[aphextron]

>I think this is the most important metric as far as “re-opening the economy” goes but it seems to be largely ignored by politicians.

Basically all metrics have been ignored. Two weeks ago it was all "We're going to do a phased reopening with checkpoints based on the data.". A few armed protests later and my state (NC) at least is going full YOLO reopening everything but bars, based on absolutely nothing but hopes and prayers. New infections here haven't even remotely peaked, and are still rising by the hundreds every day. This is going to be a catastrophe.

[davidw]

It is already a catastrophe, and it looks like it'll just keep getting worse, unless we get lucky somehow, which I'm not counting on.

BTW, most all economists keep pointing the finger back at fixing the public health crisis to fix the economic problems, whatever their political stripes: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/05/sa...

But we have no coherent plans to do much about the public health crisis at a national level, and the president is busy tweeting out anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories.

[djsumdog]

..or, business could open with the precautions they're taking and .. nothing happens. We see the same fatality rates, grow a little, lower a little, but generally level off.

It sucks it's come to this, but all of the states with lock-downs are desperately looking at states easing restrictions to see if these shelter in place orders are really worth it. We've heard that many of the people in NYC getting infected now are getting infected at home.

I'm really hoping that Texas and Georgia, as they slowly open up, do not go over hospital capacities. We already know a number of people haven't gone to hospitals when they needed to; as many cut off access in preparation for a surge that never came. It's equally likely these states may not see a surge at all, even post re-opening.

Yes, a lot of people may still die, but this virus is in the environment. A lot of those people would die either now, or six months from now. I don't understand how people can think complete eradication is even possible. You can't limit people's social contact forever. We are not laptops that can be placed on standby for a year or gears in a machine that can be stopped and oiled.

[twic]

> We've heard that many of the people in NYC getting infected now are getting infected at home.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, but there is a recent study showing that COVID cases correlate well with commuting in NYC - it's not the case that people who stay at home are getting infected just as much:

https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42665370

(this site is down for me right now, but it was working earlier when i looked at the paper!)

[aphextron]

>..or, business could open with the precautions they're taking and .. nothing happens.

Maybe. But probably not. The fact that this decision is being made with zero preparation is terrifying. There is no PPE generally available. There are no contact tracing programs in place. There has been effectively zero federal response or any form of coherent strategy released. Hell, you can't even buy hand sanitizer in the stores again yet. Of course we can't live in isolation forever. But absolutely nothing has been done to make reopening any safer than we were two months ago. And saying "welp, let's hope it just goes away", with no safety measures in place, is going to mean hundreds of thousands of deaths.

[Nbox9]

> I don't understand how people can think complete eradication is even possible.

Eradication, to the point that contract tracing is a viable containment method, has been achieved by other countries. It is completely possible.

[SpicyLemonZest]

It's not clear that it has been. Singapore was at that point, until a sudden spike in new cases overwhelmed them and they had to lock down. South Korea just re-closed their bars and pushed back school reopenings, because a single guy started a cluster of 80 cases and they don't trust their contact tracing to handle that many. Taiwan and Vietnam are either lucky or have better strategies than simply "do a lot of contact tracing", but in either case it's not obvious that other countries can replicate their success.

[davidw]

It's not eradication, but it's a much more fine-grained tool that lets some of the economy open back up in a safer way. It's what we should be aiming for everywhere.

The US might not be able to do quite as well, but it feels like we're barely even trying.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Agreed. But everywhere I know of, including Texas, is indeed aiming to do lots of contact tracing so opening up the economy is safer.

[djsumdog]

So we're seeing two different methods: Sweden (and I guess soon, the UK and the rest of the world) taking measures to slow the spread, but realizing it will spread to everyone.

South Kora, New Zealand, etc where they are going for complete elimination. Now ask yourself this ... when will South Korea or NZ be able to reopen their borders? They will have little to no immunity, so possibly not for a year or more.

[justin66]

> They will have little to no immunity, so possibly not for a year or more.

That last bit is a moot point. Herd immunity is not something we aspire to here in the United States. Even if infection results in immunity, which has not been proven yet, the number of people infected in the US that would be needed for herd immunity would involve millions of people dying.

> So we're seeing two different methods: Sweden (and I guess soon, the UK and the rest of the world) taking measures to slow the spread, but realizing it will spread to everyone.

I expect that's a pretty cartoonish reading of Sweden's public policy. (The UK's public policy is cartoonish lately, but they've definitely backed away from "let's all get sick.")

[neffy]

I think it might be fairer to say it was possible for countries that caught it early enough, and responded quickly enough to prevent it spreading out of control.

Unfortunately, I think it's a bit too late for the USA to do that now.

[twic]

We're a long way from that being proven.

[sanderjd]

This is a strawman! You're right, nobody has shown eradication. But there are examples of control, with a straightforward set of techniques for getting there. It is difficult and requires competency to execute those techniques, but we should be coming together to do those difficult things and demanding competent execution of them from our leaders. There is really no excuse to do otherwise at this point, long after other countries have already done the work to cut through the uncertainty and demonstrate a much more successful approach.

But we aren't doing this, we're instead bickering incessantly and fatalistically rationalizing a much worse outcome than necessary. It is a deep deep historical failure of leadership.

[lenkite]

Apart from Taiwan, who locked down travel from China in Dec-Jan even _before_ the WHO declaimed that "no human to human transmission is possible", can you please let me know which country has successfully eradicated Coronavirus ?

[davidw]

I think 'eradication' was a bad term and shouldn't be the focus in the US, because that's very, very difficult.

Isn't New Zealand almost entirely free of it at this point?

[claudeganon]

Why do people insist on unnecessary mass deaths when we have examples of how to effectively respond to this disease in countries like South Korea and Taiwan without them? Why do people lean into this falsely-premised fatalism instead of demanding what has been proven to work?

[davidw]

I don't get the downvotes for the above comment. The "choice" between "stay at home forever" or "open all the things up" is a false one.

If we do test/trace/isolate, and start requiring masks in enclosed spaces, we could start opening up in a fairly safe way.

[smileysteve]

> start requiring masks in enclosed spaces,

This. It's hard to believe that a portion of the country is so anti-mask that they accept a 30% increased risk of a 50% chance of a multi day fever OVER a fashionable piece of homemade fabric or bandana.

[davidw]

It's insane is what it is.

If you want to reopen the economy - and we all do - masks are part of what makes that happen, and makes it "stick", without a second wave causing further stay at home orders as infections spike.

[SpicyLemonZest]

That would mean it's safe for Dallas to open up, since the state is doing test/trace/isolate and the city requires masks in enclosed spaces.

[davidw]

This site doesn't show Texas as really having the capacity to do that effectively, but it could be wrong or a bit out of date, as much is these days even if well-intentioned.

https://testandtrace.com/

Mark Cuban's article indicates that masks are not as prevalent as they ought to be.

[JamesBarney]

I don't know if its similar in Dallas but in Houston when I drive by gas stations, bars, and restaurants most people aren't wearing masks.

[astronautjones]

the same reason they promote slashing public programs, welfare, benefits

[z3rgl1ng]

Seems to be because we can’t spin up testing.

[spaceman_2020]

I'm generally an optimistic person but I can't see a way out of this mess barring a vaccine or proven cure. South Korea's recent spurt shows that a single super spreader event can undo all the gains of the lockdown.

My country (India) had one of the strictest lockdowns, but the economic fallout from it is too severe. The message now is that we will have to learn to live with the virus.