I don't know and I don't think it's interesting either as local health care situations define what is a manageable amount of infected and what we do effects how the virus spreads. Any model cannot take human variables like that into account.

'Authoritarianism' is a fantasy boogyman here dangled by idiots like you for other idiots to suck on, so the old, sick and poor can get fucked harder than they already are. — StreetlightX

Compelling argument if you're an idiot.

Ah we got a wild one. Slurp slurp.

More of the same; impressive.

Yes, there are different scenarios. It is quite possible as good as 100% off the population could be infected over the next couple of years.

The general view is to slow the spread not stop it (that’s fantasy at the moment).

He's empirically right.

The data:

Countries that vacillated, gave contradictory signals, and resisted "authoritarian measures": An uninterrupted rising log curve. Practical result so far: Close to maximum infection rate, maximum deaths.




Countries that embraced "authoritarian" measures but were slow in doing so: A gradually flattening log curve. Practical result so far: Maximum infection rate and deaths to begin with, now gradually reducing, but not before inflicting chaos.




A country that had no problem immediately applying "authoritarian" measures: A quicky flattened log curve. Close to minimal infection rate/deaths.



See also, Taiwan, Singapore etc.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

This is why the talk of authoritarianism is weasel talk. There is a winning strategy here. It's illustrated by the final log curve. It's called "The Hammer". Done right, it takes about a month and you minimize both economic damage and loss of life. You don't have to be authoritarian to support it, you just have to be not stupid. (And ironically not implementing it results in having to apply even more authoritarianism down the line just so your country doesn't fall to pieces.)

There's the data. Again, those arguing against "authoritarian" moves are empirically wrong. In a situation like this, you play the winning strategy and return to your political starting point, or you vacillate, play politics, and descend into chaos.

(And this doesn't mean you only rely on "authoritarian measures", mass testing and tracking is also important, but there is nothing more effective than an immediate and total lockdown. No contact, no spread.)

It's very much like the confusion of safety standards with 'red tape'.

Well, thank you... STALIN!

He's empirically right. — Baden

And he's historically wrong.
Emergency powers are never rescinded.

@NOS4A2 is correct: you bought it, you own it.

Emergency powers are never rescinded. — Galuchat

No one will ever be allowed out of the house again.

Which is another reason why I'm voting for Gordon Brown, and not you: he's much more subtle.

he's much more subtle. — Galuchat

He's the undisputed world heavyweight champion of subtlety .

If you say so.

I do not really want to argue the point, because I think ultimately you are probably more right than wrong.... but that data don't really 'proof' that one policy is definitely better than the other, because you cannot separate out other factors like the general culture of a country or for instance the fact the Chinese population have dealt with outbreaks recently.

It's an indication, sure, but I sincerely believe that no matter what measures countries like the US or Italy would have taken, it still would probably have been worse than in China... unless maybe you would go that far to shoot down people in the streets who don't follow the rules. Measures can only be as effective as people are willing to follow them.

Bill Gates - How we must respond to covid pandemic.

Useful talk: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe8fIjxicoo

The are lots of caveats, but if you can enforce the hammer, it works, and to the extent you can enforce it, all other things being equal (testing, tracking etc) you get less infections and less deaths. Wanting that is not an ideological position. Not wanting it because it's "authoritarian" is and proportionately irrational.

From a comrade:

"What really bugs me is this new version of coronabro who thinks we are all being hoodwinked by science and the powerful. To what, keep us in our homes not working? What even is this conspiracy?"

You can only laugh - if it wasn't so utterly stupid: a conspiracy made by stupid people for other stupid people.

I again agee for the most part, certainly in the west there should be no question that the authoritarian argument is a weak one, but if you live in Syria or Russia right now, I'm not so sure. I think both can be true at the same time, namely that it is the best way to fight the virus and that it is also a ploy to increase power of authoritarian leaders.

Drug lords in the favelas of Brasil are enforcing a curfew and social distancing because the (local) government can't.

After the economic destruction do you think this event will stop people looking for quick, easy money or help oil the chainsaws and invite the miners in.

The economic plight from this could wreck and ruin far more than people seem to appreciate.

My remark was flippant, but there is a grain of seriousness in there, Bolsanaro (who presumably survived his infection) is fully intending to destroy the forests as it is, so I can't see it getting much worse.
In reality we have no idea, were this will end, or what will rise from the wreckage. A much smaller Global economy will reduce the rape of the planet a bit, as its full steam ahead at the moment.

China will end up far more dominant, I expect, so it's going to be mobile phone surveillance for all of us.

You can only laugh - if it wasn't so utterly stupid: a conspiracy made by stupid people for other stupid people. — StreetlightX

Compelling argument if you're stupid.

They have been for a long time the local authorities, btw.

It's an indication, sure, but I sincerely believe that no matter what measures countries like the US or Italy would have taken, it still would probably have been worse than in China... unless maybe you would go that far to shoot down people in the streets who don't follow the rules. Measures can only be as effective as people are willing to follow them. — ChatteringMonkey

And nipping an epidemic in the bud when it starts is the real way to defeat these. And then follow a policy of strict quarantine, containment and exposing all infection paths and make proper precautions.

Singapore, South Korea and Japan show the way. They already learnt what to do after the 2003 SARS outbreak. And It has been working far better than in the West in general.

The West will learn only after this pandemic. That's the truth. I'm pretty sure that Western countries will take far more seriously the prevention of pandemics. Hence if there's somewhere, either in Africa or China or in Nebraska a local epidemic of a new zoonotic disease OH BROTHER!!! If you then come from that epidemic area on a plane and land to JFK (be it a domestic or an international flight), they will treat you nearly like a possible Al Qaeda terrorist and whisk you away into a 14 day obligatory quarantine in a heart beat no questions asked. Or as in China, you have to report you health condition daily to the officials.

If you think the US Constitution and human rights will protect your "freedoms" in this case, nope, wrong, happy quarantine!

That's the future post-corona World we will have.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/too-little-too-late-72-hours-inside-a-ny-hospital-battling-coronavirus-1.4213710

Yeah, I guess that how it usually goes in democracies. First something really bad needs to happen before an issue is taken seriously and policy measure can be taken... and then they overreact for a while so it's abundantly clear to the voting public that they really really did something about it.

We still have the military parading around in our train stations after the 2016 terrorist attacks...

It's all so reactionary, no vision to be found at all.

Prediction: people in the US media will soon start framing the inflated death toll from shit poor US admin response to the coronavirus as inevitable. Whereas before, it was just that the data was poor and worst case scenarios were unjustified doom and gloom.

Simultaneously, framing the response to the virus in military terms will cast the elderly, sick and poor as soldiers patriotically giving their lives to keep liberty and democracy and all that bullshit going.

The second has already started. The first - you're probably exactly right, but it was also be incoherently coupled with the notion that the State is being AuThORoTaRiAn. Both as having absolute power and having been totally powerless.

It will be interesting though, because 'the State' in question belongs to Trump, whose balls these same people enjoy sucking on. Normally the response would be then to blame local government, except it's clear that local governments have done far more than the incompetence of the federal government. Not that they've ever let facts get in the way of a good narrative. It will be incoherence all over.

It will be interesting though, because 'the State' in question belongs to Trump, whose balls these same people enjoy sucking on. Normally the response would be then to blame local government, except it's clear that local governments have done far more than the incompetence of the federal government. Not that they've ever let facts get in the way of a good narrative. It will be incoherence all over. — StreetlightX

The resident troll has already told us what the narrative will be. The right-wing media will blame the CDC and FDA, treating them as individual institutions uncoupled from the Trump administration. It'll be their fault for not testing enough, and not providing Trump with the necessary information. Of course, this will just be further proof that these "big government" organisations mess everything up. Thank God Trump and private entrepreneurs jumped into the breach!

The worldwide coronavirus death rate has now risen to .00000004%.

So, overall, 0.4 of a person has died from coronavirus? Wow, it really is a hoax then.

Anyway, yes, let's open things up now, because no matter what the death rate is, we need MORE.

For anyone interested, a quick calculation tells me the current number of the world population that has already died from coronavirus expressed as a percentage is 0.00034 (27,000 / 8 billion x 100). Maintaining growth of that figure at current levels without any mitigation (30% increase per day*) would result in 1.15% of the world's population dead in one month.** Fun times in Hanoverland. :kiss:

Edit: *The current increase in death rate from most recent figures from below is actually closer to 20% but is accelerating (March 24=18,000 deaths >> March 27th = 27,000 deaths). Anyhow, whether it's a month or a year or somewhere in between, it's in the near future and we don't have time to faff about.



https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/

**When basically everyone has it. (Result comparable to the 1918 Spanish flu which caused the death of somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5% of the world's population).