JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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I think the big problem is that neither the cost, nor the benefit can be remotely predicted with any level of accuracy. When the "this is ridiculous" crowd speaks, they minimize the impact of the many of the worst case models (quote low end deaths, high end economic impact), but when the "save lives at all cost" speak, they minimize the impact of economic impacts (high end death count, low end economic). Both sides pretend the other can't do math, despite the fact that there are people far smarter than 99.99% of this board at this stuff in both camps.

Ultimately, there are a lot "ifs" in either route, and since this is America, the one thing we can be sure of is that both sides will blame the other if they end up being wrong.

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HotardAg07 said:

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But I would just add that we're not the first country to have an outbreak of Coronavirus. We were late to learn the lessons of China, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong who have suppressed the exponential spread of the virus.

We should have been aggressive early, when the first cases were found, to test anyone and everyone with contact with the infected and isolated them as much as possible. Our policy was only to test people who had TRAVELED to other countries, so people who were symptomatic but had not traveled were not being tested. Our slow response let the problem get big enough that it will take a while for the large scale testing to get into place.

Additionally, other countries really ramped up their production of masks and heavily increased distribution. We wouldn;t have had to do that everywhere, just in affected areas.

South Korea showed us the road map of how we could limit the spread in a quick amount of time, we were just late to implement it. South Korea is already starting to open back up for business -- their basketball leagues are playing games again, etc.

I think that's what is missing in this conversation. Yes, there are unknowns, but we also HAD good examples to follow of countries who were able to turn down the exponential spread and flatten it out.

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agsalaska said:

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Yesterday JP Morgan put out their revisions

It was like -4, -14, +8, +4

Il take that.

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greg.w.h said:

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agsalaska said:

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Yesterday JP Morgan put out their revisions

It was like -4, -14, +8, +4

Il take that.

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The -14 and the recovery are both assumptions in a black swan environment. I appreciate your optimism, though. And note that's growth above trough.

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Patentmike said:

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Hop said:

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agsalaska said:

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I disagree with your option 1. Our medical professionals will beat this. And we will bounce back much better than that.

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Will the medical professionals fix the resulting broken economy that could take years to rebuild? We are looking at "whatever it takes to stop the virus" and shutting down our economy to save a few thousand lives, but at what cost? Sending more than half of the population into debt and poverty? I don't know the answers. Maybe it is worth it to save a few thousand lives, but at the very least it is valid to ask questions of the economists and weigh the different outcomes without being shouted down by the "do whatever it takes" crowd who think medical professionals have all the answers. They have answers for only part of the equation....how to stop the virus. They don't know what the economic consequences will be to our society from their recommendations.

Our politicians and public policy leaders should be encouraged to at least have that discussion and weigh both sides. That isn't happening now. Good to see a few articles in major newspapers starting to discuss this issue.

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Hop, this almost reads like a trolling post. Seriously, I would flag it if I could.

We have a handful of examples from different countries regions. We also have what's going on in New York...CNBC article

Shutting down social interaction is the only intervention that's worked so far. Yes, other interventions most likely will work, once we get the data and resources to apply them.

I'm in the oil and gas sector. It is likely my job disappears at the end of March. Believe me, I get the economic stress this is causing. But I was also a PhD candidate in Molecular Virology (took a Masters and went to law school), so I can competently follow the science on this bug. The social distancing is the right decision for today. We need to protect our hospitalization capacity. I am hopeful that we can begin high quality surveillance of virus spread in the next few weeks, but until then partial isolation is our best bet. When this first came out, the data was suggesting 10s of millions of deaths worldwide.

For now, New York is probably our best canary. Watch their data over the next week and then we can start opining with some real information.

Before the libertarians mock me too much... I believe what we are seeing is a great advertisement for free market health care. There is a lot of general medical capacity being redirected toward this outbreak. That capacity wouldn't be there if we were single payer. The capacity would also be lacking if we did not have the Federal contributions via NIH and CDC.

I'm not saying don't question, but with the data I've seen so far, social distancing is the right answer for now.

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Patentmike said:

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RetiredpostalMarine said:

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Some folks need to look up the definition of TROLLING. Hop is entitled to his opinion.

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This statement,

Quote:

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Will the medical professionals fix the resulting broken economy that could take years to rebuild,

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I view as trolling (unnecessarily inflammatory) under the circumstances.

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HotardAg07 said:

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Hop said:

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Patentmike said:

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Hop said:

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agsalaska said:

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I disagree with your option 1. Our medical professionals will beat this. And we will bounce back much better than that.

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Will the medical professionals fix the resulting broken economy that could take years to rebuild? We are looking at "whatever it takes to stop the virus" and shutting down our economy to save a few thousand lives, but at what cost? Sending more than half of the population into debt and poverty? I don't know the answers. Maybe it is worth it to save a few thousand lives, but at the very least it is valid to ask questions of the economists and weigh the different outcomes without being shouted down by the "do whatever it takes" crowd who think medical professionals have all the answers. They have answers for only part of the equation....how to stop the virus. They don't know what the economic consequences will be to our society from their recommendations.

Our politicians and public policy leaders should be encouraged to at least have that discussion and weigh both sides. That isn't happening now. Good to see a few articles in major newspapers starting to discuss this issue.

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Hop, this almost reads like a trolling post. Seriously, I would flag it if I could.

We have a handful of examples from different countries regions. We also have what's going on in New York...CNBC article

Shutting down social interaction is the only intervention that's worked so far. Yes, other interventions most likely will work, once we get the data and resources to apply them.

I'm in the oil and gas sector. It is likely my job disappears at the end of March. Believe me, I get the economic stress this is causing. But I was also a PhD candidate in Molecular Virology (took a Masters and went to law school), so I can competently follow the science on this bug. The social distancing is the right decision for today. We need to protect our hospitalization capacity. I am hopeful that we can begin high quality surveillance of virus spread in the next few weeks, but until then partial isolation is our best bet. When this first came out, the data was suggesting 10s of millions of deaths worldwide.

For now, New York is probably our best canary. Watch their data over the next week and then we can start opining with some real information.

Before the libertarians mock me too much... I believe what we are seeing is a great advertisement for free market health care. There is a lot of general medical capacity being redirected toward this outbreak. That capacity wouldn't be there if we were single payer. The capacity would also be lacking if we did not have the Federal contributions via NIH and CDC.

I'm not saying don't question, but with the data I've seen so far, social distancing is the right answer for now.

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All I suggested is policy makers ask the question and look at both sides of the equation.

China is an interesting data point. I know there is a lot of skepticism over the reporting of their case numbers. But what I found interesting was an interview last night with the CEO of Fedex who said his company's operations in China were getting very close to "normal" and has seen a quick rebound there.
It seems to suggest some optimism for our situation in the next few weeks. We'll see.

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MBAR said:

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HotardAg07 said:

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We hit our 100th case on March 2. 17 days after that, we're at 14.5k. The above graph when updated shows that we're moving faster than Italy.

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NASAg03 said:

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Ding ding ding!

If our testing is increasing exponentially (which it is), then I would expect the number of cases to increase exponentially as well.

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Capitol Ag said:

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One of the biggest arguments to the "flatten the curve" model vs why we don't do that for the flu is that the flu has a vaccine and the assumption is that most if not all flu deaths happen to individuals who chose not to get the vaccine yearly. My question is, how many of the flu deaths did actually get the flu shot/mist?

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rfvgy12 said:

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188 US Death today

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