Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

I agree with everything being said. I do think it's important to make a distinction. The actual probability of someone getting hurt in a terrorist attack or mass school shooting is still infinitesimal. Most of the safety measures being sold, drills being done, and negative economic impact from resultant fear is almost totally waste.

The actual probability of someone getting hurt by a global pandemic is (apparently) non-trivial and the only solution we have for it (shut down everything) is pretty egregious. So given the cost/benefit I would gladly pull 90% of TSA funding and put it into pandemic prevention.

But yes, we're probably going to overreact in both cases, regardless. It's all about the illusion of control. Politicians definitely can't just sit back and say, "Well. Those are the breaks." They have to present the image of taking action so they come up with non-solutions for the optics.

Edit: Although some politicians seem to be okay with doing nothing/near nothing about school shootings, so I'm not sure what to make of that.

Vater said:

Indeed...but what choice do we have? Other than paying for pre-check or not flying, that is.

Well, really, that's just it. I have absolutely no doubt if people stopped flying because of the unreasonable security measures, those measures would disappear or be lightened significantly. But we don't. Which is another entire topic about the trade-offs people are willing to make in order maintain their life choices, even if the sacrifice of flight would only be temporary.

I just look at how quickly the mandate overturned when people reacted swiftly to the idea that they would not be able to buy their weed or alcohol here due to the pandemic. All of the sudden, it's not a safety concern any more (or not as much of one) and they decide not to close the dispensaries and liquor stores. Nature is still unsafe though and is closed until further notice. It's fascinating to watch, I tell ya.

Ok. Got it.

But if we all understand this, then why the charade?

I don't know. I'm not surprised. I'm dissapointed. I shouldn't be, but I am.

Collectively, we're lame.

Hey Gonch,

Have you ever thought about the very real threat of tiger attacks? If so I have the solution to all your problems. ;)

Anyway, what baffles me is that this country was founded by people who banded together to fight the system they didn't agree with. What happened? Everyone complains about everything, but we just say screw it. But apparently when we close the liquor stores, that gets the juices flowing.

I look at places in Asia that have navigated these outbreaks better than we have, and I think it part this is because they were already way more cognizant of infectious diseases and their prevention.

https://www.kcpinternational.com/2019/11/wearing-face-masks-japan/

Sure, call it Tiger Repellent if you want, but I think it's more important to recognize these efforts as indicators of culture, not so much specific cause and effect. The culture in Japan is that everyone does their part to reduce the spread of disease. This is certainly not the culture in the US. By the way, both countries love Theme Parks. These aren't mutually exclusive.

It isn't so much a culture of disease reduction as it is an overall difference in cultural perceptions.

Japan is much more collectivist, focused on the long term, and also much more risk averse.

Compared that with the US, we are living in the moment, screw everyone else, and if something bad happens we will figure it out later. These traits aren't solely a healthcare thing, they cover all facets of our decision making.

I have no idea how to post a graphic, but here is the link to the Hofstede comparison between the countries.

Hofstede Dimensions

Good points- I would argue that large scale disasters like this will be the type of thing that will shape future generations and could increase collectivist attitudes.

History has already proven that to be true.

The other change that I foresee that I haven't seen mentioned is the economic impact. The economic recovery might be long enough with this that many of the changes in the way of shuttered businesses are or will at least feel permanent.

I think that gets mentioned a lot. The Fed/Treasury have multiple money canons up and running right now trying to limit the negative impacts on the economy. But the effectiveness of that is limited (as there is a significant amount of business activity that won't be earned back). And the longer this drags out, the more limited those efforts will be.

TheMillenniumRider said:

Anyway, what baffles me is that this country was founded by people who banded together to fight the system they didn't agree with. What happened? Everyone complains about everything, but we just say screw it. But apparently when we close the liquor stores, that gets the juices flowing.

I think about this a lot. When I suggest that people get engaged, by writing their congress critters and learning about issues in a non-trivial way, it's always met with excuses about why none of it is effective. That's such a cop out. Change is certainly possible, but you're never going to get it by complaining about it on Facebook. Activism isn't really activism anymore. In the context of some of the above issues, maybe the stakes aren't high enough for most people.

I'm not sure if this visualisation will work on the non-UK BBC website, but it's worth a try - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-52157968.

It plots the cases by country over time, day by day - interestingly, harking back a few pages, a cruise ship is in second place over all other countries until the middle of Feb.

(Sure there are all sorts of funky reasons for the data being as it is, testing in the UK is still woeful).

Jeff said:
That's such a cop out.

How it makes you feel is much more important.

That BBC visualization is alarming, but not surprising given the strange American exceptionalism that seemed to drive most "beliefs" about the disease. We've become so un-scientific about our reaction to virtually everything, and substituted our actions based on tribalism.

Changes sure are coming to Walmart. 5 customers per 1000sq’, one-way isles. Should make for an interesting Black Friday.

https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2020/04/03/changes-to-our-sh...istancing#

PeopleOfWalmart.com sure is going to be lit.

Wouldn't science say rather than look at raw case numbers, look at per capita numbers? And wouldn't it acknowledge that case numbers will in large part be influenced by testing levels (which again would be viewed on a per capita basis)?

Jeff said:

We've become so un-scientific about our reaction to virtually everything, and substituted our actions based on tribalism.

Well, at the end of the day we are not all that different from the animals now are we? The only thing that keeps us from living in small tribal groups and hunting and gathering is the veil of "society". If you remove that then ultimately we will all revert to a more primal state.

GoBucks89 said:

Wouldn't science say rather than look at raw case numbers, look at per capita numbers?

All the sites want to compare countries by case count, but this is an apples to oranges comparison. Not only in terms of population, but in terms of population density and mitigation efforts. Having 500k cases in the US is a miniscule number (~0.15% of the population), having 500k cases in Switzerland is a more concerning (~5.83% of the population), that same number of cases in Jamaica equals ~17.2% of the population, a much bigger issue.

Everyone looks at the case count, and a few hundred thousand cases sounds really bad, but its quite honestly a drop in the bucket. I am still surprised how everyone says we are long past the point of containment. (Really? we can't contain a fraction of one percent of the population?)

Edit: We can look at the data in this manner as well. Consider total confirmed cases vs population for countries who have considerably slowed the spread. Looking at the data in that manner shows that in the big picture there is really no meaningful effect on the population in these countries. However, if the news said the infection rate in Italy is roughly 2 thousandths of a percent then no one would care and life would move forward. So instead they focus on the infection and death cases confirmed, which sounds much worse. But they are the same numbers.

Italy: 0.002%

China: 0.000057%

South Korea: 0.0002%

Then consider the death rates, what is the going rate these days 2%? So take 2% of the values above. Infinitesimally small numbers were are talking about.

Here's another interesting way to view the infection data. https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/

In this one, its # of new cases vs number of existing cases. The animation shows time. There is a pretty clear line at the start when the countries are on the exponential growth section of the infection (its a logarithmic graph). When they get it under control, then it falls off the line.

Cargo Shorts said:

Changes sure are coming to Walmart. 5 customers per 1000sq’, one-way isles. Should make for an interesting Black Friday.

https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2020/04/03/changes-to-our-sh...istancing#

PeopleOfWalmart.com sure is going to be lit.

I interpret that as a temporary measure, not a permanent change.

TheMillenniumRider said:

Edit: We can look at the data in this manner as well. Consider total confirmed cases vs population for countries who have considerably slowed the spread. Looking at the data in that manner shows that in the big picture there is really no meaningful effect on the population in these countries. However, if the news said the infection rate in Italy is roughly 2 thousandths of a percent then no one would care and life would move forward. So instead they focus on the infection and death cases confirmed, which sounds much worse. But they are the same numbers.

Italy: 0.002%

China: 0.000057%

South Korea: 0.0002%

Then consider the death rates, what is the going rate these days 2%? So take 2% of the values above. Infinitesimally small numbers were are talking about.

I can't help but view the threat in this way. Cases relative to the population, not just those who have been tested.

In Ohio for instance, as of today, there is 3,312 confirmed cases and 91 deaths. Mind you, there are many who have, or had it, who were not tested and won't be apart of the confirmed case statistic. I know friends first hand who have been denied testing because they are considered 'low risk' who have had all the typical symptoms. We are only being fed the data from those that have been tested. Those being tested thus far are generally higher risk, therefor a higher mortality rate.

So let's just put a 10X multiplier on the confirmed cases in Ohio just as a crazy SWAG on how much of the population actually has it, assuming many won't ever be recorded. So you have 33,120 cases, 91 deaths. So 0.274% death rate based on those numbers.

Ohio has a population of 11,700,000... So with 33K cases, about 0.283% of the population have had or currently have it. Death rate at 0.00078%.

In 2017-2018, the flu season killed 61,099 people in the US, or 0.018% of the population. Total cases estimated at 13.7% of the population having the flu (44.8 million cases).

Not saying COVID won't be worse by the time its all said and done, but the numbers at this point may not be as doom and gloom as it is portrayed. The CDC is reporting 240,000 cases and 5,443 deaths, or 2.27% death rate across the US. But again, think of the insane amount of people not tested, not diluting that statistic. There could be well over a million cases who had it, recovered, etc... Do you really think the death rate is around 2% as being reported? I don't buy it. That is my only point with all this, taking the data with some reservation.

Still serious? Absolutely. We still have to curb the spikes in cases and social distance and do our part. But when this is all said and done, if we have a way to test and see who had it and recovered to get the final bigger picture.