The cure is worse than the disease. And yes, there are many people who are saying that the economic hardships outweigh the actions necessary to save lives. And this is precisely what they mean.
Coronavirus
- Thread starter Hekate
- Start date
The cure is worse than the disease. And yes, there are many people who are saying that the economic hardships outweigh the actions necessary to save lives. And this is precisely what they mean.
You are assuming that our efforts to flatten the curve will be for naught. I hope you are wrong. But with all the a-holes who are saying "it is a hoax" and that are not willing to stay home to save lives, you may be right.
Go to Ben Shapiro's facebook page, quite a few people there. Other right wing social media has varieties of "I'm a tough guy, so what if a few people die, losing my job is worse", or it is a complete hoax, or the democrats created the virus to defeat trump, or the democrats are exaggerating the hospital limits so that trump is not elected.
They have latched onto the "it's all about Trump" theme.
I didn't respond to you on that. I tried to read the article but it wanted me to disable ad blocking or something so I navigated away.
Wes Mantooth
Well-Known Member
That’s the thing. Between the half measures (I’d guess more of society is not quarantining than is) and resources which are quickly running out, the curve won’t flatten any time soon imo. If it did, it should in about 7-10 days but I don’t think it will.
JimLes
Well-Known Member
Good for him. When we need a bridge built, we can call him. Right now, I'd rather listen to doctors.
MVP
Well-Known Member
It was easy to predict just few days ago.
I have to assume you are being purposely obtuse.
Not that kind of engineer.
https://scholar.google.co.il/citations?user=CVYkT-kAAAAJ&hl=en
Not making an argument with regard to this, but saying “doctors” is too general. Physicians treat people at the individual level and not at the population level. Expertise is multidisciplinary.
JimLes
Well-Known Member
No, I'm just sufficiently worried about this pandemic that I'm not sure we ought to have an academic debate on who's better at pandemic modeling, engineers or medical professionals. I also believe that it's generally a good idea to listen to people in the field and not dilettantes, and especially not people who do "theoretical research." This is real life. We can't afford to see if only 13,000 people in Israel die, like this engineer is predicting. We don't have a vaccine for this virus, we don't know how contagious it is, we don't know what the actual mortality is, and we don't know if it will mutate. We do know that it didn't take long for most countries' health care systems to be overwhelmed.
But yeah, let's listen to this guy and abandon current measures to deal with this. Maybe he's right and everyone else is wrong.
Part of this comes from not reading it, but it’s not suggesting any of that.
I won’t argue because it is impossible to predict. We can extrapolate current models but they do not account for the effectiveness of mitigation and other uncertainties.
I hope u are wrong.
Wes Mantooth
Well-Known Member
Me too. Maybe people are being more responsible than I realize.
JimLes
Well-Known Member
But, social distancing should lead to fewer cases of infection and death, no?
“No, because we won’t be able to isolate ourselves completely or forever. At some stage, we will have to resume a regular routine, and then the R0 will stabilize at 2 again. Effectively, we are delaying the inevitable."
Sure sounds like he doesn't agree with all of us being at home right now.
The idea of flattening the curve isn’t about reducing total infections, though. Just redistributing them. The exception to that would be if you delay infections long enough for a vaccine.
ETA: I’d grant that the original question was two questions (one surrounding infections and one surrounding death), but the answer may not be true for the second part of the question and that should have been better clarified, if one is assuming larger death totals secondary to an over-saturated healthcare system.
Last edited:
Joe Bagadonuts
Well-Known Member
So in other words, no, you have not heard anyone say what you claim they are saying.
And BTW, "the cure is worse than the disease" does not mean what you are saying it does. Have you ever experienced a loved one going through cancer? If you had you would easily be able to understand that term, and you would realize that the meaning is very different than you are suggesting.
figurative language is hard
you obviously didn’t look where I told you to look. Do your homework.