OT: COVID-19 thread #2

[Southpaw]

So here's a column explaining why it's taking so long to get relief money into the hands of people who need it most- antiquated banking rules, bank's greed, and yes, possibly even the re-designing of the checks to include Trump's signature on the front of each one:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/opinion/coronavirus-stimulus-check-payment.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

And to put the cherry on the top, despite being urged to do so by both branches of congress, the administration is refusing to tell banks they are not allowed to deduct past unpaid charges (such as overdraft fees) from customer's stimulus checks. So many people may see a few deductions from their aid, as banks make sure they get their share first.

That is crazy. We're already living in a very dangerous time with the Covid spreading and politics just makes the situation worse.

[Dresden]

‘Nowhere to Hide’ as Unemployment Permeates the Economy

Jobless claims exceed 20 million in four weeks, inflicting a toll on the labor force not seen since the Great Depression.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/business/economy/unemployment-numbers-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

...
"When restrictions are lifted, the recovery is expected to be gradual. “My worry is that it will be a slow rollout, as it should be, which means a slow recovery,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global. “Turning on the U.S. economy isn’t like turning on a light bulb. It’s just too big.”

If businesses begin to reopen in May, “we wouldn’t be surprised to see one-third of the jobs lost come back by July,” she said. “But it will take years for unemployment to return to pre-crisis levels.”...

[Dez]

Talk here in Australia is we could be on our way to easing restrictions in a month.

[transplant]

business leaders telling trump they'd be hesitant to re-open their doors prematurely in the event that they are sued by employees who get infected at work

Well there's a shocker.

Say what you want about business owners, but not that many are truly stupid. The national administration can make whatever proclamations it cares to make, but the states are going to do what's right for their constituencies and individual business owners are going to do what is right for their businesses. Self interest will rule the day.

[dice]

business leaders telling trump they'd be hesitant to re-open their doors prematurely in the event that they are sued by employees who get infected at work

Well there's a shocker.

Say what you want about business owners, but not that many are truly stupid. The national administration can make whatever proclamations it cares to make, but the states are going to do what's right for their constituencies and individual business owners are going to do what is right for their businesses. Self interest will rule the day.

yep, this is one of those instances where the free market, though the self-interest of business, is more or less operating in the national self interest. but we had to have forced shutdowns to begin with to create that concern about re-opening too quickly

[pduh01]

Reopening early is too soon if anything it needs to be re-evaluated in mid-late May start from there.

[dice]

Reopening early is too soon if anything it needs to be re-evaluated in mid-late May start from there.

i don't see how it's reasonable to do anything major until there are widespread testing results. there are states that can't test right now not because the don't have enough tests, but because they don't have enough damn Q-tip swabs. the degree that this has been mismanaged logistically is astonishing in the richest nation in the history of the world

[Dresden]

business leaders telling trump they'd be hesitant to re-open their doors prematurely in the event that they are sued by employees who get infected at work

Well there's a shocker.

Say what you want about business owners, but not that many are truly stupid. The national administration can make whatever proclamations it cares to make, but the states are going to do what's right for their constituencies and individual business owners are going to do what is right for their businesses. Self interest will rule the day.

I would say yes and no on that. There have been some egregious examples of business owners willingly taking gambles with their workers health. Amazon has been pretty bad at this, including firing a worker who lead a walkout over unsafe working conditions. The Smithfield Ham Company in SD now has close to 800 confirmed cases at that one plant- and SD still isn't issuing a stay at home order, and is letting these companies decide for themselves. "We are very busy friendly", says their governor.

Early on, some supermarkets were prohibiting their workers from wearing masks at work, because they thought it would frighten customers into not shopping.

So it's been a pretty mixed bag.

[Dresden]

One interesting thing I've been reading and hearing more about lately is that doctors are re-evaluating the use of ventilators to treat corona. The survival rate is very low for older people put on ventilators, and those that do survive often have long term health effects from it, including lung and other organ damage. For young people, the success rates are much, much better. Some doctors are experimenting with other treatments, such as using CPAP machines to just deliver pure oxygen, under much lower pressure than ventilators use, and it doesn't require intubation or sedation or inducing coma's. Also having patients lay on their stomachs seems to help quite a bit with getting oxygen levels up. They are all just learning on the fly.

[Dresden]

One other interesting finding- about 1/5 of all US deaths have come at nursing facilities. If you take those numbers out of the statistics, I imagine it would change the chances of a non-nursing home person getting infected and dying from the virus quite a bit.

[dice]

business leaders telling trump they'd be hesitant to re-open their doors prematurely in the event that they are sued by employees who get infected at work

Well there's a shocker.

Say what you want about business owners, but not that many are truly stupid. The national administration can make whatever proclamations it cares to make, but the states are going to do what's right for their constituencies and individual business owners are going to do what is right for their businesses. Self interest will rule the day.

I would say yes and no on that. There have been some egregious examples of business owners willingly taking gambles with their workers health. Amazon has been pretty bad at this, including firing a worker who lead a walkout over unsafe working conditions. The Smithfield Ham Company in SD now has close to 800 confirmed cases at that one plant- and SD still isn't issuing a stay at home order, and is letting these companies decide for themselves. "We are very busy friendly", says their governor.

Early on, some supermarkets were prohibiting their workers from wearing masks at work, because they thought it would frighten customers into not shopping.

So it's been a pretty mixed bag.

hope smithfield gets sued up the wazoo. wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of law in SD that prohibits it though

[dice]

china officially in recession after Q1 contraction reported. first time in nearly half a century

also, while stock market is down 15% over last 2 months, amazon stock is up 9%, netting jeff bezos 12 billion dollars (he owns 12% of the company)

[2018C3]

Smart people have been preparing for something like this for years, and others always assume someone will be there to protect them.

I knew people who were preparing for something like this for the last 25 years. I have had several co-workers who were storing food and water to last them though events like this. Back then everyone thought they were crazy, but now people are starting to see that the prepper's are not crazy. They have been telling the rest of us this would happen for years. Most just refused to listen.

[dice]

Smart people have been preparing for something like this for years, and others always assume someone will be there to protect them.

I knew people who were preparing for something like this for the last 25 years. I have had several co-workers who were storing food and water to last them though events like this. Back then everyone thought they were crazy, but now people are starting to see that the prepper's are not crazy. They have been telling the rest of us this would happen for years. Most just refused to listen.

well, their prep was completely unnecessary in this case, so better wait for a better example

seems to me, if we're at a point where we can't leave the home for food and our water supply is turned off, there might not be many people left in the wreckage for them to say "told ya so" to

i imagine that these people have stockpiles of weapons and ammunition as well?

[Dez]

Smart people have been preparing for something like this for years, and others always assume someone will be there to protect them.

I knew people who were preparing for something like this for the last 25 years. I have had several co-workers who were storing food and water to last them though events like this. Back then everyone thought they were crazy, but now people are starting to see that the prepper's are not crazy. They have been telling the rest of us this would happen for years. Most just refused to listen.

No they're still crazy.

[Dresden]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/texas-protests-stay-at-home.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

It's just a matter of time before we see spikes in cases that are connected to these sorts of rallies. Although they are outdoors, where it's much harder to spread the virus. But still, odds are that we will see some people come down with the virus who attended one of these protests. Once that starts happening, it will put an end to them, but unfortunately it might take a few weeks for that to show up, and in the meantime a bunch more people will be infected.

[Chi town]

Don’t know what to make of this? If that many people are testing positive with no or one symptom... how many have already had it? Have I had it? Is it way easier to contract then what we think? We should be doing dozens more of these randomized tests.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/science/third-blood-samples-massachusetts-study-coronavirus.amp

[r1terrell23]

Smart people have been preparing for something like this for years, and others always assume someone will be there to protect them.

I knew people who were preparing for something like this for the last 25 years. I have had several co-workers who were storing food and water to last them though events like this. Back then everyone thought they were crazy, but now people are starting to see that the prepper's are not crazy. They have been telling the rest of us this would happen for years. Most just refused to listen.

Unless they were hoarding hand sanitizer, gloves, and medical masks, your point has no merit. I have groceries and supplies delivered to my house for free each week with a tip.

[Dresden]

Don’t know what to make of this? If that many people are testing positive with no or one symptom... how many have already had it? Have I had it? Is it way easier to contract then what we think? We should be doing dozens more of these randomized tests.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/science/third-blood-samples-massachusetts-study-coronavirus.amp

I read something like this that was done in Santa Clara, CA, the epicenter of cases in the Bay Area, and they also found that a higher number of people tested positive for antibodies. It would indicate that the number of people who have been exposed would be 50 to 80 times what was thought. They said there was some uncertainty as to the accuracy of the testing, so it's just a preliminary result. But quite astounding if true.

[Dresden]

Here's the article about the test in Santa Clara, done by Stanford researchers:

https://news.yahoo.com/antibody-study-suggests-coronavirus-far-012427358.html

The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday and has yet to be peer reviewed, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.

...

At the time of the study, Santa Clara county had 1,094 confirmed cases of Covid-19, resulting in 50 deaths. But based on the rate of participants who have antibodies, the study estimates it is likely that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected in Santa Clara county by early April.

That also means coronavirus is potentially much less deadly to the overall population than initially thought. As of Tuesday, the US’s coronavirus death rate was 4.1% and Stanford researchers said their findings show a death rate of just 0.12% to 0.2%.

“The idea this would be a passport to going safely back to work and getting us up and running has two constraints: we do not know if antibodies protect you and for how long, and a very small percentage of the population even has antibodies,” he said.

Even with the adjusted rate of infection as found by the study, only 3% of the population has coronavirus – that means 97% does not. To reach herd immunity a significant portion of the population would have to be infected and recovered from coronavirus.
...