Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Jeff said:

I've said it before, but the only way out of this is widespread testing (still not nearly a thing) and people staying the **** home for the next few weeks.

And what if weeks become months...and then more months....and then the 18 months that the government is potentially planning for?

We're already making the decision. The fact that the entire country isn't on lockdown means we (the government, individuals, communities, whatever) are finding the balance. People are dying. People are still going to work and shopping. We're in the process of finding the balance as we type.

I'm sure this has been said, but it deserves repeating: it's not an either/or concept. There's not going to be a point where you can trade some lives for a swing in the economy. Letting the disease run its course is going to equally devastating to the economy. Sick and dead people aren't going to be spending money.

Jeff said:

But what do you possibly think that you can do when every person around you is potentially infected?

Y'all keep glossing over this...

I can't really do much about others being potentially infected. When I go to work and I am around others I just accept the risk of being infected. If I get infected I will get sick, I will most likely get better, but I also might not. I take a risk every time I walk outside, I take a risk everytime I stay inside. There is always some level of risk with every activity we undertake.

I just went to get a haircut, I was sorely overdue. My barber was wearing gloves and a mask, but he was still at work. I asked him how he was doing, he is doing well, but has been very slow in the shop, they are thinking about closing it for a while due to no business. He still comes to work because he needs the money, if they close the shop he is hopeful that he can pick up extra hours at the security company he works at part time.

He is taking a risk each day he goes to work, but he cannot afford to stop participating in life for a couple months. We had some laughs and made the best of the time that we were there. He thanked me for coming in and told me to stay safe, I returned the gesture.

Everyone has a level of risk they are willing to take, some are more risk averse than others. Some are forced to take more risk because they need to make the money to survive, that whole self-preservation thing.

Every person around me already is potentially infected. I don't know the purpose of this question.

Right now I don’t see room a for middle ground since we don’t have an even remote understating of who’s infected, what the best methods of treatment are (I.e do anti-viral or malaria drugs even work? ) , and only have minimal research into the actual complication and mortality rates. The unknown exponential growth will be staggering (Look at Italy’s today, almost 500 dead in one day), so we need to shut it down now.

Once we finally get testing up and a better understanding how to treat all this I think we will see that middle ground open up. Infected people will be tested readily and quarantined to slow the growth. With good treatments hospitals can hopefully treat quicker. Places can open with keys on distancing and sanitation. People will still get infected, but at a slower rate and with better treatments.

One middle ground I can see right away 80/20 type rule where we quarantine the top 20% of the population who are at risk. If the severity and death rates trend holds true, those over 65 or with risk factors might have to self-quarantine and isolate (this group is not a primary driver of the economy anyhow). If we find the complication rates for younger healthy individuals is actually low (once we know the actually denominator) they can get back to work under caution, but must distance from the at risk folks till the pandemic is over.

Unemployment is probably already 10%+ just based on the mass layoffs happening in each sector, so we do need a middle ground. I just don’t see it for the next month until we get an actual grasp on things.

bigboy said:

I'm sure this has been said, but it deserves repeating: it's not an either/or concept. There's not going to be a point where you can trade some lives for a swing in the economy. Letting the disease run its course is going to equally devastating to the economy. Sick and dead people aren't going to be spending money.

I was thinking about this for a bit, and something came to my mind. Sick and dead people don't participate in the economy. But that comes with the assumption that they participate in a overall positive gain in the first place.

If someone gets this disease and dies, and that same person was on track to stop global warming in 3 months, then it was a huge loss, and overall a negative value add for society.

But, let's look at a different individual, take my grandmother for example, she does not work, she lives off social security, she has no car, lives in a small town. She participates in the local economy of her town, but overall she is a negative economic value on society. I love my grandmother, but love doesn't have anything to do with her participation and value add. If she gets sick and dies tomorrow, it could very well be an overall positive to the economy. Oddly enough, she might be very high risk, but she told my mother a few days ago that she was going to the grocery store on her own because if god wants her to come back home then it is his will and not hers, so she doesn't care if she gets sick or not. I got a huge laugh out of that one.

Jeff said:

Math, my friends... it's just math.

And calculating what lives are worth is also math. I brought this up before and got somewhat slammed for it, but we/society have placed a dollar amount on the 40K people that die from the flue. Yes - I understand that a whole lot more people are going to die from this; you are correct - that is math. But if we can use math to say that saving the lives of several thousands of people is not worth the cost to the economy, then why can't math be used to figure out what the lives of several hundreds/millions of people are worth?

TheMillenniumRider said:

..she was going to the grocery store on her own because if god wants her to come back home then it is his will and not hers, so she doesn't care if she gets sick or not. I got a huge laugh out of that one.

That sounds like something my (long since dead) grandma would have said. That you for making me smile, as morbid as it sounds.

In the name of saving the economy, I recommend casually asking your grandmother if she feels like a haircut.

TheMillenniumRider said:

I can't really do much about others being potentially infected.

False. By not going out, you do your part in making sure that they're not infected. The potential of you being infected and passing it on is zero if you isolate.

Tell that to all the kids that are mobbing the Florida beaches right now. There’s a party to get to, bruh!

Jeff said:

False. By not going out, you do your part in making sure that they're not infected. The potential of you being infected and passing it on is zero if you isolate.

I read this in Dwight Schrute's voice.

I'm pretty amazed at how different Florida is responding to this as compared to Ohio. It was only a week ago that our governor announced the closure of schools, it's lead into indoor water parks, trampoline parks, bowling alleys, bars, restaurants (carryout only), now salons, day spas, and the BMV. Granted, nobody wants to go to the beach in this weather up here, but I would imagine those would have been closed, too.

It will make for an interesting case study in the future to look at.

Florida is currently governed by a moron. The latest in a long series of morons. And worse, we sent the last one to the Senate.

It reminds me of that old movie, “Jaws”.
You know, the one where against everyone’s sensible advice, the mayor or someone won’t close down the beach because tourism, Labor Day weekend, money to be made, disappointments everywhere...
That turned out well.

Interesting that the flu was brought up again. The you-can’t-put-a-dollar-value-on-a-life argument collapses when you factor in the flu. Sure, it doesn’t have the death rate of Coronavirus when considering confirmed cases, but it doesn’t change the fact that even with flu shots and such, people still die from the flu in impressive numbers.

I’m not advocating for shutdowns like we’re seeing now every time flu season comes around, but rather I’m just pointing out that there’s clearly a threshold below which we’re comfortable with risking our own exposure/exposing others to a contagious, potentially deadly disease.

Late to the party, but here's my take.

TheMillenniumRider said:

By staying home, and refraining from contact, we are helping to save lives. But on the converse, by staying home and refraining from spending, we are taking money from others and potentially causing them to no have food on the table for their families, or potentially lose their homes. It can be argued that whatever decision we make we are hurting others, just depends on which way we are hurting them.

There is an additional cost to sending those workers back out so they can put food on their tables. Their grandma dies.

This thing is serious enough that it's not going to be some abstract "some old people far away died" kind of thing. It's not the flu where I've personally never met or heard of anyone dying from the flu (and I pastor a church full of 60-80 year olds). If we send people back to work each of your grandma, grandpa, neighbor, crossing guard, postal worker (sorry for the old people stereotypes) etc. has a ~20% chance of dying. There's some trade off being made, but life has value beyond just economic contribution.

Perhaps more to the point, everything I'm hearing coming out of Italy is saying they wished they had taken it more seriously earlier. I don't think many of them are saying, "Gee, I wish I they would open my store so I could go to work today."

Economies, portfolios, and businesses can be rebuilt.

Grandmas cannot.

Then again, I've never categorized my family members in terms of added/depreciated value to an economic system.

And then there's this myth that Covid-19 is somehow a disease that is only harsh on those with little perceived economic worth (the elderly). The reality tells a much different story.

The effects of any decision made to stay open / close will take about one to two weeks for the effects to be seen, as that is how long people are asymptomatic. We have the advantage of having a "crystal ball" to show us our future. Just look to Italy. So far, pretty much everything that has been happening there is happening here about 10 days later.

Yep, and Italy is a much smaller country. It's going to get super ugly. Here's the breakdown by country. Our trend is looking more like Italy than China or South Korea.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/19/world/coronavirus-fl...tries.html