# How do I counter the the flu v COVID-19 argument? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [March 13, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427 "2020-03-13T18:15:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/101 "2020-03-17T00:47:35Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > [Coronavirus: Man in Japan tests positive again after recovering from illness](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-test-positive-recover-a9404056.html) > > Goodbye herd immunity… One, these a few cases out of nearly 80,000 cases considered recovered to date. So if it _is_ reinfection it is rare. Two, the article states clearly that the experts think its being reinfection is possible but unlikely: > [@](#): > > Some experts said it could be bi-phasic, meaning the disease could appear to go away before recurring. … Dr Edward Wright, a virologist at Sussex University’s School of Life Sciences, told The Independent: "There’s still a lot we don’t know about this virus and there could be several reasons why a person could test positive, then negative, then positive again. It could have been a mistake in the diagnostic test, or there are some examples of viruses becoming persistent - coronaviruses are not known to become persistent but we just don’t know yet. > > “Getting reinfected is unlikely, but it’s also not something that can be ruled out.” A small handful out of 80,000, _if_ the case, would not mean “goodbye herd immunity”, any more than the occasional vaccine non-responder means that immunizations cannot achieve herd immunity. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/102 "2020-03-17T01:01:23Z")
The call to consider the various cost agains the benefits in a methodical way got some press today in the [NYT.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-hype-overreaction-social-distancing.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage) > [@](#): > > As an America desperate to stem the coronavirus outbreak put in place sweeping restrictions last week on every facet of public life, the University of Wyoming economist Linda Thunstrom asked what felt like a taboo question: “Are we overreacting?’’ > > It helped that Dr. Thunstrom was in her kitchen, drinking coffee with her husband, Jason Shogren, a fellow economist who studies how much Americans are willing to pay to reduce risk of threats like terrorism, food-borne illness and climate change. > > Calculating the economic costs of curtailing social interaction compared with the lives saved, he agreed, might yield a useful metric for policymakers. The U.S. government routinely performs such analyses when assessing new regulations, with the “statistical value of life” currently pegged by one government agency at about $9 million. > > Still, Dr. Thunstrom asked, “Do we even want to look at that? Is it too callous?” … > > …Besides the financial ramifications of such policies, their concerns touch on how society’s most marginalized groups may fare and on the effect of government-enforced curfews on democratic ideals. … > > … “We need to give the response to the virus our full attention,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But we’re following every rabbit that pops out of its hole, as opposed to trying to prioritize responses that have the most impact.” … Surprised they did not share a back of the envelope set of calculations … ---
**Author:** ![drivekiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@drivekiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drivekiller)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/103 "2020-03-17T03:31:10Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I was about to say what\*\* KK Fusion\*\* just said - any argument of “The fact that people and nations are reacting so strongly proves that it’s serious” smacks of circular logic. People who say “The flu kills more” are asking \*\*\*why \*\*\*it is necessary for society and governments to react so strongly, and to reply “Because they are reacting strongly” provides no useful response reply at all. raw numbers versus percentages ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/104 "2020-03-17T04:35:41Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The call to consider the various cost agains the benefits in a methodical way got some press today in the [NYT.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-hype-overreaction-social-distancing.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage) > Surprised they did not share a back of the envelope set of calculations … 70% infected at .45% mortality rate results in 1 million Americans dead at $9 million each is $9 trillion, or about half US GDP. Avoiding that justifies a pretty significant economic sacrifice even when just looking at cold numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/105 "2020-03-17T05:04:49Z")
So my mother, who is of a certain vintage, informs me that she doesn’t remember polio being as big a deal as corona virus. My own memories don’t go back that far. Is their a valid comparison to be made there? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/106 "2020-03-17T06:47:24Z")
As well as deaths, we need to consider the number of people seriously or critically ill. Large numbers can easily overwhelm the hospital system. Serious cases can take [3-6 weeks](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#how-long-does-covid-19-last) to recover. The United States has fewer hospital beds per 1000 population than Italy, France, and Spain - and _far_ fewer than Korea and China. [List of countries by hospital beds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds) China could set up effective temporary hospitals and draw on massive resources from unaffected parts of the country. Without that, the death rate would have been far higher. In Italy they have been forced to use triage and deny treatment to patients less likely to survive. People with many other illnesses who need hospital care are also seriously affected if there are not enough beds, equipment, and medical staff available because those resources are being used by coronavirus patients. That’s why social distancing is needed to ‘flatten the peak’ of the infection and spread the hospital load over a longer period of time. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/107 "2020-03-17T06:53:22Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > So my mother, who is of a certain vintage, informs me that she doesn’t remember polio being as big a deal as corona virus. My own memories don’t go back that far. > > Is their a valid comparison to be made there? Polio infects the digestive system, not the respiratory system, so it is not transferred from person to person so easily. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/108 "2020-03-17T07:39:41Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > Exactly right. He, once again, won’t answer questions or attempt to refute opposing arguments. But linking to poor quality YouTube videos. That he can do. What questions have I refused to answer? I think I am posing questions that others refuse to answer. My point that this is mostly pushing elderly people towards the Pearly Gates has largely gone unrefuted. Maybe we should spend gojillions of dollars and destroy young peoples’ lives to prevent that. I have not said otherwise, although admittedly I am leaning that way. That’s why we have discussion boards, you know, to discuss. I have an elderly mother, and certainly do not want her to die. Everyone here has a family. I think it a fair question to ask what the opportunity costs are to what we are doing. We make economic tradeoffs for lives all of the time. I gave the car example upthread. But it seems that this discussion simply cannot be had because nobody in charge will even mention it for fear of being flamed like I am. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/109 "2020-03-17T09:06:29Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > [Coronavirus: Man in Japan tests positive again after recovering from illness](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-test-positive-recover-a9404056.html) > > Goodbye herd immunity… They have cancelled the experiment now, we have no [control group](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-self-isolate-symptoms-boris-johnson-nhs-quarantine-covid-19-a9404916.html) no more. What took them so long? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/112 "2020-03-17T11:38:17Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > So my mother, who is of a certain vintage, informs me that she doesn’t remember polio being as big a deal as corona virus. My own memories don’t go back that far. > > Is their a valid comparison to be made there? Probably a better comparison is tuberculosis, something my own mother (also of a certain vintage) had as a child and which her father suffered from as an adult. In the 19thC in some countries it was responsible for up to 25% of deaths, and up through the mid-20thC tuberculosis was considered a significant health hazard; immigrants were rigorously tested and people were advised (sometimes under force) to quarantine themselves in sanitaria and to avoid spitting in the street as this spread the disease. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/113 "2020-03-17T12:35:26Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > What questions have I refused to answer? "Do you actually let the stats decide your opinion on the appropriateness of the reaction level? Is there a fatality rate at which you’ll conclude the US is not “overreacting”? Is there a total number of cases? Rate of contagiousness? I agree, we don’t have great idea of the actual stats in the US yet (probably because testing has been fucked up). So I’m wondering if your opinion on whether the US is “over-reacting” is based on those stats, or something else. If the death rate is 2%, is that enough? 2.5% Is a million cases overall enough? 10 million? 100 million? IS a 1.5% infection rate too high? 2.5%? Where is your line drawn?" > [@UltraVires](#): > > I think I am posing questions that others refuse to answer. I do not doubt that YOU think that. > [@UltraVires](#): > > My point that this is mostly pushing elderly people towards the Pearly Gates has largely gone unrefuted. Other than **monstro** pointing out it’s not just “elderly people”, **MandaJo** pointing out the fact that the quality of life of some “elderly people” is well beyond that of some “not elderly people”, **monstro** and **GreenWyvern** pointing out the effects go well beyond just death, and my attempts to get you to commit to the statistices you’re using. Yeah, other than those, your points is “unrefuted”. :rolleyes: > [@UltraVires](#): > > I think it a fair question to ask what the opportunity costs are to what we are doing. Sure it is. But asking it, not giving any answers yourself, refusing to deal with the particulars, and only linking to poor quality idiotic TV movies from the 80’s isn’t the way to do it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/114 "2020-03-17T12:54:00Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > 70% infected at .45% mortality rate results in 1 million Americans dead at $9 million each is $9 trillion, or about half US GDP. Avoiding that justifies a pretty significant economic sacrifice even when just looking at cold numbers. So start with that set of assumptions. (Although these analyses don’t generally value each life at $9M, nowhere close, see the explanation about QALY as part of the approach). The next step is making some educated guesses of how much different sorts of interventions would reduce that and at what price tags and risks to human lives and quality. Remember the consensus is that it is a pandemic with sustained community spread. The “flatten the curve” concept is to spread out the number of cases to prevent the, or reduce the degree of overwhelming healthcare capacity, not change the number. So how many deaths and admissions different between social distancing short of the type that causes the magnitudes of harms we are going see, inclusive but not limited to a focus on keeping the most vulnerable protected, and the extreme “shelter in place” measures? The harms are not just money. They translate into lives and health and education and deaths as well. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/115 "2020-03-17T13:16:36Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > opportunity costs You know what plan would have had the lowest opportunity costs? Early testing and quarantining. As soon as word had gotten out about COVID-19, the CDC should have been alerting hospitals to do testing on patients presenting with certain symptoms and then those patients and families should have been isolated under supervision. Civil liberty violation, you say? Of course. But it would have been cheap and it would have prevented the situation we are in now. The next cheapest option would have been for the federal government to alert the public early on (let’s say, February) about the snotstorm heading our way and to invest the zillions of dollars they threw into the failing stock market into quadrapling our hospital bed capacity. China was able to do it, so why can’t we? Imagine every major city converting old school buildings and warehouses into temporary hospitals, each equipped with hundreds of beds and ventilators. Who is going to run such facilities, you ask? Let’s offer handsome salaries to retired nurses and doctors. Let’s waive student loan debt for recent nursing school graduates. Let’s offer unpaid orderly positions for pre-med students in exchange for free housing and lodging and prioritization for federal jobs and student loan repayment assistance. Meanwhile, the CDC could have been doing widespread testing so that we would have a better idea which areas should be prioritized for expanded medical response. Equipped with this knowledge, local governments could have then come up with more spatially refined executive decisions. Like, instead of shutting down the entire state, only those towns/cities with outbreaks would be under a shutdown. And the shutdowns would only have to last as long as it would take to build up the hospital bed capacity. Once you’ve got your extra 8,000 beds or whatever, everyone could go back to business as usual. Too bad this option isn’t being considered on a national level, right? The president is leaving it up to states and cities to mobilize resources. No one should be talking about cutting everyone a check for a $1000 at this point. They should be directing monies towards a nation-wide medical response the likes we’ve never seen. That is how you both boost and protect the economy. Not by throwing money at the masses in hopes it keeps them from being mad at you and your party for shitting the bed for the past two months. Now consider the options we have left. The current plan, where we have a patchwork quilt of draconian and not so draconian measures with no real long-term strategy for disease control and mitigation other than hope we don’t have a situation as bad as Italy or Spain’s. Or the plan you seem to be espousing, which is to sit around and crunch numbers on opportunity costs until we find an option that makes us feel good. Well, that plan shipped a long time ago when the president dismantled the pandemic response team. Playing out different scenarios is what those folks do for a living. When you elect politicians who dismantle things like pandemic response teams, you don’t get to wring your hands over all the money being devoted to saving old folks. Hand-wringing is a luxury we can’t afford now. You don’t want your tax dollars going to saving old people? Contact your congresspeople and tell them you want resources being put into hospital expansion rather than saving banks and Wall Street. Because more hospital beds will benefit everyone AND the economy. What we are doing now is making up stuff as we go along because our leader and his party don’t have a clear vision on what the actual problem is. This is what we get for putting anti-intellectuals in charge. Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/116 "2020-03-17T14:01:35Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > This is certainly the oddest situation like this in my lifetime. I mean, this sort of utter panic didn’t happen with SARS, which is of course another coronavirus that was capable of killing people with alarming efficiency. I **believe** this is the most dangerous pandemic since the invention of Facebook. (West Nile 1999; SARS 2002-2004; H1N1 2009 [post-Facebook]; zika virus 2015-2016. I couldn’t find a date for another outbreak of avian flu, but it was sung about in a political video about years 2005 and 2006.) Even if media organizations reported responsibly, random people on social media are not. People will form their camps there: “It’s going to destroy civilization! It’s trivial! It’s a conspiracy!” And other camps, plus shake and add trolls for “flavor”. The people who have the most to worry about (the elderly) aren’t very social media-literate, and the influx of stories can overwhelm more social media-savvy people. My now-elderly mother, who literally can’t figure out how Google works, is getting audio, video and image files (often of text) through Whats App. These purport to be from official organizations that, for some reason, don’t use spell checkers. She insists they’re legitimate. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/117 "2020-03-17T14:19:26Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Again, what steps would we take if we had the Black Death of the 1300s facing us? Uh, I don’t know. Have sanitation workers drive around in garbage trucks yelling “bring out your dead” so they can be neatly disposed of in incinerators or lime pits? I’m not sure what ridiculous argument you are trying to make. COVID-19 spreads through person to person contact. So the way to avoid spreading it and turning it into the Black Death of 2020 is to reduce human contact. I assume based on your posts that you think this is “no big deal” because you a) believe only old people get seriously ill from COVID-19 and b) don’t really understand terms like “exponential”. Since March 4, the number of cases in the US have increased by on average 33% EVERY DAY. Or DOUBLES every 3-4 days or so. In two weeks, they have gone from 150 to 4500. Another two weeks it will go from 4500 to 185,000. 4 weeks after that it will be 10 million. You get the idea. If 10% of cases are serious enough to need hospitalization, that is one million people. There are not enough hospital beds in America to treat an additional 1 million people over a two month period on top of however many people get sick or injured normally during that time. So a significant portion of those people will die (way more than 2%). Some charts and graphs: > **[United States COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/)** > > United States Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline. There is no vaccine or natural immunity to COVID-19 so the only way to slow down the spread is to either isolate the sick and/or limit contact between people in general. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/118 "2020-03-17T14:26:40Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > So my mother, who is of a certain vintage, informs me that she doesn’t remember polio being as big a deal as corona virus. My own memories don’t go back that far. > > Is their a valid comparison to be made there? There were polio epidemics basically every year for the first half of the 1900s, and at their worst they infected tens of thousands in the US and killed a couple of thousand. So no. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/119 "2020-03-17T14:49:35Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I assume based on your posts that you think this is “no big deal” because you a) believe only old people get seriously ill from COVID-19 and b) don’t really understand terms like “exponential”. Since March 4, the number of cases in the US have increased by on average 33% EVERY DAY. Or DOUBLES every 3-4 days or so. In two weeks, they have gone from 150 to 4500. Another two weeks it will go from 4500 to 185,000. 4 weeks after that it will be 10 million. You get the idea. I’m not sure if this is relevant to your dispute with UV, which I’ve not been following closely, but I believe your claim that the spread is exponential is incorrect. Firstly, it’s likely that some percentage of the population is either immune or at least highly resistant to the virus would initially spread disproportionately among those most vulnerable to it, and the rate of spread would slow when it turns to those less vulnerable. Second, the number of available targets per infected individual decreases as the number of infected individuals increases. For example, if someone is the first case in his country/city/community, then everyone he comes into contact with is a potential target and a target of him alone. Let’s suppose that’s 50 people. If half the city is already carriers, then it’s obviously impossible for the number of potential targets in that city to be 50 times the number already carrying the virus. There will be some spread outside the city, obviously, but it won’t be nearly 50 times the number of cases in the city. And so on. Again, this may not have a bearing on your particular issue, and I certainly agree that as there are more cases the number of new cases is likely to rise. But it might be worth noting that from a technical standpoint, it’s clearly incorrect that you can extrapolate an exponential growth rate from the early stages of an epidemic. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/120 "2020-03-17T14:58:07Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > You know what plan would have had the lowest opportunity costs? Early testing and quarantining. As soon as word had gotten out about COVID-19, the CDC should have been alerting hospitals to do testing on patients presenting with certain symptoms and then those patients and families should have been isolated under supervision. Civil liberty violation, you say? Of course. But it would have been cheap and it would have prevented the situation we are in now. > > The next cheapest option would have been for the federal government to alert the public early on (let’s say, February) about the snotstorm heading our way and to invest the zillions of dollars they threw into the failing stock market into quadrapling our hospital bed capacity. China was able to do it, so why can’t we? Imagine every major city converting old school buildings and warehouses into temporary hospitals, each equipped with hundreds of beds and ventilators. Who is going to run such facilities, you ask? Let’s offer handsome salaries to retired nurses and doctors. Let’s waive student loan debt for recent nursing school graduates. Let’s offer unpaid orderly positions for pre-med students in exchange for free housing and lodging and prioritization for federal jobs and student loan repayment assistance. > > Meanwhile, the CDC could have been doing widespread testing so that we would have a better idea which areas should be prioritized for expanded medical response. Equipped with this knowledge, local governments could have then come up with more spatially refined executive decisions. Like, instead of shutting down the entire state, only those towns/cities with outbreaks would be under a shutdown. And the shutdowns would only have to last as long as it would take to build up the hospital bed capacity. Once you’ve got your extra 8,000 beds or whatever, everyone could go back to business as usual. > > Too bad this option isn’t being considered on a national level, right? The president is leaving it up to states and cities to mobilize resources. No one should be talking about cutting everyone a check for a $1000 at this point. They should be directing monies towards a nation-wide medical response the likes we’ve never seen. That is how you both boost and protect the economy. Not by throwing money at the masses in hopes it keeps them from being mad at you and your party for shitting the bed for the past two months. > > Now consider the options we have left. The current plan, where we have a patchwork quilt of draconian and not so draconian measures with no real long-term strategy for disease control and mitigation other than hope we don’t have a situation as bad as Italy or Spain’s. Or the plan you seem to be espousing, which is to sit around and crunch numbers on opportunity costs until we find an option that makes us feel good. Well, that plan shipped a long time ago when the president dismantled the pandemic response team. Playing out different scenarios is what those folks do for a living. When you elect politicians who dismantle things like pandemic response teams, you don’t get to wring your hands over all the money being devoted to saving old folks. Hand-wringing is a luxury we can’t afford now. > > You don’t want your tax dollars going to saving old people? Contact your congresspeople and tell them you want resources being put into hospital expansion rather than saving banks and Wall Street. Because more hospital beds will benefit everyone AND the economy. What we are doing now is making up stuff as we go along because our leader and his party don’t have a clear vision on what the actual problem is. This is what we get for putting anti-intellectuals in charge. > > Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk This was beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/121 "2020-03-17T15:06:30Z")
Fothingay-Phipps, your point seems pretty picauyne compared to what **msmith** was saying, which is that the costs of a shitload of people getting sick all at the same time is considerable. It is expected that 70% if us could be infected over the next 18 months. We can reach that target through a combination of linear and exponential infection rate growth quite easily. Doesn’t matter if the infection rate is continally exponential growth or not. The point is that a shitload of people are already infected and it will be even more tomorrow and the day after that. Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/122 "2020-03-17T15:42:55Z")
> [@Kimera757](#): > > I **believe** this is the most dangerous pandemic since the invention of Facebook. (West Nile 1999; SARS 2002-2004; H1N1 2009 [post-Facebook]; zika virus 2015-2016. I couldn’t find a date for another outbreak of avian flu, but it was sung about in a political video about years 2005 and 2006.) Even if media organizations reported responsibly, random people on social media are not. People will form their camps there: “It’s going to destroy civilization! It’s trivial! It’s a conspiracy!” And other camps, plus shake and add trolls for “flavor”. I would argue the last time we had a pandemic that was as bad as this will likely end up being was the polio crisis. It is worth noting that was only stopped because a vaccine was invented. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427.md?page=7)