out in just the past 3 weeks alone. > [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > If no one knows, there isn’t a way to make a reasoned decision on your plan. It’s not hypocritical to not follow a plan based on your pure speculation because anyone else can claim a number lower than yours and claim it to be fact without evidence. Except what we are doing now is based on some speculation, too. There is evidence for both paths, which is where we can get into dueling cites. It is pointless. I can point to Wuhan and Sweden. You can point to Italy and Spain. I can point to various areas around the country NOT NY, you can point to NY. We can both point to the USS Roosevelt. > [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > As between old evidence and no evidence, it’s more reasonable to start with old evidence and try to account for the differences. It’s not reasonable to handwave away old evidence in favor of no evidence and expect other people to agree. You want to make decisions affecting millions of people based on a disease that affected the society in wildly different ways, happened over 100 years ago, during a time when a world war was raging and the science to deal with and respond to the disease were extraordinarily primitive compared to what we know today? That seems foolish. I’m not hand waving it away. I’m saying the circumstances are so vastly different the data collected from what happened previously is really difficult to use it to rationalize hurting millions upon millions of people. > [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > Why would they? Right now, people getting laid off get unemployment benefits plus $600/wk for at least 4 months. They’d be eligible for COBRA or could get subsidized health insurance off the exchanges or Medicaid if their state has it. They wouldn’t be getting a 401K matching if they weren’t getting paid, so there’s no benefit there. Why do we need universal healthcare if healthcare is so easy to obtain, then? Have you ever seen how much COBRA costs? It is crazy expensive. People who are still working would still get their 401(k) contributions because instead of getting their net pay, they’d just be getting a fraction of it and all the other benefits would exist. 401(k) contributions are generally made on gross, not net. > [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > The part about this quote you haven’t proven or even shown any evidence of is that opening of the economy is for the good of us all. Without showing how opening the economy is for the good of us all, your whole theory falls apart. I would think it is completely self evident that preventing people from going out and patronizing businesses will necessarily keep more people from patronizing businesses than if we didn’t prevent them. So that raises the question of whether it is for the good of society in general. In my county there are 100,000 people. 25! have been diagnosed with COVID19. Meanwhile, the local clinic is talking about closing because they have no money. Anecdotal, to be sure. I went by Home Depot and there was a line 20 people long to get in the store. Home Depot is doing just fine and the medical clinic is going under. People are all but ignoring the shelter in place and the only thing we are accomplishing is preventing other businesses from operating. Meanwhile, the infection rate here is 0.025%. Sure, makes sense to make a clinic employing hundreds of people, offering medical care to thousands of people, shut down for that infection rate, right? However, this is far afield from the OP, which was to ask if people are willing to give up their paycheck (net), or most of it, so we can all share in the pain this is causing our society as a whole. Some have had to give up jobs. Others, as you said, are “essential” employees and have to deal with interacting with the public. Others, like those still lucky enough to have a job, are doing nothing. So I put it to those who have a job and claiming we need to keep things locked down “for the good of us all”. Are you willing to go broke to help share the burden this is putting on others? It is a rather simple question. Some are claiming it won’t be any benefit overall if they have to give up most, if not all, of their pay. But the money to pay for all this unemployment and to keep essential businesses open has to come from somewhere. There will be more money to help support those that need it if those still working donate to those not working. > [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > I wrote that Sweden is going the opposite direction of opening up the economy. Stricter enforcement of social distancing is in the opposite direction of opening up the economy. Yeah, even that isn’t true from the article. They have the same policies they’ve always had. Sweden, as a country, isn’t setting any new policies. 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