Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Nice. Just sidestep his questioning completely and instead point to an article that says to "take me seriously". I don't have to justify myself, I just have to find an article that says you should listen to me. Solid. He raised some very good points.
The article basically just points out a bunch of downsides to the country shutting down like it's some "gotcha". Yes, we all know there are costs to shutting down. It's just that, so far, these seem like downsides we can potentially mitigate. Yes, people losing their jobs and the disruption to education has costs. But maybe we can innovate in those spaces...better government policy with regards to unemployment/social safety nets. Better distance learning. Open specific things up at the right time, in the right manner. I think the current argument is whether the right time is NOW, and whether we have "the right manner" figured out. If you think NOW is the right time, please show me the data as to why delaying it one more week or month is going to cost MORE lives by way of suicide or whatever than the decrease in COVID deaths it would cause. I would happily change my mind in the face of good data. So far, all I've seen is some blustering about all the negatives of shutting down, as if we aren't acutely aware. We aren't suggesting shutting down is not at a cost. We are not suggesting that it won't have some human cost in terms of lives and livelihoods lost. We are saying that this cost is not as high of a cost as the lives lost if we opened too soon, so it's the least worst option.
To quote the article's ending, "But the warnings of thoughtful shutdown skeptics warrant careful study". Are you suggesting the experts aren't studying the side-effects of the shutdown and carefully weighing them? Skeptics like you are the only ones who have these notions of other side-effects and potential human costs to being shutdown? Our leading health experts have not considered such things?
No. Health experts do not study the economic side-effects. That is why you have task force consisting of economic experts, as well, to help governments make the decisions regarding the economic side. Here is the latest on which states have re-opened. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ronavirus.html
I think, I have explained enough on this forum/thread on my perspective on why there should be a re-opening with targeted shut-downs, proper social distancing (I do wear masks and gloves all the time that I go out - even for walks in the neighborhood) and contact tracing framework in place. In my opinion, DFW has done a decent job on all aspects of handling this virus and I am confident that the local government leaders will do their best in continuing to contain this virus.
None of these decisions are easy for any of us. So, let's not try to bring each other down. I have not done it any of my posts.
Also, remember that the objective of the shutdown was to flatten the curve enough to not overwhelm the hospitals. Currently, the hospitalizations for Dallas county is around 60% of available capacity and is at 63% for the whole of Texas. Although, in my opinion, that available capacity number for Texas does not mean much. If a bed is available in Corpus Christie and not in Dallas, you will not be sending a patient from here to Corpus Christi. That is the reason a state-wide shutdown does not make any sense and we have to focus on targeted shutdowns, if and when required.
One last piece of metric for consideration for Texas: (https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/...e8b9cafc8b83):
Last 7 day average on 5/11: 30 deaths per day (Yesterday's reported death number was 12; the previous day that it was 12 was on 4/1
Last 7 day average on 4/11: 22.5 deaths per day
For Dallas county, the number of deaths have been averaging at around less than 3 new deaths per day (yesterday's number was 2), since the first positive case of virus was reported in Dallas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thompssc
To quote the article's ending, "But the warnings of thoughtful shutdown skeptics warrant careful study". Are you suggesting the experts aren't studying the side-effects of the shutdown and carefully weighing them? Skeptics like you are the only ones who have these notions of other side-effects and potential human costs to being shutdown? Our leading health experts have not considered such things?
Last edited by CDContribuitor; 05-12-2020 at 10:10 AM..
No. Health experts do not study the economic side-effects. That is why you have task force consisting of economic experts, as well, to help governments make the decisions regarding the economic side. Here is the latest on which states have re-opened. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ronavirus.html
I think, I have explained enough on this forum/thread on my perspective on why there should be a re-opening with targeted shut-downs, proper social distancing (I do wear masks and gloves all the time that I go out - even for walks in the neighborhood) and contact tracing framework in place. In my opinion, DFW has done a decent job on all aspects of handling this virus and I am confident that the local government leaders will do their best in continuing to contain this virus.
None of these decisions are easy for any of us. So, let's not try to bring each other down. I have not done it any of my posts.
This is a bit of an aside, but these sorts of questions are what philosophers answer. Having only medical people and economic people means you don't have a relevant experts. Philosophers are the relevant experts here. The president should have a moral philosopher (or three) on his team. It's been funny to see people act as though this economy vs. lives thing is an unanswerable question. It isn't. It's just a question of the variety that most people never think about. Fortunately, philosophers do.
Btw, you keep saying we should have re-openings with "proper social distancing." That's begging the question (the logical fallacy, not the colloquial misuse of the phrase). "Proper social distancing" might mean no re-openings. Re-openings themselves are the single biggest aspect of social distancing.
I cant tell if you're serious or you are saying some of these things for the sake of debate.
How much money did we spend on the war with Iraq? How many soldiers lost their lives there? How many Iraqis? All because about 3K people lost their lives at the World Trade Center. Some decided that number of lives was worth going to that huge money and human expense for. What's so different now besides an enemy we cant see?
I like how you assume you will be alive and in a position to be making that assessment 5 years from now. Its easier to assume that than the alternative isn't it? Its entirely possible that you could very well be one of the lives whose worth is being evaluated against the financial damage. If that's the case I wonder whether you'd still make that assessment.
There is no either or here. There is no economy without consumer and investor confidence. There will be none of the above with widespread death from any cause.
Sitting here trying to calculate whether in the end it was all worth it is about as pointless as trying to backtrack and figure what could have happened if we didn't shelter in place, or didn't close our borders, or didn't allow European travel etc, etc, etc. In either scenario, the economy would have tanked.
Widespread deadly disease has that effect. Spilt milk.
In my mind, I keep comparing how we're reacting to this vs going to war.
I feel like with war, there would have been immediate mobilization of resources and manufacturing.
There would have been solidarity in sacrifice amongst the people (no rubber, no metal, no sugar, victory gardens, blackouts, support for the front liners, etc).
Instead now we get this bickering, disrespect for AMERICAN lives, wasted time, betrayed healthcare workers, trashing of the economy, etc, with our delays in action...
It makes NO SENSE. A swift, organized response could have saved us trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. Instead we get half-ass and piecemeal so we get BOTH ends of the bad bargain - crappy economy AND people dying.
As your Congressman, my number one priority has always been the health and safety of North Texans. We are now entering a new phase of the coronavirus pandemic. As our state starts to reopen, it is time we change our approach, and go on the offensive against COVID-19. Stay home measures, wearing face masks, and social distancing have helped slow the spread of the coronavirus and reduce the risk of overwhelming our health care systems. But we must do more. Our region has seen consecutive days at a peak in the number of coronavirus cases.
Now, we must enhance testing and expand tracing. A comprehensive plan of attack is the key to successful health and economic outcomes. That’s why I wanted to share with you my interview with D Magazine which lays out a common sense plan for beating COVID-19:
Q&A With U.S. Rep. Colin Allred: We Must ‘Shift From a Defensive Posture
What we have lacked from the very beginning, from the federal level on down, is a comprehensive plan that can be explained to the American people. They need to understand why we’re doing what we’re doing, how long they’ll be expected to look out for this, what the risks will be when we start to emerge from it, and what the long-term risks are going to be until we have the vaccine.
I understand the frustration with the stay at home orders, with social distancing and being asked to wear masks, because the impression that was given was that this is going to be over very soon. But they weren’t told what the sacrifice was for, or how long they’d be asked to sacrifice.
Hopefully it’s not too late to lay out a comprehensive plan.
We’re going to take about $50 billion and use it for contact tracing and to help folks isolate and quarantine. If you talk to any healthcare official about what they are doing right, in South Korea, in Germany, in some of the countries that have done much better than we have in terms of controlling the spread of the virus, they tested on a much higher per capita scale. They aggressively traced everyone who’d come into contact with someone who was positive, and they helped them quarantine or isolate, to reduce the spread of the virus.
That is going to be the next step of this. In South Korea, they talk about the virus like it’s an enemy, and they want to hunt it down and hold it down. And that’s what we need to be doing. We need to be thinking about the virus as something that’s actively moving through our community, that we have to go on the offensive against. Social distancing and stay at home orders save a lot of lives and they’ve saved our healthcare system from being overwhelmed. But they are not offensive in nature. We’re still seeing rising cases. And that’s part of the reasons that we have to go out there and actively fight this virus.
I know North Texans have questions to ask surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, which is why I am hosting another Telephone Town Hall today, May 12 at 1:30 pm CST. I will be joined by local health experts who can help answer your questions. Please RSVP here: https://allred.house.gov/live to receive a call from me this afternoon in order to participate or listen in.
In my mind, I keep comparing how we're reacting to this vs going to war.
I feel like with war, there would have been immediate mobilization of resources and manufacturing.
There would have been solidarity in sacrifice amongst the people (no rubber, no metal, no sugar, victory gardens, blackouts, support for the front liners, etc).
Instead now we get this bickering, disrespect for AMERICAN lives, wasted time, betrayed healthcare workers, trashing of the economy, etc, with our delays in action...
It makes NO SENSE. A swift, organized response could have saved us trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. Instead we get half-ass and piecemeal so we get BOTH ends of the bad bargain - crappy economy AND people dying.
And that is certainly frustrating as they attempt to open up.
The problem is that we are still operating within an environment of contagion exactly where we were back in February. The nation has not ramped up to meet the threat as we did for WWII, with industries converting as necessary to produce the equipment necessary.
There have been attempts here and there where industries have made minor conversion efforts, but nothing like the WWII clock makers that converted to producing bomb sights.
In fact, if anything the reverse has happened, where industries that have attempted to convert to fill the need have actually run into obstruction by the federal government, such as ethanol producers being forestalled by the FDA from making alcohol.
This is a failure at the federal level, where there has not been the insight to mobilize resources and manufacturing in any coordinated manner. By this time, PPE for hospitals as well as the general populace that is returning to work should not be a continuing problem.
It is "International Nurses Day" today. A shout-out to all the nurses that have helped tirelessly and selflessly during this crisis.
I will leave a quote here from nursebuff.com - "A nurse is one who opens the eyes of a newborn and gently closes the eyes of a dying person. It is indeed a high blessing to be the first and the last to witness the beginning and end of life."
Texas restaurants, retailers and other businesses reopen Friday, 5/1. Here's the rules they have to follow. If businesses do not want to open, they have the choice to keep themselves closed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
