How the response to a pandemic affecting mainly children would look like?
post by mukashi (adrian-arellano-davin) · 2022-01-05T10:15:49.223Z · LW · GW · 4 commentsThis is a question post.
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Answers 5 Viliam 3 purge -4 Think Tempest None 4 comments
At the beginning of the pandemic, I was unable to predict how utterly incompetent most Western governments were going to be to handle the situation at all levels (barring some honourable exceptions) and I have had to update more than once my model of how inefficient the political structures are to handle crises like this one. Have I updated enough my model? I am not sure. I am barely surprised with any new intervention they announce, mostly because in my (updated) model of the world, we live in a deeply inadequate system where the people in charge are not really trying to minimize the damage of COVID.
Imagine an alternative universe where the virus affects mainly children, i.e. the younger someone is, the higher the risk. About 10% of newborns getting COVID will die. It still might affect adults but it is way less likely. Old people are mostly asymptomatic. My question is, how different would have been a world like this? Would have we seen the same amount of controversy around the vaccines, mask mandates, etc? There is a part of me that believes that politicians would have taken way harsher measures to nip it in the bud, that the bureaucracy would have been forced to evolve faster than the virus and that we would have not seen the same polarization we have seen regarding lockdowns or any other intervention. I would dare to say that the pandemic could be over by now. However, at the same time, I am thinking that I might not have updated enough my model of the world and the system we live in is so absolutely disastrous that not even a situation like this would have forced society into a better Nash equilibrium.
Answers
I think that things would be approximately the same.
The government [in]competence is a result of how the entire system works, what are the individual incentives, etc. The entire system would start in the same position.
Looking at historical examples, no matter how serious the disease, many people always believed that vaccination was just government's secret plot to murder them. So even assuming that people would care more if it was mostly about kids... we would get some people more hysterically pro-vaccine, and other people more hysterically anti-vaccine. Social networks would be full of pictures of disfigured and/or dead children, but some people would claim they were killed by the disease, and other people would claim they were killed by the vaccine, and these groups would block each other.
In our universe, the most vulnerable people are the ones who vote most often. In the alternate universe, the most vulnerable have the least power. So I doubt they would have done much better in terms of real results. I do think there's more social pressure to care for children than for the elderly, but that may have only resulted in more effort wasted on measures that show off our devotion to those values without actually being effective.
"I would dare to say that the pandemic could be over by now." Then you need to learn more about pandemics. The point of a lockdown isn't to end a pandemic, the point is to buy time. There are only 3 ways pandemics "end". Viruses need their hosts, so most often pandemics "end" when viruses mutate to become less deadly. Modern medicine has also let vaccines be an alternative way to reduce virus fatalities to acceptable levels. Lastly, there's natural selection and only people who have natural immunity survive, but no one wants that.
A more severe and diligent lockdown wouldn't have accelerated vaccine development, and it wouldn't have removed the virus from existing, but it would have actually slowed the mutation of the virus. I don't know what flawed logic you are using to lead you to believe that a more authoritarian lockdown could have ended the pandemic early.
It's also bad logic to assume a virus that targeted children would have been handled less divisively. Do you remember before Covid-19? Anti-vax parents kept losing kids and it wasn't changing their minds. We live in a world of disinformation. If Covid targeted kids, anti-vax people would be fear mongering that the government and vaccines are killing kids.
You seem to think the problem is that the people "in-charge" didn't have enough power and authority. Look at China, you would think their authoritarian system would actually be good in pandemic situations because they could just blockade entire cities in and whatnot... But China instead cared more about prestige and in the early days of Covid tried to make people believe the virus didn't even exist. This is another reason why your line of thinking is detached from reality. You think giving more power to the people in charge would solve your problems ignoring the possibility that it isn't the system that's flawed but instead the components. Let's not forget who the US president at the time of the outbreak. You really think harsher action from politicians would have lead to a better outcome?
↑ comment by mukashi (adrian-arellano-davin) · 2022-01-06T10:03:40.528Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The point of a lockdown isn't to end a pandemic, the point is to buy time.
I don't think I said the opposite (in fact I mostly agree), but a lockdown can also be used to reduce the number of cases to effectively zero (see my post in Australia [LW · GW])
Viruses need their hosts, so most often pandemics "end" when viruses mutate to become less deadly.
I think this is a very common misconception, I just wrote a blog post to better respond to it [LW · GW]
I don't know what flawed logic you are using to lead you to believe that a more authoritarian lockdown could have ended the pandemic early.
In fact, I didn't mention the lockdown explicitly in this blog post but the truth is that, if humans were capable of perfect coordination (and they are not), a lockdown would have ended the pandemic early. There have been countries that successfully managed to suppress the pandemic during long periods of time. Not all lockdowns have to last for months either, in Queensland some of the more effective lockdowns lasted for just a few days.
It's also bad logic to assume a virus that targeted children would have been handled less divisively.
Yes, I am not sure about this in fact, that is why I was asking this question. It can be that you are totally right here
You seem to think the problem is that the people "in-charge" didn't have enough power and authority.
I don't think that a lack of power is the main problem. It is more a consequence of the system being inadequate at many levels. E.g. politicians are not chosen by their capacity to handle crises, nor do they have a strong incentive to take measures that are unpopular, etc.
Look at China, you would think their authoritarian system would actually be good in pandemic situations because they could just blockade entire cities in and whatnot... But China instead cared more about prestige and in the early days of Covid tried to make people believe the virus didn't even exist.
This is a bit paradoxical because China is a clear example of a massively populated country that successfully managed to handle much better this crisis, at least in terms of dead people (and in case you are wondering, I lean much more towards libertarian than authoritarian). It is true that they tried to cover this up until they couldn't do it anymore, but most Chinese have enjoyed mostly normal lives for the last two years, and I really doubt that most people in Europe/USA can say the same. In fact, I know that many Chinese people are horrified at what's going on in the western world. In any case, if you don't consider China an example of how a crisis of this type should be handled you can use democratic countries such as New Zealand or Australia.
You think giving more power to the people in charge would solve your problems ignoring the possibility that it isn't the system that's flawed but instead the components.
I never spoke about giving more power but I do think that both the system and its components are deeply flawed
Replies from: think-tempest↑ comment by Think Tempest (think-tempest) · 2022-01-06T17:27:21.090Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
"but a lockdown can also be used to reduce the number of cases to effectively zero."
Effectively zero and literally zero are quite different things in pandemics because it only takes one infection to make it through the lock down to start another epidemic wave. Australia (your example) is currently hitting record Covid cases for the country, if you consider that "effectively zero" I don't know what to make of that. Australia's lockdown policy is security theater. If you don't know what security theater is it's like when at an airport everyone is supposed to take off their shoes. It doesn't do anything because obviously if everyone has to take of their shoes no bad guy is going to hide anything there, but it makes people feel safer. What actually makes people safer at airports is background investigation by intelligence agencies. Just because Australia is punishing people for not getting vaccinated that doesn't mean Australia is actually handling the pandemic well. https://gazette.com/news/us-world/australia-covid-19-cases-surge-overloading-testing-system/article_bf0b821d-e59e-5cb3-aa97-e2ff714bd6a1.html
Lockdowns work for delaying waves, not preventing them.
Your point about the evolution of viruses does not invalidate what I said, because you are right that viruses only naturally select to be less deadly if they kill their host too fast. And all you've done is inadvertently admit that Covid isn't actually that deadly already and that vaccines will actually slow down mutation due to the ability for vaccinated people to carry the infection.
"There have been countries that successfully managed to suppress the pandemic during long periods of time."
Long periods of time =/= indefinitely. Just like what we see in Australia, harsh lockdowns slow the virus but NEVER does it actually stop it. You are just proving me right, lockdowns when successful can buy time, but they can never "end" a pandemic because as soon as the lockdown is lifted, even just slightly, the virus is free to spread again. So you either have indefinite lockdowns or lift the lockdowns when vaccines or mutations make the virus less deadly. Not even a theoretical perfect lockdown in your imagination would actually stop end pandemic. Viruses are not bacteria, viruses are not living organisms, meaning you can't just wait for the virus to die off because it's not in common sense a living organism.
"nor do they have a strong incentive to take measures that are unpopular"
Yes, that's democracy. It's a system where the goal is to make sure the politicians represent the people's desires instead of performing unpopular actions. Does democracy have it's flaws? Yes. Do I believe you lean libertarian? I believe you think you do. But I've never heard a Libertarian commend China and argue for a system where politicians should have a system to violate the will of the people.
"This is a bit paradoxical because China is a clear example of a massively populated country that successfully managed to handle much better this crisis"
China is also a country with no free press nor free internet, not to mention an incredibly self-conscious dictator. If any country is not to be believed when they say "everything is fine" it's China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/01/05/beijing-is-intentionally-underreporting-chinas-covid-death-rate-part-2/ China saying Covid deaths are low =/= China's Covid deaths are low. Beijing put a halt to the reporting cases almost two years ago. Western countries only look like they are handling the virus poorly relative to others because they are the only countries who keep reliable and public data on it's people. When making models accurate, you have to make sure the data is accurate, and there is plenty of proof that China's data is inaccurate.
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comment by Florin (florin-clapa) · 2022-01-06T06:26:25.743Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
A better question to ask is what the response would be to a 10% mortality rate (and more: 20%, 30%, 40%, etcetera) for every age group.
The answer is (or should be) obvious: there would be a point (it might be somewhat less than 10% but probably not much more than that) when nearly everyone would glue a respirator to their face, and any pandemic would be over in a few weeks.
Replies from: adrian-arellano-davin↑ comment by mukashi (adrian-arellano-davin) · 2022-01-06T10:06:07.413Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Yes, that would be my prediction too. I think that a fatality rate as low as 4% in all age groups would have had a massive impact on the behaviour of everyone
comment by cistrane · 2022-01-09T22:34:34.846Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
In your counterfactual example, we would have a much better warning coming from the third world. They would be hit much harder by the virus that affects the young disproportionately. We would literally see on TV millions of dead children in Third World countries perhaps even before the virus established a strong foothold. The beginning of the pandemic would look completely different. Isolating small children from any ways of getting in contact with the virus would become the highest priority until vaccines were developed. More different treatments would be tried. Small children would become treated as immune compromised bubble boys. They would be living in a bubble.