bandushrew

It was only the automatic weapons, Im pretty sure any suicidal men could probably still hit themselves in the head with a single shot from a distance of 0.2 feet...

Nobody has been in those places for more than a month, its 2 weeks.

The 'escapees' so far have been an alcoholic (went to the nearest bottle store) and a couple of people with mental issues.

The REASON those people escaped is because the places aren't prisons, or even close. They were hotels, high quality hotels in some places...with no police presence at all...

There was a bunch of fuss made by the public because it was eventually realised that people were being allowed out without testing to attend funerals under a compassionate exemption.

Your description makes it sound like something very different to the reality.

Its toughening up a little now, because everyone in NZ wanted them to toughen up, but for a long while the reality was that all you had to do to leave was decide that you wanted to leave.

Most people didn't, of course, because most people aren't dicks.

that was insane.

Everything that followed makes sense...of course the entire scientific and medical world fell over itself to stop people trying to use it.....until it was tested and proven effective and safe for the purpose.

* incidentally, I have no idea why a US President would ever endorse any drug at all, let alone one that was untested.

Im fascinated to see how it plays out myself.

The plan for the next couple of months at least seems to be to require a 2-3 week quarantine for people coming into the country, which is definitely going to cause continued harm to the tourism sector.

I think the hope from the govt right now is that a vaccine becomes an option sooner rather than later...there is no guarantee of that even being possible of course, but its looking more hopeful as the data comes in.

OTOH within the country itself, as of right now, we are one of the least-shutdown economies in the world and have lost only 21 people to covid, which is a pretty solid place to be.

The longer we can keep covid out, the better the virus is understood and the more effective the treatments that are available, even without a vaccine.

It seems likely to be true that eventually we will need to shrug and let the virus have its way with our people, with or without a vaccine, but everyone with vulnerable dependents is grateful to have had more time with them, and already the treatment outcomes for covid have improved from 6 weeks ago.

Lives sacrificed by opening up too soon (or never closing) would be lost forever, while the economy is driven by people, and people are endlessly resilient, so the economy will recover.

Was it worth it for the lives saved? Clearly opinions are going to vary, but Im comfortable with the choices our govt has made so far.

Effective leadership early on is effective.

Again, I dont understand the rush to throw so many lives under the bus with so little care, its bewildering.

Those people, our vulnerable, can be sacrificed at anytime, but they can only be sacrificed once.

Lets try something else for a few months first, and see how it works.

If nothing else works out, we can always fall back to the "let everyone in society who has an underlying condition of some kind die" plan afterwards.

Which side do of that argument do you believe holds authority at the moment?

", where there were hundreds of thousands of infections"

well, EVENTUALLY, there were hundreds of thousands of infections. at one point there were, famously, 15...

"Were you thinking that the U.S. would be able to maintain a lockdown until eradication, perhaps with contact tracing? Is there evidence that such a plan could work?"

No, I dont think that would be a long term solution for the US, I dont have any source for my beliefs, but I suspect with the size of the US, the nature of its people and the incredibly porous border it has that a lockdown until eradication would be doomed to failure.

" I feel very strongly about individualism and anti-authority, while others may be more communitarian and authoritarian"

yess....the world does need both. Im not sure where that comes into the decision to lockdown or not, and for how long. I feel like there needs to be a more sciency approach taken there rather than some vague handwavy stuff about personalities.

"Why should the many young and healthy who face a negligible risk to continue in what is sometimes very difficult circumstances?"

I dont know. I dont have much use for the word 'should'.

I think that two things are true, first the young and healthy are at risk from this disease themselves - the stats prove that, and second its almost certainly true that the young and healthy have loved ones who are young and unhealthy, or old and healthy, or old and unhealthy, and....maybe....the young and healthy dont want to catch covid and then infect the people they love.

All I was saying with my comment above, is I dont understand the rush to sacrifice those people who are vulnerable to this disease.

Even here in NZ where we have been very lucky so far it is obvious that eventually we will have to reopen the borders and let the rest of the world in, and at that point infections will start again, but by then we have the best possible chance of understanding how to treat the disease most effectively.

I dont believe "lockdown for eradication" in the US is a viable choice, but I do think "lockdown to slowdown" is a sensible option for a while yet, to give every one of your citizens the best possible chance of survival.

The economy will recover, it always does. It reflects the nature of people, and for that reason is endlessly resilient.

OTOH we have been incredibly lucky with both our leadership and our island status.

the US is a huge state, with porous borders so the right choice might be different, but the more controlled the spread is, the fewer lives will be lost and the more likely time will help us understand the best treatment.

The benefit comes when the community as a whole does it, there is literally no point to anyone doing it alone, unless they are vulnerable.

"What do we do next?"

Figure out the best way to treat covid, and talk about the best time to end the lockdown.

Im in NZ btw, NZ locked down hard and early. Its been six weeks and so far we have 20 deaths from covid.

"What next?" is exactly the question, and I dont think anyone knows the best answer yet.

We are likely to be mostly ending our lockdown on this wednesday. We are entering "level 2" which I believe is all businesses open and running, just some rules around congregation.

I simply do not understand the chorus of calls to end lockdown (or simply never start it) in countries where absolutely nothing is under control.

It will cause incredibly loss of life, and people are doing in a rush.

Im really struggling, on a personal level, to understand the rush in some countries to sacrifice people and not economies.

Surely the economy is there to serve us?

The longer we can delay mass infection, the more effective our treatment of the disease will be, and the more likely we will have vaccines.

Lets delay for a while, figure out the best treatment methods, and then let it through.

Covid will be with us forever now, and in just a few months we already understand a lot more about it than we did at the start.

The longer we can delay mass infection, the more effective our treatment of the disease will be, and the more likely we will have vaccines.

Lets delay for a while, figure out the best treatment methods, and then let it through.

"The true burden of the epidemic can be calculated by applying an factor of around 0.15 to the number of account for life years lost. 500 deaths becomes, 75 on an adjusted basis, and can be compared with the 350 lives lost on the roads each year" - He means, of course, the true economic burden, which is a specifically different thing.

Putting that aside (although it clearly reflects his economic bias), actually implementing his model assumes that we can request the public to maintain a variety of distinct contact levels accurately, Im not convinced that we could expect the public to do that effectively over time.

His model is also extremely dependent on accurate testing and contact tracing, which grows exponentially harder as we increase the level of allowable contact.

His model is fine as far as models go, but it definitely makes the assumption that things like level of contact and contact tracing are as easy to adjust and manipulate as his normal treasury numbers, and I personally believe that is a fallacy.

It (arguably) removes the government as a threat, but replaces the threat with other citizens.

It seems to me that history teaches that in the absence of a strong government, people are taxed by whoever is capable of becoming a strong local warlord.

Somalia or South Sudan would be current examples.

Im not sure how that is better?

The government absolutely can, and does, pass laws to legally take anyone's stuff for any reason it likes.

If that is your bottom line, then almost every government in almost every country I know of overran it almost immediately.

What we are discussing right now is....given that they ca, and do....under what circumstances we want them to do it.

Think of it as a reality based discussion.

I dont know anything about the internal politics of SO, and I dont think Ive ever asked (or answered) a question, but I use it every day.

It is absolutely the single best resource for developers on the internet, and thats amazing.

Personally I prefer to think of HTTP as a transport mechanism, with business logic at a higher level. The question "If I replaced this http transport with, say, FTP or a dvd drop, would it require changes at the business logic level?" feels important to me.

That preference puts me on the wrong side of history at the moment though, and Im going with history. Lets express our business logic through the error system provided by our transport mechanism instead....

""93% of adults say that being in control of who can get information about them is important; 74% feel this is “very important,” while 19% say it is “somewhat important.” 90% say that controlling what information is collected about them is important—65% think it is “very important” and 25% say it is “somewhat important.”

I can easily imagine people not caring about third parties knowing their phone number and email, thats already a lost battle. Everyone is used to giving those out.

Their search history though? their private chats with their friends? the websites they visit when they are alone? Their medical history?

The things they have bought themselves in the last 12 months? their favorite magazines?

Take some time and talk to people, I agree with the studies you found that said people dont care about their contact information, but ask people about other information.....search history is expected to be private, IME, by people who are not tech savvy. The same with their other private actions.

That completely fits my experience. If the new code is being used early and can grow iteratively while being relevant and useful, its gonna work out fine.

Having the codebases running side by side somehow is the best choice all around, if it can be managed.

I found myself in the unexpected position of trying to explain why (IMO) it was ok and not a big deal that they did that. I dont know whether I convinced her.

People assume they have privacy when they are alone. Its that simple.

IMO its not ok for any company to change that basic private-when-alone without a very simple, very clear explanation.

The developers in this case didn't bother trying to use it.

the problem in this case is that the developers just couldn't be assed even trying.

"I dont know" was absolutely the correct answer.

In that article there is evidence gathered by people over a 20 year period, its an amazing effort which in many ways represents the very best that science has to offer. We have no reason on the face of it to doubt their evidence.

You have dismissed it in 20 seconds with a casual smear and no evidence whatsoever.

Is it perfect and guaranteed to be accurate? beats me, but its a pretty convincing show by some obviously passionate people who love their insects, and yours is a pretty unconvincing effort.

Shame on you.