03-15-2020, 01:24 PM
The economic consequences should not be taken lightly, for sure. But as burger points out, the hit is coming no matter what. It will either come electively when people voluntarily stay home in order to slow the spread, or it will happen when large swaths of the public are infected and can’t work, or decide to stay home because the pandemic hits home when a friend or relative is stricken, and the night,y news shows scenes of mass chaos in hospitals that are literally having to make decisions about who to attempt to keep alive and who has to be allowed to die.
I think there are two attitudes that we need to protect ourselves against. The first is that this is no big deal and we are all overreacting. The experience of places like Italy tells us that if we don’t “overreact” now, we will be overwhelmed later. The second is that the virus is here and there is nothing we can do but ride it out. That too is surrender monkey defeatism, countries like South Korea (https://www.worldometers.info/coronaviru...uth-korea/) and Hong Kong have shown that the infections can be brought under control. Once the infection is brought down to manageable levels it can be controlled by old fashioned means (rapid identification of patients with subsequent quarantine and contact tracing and monitoring). If that can be accomplished, the most vulnerable amongst us can be protected long enough for effective treatments and vaccines to be developed (1 year at the fastest, but probably more like 18 months to two years). That will protect people like my friend Larissa, who was born with cystic fibrosis and had a lung transplant two years ago and has two elementary school kids. People like my parents and uncles and aunts who by virtue of age will be at highest risk. People like the Dr. in Hubei, who was in his thirties and tried to warm the world about the new mysterious illness, and eventually succumbed to it. Many of our own board members are on the front lines and at high risk. (Not to mention the segment of this board that is in the highest risk age category). Even though the mortality among younger people is not as high as with older patients, it’s not zero either. And even amongst the people who survive and recover it is looking like more have persistent respiratory impairment. Time is lives saved here, and we are buying time.
BC
I think there are two attitudes that we need to protect ourselves against. The first is that this is no big deal and we are all overreacting. The experience of places like Italy tells us that if we don’t “overreact” now, we will be overwhelmed later. The second is that the virus is here and there is nothing we can do but ride it out. That too is surrender monkey defeatism, countries like South Korea (https://www.worldometers.info/coronaviru...uth-korea/) and Hong Kong have shown that the infections can be brought under control. Once the infection is brought down to manageable levels it can be controlled by old fashioned means (rapid identification of patients with subsequent quarantine and contact tracing and monitoring). If that can be accomplished, the most vulnerable amongst us can be protected long enough for effective treatments and vaccines to be developed (1 year at the fastest, but probably more like 18 months to two years). That will protect people like my friend Larissa, who was born with cystic fibrosis and had a lung transplant two years ago and has two elementary school kids. People like my parents and uncles and aunts who by virtue of age will be at highest risk. People like the Dr. in Hubei, who was in his thirties and tried to warm the world about the new mysterious illness, and eventually succumbed to it. Many of our own board members are on the front lines and at high risk. (Not to mention the segment of this board that is in the highest risk age category). Even though the mortality among younger people is not as high as with older patients, it’s not zero either. And even amongst the people who survive and recover it is looking like more have persistent respiratory impairment. Time is lives saved here, and we are buying time.
BC