To be fair, Danoff is not saying that social distancing is a waste of time and money... he's saying that the measures taken to alleviate the current crisis should not cause as much or even more damage than the virus.
So your saying that he's saying that social distancing (SD(which in this post includes lock down)) is not working. And you two are ok with an estimated 2,500,000 million people dying in the USA alone, ok. Please read what i have linked in past posts and make an educated guess instead of using your own opinion as to what the future may bring.
It is a difficult thing to judge though, because clearly there is a balance to be struck. Lockdown measures are absolutely necessary - and the tighter they are, the better... but only for a limited time. And not all lockdown measures are equal - some will be required for a short time, and some for a very long time. The question is which measures are most effective, when they are most effective, and for how long do we need them.
The balance is keeping essential businesses open versus shutting down everything.The CDC is working on plans for opening the economy, bit by bit. Local leaders are the best qualified for which regions may be ready. As they shut down region by region they would presumably use the same concept for reopening the economy, region by region. The virus will most likely control that ultimately.
Unfortunately, the harsher the lockdown measure(s), the more difficult it will be to sustain them. This is where the containment strategy starts to unravel, because containment (during a pandemic) is almost impossible without imposing the most draconian (and damaging) restrictions on daily life - and possibly to little overall effect.
I would agree that we are (at least I feel like I'm dungeoned up here at home) living under draconian (to use your analogy) leadership. According to those articles I linked SD is working with a huge effect. In USA experts at first were using data that projected less than 50% of USA would step up and do SD. We now find out that more than that percentage have SD and those numbers of infected and dead have dropped considerably compared to first projections.
Take South Korea for example. If one country can virtually contain the outbreak, they will have a dilemma - when to lift the restrictions? Paradoxically, the fewer infections they have, the more prone to a severe outbreak they will be later as they will be much further behind other countries on the way to herd immunity.
On the way? No country is on their way to herd immunity and without a vaccine herding won't work, unless basically 90% of the population gets the virus.
https://www.healthline.com/health/herd-immunity#effectiveness
Using data (take the published numbers as you may, believe other countries numbers or not) about the most infected country per capita Switzerland has the highest at 1340 cases/million people. Their population is 8,637,642 with 11575 cases infected. For herding the number of infected would be (90%) 7,773,887 of which at a death rate of 3.4 % would be 264,311 deaths for Switzerland alone. In the UK that end number would be over 2,000,000. USA would be over 10,000,000. A vaccine would first be needed to even think about herding.
EDIT: using the VSL the economic cost to 10,000,000 deaths in the USA equates to $100,000,000,000,000, yes $100 trillion. Currently (2019) the DNP is above $19 trillion.
Can they afford to keep restrictions and testing regimes in place until a vaccine is developed? Probably not (though I hope so...). But if not, all of their amazing efforts could end up being for nothing and then they get a double whammy of having taking a massive economic hit and a worst-case outbreak.
The only double whammy I read about is if we stop SD too soon and open the economy too soon. Regionally we will open the economy, eventually.
Thus far, the 'flattening the curve' strategy seems to be the best solution, though alas that involves accepting the grim possibility of the same number of infections as doing nothing.
I agree on flattening the curve, who wouldn't but sorry, I would like to see some proof or theory (not your opinion) to that analogy that the SD would have the same effect on lives as doing nothing at all to prevent infections.
It is far superior to doing nothing because it optimises the effect of the healthcare system (i.e. doing nothing would result in millions of people not being treated), but paradoxically it also means that doing too much (i.e. trying to contain the virus) could backfire.
Are you actually suggesting not to treat anyone for the virus to optimize the effect of the HCS? I must be reading that wrong. Please clarify. Your the first person I've seen or heard even contemplating such an awful idea. I would like to see some proof or theory to that analogy also. One of the biggest reasons the USA is SD is not to overwhelm our HCS and leave people to die for reasons other than the virus alone. Our own downfall I agree. Everything I read or see (to me) proves that seeing this SD through is the only (economic) solution at this time. Please read past links for that evidence.
I reckon the best solution is a compromise - short(ish) periods of fairly tight restrictions (like we have now) followed by a relative return to normality. However, we must be prepared for the unfortunate possibility of multiple cycles of this. If we are able to limit infections to just 5-10% of the population, that means that we could endure 6-12 cycles of this virus before herd immunity starts to have an effect. The good news is that we are (hopefully) likely to have a vaccine before then (i.e. this time next year, or approx. 3-4 more cycles of lockdown etc.), but either way it is probably going to suck for some time. The question is, economically, how can we survive for what could be an entire year or more without the economy running? I reckon we cannot - the EU, for example, is already witnessing record-breaking downturns that are plunging some of the richest countries on Earth into a deep recession, and we're only 50% through cycle 1... harsh as it may sound, there will come a point (and probably much sooner than people would like) where the economy needs to be revived, and hence, as Danoff is saying, we need to get smart about how to a) protect those most vulnerable and b) keep everyone else able to afford food, energy and shelter. I reckon it can be done, but it is not going to be an easy year for any of us.
Yeah I agree about a compromise (it's what we're doing now) and I don't think anyone thought this was going to be easy or end in a few months time. The links I gave have an estimated 3 years projected into their models for the future economic turn around. We can bring back the economy, we can't bring back dead people.
Part of the problem with having a flexible approach to restrictions is that the general public are unlikely to respond well to anything other than a clear and unequivocal message. The reality may well be that we should have different levels of restriction of different people and different places, but that is by definition a mixed message. The majority of people want a black and white answer - is there a lockdown or not? The trouble for governments is how to square the circle of giving a black and white answer to a grey area question.
Unfortunately @realDonaldTrump is not the correct leader for this crises, thank god for our governors that have stepped up. It's a huge country and I will agree that we need to open the economy again, and it would most likely be regional due to the size of the country but according to the experts without SD the economy would be far worst off in the long run.
#StayhomeStaysafe
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