undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdjrogers6y ago0 comments

Long term health implications have nothing to do with the lockdowns, and extending them has no impact on those theoretical boogey-men.

Lockdowns were intended to 'flatten the curve' so that hospitals aren't overwhelmed. The same number of people will get sick but over a longer period of time. Keeping the lockdowns in full effect will only ensure that those who get disproportionately sick are the ones in critical services and healthcare.

Choosing to violate people's constitutional rights based on hypothetical long term implications is also extremely disconcerting.

0 comments

6 comments · 2 top-level

tptacek6y ago· 2 in thread

That's a talking point, not an argument. In reality the state governments have broad powers, stemming back to jurisprudence from the time of the framers (cases involving these powers were heard by John Marshal), to employ police powers in the service of quarantines, and those powers were further spelled out by statute as recently as the 2000s in the wake of 9/11. None of those powers are constrained by any notion of "flattening the curve", a "flattened curve" isn't a permanent state, and there are rational goals to quarantines beyond keeping the hospitals occupied at an optimal level.

djrogersOP6y ago

> there are rational goals to quarantines beyond keeping the hospitals occupied at an optimal level

None of the counties in the San Francisco Bay Area have been willing to outline any specific goals, nor has our Governor. If you can point me to anything more specific from the above than 'if we only save one life', I'd be shocked.

tptacek6y ago

What's your point? Is there a statute you're thinking of that requires San Francisco to spell out specifically what their goals are? You said upthread that the lockdown is a violation of people's constitutional rights, but it seems clear that it isn't, at least not in our jurisprudence. You can find legal scholars debating the constitutionality of quarantine, but only in the context of hypothetical orders that haven't been issued by any state yet that would imprison people in their homes (the way China apparently did). If you don't even have the broad strokes of this right, it seems fair to ask for a citation here.

1 more reply

Gibbon16y ago· 2 in thread

> The same number of people will get sick but over a longer period of time.

Fewer people get sick for two reasons.

Flattening the curve reduces the amount of epidemic overshoot. People assume you reach herd immunity levels and the epidemic then dies out. Reality you overshoot herd immunity.

At some point you can reestablish contact tracing and isolation. That by itself reduces the required level of immunity and containment needed to keep the infection in check. Except for a few countries we don't have that now.

My bet at this point is within a few months. Rapid RNA tests will start being produced in large numbers. Synthetic anti-bodies for covid19 will become available. Contact tracing and isolation containment will be reestablished. Rapid RNA tests make contact tracing possible at scale. Antibody therapy increases the effectiveness of contact tracing. Basically you test everyone with symptoms. You then dose all their contacts with anti-SARS-COV2 antibodies.

Not the end of the world.

Marsymars6y ago

> My bet at this point is within a few months.

What if it doesn't? What if a few months pass, and we're at the same spot we are now, except we're all a few months older and poorer?

My jurisdiction is already testing everyone with symptoms with only about half of their current testing capacity, and still has no plan to move forward.

tptacek6y ago

Then we revisit.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

6 comments · 2 top-level

tptacek6y ago· 2 in thread

djrogersOP6y ago

> there are rational goals to quarantines beyond keeping the hospitals occupied at an optimal level

tptacek6y ago

1 more reply

Gibbon16y ago· 2 in thread

> The same number of people will get sick but over a longer period of time.

Fewer people get sick for two reasons.

Flattening the curve reduces the amount of epidemic overshoot. People assume you reach herd immunity levels and the epidemic then dies out. Reality you overshoot herd immunity.

Not the end of the world.

Marsymars6y ago

> My bet at this point is within a few months.

What if it doesn't? What if a few months pass, and we're at the same spot we are now, except we're all a few months older and poorer?

My jurisdiction is already testing everyone with symptoms with only about half of their current testing capacity, and still has no plan to move forward.

tptacek6y ago

Then we revisit.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse