COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (6 Viewers)

[BobE]

 

[B4YOU]

DC has typically been insulated from recessions, but the Covid-19 recession isn't typical. The DC unemployment phone lines are overwhelmed with long wait times. The max unemployment benefit of $444/wk doesn't meet the average monthly apartment rent in the city. DC ranks 24th out of 51 states in $/wk while having the 3rd highest rent prices. I think the federal government needs to start filling in some of these gaps. Even if they offered 25-33% on top of state unemployment up to $800/wk combined funds for a period of 6 months, it would do a ton to help people and stabilize businesses. It would also push states to raise these benefits. Hopefully, communities will be much more engaged in this type of policy.

 

[Arathrael]

UK update: 1,427 new cases (a high), 87 more deaths (a high), 6,491 tests (not a high). Total of 8,077 known cases and 422 deaths as of 9AM today.

I would guess that'll keep accelerating for at least a couple of weeks despite the lockdown. We're facing big healthcare problems as the week goes on, with the Government looking for large amounts of ventilators, and large venues being converted into field hospitals.

It could still keep getting worse after that, the lockdown is a bit of a mess. Initially some official government sources were saying you could only travel to work 'if you are a key worker', but then that was corrected to 'if you can't work from home', so there's a lot of people, probably too many, still being told they have to come in to work. And the government has explicitly allowed some work to continue, e.g. construction work.

That said, a lot of businesses are taking it seriously and closing down even though they're nominally exempt. This may in part be because the instructions to individuals are at odds with the instructions to businesses. Individuals are told they 'should only leave the house for one of four reasons.':

● Shopping for basic necessities, for example food and medicine, which must be as infrequent as possible.
● One form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle - alone or with members of your household.
● Any medical need, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person.
● Travelling to and from work, but only where this absolutely cannot be done from home.

So, for example, takeaways are allowed to stay open. But people are told to go out for food as infrequently as possible. So with less people going out for them, it's not necessarily worth them staying open. Additionally, businesses which stay open are supposed to practice physical distancing, which is clearly going to be impractical in some environments. A lot of chains have closed accordingly, including McDonalds, KFC, Nandos, and Subway.

For some workers, there's some support, with the government covering 80% of wages of furloughed employees, up to £2,500 a month (about $3,000).

But there's continuing problems; that doesn't cover the self-employed or a lot of hourly workers. So there's a large group of people for whom it's impractical to stop working.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

That's a lot of people out working. I get that we rely a lot on all of these, but its gonna make reducing the spread of this thing near impossible. Whether it's enough to keep hospitals from exceeding capacity is an open question I would think.

If you want grocers to stay open, you need food production to continue, along their entire supply chain.

If you want every office worker to work from home you need energy production, transmission, refining, transportation and repair to keep going.

If you want to be able to deposit cash (or relief check or unemployment, etc) or pay bills you need banks to keep running.

There is a risk of transmission associated with all of those but if we don't allow that then we are going to starve to death in the dark instead.

 

[Booker]

AAAS

science.sciencemag.org

 

[Bill]

Clearly... this is far from over.

 

[superchuck500]

Jerry Falwell has ordered Liberty U to reopen the buildings.

 

[DaveXA]

If you want grocers to stay open, you need food production to continue, along their entire supply chain.

If you want every office worker to work from home you need energy production, transmission, refining, transportation and repair to keep going.

If you want to be able to deposit cash (or relief check or unemployment, etc) or pay bills you need banks to keep running.

There is a risk of transmission associated with all of those but if we don't allow that then we are going to starve to death in the dark instead.

Understood and addressed further down from the post quoted. As long as those businesses who remain open practice good mitigation, I think it's prudent to keep those running. Nothing will be normal about how they continue to do business, at least I hope not.

 

[JimEverett]

I would advocate a narrower definition for essential businesses. Emergency services, supermarkets, gas stations and hospitals and that's it imo.

hardware stores and liquor stores

 

[DaveXA]

Jerry Falwell has ordered Liberty U to reopen the buildings.

Oh my. If any of my kids attended that school, I'd immediately tell them to get out. Fortunately, none of them do. Just a horrific decision. What the heck are the decision makers there thinking? You know there is such a thing as continuing classes online right?

 

[Goatman Saint]

Understood and addressed further down from the post quoted. As long as those businesses who remain open practice good mitigation, I think it's prudent to keep those running. Nothing will be normal about how they continue to do business, at least I hope not.

But how are you going to do that without testing? Yeah SK has managed this to an extent, but they are also testing the heck out of people and such. The US isn’t. So while you may be nice and clean, what about the community as a whole? If you don’t know you are positive......

 

[Goatman Saint]

Jerry Falwell has ordered Liberty U to reopen the buildings.

Ok we can’t bash politicians, what about stupid religious leaders?

 

[DaveXA]

Ok we can’t bash politicians, what about stupid religious leaders?

Not saying you can't bash 'em. Just not here, lol. But this is definitely bash worthy.

FWIW, this isn't just irresponsible, it's criminal. I'm all for separation of church and state and religious freedom, but when a religious group threatens the health of the larger community, that's where I draw the line. If the state has a standing stay at home order, the state needs to use whatever authority they have to prevent this from happening.

 

[RazorOye]

Ok we can’t bash politicians, what about stupid religious leaders?

In this case, I think there's only a single degree of separation...

 

[KulBreez]

Jerry Falwell has ordered Liberty U to reopen the buildings.

Just following direction from white house. Get used to it!