Wuhan Killer Sneeze (thanks Tea)

[padraig (u.s.)]

talking up how well we're doing cos of the low # of cases we have

whoever said upthread Johnson will take credit for artificially low # of reported cases/deaths based on lack of available tasting

Trump obviously 1000% going to do same thing, only much more boldly

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

one very noticeable thing from slightly earlier in the week was watching it change from being a big story to the only story

or rather, everything else matters insofar as it relates to coronavirus

for example, yet another surreal thing: sports coverage, where there are literally no sports to cover, but something must be covered with airtime to fill

and so the specter of ex-athletes and other sports talking heads solemnly talking about...coronavirus, in a vaguely sports-related context

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

anyway, downtown Chicago hasn't quite become a ghost town yet

I would say Thursday was about 50% of the people/traffic you'd normally expect, today was more like 25-30%

the rest of the city - that I've seen - is basically normal besides aforementioned grocery store stuff, empty shelves and long lines

restaurants, coffeeshops, retail places all open, if less busy than usual of course

schools are (finally closed) starting Monday, most business who can have already told employees to work remotely etc

I fully expect next week to be voluntary mostly ghost town, and the week after to be mandatory full ghost town

 

[IdleRich]

stupid as it sounds, the NBA suspending its season

It does sound kinda weird but it was exactly the same for me... when I heard that Italy(!) were actually really cancelling football matches I knew it was serious.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

how backward Europe and America are in many ways

I wouldn't deny there's backwardness, of course, in sometimes surprising ways

but it's not like there's not an authoritarian cost to being as organized as China (or Singapore, or even Taiwan) has been

they also had a large head start because - as someone must have noted already upthread - unlike the West, they took preparation dead seriously after SARS

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

a reluctance to enact draconian virtual or literal martial law isn't the worst thing, I feel

it's definitely unfortunate that it will contribute to making this situation worse

but just as after September 11th: sometimes there is a price to living in a relatively freer society, the inverse of the authoritarian cost

certainly incompetence, bad decisions, poor planning, etc have made that price much higher than it needed to be

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah I think that there has always been a kind of perceived pay-off between what can be achieved for a country in an emergency by a rigid authoritarian government and a (we like to think) more flexible, free-thinking (Western obviously) government. The problem is that with Johnson and Trump we basically have the worst of both worlds - lack of any kind of nimble thinking and inventiveness combined with creeping authoritarianism that fails to bring any of the supposed benefits.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

having said all this, and recognizing how bad it will likely get here and in much of Europe

I still firmly think the economic fallout will be vastly worse

and fall vastly disproportionately on working-class and poor people, even moreso than usual economic crises

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

if anyone hears from luka, ask him to post here please so we know he's alive and well

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and best luck to everyone, and your loved ones

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

The problem is that with Johnson and Trump we basically have the worst of both worlds

absolutely

there are still benefits to having have "freer", or more open, society/system of government, even if that system is under enormous stress right now

there's a reasonable argument that some greater amount of freedom is worth some greater amount of risk

I have no idea how exactly to quantify either side of that trade-off

I just don't want to fall into the trap of being like "wow look at how fast China built hospitals, maybe their system really is better"

a they made the trains run on time argument, if you will, only in reverse (they stopped them in a timely fashion)

not that anyone is necessarily making that argument

 

[version]

This bloke's theory on the English approach makes sense but it sounds like a huge gamble,

The govt strategy on #Coronavirus is more refined than those used in other countries and potentially very effective. But it is also riskier and based on a number of assumptions. They need to be correct, and the measures they introduce need to work when they are supposed to.

This all assumes I'm correct in what I think the govt are doing and why. I could be wrong - and wouldn't be surprised. But it looks to me like. . .

A UK starting assumption is that a high number of the population will inevitably get infected whatever is done – up to 80%. As you can’t stop it, so it is best to manage it.

There are limited health resources so the aim is to manage the flow of the seriously ill to these.

The Italian model the aims to stop infection. The UKs wants infection BUT of particular categories of people. The aim of the UK is to have as many lower risk people infected as possible. Immune people cannot infect others; the more there are the lower the risk of infection

That's herd immunity. Based on this idea, at the moment the govt wants people to get infected, up until hospitals begin to reach capacity. At that they want to reduce, but not stop infection rate. Ideally they balance it so the numbers entering hospital = the number leaving.

That balance is the big risk.

All the time people are being treated, other mildly ill people are recovering and the population grows a higher percent of immune people who can’t infect. They can also return to work and keep things going normally - and go to the pubs.

The risk is being able to accurately manage infection flow relative to health case resources. Data on infection rates needs to be accurate, the measures they introduce need to work and at the time they want them to and to the degree they want, or the system is overwhelmed.

Schools: Kids generally won’t get very ill, so the govt can use them as a tool to infect others when you want to increase infection. When you need to slow infection, that tap can be turned off – at that point they close the schools. Politically risky for them to say this.

The same for large scale events - stop them when you want to slow infection rates; turn another tap off. This means schools etc are closed for a shorter period and disruption generally is therefore for a shorter period, AND with a growing immune population. This is sustainable

After a while most of the population is immune, the seriously ill have all received treatment and the country is resistant. The more vulnerable are then less at risk. This is the end state the govt is aiming for and could achieve.

BUT a key issue during this process is protection of those for whom the virus is fatal. It's not clear the full measures there are to protect those people. It assumes they can measure infection, that their behavioural expectations are met - people do what they think they will

The Italian (and others) strategy is to stop as much infection as possible - or all infection. This is appealing, but then what? The restrictions are not sustainable for months. So the will need to be relaxed. But that will lead to reemergence of infections.

Then rates will then start to climb again. So they will have to reintroduce the restrictions each time infection rates rise. That is not a sustainable model and takes much longer to achieve the goal of a largely immune population with low risk of infection of the vulnerable

As the government tries to achieve equilibrium between hospitalisations and infections, more interventions will appear. It's perhaps why there are at the moment few public information films on staying at home. They are treading a tight path, but possibly a sensible one.

This is probably the best strategy, but they should explain it more clearly. It relies on a lot of assumptions, so it would be good to know what they are - especially behavioural. Most encouraging, it's way too clever for #BorisJohnson to have had any role in developing.

 

[version]

Coronavirus emergency laws: Police get powers to detain victims

Police will be able to detain infected people and schools could be forced to stay open under a package of powers being announced next week to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

Emergency laws to help to limit the spread of the virus will be introduced after the number of people infected in Britain rose by 200 in 24 hours to 798. The measures, seen by The Times, will also let councils lower standards in care homes to deal with staff shortages.

The legislation, which ministers intend to push through parliament in two weeks, will equip the government to deal with the disease. Ministers believe that the virus will infect the majority of the population, and the laws will stay in place for two years.

The government will be given the power to halt “any vehicle, train, vessel or aircraft”. Ministers will be able to close ports if there are “insufficient resources” to retain border security through customs and immigration officers falling sick.

There are further measures to speed up cremations and burials. “In a reasonable worst-case scenario the death management industry will be rapidly overwhelmed,” the government said in a draft. “There is a significant gap in body storage requirements to ensure we are prepared for the reasonable worst-case scenario.”

Next week Boris Johnson will follow Scotland and Ireland by banning gatherings of more than 500 people, including football matches, concerts and festivals.

The move came less than 24 hours after the prime minister rejected the proposals. They are designed to reduce pressure on the health service and police as the pandemic reaches its peak, rather than to slow the virus.

 

[IdleRich]

What? The majority of the population!

 

[constant escape]

@version, you think that Ian McDonald strategy can be figured as a proposal for metastability, now that the sick cats out of the bag and stability proper isn't an option? A sort of macrocosmic vaccine into the body of the people? In that case, the measures would be, in a way, defined by their risk.

Moreover, I believe this is from Giorgio Agamben on February 26, if I understand the citation properly:

It would seem that, terrorism having been exhausted as the cause of measures of exception, the invention of an epidemic could offer the ideal pretext for extending them beyond all limits.

The other factor, no less worrying, is the state of fear which has manifestly spread in recent years in the minds of individuals and which translates into a real need for collective states of panic, to which the epidemic offers again the ideal pretext.

Thus, in a vicious and perverse circle, the limitation of freedom imposed by governments is accepted in the name of a desire for security which has been induced by these same governments which are now intervening to satisfy it.

 

[constant escape]

Also, from one Sergio Benvenuto

The panic that has stricken Italy (but not only, all over the world people are talking about nothing else) was basically a political choice – or a biopolitical one, as Roberto Esposito stresses – established first and foremost by the World Health Organization. Because today, in an era when the great democracies are producing grotesque leaderships, it’s the great supranational organizations like the WHO – and the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, the other central banks, and so on – that (fortunately) take the real decisions, thus partly redressing the neo-fascist whims of today’s democracies.

and

After all, the effects of this epidemic will strengthen a tendency that would have in any case prevailed, and of which “working remotely” or “wfh”, working from home and avoiding the office, is only one aspect. It will be less and less common for us to wake up in the morning and board public or private vehicles to reach the workplace; more and more we will work on our computers from our homes, which will also become our offices. And thanks to the Amazon and Netflix revolutions, we will no longer need to go out to do the shopping or to theatres to see movies, nor to buy books in bookshops: stores and bookshops (alas) will disappear and everything will be done from home. Life will become “hearhted” or “homeized” (we already need to start thinking up neologisms). Schools too will disappear: with the use of devices like Skype, students will be able to attend their teachers’ lessons from home. This generalized seclusion caused by the epidemic (or rather, by attempts to prevent it) will become our habitual way of life.

 

[john eden]

 

[baboon2004]

I wouldn't deny there's backwardness, of course, in sometimes surprising ways

but it's not like there's not an authoritarian cost to being as organized as China (or Singapore, or even Taiwan) has been

they also had a large head start because - as someone must have noted already upthread - unlike the West, they took preparation dead seriously after SARS

Def all true - mine was an emotional reaction of panic rather than anything else. I find the almost blase approach to it all from the uk government terrifying, at least up until yday evening - this kind of sense of 'we're britain, therefore we'll be ok, coupled with a kind of dismissive attitude towards Asian countries that have been dealing with this a couple of months, along with as you say, sars previously. I think also the idea of not infecting ppl thru family contact - simple ideas which dont even seemingly make it into the conversation here.

Basically there is still a huge and arrogant unwillingness to learn from the rest of the world here - not news of course. And the reaction to the herd immunity thing terrified me - how many ppl said that it must be true because the government wd of course have the best scientific advice...at least theyve fallen in partly with sanity now

 

[baboon2004]

Ok now I just read Version's post. Police detaining infected people...right, ok, um, cant respond to that right now

 

[baboon2004]

What? The majority of the population!

Initially they said 80, scaled down from the press conference. They're saying everything is a guess and it's a massive experiment