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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

No. We settled that by me admitting the Stanford study had some inaccuracies and then explaining why the 10X NYC death rate you suggested was possible was actually impossible. We agreed we were both working with somewhat inaccurate information.

I missed the part where anything was settled.

Your straw man emerged later, where you lumped me in with Less. I never said I favored ending social distancing, or "letting it rip" as you described Less's approach. I actually disagreed with Less and supported your point about continuing to wear masks.

Dude, it is for sure hard to understand what you are saying from post to post, and if I misunderstood you, it certainly wasn't out of any effort to create a straw man.

You piss me off when you ignore the economic disaster we're going to see if this thing goes for 45 more days without some incremental reopening.

We have PPP, plus reserves. I could sit back and wait this out from a "nice... I'll get to pick the bones of those who can't survive" perspective, like a lot of assholes I know in P/E and finance generally. I'm arguing against doing so, and I'm arguing because I see a wave of human carnage coming on the economic side.

You ignore that. You refuse to deal with that except for your one decent argument - that opening too soon and seeing a huge spike will do more damage to the economy than we can imagine. I agree we have that risk. That's why I have repeatedly argued for a careful, incremental, and reversible reopening - sticking toes in the water and slowly easing into a new normal where we're all incredibly diligent about hygiene and distancing.

I'm ignoring something? Did you read my last post. Here's part of what I said, in all caps since you like those:

I DON'T NEED A LECTURE FROM YOU ABOUT THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF WHAT WE'RE GOING THROUGH. OUR BUSINESS IS DOWN 95% FROM A FEW MONTHS AGO AND WE HAVE LAID A BUNCH OF PEOPLE OFF. I TOTALLY GET IT.

Tell me another time that I am refusing to deal with the economic costs of all fo this and I will tell you go to fuck yourself. I am dealing with it every fucking day. There are businesses that are more impacted that mine, but not many.

I am seeking to walk a middle ground. Your response, which is slippery, seems to be: We cannot open anything until we have adequate testing. Am I getting that wrong? Please advise. If I'm correct, please read the following:

WE CANNOT AFFORD THAT. YOU WILL SEE WIDESPREAD SOCIAL UNREST AND DISOBEDIENCE OF ORDER - A TRUE UNRAVELING - IF WE WAIT THAT LONG.

(Yes, it's come to that - you must be compelled to deal with reality by people resorting to all caps.)

Maybe I just don't understand what you specifically have in mind other than saying the word "carefully" over and over again -- and I think the problem is that you haven't actually said it anywhere, but if that's wrong feel free to just link to the post so I can do a mea culpa -- but I think you are being histrionic about "WIDESPREAD SOCIAL UNREST AND DISOBEDIENCE OF ORDER - A TRUE UNRAVELING." It's not my joke, but Anne Frank spent two years locked in an attic -- so far we've all spent less than six weeks staying home with Netflix, and less in most parts of the country. People can endure an awful lot more if they need to. If our political leaders tell them they don't have to, it will be different. If it gets ugly, that'll be politics, not human nature.

What do you not understand about these words:

Careful
Incremental
Reversible

Medical professionals are the most important resource we have right now. What kind of sane cost/benefit analysis would devalue them?

I'm all for all of those things. No one isn't. When I say careful, what I have in mind is, not doing much of anything that would increase R when we don't have the capability to test people to figure out who has it, and to isolate the people who test positive and warn people they came in contact with. If you don't have that, the disease will spread more and the economy won't come back. It's very well and good to tell people that you are in favor of being careful, but if you say that and then you tell people to do things that get more of them sick, that's not careful, is it?

Oh yes you do. I'm like the guy who guides people over the River Styx. I get the desperate calls. I see the businesses wrecked because one can only work out a loan if there's some revenue, and where there isn't one can only help ease his client into financial collapse.

And I am seriously scared that if we allow people to make medicine the enemy of economics here, I'm going to be insanely busy. And insanely unhappy. I'd rather rescue people than play Charon.

Get over yourself.

I called you an oracle because you and people like Gates are predicting the future with inadequate information.

Whereas you are, what?, predicting the future with adequate information? Being "careful" but within inadequate information?

We know that social distancing has flattened the curve, and we know that people have learned the lessons of what they need to do to practice it well. You assume, without any information to support you, that efforts to carefully reopen incorporating social distancing and PPE for HC workers, will fail.

I really can't tell what I said that made you think this. Feel free to quote me if you like. My wife's hospital is opening up to do some elective surgeries and I think they're doing it in the right way.

But if ("if") this site is right, even with all that we have done, the disease is still spreading in four-fifths of the country. Like Icky said, shouldn't we get R well below 1 before we starting loosening things up?