[tomatocracy]

The political acceptability of releasing then locking down again is likely to be very low in my view.

Friends and colleagues I speak to who haven’t followed the modelling papers etc think the point of a lockdown is to eliminate the virus entirely - not contain, not delay but eliminate entirely. There is also a very strong fear of getting the virus (many of the same people are convinced that it’s a death sentence almost akin to Ebola). I suspect that these views are very widespread and this is why the lockdowns currently enjoy strong popular support.

A release followed by a second lockdown would, I think, be viewed as an admission that the policy was a failure therefore and would also lead to a reassessment of how dangerous it really is amongst those people. Those still suffering from the economic damage from the first (which will be almost everyone) will have a lot of reasons to resist very hard and I think most governments in democratic countries would struggle to implement such a policy.

[brightball]

Exactly what I’m seeing. There is a perception that this is going to stop it entirely and that if we only went full national lockdown for 2 weeks, this would all be over.

[alexandercrohde]

Right, if there's a resurgence I'm not participating. The cure would be worse than the disease.

I encourage susceptible populations to quarantine themselves, rather than everybody quarantining. We must work, date, and life must go on.

[igetspam]

The possible end result of the disease is death. Which cure is worse? A 44 year old school teacher and father of six died in my county. He went from sick to dead in a week. He had no underlying conditions that made him "at risk." By all accounts, he was active and healthy. The population of people who are at risk of death or long term lung damage are those that can be classified as "human."

I don't particularly care if people don't want to protect themselves but this isn't about selfish individuals. This is about everyone else. If, like some politicians, you are willing to "sacrifice" yourself, please do it quickly and away from populations.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I guess I'm not sure I see why we're the ones who have to move. I'd be totally fine with a proposal to construct voluntary social distancing sites for people who'd like to spend the next 18 months isolated.

[igetspam]

Perhaps because the safety of the majority should outweigh the minority. If you'd like to risk yourself, why shouldn't you be the one to move to a high infection site? Why protect you and yours and not me and mine? Those who opt in to risky behavior (willfully accepting the possibility of being infected with a dangerous virus being the risky behavior), should be allowed to do so away from the rest of us.

[GavinMcG]

The cure would likely be worse than the disease for you.

Are millions of people dying an acceptable trade-off for us to be able to date?

[izend]

There is a legitimate debate of: Cause an Economic Depression vs X times the number of yearly deaths.

Note, the Economic Depression would indirectly cause deaths.

For example everyone agreed that not shutting down the global economic was the correct decision in regards to the Swine Flu pandemic which did cause 100,000 or more deaths.

What if it was 1 million projected deaths, 10 million or 50 million?

I honestly do not know the answer but there are individuals who specializes in these decisions.

[amylene]

Deaths would also worsen an economic depression. Why does everybody forget about this?

Also, an economic depression reduces air pollution which would reduce deaths.

There are lots of factors that would need to be considered. Most people I’ve seen advocating this pov are stopping at the first order analysis.

[leesalminen]

> Also, an economic depression reduces air pollution which would reduce deaths.

In the immediate term, sure. In the medium term an economic depression would weaken investment, research & development in new green technologies which would increase deaths as the effects of climate change worsen.

[amylene]

Or, it could spur some necessity is the mother of invention innovation for deployment.

Or a million other things could happen.

I am asking that you change your “would” to “could” to properly reflect the uncertainty.

We have a tendency to want to convince people of our views, which gets in the way of making our views more correct. This is challenging to fight, but necessary to learn.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Because most people who don't advocate the POV are stopping at the zeroth order analysis, saying that you're a heartless killer if you want to consider any factors instead of just saving lives.

[amylene]

I can’t correct other peoples flawed thinking. But I can avoid reacting to it when that reaction makes my thinking worse.

Just because someone does something I don’t like doesn’t mean I should base my viewpoint around rejecting theirs.

[GavinMcG]

Consider, sure, but we need to actually consider.

There is no model for any of this, on either side of the issue, and so the off-hand "we need to get back to dating, etc." really does look... heartless. It's just as much a zeroeth-order analysis as the other.

Fixing that would mean giving due consideration to the complexity of the situation, at least attempting to define one's assumptions/model, and being explicit about how much loss of life one is willing to accept.

With inadequate measures, this pandemic could rival the Holocaust in number of deaths. There's absolutely a difference between allowing millions to be killed rather than committing mass murder or genocide, but "let's get back to life as usual" does demand justification.

[brightball]

Is it an acceptable trade off for you?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52002734

[SpicyLemonZest]

Hopefully we'll discover the tradeoff is less severe than that, but if not it's going to have to be. I don't think you realize just how unhappy people are with being locked down; it's very likely we would see violent rebellions against an attempt to impose a second one.

[amylene]

When you say, very likely, can you put a percent on it so we know if you mean 20% or 80%?

[SpicyLemonZest]

I mean 80%, although I have a bias here because I'd be one of the people trying to make it happen.

[amylene]

Super interesting, thanks for replying!

So you are aware that your estimate is biased because of your other beliefs, but you don’t try to fix that? Mind if I ask why?

[balola]

Only through meaningful antibody mass tests can we decide the true scope of the spread, thus the real numbers of fatality rate.

Economies couldn't wait for the cure, and vaccines mostly likely won't last long.

[pinkfoot]

This is of course why curfews are enforced by the military.

[cactus2093]

And this is why we need police or national guard to enforce lockdowns. And to charge people spreading the virus with felony murder and manslaughter charges, like they seem to be doing in extreme cases in Italy.

I’ve seen some toxic comments on this site before, but nothing like someone blatantly saying “I’ll happy kill those around me to avoid any inconvenience to my daily routine”.

[dang]

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. Other users have replied to that comment in keeping with the guidelines, but your post here breaks them—for example:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[SpicyLemonZest]

This kind of attitude is exactly my concern. You don't seem to have a shred of sympathy for the rights or motivations of the people who don't want to be locked down; you're talking about them as though they're cattle, and they'll be prodded into compliance no matter what they have to think about it. Every advocate I've seen of months-long lockdowns has had this kind of authoritarian power fantasy.

[op03]

It works when people are afraid. We do have a Negativity Bias [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias] that gets amplified under stress.

You have to understand what you are trying push back on before telling someone who is scared - deal with it. It never works. Fears will just increase.

How else do you think we end up with 20 year wars, wall st bailouts, the TSA, the NSA, drone strikes, metal detectors at schools etc etc?

Dealing with people who are worried or panicking requires more imagination.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I agree with what you're saying. It's very important to send positive messages: we'll get through this, we'll soon have enough medical capacity to treat everyone who falls sick, we've weathered worse crises in the past and this one won't be the one that beats us. I try to do that and encourage other people to do it.

But it also needs to be made clear to people who propose to build a dystopian society that this is not okay. No amount of fear makes it justifiable or understandable to propose that your fellow citizens should be rounded up at gunpoint.

[op03]

First part is good. Second part of "needs to be made clear" is where you will run into issues.

We have this need to get everyone to agree with our views. But firstly it's not important to get things done and secondly it's not possible because of the variety of different needs and personality traits in the population.

It's a possible approach only on Putin or Xi planet . But it breaksdown in democracies (esp given the propaganda these days) people just harden their positions(they hear your view as an ultimatum or a demand), get defensive, react, attack etc. Trust breaksdown and then there is no hope for anything nuanced.

Better option is to give people something else to focus on, something to do etc while doing everything you doing well in your first para.

[alexandercrohde]

Your emotions are out of whack. Quotation marks are used for exact quotes, and nobody is saying anything remotely like that. I'm not going to continue to dive into the reasons I disagree with your argument. But that level of emotionality is incredibly tribal and counterproductive to the pursuit of truth.