Ranger222 said:

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SoupNazi2001 said:

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Ranger222 said:

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And nobody here is saying to "let us conduct all our tests and peer review" while everyone is lockdown. Don't know where that came from. But there is a middle ground from our current situation to "open it all back up" where we can do this gradually, backed by testing and data, to observe the population and make sure we are doing it as safely as possible without sparking more infection chains and a second overwhelming wave that will shut it all down again. That has always been the goal and is achievable and has nothing to do with current research ongoing

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You want data and stats. In Texas we have 26K cases and 690 deaths out of 29 million people. 75%+ of those deaths are people 65+. That is not justification to shut the state down.

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You are aware that without herd immunity or a vaccine, once you have widespread asymptomatic community transmission, those deaths on your graph will occur at some point? If you extrapolate that graph out fat enough in time, we have very similar total deaths regardless of mitigation once we have refined treatments and are not overwhelming hospitals, up until the point that we reach herd immunity via exposure or vaccine. That curve down only happens quickly with rapid testing and tracing at the very beginning of a breakout. Now that that is impossible, it will only happen with herd immunity once this has broken out as it has.

So, the question is if you believe we will develop an effective vaccine that gives lasting immunity in a relatively short time while we continue more severe and economically damaging mitigation, or relax social distancing with corresponding economic improvement, and hope for faster natural herd immunity?

Keep in mind that lasting economic damage also affects our ability to conduct medical care and that loss of capacity compounds over time.

We have tough choices. There is no easy way out of we just hunker down longer and hope for the best. The most frightening thing is there is no guarantee of an effective vaccine with lasting immunity. This may be a seasonal misery that results in some human natural selection until the virus naturally becomes less infective or damaging.

It's good to carefully consider the options, but at this point, it is vanity to think we're going to bend that curve back to zero soon with any level of mitigation. We need to settle on the most tolerable effective level of mitigation that people won't rapidly tire of and ignore or defy. Something people are willing to comply with that accomplishes an quantifiable improvement over the alternative.

I agree with your overall point, but buying time doesn't only work for a vaccine - it also works for things like some of the recent medical studies showing drugs that may help cut down on the mortality rate. Additionally, it gives doctors time to figure out more effective treatments (i.e. the recent trend away from intubation if possible).

I don't think anyone is suggesting we can stay locked down until we have a vaccine, but keep in mind that Ranger is mostly arguing with people who refuse to even believe this is something worth doing anything at all about. Heck, half of the posters going back and forth with him seem to celebrate the idea of getting it and sharing it with their family and friends and keep citing the controversial video that tries to explain why this is nothing worth caring about at all.

As I've said tons of times in the past - I have zero issue with folks who think this is a serious issue, but want to be more aggressive on opening up for various reasons....but when you see folks that don't even think the virus is anything more than the flu to begin with, it makes any rational discussion pretty much impossible. Keep in mind, many of these people have made it their duty to go after any medical figures (Fauci, Gupta, etc.) while posting links to reports that read like they were written by 911 deniers and putting their faith in folks like Rush Limbaugh.

Look, I'm all for opening everything up but I really don't want to catch this thing. I'm glad Texas is a leader. I'm also going to stay relatively at home other than standard grocery store and take out runs. I'll probably push our in office back to June 1st at the earliest.

I'm almost 38 and on a statin. I'm not the mold of excellent health and I haven't just run my first Ironman.

I'm glad to stand back a few weeks and see what happens.

People really dislike that graph huh? The Y-axis is new cases, not deaths.

Look I want to open up things too. I think some places are ready for it. I think this weekend is a good time to start loosening restrictions. I think the Texas protocol of 25% occupancy to start is smart. I have always supported gradual re-introduction as to not cause a spike in new cases as we were seeing the 1st half of March. Its unfortunate that our testing and tracing capabilities are not up to par to further support our efforts to get a better handle on it and get the R0 or transmission rate down so we can function while not creating a 2nd wave.

I really don't understand the blowback to saying there is a middle ground where we can open back up, but do it slowly while watching the data of new cases come in. It blows my mind. Its really the only way to do it and I'm glad some governors have caught on. Trying to navigating this middle gets you pushed to the "spreading fear" and "forever lockdown" territory which couldn't be further from where a lot of posters on here stand. But I guess that is what is being bred on these discussion forums in today's world -- only extreme sides.

What I won't tolerate is the idea that this is all a doctor/scientist conspiracy to lock you in your homes and wreck the economy, or that is was doctor/scientists being wrong that got us into a lockdown. Won't stand for it. That's why I got into this thread in the first place. I had to open my mouth. There is a lot of disrespect on this forum going around, like last night when a poster told a doctor they were flat out wrong that staff later cleaned up. WTF is wrong with you people? Its always been about reducing that R0 value, keeping hospitals below capacity and easing the burden on healthcare workers. Yet discussions have evolved into deaths, mortality rates, its just the flu. Deaths are a lagging indicator, it was always about transmissiblity (and still is) and calling it the flu is just plain incorrect. Rate of new cases/day and current hospitalization rates far better indicators to rarely get discussed here.

You'll find many of us are on the same page of wanting to get back to life as normal, football in the fall and putting this behind us. Being a step down from "open it all the way back up" does not mean you want to see the economy tank.....

Amen brother.

Just want to commend y'all on probably the most sane couple of posts / dialogue on this board in a long long while.

Lots of thoughts to noodle on.