Coronavirus Thread

[GTRX7]

Seems to me the guidelines are the same everywhere because the virus behaves the same everywhere.

For instance, "stay 6 feet apart", and "wear a mask in areas where others are present". If you're in the country, you still need to stay 6 feet apart and wear a mask where others are present, it's just a lot easier to do that in a cornfield than it is in Chicago. The guidelines are the same in both places but in a cornfield, you can stay within the guidelines without doing anything. But if you're in the country and go to the state fair, you need to make sure you're 6 feet apart and wear a mask, just like in the big city.

I agree those guidelines (wear a mask and stay six feet apart) are and should be the same everywhere (although, for some insane reason, even wearing a mask has become a political issue). What I was referring to when I said that we can't necessarily only consider local guidelines when opening up was with respect to gatherings. When is it okay for churches, schools, bars, athletic events, etc to resume? If every local environment stayed static, I think it would make tons of sense for us to have local communities decide that issue based on their own local conditions. However, again, once travel becomes ubiquitous again, those local geographical distinctions start disappearing. All it takes is one infected guy from NYC to fly down to visit a large church or funeral service in a small rural town and he has potentially infected and/or created large numbers of infected people in that small rural community that would not have been created if those communities had the same "gathering" restrictions as NYC and other places. That is why I lean towards more national standards making sense once travel becomes ubiquitous again. All that said, I do not pretend to know the answer here. Those questions are extremely complex. I just wanted to mention that having each locality make their own rules comes with its own flaws too.

 

[bobongo]

It’s smug to recognize why they were able to make good on it here, versus not being able to where they came from?

No, but it might be smug (and also inaccurate) to pretend the same situation exists today as it did when our forebears arrived, or that we've reached a point such that we need no longer care about the world's opinion or their input.

 

[bobongo]

Oxford vaccine works on monkeys...humans next:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/e...beat-coronavirus-2020-05-14?mod=mw_latestnews

 

[684Bee]

Oxford vaccine works on monkeys...humans next:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/e...beat-coronavirus-2020-05-14?mod=mw_latestnews

Progress.

 

[armeck]

I agree those guidelines (wear a mask and stay six feet apart) are and should be the same everywhere (although, for some insane reason, even wearing a mask has become a political issue). What I was referring to when I said that we can't necessarily only consider local guidelines when opening up was with respect to gatherings. When is it okay for churches, schools, bars, athletic events, etc to resume? If every local environment stayed static, I think it would make tons of sense for us to have local communities decide that issue based on their own local conditions. However, again, once travel becomes ubiquitous again, those local geographical distinctions start disappearing. All it takes is one infected guy from NYC to fly down to visit a large church or funeral service in a small rural town and he has potentially infected and/or created large numbers of infected people in that small rural community that would not have been created if those communities had the same "gathering" restrictions as NYC and other places. That is why I lean towards more national standards making sense once travel becomes ubiquitous again. All that said, I do not pretend to know the answer here. Those questions are extremely complex. I just wanted to mention that having each locality make their own rules comes with its own flaws too.

My wife just did her weekly supply run to Target and Kroger. She said she felt very uncomfortable wearing her mask because almost nobody else was (except for employees). That's where this whole thing falls down: when people say just use "common sense it will be ok" that's entirely too subjective to be a mandate. Many, MANY people think this whole thing is still no big deal so to them, common sense is going about your business as usual.

 

[684Bee]

My wife just did her weekly supply run to Target and Kroger. She said she felt very uncomfortable wearing her mask because almost nobody else was (except for employees). That's where this whole thing falls down: when people say just use "common sense it will be ok" that's entirely too subjective to be a mandate. Many, MANY people think this whole thing is still no big deal so to them, common sense is going about your business as usual.

Freedom of choice and individual responsibility is indeed a messy thing.

I wish other people made good choices to: be an involved parent, finish their education, handle their finances responsibly, etc., but many, many people don’t, and then those of us that do end up paying for it in one form or fashion.

 

[bobongo]

My wife just did her weekly supply run to Target and Kroger. She said she felt very uncomfortable wearing her mask because almost nobody else was (except for employees). That's where this whole thing falls down: when people say just use "common sense it will be ok" that's entirely too subjective to be a mandate. Many, MANY people think this whole thing is still no big deal so to them, common sense is going about your business as usual.

Yeah, folks dropping their guard left and right. I hope the warmer weather helps - otherwise we're looking at a second wave by Independence Day.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Some of you might be interested in an example of how contact tracing works. See:


"The kids did this because of bad examples and no GAWD in school! It wasn't us! It CAIN"T be us!" But, of course, it is all on them.

I mean, parents are the primary, yes. But its incredibly difficult to instill good morals in your children when their normal motion growing up is to push back against that. When school and society and the media teach the opposite of what the parents teach with regards to behavior and sexuality, it certainly doesn't help. Anybody who has raised children know that good parents can raise kids who end up dysfunctional - there is no guarantee in life.

 

[takethepoints]

I mean, parents are the primary, yes. But its incredibly difficult to instill good morals in your children when their normal motion growing up is to push back against that. When school and society and the media teach the opposite of what the parents teach with regards to behavior and sexuality, it certainly doesn't help. Anybody who has raised children know that good parents can raise kids who end up dysfunctional - there is no guarantee in life.

Yet almost all communities do it without spurring a widespread outbreak of syphilis.

Did you watch the film? Do so and you will find precious little in the way of parental intervention of any kind. My favorite is the dad of one of the girls who's idea of providing engagement with his daughter after he found out what she had been up to is for the family to have dinner on TV trays (what did they do before?) and then take walks with her after dinner around the "neighborhood", a soulless collection of tract houses with no sidewalks. I mean, really. Is there any wonder that the kids turned to something that is at least somewhat exciting, even if it left them feeling "uncomfortable" afterwards? You are right about good parents raising bad kids, but, in this case, an entire community was involved. I worked in Conyers for awhile; the people (and the kids) there are pretty much as you see them in the film. Not villains or fools, but completely at sea about how to contend with the forces in their own or their children's lives. And always, always trying to find someone else to blame for it.

I'm not singling them out, however. Theirs is a common lot these days.

 

[takethepoints]

Freedom of choice and individual responsibility is indeed a messy thing.

I wish other people made good choices to: be an involved parent, finish their education, handle their finances responsibly, etc., but many, many people don’t, and then those of us that do end up paying for it in one form or fashion.

Well … I'm willing to eat a few financial costs. But I'm not willing to, you know, get sick or die to be sure they get the opportunity to behave foolishly.

As I keep saying here, your rights end when they cause me harm and they always have. If you can confine your foolishness to yourself, fine. But this is not that kind of situation.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Yet almost all communities do it without spurring a widespread outbreak of syphilis.

Did you watch the film? Do so and you will find precious little in the way of parental intervention of any kind. My favorite is the dad of one of the girls who's idea of providing engagement with his daughter after he found out what she had been up to is for the family to have dinner on TV trays (what did they do before?) and then take walks with her after dinner around the "neighborhood", a soulless collection of tract houses with no sidewalks. I mean, really. Is there any wonder that the kids turned to something that is at least somewhat exciting, even if it left them feeling "uncomfortable" afterwards? You are right about good parents raising bad kids, but, in this case, an entire community was involved. I worked in Conyers for awhile; the people (and the kids) there are pretty much as you see them in the film. Not villains or fools, but completely at sea about how to contend with the forces in their own or their children's lives. And always, always trying to find someone else to blame for it.

I'm not singling them out, however. Theirs is a common lot these days.

No I'm not watching a 90 minute movie, LOL. I jumped around and watched some. Stop being so argumentative - I'm not disputing those families may have acted badly, been bad parents and everything else. What I replied to was your assertion that parents are the only institution that influences and guides children. You're back to arguing with yourself again, I wasn't disputing all that stuff you just typed out.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

FWIW, here is a good article talking about a new Univ of Chicago study looking at people making more money on unemployment than if they worked.
This is one issue that will have to be fixed when they work on the next version.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...-unemployment-than-they-were-from-their-jobs/

In my worthless opinion, I'm not actually too worried about this. The government always has good intentions, but messes things up and makes them worse. And then they demand that we let them 'help us' again. These hospitality type workers are typically on the margins, and 40% of those earning under $40k/year have filed for unemployment. Ideally, you'd just make their unemployment equal to what their pay was for the working class for a period of a few months with the option for Congress to renew. But apparently all our systems and people are too stupid to figure that out and it would have taken a long time, so they just decided to make a blanket dollar amount to get it done.

What is more concerning is all the corporate bailouts, bank bailouts and inability for the IRS to get everyone their money and for the various unemployment systems to pay people. My in-laws and my brother haven't gotten paid by the IRS yet. My wife filed for unemployment on March 30th due to the hospital slashing her hours (she's a nurse) to near zero - she still hasn't seen a dime...she started working mostly normal hours again last week. Think about all the households who make $100k-$200k/year - their larger house payments, car payments, boat payments, rental homes or whatever else their lifestyle dictates. And in a blink of an eye now they're making $50k/year equivalent on unemployment. There's a ton of people hurting right now - a lot of people who haven't gotten their money even if it is supposed to pretty much replace their income. At 36.5m having filed for unemployment, unemployment nationwide is now officially worse than the peak of the Great Depression (22% have filed for unemployment and we were at 3.5% unemployment before all this) - we're at approximately 25.5%. The underemployment/U6 number is probably 35%-40% based on how it normally correlates.

Huge bailouts with very few strings attached have gone to airlines, Boeing...banks are essentially getting bailouts by being able to earn billions on the loan programs the Fed is running. They can also borrow at 0% and turn a margin buying government bonds, which they can then sell back to the Fed. Large corporations are saving massive amounts of money through the Fed buying their corporate bonds to keep the prices up and the interest rates low. There are all kinds of tax provisions that let corporations write off all kinds of things against this year's taxes they wouldn't have been able to do before.

 

[684Bee]

Well … I'm willing to eat a few financial costs. But I'm not willing to, you know, get sick or die to be sure they get the opportunity to behave foolishly.

As I keep saying here, your rights end when they cause me harm and they always have. If you can confine your foolishness to yourself, fine. But this is not that kind of situation.

Since C19 is a Coronavirus, and there are many coronaviruses that have been around for a long time and will continue to, but you don’t abridge my freedoms for those, what are the parameters you would set to determine that it’s then ok to start restricting my freedoms?

 

[takethepoints]

Since C19 is a Coronavirus, and there are many coronaviruses that have been around for a long time and will continue to, but you don’t abridge my freedoms for those, what are the parameters you would set to determine that it’s then ok to start restricting my freedoms?

A bad seasonal flu has a death rate of around .1. SARS-Cov-2 is a lot more contagious then the flu and has a death rate of between .5 and .9. It would also help if they didn't have the debilitating effects that COVID-19 does. On that, see:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/opinion/coronavirus-young-people.html

This isn't a minor ailment. I also note that we don't know the long term effects yet. I don't feel much compunction about requiring people to behave irresponsibly in the present situation, as we have and - believe it - will do again.

But, yes, there are limits to how much you should restrict people's freedom to act like fools. If you don't want to get a flu shot, it's up to you; the danger is much less. We can't protect ourselves from everything.

 

[684Bee]

A bad seasonal flu has a death rate of around .1. SARS-Cov-2 is a lot more contagious then the flu and has a death rate of between .5 and .9. It would also help if they didn't have the debilitating effects that COVID-19 does. On that, see:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/opinion/coronavirus-young-people.html

This isn't a minor ailment. I also note that we don't know the long term effects yet. I don't feel much compunction about requiring people to behave irresponsibly in the present situation, as we have and - believe it - will do again.

But, yes, there are limits to how much you should restrict people's freedom to act like fools. If you don't want to get a flu shot, it's up to you; the danger is much less. We can't protect ourselves from everything.

I’m glad that you admit there are limits. I was curious where you would put it.

 

[bobongo]

Since C19 is a Coronavirus, and there are many coronaviruses that have been around for a long time and will continue to, but you don’t abridge my freedoms for those, what are the parameters you would set to determine that it’s then ok to start restricting my freedoms?

Somewhere between a cold and The Red Death, the parameters lie. They're for us as a democratic society to decide, through our elected leaders and representatives.

Obviously we can't shut everything down for the slightest risk. Then the cure would be worse than the disease. On the other hand, we can't just let something like, for instance, Ebola (death rate of 50%) rip without governmental intrusion. So that's just to establish the principle that yes, there is a point at which it is "ok to start restricting (our) freedoms". Otherwise, "freedom" would just mean the freedom to die of a horrible disease. The question that remains is, what is that point? We as a society have to decide.

 

[takethepoints]

Since the whole question of limits has come up … See:



This is simply the best short video on the math behind strategies involving the virus and what to do about it I've seen so far. Short video: get social distancing to a high enough value and we'll kill the virus off with or without a vaccine. Problem = the higher social distancing values are costly. Not as costly as the virus, however. And, yes, testing is a key component.

There's a spreadsheet that let's you do this yourself. Goto:

https://www.core-econ.org/project/c...CORE_Teachers_update__15_May&utm_medium=email

Then go down to the video "Killing COVID-19" and hit the link for the EXCEL spreadsheet. (Caution: I haven't used this. YMMV.)

 

[takethepoints]

I’m glad that you admit there are limits. I was curious where you would put it.

Btw, I meant "responsibly" in the 5th sentence. My bad.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Freedom of choice and individual responsibility is indeed a messy thing.

I wish other people made good choices to: be an involved parent, finish their education, handle their finances responsibly, etc., but many, many people don’t, and then those of us that do end up paying for it in one form or fashion.

It’s interesting how people are discussing personal responsibility regarding C19. On the other hand what many seem to be personal responsibility in many other aspects of life we’re supposed to be forgiving, nonjudgmental, disregarding laws is ok, etc.

 

[FredJacket]

When Georgia governor announced 'reopening' the state over 3 weeks ago... he was hit with a lot of criticism. How's that decision looking now? ...was the criticism justified now that you've seen things play out to date?