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[martinuzz]

The great benefit of a total lockdown would indeed be that Covid would actually decrease daily mortality rate by eliminating traffic victims.
The irony.

EDIT: as was to be expected, the Eurovision songfestival has been cancelled.

[Cthulhu]

The venice canals are clear for the first time in living memory.

[TamerVirus]

So like any other day of the week?

I'm not even being sarcastic.  I mean hell, worldometer says there have been 65k deaths already today, 2.7M deaths so far this year (15k so far today, which I suspect includes COVID) from all communicable diseases.  Apparently there have even been about 47k abortions today so far!  So why the flying f*** are we holing ourselves up over this thing?

I mean we as society kill more people per day in car crashes (~1500 so far today).

It's just the flu, bro!

Fuck, are we still doing this?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No Eurovision is the harbinger of the end for Ur-op, where the ancient flame of the end fell

[ChairmanPoo]

So like any other day of the week?

I'm not even being sarcastic.  I mean hell, worldometer says there have been 65k deaths already today, 2.7M deaths so far this year (15k so far today, which I suspect includes COVID) from all communicable diseases.  Apparently there have even been about 47k abortions today so far!  So why the flying f*** are we holing ourselves up over this thing?

I mean we as society kill more people per day in car crashes (~1500 so far today).

It's just the flu, bro!

Fuck, are we still doing this?

Yeah

I think there are two, no three problems at hand:
-first, our goverments have told us over and over than it wouldn't happen (and to me Western goverments have lost all credibility now)

- second: the virus is really insidious. The personal risk for any given rando is actually low. So many don't care. "Its just a flu". It looks like that indeed. Problem is it infects everyone. If it's a flu it's the 1918 flu.  It crushes healthcare systems.

- third: this is all very out of context. In no small measure it's hard to believe because nothing this tremendous has happened in the last 80 years. I think its probably par with the world wars. We dont want to believe it. Fuck I'm hoping Chinese aid arrives ASAP now. I'd personally blow Xi Jingpin at this point if it brought it in two days sooner.

[McTraveller]

It's just the flu, bro!

Fuck, are we still doing this?

No, it's not the flu. It's worse than the flu:  we have taken this worse than a flu illness and turned it into a worldwide catastrophe.  It's like 5% actual virus severity and 95% media-induced madness.

Many places are throwing away a year of education for their youth.

Who knows how many years of economic development we're throwing away, which will make it even more difficult to deal with such illnesses in the future.

We've made it "acceptable" for all societies to just lock everyone down - probably the worst thing of all.

I don't fear the illness - I fear our response to it.  Our response has been fear and despair and blame, not resolve and strength and standing together (calls to "let's shut everything down for the sake of our neighbors" - that's making an atrocity sound like a good thing).

[MetalSlimeHunt]

He's got a point. Our whole world is built on an aegis of self-annihilation through capitalism, and here we are turning to harm reduction like a bunch of fucking communists. Is this truly the extent of our dedication? I was promised the suicide of whole civilizations!

Throw open the factories, and let the fire sweep us clean, purer and finally triumphant over ourselves.

[Naturegirl1999]

He's got a point. Our whole world is built on an aegis of self-annihilation through capitalism, and here we are turning to harm reduction like a bunch of fucking communists. Is this truly the extent of our dedication? I was promised the suicide of whole civilizations!

Throw open the factories, and let the fire sweep us clean, purer and finally triumphant over ourselves.

i hope you are joking about harm reduction being communist, if not, when the fuck did it become communist?

[ChairmanPoo]

You're mistaken McTraveller. This is really really serious. You dont realize what havoc will this wreak on healthcare and how many people will dir as a consequence.
You were comparing it with car crashes. Let me make an analogy for you: the reason the UK dropped the idea you're advocating is that their official experts showed them data suggesting around 200.000 people dead and total collapse of the NHS. And we still dont know if we'll have more outbreaks
During the entire world war 2, the UK lost around 450.000 people. That goes for around 90.000 a year.

So here's the conundrum McTraveller: not doing anything will kill twice as many people per year as world war 2 did.  That's why this is very dangerous

[mko]

We've made it "acceptable" for all societies to just lock everyone down - probably the worst thing of all.

That is a good thing. We have relatively mild illness (still making quarantines t be likely net positive), hopefully in case of more serious one response will be less resembling bunch of headless chickens.

And we are going to loss weeks/months of economical development at most. Quarantine is not going to last for years.

[Bralbaard]

You're mistaken McTraveller. This is really really serious. You dont realize what havoc will this wreak on healthcare and how many people will dir as a consequence.
You were comparing it with car crashes. Let me make an analogy for you: the reason the UK dropped the idea you're advocating is that their official experts showed them data suggesting around 200.000 people dead and total collapse of the NHS. And we still dont know if we'll have more outbreaks
During the entire world war 2, the UK lost around 450.000 people. That goes for around 90.000 a year.

So here's the conundrum McTraveller: not doing anything will kill twice as many people per year as world war 2 did.  That's why this is very dangerous

And those 200.000 would likely not even take into account that people would die of other causes, if the NHS collapsed.

[McTraveller]

Amputation is a last resort, not the first thing you do because you have a cut and it might get infected with gangrene which can kill you and then say "oh well turns out that was overkill. Sorry."

Social distancing does work, yes, but we've gone way beyond social distancing to forced isolation.  Can we not see the difference there?  In some places the force has been with physical force, but even worse are the places now where the forcing is "cultural" where people are shaming each other for trying to live somewhat normally.

PREVIEW: Where the heck do you get that it is inevitable that this will kill twice as many people per year (in the UK) as WWII?  Is this a real projection or a worst-case projection?

I really question the ability of everyone to assess "danger" - there's never any middle ground. It's either "no danger at all" or "the worst thing ever."  I'm somewhere in the middle.  I seem to have a hard time communicating that fact.  Take action, yes. But don't destroy confidence in society.

@mko - shutting things down for a few weeks/months has much longer lasting impact than those weeks/months.  Generally I'm positive on the economy, but this is going to result in structural change - it's going to take a long time to see how it all plays out.

[Doomblade187]

McTraveller, this disease, if we don't keep strict isolation measures, may end up killing 7-8% of *everyone* over a certain age (mainly septuagenarians, if I recall correctly. Also, ChairmanPoo is a doctor. Mebbe listen to them.

*Hugs the ChairmanPoo*

[Bralbaard]

Amputation is a last resort, not the first thing you do because you have a cut and it might get infected with gangrene which can kill you and then say "oh well turns out that was overkill. Sorry."

Social distancing does work, yes, but we've gone way beyond social distancing to forced isolation.  Can we not see the difference there?  In some places the force has been with physical force, but even worse are the places now where the forcing is "cultural" where people are shaming each other for trying to live somewhat normally.

PREVIEW: Where the heck do you get that it is inevitable that this will kill twice as many people per year (in the UK) as WWII?  Is this a real projection or a worst-case projection?

I really question the ability of everyone to assess "danger" - there's never any middle ground. It's either "no danger at all" or "the worst thing ever."  I'm somewhere in the middle.  I seem to have a hard time communicating that fact.  Take action, yes. But don't destroy confidence in society.

@mko - shutting things down for a few weeks/months has much longer lasting impact than those weeks/months.  Generally I'm positive on the economy, but this is going to result in structural change - it's going to take a long time to see how it all plays out.

You are certainly right that lockdowns and other measures greatly impede freedom of people, and that we should be very wary that this power does not end up being abused by goverments. But that does not mean these measures are not needed right now.
The economy is taking a beating, but I'm quite sure that if we went full-capitalist on this, and allowed the disease to wreck the elderly and those without health insurance in the name of profit, it would end up backfiring in terrible ways.

Edit: There is the problem that if your measures aren't effective enough you can't go back and try again, at that point it would be out of control, and we already let this slip in the early stages. Better safe than sorry for our second try.

[ChairmanPoo]

McTraveller, this disease, if we don't keep strict isolation measures, may end up killing 7-8% of *everyone* over a certain age (mainly septuagenarians, if I recall correctly. Also, ChairmanPoo is a doctor. Mebbe listen to them.

*Hugs the ChairmanPoo*

I honestly cried at this. Thus

But I didnt believe it either  a couple of weeks ago. I couldn't. It was so enormous that it beggars belief. Deep down I really wanted to believe the goverment's propaganda that we could control it by being smart and handwashing. I feel really really stupid for having put any stock on what they told us.


Now we are all holding out for Chinese humanitarian aid. I mean could anyone imagine  this situation? We're not even refugees because we can't get out. 

In that way I understand McTraveller. He doesn't believe it because he can't grasp how terrible this is. It's hard not to whimper when you stop to think about it