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That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? Sad!
Well, I answered a one sentence statement with a one sentence response, but I’ll elaborate:
I’ve had bouts of anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder in my life, and even I frankly have no idea how some of you get out of bed with even the normal, background level of risk associated with life. Part of this particular situation is because of the unknowns involved, but we simply cannot react this way in the face of every unknown.
Doing things in an abundance of caution sounds good, but in practice it isn’t always. A comment on Powerline said it this way:
I have observed something in 20+ years in overseas facilities: Security-types will continually one-up each other in the productivity/efficiency-stifling security measures they are willing to recommend. That is because they are not responsible for an operational result, only to try their best to keep the bad thing from happening (whatever that is). The operational decider (the ambassador, the President, a unit commander) has to do the risk-gain and cost-benefit calculations and be willing to overrule the security types. In our current situation, the “security types” are the medical and government officials making the calls to cancel things. These senior officials literally have nothing to lose taking the most conservative choice. The sports industry just has to fall in line – they cannot withstand the conservative judgment tide. This dynamic is so destructive.
*As a side note I have not seen the CDC (the actual experts) actually recommend these mass cancelations yet.
We see this dynamic play out in a number of cases:
In all of those instances, the problem is that the things we seek to avoid (harmful drugs, cancer, Godzilla) are dramatic but the harms of caution are more indirect and less obvious. Its obvious when someone underestimates a problem, but no one is every called to account for incorrectly exercising an abundance of caution.
You stated that there was a hole in Trump’s speech related to what we should do, but haven’t we been told to avoid gatherings if possible and especially if vulnerable. As far as what we can do, that maybe it; but people need the National Daddy to hold their hand in times of perceived peril.
When pressed for exactly why Trump’s response has been insufficient, the usual answer is something about insufficient testing. I thought Dr. Drew’s Examiner Podcast interview was a little flippant, but his point about testing was well taken. We can’t just throw out everything we know about differential diagnosis in a panic. Mass testing isn’t done because it isn’t effective. I’ll put a marker down on the idea that in the final analysis, it was the other things South Korea did – which we are doing – that helped them through. Mass testing only brought the mortality rate down because it added mild cases that would have gone unnoticed to the denominator. The effect of mass testing on the spread of the disease probably won’t be significant.
As a side note, we have become a society that values form over substance. Trump’s speech wasn’t great and maybe Biden’s was better, but it’s clear that this is what is more important to people than the actual outcome. I haven’t praised or criticized Trump for this situation because we don’t yet know what the outcome will be. At this point, there is probably nothing much that can be done systemically to change the course of events absent significant new information; all this worrying is worthless.
Premature assessment.
Isn’t everything at this point?
Yes. Which is why whether this is an unjustified panic has yet to be determined.
I don’t get the significance of testing.
If people present with flu-like symptoms, treat them. A test might tell you whether they have normal flu or the corona virus. But it’s not like we shouldn’t treat people just because we don’t have a test.
I totally understand people warning against the dangers of over-reaction, but I’m persuaded by the danger sof not reacting decisively enough to an illness that really isn’t just the flu (i.e., higher fatality rate, no tested vaccine or treatment, so new no one has immunity to it).
Fair point on whether actual experts recommend mass cancellations. Here’s what I found from the CDC website, from a media telebriefing on Wed 10:
In Seattle, for example, the CDC has said this:
I think the idea is that if you test some during the period when they are asymptomatic but communicable, you can isolate them. The argument against that seems to be that it doesn’t actually work enough to be worth the effort and resources that could be used elsewhere.
Thanks for the response. Now I understand and you’ve raised some good issues.
I can only speak to “panic” as it applies to myself. I usually underreact to things like this for some of the reasons you raise. We’ve all been through a lot of false alarms. When the Ebola panic happened a few year ago I thought it an overreaction. When H1N1 occurred, I evaluated it, and decided to continue my frequent business traveling. A few years ago when many of my colleagues stopped traveling to the Mexican city where we had business because of the eruption of violence I continued and I’m still here! That’s my usual mode. Look at the evidence and often I find it overhyped.
Something I try to do when these circumstances arise is to evaluate the available information and look at it, certainly informed by the past, but also independently to see if there is something different that distinguishes it from past false alarms. It’s also important to do this so we are not blinded by past situations
By the nature of the beast the information we have in these circumstances is always imperfect and subject to new developments. In this case I reached the conclusion that this is different from many of the past situations. Since I’ve covered those reasons on various threads previously I’ll just briefly mention some; (1) the reaction of the Chinese government, which has always been notoriously indifferent to the fate of its citizens, took actions that have crippled, at least in the short term, it’s own economy in order to stop the spread of the disease, (2) the speed with which healthcare systems in the most developed part of a developed country can be overwhelmed by the seriousness of the illnesses (Italy), (3) the sharp growth curves we are seeing in much of Europe and the U.S. – case doublings every 2-3 days which combined with the hospitalization rate could cause problems in those places and (4) the results of the ongoing global experiment in containment strategies from the early (Hong Kong, Taiwan) to the mid-stream (South Korea) to the late (Italy). In sum we have a very serious and very contagious illness which if steps are not taken to slow down the growth curve could overwhelm the healthcare system. I may be wrong – in fact, I hope I am wrong. But my reaction is not panic.
Friends are happy that Ireland was exempted. They are flying tomorrow from Phoenix to Dublin for a two week vacation, getting around by rental car. They are south of the high risk age and do not have other significant risk factors.
If people are asymptomatic why would they get tested?
I think we have better things for the labs and medical professionals to be doing besides testing 330 million people.
Maybe we can order self-test kits from Amazon, just like we order DNA kits from ancestry.com. (I have no idea of how bad an idea that might be, partly because I don’t know what the test consists of.)
Maybe a little skull and crossbones for positive and the yellow smiley face for negative.