Coronavirus

[Dresden]

Dumb question, but what's the point of getting tested? Right now, there's no vaccine. Is it simply to know if you have it or not? Aren't you better off just pre-emptively self-quarantining if you're feeling ill? It seems like going to get tested has two main issues:

1.) If you don't have it, you've risked exposing yourself to it by going to a testing center where other people may have it.

2.) If you do have it, you're risking infecting people who don't have it at testing centers.

It's good to know of course so you don't pass it around. They have drive thru testing sites now, so it's pretty sterile process. Also, if you know it is not the virus, you can treat with flu remedies, which won't work on corona but will work on flu.

[dougthonus]

Our country will not survive a mass quarantine until August. People need to get back to work. Keep the elderly at home and hope for the best. We are really nearing this point. People living paycheck to paycheck are not going to tolerate this for much longer.

There may not be much choice for those people.

A lot of services are going to simply stop voluntarily regardless of whether or not their is a quarantine. There's enough public sentiment to self quarantine that you will see that for people. It's a tough situation, I think the best case scenario is the government figures out a way to get money to workers that are out of work, particularly those at event based work that has just died but don't have a larger parent company. Not sure how we're going to manage that, but it's going to be a big challenge for sure.

[rapstarter]

Dumb question, but what's the point of getting tested? Right now, there's no vaccine. Is it simply to know if you have it or not? Aren't you better off just pre-emptively self-quarantining if you're feeling ill? It seems like going to get tested has two main issues:

1.) If you don't have it, you've risked exposing yourself to it by going to a testing center where other people may have it.

2.) If you do have it, you're risking infecting people who don't have it at testing centers.

I think one issue is that a lot of people who show no symptoms (e.g. feeling ill) might be the carrying the virus. With broad (and free) testing, such risk can be mitigated. In absence of broad testing, the safest way to go about it is to act as if you are already infected. This is obviously not a long term solution.

[AKfanatic]

Our country will not survive a mass quarantine until August. People need to get back to work. Keep the elderly at home and hope for the best. We are really nearing this point. People living paycheck to paycheck are not going to tolerate this for much longer.

Hoping for the best is about as useful as “thoughts and prayers”.

Our country will survive. It will be painful for certain, but it will survive. What the country wouldn’t survive is a rush to get back to normalcy before having a handle on the virus. Doing so would would likely force businesses to close and citizens to quarantine, not in a preemptive attempt to stop a spread from getting out of control, but as a result of an out of control spreading of the virus.

People living paycheck to paycheck should of stopped tolerating things long long ago. It’s not as if political leadership has had their best interests in mind when bailing out banks, cutting social welfare programs, passing tax cuts to corporate interests and wealthy donors....

This virus sucks, the pain it will cause physically, emotionally, and financially sucks... that said, it is really shining a spot light on the vulnerabilities, faults, and the inequities of the systems this country and its citizens rely on for survival.

[Dresden]

Our country will not survive a mass quarantine until August. People need to get back to work. Keep the elderly at home and hope for the best. We are really nearing this point. People living paycheck to paycheck are not going to tolerate this for much longer.

Hoping for the best is about as useful as “thoughts and prayers”.

Our country will survive. It will be painful for certain, but it will survive. What the country wouldn’t survive is a rush to get back to normalcy before having a handle on the virus. Doing so would would likely force businesses to close and citizens to quarantine, not in a preemptive attempt to stop a spread from getting out of control, but as a result of an out of control spreading of the virus.

People living paycheck to paycheck should of stopped tolerating things long long ago. It’s not as if political leadership has had their best interests in mind when bailing out banks, cutting social welfare programs, passing tax cuts to corporate interests and wealthy donors....

This virus sucks, the pain it will cause physically, emotionally, and financially sucks... that said, it is really shining a spot light on the vulnerabilities, faults, and the inequities of the systems this country and its citizens rely on for survival.

I agree. And it is also a sign of things to come, with global warming likely to cause widespread disruptions and dislocations in the coming 50 years.

[Mech Engineer]

This virus has brought the concept of 'You are as strong as the weakest link' to reality. The obscenely rich CEOs have left a huge set of population by the wayside. Talk about not becoming socialistic, the country was turning into more like a 14th century type rule.

I'm no fan of socialism but there is an obvious imbalance in the system. Hope, this teaches all the super rich to think a little bit about their accumulation of wealth and how this paycheck to paycheck economy means they need protections for health, shelter, food etc...

If this doesn't subside, what incentive does a poor guy have to quarantine?

[Payt10]

Our country will not survive a mass quarantine until August. People need to get back to work. Keep the elderly at home and hope for the best. We are really nearing this point. People living paycheck to paycheck are not going to tolerate this for much longer.

Hoping for the best is about as useful as “thoughts and prayers”.

Our country will survive. It will be painful for certain, but it will survive. What the country wouldn’t survive is a rush to get back to normalcy before having a handle on the virus. Doing so would would likely force businesses to close and citizens to quarantine, not in a preemptive attempt to stop a spread from getting out of control, but as a result of an out of control spreading of the virus.

People living paycheck to paycheck should of stopped tolerating things long long ago. It’s not as if political leadership has had their best interests in mind when bailing out banks, cutting social welfare programs, passing tax cuts to corporate interests and wealthy donors....

This virus sucks, the pain it will cause physically, emotionally, and financially sucks... that said, it is really shining a spot light on the vulnerabilities, faults, and the inequities of the systems this country and its citizens rely on for survival.

Trying to stop a flu virus from spreading is like trying to control the wind. It's not going to happen. These lockdowns are fine in the short term, but they won't survive all the way through August without potentially even more serious repercussions on the American people.

[dougthonus]

People living paycheck to paycheck should of stopped tolerating things long long ago. It’s not as if political leadership has had their best interests in mind when bailing out banks, cutting social welfare programs, passing tax cuts to corporate interests and wealthy donors....

The thing is there's no simple answer to this problem and perhaps no complex answer to it either. The standard of living for people living paycheck to paycheck has probably never been higher. Unless you create a system where basic needs (housing, food, medical) can be provided to every person then you will always have this issue.

That said, people put themselves in this position. There is a view that every person should be able to live independently and move out of their house and support themselves. That may not be a realistic and sustainable goal for our society if you don't want people living paycheck to paycheck and want the government to provide housing, food, and medical to every citizen.

That's not to say wealth distribution isn't a valid problem. I think it is, as do I think think the ever increasing amount of wealth moving towards capital providers rather than laborers, but even if you had a better distribution of wealth, you wouldn't remove these problems you're talking about where people are just forever willing to overextend themselves and then look for help from somewhere else.

[drosereturn]

Dumb question, but what's the point of getting tested? Right now, there's no vaccine. Is it simply to know if you have it or not? Aren't you better off just pre-emptively self-quarantining if you're feeling ill? It seems like going to get tested has two main issues:

1.) If you don't have it, you've risked exposing yourself to it by going to a testing center where other people may have it.

2.) If you do have it, you're risking infecting people who don't have it at testing centers.

It's good to know of course so you don't pass it around. They have drive thru testing sites now, so it's pretty sterile process. Also, if you know it is not the virus, you can treat with flu remedies, which won't work on corona but will work on flu.

This. There are no perfect solution but drive through is the best detective measure as of now and SK has nearly ended the disease just by this.

[Mech Engineer]

People living paycheck to paycheck should of stopped tolerating things long long ago. It’s not as if political leadership has had their best interests in mind when bailing out banks, cutting social welfare programs, passing tax cuts to corporate interests and wealthy donors....

The thing is there's no simple answer to this problem and perhaps no complex answer to it either. The standard of living for people living paycheck to paycheck has probably never been higher, and there have always been times where that is true. Unless you create a system where basic needs can be provided to every person then you will always have this issue.

People put themselves in this position. There is a view that every person should be able to live independently and move out of their house and support themselves. That may not be a realistic and sustainable goal for our society if you don't want people living paycheck to paycheck. Blaming the wealthy won't actually fix this problem. People make poor financial decisions.

That's not to say wealth distribution isn't a valid problem. I think it is, as do I think think the ever increasing amount of wealth moving towards capital providers rather than laborers, but even if you had a better distribution of wealth, you wouldn't remove these problems you're talking about where people are just forever willing to overextend themselves and then look for help from somewhere else.

You are right...once something is free, the tendency is too look for it instead of working for it. But, if health care is made easier as the first step, that will give a guideline for other things. And, basic food items should be affordable for everyone. That is better distribution of wealth or socialism but it provides a path for study.

There is a fine balance between getting rich through hard work/innovation and getting rich based on monopoly, corporate connections. The system has to differentiate between those two and not let the second group become the majority rich which is what it seems to be happening.

[dougthonus]

There is a fine balance between getting rich through hard work/innovation and getting rich based on monopoly, corporate connections. The system has to differentiate between those two and not let the second group become the majority rich which is what it seems to be happening.

I agree here too. I think the distribution of wealth to capital providers has been steadily rising relative to laborers since the Reagon administration. I think that's a problem that if society were on the path it is now would be a really big one as time goes on.

Effectively brings us back to a monetary policy of the feudal says where you have ultra wealthy and inheritance as the main method of wealth transference.

At the same time, it's a difficult thing to crack, especially as jobs for laborers have less and less value and AI may simply blow away nearly all jobs in another 30 years. You might be looking at a situation where you need to reinvent all of society and that may be an awfully bumpy process.

[dougthonus]

You are right...once something is free, the tendency is too look for it instead of working for it. But, if health care is made easier as the first step, that will give a guideline for other things. And, basic food items should be affordable for everyone. That is better distribution of wealth or socialism but it provides a path for study.

There is also the problem of people caring for it. Low income housing areas generally haven't worked out well in the past to my understanding. They frequently become rundown really fast and dangerous neighborhoods that no one wants to live in. How you solve these problems to provide basic services for free but then also don't make them slums that really you wouldn't want anyone to live in is also a challenge, even if you could get around the cost issue of it.

[suckfish]

Dumb question, but what's the point of getting tested? Right now, there's no vaccine. Is it simply to know if you have it or not? Aren't you better off just pre-emptively self-quarantining if you're feeling ill? It seems like going to get tested has two main issues:

1.) If you don't have it, you've risked exposing yourself to it by going to a testing center where other people may have it.

2.) If you do have it, you're risking infecting people who don't have it at testing centers.

Here in the UK it's alarming how many people still won't take the Coronavirus seriously. I know people who have had symptoms but would rather shake it off as a common cold or flu rather than be cautious and isolate.

Without testing those people will not alter their lives until the consequences or the virus are staring them right in the face.

So testing is important because a lot of people will not scale back their activity until they know for sure they have the virus.

It's also important because without testing it's untraceable. It's impossible to keep track of hotspot areas of the country. If there's no testing of ordinary members of the public you could have one city or town that is blowing up and you'd have no idea.

[dice]

People living paycheck to paycheck should of stopped tolerating things long long ago. It’s not as if political leadership has had their best interests in mind when bailing out banks, cutting social welfare programs, passing tax cuts to corporate interests and wealthy donors....

The thing is there's no simple answer to this problem and perhaps no complex answer to it either. The standard of living for people living paycheck to paycheck has probably never been higher, and there have always been times where that is true. Unless you create a system where basic needs can be provided to every person then you will always have this issue.

People put themselves in this position. There is a view that every person should be able to live independently and move out of their house and support themselves. That may not be a realistic and sustainable goal for our society if you don't want people living paycheck to paycheck. Blaming the wealthy won't actually fix this problem. People make poor financial decisions.

That's not to say wealth distribution isn't a valid problem. I think it is, as do I think think the ever increasing amount of wealth moving towards capital providers rather than laborers, but even if you had a better distribution of wealth, you wouldn't remove these problems you're talking about where people are just forever willing to overextend themselves and then look for help from somewhere else.

You are right...once something is free, the tendency is too look for it instead of working for it. But, if health care is made easier as the first step, that will give a guideline for other things. And, basic food items should be affordable for everyone. That is better distribution of wealth or socialism but it provides a path for study.

There is a fine balance between getting rich through hard work/innovation and getting rich based on monopoly, corporate connections. The system has to differentiate between those two and not let the second group become the majority rich which is what it seems to be happening.

i've long held the position that there should be a balance between the freedom of the individual to achieve/innovate and the needs of society. as such, unsurprisingly to me, the happiest societies are the ones where total taxation is around 50%

world happiness report will be released on friday, but using last year's rankings:

1 finland ($48,580 per capita GNI, 54.2% total tax rate)
2 denmark ($56,410, 50.8%)
3 norway ($68,310, 54.8%)
4 iceland ($67,050, 40.4%)
5 netherlands ($56,890, 39.8%)
6 switzerland ($68,820, 27.8%)
7 sweden ($54,030, 49.8%)
8 new zealand ($39,410, 34.5%)
9 canada ($47,590, 31.7%)
10 austria ($55,300, 42.7%)
11 australia ($50,050, 27.8%)
12 costa rica ($16,700, 21.0%)
13 israel ($39,940, 36.8%)
14 luxembourg ($72.200, 36.5%)
15 UK ($45,350, 34.4%)
16 ireland ($67,050, 30.8%)
17 germany ($54,560, 44.5%)
18 belgium ($51,740, 47.9%)
19 USA ($63,690, 27.1%)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)_per_capita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio

and so the question becomes, how best to utilize government funds. i personally believe that broad-based government health care should be available for all citizens at low out-of-pocket cost (co-pays only - to avoid having hypochondriacs abuse the system). something that every industrialized nation other than the USA has. i also believe in quality free public education. to what age/level that goes i'm not sure. i also believe in the concept of a universal basic income (UBI), which i came up with independently about 20 years ago, not realizing that it was a fairly widely discussed topic already:

-concept dates back to 16th century
-advocated by "father of the american revolution" thomas paine
-widely discussed as "state bonus" in early 1900s
-we've had one for the elderly in the form of social security since 1935
-family allowances implemented in UK in 1946
-"negative income tax" experiments in canada and US in '60s and '70s - nixon proposed one
-alaska has had a "permanent fund dividend" for all residents funded by state oil revenues since 1976 ($1-2K a year to all permanent residents)
-broadly discussed in europe since the '80s

my basic vision is a 50% flat income tax w/ no other forms of taxation (no business tax, no sales tax, no property tax, no...parking tickets/fees!). whatever money the government does not spend gets rebated to all independent citizens (w/ a fractional share for dependents, to be distributed to their caretakers). government expenses itemized and distributed along w/ rebate checks. incentivizes lawmakers to limit government expenditures. based on the USA GNI of $63,690 and assuming that the government uses 40% of its 50% tax revenue, that would leave $6,369 per citizen (around $7300 per adult and $3650 per dependent if doing a 2:1 ratio) to be distributed annually in the form of a UBI

[HomoSapien]

Looks like my younger brother is about to lose his job and he's concerned about losing his health insurance right now. Anyone have leads on online/remote jobs that might be worth applying for? Doesn't need to come with insurance as long as it pays enough for him to buy his own.

[AKfanatic]

You are right...once something is free, the tendency is too look for it instead of working for it. But, if health care is made easier as the first step, that will give a guideline for other things. And, basic food items should be affordable for everyone. That is better distribution of wealth or socialism but it provides a path for study.

There is also the problem of people caring for it. Low income housing areas generally haven't worked out well in the past to my understanding. They frequently become rundown really fast and dangerous neighborhoods that no one wants to live in. How you solve these problems to provide basic services for free but then also don't make them slums that really you wouldn't want anyone to live in is also a challenge, even if you could get around the cost issue of it.

Much of that also comes down to how those areas are treated. Be it in a big city, or a small town, the services in those areas are almost disregarded by the local governments. Schools being allowed to crumble while schools in “better” parts of town receive funds for upgrades that aren’t exactly necessary. Roads being allowed to disintegrate while other neighborhoods get a shiny new blacktop almost yearly.

An example, the town I’m currently in has an area where “rich” people live... in this part of town if there’s a tree with a limb hanging over the sidewalk or street, the “city” will come out and take care of free of charge to the local property owners... if a curb needs repaired or a hole develops in the sidewalk, same deal. Now that’s nice, great, keep things safe and looking good... however, if you happen to live in most other parts of this “city” it’s your responsibility to take care of those tree limbs, and even that sidewalk or curb. If you don’t take care of those things the city will be happy to do it for you ... and leave you a “lawn care” bill for $250 an hour, 1 hour minimum. If you don’t repair that curb in front of your home, where you park, unless someone else decides to park there... because hey, the city says it’s not “your” spot, well then they charge you anywhere from $400-$1200.

Then take how many of those “low income” areas are treated by law enforcement. In many areas calling the police is about as useful as calling to Zeus... but they’ll happily come around and treat your kid like a criminal.

Those areas have been ignored and neglected for decades. Hell, Compton itself was ignored and neglected once black folks had the nerve to move there in the 50’s and 60’s, leading white people to leave in mass.

People often prop up the stories of the ones that made it out, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and bettered themselves. But those are the low low minority. The game has been rigged against the poor and until the country makes real, serious attempts at evening the playing field through equal services (roads, emergency services, voting), education, and some real tax changes we will have vast amounts of the population struggling to just survive in any way they can.

It’s no coincidence that many of these areas have become as bad as they have since the Reagan era. Cutting taxes on the top percents to almost nothing and claiming that’ll lead to a rising tide lifting everyone has always been a scam to consolidate power.

[AKfanatic]

Our country will not survive a mass quarantine until August. People need to get back to work. Keep the elderly at home and hope for the best. We are really nearing this point. People living paycheck to paycheck are not going to tolerate this for much longer.

Hoping for the best is about as useful as “thoughts and prayers”.

Our country will survive. It will be painful for certain, but it will survive. What the country wouldn’t survive is a rush to get back to normalcy before having a handle on the virus. Doing so would would likely force businesses to close and citizens to quarantine, not in a preemptive attempt to stop a spread from getting out of control, but as a result of an out of control spreading of the virus.

People living paycheck to paycheck should of stopped tolerating things long long ago. It’s not as if political leadership has had their best interests in mind when bailing out banks, cutting social welfare programs, passing tax cuts to corporate interests and wealthy donors....

This virus sucks, the pain it will cause physically, emotionally, and financially sucks... that said, it is really shining a spot light on the vulnerabilities, faults, and the inequities of the systems this country and its citizens rely on for survival.

Trying to stop a flu virus from spreading is like trying to control the wind. It's not going to happen. These lockdowns are fine in the short term, but they won't survive all the way through August without potentially even more serious repercussions on the American people.

If you lived in an area where the wind whipped off the mountains and blew rocks and debris into your windows, would you not shudder your windows until you can build a windbreak?

This is no different. Society needs to slow the damage until they can find the solution.

This isn’t the flu...

But the flu for example, may not get stopped, but it gets managed through vaccines.

Anyone who doesn’t think this is bad, needs to pay attention to Trump. The guy would be happy to say “ignore the fake news and the do nothing Democrat’s, they are just trying to destroy my totally successful administration and historic economy to steal an election”... but he’s not saying that now because even he sees he can’t continue to downplay the threat.

[dumbell78]

So we have our little boys (6 month old) baptism this coming Sunday, arranged over two months ago. This sucks but we're thinking of cancelling, the whole get together at church and afterwards. Were thinking at best just the immediate family go to church after the service do the baptism and head home. Had a lunch planned with the family, 35 ppl invited. Crazy how this has happened.

[dice]

Hoping for the best is about as useful as “thoughts and prayers”.

Our country will survive. It will be painful for certain, but it will survive. What the country wouldn’t survive is a rush to get back to normalcy before having a handle on the virus. Doing so would would likely force businesses to close and citizens to quarantine, not in a preemptive attempt to stop a spread from getting out of control, but as a result of an out of control spreading of the virus.

People living paycheck to paycheck should of stopped tolerating things long long ago. It’s not as if political leadership has had their best interests in mind when bailing out banks, cutting social welfare programs, passing tax cuts to corporate interests and wealthy donors....

This virus sucks, the pain it will cause physically, emotionally, and financially sucks... that said, it is really shining a spot light on the vulnerabilities, faults, and the inequities of the systems this country and its citizens rely on for survival.

Trying to stop a flu virus from spreading is like trying to control the wind. It's not going to happen. These lockdowns are fine in the short term, but they won't survive all the way through August without potentially even more serious repercussions on the American people.

If you lived in an area where the wind whipped off the mountains and blew rocks and debris into your windows, would you not shudder your windows until you can build a windbreak?

This is no different. Society needs to slow the damage until they can find the solution.

This isn’t the flu...

But the flu for example, may not get stopped, but it gets managed through vaccines.

Anyone who doesn’t think this is bad, needs to pay attention to Trump. The guy would be happy to say “ignore the fake news and the do nothing Democrat’s, they are just trying to destroy my totally successful administration and historic economy to steal an election”... but he’s not saying that now because even he sees he can’t continue to downplay the threat.

he did try that...for about a week

OT, but here is the price of S&P 500 stock (SPY), maybe the best indicator of the overall stock market:

214.11 2016 election day
226.74 inauguration day
339.08 record high (a month ago)
241.55 now

[dice]

So we have our little boys (6 month old) baptism this coming Sunday, arranged over two months ago. This sucks but we're thinking of cancelling, the whole get together at church and afterwards. Were thinking at best just the immediate family go to church after the service do the baptism and head home. Had a lunch planned with the family, 35 ppl invited. Crazy how this has happened.

pretty tough to postpone a baptism, i would imagine