Suppression vs Mitigation

Im on the left here, but i suspect on THIS subject, more of those on the right will agree with me then the left.

We have to have a plan to get people back to work. And it can’t be 18 months of lock down.
Both the CDC and the imperial college report said the same thing. The only way to avoid a overrun of the medical, is to do suppression until there is a vaccine.
Both said that after 7 weeks, the virus will be small, but when we lift it, it will come back just as bad in Sept or so. So we have to maintain it longer or 700,000+ AMericans will die and hospitals will be over run.

I argue that we should stay in suppression mode for the 7 weeks (BUT - NEED a public end date) and then move to mitigation. Yes -People will die. There will be a human toll. BUT - if we stay in this mode for 18 moths we will have a massive great depression and THAT TOO has a human toll.

POVERTY kills. Unemployment leads to Suicides, higher crime, abuse, starvation, lack of medical insurance, etc. I think 18 months of suppression would lead to a higher human toll for longer.
This is not picking money of lives. BOTH have human costs. We need to have this discussion. Use the 7 weeks (Plus the summer months) to have a mitigation plan. Those high risk stay home, ramp up production of what we need, build hospitals, etc. And when it comes back, we deal with it. But keep the country open

Agree about what, exactly? Care to elaborate?

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Might be helpful if you told us what you support.

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Sorry all. I hit post before i was done. All fixed now.

BTW - To add. We have made this choice before.
We know, right now, there is something out there that causes 40,000 deaths a year and over 150,000 major medical conditions. BUT the economic benifits it adds outweigh those human costs. For 70 years we have decided that almost 3 million Americans that died from this and the 5 million plus that had serious injuries was the price we were willing to pay for the benifits.

Im talking automobiles. We could all stop driving and ban cars and get that number to 0. BUt instead we focus on mitigation. Make cars safer, enforce laws, make roads safer, and accept that some will still die. BUT the benefits are worth it.

Why is this different?

I disagree. Keep the virus locked up until it dies or a vaccine is created and widely distributed.

I agree…I doubt you’ll find man Trump supporters will. They don’t like the idea of a top down lock down, even though what we are doing now will cost more in lives and economic damage.

Here’s my plan…general outline and full of flaws but it’s the most cost-efficient way to end this, IMO.

*A nationwide lockdown lasting 5-7 weeks
*Federal dollars POURED into state and local quarantine/contract tracing teams who VIGOROUSLY find and quarantine infected people and track down their contacts and do the same to them
*Unemployment supplement and guaranteed medical costs coverage to all out of work workers who stay at home except when they need to get food
*A real monthly stipend to small business owners who don’t qualify for unemployment
*Large businesses get zip. They should be able to weather a 5-7 week shutdown/slowdown…if they can’t they are badly run. Maybe subsidies to airlines who retool to make medical supplies and offer up hangar space for makeshift hospitals or quarantine zones…and cruise ships who offer vessels as hospital ships

5-7 week aggressive plan to decrease r(0) to less than 0.5…this is the Hammer phase and the way to do it that damages our economy the least.

Then enter the Dance Phase, a relaxation of the all of these with periodic, targeted reinforcement (which we will be able to do because we resourced the ■■■■ out of contact tracing teams) which we maintain until there is a vaccine.

What do people think?

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At what cost. What if (And i dont have the numbers) - If we move to mitigation 700,000 American would die in the next 18 months. BUT - If we go to suppression, 2 million more would die as a result of poverty.
Whats the right trade off?

Lets go more extreme. Suppose I told you the virus will kill 100 million unless we do a 18 month lockdown? Everyone of us would agree to do the lockdown.

What if I told you the lockdown for 18 months would crash the economy and only safe 1 person. Everyone of us would say “We cant crash the economy for 1 person”.

So there is a number. There is number that moves it from “We have to lock down” to “Its not worth it”. We need to discuss what that is.

Hammer and Dance. I agree with it. BUT we need to agree that if the CDC is right, and the virus comes back before a vaccine is here -We stay in the dance phase. We can try to do more mitigation factors (Temperature taken before entering any building) but we continue.

Mine is based on this paper.

We can’t do what you suggest…we can do this.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

I like the war analogy.

We have no intelligence…our data about the “enemy” is limited.

We are outgunned…we have no armor and no weapons. We have weaponry and armor in development but the enemy will overwhelm us before we can roll those out.

A prudent general would signal retreat behind what defenses we do have (nationwide lockdown) until such time as we address the imbalance in armament (think fleeing Dunkirk across the channel).

A foolish general would advise attack…we would lose and lose badly.

Retreat…buy time…come back…win.

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No we don’t. This is a virulent disease.

I’ll check it out. Thanks.

Yes by buying time we can build up how we live in the Dance phase by developing tons of testing and tracking resources so any future lockdowns are targeted and limited.

And people are told the Dance Phase lasts until such time as we have evidence the virus has petered out (that sometimes happens…mutations may make it less virulent for example) or we have a vaccine. Also we will have antivirals developed as a bridge to a vaccine…antivirals can be developed faster.

Markets like certainty. If everyone knew we were coming off The Hammer and entering The Dance and everyone knew what those phases were and what they mean, the markets would stabilize.

We are on a path that is the worst of all worlds…uncertainty, longer long term economic damage and more death and misery.

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If they come up with a solid strategy that would enable people to go back to “normal” while limiting the spread or offering more effective treatment…sure, let’s do it…shutting down the economy for a year would be horrible.

However, just callously letting an extra million people die is not something that’s going to fly over too well… so the decision should be based on both medical and economic reality.

choice… oh, not that choice…

This is what Hammer and Dance is all about.

Unfortunately we are screwing up the Hammer part.

It goes against every fiber of our federalist impulses…it temporarily limits our freedoms (we did this in World War II with limits to salaries, limits to purchases, so don’t tell me any freedom surrender MUST be permanent)…but the Hammer has to be nationally led and nationally mandated.

Doing it by state “suggestion”/mandate as we can see is not working. People STILL aren’t taking this seriously.

No we need a federally ordered Hammer.

Anything else is only mitigation…leading to a longer, costlier, deadlier shutdown.

What’s the economy going to look like in 7 weeks?

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I think part of the reason people are ignoring the orders is because we have no end date.
You tell people “Stay in your house until we figure something out” and they try and then think “Well, Im not gonna stay here forever” so they go out.

If you said “Stay in your house until April 30th. That is the end date and the point where we will issue new rules, but you have to stay inside until then” you will have a better success rate.

Good Lord. The man still thinks he is qualified to speak for Trump supporters. We might have to talk him down off the roof in November. :crazy_face:

That’s a pretty good article. The analogy is not.

I think he has some assumptions wrong, but not a bad strategy.