The ANZACs in T2k

[Targan]

Western Australia's hard border closure seems like a tough ask, given the length of the border and the kind of country most of it runs through.

[Legbreaker]

On the other hand there's what, three half decent roads that cross the 1,800+km length of it, only two of them sealed Add to that the little issue of having to drive several hundred km through absolute nothingness before you even reach it.
Honestly, I don't know why they've bothered to "seal" the border given the NT has almost zero cases (27, 0 deaths) and they're pretty much restricted to Adelaide in SA, which might as well be part of Vic given the distances involved.

Interesting to note looking at tonights states, that out of a total population of around 25 million, there's 6,523 confirmed cases (3,819 of them recovered), 192 currently hospitalised and of them, only 60 in ICU.

Nationally....

And for this we've utterly screwed the economy for the next couple of decades

Obesity sends more to ICU than this!

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Keeping surveillance on the WA border
Seems like a task tailor made for the RFSU, it'd be just another op for Pilbara Reg or NorForce.

[Raellus]

Interesting to note looking at tonights states, that out of a total population of around 25 million, there's 6,523 confirmed cases (3,819 of them recovered), 192 currently hospitalised and of them, only 60 in ICU.

Nationally....

And for this we've utterly screwed the economy for the next couple of decades

Isn't this the whole point of broad quarantine measures (to lower the death rate)

[Olefin]

Definitely off the original topic but an answer to part of what has been discussed recently here given the current situation

the question that has to be answered is if lowering the death rate is worth screwing over the economies of the world - and given the situation of the people who are dying in a straight forward economic analysis the answer is most likely no (and I am being Vulcan logical here in my analysis - i.e. the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one)

Which sounds hard and cruel but the reality is that most of those who have died or gotten very sick are past working age or had multiple conditions that meant they werent contributing to the economies of those nations

and putting millions out of work is going to mean that there wont be resources to keep the medical system of those nations going in the long run

FYI - before I get the hate mail I have five relatives that fit the bill for the above risk group so I am not being cavalier about this. In many ways we may have to start looking at this as casualties on a battlefield - you dont spend your time trying to save one man who is almost certainly going to die and let five others who can be saved die in his place

And my grandfather and grandmother lived thru both the Spanish Flu and the Great Depression and told me stories of both - so in many ways for me this has been family history coming to life

[StainlessSteelCynic]

With such a huge global population and with so many of those people living in close proximity these days, it was only a matter of time before some epidemic became a pandemic and started stripping away some of the population.

To be really blunt and brutal, the planet is over-populated with humans, the planet and humanity itself could actually do with less humans. Less over-crowding makes us less vulnerable to such epidemics in the future.
The economy on the other hand...

[Raellus]

Interesting takes, gentlemen. So you advocate the herd immunity theory

Re "overpopulation", I'm reading a book called Homo Deus by Yuval Harari and he argues that the world is not, in fact, overpopulated. It is our collective obsession with economic growth (more, more, more) that is causing the problems we associate with "overpopulation"- e.g. resource scarcity, environmental degradation, cutthroat competition, etc. It's a very compelling argument. I recommend the book it you're interested in futurism (i.e. where humanity is likely headed in the next century).

Population density is a separate issue. Clearly, dense populations are more vulnerable to pandemics than less dense ones.

A "winnowing" is only a temporary fix, though. It didn't work after the 1400s, or 1918, or WW2. A permanent solution would require dystopian population controls. And that runs counter to the religion of economic growth. You can't have a neutral or declining national population and have economic growth at the same time.

But back to the the whole argument of, "only a relatively small number of people have died from this disease so let's ease off social distancing". It stems from a logical fallacy- it's a reverse Post hoc ergo propter hoc. In other words, the reason we've had a lower death rate than worst case scenarios suggested we would is because of social distancing protocols.

[CDAT]

With such a huge global population and with so many of those people living in close proximity these days, it was only a matter of time before some epidemic became a pandemic and started stripping away some of the population.

To be really blunt and brutal, the planet is over-populated with humans, the planet and humanity itself could actually do with less humans. Less over-crowding makes us less vulnerable to such epidemics in the future.
The economy on the other hand...

I have a real hard time believing this overcrowding when even the BBC says "Around half of the worlds land currently holds around 2% of the planets population, whereas only about 3% of total land supports more than half of humanity." [Article is https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...-out-of-space]. Based on my experience growing up in the middle of nowhere WA, we had a small town of about four by six blocks and lots and lots of open space where people lived unless they were family most did not have a neighbor closer than a mile or so. Now I do hear this overcrowding bit from my coworkers and such who grew up (and still live) in the big cites but even then it does not take long to leave them all in the rear view.

[Legbreaker]

Definitely off the original topic but....

100% agreement from me, and my own mother is currently in the middle of a hot spot and she has an underlying breathing issue. If she gets it, she's likely going to be a casualty.

But, everyone dies. Logically she's well past retirement age and her body is showing it. Her current and expected future health issues are likely to be a drain on resources which could be better utilised if focused on the young.

Much better in my mind to let a few die while the population builds herd immunity and medical resources allocated to those with the chance of significant ongoing contribution to society. Herd immunity has a very long history of working. Vaccines are humanity's way of artificially creating herd immunity.

Now, all that said, I'm not proposing total elimination of distancing, etc. The young and fit should be allowed, or better yet, encouraged to get out there and expose themselves. The vast majority of those who have caught it to date have had very mild symptoms, many no symptoms at all (one of the reasons it's spread so quickly and easily - you don't even know you're sick!). A small percentage of those exposed will require hospitalisation, and an even smaller percentage may die, but based on our current knowledge of the virus, that's extremely rare unless there's an underlying condition.

Meanwhile, those at risk should continue with quarantining themselves until either a viable vaccine is available on a wide scale, or the necessary 60% of the population (60 or 80%, can't remember which) has developed antibodies and herd immunity is established.

The economy will still suffer, but nowhere near as much as it is currently. Recovery would also be swifter and much less costly.

As to overpopulated, well, SOME areas might be, but the planet on the whole has loads of room, and more resources than twice the population could possibly hope to need. In food production alone, the world currently produces two and a half times more than is actually consumed - the problem is distribution and wastage, as well as some groups not adequately preparing for leaner times such as during droughts.

I read some years ago that certain parts of Africa, which usually catches our attention due to famines, etc are actually amongst the worlds most fertile regions. The problem is they're TOO fertile and the inhabitants get lulled into a false sense of security by the overwhelming bounty around them most of the time. Therefore, very little gets properly stored or preserved and there's no reserves established for when the rain comes a month or two later than usual. Can't say if that's totally correct, but the surrounding arguments (which I can't remember the detail of) seemed pretty solid.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I have a real hard time believing this overcrowding when even the BBC says "Around half of the worlds land currently holds around 2% of the planets population, whereas only about 3% of total land supports more than half of humanity." [Article is https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...-out-of-space]. Based on my experience growing up in the middle of nowhere WA, we had a small town of about four by six blocks and lots and lots of open space where people lived unless they were family most did not have a neighbor closer than a mile or so. Now I do hear this overcrowding bit from my coworkers and such who grew up (and still live) in the big cites but even then it does not take long to leave them all in the rear view.

There are a few issues with what's been said there though, such as large parts of the planet are not particularly suited for human habitation. And it ignores the rationale behind transport economics i.e. it's easier to distribute resources to 200 people in one place than 2 people in one hundred places.

And while parts of rural USA might not be particularly high in population (and I'm speaking as someone from a country with one of the worlds lowest population densities) parts of China, India and Brazil have problems with looking after their population because there's too many in one area for resources to be effectively distributed. Then there's countries like Singapore, Israel, Japan, Belgium, Kuwait and Lebanon with population densities too high for the country to support without importing large amounts of resources.

I am in complete agreement with Raellus that pop density is a different issue but I disagree that it's separate. For ease of resource distribution, it's much more effective to have the population grouped into large lots, obviously the larger your population the more densely packed they will be if you follow that model (i.e. centralization).

[Legbreaker]

And population density and distribution is at the heart of one of the biggest problems facing authorities in T2K.
It was mentioned a few years back (can't remember who) that somebody with a bit of knowledge of this sort of thing looked at the situation post nuke in the US and stated it was basically the worst case scenario - transportation hubs and energy production targeted while population centres (aka cities) spared. Moving the people becomes a less difficult task than getting the food and other supplies to them.

We're seeing a taste of that now. As an example, I ordered a few items about a month ago which in normal times I'd have received within 2-3 days. Two of the three items have been in transit at least three weeks, with the third, well, I'm told at least another month. This is due almost entirely to the distribution system and the stress it's under (MUCH greater demand as people shop online instead of in store, and many drivers, etc isolating themselves as well).

Also seeing a huge push to buy and produce local, which is another logical outcome of the T2k scenario. If you can't get or make something locally in T2k, you're just going to have to either look for alternatives or go without.

I've addressed some of this and more in the draft for the ANZAC book (if anyone's got a better title suggestion, let me know), with some authorities enforcing mandatory relocation closer to resources or to ensure there's enough manpower where it's need to keep things going.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

And this is definitely a problem for the modern world where for example food originates dozens if not hundreds of kilometres away from where it's processed and that location is often dozens if not hundreds of kilometres away from its final destination.

Like you said, it's been mentioned before about the benefits and problems of centralization. When it works, it saves a lot of wastage but transport is the linchpin. Once there's a disruption to transport, distribution basically stutters its way through the crisis until things get better, or, in the case of the Twilight scenario, it stops altogether.

I believe this is why GDW placed an emphasis on cantonments. Small population centres, easy to protect, resources kept at a local level means not extending your supply lines etc. etc.

[Olefin]

The cantonment system also maximized what fuel they had - i.e. they didnt waste fuel, especially alcohol fuel, trying to ship food hundreds of miles. What food was shipped like that most likely was very stable food that was shipped either by horse drawn wagon with cavalry escort or by sailing ship. Thats why control of the Mississippi was so important to MilGov - with that (once they retook Memphis) they were able to transport what was available using barges just like was done in the 1840's.

FYI places like Hawaii would have been not very fun places to be in T2K. Those islands have never been self sufficient in modern times in food. Even to this day a lot of the arable land grows sugar and pineapple and nuts. Not exactly a great diet. And while fishing can provide food you have to get the ships converted to sail. (Read the two Turtledove books on a WWII Japanese conquest of Hawaii to see the kinds of issues they would have had.)

[Olefin]

"But back to the the whole argument of, "only a relatively small number of people have died from this disease so let's ease off social distancing". It stems from a logical fallacy- it's a reverse Post hoc ergo propter hoc. In other words, the reason we've had a lower death rate than worst case scenarios suggested we would is because of social distancing protocols."

FYI the studies out of Israel show the same pattern of infection and deaths with and without social distancing - i.e. basically both have equivalent patterns no matter what you do - but one crashes the economy and one doesnt

[Raellus]

FYI the studies out of Israel show the same pattern of infection and deaths with and without social distancing - i.e. basically both have equivalent patterns no matter what you do - but one crashes the economy and one doesnt

Citations, please.

Also, look at the death rate in countries that were early implementers of similar protocols (like South Korea) v. those who dragged their feet (like Iran and Italy). It's not even close.

Sorry, Leg- I'll stop hijacking your thread now.

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