Governments Introduce Surveillance Under Veil of Coronavirus Control
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However chinas reported numbers is not their actual numbers. We have no clue if China’s approach was effective.
Even today ppl in China are still getting sick. With weekend traffic in Beijing not recovered.
Let's assume an ideal case of a perfect government with a good will. If a centralized authority have the perfect information and perfectly execute a quarantine measure, it will be so accurate that minimizes fatality and restrictions on freedom, but at the cost of extreme privacy invasion. If the government have less than perfect information or execution, you gotta choose either accuracy or recall for infected. The former will give you more freedom of action at a higher cost of life. The latter will restrict more freedom of action which also potentially leads to larger economical disasters, but will save more lives.
Even worse, this is not even a ternary choice but more of continuous, multi-dimensional one. Also, the good-will assumption made above distorts the reality in a very incorrect way. The solution space is likely much more complex (e.g. those values are not really mutually exclusive and interact each other in a subtle way) and we don't really understand what shape it is. Neither I know the right answer. But I can say that even values/rights that we assumed fundamental may conflict in the extreme situation like COVID-19 and we don't really understand what trade-offs we're forced to make and its consequences.
The premise is that covid-19 arrived in fall and that unlike everywhere else in the world, it arrived, spread without so much as being noticed at the ER.
Perhaps it will be better in the U.S. due to age structure, but perhaps it will be worse due to the high prevalence of obesity and diabetes.
Either way, California won't have reached herd immunity until approximately 600,000 people are dead, barring some therapeutic breakthrough.
Now it could be that there was some other cause for the death rate in the town to be 10x normal, but I think that's pretty unlikely. That said, I'm sure there are excess deaths from other causes, like heart attacks that didn't go to the hospital because they were overloaded, etc, but you could consider those deaths to be indirectly from COVID as well.
The data for Corona virus points to elderly in poor health and people with pre-existing illnesses being at risk.
If you don’t agree please explain how Monaco with a very old but rather healthy population has seen one death so far and how come Bangladesh and Pakistan with a population of 300M+ have seen a total of 80 deaths.
Then there's the issue of
1. how was the testing done (IF AT ALL) 2. how accurate that test was (read up on PCR if you don't agree) 3. how the cause of death was determined.
I show you a CDC explanation for how to determine official cause of death from[1]:
""When reporting cause of death...use any information available, such as medical history, medical records, laboratory tests, an autopsy report, or other sources....best clinical judgement..."
In all cases variations of the flu are much worse and not worth crippling the US and global economy over.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask someone like Dr. Burry who is much more qualified than I, at least, to answer such questions.
Unfortunately a fourth type was the dominant type that year and that was not included in the vaccine.
The vaccine for this year will be for four type of the flu, 2 for type A and 2 for type B.
Excess mortality could be one way of getting more information, though I don’t know when those data are available.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/us/coronavirus-nursing-ho...
This has ripped through like wildfire in highly vulnerable communities.
Also, would we not have observed a lot of medical staff becoming sick like they are now?
I just find it very hard to believe that this could have happened earlier without anyone noticing it given how it's greatly impacted pockets in very newsworthy ways.
Another example was that family in New Jersey where some members of the family died within hours of one another. 7 sick, 4 died.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/nyregion/new-jersey-famil...
Even California has vulnerable pockets in places that would have been canaries in the coal mine.
https://www.cdc.gov/longtermcare/index.html
An increase of a several percent would not be noticed.
> Domestic violence "flourishing." This happening right now. Infuriating that governments sacrificed these women and children with blockhead policies lacking all nuance and understanding. Politicians and media ran roughshod over these victims. #COVID19
It's ironic that in the same tweet that he criticizes governments for lacking all nuance, he fails to note that the two anecdotes reported in the story come from China and Spain, which are among the hardest hit, which are likely the most justified for harsh measures and lockdowns.
He does point out many severe negative consequences, but they seem to be based off wrong assumptions. There is no universal testing because there are not enough tests.
There is no recommendation for the seemingly promising drugs because afaict there is not enough to meet demand. I don't see why "But there is no time for that." If there isn't enough of it anyway.
The situation may change but his current unnuanced criticism that doesn't seem to address aspects of his recommendation that seem to me need to be addressed does not convince me.
If I had a nickle for every time I read "senior software engineer at X" in a profile that was spewing ideological drivel I wouldn't need to work for a living.
Under these circumstances, even very intelligent people can fall prey to seemingly nonsensical motivated reasoning.
if most of the tracking data is coming from FAANG its nothing new, however, it may not exactly be accurate with the latest iphone and android devices which have fairly overt controls for the user to restrict data collection.
> The privacy-or-security discussion has been going on for years. With new digital technologies, it is one of the main ethical problems of human society. Still, the coronavirus can push people to solve the dilemma right about now.
"First, a strict spatial partitioning: the closing of the town and its outlying districts, a prohibition to leave the town on pain of death, the killing of all stray animals; the division of the town into distinct quarters, each governed by an intendant. Each street is placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance; if he leaves the street, he will be condemned to death."
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopower
[1]https://foucault.info/documents/foucault.disciplineAndPunish...
- https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/can-we-trust-the...
From what I’ve read or related Supreme Court cases the quarantined need a definite end date which a lot of these don’t have.
Likewise a statement of "we know it's not what our organization stands for but y'all need to get on board with what the government is telling you to do" is kind of to be expected. If they really wanted to stay true to their mission they would have either come down on the side of being pro-liberty or they would have said nothing at all.
My understanding is that it was the CDC's partisan scope creep that put it in the crosshairs when the new administration came in. Instead of sticking strictly to infectious bacteria and viruses, they started quixotic quests to classify gun violence and obesity as epidemics. Those distractions allegedly cost them their edge in this pandemic.
This just shows that I was right. They used to sue to protect the civil liberties of nazies for gods sake, and now they can't even take an unequivocal position on this simple (civil rights wise) issue because they have to toe the line. The lockdown, regardless of its merits, has more than enough cheerleaders already. We need someone to also focus on civil liberties, not what might be "necessary".
-- https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105061/coronavirus-deat...
(14794 >= 60 years old, 12973 >= 70 years old, 775 < 60 years old) These are the statistics of the death toll in Italy, keep in mind the average life expectancy is 83 years in Italy. If it follows the same pattern as everywhere else, most of these cases will probably have co-morbidities as well.
-- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/07/new-yo...
quoting:
"ALBANY, N.Y. – The majority of New York’s more than 4,700 deaths due to coronavirus were among men, and 86% of all deaths were among people who had underlying illnesses, such as hypertension and diabetes, new state data shows.
The statistics released late Monday offered the latest glimpse into how the rapidly spreading virus has impacted New York and made it the epicenter for COVID-19 in the nation.
Of the 4,758 deaths in New York since the first on March 14, 61% were men and 39% were women, the state Department of Health reportedon its new data portal.
In addition, 63% of the deaths were among those age 70 and older, while 7% of the cases were those 49 and younger.
And 4,089 of those who died had at least one other chronic disease, the records showed:"
93% >= 50 years old. 63% >= 70 years old. Of all cases, 86% with underlying conditions that are known to reduce life expectancy aggressively. The average life expectancy in NY is 81years old.
-- From https://www.france24.com/en/20200402-for-some-survivors-coro... quote: "As the number of worldwide confirmed coronavirus cases climbs towards 1 million, the number of recoveries is thankfully more than four times the death toll. But medical experts told FRANCE 24 that COVID-19 can cause severe long-term damage to the lungs, heart, brain and other organs – and that for some patients, these complications may be permanent." in an article by Tom Wheeldon, that appeared on www.france24.com, 02/04/2020 - 15:28
Now, given the disease is a couple of months old, how can medical experts come to these conclusions? You would need years of follow-up of recovered patients to even be able to test the hypothesis. Given what we know about lung damage, e.g. from tabaco, and the way our bodies regenerate it's highly improbable that this has any kind of truth to it. It does, nonetheless, increase one thing, fear. Still, this is touted on every major news outlet, by so called experts.
-- Regarding the cases that appear on headlines and such, you can see things such as 80 years olds with cancer, dying, in a country where the life expectancy is 81 years, and still the cause being attributed to covid. It's like saying that an HIV patient died from a cold.
Going out and catching sun is actually good for you, there's a reason why flu and colds peak from late autumn to early spring. It doesn't take an expert to understand why. Plus, there are countries that seem to have been able to contain the epidemic wave without martial law, so it's certainly not the only viable option - and the question here is, "does this justify what is being done?" - not "should we ignore those that need medical treatment?".
Lastly, although the following quote was said in a very different context, it doesn't mean it doesn't or shouldn't apply (even if it was a quote by me): "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".
We know the quote already. It's not doing any good to post it or repeat it. Simply saying this in response to complex problems is equivalent to saying "Thoughts and prayers" when someone is asking for help. It doesn't help and only makes you feel good.
People are willing to give up a lot for convenience, including sending many jobs to China. We allow this due to laissez-faire capitalism. Turns out people care more about cheap shit than the job prospects of their children.
People are also trained/willing to give up a lot for fear. This is caused in part by the very freedoms enshrined by your quote - there's a lot of fear and misinformation spread and allowed to spread because of the principle of free speech.
The situation is more complex and needs a more complex response than simply saying "hurr durr liberty".
The points I made are quite clear:
a) A serious reading of the data we know shows a different picture of the fear inducing narrative being peddled b) Experts say the most irresponsible things - in quite enigmatic situations for someone with deep expertise in the subject being talked about c) Lockdown and home isolation are probably detrimental in terms of an individuals immune system - as in, going out is good d) There are other approaches that seem to have worked quite well e) You're going to die f) You shouldn't trade certain things for a fake sense of security even in the face of uncertainty
There are other questions that are complex, like millions dying of structural inequality every year and no world wide response to that (and on that point, no moral outrage by the civic chevaliers on that either), we could go on in false moralities all night long.
Although I'm not religious, I imagine saying "Thoughts and prayers" does help people who are in distress.
Medical professionals are being asked to come out of retirement. Nurses are reusing PPE for weeks. Medical students are graduating early to help.
The rest of us are being asked to just stay the fuck home for a few weeks.
And we just refuse to do it. Absolutely refuse. Everyone is suddenly and avid walker. So then governments have to choose whether to let idiot citizens ruin everything... or not.
I don’t blame governments. I blame all you idiots who won’t stop going outside.
I assume it's a bit like washing your hands after using the toilet. Most people do. I don't think those that don't are saying fuck you to society - they just think "I didn't pee on my hands, there's no mess here".
I guess if something doesn't immediately affect you, it's easy to think it will never affect you and it's not your problem to deal with.
But when you're calling up your friends to go on that errand with you, or to go on that walk, or run, or bike ride with you, that's where I think people are going off the rails. I think the government and public health people probably meant for us to do this stuff alone. So there would be no need to say, "WE won't get close to anyone while we're out". Because you're not out with anyone. Only one family member needs to go to the store. Your bicycling group is still unsafe even if you're keeping 2 meters away from each other. Etc etc.
The question is, does ubiquitous surveillance help alleviate this sort of thing? My suspicion is that it doesn't. I'm thinking this is an education issue. A lot of people still aren't getting it.
I’m not saying these people are innocent but this isn’t one sided.
Personally I suspect the abysmal leadership and the utterly corrupt fuck ups in preparations who spent more time insider trading than stocking up on medical supplies back when there was fully functioning industrty undermines the legitimacy greatly. How can they ask others to take them seriously when they didn't? The tracking is just plain Reichstagging at this point.
And the worst part is that the threat is real and the leadership being corrupt morons doesn't change that.
When I was 30, the sudden acceleration in the number of people I knew dying was incredible. Aunts, uncles, friends, teachers all started to die from complications of old age. At first I was shocked, but soon I became jaded since there’s nothing you can do about other people getting old.
Once you get so used to that, it’s seen as an inevitability rather than something to be defended against at all cost of quality of life.
As a further anecdote, during this crisis I see young people in stores studious avoiding the 6 foot distance rule, even going as far as to jump out of my aisle to maintain it. Older people though are congregating in groups, and gossiping like normal instead.
It's precisely this kind of reasoning that this article is having problems with. Pre-COVID19, it was because of the terrorists, drug dealers, and pedophiles that we'd have to give up our freedoms. Now, it's because of "us idiots." We the people are "too idiotic" to decide for ourselves, or so you say.
The key difference that didn't settle in with people quickly enough is that they could cause damage with little or no symptoms by just being near other people. Because of how this particular virus works, that meant changing behavior by the time it affected you directly was too late. Many field-ignorant people only change their behavior when it directly affects them.
I have also seen more people walking along our city exercise path than ever before. There's not really a good middle ground here, exercising your civil liberties is resulting in deaths.
I'm currently working as an infectious disease researcher for a state with a lot of political turmoil, and I'll have the be honest, my (profesional) opinion doesn't matter. No single recommendation we have made has had any bearing on the action of our state. These opinions we (you and I) have are moot.
The founding fathers believed in government, they weren't anarchists, they believed that government could be good and do good, not that government is inherently and irreconcilably hostile to liberty. They also believed in society and the concept of the greater good, not that individual liberty and freedom matter above all else.
Indeed, when Benjamin Franklin said "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," he was arguing (in a very specific context[0]) against the "temporary safety" of individual liberty versus the "essential liberty" guaranteed by the state.
I wouldn't assume that the founding fathers would side with the people purposely undermining quarantine efforts in this case. They'd probably have such people hanged.
[0]https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-be...
First, I'm not an anarchist and I'm not suggesting that the founding fathers were either. We all know that governments are necessary for society to function. Still, there must be limits to what the government can do, because after all, governments are run by humans and it'll corrupt eventually if you grant them absolute power. That's why many democratic countries have a constitution to limit governmental powers.
Second, I'm not siding with people undermining quarantine efforts (though I wouldn't agree with hanging them). But that's hardly an excuse for conducting mass surveillance, which this article is about. Mass surveillance simply has no place in a society governed by the rule of law.
Compliance, at least here, has been petty good. Imperfect, sure, but everyone I see out walking is keeping a safe distance.
Exercise is good for your immune system. But I think the public health experts probably meant for us to exercise alone. You still see lots of groups of 4 or 5 or more people out there in my area. And based on what people are saying, this must happen in other areas as well. Or my favorite are the groups of bicyclists exercising and keeping 6 ft away from each other. Think about it, one cyclist towards the front of the pack coughs and what's gonna happen?
I don't think the government needs for us to stay at home per sé, but they do need for us to stay away from each other. Some cooperation on our part would go a long way towards helping. Having conceded that, not sure that tracking everyone is gonna stop the kinds of stupidity I was just outlining. You'll still see the groups out there walking or running up the street together or bicycling. I'm just not sure those guys get it? And the government tracking them probably won't make them get it.
"Think about it, one cyclist towards the front of the pack coughs and what's gonna happen?"
Probably nothing. The virus spreads more easily than some, but it's not magic. The original WHO guidance was to stay 3 feet away, not 6 feet, because even at 3 feet transmission is extremely unlikely. It's not impossible to transmit in the scenario you describe, but it's not the kind of scenario social distancing is trying to solve for.
Not at all. This is what makes COVID a pandemic.
Droplet transmission is in fact possible over distances far greater than 6 feet, it just becomes extremely unlikely. Similarly, droplet transmission is less likely at 6 feet than at 3 feet. But even 3 feet reduces the chances substantially, which is why it is the default recommendation for avoiding droplet transmission.
https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-t...
Also pandemics mean either 70 percent of people will catch it, or we need a vaccine. Why even quarentine?
Flatten the curve so we can die on ventilators instead?
And like the drugs, a vaccine may not be successful at all. What do we do in that case?
This is a problem for the ICUs only because there is no specific treatment. If we can treat it like we can treat other grave diseases, the impact becomes smaller and more manageable.
But keep in mind that 20% of the people who go on the ventilators live. Flattening the curve means that, if you reach the point of requiring a ventilator -- and we haven't run out of ventilators -- your chance of survival goes from 0% to 20%. It's not 100% or even 50%, but it's a lot better than 0%.
TV news says our city streets are empty — but there’s actually babies, old people, lots of people exercising etc etc everywhere. Farmers markets with huge crowds. Non-essential construction workers all over.
Yet there are a lot of people outside because they have no choice. They are working or surviving. And then yesterday at the grocery store, there are people working there without gloves and without masks. And they’re jovial, walking around carefree.
I seen people preparing food and drinks without gloves and touching lids etc.
I don’t think wealthy people walking around is particularly bad but I understand your sentiment. The worse problem is we just have stupid people everywhere and sadly many are in our government, agencies and so-called elite. And some are critical workers.
That was Bolshevick's motto.
> The rest of us are being asked to just stay the fuck home for a few weeks.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/21/41-percent-of-americans-woul...
10M have not had a paycheck for 2 weeks.
Car accident death rates are at 1%. Wait until people hear about that.
The bigger shock is when people realize that you can't stop the spread of a pandemic. You can flatten the curve to help hospitals. But soon we will find hospitals are more dangerous than staying at home due to infections and that respirators barely improve your chance of survival.
I hope medical loses their credibility big time. Their rejection of math and science in favor of tradition is horrifying.
Current global stats as I write are: 1446242 confirmed, 83424 deaths which in my calculator is giving 5% not 0,5%
Second thing is that testing already was increased in a lot of places but last 2 days new cases number did not grow it stayed around the same.
The economic collapse and scare has caused people to cancel or delay surgeries, dental work, physical therapy, buy newer and safer cars, home abuse has gone up, I imagine exercise has gone down, I wonder how alcohol use has changed.
You can quantify these with numbers.
I think this math problem is easier than we would like, but politically it's unpopular.
I do not see the argument that the resources should go to cars, if you want to solve car accidents you can do it for free, I have the secrets here:
- don't give a diving license that easy. have decent tests
- if you are caught drunk you should never drive again
- if you are caught looking at a phone screen your license is gone for 10 years
- if you are speeding your license is gone for 10 years
- test the cars every 2 years to check they are safe and not polluting
- analyze the crashes find the causes and address them, if speeding is the issue find a way to enforce speed limits.
Do you have any evidence that if the lockdown did not have happened more lives would have been saved? Ironically probably less people died in car accidents so you need to find some domain where the number of deaths increased more then the lives saved,
If they all are now above 50 chances they might die because of this virus are quite high.
That is high price if one is losing his social grounding when he is 20 because he survived... Yeah he might get inheritance and have his young friends but I would not be happy if most of my relatives are dead.
You can!
Using the age statistics from NY and the Social Security actuarial tables, we're currently losing something like 11.75-17.1 years of life per death, depending on whether you weight towards the life expectancy at the beginning or end of each age bracket. The current update to the "dialysis standard" for the value of a YoQL is $129,000, so we're currently losing $1.5-2.2 million per death.
If the true fatality rate is 0.66% (https://www.livescience.com/death-rate-lower-than-estimates....), and 70% of the population would catch it if it is not contained before "herd immunity" is reached, that would put the total number of expected deaths in the US at around 1.52 million. If we're expected something like 100-200 thousand people to die even with the measures currently being taken, then we're averting 1.4 million deaths and that amounts to a savings of about $2-3 trillion worth of human life.
If $2-3 trillion is suspiciously similar to the magnitude being thrown around for various "coronavirus relief bills", well, it's probably only a little bit of a coincidence.
People who are 50+ or 60+ are still productive members of society. They take care of children for young professionals, support them with their savings, bond family members that would otherwise do stupid stuff.
Lots of those young people will get psychical issues because their family members died. Like mother, father, grandmother and grandfather died at the same time because of virus. How much that can lead to alcoholism or suicides?
This kind of thing would not happen if there is social distancing in place. This kind of thing like wiping whole family elders at once happens rarely with car deaths.
If you're going to claim that 60+ year lives are somehow less worth than younger ones, you better damn well be 60+ years old yourself. Otherwise you're just talking about sacrificing lives that aren't your own.
Aka comparing the two makes no sense.
According to [1] in 2018 there was about 11 deaths per 100,000. So that's 0.011% instead of 1%.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...