Does social distancing even matter? Read on...

amother

Lemon

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 9:36 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

''

I have no idea what you mean. No one forces you to go outside, no one forces you to work. No one forces your kids to go to school in person. You can live your whole life inside if you so chose. This was true before the virus and it's true now.
Now if you have kids and a family to support and have to go to work to pay for private school and food for all of them, that was your choice.

do you not understand the difference between "force" and "more than welcome"

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 9:40 pm

amother [ Lemon ] wrote:

do you not understand the difference between "force" and "more than welcome"

I mean they're opposites... Before the coronavirus, you were more than welcome to live your life inside as in no one forced you to go outside. The same will apply after coronavirus. When the country opens up, no one will force you to go outside, meaning you are more than welcome to stay inside.

Sunny Days

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 9:42 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

That’s exactly the point. There’s no evidence that what we’ve done made a major difference. What there is evidence of is that the way reacted has destroyed tens of millions of lives.

I would bet my house that Sweden will come out looking like the smart country amidst a bunch of countries that let politics and fear rule their responses. And we didn’t have an equipment or ventilator shortage. The patients for the 30,000 Cuomo said he desperately needed never materialized. You’re going to say that’s due to SD. I’m going to say that’s due to the fact that the models were so widely inaccurate as to be rendered useless. But there’s no way that either of us can be proven right until years from now when an analysis can be done comparing countries who SD vs. those who didn’t.

I have a feeling that the reason there were (unfortunately ?) ventilators avail (and barely staff) is because the people were dying so fast (whether from neglect or extreme illness is a whole ‘nother story...) that the ventilators were lmasa available... just a thought

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 9:50 pm

gamzehyaavor wrote:

A. You have absolutely no way of proving that. B. They had ventilators they literally weren't using because their models were completely inaccurate. There's almost no pushback in the media that the models were wrong. Even the models say the models were wrong because they keep revising themselves. We went from 100,000 to 70,000 to 60,000 deaths. And those estimates were all taking into account that we were social distancing so nothing changed.

I won't be surprised if in 10 years from now we're talking about how the way we reacted to this was possibly the worst example of government intervention since WWII.

amother

Lemon

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 9:53 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

more than welcome by whom?

amother

Lemon

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 9:54 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

What do you think the government was trying to achieve by the stay home measures?

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:00 pm

amother [ Lemon ] wrote:

What do you think the government was trying to achieve by the stay home measures?

Me personally? I think the stay at home orders were necessary until we flattened the curve and the r knot was below 1. Now that we've done that, there's no reason we can't start opening May 1. We're not going to eliminate coronavirus by staying inside for another month and I have yet to hear Cuomo justify the extension. I think the governors are trying prolong the lockdown mainly to increase their federal funding which Cuomo feels is inadequate as he has incessantly pointed out .

I also probably think they're doing it to hurt Trump's reelection chances as well as boost their own popularity. I mean I listened to Cuomo talk about his daughter's boyfriend today for 15 minutes for no apparent reason other than he likes the sound of his own voice. But I try not to be too much of a cynic so I'll stick with they're prolonging the lockdown to increase their federal funding.

amother

Lemon

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:07 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

you didn't answer the question.

What do you think the government was trying to achieve by the stay home measures?

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:13 pm

amother [ Lemon ] wrote:

you didn't answer the question.

What do you think the government was trying to achieve by the stay home measures?

... yes I did. I said I think in the beginning they were right to try to flatten the curve in NY. I think now that they’ve extended it what they are trying to do is hold out until the federal government passed a second aid package that gives them a substantial amount of federal dollars. If they opened up, the federal government wouldn’t have to pass a second package, or at least not an expansive one.
Never waste a good crisis as they say.

amother

Lemon

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:17 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

flatten the curve doesn't mean anything. (and what you wrote was your opinion on the stay at home measures, not what I asked you).

do you mean they were trying to stop the spread of disease, specifically people infected with coronavirus?

amother

Crimson

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:19 pm

Its almost as if this never happened in history so we can't see how SD and mask wearing worked out.

Oh wait.... we did.

Fyi, during the spanish flu cities reacted differently to the flu (travel was limited between cities) and cities who opened up to early (because they did do SD even back then) had a second spike

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:20 pm

amother [ Lemon ] wrote:

flatten the curve doesn't mean anything.

do you mean they were trying to stop the spread of disease, specifically people infected with coronavirus?

What else would I be trying to say? In NY the virus spread like wildfire mainly due to the subway system. In NY they had to shut down the economy because they had to shut down the subway system to stop spreading the disease.

Everywhere else is a different story.

But yes I think in NY they had to get it under control as in they had to shore up medical supplies and stop the virus from spreading until they could do so. Now that they’re giving ventilators away to other states it appears that they’ve done that. Therefore there is no reason to continue the lockdown other than political ones. Whether you open up now or in a month from now, coronavirus will still be there.

DrMom

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:22 pm

I have not read the paper cited in the OP, but how could social distancing not matter, given the way this virus (or any virus) is transmitted?

If I am not close enough to anyone to breathe on them, shouldn't that mean I am less likely to transmit he virus to them, vs if I am standing a foot away and coughing into their face?

Taking his logic to an extreme, is the author suggesting that if every single person who tests positive for covid-19 were put into solitary confinement for 1 month, that the virus would still be transmitted at the same rate as if people were allowed to interact as much as they wanted to?

That hardly makes sense.

Last edited by DrMom on Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:23 pm

amother [ Crimson ] wrote:

Oh please. Comparing anything in this century to 1918 is absurd. They couldn’t even see viruses. They are two completely different scenarios. Philadelphia has a spike because they hosted a parade. I didn’t say we should host a parade. I said we should let people out using appropriate social distancing.

amother

Lemon

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:27 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

You could have just answer the question I asked.

Do you think the drastic measures taken to stop the spread of disease was warranted, even if it was only for three weeks?

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:32 pm

amother [ Lemon ] wrote:

You could have just answer the question I asked.

Do you think the drastic measures taken to stop the spread of disease was warranted, even it was only for three weeks?

In the tristate area, yes. But you’re asking a hypothetical. The reality is we’ve extended it way past 3 weeks. NY will probably end up being 8-10. We’re talking about a difference of months not weeks. I don’t think the drastic measures they are currently taking are warranted but I could see them waiting until May 1. Anything past that is absolutely them playing politics.

#BestBubby

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:40 pm

amother [ Lemon ] wrote:

What do you think the government was trying to achieve by the stay home measures?

The Democrats and the Democrat Fake News want to destroy US Economy to make Trump lose so they can regain their power. A prominent Democrat, Bill Maher, actually said on TV that he HOPES their is a recession, that it will be "worth it" to get rid of Trump. Nuff said!

DrMom

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:40 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

I think this whole side-discussion is tangential to the main thrust of this thread, but suggesting that people should be complete hermits is really not realistic. Most people who live complete in isolation of the rest of the known word have severe social anxiety or other disorders.

amother

Lemon

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:48 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

I'm not asking a hypothetical. Three weeks ago was a point in time. What were you thinking then?

The way you were writing suggested that you didn't buy into the NY style shut down at all... given the millions of lives destroyed.

(oh and I think the stay at home measures were meant to prevent massive amounts of death, as the modeling predicted without it there would be massive amounts of death).

vepowi

Sun, Apr 19 2020, 10:52 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

BH for models being wrong. It's impossible to predict these things with any degree of certainty, given the lack of previous data and multitude of factors that change things. Even flu fatalities vary by 100%+ from year to year. It's always good to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

I do hope we're not getting to overconfident, though. Look at the head and shoulders pattern from Italy and Spain. The rates are not straight linear, being as the disease progresses through infected victims in stages. We need another week until we can know if we're over the current hill and we can reassess our battle strategy going forward.