Covid Lockdown versus Economy Was Always False Trade-Off
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Any country that decides to relax restrictions will see a surge in cases, not necessarily deaths, but cases for sure. That's true for sun belt States just as much as for Denmark.
Those advocating for low case counts at all costs are basically advocating to close parts of public life for good. Which can be a meaningful public policy position to have. But then say so. Don't talk about flattening the curve and hospital capacity. That's disingenuous.
If you are a governor or president anywhere, communicate clearly what your objective is. Are you working towards a kind of heard immunity situation while not overextending hospitals? Okay. In that case rising case counts can be expected. Some states are doing that. But say so. We are not stupid.
Are you trying to keep new cases below 10 per million and you hope to wait it out for a vaccine? Okay. Say so. In that case, I'll probably close my gym and skip that state for my concert tour. But I know what I'm in for. I know who is accountable for the decisions being made. You probably want to extend direct financial support to those businesses that you are preventing from opening. Otherwise they will sue you and eventually they will win, albeit might take some time for courts to get there.
The approach taken will be very different regionally. It's very likely that people in Texas have different preferences than people in New York or Michigan. They have a very different makeup and think and live differently.
What I'm missing is clear strategy communicated by governors to which their constituents can hold them accountable.
The sad part is our incompetent government was supposed to get their act together in the meantime (more testing, etc), which hasn't happened.
This is not true. Once cases are low enough a competent government can prevent outbreaks from spinning out of control, as has been seen in South Korea, China, and even Australia where new outbreaks have happened but haven't lead to exponential growth.
The problem in the US is that the governments in many states, and certainly at the federal level, aren't even trying to a competent response and instead threw up their hands. That's why they're seeing exponential increase.
A several month lockdown is necessary to get cases low enough that a competent government response and protective measures can keep them low even with increased economic activity.
You also have to clearly state what low cases mean. It's been almost four month and everything is random. Random opening. Random closing. But what I see are centers of power avoiding to declare something as their strategy, and share what they consider unacceptable.
> Whether or not you quarantined, the economy would collapse because you would have a massive death toll and paranoia throughout the country.
You make assumptions in these two statements without a lot of nuance or support.
I think the economy would be much better off if we had encouraged self- quarantine for at risk groups, but allowed otherwise healthy people to go about their business. Giving people information to make their own decisions, encourage social distancing etc etc
Why will we have a catastrophe if a vaccine is not found?
We tried to do just that in Texas. It failed. Badly.
There are multiple reasons why this idea of opening up simply won't work:
1. Many Americans are fundamentally unwilling to go along with social distancing and mask wearing protocols. All it takes is one or two people refusing to self-quarantine to get an entire business sick and force them to shut down.
2. We did nothing to ramp up our testing. In fact our president has been signalling that he wants to reduce testing so that the numbers look better.
When individuals were given their own decisions, they went to bars packed in like sardines and caused a second wave to appear.
I would much prefer a society that allows people to do dumb things than a nanny-state that purports to keep us "safe".
Living is a risky situation. That's just the way it is.
If my 97 year old grandma wants to go have a mimosa and socialize, I think that should be her choice, even considering the risk.
We drive on highways, I go outside where mosquitoes carry West-Nile disease, I eat food prepared by someone else at a restaurant, I smoke a cigarette.
These are all risk trade-offs that we allow individuals to make their own decision on. Why is _this_ disease, this risk, so different?
We're encouraging a sort of generalized agoraphobia - if _you_ don't want to take the risk of going out, then stay home and you'll be perfectly safe. Don't impose that fear on others...
If your grandma decides to go drive after downing a few mimosas she'll be arrested for driving intoxicated. If she decides to go 80mph on a 30 speed limit road she'll be arrested for putting others at risk. And you can't smoke a cigarette anywhere you want because other people don't want your second hand smoke mucking up the area.
And this disease much like those is not about you. Arguments you make are inherently selfish because it's about your freedoms but not about the freedoms you take away from others. You are essentially arguing for those that are at risk to remain in permanent lockdown because others can't be bothered to take basic protective measures. You're demanding to take away other people's freedom so you can have marginally more freedom.
I'm not suggesting "permanent lock-down", rather the opposite - those who are at risk are perfectly capable of managing that risk themselves as they see fit - wear a mask - sanitize hands - avoid people - great! no one's stopping that.
There were diseases before this one, and there will be others to follow it.
If becoming a vector of transmission is equivalent to "taking away freedom from others" than we'd better never leave home again since we can never know what pathogen might be hiding out there in the world.
If I want to expose myself to such vectors, that's my prerogative. My example of my Grandam willingly taking risk to socialize is nothing like outright dangerous behavior that puts others at risk (speeding 80 in a 30). They are not equivalent.
Again, you're arguing to take away other people's freedoms because you can't make the token effort to try and reduce spread yourself. Because wearing a mask is about people who are sick taking measures to prevent others from getting sick, not about those who are at risk trying to avoid the virus.
Your example of grandma is an equivalent. She's doing something dangerous and then impacting other people around her that have no choice.
How? Others are free (or should be) to associate with me or not.
Your assessment of danger is different than mine. I suppose that's the crux of my point.
Let's assume you had a non-remote job. Would your coworkers have the freedom to associate with you or not? How about any family you're living with? What about people at any stores you visit? Especially since the coronavirus has a significant lagtime before symptoms appear which means you have no clue whether or not you're actually exposing others until you get sick and work backwards from there.
Then if you do end up as being a vector for the coronavirus, the people around you pay the price. Your business has to shut down to prevent the spread of it, people have to self-quarantine because now it's highly likely that they have it too.
In the course of your single-minded drive for personal freedoms, you've just caused massive damage to other people and companies and took away their freedoms.
You've made a lot of assumptions, like going to a bar guarantees infection.
I _do_ take preventative measures when I go out. I wear a mask. I wash my hands. I keep distance as possible.
There is little evidence of transmission within stores where people are wearing masks and keeping distance. I have coworkers who are nervous, and I do accommodate them by taking the prescribed precautions.
Someone is in contact with me who doesn't know my recent history can wear a mask, and can keep their distance. They have every freedom in that regard, yet I don't have freedom to sit with a friend at a bar?
You should be aware that asymptomatic spread is likely not very common: https://time.com/5850256/who-asymptomatic-spread/
> The highest estimate was a transmission rate of 2.2%, suggesting “asymptomatic spread is unlikely to be a major driver of clusters or community transmission of infection.”
It's good to be aware of _high-risk_ situations - such as shouting in a mob (you assume Texas spike was due to bars opening).
You've yet to address my point... We all take risks every day.
What's your goal? to keep everyone perfectly safe all the time? Padded rooms for everyone!
It seems you're incorrectly assuming that protesting was the reason behind the spike in infections. The reality is that we've seen multiple studies come out now [1] [2] [3] which indicate that outdoor spread of the coronavirus is much harder than indoors. You can stop spreading that lie, because all evidence points towards our attempt to rapidly reopen and people packing into enclosed locations.
> What's your goal? to keep everyone perfectly safe all the time? Padded rooms for everyone!
My goal was to dismantle your terrible arguments because it's the same tired nonsense of 'we all take risks every day' and 'we need to reopen the economy'. By your own argument we should remove speed limits, remove laws against drunk driving and anything of the sort because we're all taking inherent risks by being on the road and it doesn't make sense to to keep people safe.
[1] https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/494348-new-study-finds...