I haven’t checked your models quantitatively, but qualitatively I absolutely believe you that the options here are “bad” and “really really bad”, and that neither one of them gets us down to where we need to be.
The difference between 4% and 10% could still save a lot of lives; at that level it may be close to 1:1 (every bed freed up is a life saved), since only the most critical cases will be getting beds at that point.
But you’re right that this is clearly not adequate, and the graphic showing the flatter curve as peaking under the capacity line is pretty misleading. (There are versions of the graphic which don’t, but they appear to have been memetically outcompeted by those that do.)
I think it’s still true that “flattening the curve” will save lives, potentially a lot of lives, so even if the graphic might be a bit misleading as to the possibility of flattening it below the critical threshold, I think it’s still a reasonable meme to promote.
But really the ultimate goal has to be reducing R below 1, which will arguably flatten the curve, just not quite in the way the meme seems to be trying to get at. I don’t want to steer too close to dark side epistemology here, but if the meme gets people to stay inside, cancel their parties, and wash their fucking hands… it’s hard for me to be too against it, and I think it’s probably true enough?
I don’t know how other people react. I took the epidemic fairly seriously but my initial reaction to the meme was one of reassurance/complacency—OK so I can’t avoid eventual exposure anymore, but at least things will proceed in a somewhat orderly fashion if we cancel big events, wash hands, stop touching our face, etc. I feel like this is the sort of attitude that contributes to, and allows the public to accept, decisions like the capitulation in Sacramento. The mental image of mitigation is “basically trying to mitigate the risk to those who are most at risk: the elderly and those with chronic underlying conditions”. The reality is that we’ll be forced to let all the old and sick die in hospital parking lots.
It seems to me fairly likely that the public will ultimately accept the Hubei-style lockdowns that will result in containment, but this meme probably is responsible for delaying that moment by at least a few days :(
I saw the meme as mostly targeting people who were currently even more complacent “eh, there’s nothing we can do, so fuck it”, and getting them to instead go “okay, there’s stuff that’s actually worth doing.”
I haven’t checked your models quantitatively, but qualitatively I absolutely believe you that the options here are “bad” and “really really bad”, and that neither one of them gets us down to where we need to be.
The difference between 4% and 10% could still save a lot of lives; at that level it may be close to 1:1 (every bed freed up is a life saved), since only the most critical cases will be getting beds at that point.
But you’re right that this is clearly not adequate, and the graphic showing the flatter curve as peaking under the capacity line is pretty misleading. (There are versions of the graphic which don’t, but they appear to have been memetically outcompeted by those that do.)
I think it’s still true that “flattening the curve” will save lives, potentially a lot of lives, so even if the graphic might be a bit misleading as to the possibility of flattening it below the critical threshold, I think it’s still a reasonable meme to promote.
But really the ultimate goal has to be reducing R below 1, which will arguably flatten the curve, just not quite in the way the meme seems to be trying to get at. I don’t want to steer too close to dark side epistemology here, but if the meme gets people to stay inside, cancel their parties, and wash their fucking hands… it’s hard for me to be too against it, and I think it’s probably true enough?
I don’t know how other people react. I took the epidemic fairly seriously but my initial reaction to the meme was one of reassurance/complacency—OK so I can’t avoid eventual exposure anymore, but at least things will proceed in a somewhat orderly fashion if we cancel big events, wash hands, stop touching our face, etc. I feel like this is the sort of attitude that contributes to, and allows the public to accept, decisions like the capitulation in Sacramento. The mental image of mitigation is “basically trying to mitigate the risk to those who are most at risk: the elderly and those with chronic underlying conditions”. The reality is that we’ll be forced to let all the old and sick die in hospital parking lots.
It seems to me fairly likely that the public will ultimately accept the Hubei-style lockdowns that will result in containment, but this meme probably is responsible for delaying that moment by at least a few days :(
I saw the meme as mostly targeting people who were currently even more complacent “eh, there’s nothing we can do, so fuck it”, and getting them to instead go “okay, there’s stuff that’s actually worth doing.”
You’re probably right.