Economic implications of a SARS/Coronavirus outbreak

[SirRumpole]

Yeah, I discovered that in France once.

Tried to buy a chicken roll for lunch. Ended up with a fish instead.

You should have asked for cheese instead.

 

[Sdajii]

You clearly have never actually read the Wiki link which goes into excellent detail on the extensive measures Sweden has taken to control COVID 19 the costs and the consequences. The Swedish approach has value which can be assessed but in no universe is it a hands off, no cost , small consequence process.

It's so weird that when I like the way Sweden handled it they respond with "Sweden didn't completely ignore the virus". Yes. I know. I don't think we should completely ignore it.

Why is it so difficult to imagine that maybe I know something about the thing I say I like? Why do you need to imagine that think the only alternative to absurd overreaction is complete and utterly unconditional apathy?

It's possible to take an appropriate level of action without going overboard. Not going overboard does not require zero effort. The potential responses exist in a complete spectrum, not a dichotomy between zero and insane destructive overreaction.

 

[Sdajii]

You seem to have quite a disdain for the elderly.

If this is true and we use your line of thinking, you have quite a disdain for the other 7 or so billion people on the planet.

 

[Sdajii]

In case anyone wants to look at how devastating this virus is to the economy when you don't worry about it, NZ, the poster child for having eliminated the virus and being virus free, supposedly had it out of the community for over 100 days. Then they realised it had been there the whole time. One person was a bit sick, found to have it, people close to her were tested (who weren't even sickly) and some had it too.

It's literally so trivial that it can go unnoticed for over 100 days.

Lockdowns which destroy livelihoods, businesses, families, ways of life, etc... tell me if that has a tangible effect on the economy.

By the by, everyone was blaming me for this thread going off topic. I haven't posted in this thread all week (between Monday morning and now on Friday afternoon) and it's more off topic than ever, to the point where posting this, on topic, feels like I'm taking the thread off topic.

 

[wayneL]

If this is true and we use your line of thinking, you have quite a disdain for the other 7 or so billion people on the planet.

Mic drop of the day, right there.

 

[basilio]

If this is true and we use your line of thinking, you have quite a disdain for the other 7 or so billion people on the planet.

Unfortunately Sdajii it is you has a disdain for the other 7 Billion people on the plant.
COVID affects everyone. The argument that young people are not/only slightly affected is just not correct.

Yes one might take further precautions to protect the more vulnerable. But the illness has serious impact on people at all levels.

 

[wayneL]

Unfortunately Sdajii it is you has a disdain for the other 7 Billion people on the plant.
COVID affects everyone. The argument that young people are not/only slightly affected is just not correct.

Yes one might take further precautions to protect the more vulnerable. But the illness has serious impact on people at all levels.

Cites? Including actual data and statistics please.

Additionally could you please compare those statistics to the run-of-the-mill epidemics that reflect humanity such as influenza A

I actually know to people that have had the virus, one and his twenties one in his late 50s. Both have recovered completely without any ill-effects whatsoever. I realised that that is a sample size with a grand total of 2, but if we examine the effects of covid with a statistical bent we will probably find that that is pretty typical, notwithstanding the right tail out on about 2 or 3 sigmas.

 

[Sdajii]

Unfortunately Sdajii it is you has a disdain for the other 7 Billion people on the plant.
COVID affects everyone. The argument that young people are not/only slightly affected is just not correct.

Yes one might take further precautions to protect the more vulnerable. But the illness has serious impact on people at all levels.

Utter nonsense. We now know that the majority of people don't even show symptoms, and the vast majority of people who do show symptoms only have mild symptoms.

The lockdowns and economic devastation have a far, far greater impact on the vast, vast majority of people in this world than the virus does. To deny this is to deny the most obvious of realities.

If this was about saving lives or anything like that, we'd be focussing on alcohol use, drug use, obesity, etc. Being overweight is a far greater health risk than this virus, yet we are telling people to love their body at any size, etc etc, while the obesity epidemic continues unabated.

 

[basilio]

There have been repeated posts outlining the long term effects of COVID on a significant number of people who have been infected. These issues are important from an economic perspective
On top of that this disease is still only 9 months old. There is a long tail.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/...-long-and-medium-term-health-effects/12499436
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/what-are-the-long-term-health-risks-post-covid-19
https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/12/after-covid19-mental-neurological-effects-smolder/

 

[satanoperca]

Unfortunately Sdajii it is you has a disdain for the other 7 Billion people on the plant.

Bas, you provide to the conversation/discussion, but when you make stupid statements, it makes all the good discussion you have provided go to waste.

Sdaji has not once, said or insulated that he doesn't care about all of the people on this earth.

Can you please stop being so abrupt, it doesn't help with the discussion.

 

[wabullfrog]

Link to some CDC estimates on previous Flu seasons.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

 

[satanoperca]

Link to some CDC estimates on previous Flu seasons.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

Wabullfrog, what you doing, trying to present facts, we cannot have that in society anymore, fear is all the must reign.

"CDC estimates that influenza was associated with more than 35.5 million illnesses, more than 16.5 million medical visits, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths during the 2018–2019 influenza season. This burden was similar to estimated burden during the 2012–2013 influenza season1."

So if these facts are correct, and we have had over 100 years for the human body to build resistance to the influenza virus, Covid is not that bad, bad, but not world-destroying.

And to be even more none politically correct, how many people in Australia that have died from this virus are :
1. Above the average life expectancy
2. Had an underlying condition that contributed to the death
3. We fat, lazy and didn't look after the vessel, their body

So the naysayers are voicing their thoughts, that I should give up my freedoms for the above.

 

[wabullfrog]

The other side of the coin is currently the US has around 170,000 COVID attributed deaths & they are yet to experience COVID during their "Flu Season". The first wave in the US caught the tail end of it.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season.htm

I do wonder what will happen in the approaching Northern Winter.

Really hoping that treatment will get to the stage we can revert to a "normal" life quickly.

 

[satanoperca]

The other side of the coin is currently the US has around 170,000 COVID attributed deaths & they are yet to experience COVID during their "Flu Season". The first wave in the US caught the tail end of it.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season.htm

I do wonder what will happen in the approaching Northern Winter.

Really hoping that treatment will get to the stage we can revert to a "normal" life quickly.

While I don't want anyone to die, well actually for the sack of saving this planet we need approx 2 billion people to die before us human (bacteria of the planet) consume it, but that is for another discussion.

If one wants to compare influenza to covid, influenza killed a lot more people at the time and covid has today, all things are relative.

 

[IFocus]

If one wants to compare influenza to covid, influenza killed a lot more people at the time and covid has today, all things are relative.

Comparing death rates between a flu season and the current situation with the Covid virus lacks an equal basis.

The actions taken for the flu don't equate the actions taken for Covid.

A equivalence I would image would have to start with a let it rip response for Covid, plus accumulated deaths as a results of health system overloads due to unavailable hospital spaces etc just as a starter.

Also with hospitals in overload comes a decrease in survival rates as seen in the US (44% verses Aust 85%).

BTW all of the above has been modelled very accurately verified by the models used to early on for the responses in Australia.

All comments I have seen failed (not you Sat) to say how they would control the virus if not using the infectious diseases experts current directions. Australia has many that have worked on the front lines of ebola, sars and mers.

Maybe the entire infectious disease community have a plan to take over the world?

 

[Smurf1976]

Lockdowns which destroy livelihoods, businesses, families, ways of life, etc... tell me if that has a tangible effect on the economy.

It could be argued that the situation has exposed fundamental deficiencies in "the economy".

We live in a society, the economy is a part of that but only a part. If a few % drop in GDP results in people literally ending up dead then that's akin to saying that someone locking themselves out of their cabin results in the ship sinking. It has exposed a serious flaw in the system.

To borrow from Warren Buffett's well known quote, I suspect there's rather a lot of people who are indeed swimming naked and who are doing the most screaming about the situation.

Exclusive reliance on China combined with "just in time" delivery - anyone with even the most basic knowledge of history could see that was going to blow up someday and the only question was about the detail.

There are many innocent victims of all this, both the virus and the government response to it, I don't doubt. On the other hand it's giving the tree a well overdue pruning and ridding it of quite a bit of dead wood and the associated termites. Ultimately that'll save it in the long term despite the short term hit.

 

[Smurf1976]

But did it taste like chicken?

Nope - but I've no idea what sort of fish it was.

 

[Sdajii]

It could be argued that the situation has exposed fundamental deficiencies in "the economy".

We live in a society, the economy is a part of that but only a part. If a few % drop in GDP results in people literally ending up dead then that's akin to saying that someone locking themselves out of their cabin results in the ship sinking. It has exposed a serious flaw in the system.

To borrow from Warren Buffett's well known quote, I suspect there's rather a lot of people who are indeed swimming naked and who are doing the most screaming about the situation.

Exclusive reliance on China combined with "just in time" delivery - anyone with even the most basic knowledge of history could see that was going to blow up someday and the only question was about the detail.

There are many innocent victims of all this, both the virus and the government response to it, I don't doubt. On the other hand it's giving the tree a well overdue pruning and ridding it of quite a bit of dead wood and the associated termites. Ultimately that'll save it in the long term despite the short term hit.

Telling people they can no longer have their business, or job, or forcing people to be unable to travel, etc etc etc, is not exposing a weakness, it is creating destruction.

It's absurd that you would try to spin things to that extent.

 

[satanoperca]

Nope - but I've no idea what sort of fish it was.

But it all tastes like chicken, except blue or yellow fin tuna raw.

 

[SirRumpole]

Telling people they can no longer have their business, or job, or forcing people to be unable to travel, etc etc etc, is not exposing a weakness, it is creating destruction.

It's absurd that you would try to spin things to that extent.

It certainly is exposing a weakness, that of dependence on foreign supply lines for essential items like PPE and vaccines and other manufactured items.

The fact that we could get a substantial face mask manufacturing up and running so quickly shows that we have a capability in these areas but are too complacent to support this, preferring to rely on foreign suppliers.

Hopefully we have learned a lesson.