• Moderators, please send me a PM if you are unable to access mod permissions. Thanks, Habsy.

OT: Coronavirus Resources - and other things to not worry about

axlsalinger said:
I come back to this often, approx. 38,000 people die every year in car accidents in the United States. Now go through every other country. If death prevention is our only goal, then we should ban cars and save all those lives. Or the smaller # of people who die in alcohol-related accidents, we could force manufacturers to make cars that only go 60 mph, or that all require a breathalyzer to start.

And if we want to reduce all covid deaths, we have to fully lock down society for months. The issue is that nobody wants any of these things other than a very small percentage of people. These are complex issues that require complex solutions, and people will die as a result no matter which options you choose.
Click to expand...

Covid is a bit more complicated than autos though because it rubs pretty hard up against a system that is responsible for way more human lives than any other. Covid isn't a simple matter of "X infections, & Y deaths per day" as the end all, be all metrics of importance. If hospitals have to shut down and cancel surgeries because it's completely overwhelmed by covid cases, a whole bunch of human society starts to come apart at the seams. The difference between living to 80-90yrs old as it average now, and dead at 50 is the modern health care system. The difference between childhood mortality at 25% (1920) and .05% (2020) is the modern health care system.

I want the parents here to consider that last number for a second. 100 years ago your kid had a 1 in 4 chance of not seeing their 5th birthday. Today it's 1 in 200. The majority of people vastly over estimate the durability of the systems that past generations were wise enough to put into place. Systems can break down, collapse spectacularly, etc and it always happens faster than you think. Just look at government & democracy in the US. They're not really wobbling slowly towards authoritarianism, they're sprinting at it. Push our health care systems too far and they'll be a thing for the wealthy only.
 
MindzEye said:
Push our health care systems too far and they'll be a thing for the wealthy only.
Click to expand...

Its already kind of there in the US. I wonder if the reason so many Americans are influenced by media on vaccines is because they don't have doctors, or don't want to pay to ask a doctor for random medical advice.

The study team found that, overall, the proportion of U.S. adults with a primary care physician fell from 77% in 2002 to 75% in 2015. Among 30-year-olds, the proportion dropped from 71% to 64% in the same period.
Click to expand...

www.reuters.com

Declining numbers of Americans have a primary care provider

In a little over a decade, the number of patients in the U.S. with primary care providers dropped by 2%, a new study finds.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

To your point, life expectancy in the US was the only first world nation heading down pre-COVID.
 
axlsalinger said:
I come back to this often, approx. 38,000 people die every year in car accidents in the United States. Now go through every other country. If death prevention is our only goal, then we should ban cars and save all those lives. Or the smaller # of people who die in alcohol-related accidents, we could force manufacturers to make cars that only go 60 mph, or that all require a breathalyzer to start.

And if we want to reduce all covid deaths, we have to fully lock down society for months. The issue is that nobody wants any of these things other than a very small percentage of people. These are complex issues that require complex solutions, and people will die as a result no matter which options you choose.
Click to expand...
i am game for that
- if that was all it took
 
There was a time where we had a chance to eliminate the disease like we did with SARS-COV-1 if we took extreme measures like that. I would have been game for it and the whole world would have benefitted from it (although if we succeeded many folks would have been furious and felt we overreacted so there is no winning). Not reasonable to do anymore tho of course.
 
Australia and New Zealand did their first-world country versions of that and it did work beautifully. Only to fall apart as soon as they started letting anybody back in.
 
axlsalinger said:
Australia and New Zealand did their first-world country versions of that and it did work beautifully. Only to fall apart as soon as they started letting anybody back in.
Click to expand...
And they got to live completely normal, healthy lives for the last two years while the rest of the world was riddled with half assed inconvenient lockdowns, severe disease, long covid and death. Was pretty wise of them to buy time before getting their population vaccinated and gaining access to proper treatments. Kicking the can down the road and delaying infection will continue to benefit folks on an individual and population level.
 
Preston said:
There was a time where we had a chance to eliminate the disease like we did with SARS-COV-1 if we took extreme measures like that. I would have been game for it and the whole world would have benefitted from it (although if we succeeded many folks would have been furious and felt we overreacted so there is no winning). Not reasonable to do anymore tho of course.
Click to expand...
the hard part would be getting every country on board and of course supplying food/medicine/etc
 
worm said:
the hard part would be getting every country on board and of course supplying food/medicine/etc
Click to expand...
Yeah, a near impossible task but one that was always worth doing as soon as we learned that this was a coronavirus. There's no such thing as herd immunity with coronaviruses so elimination was always the best option. Too bad.
 
axlsalinger said:
Australia and New Zealand did their first-world country versions of that and it did work beautifully. Only to fall apart as soon as they started letting anybody back in.
Click to expand...
ya - that would be the issue - would have to get the entire world on board
 
axlsalinger said:
Australia and New Zealand did their first-world country versions of that and it did work beautifully. Only to fall apart as soon as they started letting anybody back in.
Click to expand...
this is more a 'rest of the world' failure than a Kiwi or Aussie one though.

the point is that there are effective strategies, but most governments chose to avoid them because they involve some short-term discomfort.
 
Preston said:
Yeah, a near impossible task but one that was always worth doing as soon as we learned that this was a coronavirus. There's no such thing as herd immunity with coronaviruses so elimination was always the best option. Too bad.
Click to expand...
dont worry
for the next one we will learn from this......
 
axlsalinger said:
Yup. No inconveniences whatsoever because #FreeDumb
Click to expand...
completely hypothetical

but i wonder if in feb of 2019 you give people the choice

option 1) you cannot leave your house for 3 months
option 2) this yes/no, on/off, etc that we have been doing and will continue to do for 2 to 5 years (7 years?)?
 
worm said:
completely hypothetical

but i wonder if in feb of 2019 you give people the choice

option 1) you cannot leave your house for 3 months
option 2) this yes/no, on/off, etc that we have been doing and will continue to do for 2 to 5 years (7 years?)?
Click to expand...
Knowing what we know now, almost everyone would choose #1. the problem is that you never know in advance exactly what's going to happen. There's no way to say those are the only 2 options beforehand. Remember how many people still thought it was a hoax even when thousands of people were dying every day?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top