
America is losing the stomach to fight Covid-19 - samizdis
https://www.ft.com/content/b223f1cb-a6ed-4c40-8352-4a065ff084fb
======
downerending
This article mostly ignores the larger picture. Winning the COVID-19 fight by
itself is not "winning". The real win is to minimize the total number of
deaths (or perhaps adjusted life years) and general misery.

We have a lot more information now with which to project the benefits and
costs of locking down to various degrees. It's all a guess, of course, but
it's becoming clear that the costs of locking down are quite harsh, in terms
of collateral deaths, etc.

Being smart is not "losing one's stomach to fight".

~~~
octokatt
We need to look at the costs of social distancing, sure.

We also need to look at how a lack of centralized response means the good work
done to socially distance was wasted in part because as a country the US never
took this seriously at the same time.

Look at the comments in here. People are saying a virus that has killed over a
hundred thousand people in three months was “overblown”. We didn’t stop the
spread, we don’t have a good plan to go forwards, and we’re going to keep
seeing second waves.

The US lost it’s nerve to fight, and opened up businesses early. Not allowed
visits from grandparents early, opened up businesses early. That’s more than
enough to undo the work we’ve done. We’re fucking up.

~~~
downerending
The fact that the virus (directly) killed 100K people doesn't tell you much of
anything about the quality of our response. It ignores two crucial questions:
(1) How many people were _indirectly_ killed? And (2) How much better could we
have done in terms of _total_ damage with an available alternative?

The answer to (1) is starting to look like "a lot". And most tragically, it
could be that a large number of those were due to well-intended actions like
locking down.

It's within the realm of possibility that the right thing to do was pretty
much "nothing". As in, the basic health procedures specified for flu season,
etc.

Reams of papers and probably shelves of books will be written studying this,
so perhaps eventually we'll have some idea.

In any case, as others have pointed out, the protests have pretty much wiped
out the idea of locking down. The economic costs (think: people who will go
broke and die from it) even more so.

------
lostmyoldone
If I understood it correctly, the risk of "exhaustion" was one of th drivers
of the strategy here in Sweden. Apart from the fact that ordering a lockdown
would have been impossible. Yes, the possibility was explored, but it was
found to be without legal support.

There is much I don't agree with concerning our handling of Covid-19, far from
all having to with the actual strategy, which I find questionable this far
mostly based on the lack of any discernable scientific consensus regarding a
strategy touted as scientifically sound.

I however do agree that considering an exhaustion/psychological adaption
scenario, is something you have to do in a situation like this.

One strategy I've seen referred to as effective is essentially periodically
altering the level of lockdown, but the high virulence in conjunction with the
long latencies in the feedback looks seems to make it really hard to employ
for Covid-19, as the necessary period still seems to be on the order of
months.

------
samizdis
Edited to add: Original FT piece syndicated in the Irish Times, no paywall:

[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/the-united-
states-h...](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/the-united-states-has-
lost-the-stomach-for-the-coronavirus-fight-1.4276520)

Non-paywalled article based on the linked FT piece:

The US is losing the ‘discipline’ to fight coronavirus and is ‘leaving the
battlefield before the war is over’

[https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/the-us-is-losing-the-
discip...](https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/the-us-is-losing-the-discipline-
to-fight-coronavirus-and-is-leaving-the-battlefield-before-the-war-is-over/)

------
doorstar
Honestly I think this was inevitable despite any politics.

It's been over 2 months now since the lockdowns began and and a lot of people
who were told 'flatten the curve' are asking when the curve will be flat
enough.

> Mission accomplished only works when there is a vaccine, which is at least a
> year away.

A year with little if any time spent with family and friends? A year where a
trip to the market means putting on your virus armor? A year where our kids
get little education, little outdoor play, little social contact?

There's obviously concern about the economic damage of the lockdown, but with
some justification there's also a mental health concern. What is the risk of
covid vs. the risk of 'normalizing' isolation? When we all get out - can we
pick up where we left off?

I'm starting to wonder when I just give up. My spouse is a virologist so we
are a lot more stringent than most - but I see the neighborhood kids out
playing basketball everyday and I can't fail to notice that they are all doing
fine. Maybe they are going to prove to be the smart ones.

~~~
JPKab
"Maybe they are going to prove to be the smart ones."

I'm glad you have the humility about potentially being wrong that the math-
illiterate journalists don't. Instead, they have doubled down on their initial
freakout.

Most people, I think, treat this like poker. You get a few new data points,
and you shift your chips to locking down. You get more data points, you start
taking them out. Reasonable.

The journalist crowd, and some of my relatives, went all in on the lockdown.
They could either look at the new data, and chill out and admit they
overreacted for 2 months, OR they can just try to shame me for not wearing a
mask when I'm riding my bike on a trail in a massive, empty wildlife refuge.

~~~
doorstar
Unfortunately the scientists are still pretty pro-lockdown too.

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/08/upshot/when-e...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/08/upshot/when-
epidemiologists-will-do-everyday-things-coronavirus.html)

In my own home I think the difference is becoming stark ( and hopefully
doesn't come to a head ). My spouse has worked with deadly viruses and sees
risk risk risk.

I'm the engineer, I'm the pragmatists, I look backwards and extrapolate from
what has already happened. What are the chances of getting the virus during a
barbecue with friends vs. the chances of dying in a car crash during the drive
over? Can I believe that the virus "might" spread on surfaces without seeing a
lot more cases than I'd expect? Healthy living doesn't just boil down to "not
infected".

------
diffrinse
I mean let's be at least a little real here, and I identify as Left, but for a
lot of people the protests and upheaval were a cure for boredom, conveniently
packaged in a morally indignant reply to "What about the viral pandemic we
have no cure to?".

I really don't see much difference in people going after direct Right wing
protest to the lockdown itself and people saying the lockdown is somehow
superseded by moral virtue: in either case you are saying some higher
principle overrides your duty to your fellow human beings (in keeping the
curve low...). This "letter of the law over all"/legalism is, in my
experience, the basis for modern all American ethical negotiation and it has
to be changed.

Just earlier this week the CDC chose not to admonish protesters for the
worthiness of their cause: that should be orthogonal to the CDC's duty!

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
Agreed. Doctors and scientists should be disseminating knowledge about the
spread of coronavirus. Instead they're offering policy endorsements about
political activity.

The whole "racism is about public health" line is blatantly dogmatic political
activity and I shudder to think of what this would look like on the right.

~~~
esyir
From what I've seen of those on the right, they see it as ideological capture
of core institutions by the left. I can't really refute that.

------
JPKab
Articles that discuss the USA as a monolith are immediately problematic. There
are 50 states, and 50 different philosophies on fighting the virus.

Also, this: "Mission accomplished only works when there is a vaccine, which is
at least a year away."

No, we didn't sign up for a lockdown until a vaccine exists.

Has anyone wondered why we don't hear about Wisconsin in the news? The
Wisconsin lockdown was ended a month ago by the courts, against the state
government's will. There isn't a spike in cases a month later. Why is that?
Why isn't that being reported? In the US, I no longer hear about Sweden on the
news either.

What I do know is that the US media was vehemently against people congregating
outdoors a few weeks ago, and then decided that the risk was worth it when
people began to protest for a righteous cause they happened to agree with.
They were acting like the world was going to end a week before when a bunch of
rednecks were swimming together at the Lake of the Ozarks. Specifically, they
talked about covid spreading like wild-fire at choir practices due to the
nature of people yelling and projecting moisture droplets. They were totally
cool with the yelling protesters though. (I support the protests and think
they were right to ignore the virus while exercising their rights.)

It's summer time, and my friends and neighbors just don't think it's worth it
to not live their lives. It might be a dumb decision in the long run. We shall
see. But the media is invested in an apocalyptic narrative. They report bad
news, ignore good news. Their reporters, like the vast majority of
journalists, are essentially mathematically illiterate, Nate Silver and his
like aside. Twitter is filled with opinionated morons who I wouldn't trust to
walk my dog, and these journalists are part of that club. Not listening to
them anymore. From now on, I just look at the data.

Edit: Ah yes, commence the down-voting by the fearful for not endorsing their
strategy of pretending to be agoraphobic for 2 months. I might be wrong, and I
admit it. But are any of you who are wiping down every package that comes into
your house willing to admit you MIGHT be overreacting?

~~~
joshuamorton
If your look for news articles about Sweden, recent ones are about how the
government is admitting it made a mistake.

This is evident if you compare Sweden's mortality rate to it's neighbors (10x
higher).

> What I do know is that the US media was vehemently against people
> congregating outdoors a few weeks ago, and then decided that the risk was
> worth it when people began to protest for a righteous cause they happened to
> agree with.

There's differences between going out in crowds without masks and with masks.
There's also differences between just causes and mediocre causes.

And as to your last point about Wisconsin: most places aren't Wisconsin.
Socal, Florida, Texas and other major population centers are back over their
early peaks. And these increases predated the protesting this past week.
Things were on the upswing already.

