Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

There is an interesting slider on the NYT that allows you to play with how long the intervention period is with regards to resulting cases/deaths. Its lets you go between 1 day and 90.

New York Times Slider

You can experiment, but the bookends show a 1 day shutdown gives 1.6 million US deaths while a 90 day shutdown results in 20,300 US deaths.

So do we pretend the NYT slider (especially that awesome one at the bottom of the page) is completely wrong, or do we acknowledge the myriad of outcomes based on just the variables we control?

The scale might be 1 to 1.1 - but that just means you have to look closer or dig deeper to dissect that further because there's still a lot degrees of actions and potential outcomes happening in that tiny sliver.

Social distancing:

A 90-day shutdown giving 20,300 deaths is precisely why the credibility of a lot of these measures is questionable. I get that the US was a little late in locking things down, but the NYT seriously wants me to believe that if we drag this out to 3 months, we’re still going to see a death count that substantially dwarfs that of, well, everywhere?

I realize the article mentions a false precision, but I have a very hard time believing we’d get a death rate that high with a shutdown that lengthy. Maybe I’m wrong, but I would hope I’m not.

Consider this: We're at 1,000 US deaths now. A NYC hospital is now using a refrigerated truck to store the bodies.

I just don't understand the skepticism.

Guys we did it! 81, 836 cases!

sirloindude said:

I have a very hard time believing we’d get a death rate that high with a shutdown that lengthy. Maybe I’m wrong, but I would hope I’m not.

On what do you base your conclusion? Decades of training, mountains of data, years of analysis, millions of dollars of equipment, and the brightest minds in the field collaborating with you? Because that's what you're arguing against.

I believe it's called "the enthusiast's hunch".

I'm not sure who to go with.

Lord Gonchar said:

So do we pretend the NYT slider (especially that awesome one at the bottom of the page) is completely wrong, or do we acknowledge the myriad of outcomes based on just the variables we control?

The scale might be 1 to 1.1 - but that just means you have to look closer or dig deeper to dissect that further because there's still a lot degrees of actions and potential outcomes happening in that tiny sliver.

I can't tell what you're arguing at this point. Are you acknowledging that anything beyond 1.1 is going to kill a million people? I don't think anyone is disagreeing that there are choices to be made between 1 and 1.1 (maybe I'm wrong?) but that it's not a particularly meaningful discussion to have when other people are asking for 5.

Edit: It's not actually that they're asking for 5. Some people (states) are still doing 5.

sirloindude said:

I realize the article mentions a false precision, but I have a very hard time believing we’d get a death rate that high with a shutdown that lengthy. Maybe I’m wrong, but I would hope I’m not.

A) I’m glad your beliefs are not what anyone is basing their actions on.

B) I wish more decisions were being made based on a worse case scenario.

ApolloAndy said:

On what do you base your conclusion? Decades of training, mountains of data, years of analysis, millions of dollars of equipment, and the brightest minds in the field collaborating with you? Because that's what you're arguing against.

You snuck this in while I was writing but basically ALL OF THIS.

Andy was posting back-to-back like a machine.

I think for a lot of people there is a problem of psychological distance involved with this. That, combined with a host of factors embedded in our society (GoBucks noted some of those above), but the psychological distance seems to be a thing from where I sit.

Meaning:

- It happens in China, but we're better than them and real far away, so...

- It happens in Italy, but that's Italy.

- Sure there's a tiny case here or there, but that media...man they blow stuff out of proportion. We're fine.

- Is it a hoax? I mean...her emails...

- OK so it's getting worse, but it's just the flu right?

-OK so it's worse than the flu, but I'm not elderly and I have no pre-existing conditions, so even if I get it I;m fine, right?

-OK so people in their 20's, 30', and 40's are dying by their lungs being eradicated, but I don't know anyone who has it. We're fine.

Add this to the fact that the one thing that everyone IS feeling is the disruption and the financial burdens, and the fact that Trump is playing off of people's frustrations, and...well...we actually start to stop listening to the experts, and start deluding ourselves into believing that everything will be just fine.

One of my student's uncles was the latest victim in Ohio today. I don't know him, of course, and I hope that's the closest I get personally to this virus, but I'm not naive enough to know that if we weren't doing what we were doing, we would be well on our way to looking just like NYC in our urban areas here in Ohio.

OhioStater said:

...we actually start to stop listening to the experts, and start deluding ourselves into believing that everything will be just fine.

And this is generally my concern with American culture in recent years. This idea that anything that makes you uncomfortable isn't real. And yeah, having a president that just wills everything he doesn't agree with into something else doesn't help. Climate change is still real, facts are still facts, science is still not a belief system.

Why is that so hard to accept?

I think it goes back to the boy who cried wolf Weather Channel example that I gave probably 50 pages ago. Everything has become so sensationalized in order to get your attention. We have become so conditioned that THIS storm is going to be the worst that Ohio has ever seen and all we get is a 1/2" of rain or 6" of snow. Then a week later it is THIS storm that is going to be the worst that Ohio has ever seen and we get nothing.

If everything is going to end the world, but in reality it doesn't, eventually the mind just tunes it out as Jim Cantore just spouting off again.

I really think that is what is happening here.

ApolloAndy said:
I don't think anyone is disagreeing that there are choices to be made between 1 and 1.1 (maybe I'm wrong?) but that it's not a particularly meaningful discussion to have when other people are asking for 5.

I think almost everybody was disagreeing. The suggestion of choice to be made was met with claims of not understanding exponential growth or what R0 is or ignoring science.

With that said, fair enough, I suppose. We're at 5. Let's get to 1.1 and then have the discussions. Now that we all agree there are degrees of response and not a 'correct' one, per se.

We can all look at the same information, completely understand it, and choose to respond differently. That's all. There are more than few people here who seem to have lost sight of that truth. Just calling attention to it.

I think two conversations got conflated or confused? Or possibly positions evolved and responses didn't? I know that there have been some posts in this thread that have been to the tune of "I think we're over reacting." "There's no way this will be worth it." "Can't we just quarantine old people?" And I suspect the "NO MIDDLE GROUND!" "MATH IS MATH!" "EXPONENTIAL GROWTH!" posts were in reaction to those positions.

There was a separate conversation happening which I think you were more interested in, which was "I tend to have a higher tolerance for risk and loss of life than for disruption and especially mandated disruption than most people, within reasonable bounds" which is a reasonable position, but I happen to not agree with it.

Please don’t interpret my difficulty in believing that a three-month shutdown will still yield twenty-three times the amount of deaths as we’ve experienced already as some advocating against the current measures. Quite the contrary, I’ve adopted the let’s-shut-down-and-get-it-over-with mentality. I see things like the FL executive order that anyone flying in from CT, NJ, and NY must self-quarantine, and the RI order that anyone flying in from anywhere has to do the same, and I wonder why air travel on those routes doesn’t just shut down entirely. It seems like the most practical approach, and especially in the case of New York, it seems essential.

My skepticism comes from trying to imagine us as a nation shut down for three months and still ending up with a death count that blows every other nation out of the water, but maybe we really have passed that tipping point. I want to have faith that outside of the hotspots, our healthcare system coupled with the severe restrictions on doing things outside of the home will keep the death count at a better level than 23,000+.

I’m not trying to attack the credibility of experts as much as I’m just expressing surprise at the NYT’s claim that our best-case scenario involves ending up with six times the amount of deaths as China endured. Perhaps it’s because Central Florida seems to be faring pretty well in comparison to places like NYC, but I suppose I just didn’t realize this had the potential to be that bad even with lockdowns. I’m not advocating for lifting them by any means, but I’d just be really disappointed if we did shut down for an extended period of time and it still ended up that badly.

I’d just be really disappointed if we did shut down for an extended period of time and it still ended up that badly.

Why would you be disappointed that we took active steps and it still ended up badly?

Granted, I don’t think the president will do much to mitigate death and isn’t taking enough active steps, and not because of his political affiliation, but because it doesn’t seem like he has the capacity to lead, so I think we’re going to be worse off than were we to have had this happen during any other administration in history. But why would you be disappointed if we did what professionals suggest and we still have a high death rate?

Saying that comes across like you’re saying “so then why bother”. That may not be how you feel, but what you say seems to keep giving that vibe.

sirloindude said:

I’m just expressing surprise at the NYT’s claim that our best-case scenario involves ending up with six times the amount of deaths as China endured.

I hope this event, tragic as it will be, will serve a wake-up call for many in this country. Why are so Americans over-confident in our country's abilities? The blindness to risks and our weaknesses is a critical character flaw.

Fun said:

I hope this event, tragic as it will be, will serve a wake-up call for many in this country.

I doubt very much that will happen on a scale that moves the needle towards better preparation or even awareness to such dangers. Those who need to wake up, like the ones refusing to distance or even throwing parties, will either be dead, which would make their awakening more of a zombie situation...which I'm also certain we're not prepared for, or they'll live, which is proof (to them) that the whole thing was overblown.

Why are so Americans over-confident in our country's abilities? The blindness to risks and our weaknesses is a critical character flaw.

American Exceptionalism, which once described an ethos that drove this country to great things, has faded into something that better resembles arrogance and ignorance about our place in the world beyond the dollar.

What Should The Government Spend To Save A Life?

Not looking to reignite the debate, but the info seemed relevant given some of the conversation. Plus, I find this part of this whole thing really interesting (if you haven't noticed) and enjoyed reading about how the people that do this sort of thing approach it. Just wanted to share.