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OK, the Corona Virus Isn't Going Away. Now What?


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I guess the bottom line for me is, how does my neighbor down the street being able to go back to work, put my elderly parent at additional risk? I admit that's a very self-centered focus.

Or is it self centered by the elderly and vulnerable people to demand that no one can go back to work because they're worried? All vulnerable people have plenty of options to stay safe. They can have a family member bring them groceries or they can have them delivered. They can wear masks, wash their hands every 5 minutes, and practice proper distancing.

 

My parents are around 80 and staying in for the next while regardless of when restrictions are lifted. They would never consider demanding that their young grandkids or anyone's grandkids suffer because they are at risk.

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...giving millions of dollars to business like the LA Lakers, Ruth Chris Steakhouses, Trump hotels, Big Oil, and so forth.

 

Notes, I understand you have zero respect for the ultra rich and big corporations and that's fine but you need to pay attention to the news more. Initially that sucked and I agreed with you but then the stimulus money that went to those entities has been given back or at least most of it. As for Big Oil, they haven't gotten anything, that's still being debated. And, Trump's businesses never got anything and there's no debate about that, it's in the law.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-trump-businesses-wont-get-money.html

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/los-angeles-lakers-received-and-returned-their-coronavirus-loan-11588010014

 

This is yet another example of how fast things are moving. We all see or read something that tweaks our sensibilities, we form a quick opinion like we normally do and in a day or two what we thought we knew has been turned upside down.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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2) Framing the damage to the economy as "some people will suffer financially", IMO, drastically understates it. Perhaps I have been oversold on the damage a prolonged shutdown would do. But it's not a case of people with unimaginable wealth using their influence to force a reopening just so they can make their already unimaginable wealth even more unimaginable. It's a case of everyday people needing to feed their families and pay bills, who are skeptical that the government can or will keep them afloat forever. Those people should have the freedom to make their own choices, IMO. My own personal choice, with no children, is to not be around groups where I could be exposed and risk giving it to my parent.

 

This is exactly right, imho. Please reread my post about the risks of a second Great Depression earlier in this thread. Economists right now are talking about a serious threat to the supply chain. Like most things this is complicated but what that means is the mega businesses depend on merely big businesses as suppliers. Those merely big suppliers depend on medium sized suppliers and those medium sized suppliers depend on small business suppliers. An expert on this gave an example yesterday. GM makes cars. They have suppliers like Delco or Firestone Tires. Also a huge mega business. Go on down the chain to a small business only worth say, 40 million. That's tiny compared to the big boys. That supplier just went under and declared bankruptcy. They make a critical electronic gizmo that's part of the ignition system in a vehicle. The ENTIRE production line is stopped because they can't get that part. Sure, another company can take over but unless they have thousands of that EXACT part ready to go, it can take months for a new company to get up and running. Exactly what the situation has been with producing new ventilators.

 

Multiply this one little example by every big business in the country and the world. The supply chain is the key to everything. One little cog way down the line goes out of business and the whole industry is stopped in it's tracks and millions of people are laid off until it's fixed. The second example he gave was food production. Same thing. Some smaller companies way down the supply chain goes BK and suddenly we have food shortages all over the place. And this is what causes a Great Depression. And, there's no quick fix, once it starts it has to run it's course. We don't know what trigger would cause this cascading leading to a broken supply chain across every sector of the economy and we don't want to find out.

 

The only way to prevent this is to get the economy going again and the virus be damned just like Dan said earlier. We just have to accept that risk as a part of life. And Craig made some good points too. Lots of people don't want to go back to work even though they're hurting financially and that will be a problem. Some of that is happening with Boeing right now. And it's also true that many older and even elderly people are the ones in the highest positions and are running things including politicians and CEO's. My thinking there is they have the resources to protect themselves, they can do remote meetings, wear masks and things like that and keep going. If a CEO is elderly with a lot of underlying health issues, he may well decide to resign his position and call it a day and let a healthier and younger person take over. We all have choices and the world will carry on.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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I guess the bottom line for me is, how does my neighbor down the street being able to go back to work, put my elderly parent at additional risk?

 

It doesn't put your elderly parents at risk, it puts your neighbor and your neighbor's neighbors at risk. Now that things are re-opening, it's up to businesses to decide whether they want to put their employees potentially at risk, and if a business is open, It's up to your neighbor to decide whether to go back to work. Those decisions are not for your parents to make.

 

Or is it self-centered by the elderly and vulnerable people to demand that no one can go back to work because they're worried?

 

They aren't demanding anything, guidelines have been issued by state, local, and federal governments. Those guidelines were best estimates of the severity of the illness and erred on the side of caution. Remember, the magnitude of this thing has only been taken seriously by everyone for less than 90 days. That really isn't much time to know everything we need to know. Look how long it took to get sufficient data to find out exactly who is the most vulnerable.

 

I'm over 70, and I'm not "demanding" anything of anybody. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to go back to work is free to do so...and I'm free to have groceries delivered. When I do go out into the world, I'm extremely careful anyway. I could just as easily get killed by a drunk driver.

 

But framing the discussion in such simplistic terms ("things are closed down because old people are worried"), aside from being inaccurate, misses a much, much bigger picture. Currently, meat packing plants are hot spots for the virus, with hundreds of people getting sick at each plant, all over the country. They aren't elderly or vulnerable or demanding anything. Sure, most of them won't die...but they're too sick to work, and they're making others at the plants sick, which is disrupting the food chain that feeds people of all ages.

 

And, just because someone is young, healthy, and doesn't die, getting sicker than pneumonia, or having permanent lung damage, is a very big deal. The virus isn't digital, where either you die, or you're basically okay - younger people who are borderline healthy (obese, diabetic, weakened from certain environmental exposures like asbestos or excessive air pollution, smokers, etc.) could die if there isn't hospital space to give them care, or if the health providers are sick and/or dying. But even if you just say screw it, anyone over 70 can just die, you still have to care for those people under 70 who get sick from the virus. And, the 30-year-old who gets into a motorcycle accident may find there's no available bed...

 

Again, to quote Bob Marley - "When the rain falls, it don't fall on one man's house" :)

 

So then you might think "well, not that many young people require hospitalization, so they're not going to overwhelm the system. What's the big deal?"

 

Here's what no one seems to be talking about, so maybe I have it wrong. But...the bottom line is that there have been about 1 million infections in the US, according to what the CDC knows. That's probably inaccurate, so let's triple that and assume that there have been 3 million infections. That means 99% of the US has not been infected, has not been killed, has not gotten sick, has not stressed out hospitals, etc. - but also, that 99% is eligible to get the virus, and there is zero doubt that it is highly contagious. Imagine the disruptions that would happen if even only another 10% got infected. Given that a 1% infection rate has left us with (so far) 61,000 people dead, multiply that by 10 for a 10% infection rate, and you have 610,000 people dead. A spike where that 10% happened in a couple months, which is a possibility if steps aren't taken to "flatten the curve" (and then we're back to square one), would be really problematic.

 

There have not been enough infections to create herd immunity, we're months away from that. We're also months away from a vaccine. What do we do until then is the question, because I agree with J Dead that next summer, things will be back to normal (minus any remaining economic scars).

 

Every opinion I've read from medical professionals of any political persuasion is the same: The safest way to re-open the economy is through extensive testing to find out exactly what we're dealing with, but for whatever reason, there aren't sufficient capabilities to do testing in the numbers required to re-open the economy safely. That has nothing to do with "old people." So, as I said before, it's a gamble...and by definition, a gamble has an uncertain outcome.

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If the above was too long to read, the bottom line is: There are no good solutions, only less bad ones...and whichever one ends up being chosen will be a gamble, with unintended consequences. Have a nice day :)
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Exactly correct IF there really have been only 3 million infections. The point of that Politico article is it "could be" much more than that and there is some evidence supporting that idea. That study I referred to earlier and didn't post because it's such heavy reading but I'll be happy to post it if you want, indicates it was closer to 28 million infections already by mid March in the US. There are other admittedly small studies pointing to similar numbers. As you correctly point out, all these are preliminary, various institutions are all desperately trying along with the rest of us, to get some kind of indication as to how severe this is. While preliminary, most of them seems to indicate anywhere from 10% to even 30% have already been infected. I've seen the recent tests that you refer to showing 2 or 4%. But little samples from all over show 30% or higher. A random group of 200 people walking down a sidewalk in Boston, a homeless shelter with 45% and no symptoms in SF and several others like that. IF, and that's a big if for sure, that's true then there is significant immunity out there and the risk is actually much lower than it looks.

 

I keep referring to the California Mystery. I track LA County numbers and the county has about 10 million residents. LA doesn't have the density of Manhattan but it's still considered a high density area. One drive down the 405 freeway during normal times will tell you that. Right now it's 22,485 cases, 1,056 deaths and that represents a large spike that just happened. What's a big cause of that spike? Prisons and nursing homes. A spike like that has little to do with average people getting back to work. These are still significant numbers for sure but not even close to any kind of projection you can name showing what the numbers would be by May 1. It's just not happening here to that extent. According to travel stats LAX had the single largest number of Chinese visitors in the country from December to when the travel ban went into effect March 14, we should have had a ton of cases, almost as bad as NY. Is it warm weather, is it there were unknown cases going back to October, is it herd immunity, what the heck is it? I keep coming back to the apparent fact that over half of infections have no symptoms and another 10-15% have mild enough symptoms people just thought it was another cold or flu. With no direct evidence I'm putting my money on immunity, it just makes logical sense. Of course, in making that statement I feel like the bomb disposal guy deciding at the last second which wire to cut... As you just now said, "there are no good solutions only less bad ones". Right. At some point we just have to roll the dice with the threat of another Depression looming and go for it.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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According to travel stats LAX had the single largest number of Chinese visitors in the country from December to when the travel ban went into effect March 14, we should have had a ton of cases, almost as bad as NY. Is it warm weather, is it there were unknown cases going back to October, is it herd immunity, what the heck is it? I keep coming back to the apparent fact that over half of infections have no symptoms and another 10-15% have mild enough symptoms people just thought it was another cold or flu.

 

It does seem that it was in the U. S. earlier than initially thought. (NAMM seems about is big, I wonder how many of us had it?)

 

A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES, a massive tech conference in January

 

The thing is, even if the number of infected people is higher, meaning the death rate is lower, the numbers of hospitalized and dying are still incredibly high. Even if the percent who die from being infected is less than the percentage of who gets the flu and dies, the numerator in that fraction is still a high absolute number. It's a number that is close to unmanageable as we've seen in Italy and the northeast U.S.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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As you just now said, "there are no good solutions only less bad ones". Right. At some point we just have to roll the dice with the threat of another Depression looming and go for it.

 

Based on what's happened so far, whatever happens will be much worse than the people who didn't think it would be a problem thought, and much better than people who thought it would be a huge problem thought :)

 

The early, tough policies remind me of Y2K. Remember how that was going to be the end of the world? Well, people took it seriously, fixed stuff, and it ended up being a fairly minor deal. So now, you can look back, say it wasn't a big deal, and it was all about a bunch of chicken littles. But we'll never know what would have happened if a ton of people hadn't worked hard on a fix.

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That study I referred to earlier...indicates it was closer to 28 million infections already by mid March in the US.

 

Unfortunately, assuming that's correct (who knows?), that still means 93% of the US hasn't been infected. Even assuming 61,000 deaths are based on 28 million infections, then extrapolating that into 50% of the US being infected (the number that keeps getting floated for "herd immunity") still means 363,000 deaths.

 

It really is a mess. Either a lot of people are going to die (which has consequences way beyond emptying out old age homes), we have serious economic problems, or all the "experts" are wrong, and everything will be far better than expected because the economy will come roaring back, and not that many people will die. Then again, "experts" said you couldn't go wrong buying silver, because "they'll always need silver to develop photographs." :) It really is a crap shoot at this point. Your previous comment about "roll the dice" sums up the situation succinctly.

 

Hopefully we're all friends with the croupier.

 

In any event, I miss going to the IMAX theater here in Nashville. It has an awesome sound system. I think they have to pump in oxygen for when it takes your breath away :)

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I have nothing against the ultra-rich because they are rich. I do have something against the government for letting them pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than me, for them getting the lions share of government benefits.

 

Yes, I know the Lakers and others were embarrassed into giving their money back, but there are others we don't know about, you can bet on that.

 

I see the government as being extremely corrupt right now, as the oligarchy, not the people we elect to office are actually running the show.

 

As a patriot, this saddens me.

 

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton

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With this kind of news coming out regularly, can't really blame people who are wonder if the POTUS and his friends are planning to make money off of this - talking about federal seizures of testing kits and other medical supplies

 

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies

 

https://www.salon.com/2020/04/21/states-smuggle-covid-19-medical-supplies-to-avoid-federal-seizures-as-house-probes-jared-kushner/

 

One of the latest stories reports National Guard being called in to protect Maryland's stuff:

https://www.newsweek.com/national-guard-protecting-marylands-coronavirus-tests-undisclosed-location-so-federal-government-1501309?fbclid=IwAR1lh5UDHhlVdUe-_N_xU298awT9dHhG69M50QprWWSml59IFPCbKEdqCLU

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Well things are getting a little political here...let's stick to the virus, where it's going, and what it means for us. For example, live sound engineers are totally screwed right now, so when/if things "open up" is a big deal. I had tickets to a concert in Vegas for May for a performer whose gig in Nashville in January was cancelled, and now the May concert has been cancelled too. Although even if it was on, I doubt I'd be doing to Vegas right now.

 

I did an interview yesterday where someone asked me what I thought would be the result of this for live sound engineers. I replied, only half-joking, a lot of them will be delivering food for GrubHub, Uber Eats, GoPuff, etc. When they find out they make more money doing that, they'll be faced with a tough career choice :)

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No easy choices that's for sure. I just got a call from one of my clients. Her husband died two days ago from a sudden massive heart attack, he was on the computer upstairs in their house and she went up to see him and there he was, dead. This is relevant because he had an appointment with his cardiologist 4 weeks ago that was cancelled because the doctors office stopped seeing patients. Did that contribute to his death? She thinks so but really, who knows? When you have a serious chronic condition like this everybody knows you need regular followups. For all I know his doctor could have examined him and said , I'm seeing something hew here and you need to be scheduled for a heart valve replacement right now or maybe he needed to change his meds or whatever But because of the shutdown that diagnosis was missed. This is a possible example of #4 in that Politico article.

 

Another stat that goes to the risk of another Depression. Unemployment claims this week were another 3.6 million bringing the total to over 30 million. I posted the historical stat from the Great Depression saying unemployment peaked at 24%. We are definitely over 20% now. I'm not saying that's some kind of absolute trigger, our modern economy is filled with all kinds of checks and balances compared to then but however you look at it this is not good guys.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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The Big Unknown about a depression is how long it would take for a consumer-driven economy to bounce back, and that depends on whether the virus is with us for the long haul or not. And that's the huge dilemma we face - does everything get shut down now in the hopes that it puts an end to the virus sooner, but wreak financial devastation, or let things open up with the risk that it will extend the hold the virus has on the economy, and thus lengthen any recovery because it will lengthen the time that people feel safe about going out and consuming.

 

The irony of the latter is that opening up states prematurely to help the economy could actually make the long-term economic situation worse, because businesses that might have been able to survive on minimal business for a few months might not be able to survive on minimal business for a longer period of time, as the virus slowly works its way throughout the entire country instead of concentrating mostly on big urban areas.

 

If I could predict the future, I'd be happy to tell you what's going to happen. Then again, if I could predict the future, I would have bought Apple stock when it was $35 a share...

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If I could predict the future, I'd be happy to tell you what's going to happen. Then again, if I could predict the future, I would have bought Apple stock when it was $35 a share...

 

I had a roommate in university who was passionately imploring me to invest in this online bookstore called Amazon. I said I couldn't afford the stock which of course is a drop in a drop in a drop in the bucket compared to today's prices. I was still in debt for those college loans and figuring out to pay for my last quarter at the uni. This roommate was ridiculously smarter than me.

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There are so many wild cards about the economic future. For all the businesses that will be or are even now trying to open up, how will the public respond?

 

For example, one of our favorite restaurants opted to not do the take-out thing over the last couple of months, but now with restaurants being allowed to open (with a lot of rules and requirements) in Texas, they are about to re-open. But service has to be buffet style, not "one waiter per table" along the old lines. Surely that will effect what's going to be offered on the menu. And seating has to be kept at 25% of capacity for most restaurants. A quiet, mostly empty restaurant is kind of a depressing experience, at least to me. I don't like them packed and having to scream to be heard, but some sort of festive atmosphere is part of the reason I like restaurants.

 

Will we go out now? Probably not this week or next and after that, TBD. We know from experience that the people most likely to head into all the newly re-opened restaurants and retail will be the same people who have little respect for social distancing already - we see them all the time. Mostly 20-35 year old guys (the invincibles) and a sprinkling of others from different age groups, etc.

 

Commercial real estate is definitely going to head for the drain and stay there for a good while. Residential real estate is an interesting thing - people are at home a lot more and probably wouldn't mind an extra 1,000 square feet about right now. More toys at home, more activities at home - there's probably actually some opportunity there, business-wise.

 

The biggest thing is getting all the folks who've lost their jobs re-hired and off the dole. I can't see that being "history" for a good decade or more. Maybe a new era of Public Works jobs will commence - maybe some sort of Civil Service for 17 - 21 year olds. Something - 'cause the economy is not going to just rise up by itself off the mat and start punching it's weight by magic.

 

nat

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But service has to be buffet style, not "one waiter per table" along the old lines. Surely that will effect what's going to be offered on the menu.

 

nat

 

That's weird. Buffets seem way more unsanitary than a waiter to me. But yes, restaurants are in for a tough time this year.

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I saw a post on FB (so this is VERY anecdotal) of someone here saying yesterday they were out, traffic was bad and several restaurants they saw looked packed, way above 25% according to the poster.

 

This is a real bummer for my wife and me. We want to support local restaurants and have been during the shut down, and one of the restaurants mentioned is one of my favorites. When we ordered from there during the shut down, they didn't have curbside service so my wife went inside and it was empty at the time. Now, we're concerned that if we order from a place and don't notice if they have curbside, will one of us have to go in to get our order? People are still supposed to be social distancing but if it's crowded and they're not and there's no way to get the order without managing through the crowd, what do we do? :smdh:

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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I suspect I'll be home longer than most, as live bands are still banned.

 

That might be a good thing. After all the early openings will be COVID beta-testers.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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I suspect I'll be home longer than most, as live bands are still banned.

 

That might be a good thing. After all the early openings will be COVID beta-testers.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

 

That's how I feel too. Let them be beta testers and we'll find out if that was a mistake fairly quick. Doctors say most people who present symptoms will start showing in 3-5 days but some can take 2 weeks so they use 14 days as the benchmark. What's another two weeks at this point? I've been waiting to hear results from Boeing's 27,000 workers. They began returning to work April 21 and it's already May 2 and I just did a search and found nothing. If 10 new cases just popped up there would be news about it. That tells me everybody's fine so far in those factories but there still could be a spike in another week. I feel all this speculation will be coming to an end soon one way or the other, Orange County beaches in California look like Spring Break in Florida right now in spite of parking restrictions so there will be lots of opportunity for the virus to start roaring back to another spike soon. If it doesn't then there must be some herd immunity going on and/or hot weather really does suppress it or something else we don't know.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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What Antibody Studies Can Tell You â and More Importantly, What They Can"t

 

This is a really good deep dive into what they're finding and what the different numbers mean, such as the different types of death rates.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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What Antibody Studies Can Tell You â and More Importantly, What They Can"t

 

This is a really good deep dive into what they're finding and what the different numbers mean, such as the different types of death rates.

 

Agreed, it's refreshing to read a non-hysterical article.

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Okay, so here's another thought.

 

Lockdowns were not about stopping people from getting the virus, they were about stopping people from getting it all at once. Okay. But look at the infections; they're not flattening off that much. In some states, they're rising. Meanwhile, the virus has killed 69,000+ of the most vulnerable people in the US alone. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they're not going to be filling hospital beds any time soon.

 

It really looks like the virus is yes, really bad; yes, really contagious; and no, there's no miracle cure. But it seems that the lockdowns didn't make as much difference as was hoped. Apparently, we can't tell the virus what to do.

 

And then it occurred to me - what if the virus is like copy protection? I know of several companies that dropped copy protection and it didn't make any difference to their sales. People who were going to buy software were honest, and were going to buy software. People who stole it weren't going to buy it anyway, they would move on to the next thing if they couldn't steal it.

 

Maybe it won't make much difference overall whether people pour out in to the streets or stay at home. Probably what will happen is the vulnerable people will have learned that they better shelter at home and get their groceries delivered, while others look at the stats and think the odds are really remote they're going to die, so screw it, let's party.

 

So maybe the problem is that we're looking for an answer. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe the virus is much more powerful than humans, and we hate to admit it...so we try to pretend we have some degree of control over it.

 

But really...do we? As I've said many times during all this - I don't know.

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I thought that there has been a pretty clear correlation between strict isolation measures and the flattening of the curve. At least in a lot of media articles, that is the contention.

 

The whole goal of flattening the curve I thought was mainly geared to giving the healthcare community a chance to (more) properly care for the serious cases. And to slow the thing down until a vaccine could be developed.

 

Is that not what is happening in the U.S.?

 

I don't see the idea of letting things take a natural course as something I can get behind. We need to be fighters, not fatalists, right?

 

The virus does seem to be a slippery little bastard - but then we're getting micro-level constant reporting on the process of dealing with a public health crisis that is way beyond any prior event in 99% of our lifetimes. It might be that such constant reporting and scrutiny breeds a tendency towards fatalism - much like watching some stock go up and down on hourly candlesticks can easily give you the feeling that sheer unpredictability is at work.

 

My son-in-law is the CEO of a mid-sized group of GPs. He's aged in the last three months, believe me. But he does say a lot of positive things, too, about the healthcare system adjusting to the situation showing real signs of improvement and far less panic, fewer feelings of freefall into an unknown bleak future. Just yesterday he said there's never been such a concerted effort in the scientific community to globally redirect such massive amounts of effort towards a single public health threat. He's hopeful that it will pay off -

 

And so are we all! Go, fight, win!

 

nat

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I thought that there has been a pretty clear correlation between strict isolation measures and the flattening of the curve. At least in a lot of media articles, that is the contention.

I wish. But when you look at the Covid-19 tracker that takes in data from the CDC, WHO, and others, you can see that the spread of infections is ever-so-slightly flatter in New York, but not in California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and other places that emphasized strict isolation measures.

 

The whole goal of flattening the curve I thought was mainly geared to giving the healthcare community a chance to (more) properly care for the serious cases. And to slow the thing down until a vaccine could be developed.

The consolation is that it might have been much worse, with infections continuing to grow exponentially instead of linearly. But there have been a ton of curve balls, like age having such a factor on fatality, and people who have it but don't know it spreading it.

 

I don't see the idea of letting things take a natural course as something I can get behind. We need to be fighters, not fatalists, right?

Oh, I don't think letting things take a natural course would make sense. We now know who are most vulnerable, and they still need to do distancing. We also know there are some situations where putting yourself in those situations is asking for trouble...I don't think you're going to see people going on cruises for quite some time.

 

Uber and Lyft are going to have to adjust. People will be less inclined to jump on planes to go to meetings. I guess what I'm wondering is whether changing the focus of the effort to contain the virus, based on what we've learned in the past three months, will produce roughly equal results to the tougher measures taken initially. For example, it does seem to be accepted that wearing a mask won't help the wearer from being infected but it can help the wearer from infecting others. So if everyone really does wear a mask, then they don't have to be as concerned about going out and screwing up other people...maybe.

 

Again, I just don't know.

 

My son-in-law is the CEO of a mid-sized group of GPs. He's aged in the last three months, believe me. But he does say a lot of positive things, too, about the healthcare system adjusting to the situation showing real signs of improvement and far less panic, fewer feelings of freefall into an unknown bleak future. Just yesterday he said there's never been such a concerted effort in the scientific community to globally redirect such massive amounts of effort towards a single public health threat. He's hopeful that it will pay off -

 

And so are we all! Go, fight, win!

 

:thu: Now we just need to define exactly what "winning" entails. In my kind of worldview, it would be a compromise where considerable steps are taken to allow for a normal life for those capable of leading a normal life, but also, considerable steps are taken to safeguard the general population. As to what that would look like, or how you would accomplish it...I don't know!

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I think it's a mistake to paint the entire US with a wide brush. NY has half of the country's deaths. We have states almost the size of all of Europe with no deaths. What's happening in NY and NJ is not happening in ND, SD, MT, WY, etc.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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