Covid Lockdown versus Economy Was Always False Trade-Off

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/covid-lockdown-versus-economy-was-always-false-trade-off

by gHeadphone • 6 years ago

13 18 6 years ago

troughway• 6 years ago

Tried to bring out this salient point here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635489) but seems like HN is more interested in pushing the up and down arrows than they are in using that thing between their ears.

sojournerc5• 6 years ago

If a vaccine is not found, you're bound to have a catastrophe on your hands.
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?

bavell2• 6 years ago

Agreed. IMO an economic collapse similar or worse than the great depression is much more catastrophic than this pandemic. At least with the pandemic many people are able to make decisions to protect themselves as needed or opt to risk exposure depending on their situation.

fzeroracer5• 6 years ago

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

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.

eiji3• 6 years ago

What is missing is that no country, not Denmark, or any other country besides maybe New Zealand has eradicated the virus. So we are exactly where we were in February or March. With one difference. We know what groups of people are at risk, and which groups aren't.

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.

bavell2• 6 years ago

I think you're absolutely right. Some people seem to have forgotten that the plan was never to completely stop by the spread of infection (impossible) but to slow it down so the health system isn't overwhelmed. It's a global pandemic, there's gonna be suffering and death no matter what actions we take - mitigation is our only option.

The sad part is our incompetent government was supposed to get their act together in the meantime (more testing, etc), which hasn't happened.

dopylitty• 6 years ago

"Those advocating for low case counts at all costs are basically advocating to close parts of public life for good."

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.

eiji3• 6 years ago

I understand your position, and I could agree that it can be one of different strategies to move forward, but a few things are missing in my opinion. You have to clearly state this as your policy. The Powercenter has to declare this strategy to be theirs. This accomplishes a few things. It gives the opposition a clear option to oppose and outline an alternative that could be voted on.

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.

nappa-leon• 6 years ago

The US government failed on many fronts, but the main one is testing. I think that people misunderstood the point of the lockdowns, possibly due to bad marketing from the flatten the curve people. The truth is that without a vaccine reopening would always spike cases, but a robust testing system, with possibly maybe 10x the number of daily tests, would allow us to remove contagious individuals from public and flatten the curve while reopening. Without testing we do have to choose lockdown or hospital overload, but we can still boost testing. The lockdown was like telling your kid a task would take ten minutes, and they would be in timeout until they completed it. If they choose not to do the task, you don't just let them out. Governors can have all the plans they want, but telling them all to come up with their own testing plan without federal use of the DPA is ludicrous.

eiji3• 6 years ago

Our tests per Capita don't seem to be behind other countries. It seems to me the "more testing needed" rhetoric is similar to the "we start dieing like flys in three weeks" position. Just triple tests another tenfold and we will be fine? It ignores reality.

Covid Lockdown versus Economy Was Always False Trade-Off

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