We’re not going back to normal | Hacker News Reader

We’re not going back to normal

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50 pointsnemoniac19 comments

The idea of mandated tracking of movement and contact tracking via cell phone is a little too dystopian for my tastes. I suppose this sort of thing is already happening with the various corporate social networks and ad-tracking but it is still opt-in. Requiring it to access public space is too big brother and subject to abuse by authoritarian governments both here and abroad.

I do worry that this will become the norm in many countries. Because the virus will keep evolving and recirculating. And because more zoonotic diseases are predictable.

This is wishful thinking from an introvert. People haven't practiced long term social distancing after the Spanish flu, or the plague. The Spanish flu didn't "disappear", it simply mutated into common forms of flu we know today. In practice virulent diseases tend to get less virulent over time so that they can spread more easily. The plague epidemics of the 19th century were also less virulent than the Black Plague. We're already seeing it with SARS-CoV-2 - there are two strains, S and L, the latter of which is significantly more virulent and also losing ground.

So the likely conclusion is that SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, but probably not at the fatality rates we're currently experiencing.

I don't think this would be how most people want to live. There are diseases all the time and the world cannot be turned into a clean room for the rest of all times.

It would be better instead to make sure that people have well working immune systems, lead kind of healthy lives and have high living standards. Also Ecosystems should be better enclosed (-> no bush/game meat), so viruses from there don't merge into civilization. It's not unlikely that that's what happened with HIV, Ebola and now Corona...

Humans are social creatures. I find it hard to believe we'd accept indefinite "social distancing" over the long term - consequences be damned.

I'm not so sure myself. I think we've already adapted to social distancing before COVID. For example, the phenomenon of streaming and watching streams.

3 days into a complete lockdown here, supermarkets only open, every retail shop closed, takeaway food or delivery only from restaurants

Everyone I've spoken to is losing it, there's still another 2 weeks. Have been working from home for well over a month now, but this is entirely different, you can't go anywhere nor do anything.

The societal and economic costs are far too high for what has been 2 deaths over 4 months in the country. Vast majority of the new cases have been from a single massive religious event.

"there is still another two weeks" lol get back to reality

Am not sure what you thought I implied but this is very much my reality in the comment above.

Going to a packed supermarket multiple times a day is perfectly legal as is having large gatherings in your own home. Going to an empty beach, sitting in a park or hiking in woodlands alone is not. They have the police issuing fines and the army is being called in next week to help keep people out of public areas.

There has been two deaths in the entire country.

There's a lot of hysteria going around and as usual many on the internet rush to rash judgements of others without knowing their circumstances.

This is going to last for a year until we get a vaccine. Now get real

Zika was first diagnosed years ago, vaccines were developed years ago. There is still not a single one approved anywhere on Earth. I truly think you have very little understanding of how the regulatory environment for vaccines work.

Perhaps read up on previous virus pandemics a bit before commenting?

To be honest... this gives me nightmares. A world where "social distancing", travel bans and frequent forced lockdowns becomes the norm? At least for ME not worth living

Social distancing seems without alternative, but there is one thing I don't understand. Maybe it is a stupid question, but why don't we massively, massively expand testing. Then put up checkpoints everywhere, and don't allow anybody to pass without a current test (say older than 36 hours). If you have any symptoms, you are restricted to your house (I have a cough right now, and I find it insane that I'm allowed to go shopping or to work - nobody can be sure that it's not Corona). And if there's a confirmed case in your area, there is a curfew and extra testing. Apart from that, there would not be many restrictions.

I guess this might be difficult in some countries, but here in Europe this seems like the best option - and a variant was successfully implemented in South Korea and Singapore. Why don't we go this route? Is there just not enough testing infrastructure available, or is there another argument against it?

There is definitely not enough tests to test the entire population of a country every 36 hours. Even assuming a single person/testing machine could do 5000 tests a day (no idea if that's a reasonable number or not) to test every American every 36hrs would need like 40000 setups.

Such a scenario is worth considering. However, it is definitely in the "worst case" category. Maybe the second worst behind a full-on plague killing tens of millions.

That scenario implies no significant advance, except for the suggestion of a vaccine early in the article. But while a vaccine is the ultimate solution, there are may stopgap measures that can allow for reduction in the rate of transmission without extreme social distancing.

As we better understand the disease, we will be able to target its weak points more effectively. It can include faster diagnosis to better isolate contagious people. Antiviral drugs (hydrochloroquine looks promising now), more targeted measures, ramping up production of protective equipment, etc...

The only purpose of today's quarantines are to reduce the rate of infection, hopefully below 1. The more solutions we have to reduce that number, the less drastic we need to be.

South Korea have shown us that widespread testing is effective when you have the technology to do so. And if South Korea have it, why shouldn't the rest of the world be able to do it?

What about rounding up all of the 'at risk' people and sending them to FEMA camps to prevent them from coming into contact w the virus? If most people infected with the virus are asymptomatic it seems like we're going at this the wrong way by universally working so hard to avoid it.

That's too precarious. Once anyone is infected, the whole population goes up. Like that nursing home in Washington.

I'd make more sense to quarantine everyone who gets infected, and then offer to hire those who recover as learn-on-the-job health workers.

We could also have C- and C+ bars, restaurants, theaters, gyms, etc. For lack of a better word, segregation.

Japan is already in recovery mode...

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