330 million Americans, says 70% aren't at highest risk, all become infected, at 10% hospitalization -> 23 million hospitalizations required. Spread over 18 months, that's still an additional 1.25 million hospitalizations every month. That's 0.3% of Americans in hospital for COVID, constantly (assuming average 1 month time in hospital required - yes I made that up).
For context, roughly 0.7% of Americans are incarcerated at any given time.
Still a logistical nightmare. You can tweak those numbers however you wish, but they generally all giving mind boggling logistical nightmares.
Sure, the immediate beneficiaries are those at highest risk from the virus. But younger people who fall on the extreme end of the symptoms would also be dying at relatively higher rates too. Have no fear, once the powers that be are confident that society won't collapse, the stay at home orders will start lifting and life will go on... including allowing people young and old to die at 'acceptable' rates from the virus.
It’s hard to isolate the elderly if they are so old that they need care by the young.
Isolating the not-quite-so-old that can self-isolate is easy.
Antibody tests are also almost useless on an individual level: If they have 4% false positive rate and 10% have antibodies then there are 36000 false positives (4% of 900k) when a million people are tested! Antibody tests are good at a group level to measure the progress of the epidemic, but unless the incidence is high or better test methods are found, they are near useless for what you are describing, sadly.
No, we're pausing the life of everyone to protect everyone. If you overload the hospital systems then everyone dies. If you pause and keep things barely managable then mostly only old people die.
Then there is no doubts that the virus hit hardest the elders.
Again, what I am saying is that younger people are hit by the lockdown much more than the elders while being the less concerned about the virus itself.
And we should talk also about this.
The problem with saying this is that it's incorrect. Many elders suffer during lockdown in the exact same ways and in some cases to the exact same extent that younger people do, including in the ways you imagine: socially, sexually, economically.
Additionally, there are many young people (many of them here on HN) who do just fine during lockdown because WFH and online interaction actually promote their senses of well being. [0]
The insistence with which you have been asserting that young people are being "punished" reveals adherence to an agenda more than an evenhanded analysis of the facts.
I don't think that's fair to the OP. They seem to me to just be describing what they see and feel.
In a cold, utilitarian sense, the ripple effects from messing up a young life are many times more significant. If schooling, work, romance, and childbearing of young people are all disrupted, you can expect to see that in the economy for decades to come (just look at the name "baby boomers" for the opposite case). But, again in the cold utilitarian sense, if the life of someone with 10-20 years left is disrupted, that disruption doesn't last as long.
This friend basically said that if you are young and need to be ventilated you enter ICU with a better lung than older people.
So when you leave ICU you have enough lung left to not die. You would have died with an overwhelmed ICU, though, and you‘ll likely need a long time to get back the health you had before. If ever.
Some young people are benefiting with fewer car accidents. Some old people are having to wait longer for transplants as there are fewer organ donors dying of accidents.
Also fewer middle aged people are having myocardial infarcts.
My children are not so upset that they don’t have to go to school.
I wonder if countries benefitting from tourism will finally get rid of visas and passports to encourage international travel again. Probably not, but one can dream.
Maybe if the us ends up bailing out the entire world, there won’t be a reason to protect the borders with passports as we will have a United States of earth. Fed swap lines are already available to around a dozen countries.
* Any concern for the COVID-resilient groups running around spreading the germs to more susceptible? How do we measure what level of social life one is allowed to have while putting other groups at risk?
* Enforcement. How do we advertise and enforce these new rules? Will certain people feel discriminated against? Should police card/arrest people if they look just a little too gray/old/wrinkly?
I think just "talking" about this will be opinions vs opinions. We should start with numbers and then try to see what makes sense.
I've also seen pre-coronavirus studies noting the stark disparity in wealth between baby boomers and millennials at the same point in life. Fun times indeed!
I can afford this myself, but sparks will be flying.
Do not pretend this can't hurt young people, badly.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/12-year-old-belgian-girl-becom...
The article also contains accounts of two more youngsters dead, at 14 and 16.
This thing can kill anyone.
0.2% chance of death for 30 year olds is roughly the same as a 30 year old's chance of dying in any given year.
Or, based on overall fatalities from motorcycles per mile, it would equate to about 8,000 miles per year.
Or, based on light aircraft fatalities per hour, it would be around 200 flight hours in a year.
Of course, you could argue that the casualties from both activities are skewed upwards by people who do stupid things early and don't live long enough to engage in the activity a lot.
Anyway, I'm not particularly agreeing or disagreeing. The risks above are considered reasonable by a lot of people and unreasonable by others.
We are talking about trading people for people, and we’re saying in some trades the numbers work out better.
And what I am saying is that the lockdown punish different class of people very differently. And the most punished are the least affected by the virus itself.
And yes, less lockdown for someone is already something...
Well no. It does sometimes, but it tends to not.
Until then, while you mention Ro, you might not know that some recent reports show it approaching 6 in some areas, not 2.x as thought by some over a month ago. With an Ro of 2.5 and a mean infection duration of 5 days, each person can cause infection of up to 244 cases in a month.
Also, since testing is not widely and reliably available in most countries, there is no way to loosen stay-at-home as a practical matter. Pervasive testing, quick contact tracing, isolation and quarantine are the only way forward.
And I’m not sure you are factoring in that Covid-19 positive people can be contagious before they show ANY symptoms.
So if you’re not concerned about older people or people with comorbidities generally, you might look around at the people you know and care about.
The other part of this is the impact on health care providers and first responders. They are getting infected and dying. The have more pressing issues than those you mention.
I find thinking about my community and taking certain matters of personal responsibility seriously helps me dwell less on myself.
Good luck...
Personally I am myself in the stricter form of quarantine I can do.
However, the argument I brought forward will start to raise stronger and stronger. And if we don't discuss about it, and if we don't do it fast, it will be problematic for everybody.
I personally don't even mind that much the lockdown, but I am not the only youngest around...
You don't have to throw it away. There are plenty of productive ways to spend your time.
Yes, social isolation is burdensome. But it's damn sight better than being dead.
Nobody is saying that.
I was unlucky enough to fracture my ankle right before California instituted shelter-in-place and to fracture it in a way that needed corrective surgery. I was lucky that CA managed to avoid the worst of it, so that my surgery was able to proceed on schedule. Otherwise I was looking at potential long term complications in addition to being off my feet for 5-6 months instead of the 2 months they expect now.
Again, what I am saying is that the lockdown punish purple differently, the most punished are the least affected by the virus itself
It’s a shit situation for young adults, but sometimes life isn’t fair.
Moreover, lock down all the elders and the ICU won't be so busy...
True, but that doesn't mean a whole lot of young people wouldn't needlessly die.
You seem really committed to turning this into a generational thing.
Do you think people over 60 (or wherever the fatality rate spikes) existed in a self-isolated bubble staying home alone before now? Have you talked to any of them recently? The ones I know are having a rough time of it, at least as much as the younger people I know.
If locking down "just the elders" was a workable solution, what do you think it would really look like?
Even if people somehow manage to forget the horror and deaths of the past couple of weeks, a loosened lockdown and the inevitable spread of disease that will follow would quickly remind them.
A ban on all social activity for years is far beyond "serious effort to mitigate". Millions of lives isn't worth a global dystopia.
Let not-so-at-risk people go around will also helps in not moving completely blond in this episode.
I know people that are sure to have caught it, didn't get tested, it pass away, and now are still locked down for the foreseeable future.
In Italy it was asked to several people to donate blood, all of them though to have never got the virus, turns out 60% of them already got it.
We need something more than just staying at home.
If not, can you explain again what you are saying?
We are basically pausing the life of younger people, indefinitely, to protect the elders.
Again, since the quarantine started in my area I exist twice to buy groceries and that's all. So I understand the need and the importance of it.
But should I really throw away on year of my life? Shouldn't we quarantine only the elders? Would your opinion change if you were living by yourself with your significant other locked up somewhere too far away to meet in two months?
And yes I am aware that also younger people died from the virus but the chance are so much smaller that I don't believe is fair to compare it.
The opportunity cost is so much different and nobody is addressing the issue.