Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[VTeton]

Local Ford dealership has cut service hours drastically due to lack of business. They have my ride and I am worried they will shut their doors today and leave my ride behind a fence. I called this AM to remind them I need my car and do not shut down w/o leaving it out front. I plan to let it marinate for 72 hours before picking it up anyways so it should be clean.

[bagtagley]

I've been thinking a lot about the $1000 and what I can do to help people and businesses. I'm very fortunate that I'm able to keep working through this. My wife and I don't need that $2000 nearly as much as a lot of other people do. Currently, the stance seems to be that it's okay to keep shopping local because the businesses need it. That's hard to disagree with, we need those businesses, but ignoring the need for distancing seems to defeat the purpose of what we're doing holing up in our houses. I'm leaning toward making donations. To businesses and to people in the most need. I'm seeing a lot of push to donate to large organizations, which I don't think is the answer. I feel like grassroots efforts that keep the local economy from taking a dump make a lot more sense. It's kind of weird to donate to a business, but to me, it beats not having any restaurants, pharmacies, etc. when this thing is over.

[Goniff]

WSJ editorial
Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown

No society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health.


Financial markets paused their slide Thursday, but no one should think this rolling economic calamity is over. If this government-ordered shutdown continues for much more than another week or two, the human cost of job losses and bankruptcies will exceed what most Americans imagine. This won’t be popular to read in some quarters, but federal and state officials need to start adjusting their anti-virus strategy now to avoid an economic recession that will dwarf the harm from 2008-2009.
The vast social-distancing project of the last 10 days or so has been necessary and has done much good. Warnings about large gatherings of more than 10 people and limiting access to nursing homes will save lives. The public has received a crucial education in hygiene and disease prevention, and even young people may get the message. With any luck, this behavior change will reduce the coronavirus spread enough that our hospitals won’t be overwhelmed with patients. Anthony Fauci, Scott Gottlieb and other disease experts are buying crucial time for government and private industry to marshal resources against the virus.
***

Yet the costs of this national shutdown are growing by the hour, and we don’t mean federal spending. We mean a tsunami of economic destruction that will cause tens of millions to lose their jobs as commerce and production simply cease. Many large companies can withstand a few weeks without revenue but that isn’t true of millions of small and mid-sized firms.


Even cash-rich businesses operate on a thin margin and can bleed through reserves in a month. First they will lay off employees and then out of necessity they will shut down. Another month like this week and the layoffs will be measured in millions of people.

The deadweight loss in production will be profound and take years to rebuild. In a normal recession the U.S. loses about 5% of national output over the course of a year or so. In this case we may lose that much, or twice as much, in a month.

Our friend Ed Hyman, the Wall Street economist, on Thursday adjusted his estimate for the second quarter to an annual rate loss in GDP of minus-20%. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s assertion on Fox Business Thursday that the economy will power through all this is happy talk if this continues for much longer.
If GDP seems abstract, consider the human cost. Think about the entrepreneur who has invested his life in his Memphis ribs joint only to see his customers vanish in a week. Or the retail chain of 30 stores that employs hundreds but sees no sales and must shut its doors.
Or the recent graduate with $20,000 in student-loan debt—taken on with the encouragement of politicians—who finds herself laid off from her first job. Perhaps she can return home and live with her parents, but what if they’re laid off too? How do you measure the human cost of these crushed dreams, lives upended, or mental-health damage that result from the orders of federal and state governments?
Some in the media who don’t understand American business say that China managed a comparable shock to its economy and is now beginning to emerge on the other side. Why can’t the U.S. do it too? This ignores that the Chinese state owns an enormous stake in that economy and chose to absorb the losses. In the U.S. those losses will be borne by private owners and workers who rely on a functioning private economy. They have no state balance sheet to fall back on.

The politicians in Washington are telling Americans, as they always do, that they are riding to the rescue by writing checks to individuals and offering loans to business. But there is no amount of money that can make up for losses of the magnitude we are facing if this extends for several more weeks. After the first $1 trillion this month, will we have to spend another $1 trillion in April, and another in June?
By the time Treasury’s small-business lending program runs through the bureaucratic hoops—complete with ordering owners that they can’t lay off anyone as a price for getting the loan—millions of businesses will be bankrupt and tens of millions will be jobless.
***

Perhaps we will be lucky, and the human and capitalist genius for innovation will produce a vaccine faster than expected—or at least treatments that reduce Covid-19 symptoms. But barring that, our leaders and our society will very soon need to shift their virus-fighting strategy to something that is sustainable.
Dr. Fauci has explained this severe lockdown policy as lasting 14 days in its initial term. The national guidance would then be reconsidered depending on the spread of the disease. That should be the moment, if not sooner, to offer new guidance on what might be called phase two of the coronavirus pandemic campaign.
That will surely include strict measures to isolate and protect the most vulnerable—our elderly and those with underlying medical problems. This should not become a debate over how many lives to sacrifice against how many lost jobs we can tolerate. Substantial social distancing and other measures will have to continue for some time in some form, depending on how our knowledge of the virus and its effects evolves.
But no society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its overall economic health. Even America’s resources to fight a viral plague aren’t limitless—and they will become more limited by the day as individuals lose jobs, businesses close, and American prosperity gives way to poverty. America urgently needs a pandemic strategy that is more economically and socially sustainable than the current national lockdown.

[Cono Este]

No one has mentioned anything about another kind of hoarding. Ultra rich people. They have been hoarding money for years. All of their capital is money that is not circulating. It is not being used efficiently.

They don’t hoard cash. It’s in stocks, real estate, and privately owned business.

None of which has a value until it’s sold.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[My Pet Powder Goat]

^^^I've been echoing that for a couple days now. Where is the line? We can't shut ourselves into our houses forever, It's untenible; Tough choices are going to have to be made, And soon, on how we're going to combine our need to keep the economic engine of this country running along while protecting the most vulnerable among us.

Sent from my SM-N960U using TGR Forums mobile app

[summit]

Now reusing PPE:
Disposable gowns
Surgical Masks
N95s
Eye shields
Face shields

Until its broken, cracked, soiled, or worn out...

[Benny Profane]

No one has mentioned anything about another kind of hoarding. Ultra rich people. They have been hoarding money for years. All of their capital is money that is not circulating. It is not being used efficiently.

It's being used to clear out small town markets and for freezers.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/we-sho...e-in-hamptons/

[glademaster]

^^^I've been echoing that for a couple days now. Where is the line? We can't shut ourselves into our houses forever, It's untenible; Tough choices are going to have to be made, And soon, on how we're going to combine our need to keep the economic engine of this country running along while protecting the most vulnerable among us.

Sent from my SM-N960U using TGR Forums mobile app

Perhaps the end result will be the long overdue realization that we can keep that economic engine running just fine without the majority of people being beholden to their employers for most of their waking hours. A shift toward a 30 hour work week and more flexibility for most people would be a positive long term outcome in many ways.

[Bunion 2020]

@MPPG.

The thing is right now we just don't know and cannot risk destroying our Health Care delivery system.

The danger of a second wave

By Editorial Board
March 19, 2020 at 1:54 p.m. MDT

HOW LONG will the coronavirus pandemic last? No one knows, but almost surely longer than a few weeks. Even if the initial response saves the health-care system from disaster, there is a strong possibility of a second or third wave. Serious planning ought to be underway now about how to cope.

A true endpoint will come when a vaccine or therapy is discovered, tested, manufactured and distributed widely enough to protect a large share of the population, in addition to the point when sufficient people have recovered from sickness to possess natural immunity against a reinfection. But a vaccine could be a year to 18 months away, at least; and President Trump’s optimism at a news conference Thursday notwithstanding, antiviral drugs are hard to develop, even on a crash basis.

In the meantime, the goal must be to “flatten the curve,” or suppress the extent of infection enough to avoid massive overload on hospitals, as already happened in Italy. This might take two or three months, judging by China’s experience. That brings us to summer. If heat and humidity don’t impede the virus, what then? A study published this week by the Imperial College London, based on modeling, warned that if the first suppression measures are relaxed too soon or for too long, “we predict that transmission will quickly rebound.” Hopefully, some people who were sick will recover with natural immunity. But a large chunk of the population will remain as vulnerable in August as they are today.


Is it realistic to keep in place all the strict regimens for a year or 18 months? In a second phase, the public will be fatigued and under severe economic stress. Many people may be tempted to break the routine or take risks. One of the trickiest aspects of the coronavirus is that people can be contagious when they are not yet showing symptoms. The pandemic could come roaring back. Now that China is starting to reopen somewhat, it will be instructive whether a second wave of infection shows up.

Scientist Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center suggests the right approach then will be the method South Korea used effectively in the first phase: exhaustive testing, separating and isolating the sick, and tracing contacts. If those who are ill can be contained, he suggests, through a massive testing program, augmented by cellphone locating to alert those who might be exposed, transmission of the virus might be interrupted. Moreover, he suggests, those who recover could return to work and help keep society functioning. Of course, the United States has been woefully behind at testing from the outset, so Mr. Bedford’s plan would require a real turnabout.

We must not let a second wave take us by surprise.

[jono]

It’s still winter here and all public spaces are closed.
That’s the difference.
Nobody’s going anywhere, it’s just a warm place to sit.
Yhey do the same thing in the summer when it’s hot, except they have the library and the ymca and the salvation army and st vincents and every church to disperse them a bit.
Now, it’s just everyone come coughing up the stairs two feet from my face and cram into the VectorMobile for some air mingling.
It’s like a “wet market” of poor people: the working poor going to their jobs at walmart, the sick and disabled poor going to medical offices, the poor who can’t afford to fix their car, the single moms, etc....and now add in everyone who’s bored or cold.

Like I said though, fuck it. Whatever.

You are right about making it free, not sure how anyone failed to grasp that it's stupid. Imagine if mail was free--we did that and email is rife with scams and spams because it costs nothing. Charging for junk mail doesn't stop it but it does limit it. Cutting the fare by half might increase rides by 1/10, but free is a problem.

They should have offered to give free bus passes (or better, x ride tokens per month) to people who can show they need them (even if the bar is really low) instead of just inviting every bored vector. #idiocracy

[Lone Star]

3/17/2020

Dear Governor Herbert and Lieutenant Governor Cox,

It is at times like these that we, as clear-thinking members of society, need to do what is in the best interests of our nation, our state and our families to stem the tide of fear and alarm that is continuing to mount in the face of overwhelming evidence that the escalation of fear is counterproductive. It is imperative that we facilitate a return to normalcy as soon as possible.
The death toll in the United States and worldwide from the virus absolutely and in no way support the levels of concern that have been raised and the panic that has spread. The greatest damage to be done at this point is through continued blindness to the obvious facts before us. If we persist in focusing on the “number of new cases”, we will prolong the economic, social and political damage that has already been caused by our bias toward action.
Most respiratory viruses follow a predictable epidemiologic pattern. A small number of cases occur in the late fall, increase to a peak in February and fall off sharply in the months of March and April. The irony is, that as we frantically push for more viral tests to be performed, we give the illusion that the steep incline of confirmed cases represents the actual slope of the spread of the virus. This confirmation bias leads to elevated panic, quarantine, and irreparable economic damage.
Monitoring the absolute number of deaths (In lieu of the total confirmed case number) is the best way to truly ascertain the effect of the virus, and keep the disease in perspective. As of yesterday, the total deaths attributed to the virus in the United States stands at ninety. Not nine hundred, not nine thousand, not ninety thousand. Ninety. This number is sure to rise in the near future but we need to keep our wits about us.
Even in China and South Korea an appreciable slowing of new cases is being observed, not totally due to containment measures, but likely due to the natural life cycle of this respiratory virus. In South Korea as of yesterday, there have been just eighty-five deaths due to the virus, and death rates in China are declining. We must look at these numbers critically and ignore the pandemonium and political pressure. We must do the right thing now or else we will extend this pandemic of fear deep into the coming months.
Every action you make henceforth that disrupts our economy and way of life will do irreparable harm. As elected officials in the state of Utah we ask you to discontinue this path of destruction that has already proven to be devastating to our state and nation. We implore you to consider these points, and to restore stability to our communities once again. Do not waver.

Sincerely,

County Commissioners and Representative

Phil Lyman-Rep. Mike Bleak-Iron
Mark Whitney-Beaver David Tebbs-Garfield
Paul Cozzens-Iron Gil Almquist-Wash.
Tammy Pearson-Beaver Darin Bushman-Piute
Alma Adams-Iron Mike Dalton-Beaver
Jerry Taylor-Garfield Leland Pollock-Garfield
Andy Gant-Kane Brad Horrocks-Uintah
Lamont Smith-Kane Bart Haslam-Uintah
Scott Dalton-Piute Brent Chamberlain-Kane

Would you expect anything less from the descendants of the mountain meadows murderers?

[Benny Profane]

WSJ editorial
Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown

No society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health.


Financial markets paused their slide Thursday, but no one should think this rolling economic calamity is over. If this government-ordered shutdown continues for much more than another week or two, the human cost of job losses and bankruptcies will exceed what most Americans imagine. This won’t be popular to read in some quarters, but federal and state officials need to start adjusting their anti-virus strategy now to avoid an economic recession that will dwarf the harm from 2008-2009.
The vast social-distancing project of the last 10 days or so has been necessary and has done much good. Warnings about large gatherings of more than 10 people and limiting access to nursing homes will save lives. The public has received a crucial education in hygiene and disease prevention, and even young people may get the message. With any luck, this behavior change will reduce the coronavirus spread enough that our hospitals won’t be overwhelmed with patients. Anthony Fauci, Scott Gottlieb and other disease experts are buying crucial time for government and private industry to marshal resources against the virus.
***

Yet the costs of this national shutdown are growing by the hour, and we don’t mean federal spending. We mean a tsunami of economic destruction that will cause tens of millions to lose their jobs as commerce and production simply cease. Many large companies can withstand a few weeks without revenue but that isn’t true of millions of small and mid-sized firms.


Even cash-rich businesses operate on a thin margin and can bleed through reserves in a month. First they will lay off employees and then out of necessity they will shut down. Another month like this week and the layoffs will be measured in millions of people.

The deadweight loss in production will be profound and take years to rebuild. In a normal recession the U.S. loses about 5% of national output over the course of a year or so. In this case we may lose that much, or twice as much, in a month.

Our friend Ed Hyman, the Wall Street economist, on Thursday adjusted his estimate for the second quarter to an annual rate loss in GDP of minus-20%. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s assertion on Fox Business Thursday that the economy will power through all this is happy talk if this continues for much longer.
If GDP seems abstract, consider the human cost. Think about the entrepreneur who has invested his life in his Memphis ribs joint only to see his customers vanish in a week. Or the retail chain of 30 stores that employs hundreds but sees no sales and must shut its doors.
Or the recent graduate with $20,000 in student-loan debt—taken on with the encouragement of politicians—who finds herself laid off from her first job. Perhaps she can return home and live with her parents, but what if they’re laid off too? How do you measure the human cost of these crushed dreams, lives upended, or mental-health damage that result from the orders of federal and state governments?
Some in the media who don’t understand American business say that China managed a comparable shock to its economy and is now beginning to emerge on the other side. Why can’t the U.S. do it too? This ignores that the Chinese state owns an enormous stake in that economy and chose to absorb the losses. In the U.S. those losses will be borne by private owners and workers who rely on a functioning private economy. They have no state balance sheet to fall back on.

The politicians in Washington are telling Americans, as they always do, that they are riding to the rescue by writing checks to individuals and offering loans to business. But there is no amount of money that can make up for losses of the magnitude we are facing if this extends for several more weeks. After the first $1 trillion this month, will we have to spend another $1 trillion in April, and another in June?
By the time Treasury’s small-business lending program runs through the bureaucratic hoops—complete with ordering owners that they can’t lay off anyone as a price for getting the loan—millions of businesses will be bankrupt and tens of millions will be jobless.
***

Perhaps we will be lucky, and the human and capitalist genius for innovation will produce a vaccine faster than expected—or at least treatments that reduce Covid-19 symptoms. But barring that, our leaders and our society will very soon need to shift their virus-fighting strategy to something that is sustainable.
Dr. Fauci has explained this severe lockdown policy as lasting 14 days in its initial term. The national guidance would then be reconsidered depending on the spread of the disease. That should be the moment, if not sooner, to offer new guidance on what might be called phase two of the coronavirus pandemic campaign.
That will surely include strict measures to isolate and protect the most vulnerable—our elderly and those with underlying medical problems. This should not become a debate over how many lives to sacrifice against how many lost jobs we can tolerate. Substantial social distancing and other measures will have to continue for some time in some form, depending on how our knowledge of the virus and its effects evolves.
But no society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its overall economic health. Even America’s resources to fight a viral plague aren’t limitless—and they will become more limited by the day as individuals lose jobs, businesses close, and American prosperity gives way to poverty. America urgently needs a pandemic strategy that is more economically and socially sustainable than the current national lockdown.

"Some in the media who don’t understand American business say that China managed a comparable shock to its economy and is now beginning to emerge on the other side. Why can’t the U.S. do it too? This ignores that the Chinese state owns an enormous stake in that economy and chose to absorb the losses. In the U.S. those losses will be borne by private owners and workers who rely on a functioning private economy. They have no state balance sheet to fall back on."

This is a big problem for western democracy. I fear that, after the dust settles, that China and its central control of it's economy and Orwellian control of it's population will come out the other side in much better shape, relative to the rest of us. Oh, sure, everyone is getting hammered, but they, at least, have a plan, and will be ready for recovery while we're trying to get electricity flowing. Then, the world will say, as many have recently, hey, maybe those Chinese communists have the right idea, after all. Let's follow them. No voting, to start.

[Cono Este]

WSJ editorial
Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown

No society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health.


Financial markets paused their slide Thursday, but no one should think this rolling economic calamity is over. If this government-ordered shutdown continues for much more than another week or two, the human cost of job losses and bankruptcies will exceed what most Americans imagine. This won’t be popular to read in some quarters, but federal and state officials need to start adjusting their anti-virus strategy now to avoid an economic recession that will dwarf the harm from 2008-2009.
The vast social-distancing project of the last 10 days or so has been necessary and has done much good. Warnings about large gatherings of more than 10 people and limiting access to nursing homes will save lives. The public has received a crucial education in hygiene and disease prevention, and even young people may get the message. With any luck, this behavior change will reduce the coronavirus spread enough that our hospitals won’t be overwhelmed with patients. Anthony Fauci, Scott Gottlieb and other disease experts are buying crucial time for government and private industry to marshal resources against the virus.
***

Yet the costs of this national shutdown are growing by the hour, and we don’t mean federal spending. We mean a tsunami of economic destruction that will cause tens of millions to lose their jobs as commerce and production simply cease. Many large companies can withstand a few weeks without revenue but that isn’t true of millions of small and mid-sized firms.


Even cash-rich businesses operate on a thin margin and can bleed through reserves in a month. First they will lay off employees and then out of necessity they will shut down. Another month like this week and the layoffs will be measured in millions of people.

The deadweight loss in production will be profound and take years to rebuild. In a normal recession the U.S. loses about 5% of national output over the course of a year or so. In this case we may lose that much, or twice as much, in a month.

Our friend Ed Hyman, the Wall Street economist, on Thursday adjusted his estimate for the second quarter to an annual rate loss in GDP of minus-20%. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s assertion on Fox Business Thursday that the economy will power through all this is happy talk if this continues for much longer.
If GDP seems abstract, consider the human cost. Think about the entrepreneur who has invested his life in his Memphis ribs joint only to see his customers vanish in a week. Or the retail chain of 30 stores that employs hundreds but sees no sales and must shut its doors.
Or the recent graduate with $20,000 in student-loan debt—taken on with the encouragement of politicians—who finds herself laid off from her first job. Perhaps she can return home and live with her parents, but what if they’re laid off too? How do you measure the human cost of these crushed dreams, lives upended, or mental-health damage that result from the orders of federal and state governments?
Some in the media who don’t understand American business say that China managed a comparable shock to its economy and is now beginning to emerge on the other side. Why can’t the U.S. do it too? This ignores that the Chinese state owns an enormous stake in that economy and chose to absorb the losses. In the U.S. those losses will be borne by private owners and workers who rely on a functioning private economy. They have no state balance sheet to fall back on.

The politicians in Washington are telling Americans, as they always do, that they are riding to the rescue by writing checks to individuals and offering loans to business. But there is no amount of money that can make up for losses of the magnitude we are facing if this extends for several more weeks. After the first $1 trillion this month, will we have to spend another $1 trillion in April, and another in June?
By the time Treasury’s small-business lending program runs through the bureaucratic hoops—complete with ordering owners that they can’t lay off anyone as a price for getting the loan—millions of businesses will be bankrupt and tens of millions will be jobless.
***

Perhaps we will be lucky, and the human and capitalist genius for innovation will produce a vaccine faster than expected—or at least treatments that reduce Covid-19 symptoms. But barring that, our leaders and our society will very soon need to shift their virus-fighting strategy to something that is sustainable.
Dr. Fauci has explained this severe lockdown policy as lasting 14 days in its initial term. The national guidance would then be reconsidered depending on the spread of the disease. That should be the moment, if not sooner, to offer new guidance on what might be called phase two of the coronavirus pandemic campaign.
That will surely include strict measures to isolate and protect the most vulnerable—our elderly and those with underlying medical problems. This should not become a debate over how many lives to sacrifice against how many lost jobs we can tolerate. Substantial social distancing and other measures will have to continue for some time in some form, depending on how our knowledge of the virus and its effects evolves.
But no society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its overall economic health. Even America’s resources to fight a viral plague aren’t limitless—and they will become more limited by the day as individuals lose jobs, businesses close, and American prosperity gives way to poverty. America urgently needs a pandemic strategy that is more economically and socially sustainable than the current national lockdown.

This is going to be a boom, or a continuation of that, for internet businesses. So long as Fed Ex, and UPS keep moving, and I don’t see why not. We are actually in better shape to protect a portion of our economy than we were 20 yrs ago. I’ve never liked it, but it could be a savior of sorts to already have that infrastructure built out.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[My Pet Powder Goat]

@MPPG.

The thing is right now we just don't know and cannot risk destroying our Health Care delivery system.

I Completely get that. We've Gotta keep it under the breaking point, but Eventually most everyone is contracting it. Most will survive, many won't. It's going to be "touch and go" for a year as we maintain hygiene and social distancing to minimize risk while also going back to work.

Sent from my SM-N960U using TGR Forums mobile app

[glademaster]

The compulsion to perpetually be under the yoke of work is such a peculiarly American predilection.

[riser4]

They don’t hoard cash. It’s in stocks, real estate, and privately owned business.

None of which has a value until it’s sold.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

It is very much hoarding. Capital, cash, assets, whatever. It's not being moved around. It's hoarding. They suck money out and park it. Net drain on society.

[LeeLau]

Here are some answers explained a bit different than things I’ve read so far.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...avirus/608389/

The issue is getting people to buy in to coordinated mitigation and suppression efforts. The scary number is the 56% number of Americans not feeling CoViD is an issue and is overhyped.

[riser4]

"Some in the media who don’t understand American business say that China managed a comparable shock to its economy and is now beginning to emerge on the other side. Why can’t the U.S. do it too? This ignores that the Chinese state owns an enormous stake in that economy and chose to absorb the losses. In the U.S. those losses will be borne by private owners and workers who rely on a functioning private economy. They have no state balance sheet to fall back on."

This is a big problem for western democracy. I fear that, after the dust settles, that China and its central control of it's economy and Orwellian control of it's population will come out the other side in much better shape, relative to the rest of us. Oh, sure, everyone is getting hammered, but they, at least, have a plan, and will be ready for recovery while we're trying to get electricity flowing. Then, the world will say, as many have recently, hey, maybe those Chinese communists have the right idea, after all. Let's follow them. No voting, to start.

They may call themselves communists. However they have strayed pretty far from Marx and Engels. They are just another totalitarian state.

[CascadeLuke]

Calm the fuck down everyone about CoronaV. Slumlord millionaire Jared Kushner is on the job. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020...rus-task-force

[LeeLau]

WSJ editorial
Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown

No society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health.

]

Herein the problem

If we don't practise mitigation techniques then we shutdown the healthcare system. Take the medicine now. Adjust to the reality. The economy and society will adjust as long as we don't cripple things by allowing Covid to increase at the current median rate of between 20 - 30%/ day

If you don't shut down or have a partial shutdown then you have Italy where you have economic disaster and a healthcare disaster. If you have effective mitigation ( which includes a shutdown) then you have Singapore /Taiwan where there is still substantial negative impact but it's spread out over time.

I ran numbers for WA state if they keep on their path of partial mitigation.

500k cases in 45 days based on 17% daily growth rate

5% hospitalized - 25,000

50% of hospitalizations require intensive care.

4% die ie 20,000.

Spread of fatalities among age groups.

38% 1- 50

62% over 50.

WA state is the worse off ( the Wuhan of Noram). But only 7.5m ie 2%. Extrapolate to entire US it would be

- 10m cases
- 500,000 hospitalize
- 250,000 intensive
- 400,000 fatalities

All in 45 days

I ran numbers for San Fran and Santa Clara county too but it's too raw and I feel a bit sick looking at them

That's a lot of economic destruction. That's the alternative of what the WSJ suggest if you let the economy run with partial mitigation ( which is what Italy did).

And it is not working out well for the Italians

[Ripzalot]

more fake news debunked

https://twitter.com/CureVacAG/status...359281664?s=09

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

[jono]

PPE reuse in extraordinary circumstances:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4610368/

We should all be wearing masks. Fuck the hoarders but we all have "bandanas" and other mid-level protection and shaming people for protecting themselves is as bad as hoarding: everyone is at some risk and a mask in use helps flatten the curve. The curve hits healthcare workers hardest. Help by wearing something.

Shutdown won't last forever and it will help because Americans will innovate--we are hunkered down to flatten the curve, but we will also lift the line: make more PPE and healthcare equipment, find better treatments etc. So pushing the wave out will help. If you're bored focus on actions you can take (or filling in holes in what you can't). It's not time to panic, it's time to think and make a plan. Push back against the idiocracy. WfH with purpose.

The feds should be guaranteeing loans/grants for R&D and capital equipment to increase production on PPE, vent equipment and the like, or simply placing guaranteed orders so that companies have the confidence to ramp up with abandon. And FFS stop letting them ship PPE back and forth across oceans instead of putting it to use where it is made immediately.

[glademaster]

There are 4 times as many cases in the NYC metro area as there are in the state of Washington currently. Is it really that much more prevalent there, or is Cuomo actually being effective at increasing testing availability while Inslee flaps his hands and squawks like a panicky nerd?

[ill-advised strategy]

While she may not have seemed like an at-risk person, you'd hate for her to suffer the symptoms id she caught it through her job.

You never know what’s really going on. Maybe she has to drive her mom to and from chemo she also pays for. If she gets it, mom’s dead. If she doesn’t have an income, mom’s dead.

That stuff is hidden all around us. This scenario is going to be like a black light in a hotel room for the many hidden areas of fragility in this society.

I want us to break hard toward a robust comprehensive social safety net, but I think this society of rubes will break hard toward guns and isolationism and hoarding.

[MultiVerse]

We already have a blueprint for how America gets back to work from countries who were better prepared:

- Regular, even daily, testing for health care workers

- More general testing.* That doesn’t mean testing everyone but we need widespread testing so people can have confidence the virus is under control

- Antibody testing. Testing for antibodies will let people know if they had the disease and recovered. These people are effectively like control rods in a nuclear reactor, able to go about their lives without risk of spreading the virus

- In a nutshell, testing and tracing buys time for better treatments or even a vaccine

- There other steps too, once masks become available, policies like “no mask no entry” or temperature checks before entering public buildings

- If we get our act together people can return to work in a month or two. Countries that were prepared are already returning to work


*A prominent talking point here originated with the White House that testing has a 50-80% false positive rate but that’s propaganda based on studies documenting early faulty Chinese diagnostic tests. The current W.H.O. and current CDC tests are excellent.