Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Gary Dowdell said:

If Jeff is choosing to take a more conservative approach with this, his doing so is in no way infringing upon what Lord Gonchar is doing and vice versa.

I agree with you for the most part in the overall tone of your post, but this line is going to get you pushback.

The "stay the **** home" people will tell you that it's the actions of others that put them at risk because of contact points and a high R0 and exponential growth.

Man, I don't even need to say it. I'm too predictable.

The missing bridge in the discussion, I think, is the disagreement on to what extent we're responsible for each other, which in the case of a highly contagious disease is a huge variable.

And the "reopen everything" people will tell you that the (perceived) communal need for that is infringing on their right to move about as they please.

We're so good at this, we can present each others' view points now. Isn't that the sign of a good debater?

We're good at mass-debating each other, clearly.

Ew.

Jeff said:

We're good at mass-debating each other, clearly.

It isn't the hands-on approach that this crisis makes impossible, but it does the trick.

Only after careful measuring.

Edit: wait... was that here or at PointBuzz?

Lord Gonchar said:

The "stay the **** home" people will tell you that it's the actions of others that put them at risk because of contact points and a high R0 and exponential growth.

But if the stay the **** at home people are staying the **** at home, doesn't it just become all of the "it's time to open up and I'll take my chances" folks going out and passing it to each other, knowing that their actions could potentially pass it along? If I'm supposed to stay home not because of myself, but because of others, shouldn't those others that I need to be protecting already be at home protecting themselves?

If Individual A (and their household) decide to go out into the world on May 1st, but is criticized by Individual B (and their household) for not staying at home to protect Individual C (and their household) - wouldn't Individual C + household already be at home if they decided the risk was not worth it? Should Individual A have to stay home when Chili's reopens next month or Cedar Point opens in July because Individual B keeps crying "stay home" because it's their responsibility to protect Individual C? In this scenario, Individual A may in fact get infected by other likeminded As, but B & C can continue to stay home and not take that risk. A gets to go back into the world and B & C can stay home until they determine it is safe to do so. Obviously that pesky little thing called employment may not make this as cut and dry, but at least in the month of May or during this "Phase 1" time period it may be somewhat practical.

I kind of feel that way too and have considered asking the same question, but I see it like this:

You likely can't 100% stay away from everyone. Even if my entire family hides in the house like scared little bitches (I'm joking), we'll still need milk or a hamburger or something. In the process of getting those things, presumably I will have to come in contact with someone. The less points of contact that someone has, the less my risk.

(And how much of a master debater do you have to be to start arguing the other side? I'll be here all week, folks!)

It really is simple math. Every interaction is a potential spread. Every spread leads to more potential spreads.

But yeah, even understanding it and arguing it here, I still feel like you in some way. But feelings aren't science and so on and so forth.

We don't have contact with anyone. In the last five weeks, we had to take Simon to the doctor, where they're not doing wellness visits, and that's the only case. All of our food has been delivery, or Walmart dropping it in our trunk.

But there's certainly a divide there. I'm employed in remote work, and in a lucrative field, so while delivery costs more, I can afford it. That's why the poor are disproportionately getting sick. This thing is amplifying the structural flaws in our society. There will be consequences of that, though it isn't clear what they'll be just yet.

And on my end of the spectrum, while my regular job is work from home and my duties are reduced, I have been delivering groceries a few hours a week to pick up some extra $ to have should I get furloughed if that keeps going, or for vacation funds in the future. Plus it gets me out of the house and that's been a lifesaver. But another huge bonus is it's a service for somebody like Jeff that chooses to have zero contact, I can bring you a Pub Sub and milk without you having to expose.

If Universal opened tomorrow I'd be there. I know the risk and I'm willing to take it to give myself the mental wellbeing I want to have. I wouldn't go to Universal and then go visit my parents. But they also wouldn't go anywhere they would have exposure either and are doing this like Jeff.

Again, you can get into the "people can't afford to not work these jobs and aren't choosing to go out there" debate and that's fair. But I also don't want to sit inside for six months and understanding and willing to take on the risk associated with that.

Certainly no one wants to, but sometimes it doesn't matter. Having seen what bronchitis did to my wife, and pneumonia to my son, I'm just not going to do anything that puts them at risk. I'm mostly through the stages of grief and at acceptance. Without effective treatment, I just don't want to assume the risk.

But as we learned, sometimes you have to see a doctor. There are other use cases we haven't thought of, too, I'm sure. If we can see the trend lines stay in control with social distancing and masks in widespread use, then sure, I might feel better about going to a grocery store. What will ultimately influence me isn't strong feelings or Gonch calling me a pussy, it'll be outcomes. Even the optimistic models now are based on the current protocols being followed, and we've seen enough on the news lately too be skeptical of that.

Jeff said:

What will ultimately influence me isn't strong feelings or Gonch calling me a pussy, it'll be outcomes.

You do know I'm playing. :)

I am 100% of the belief that it's better to be a live coward than a dead hero. Not even close.

Yes, but you also recognize that as a society we are terrible at risk management. In particular we tend to overestimate both the likelihood and severity of small risks while equally downplaying or ignoring much more significant ones; we are also not very good at evaluating mitigation strategies.

Once you start to consider what you know about the hazard, consider the observed behavior of others, and make adjustments to your own activities, you can work out ways that you can take the hazard very seriously, stack the odds in your favor, and yet not live in fear. That balance is very possible, and for those of us who can't or won't barricade ourselves in our houses, very necessary.

I'll illustrate my point with a conversation I had back in 2003 that I think still rings true. We were talking about how someone else had made a poor risk management decision:

Another person, referring specifically to an amusement ride--

The minute that you're not scared of these things, that's when you're in trouble.

My reply--

I disagree. These things have not scared me in years. You don't have to be scared to be safe; you have to have respect for what they can do to you. You just can't forget that it can be dangerous, that it can kill you. You don't have to fear it, but you do have to understand it.

It really applies to any potentially deadly hazard, not just the one described below.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Lord Gonchar said:

we'll still need milk or a hamburger or something

That might be the most American thing I have read today.

RideMan said:

I disagree. These things have not scared me in years. You don't have to be scared to be safe; you have to have respect for what they can do to you. You just can't forget that it can be dangerous, that it can kill you. You don't have to fear it, but you do have to understand it.

It really applies to any potentially deadly hazard, not just the one described below.

I believe that fear often leads to more injury and risk. Those who can understand something and take proper precautions will be fine.

Most of the time they'll be fine. Sometimes they are just an unfortunate statistic completely outside of their control. That 'outside of their control' is what I suspect is driving the types of reactions that we are seeing right now.

It's like when you've been driving a car for years and suddenly you get into an accident that wasn't your fault. After that event, you're much more aware of your mortality and how quickly something can change. Eventually that emotion will subside, but in the mean time you might be more wary about getting back behind the wheel.

Oh, Gonch, this is the infoporn journal article you've been waiting for, I think:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/the-value-of-lives-saved-by...the-costs/

It very much answers the question you have about human life "value" relative to economic vitality. Like a lot of models in flight, the inputs are likely to change over time, but it's a pretty convincing argument that what some believe might be an overreaction in fact validates the economically positive outcomes of early mitigation by city in 1918.

Yeah, a lot of variables and assumptions there - and they admit as much.

I get it though.

From the article:

"The researchers estimate that, holding everything else equal, social distancing would only need to cut out one in five interactions to be worth the cost—but that’s a result based on so many assumptions that it shouldn’t be read as a prescription for how much social distancing to aim for."

Two things:

1. If 1-in-5 interactions is the necessary reduction, we've already done WAY too much. (the slider concept we use around here)
2. They even admit that there's so many assumptions that you can't take any of this at face value.

And even if the larger abstract is a net win, on the individual level, I can still see how the working poor - having not worked for four weeks or more - don't really care as much about the larger abstarct as they do the food on the table tonight.

Again, I get it. But this article is just saying that if you plug in certain numbers (that may not be accurate, but at the same time aren't necessarily outlandish) you can math your way to a 'reasonable' response answer.

Then it links to three other articles coming to the opposite conclusion and calls them knee-jerk reactions.

Lord Gonchar said:

1. If 1-in-5 interactions is the necessary reduction, we've already done WAY too much. (the slider concept we use around here)

Maybe I misunderstood, but isn't the 1-in-5 figure the break even point? Like if we can reduce 20% of contacts then social distancing is a wash and if we can reduce more than that, we're in plus territory? That was my reading of that point.