
Rep. Don Young tells Alaska seniors fears are overblown, skips vote on Covid-19 - rolph
https://www.adn.com/politics/2020/03/19/rep-don-young-tells-alaska-seniors-beer-virus-fears-are-overblown-skips-vote-on-covid-19-relief/
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rebuilder
COVID-19 presents governments with a tough communications problem. People
respond quite readily to an immediate threat to their own or their families'
health. So while I agree that the fear people have in terms of catching the
virus themselves is quite overblown, that fear also helps get them to do the
right thing.

For the vast majority of people, this is not a direct health crisis. It's an
optimizations problem where governments have to balance the total death rate,
total life years lost, the capacity of the healthcare system and the future
consequences of the economic downturn containment actions will affect.

Fear works better than that kind of complex, uncertain calculus as a public
motivator.

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irjustin
The irony is he is quoted as referencing China as "look things are fine so
America will be just fine" but conveniently forgets China's response was heavy
handed and the fear was high.

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nabla9
Researchers at Biozentrum Basel have nice model where you can check different
scenarios. [https://neherlab.org/covid19/](https://neherlab.org/covid19/) It
uses severity assumptions from China and takes into account the estimated
fractions reported in China and shows ICU overflow.

Without strong mitigation you can get more than million dead in the US.
Majority of them 70+.

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throwaway1777
May history judge him as he deserves.

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twomoretime
Are they self sufficient in most parts of Alaska? Do they depend on US or
Canada for survival?

It seems like the kind of place people can isolate trivially. He might end up
being right.

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Arnt
Noone's self-sufficient. IIRC Turkey was close, but these days noone's self-
sufficient. Look around you — where was your phone made, where was the
material for the clothes you wear vowen, where were the weaving machines made?
Your neighbour's kid is still in nappies, your other neighbour has asthma and
needs that medicine, where were they made?

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rolph
alaskan self sufficiency is a product of military heritage and pre industrial
life style. right now my clothing includes a knit sweater, and trousers sewn
from loom cloth.

my neighbour built hs wife a loom out of birch it looks really snazzy, and
there are a lot of ego cases that dont want medicines they want to go when its
time not drag it out.

a lot of people here are rough cut and fiercely independent.

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twomoretime
This is the kind of subculture I was inquiring about. Surely some large
minority lives off the land in Alaska? A far larger proportion than the
general population in the US, I expect.

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rolph
there is roughly 350,000 in whats called the rail belt. theres a train line
and the ease of transport it brings.

outside the railbelt is about 400,000 that live extremely rural lives in
villages that you cant get to or leave unless you fly or wait till winter
freezes it. people in alaska just live that way if theyre not in the city.

