EAllusion wrote:Between the Whitehouse going ahead and advocating for major cuts to the CDC and infectious disease response yesterday to the Senate breaking for recess to wait and see in the middle of a multi-pronged crisis, I am stunned at the level of impunity the GOP feels from media optics. Perhaps rightly so, but that too is stunning when you reflect on it.
I just read both of those stories and was shocked. Apparently there’s a residue of optimism that hasn’t been beat out of me y yet.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Thanks for the information, Lemmie. “Flatten the curve” has been the mantra out here for a while now. The messaging from the state and local health boards on this has been great. Good on your son for getting the word out!
Ironically, he got a fair amount of grief about “panicking” when he started discussing this concept about two weeks ago, but not now.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent
EAllusion wrote:Between the Whitehouse going ahead and advocating for major cuts to the CDC and infectious disease response yesterday to the Senate breaking for recess to wait and see in the middle of a multi-pronged crisis, I am stunned at the level of impunity the GOP feels from media optics. Perhaps rightly so, but that too is stunning when you reflect on it.
I just read both of those stories and was shocked. Apparently there’s a residue of optimism that hasn’t been beat out of me y yet.
Looks like there’s been a change of heart on the second story, so the outrage or fear of it likely had some effect.
YOUNG AND UNAFRAID OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC? GOOD FOR YOU. NOW STOP KILLING PEOPLE
| OPINION
A DOCTOR IN WESTERN EUROPE ON 3/11/20 AT 2:29 PM EDT
[excerpt] ....But why the urgency, if most people survive?
Here's why: Fatality is the wrong yardstick. Catching the virus can mess up your life in many, many more ways than just straight-up killing you. "We are all young"—okay. "Even if we get the bug, we will survive"—fantastic. How about needing four months of physical therapy before you even feel human again. Or getting scar tissue in your lungs and having your activity level restricted for the rest of your life. Not to mention having every chance of catching another bug in hospital, while you're being treated or waiting to get checked with an immune system distracted even by the false alarm of an ordinary flu. No travel for leisure or business is worth this risk.
Now, odds are, you might catch coronavirus and might not even get symptoms. Great. Good for you. Very bad for everyone else, from your own grandparents to the random older person who got on the subway train a stop or two after you got off. You're fine, you're barely even sneezing or coughing, but you're walking around and you kill a couple of old ladies without even knowing it. Is that fair? You tell me.
My personal as well as professional view: we all have a duty to stay put, except for very special reasons, like, you go to work because you work in healthcare, or you have to save a life and bring someone to hospital, or go out to shop for food so you can survive. But when we get to this stage of a pandemic, it's really important not to spread the bug. The only thing that helps is social restriction. Ideally, the government should issue that instruction and provide a financial fallback—compensate business owners, ease the financial load on everyone as much as possible and reduce the incentive of risking your life or the lives of others just to make ends meet. But if your government or company is slow on the uptake, don't be that person. Take responsibility. For all but essential movement, restrict yourself.
I have already drawn attention to discussions in Italy about how a limited number of intensive care beds (ICB's) can best be used.
Here is the situation: in any country in the world, whatever its health care system, the number of ICBs is limited, and is unlikely to be susceptible to being increased significantly during an epidemic.
So, let's make a simple model.
A certain country has, at some moment, 100 ICBs available.
At that moment there happen to be 200 patients in that country who are in a serious condition for doctors to think they are very likely to die if they are not treated in an ICB. For the purposes of modelling, they fall neatly into two groups:
A: 100 people over 80. If they are treated in an ICB, they have a 20% chance of survival. If they are not treated in an ICB, they have 0% chance of survival.
B: 100 people under 50. If they are treated in an ICB, they have an 80% chance of survival. If they are not treated in an ICB, they have 20% chance of survival.
If you give all the ICBs to group A, the total number of people dying will be around 80 from group A, and 80 from group B. That is a total of 160 dead.
If you give all the ICBs to group B, the number of people dying will be 100 from group A, and 20 from group B. That is a total of 120 dead.
So, overall, treating only the younger group kills 40 less people than treating only the older group. Since either decision will kill some people, clearly the second decision is less lethal, and is hence preferable.
Now, where does the socialised/business-driven medicine aspect come into this?
In a business-driven health care system, the limited number of beds are allocated to those with enough money to pay for them. That is, in general, likely to mean that older, hence better-off, people get the beds, which will mean more people die overall.
In a socialised medicine system, doctors will be responsible for making the choice as to who to treat. They are therefore able to allocate the limited number of beds so as to save the maximum number of lives.
This is, it appears, a terrible thing to happen. (Can somebody remind me why?)
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Interesting development in NYC. My spouse has UPS delivery/pick up daily at his large wholesale warehouse. Normally they bring packages in to be signed for, but starting today, UPS delivery people will now only drop off packages outside and will not enter the warehouse. A worker has to go outside and take delivery of packages on the sidewalk, and then move them inside.
Subgenius apparently doesn’t understand this, but his hospital will do exactly the same thing if its capacity is overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. Those who are mostly likely to survive with supportive care will get it. The highest risk patients will be left to die. Triage sucks when you can’t save everyone that could be saved.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Lemmie wrote:Interesting development in New York City. My spouse has UPS delivery/pick up daily at his large wholesale warehouse. Normally they bring packages in to be signed for, but starting today, UPS delivery people will now only drop off packages outside and will not enter the warehouse. A worker has to go outside and take delivery of packages on the sidewalk, and then move them inside.
It’s the little things, right?
Absolutely.
It’s really important, I think, to keep in mind that flattening the curve doesn’t mean stop doing everything. It means doing things smarter.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
