That's a somewhat different point. But leaving it aside. Do you want more or less people to be infected than there are now?

You are literally not helping others, protecting others, or soothing any suffering by hiding in your house. You are hiding. You have retreated. You have cowered. — NOS4A2

There is a fine line between courage and stupidity. The above overtly implies that self quarantine is cowardly, and not doing so is courageous.

I'm reminded of the ignorance behind "the cure cannot be worse than the disease" where the cure is quarantine.

Not doing so is stupid because it increases the possibility for harming others. It spreads the disease.

The knowledge on this is no longer in question...

That's a somewhat different point. But leaving it aside. Do you want more or less people to be infected than there are now?

Obviously less, though I think a herd immunity approach has some merit. I simply do not know enough to give a reasonable answer.

But before you try to trap me in a contradiction, realize that I also do not want a global depression and the subsequent poverty and famine. I also do not want my friends and family to be homeless within the year, our social security gone, while passing massive debt onto my children.

Obviously less, though I think a herd immunity approach has some merit — NOS4A2

The herd immunity approach requires many more people to be infected (at least 60% of the population). So if your answer is "obviously less", then you are obviously against herd immunity.

But before you try to trap me in a contradiction — NOS4A2

You did that without my help. The two ideas, less people becoming infected and more people becoming infected (necessary for herd immunity) are diametrically opposed.

I also do not want a global depression and the subsequent poverty and famine. I also do not want my friends and family to be homeless within the year, our social security gone, while passing massive debt onto my children. — NOS4A2

Red herring. No-one wants any of those things.

I can see these tedious little gotcha games a mile away. I said I don’t know enough to give a reasonable answer, which you suspiciously left out of the quote.

Obviously I don’t want anyone to get infected with Covid-19, a deadly virus. But maybe more infections equals more immunities. Again I do not know enough to give a reasonable answer,

Red herring. No-one wants any of those things.

I didn’t say anyone did. WTF is this?

Go and find out what you think. When you know, come back and argue for it.

I didn’t say anyone did. — NOS4A2

Since you accept we all agree on it, it's irrelevant re the argument at hand. Hence, red herring.

I know what I think and I’ve explicitly stated it.

Since you accept we all agree on it, it's irrelevant re the argument at hand. Hence, red herring.

What argument? You asked a question I answered. This is nonsensical.

Well, right now it's the argument between @NOS4A2 and @NOS4A2 on whether he wants more or less infections. Go figure it out, and then come back and argue for whichever you decide on.

Well, right now it's the argument between @NOS4A2 and @NOS4A2 on whether he wants more or less infections. Go figure it out, and then come back and argue for whichever you decide on.

Why won’t you make an argument? I’ve made mine.

Again I don’t think it’s that black and white. You are literally not helping others, protecting others, or soothing any suffering by hiding in your house. You are hiding. You have retreated. You have cowered. Those who are helping people are the first line in this pandemic: doctors, nurses, “essential workers”. So let’s stop pretending we are in some way morally better because we hide in our bedrooms. — NOS4A2

No, you literally are helping others by staying home. You are reducing the paths of transmission that the virus can take. If you are sick, you are then not infecting others outside your home. If you are not sick, you will then not be infected by others outside your home. Either way, by staying at home, you reduce the chances of people becoming infected and, in a week or two's time, needing to be treated in hospital.

That's what both health care workers and epidemiologists are asking you to do. The moral course of action for the overwhelming majority of people is to stay home.

In my mind the utilitarian calculus is the one that claims to save lives by denying basic civil liberties and human rights while ruining the very means with which we provide for our families. It does not follow that such measures need to be enforced in order to practice them. Do you yourself require a police-state and a ruined economy to physically distance yourself from others, to practice hygiene and to follow common-sense steps to avoid infection? — NOS4A2

Denying civil liberties and human rights is dangerous. However risking the health of yourself and others in a pandemic is not a human right. Context matters.

We had a weekend everyone went to the beach despite the clear advice by the government and experts to stay home. That was in the same week everyone applauded the health care workers in the evening from their homes. My neighbour who is an anesthesist said to that :" Everyone who went to the beach should've raised their middle finger at the health care workers instead".

The next day a law was passed that allows police to fine people.

Personal responsibility is all well and good when other people's lives aren't at stake. In this situation not so much. The risk is too abstract when a people see .2% CFR.

The Prime minister has just been admitted to hospital, I hope it's not serious. A spokesman says it is a precautionary measure. His deputy Dominic Raab will step in to the breach.

Well, right now it's the argument between NOS4A2 and @NOS4A2 on whether he wants more or less infections. Go figure it out, and then come back and argue for whichever you decide on. — Baden

I could be wrong (no shit), but don't we end up with the same number eventually infected whether we isolate or not? Isolating spreads out the infection over time, allowing health providers better opportunity to care for the patients, but the herd gets immune more quickly without isolation.

The better question is whether you want more preventable deaths or not. Would you shut down the economy like we've done to save a single person? Probably not. 1m people? Probably so. Now we just need to figure out the specific number we can let die. It's somewhere between 1 and 1m, but it is a number. Do you acknowledge we agree in principle that there is such a number and our only quibble is what that actual number is?

I wonder if COVID-19 will result in a baby boom...

People are trapped inside, some of them are in that particular the future is uncertain state.

Thoughts?

I could be wrong (no shit), but don't we end up with the same number eventually infected whether we isolate or not? — Hanover

No. Herd immunity requires infecting at least 60% of the population. You do the hammer and the dance and it's a lot less even when spread out over time, especially because you hope for a vaccine. In China, they're looking at less than 1% even long term. That's what we should be aiming for and is in line with what the US is looking at, 2-3 million infected and about 100,000 deaths in the near term, maybe a little more in the long term, but certainly way below herd immunity figures.

Check out the link I shared earlier, which describes the US's current strategy and projects no new deaths at all by mid-July (which implies new infections tending to zero).

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

With herd immunity you'd be (deliberately) getting lots of new infections all year and beyond.

The better question is whether you want more preventable deaths or not. Would you shut down the economy like we've done to save a single person? Probably not. 1m people? Probably so. Now we just need to figure out the specific number we can let die. It's somewhere between 1 and 1m, but it is a number. Do you acknowledge we agree in principle that there is such a number and our only quibble is what that actual number is? — Hanover

The absolute critical number you want to be below is ICU respirator capacity. Because after that you won't be able to even offer treatment to a proportion of patients who need it, who will then be guaranteed to die. That number presumes you don't go the herd immunity route. And it's also less than what we're guaranteed in the US right now. So, yes, it's impossible to save everyone, but I would say you are obliged to try to maintain numbers low enough that give you a fighting chance of at least being able to treat everyone. Some level of economic shutdown is required for that.

, yes, it's impossible to save everyone, but I would say you are obliged to try to maintain numbers low enough that give you a fighting chance of at least being able to treat everyone. Some level of economic shutdown is required for that. — Baden

But this avoids the question. If quarantining saved only 1 life and it required the economy be shut down 3 months, would you do it?

No, I wouldn't. The implication of my answer is that you do whatever you can to keep below that critical level, including shutting down the economy. What you're asking me beyond that is how many grains of sand make a heap. One doesn't, beyond ICU respirator capacity does. In between there's room for debate.

I could be wrong (no shit), but don't we end up with the same number eventually infected whether we isolate or not? — Hanover

Total number of eventual infected is not a constant.

As people get the disease and recovered (and immune), many still vulnerable people just end up being surrounded by these immune people and just don't end up getting exposed.

This depends on how easily a disease spreads as well as society's response.

In this particular virus, "letting it burn" in a totally unmitigated way would likely end up infecting 80-90% of the population within a short period of time. The "slow burn" of whatever social distancing maintains a functioning healthcare system, would likely infect less than 50% of the population. It can be much less depending on the policies taken. It also then buys time to understand more and build up equipment capacity to better treat everyone. Outcomes are radically different between an unmitigated spread, an overwhelming due to too slow response in preparing and social distancing, and an optimum strategy.

Though I see @Baden has replied much the same while I drafted this answer.

The better question is whether you want more preventable deaths or not. Would you shut down the economy like we've done to save a single person? Probably not. 1m people? Probably so. Now we just need to figure out the specific number we can let die. It's somewhere between 1 and 1m, but it is a number. Do you acknowledge we agree in principle that there is such a number and our only quibble is what that actual number is? — Hanover

If priority is human life, then the balance is simply where the social distancing measures are doing more harm than good in terms of life saving quantity; such an analysis could also be done in a weighted "quality of life years left".

However, the "real problem" is not simply applying this simple concept of implementing social distancing until it does more harm than good, but rather the value of the economy as an engine of inequality (making the rich richer, mainly through diversified stock increases and dividends) and social control (keeping most people wage slaves who have no time, energy, nor education to make trouble). The pandemic creates a situation where it is obvious the productive capacity of modern society can be used to keep everyone alive without a large group of poor people working for slave-wages.

For societies with a social safety net, such as where I live in Scandinavia, the net simply springs into action on a mass scale. The vast majority of people on the edge economically are already kept alive by the immense productive capacity of society without needing to work. The vast majority of everyone else has enough wealth to wait the 1 month lead time to get some sort of bailout, which are administered through temporary tweaks to existing welfare state institutions. For instance, normally entrepreneurs and business owners cannot "fire themselves" and collect unemployment without first dissolving their business one way or another; this law has been temporarily changed. The pandemic is highly disruptive and causes all sort of short and long term problems, but people here do not really wonder "how am I going to eat" nor "how will I afford healthcare if I get the disease", at least for the vast majority.

In other words, the pandemic has created all sorts of practical problems, but not really any conceptual problems of how society should be organized to begin with. For instance, maintaining the social safety net in a depression is a practical problem, but no one really has a conceptual problem of questioning that goal.

However, in a society where there is no social safety net, such as the United States, this pandemic situation demonstrates most ways that is a terrible idea.

So, it is in this context that the subtextual debate is occurring between people who want to let people die, not in some "life saving" optimization scheme due to knock on effects of the lockdowns, but rather to let them die to preserve an ideal of power relations where there is no safety net; in other-words, let people die to preserve the status quo. Of course, these people say their argument is about "people also need the economy" but what they really mean is that "wage slaves will die in lockdowns, or from unemployment and losing their insurance and homes later anyways ... unless we create a social safety net which we don't wan't to do". So it's more or less the "let them eat cake" moment of the American "fiscal conservative" elite.

No, I wouldn't. The implication of my answer is that you do whatever you can to keep below that critical level, including shutting down the economy — Baden

You're not responding still. Option A - No quarantining, the respirator capacity is overwhelmed by 1 and one person dies. Option B - Quarantining, shutting down the economy, plenty of respirators, no deaths.

A or B? No other options. No buiilding more respirators etc. Assume under Option A we built as many respirators as humanly possible but one man didn't get one.

You're not responding still. — Hanover

If quarantining saved only 1 life and it required the economy be shut down 3 months, would you do it? — Hanover

No, I wouldn't. — Baden

I directly answered your question.

Option A - No quarantining, the respirator capacity is overwhelmed by 1 and one person dies. Option B - Quarantining, shutting down the economy, plenty of respirators, no deaths. — Hanover

Silly. If the respirator capacity is overwhelmed by one, many would have already died. 50% of patients getting put on respirators end up dying. You need to pose a hypothetical that's a possibility and I'll answer it.

Couple of additional things:

1) Nobody can give anything other than a range in answer to the economy vs lives question as there are too many variables to give a specific number. I've also given you a rational benchmark.
2) It's not a purely money vs life question. A depressed economy will cause some excess deaths due to increased suicides, crime, and lack of money for healthcare related to other diseases (re the US) (but of course nowhere near the millions letting the virus loose would).
3) Anyone who's being intellectually honest needs to bite the bullet and admit that there is always a point at which a huge economic loss will outweigh the loss of one life. So, I have no problem with that. Was that your sticking point?

A or B? No other options. No buiilding more respirators etc. Assume under Option A we built as many respirators as humanly possible but one man didn't get one. — Hanover

There is no dichotomy here.

No one is claiming the lockdowns won't have lethal knock-on effects that can be statistically quantified.

Furthermore, the social distancing measures take such considerations into account. We could truly lock everyone inside, no leaving at all. Why don't we? Because most people would starve to death. Ok, so we let people go out to get food and the food supply chain run. We could stop there. Why don't we? Because if people can't get a water pipe fixed they might thirst to death or can't flush the toilet leading to dysentery and/or cholera problem etc. So we let plumbers go around fixing problems. And this logic continues until we hit activities that simply don't have a life-saving component that is greater than the life-saving benefit of social distancing to mitigate the virus.

The entire concept of "essential service" already has the resolution of your dichotomy built in.

You are simply refusing to engage with what's going on and why even Trump is now advocating for and trying to organize, as haphazardly as that organization maybe, this basic idea.

Anyone who's being intellectually honest needs to bite the bullet and admit that there is always a point at which a huge economic loss will outweigh the loss of one life. — Baden

E.g. I need a kidney transplant to survive. The only compatible kidney belongs to a guy who says he will sell it for no less than $1 billion dollars. I've got Medicare. Should they pick up the bill because if they don't, I'll die? I would say, no, it's an unreasonable level of expense. I can't make it clearer than that.

Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital. The official story is it's just for "tests" and a precautionary measure. BS, methinks. He's as a sick as a dog.

Definitely feels that way.

Doesn't seem to be a photo from today, which would of course reassure the public if it was just tests.

May also explain why the queen made a appearance on the tele, if there's real worry of Boris's prospects then the queen would be a comforting figure of governing continuity.

It would be a truly bizarre turn of events for UK politics ... we may need to get the brexit thread spinning again to think about it.

↪Andrew M We had a weekend everyone went to the beach despite the clear advice by the government and experts to stay home. That was in the same week everyone applauded the health care workers in the evening from their homes. My neighbour who is an anesthesist said to that :" Everyone who went to the beach should've raised their middle finger at the health care workers instead".

The next day a law was passed that allows police to fine people.

Personal responsibility is all well and good when other people's lives aren't at stake. In this situation not so much. The risk is too abstract when a people see .2% CFR. — Benkei

Yes that's an excellent example. In that context, passing such a law does not violate human rights, it protects them (i.e., no-one has the right to risk people's health in a pandemic).

Whereas going Hungary's route and voting to give the government absolute power to rule by decree does trample human rights.

These distinctions matter and shouldn't be blurred.