I am sorry. I didn’t intend to turn this into a political thread. I miss OTB events. I do not believe shortened online controls help. (C)heaters will be caught, or even not. Don’t punish me
So, Mr. Bell, would you prefer the politicians act in a way to spread the virus even further, overwhelm hospital resources, and prevent the economy from recovering? That is presently the consequence of the policies of the executive branch of the US government and the governors of a bunch of states. While we are “living” with the virus, one of the goals of health officials was to not crush the hospitals around the country. This is what is happening now as hospitalizations increase in over 40 states. The politicians know that if we receive all of the information we are due, they will be held accountable for what they have done to the country. The virus deniers and minimizers are in safe havens, at least for now. Their selfishness and lack of empathy for others is notable.
Wearing a mask and following simple guidelines is not too much to ask. My parents and grandparents made greater sacrifices in the Great Depression and WWII. They used to ration all sorts of food items and gasoline. People took scrap metal, clothing, and other items they found in their house or neighborhood to processing centers. Some ended up sacrificing their lives for our freedoms and democracy. All we are being asked to do is wear a mask and social distance. The selfishness of some in our country is shameful. The country is not acting as if it was “a beacon on a hill.” Ask yourself what would Reagan or Eisenhower do?
This is not to “punish” you, but to show that chess is a part of the world, too. There are others who are willing to risk others safety for their own purposes. Those politicians do not want to be held accountable. They try to blame others for their own laziness and malicious behavior.
There are things we can do, though, both as individuals (to reduce our chances of catching the disease) and as a society (to minimize the death toll and to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed). Sure, some of those things have negative effects on the economy, but millions of people getting sick and dying isn’t good for the economy either. If we weren’t doing anything, things would be much worse than they are.
Much of the negative effect on the economy should be temporary.
One thing that has been missing from this discussion is an explanation of what it means to fight the disease without a vaccine and without therapeutics, although we now have some of the latter. As a result, people show little understanding.
The vaccine is essentially fought with probabilities. This lowers the spread so that the risk overall is within the realm of normal acceptance of risk. The impact of this is to FURTHER lower the spread, which further decreases the risk.
If one took each of the functions to determine infection probability, and plugged them into an equation:
Infection Rate % (based on Rₒ) x Social Distancing % x PPE % x Cleanliness or Disinfectant % = Risk
So, the lower we make each variable, the lower we make individual Risk. But individual Risk goes into calculating Rₜ, such that at a future time t we recalculate the risks, and Riskₜ will now be less because the infection rate has been decreased. If we get the result low enough, it starts becoming almost easy to control.
Of course, the risk never goes away - risks generally don’t. But we can lower it into a range acceptable with other risks.
If there is a vaccine by the first quarter of 2021, the likelihood is that there will be better vaccines within a few years. Further, the initial vaccine will likely need at least a semi-annual booster. Given the amount of time that it will take to immunize and reimmunize a sufficient share of the population it is not at all difficult to believe that it will be at least well into 2022 before we move toward pre-COVID-19 normalcy. However, if we all follow the formula above, that could be accomplished by sometime in the fall.
Maybe some sort of OTB chess could be accomplished by the fall, but only with a whole lot of extra things that organizers and TDs and players must do (or can’t do) that were definitely not “pre-COVID-19 normalcy”. Many (I among them) will not be willing to do those things, and the need for social distancing will necessitate much smaller tournaments or much bigger entry fees (or organizers willing to lose a lot of money). None of this is normal. If we ever see normal again, it won’t be until after COVID-19 is history.
Stories in the Wall Street Journal indicate that corporate leaders are becoming concerned that the economy will have a very slow recovery, at least in certain key industries.
I’m still seeing projections that 30% of restaurants may not survive another year. That’s high even for the restaurant industry. Tourism is likely to be a slow recovery, too, and that means the travel industry will suffer. Shorter trips, mainly by car, may become the norm, travel to Europe may be rare. My older son is thinking of buying a class C RV so he doesn’t have to stay in hotels when traveling.
And the future for OTB tournaments is looking like a long recovery, too.
There is linear growth and exponential growth of the virus. When you have multipliers like poor policy, indifference, failure to follow distancing guidelines, and defiance of best practices for political reasons, then you risk exponential growth of the virus and deaths. Numbers that look good at a particular time fail to take into account the time lag from infection to needing hospitalization to being on a respirator because of failing lung function often leading to death. That is a process that can take two to five weeks. Those who continue hospitalization may remain for a month or more in an ICU. If they recover in the hospital, they are still not out of the woods and can continue to have problems for months. There may be long term neurological and organ damage that we have not discovered yet since we are so early in the progress of the disease. That is how it was explained to me by a physician who spent 18 hours a day every day on the line for months since the beginning of March. Those who have only a mild brush with the virus are lucky, but they had better not count on that luck continuing as it appears that the virus can be contracted again. This virus is nasty and has taken a greater toll on first responders and medical professionals than previous outbreaks of other diseases. The doc told me he estimates over 10% of our entire medical community will get very sick over the next year or two, with too many dying for their diligence in caring for their patients. We will be lucky if it is less than that, but history of other virus outbreaks indicate poor outcomes.
BTW, the virus does not care about math, politics, ideology, history, your thirst for beer, ethnicity, race, religion, freedom, or that you are stir crazy from social distancing and binge watching bad reality TV. Its job is to replicate and survive in a host and find ways to move on every day and if the host dies. Deny it hosts, block its ability to transfer by contact or in the air, and it fails. Then we have to hope that our immune systems can weather the storm if we contract the disease. The fewer that contract the virus the better. The country has failed to use the time effectively, wasting several months pretending the virus would go away, “like a miracle.” We in chess can act to deny it hosts and not be spreaders to others. We can sit at home and play chess or study. We can wear masks when we do go out and social distance, avoiding the wackos who refuse to wear masks. We can also vote for our future. Simple stuff.
Let me clarify - if the public acts responsibly - which it is not - much of the effect on the economy should be temporary.
I think the public acting responsibly (whatever people think that means) might actually accelerate the closings in the restaurant industry.
Actually, I meant don’t punish me with the shorter online T/C’s.
while we are on the subject, this virus seems to have a different behavior than any other virus ever seen. The 1918 flu eventually disappeared for two
reasons:
- It ran out of fuel(victims).
- Viruses tend to become less virulent as they continue on.
I am not some kind of cold person who believes that you’re going to lose some people. I come from a family of doctors and epidemiologists. I graduated medical school did my residency, but developed MS. I worked as an epidemiologist and a medical device engineer.
No matter what you do you are going to lose some and it hurts like hell.
We’re still in the early stages of this virus, and it has already produced multiple mutations, one of which apparently was the major culprit in New York City.
Who knows where it’ll be in 18 months!
Those deck chairs are looking really spiffy!
I am currently in a diving bell 300 feet below the San Francisco Bay. I have been here 3 months; so far, so good. I intend to remain here until all communicable diseases have been barricaded.
Whatever happened to “two weeks” to flatten the curve. Some people positively enjoy being frightened to death; some are even on here. (I grant most good faith.)
The curve was flattened, but then, as expected, infections went up, both as people relaxed their measures and as testing increased.
The point of curve flattening was to avoid overwhelming the health care system, which is, for the most part, what has occurred.
Absent an effective vaccine, herd immunity is still the end goal. We aren’t there yet.
“Herd immunity” would require over 70% or more to get the virus. That would lead to 4 to 6 million deaths and millions more suffering from neurological and organ damage, especially the lungs, over a long period of time. A physician has warned me that it is better not to put myself in a position to get infected. Being patient, not giving in to human impulses to relax vigilance, and following distancing guidelines, as well as wearing the masks is the best one can do on a personal level. It may be an inconvenience, but it is not that hard to limit contact with people. While I love OTB chess, adapting to a different paradigm is safer and I have found to be equally satisfying. The future for me will be fewer and smaller events after the curves have been bent and the rates of infection have diminished. We have become more selfish as a society to protect ourselves. Whether that will be good for chess or US Chess remains to be determined.
chess aside USCF aside, that ship has sailed. Even if we get a vaccine, it will only be 50% effective. It seems that flattening the curve is no new cases. We need to make the
call to open the economy up before there isn’t one
How do you know that?
People are going to get sick. Few are going to die (mostly those with per-existing issues.) This has turned into a witch-hunt.
Probably the same way he “knows” hundreds of thousands die from the flu each year.
Nobody knows much about this virus yet. Models currently show 200,000 - 300,000 dead this year from it in the United States with current measures in place as they have been.
That range is alarming by itself (putting it squarely in the number three spot), but what it doesn’t show is how much non-fatal damage has been done to those who survive it – damage to lungs and to the nervous system being of particular concern at this point.
In addition, that range is with all of the measures we have taken so far. Hospital systems are currently approaching capacity in many states as is, and deaths are steadily increasing.
I doubt very much that this is the right place for high-quality epidemiological debates, but we shouldn’t pretend this is some trivial flu-like virus, and we should act accordingly.