[rosybox]

It's going to be wiped out far beyond June. Based on the recent models run by UK, the same models that prompted the White House to warn against gatherings of greater than 10 people, the curve doesn't end even without intervention until August. With intervention what we are going through right now could last well into 2021.

[zamfi]

This is not clear. Right now we need lockdown because:

a) We have a large number of infected people (> 10,000) and have no idea who or where they are, because testing sucks.

b) If exponential growth continues (and it would, because we can't isolate all the people who are sick right now), we'll overwhelm hospital facilities and the fatality rate will hit 5% instead of <1%.

BUT

As soon as we clear out a), that kills b) too -- in South Korea they're doing effective contact tracing, testing, and isolation because they have few enough cases. Once we bend the knee of the growth curve, once we get get R0 below 1, we'll have exponential drop-off instead of growth. In 8 weeks, with few enough active cases and robust testing infrastructure, we'll be able to do what China has started doing, and what SK has been doing all along.

Of course, that's assuming we get our act together on lockdown & testing infrastructure. But if we do, we could be out of lockdown by June.

All these folks saying "we need to flatten the curve so that everyone gets it over 41 years!" are extrapolating the wrong data points...

[wwweston]

> "we need to flatten the curve so that everyone gets it over 41 years!"

Is this hyperbole, or is anyone actually saying 41 years?

I haven't done careful math, but eyeballing it, roughly a year (give or take some months) is the longest I'd come up with to keep peak simultaneous cases under 1.5mil.

[zamfi]

5% of cases need hospitalization for ~2-3 weeks; 2% require an ICU; 1% a ventilator. We have 96k ICU beds (and 160k ventilators) in the USA. Most constrained means we can't have more than 4.8 million sick at a given time -- but that's over 2-3 weeks, which yields ~2-3 years for 200 million people.

I assume the "41 years" people are using some other constraint.

[wwweston]

Thanks, it’s the 2-3 weeks factor I was missing (and I don’t even know if that’s optimistic I suppose).

[vincentmarle]

If this approach works (and it's a big if) you'll still be vulnerable as a society for any flare-ups of the virus. The only long-term solution is to build up herd-immunity and spread it out enough to 50-60% of the population until we have developed a vaccin.

[spookthesunset]

Stop with the doomsday panic. This lockdown thing isn’t going to last more than a few weeks at most—at least without massive social upheaval.

Source: my ill informed opinion, same as yours. same source as yours.

[rosybox]

Doomsday panic? Ill informed opinion? I'm literally looking at the chart used by the White House that comes from the data generated by the UK government. Look for yourself:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

[spookthesunset]

For that one paper you showed me you’ll find another dozen research papers that say something entirely different.

Until we know how many people have this or had it, suggesting multi-month lockdowns is ill informed, dangerous doomsday nonsense.

PS: while bitching about downvotes is lame, it is quite disappointing to see HN devolve into yet another panic fueled echo chamber where only “rooting for” the worst case scenario is tolerated.

Don’t let this place turn into an echo chamber people. There are plenty of subreddits and social media groups where you can get your fill of doomsday scenarios. This place bills itself as full of rational thinking people, let’s put on our critical thinking caps and consider the problem from all angles.

Ps: /r/corvid19 seems to be one of the few places on the internet where people are discussing this stuff rationally and not immediately jumping to the worst case scenario.

[coronapanicthrw]

FYI You're not alone in observing the echo chamber effect. Those of us who agree with you that some skepticism of the cost/benefit of the intervention is merited have largely avoided posting on our main accounts because of the massive backlash against anything counter-panic-dogma, or our posts have been flagged/deaded with worrying rapidity.

There were posts threatening _physical harm_ to individuals questioning the level of intervention (I believe the words were "I want to throttle the next person who says this isn't a catastrophe") and from typically well-respected users as well.

It's stunning to me to watch this community devolve in this fashion. I take it as a sign of the times, in terms of groupthink and fear-as-contagion, downvote-if-you-don't-agree behavior on the internet, and a broader eternal september effect on this forum.

I only wish individuals showed this much concern surrounding the massive cost in human life we incurred far more willfully via the opioid epidemic, the wars in the middle east, our prison system, etc; I'd go so far as to say I would be more willing to go along with the current overreaction if we didn't seem so hypocritical and self-serving in where and how we assign value to human life.

[spookthesunset]

Makes you wonder if the real “virus” is a mental one? Society got infected with one hell of a meme.

It is like everybody has that X-Files “I want to believe” poster on their wall when they repeat some of this doomsday stuff.

We are all stuck inside all day, bouncing around with nothing better to do than read doomsday porn. And around and around that stuff goes into people’s head until you get where we are now.

People should be much less concerned about this virus and way more concerned about social unrest. Humans are social creatures. You can’t just “lock” people in their homes for an indeterminate amount of time and expect good things to happen.

Those toilet paper memes and work from home memes are funny at first, but once the novelty wears off over the next week or so, shit is going to get very real. It ain’t funny to see empty shelves of toilet paper or baby wipes when you actually need them.... it ain’t funny to have absolutely nothing to do but sit around and obsess about this virus.

[ericd]

Video calling is a thing... not like it’s solitary confinement.

Also, grocery shelves will be full again as the stores limit per-customer amounts.

[rosybox]

Yes it's all crazed conspiracy and you happen to be one of the few people to see through it all. Your medical pedigree must be amazing. Your scientific prowess beyond imagination. You're not helping.

[coronapanicthrw]

You may not have intended it, but this level of ad-hominem and dismissive response is exactly what I'm referring to. Ignoring the fact that my post had nothing to do with statements requiring Expert background, (which you know absolutely nothing about whether I have or not) I can assure you the majority of individuals here encouraging panic have what you seek. Once again, the hypocrisy here is laughable.

HackerNews used to pride itself in being better than this. YOU are not helping.

[rosybox]

What research papers have you seen with more optimistic projections? You're calling the projections that two governments are relying on as ill informed based on what credentials?

[spookthesunset]

We don’t have enough data or understanding to project anything. Many countries stupidly aren’t doing pervasive testing.

Places that do have pervasive testing (some town in Italy, South Korea, and Singapore) suggest this virus is widespread and has a >1% death rate. But this data is early and subject to change.

Suggesting we are going to be locked for months or years is irresponsible fear mongering at best.

[AnimalMuppet]

A few times in my career, I have been in a meeting that I didn't want to be in. One of the meeting-runners hinted that the meeting could be shorter than scheduled. Failure to deliver on that was not well received.

If you're going to say anything, you're better off overestimate how long it's going to be.

[rosybox]

I never said "years", 2021 is in less than a year. I think you're contrarian, misinformed and in deep denial. Anyway, facts are what they are and we'll see in due time.

[coldtea]

>Stop with the doomsday panic. This lockdown thing isn’t going to last more than a few weeks at most—at least without massive social upheaval.

Social upheaval against a "lockdown" becomes a moot point if people you know keep dropping dead.

[spookthesunset]

People will start dropping dead from social unrest, addiction, substance abuse, suicide, etc. this “lockdown” isn’t free. It has massive health impacts that could easily outweight any lives saved by the lockdown.

People need to put on their critical thinking caps around here. What is the end game of this lockdown? What data is it based on? How will we know when to end it—given all factors, which include vastly more than slowing the spread of the virus.

Also stop downvoting people asking questions. Asking questions and thinking critically and rationally is what this forum is supposed to be about.

[traitsnspecs]

Yup, my gut feeling is that follow on effects from rampant unemployment and financial insecurity will have a much larger effect (via stress-induced heart attacks, suicide, etc.) than the 3.4% mortality rate among reported cases (WHO numbers, not all infected, maybe not even most infected.)

I would love to see an actual statistical comparison. spookthesunset is making an excellent point. Unless we know that deaths from the virus are greater than the deaths caused by the second-and-third-order effects of panicking, you can't say for sure that the lockdown is the best thing to do right now.

[coldtea]

>Unless we know that deaths from the virus are greater than the deaths caused by the second-and-third-order effects of panicking

Do you believe that when the death toll raises from non-panicking and not imposing a lockdown (not to mention the total saturation of the healthcare system), that wont create even more panic and self-lockdown -- and have their own second and third order effects?

[traitsnspecs]

Yes, and this is why - the population of investors is honestly not all that panicky. If people start dying, investors will watch the death rate, and companies' share prices will reflect some instability but it will be somewhat in line with the actual economic impact, which traders are smart enough to price it at the small level it would actually be given the mortality rate.

By imposing lockdown, we have created a real economic slowdown, that traders are smart enough to deem catastrophic (because a month or restauranteurs going without wages is actually catastrophic and represents a much larger loss of future incomes that the still-small-but-blown-up-in-the-media death rate from the unchecked coronavirus.) Unlike the non-lockdown option, there is no optimistic case. You can't say, "earnings are slow, but people will be sorry if they panic sell because when the media frenzy dies down things will settle." You have to say, "earnings are slow, and might not actually pick up again because the lockdown lost a bunch of people their job."

[empath75]

The end game of the lockdown is the disease burning out over the course of 9 months instead of 1 month, giving more time to find a treatment or vaccine and fewer people dying untreated because hospitals are full.

The alternative is to let 2 million Americans die this summer.

[markkanof]

How long do young healthy people, who have been put out of work by shutdowns put up with this? Some number of weeks seems workable, but until 2021?

[dylan604]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdf5EXo6I68

Until this happens, I won't really think it was a "big deal" at all, and more along the lines of being merely a flesh wound.

[coldtea]

Yeah, give it a month and come back to this comment section

[ajiang]

This comment will not age well. I'll remind you in 14 days.