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Hospital Beds Are Not the Only Good!
Allowing a single priority to trump all others is a recipe for craziness. Health is important, but if we prioritize any one thing to the exclusion of all others then the results can be quite destructive. Imagine, for example, if we decided that auto accidents must be stopped at all costs, which we can do by banning all use of cars. The consequences of such an approach would end civilization as we know it.
Nobody wants our hospitals to be overwhelmed. But that is hardly the only “good” that we should be trying to maximize. Poverty also kills, and closing all schools and many businesses is a sure way to hammer people for whom food and heat and medicine are luxuries.
We must balance the goods to the extent that we can. If we do not, then the murders, suicides, poverty-related deaths, and numerous other woes that come from shutting down society will cause far, far more damage than Corona.
In hindsight, this crisis will make the Tulip Mania seem sane. It is proof that smart people are not necessarily any wiser than your average toadstool.
Published in General
Except I didn’t need further proof. I expect that the squeaky wheel will get the oil, and a balance of viewpoints amidst hysteria is not likely. It’s a kind of whack-a-mole approach that feels to the problem-solvers that they are doing something but doesn’t take a holistic approach. I’m getting more worried about the ensuing chaos to deal with the virus than the virus itself.
You and everyone else.
People are very afraid of chaos.
In hindsight the “the flu is worse, just wash your damn hands” people are going to look like Pontius Pilate.
You and I have a bet on it. We’ll see who wins.
In the meantime, I think the treatments are going to be shown to work quite well, and within 1-2 weeks. At which point the whole thing becomes a nothingburger.
I really hope you are right.
Hope isn’t a plan.
My husband and I have been polar opposites on the Covid-19 issue for the past six weeks. He is squarely in the “What the hell is wrong with everyone!?!” camp. :-) I am in the “You don’t spend enough time reading the Wall Street Journal coverage” camp. :-)
We now have several active cases on Cape Cod, and my husband went out this morning to buy some toilet paper. When he came home, he said, “There is no toilet paper on Cape Cod. Every single store shelf I went to was completely empty.” I said, “Aren’t you glad I got twenty rolls two weeks ago?” He said, “Actually, I am. I didn’t know you did that. Good.” :-)
He is hoping and expecting that the weather will change to warm and humid and that will slow this contagion down and give us time to develop, manufacture, and distribute the drugs we need.
Me? I copied down and printed out the instructions our resident ER doctor @kozak gave us about how to make a face mask from a coffee filter and a plastic bag. :-)
I think my husband is happy that I’ve been worrying a little bit more than he has been because I have some information and bleach that he wants to have right now, and I am happy that he has been so blissfully ignorant because I have some sanity and peace of mind that I want right now. :-)
I think he and I are America in microcosm at this moment. Balanced on the precipice, but balanced nevertheless. :-) And with our sense of proportion and humor intact. :-)
So the plan is destroy the economy?
I mentioned recently that I lack the ability to do what’s necessary to combat the steady progress of statism. What Thomas Sowell, Ronald Reagan, Henry Hazlett, Frederic Bastiat, Walter Williams, and others have been so good at:
iWe has done just that perfectly in this post. Bravo!
IWe, I really like your post. (Note the italics on “really.”) It’s full of logic and common sense.
I too have been thinking of those who live paycheck to paycheck. The overreaction (and it is an overreaction) to the Coronavirus is causing thousands of businesses to close. And of course those who work at those businesses now have no paycheck.
I’m wondering how people are going to handle the economic impact.
My son in law is now unemployed and will be for the near future. Just by luck he just finished a big show in Mexico City and got a nice paycheck. He spent two weeks working on another show, only to spend two days tearing it down. Will he get paid? I doubt it.
There are thousands and thousands of people in his industry that won’t be able to pay rent. And thousands and thousands of others in other industries.
Toilet paper is one thing, but if people start hoarding coffee filters things are going to get violent.
If we keep COVID-19 people out of the hospitals, there will be lots of beds for the gunshot victims.
Use a coffee press (aka French press). It makes better coffee. It may not be the very best way to make coffee, but the better ways are too labor-intensive for me. When we’re traveling we generally use coffee filters, because cleanup is simpler, but at home we use a press (with an appropriately coarser grind of coffee).
Make one out of TP.
I was thinking yesterday that history will lump this period in with the the tulip mania.
I have enough Vitamin C to blanket Illinois state wide.
“If you like your virus, you can keep your virus.”
Hey @marcin that wasn’t me. I can’t take credit. Where exactly did you see it?
Let me go find it. I thought it was your comment I read it in.
I added the “plastic bag” part–I guess I did that in my head to replace what you said about waterproof fabric. :-)
See comment 26 on Day 54. :-)
My daughter and her husband are living in Manhattan, so I told her about this MacGyver fix. :-)
French press, no filter necessary.
Kozak, how many deaths are you predicting? It would be helpful to have some benchmark, for subsequent evaluation.
By the way, it turns out that the problem is not hospital beds, apparently. One of my other posts demonstrated that we should have plenty of beds — and I was told that the problem is ventilators, actually. Though this seemed unlikely, as well, when I dug into the numbers, unless we assume that we’re gong to have about 100 million cases and about 5 million hospital admissions (which is one recent projection).
I think that a part of the problem is planning for the “worst case” scenario. At least, that’s the term used, though they never really mean it, because no matter how bad it gets, I could imagine worse. Well, perhaps unless we’re all dead.
But if you plan for the worst case scenario, you can never do anything. You can’t go to the store, because you might be killed in a car crash on your way there.
What we need are reasonable projections, and perhaps the problem is insufficient information to make a reasonable projection.
Someone mentioned using a paper liner and cloth outside and I thought it was a great idea.
I wonder what type of cloth, or other common household material thats water resistant might make a makeshift disposable mask.
( the outside liner of a disposable diaper?)
We all laughed at those pictures of the Chinese guy with the half bra on his face, might not me so funny after all….
I’m not a psychic. I have no idea.
Depends if we have 1 million infections in the US or 100 million.
Designer Islamic wear might make a comeback. #OhMySharia
@marcin I may have a solution.
Take a disposable diaper and remove the outer water resistant layer. Depending on the diaper you can make 3-4 masks with each one.
Line with filter paper or paper towel.
Fold the ends and staple a rubber band to each side as ear loops.
It’s not pretty, but should be functional. And pretty cheap.
Note.
According to prior studies if everyone wears a mask in public, it cuts transmission of respiratory illness by 80%.
Thats huge.
Kozak,
In fact you do have an idea. See the bolded quote. Your confident verbal prediction must have some quantitative basis. Surely you wouldn’t be predicting this regret if you thought the answer to Jerry’s question were, “1000 more”, which would make this a minor outbreak and wouldn’t cause anyone to look like Pontius Pilate, as you claim that people will.
So Jerry’s question is one that any reasonable person would ask you. You should either walk back your level of confidence in your prediction, or stick to it and answer the question. Right now you are in no-man’s land, asserting and denying the same proposition.
I’ve been wondering about a hijab. It could work in some ways. It would at least keep me from touching my face. :-) Even a ski mask. :-)
Or an ordinary dust mask, if you have one in your workshop from before the current flu season.
And for a long time after people started asking me (or my restaurant manager son-in-law) if we have N95 masks at the hardware store: no (or he has them at his restaurant: no), we still had plenty of ordinary dust masks!