Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread VI (Don't Read Post 1 & FAQ)

[Dirk]

"We estimate that the benefits of each additional cloth mask worn by the public are conservatively in the $3,000-$6,000 range due to their impact in slowing the spread of the virus."

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It's happening.

[madmaxmedia]

Honestly it's becoming more and more serious. Everyone is calling them morons but the fact is those morons are wasting too much precious resource from medical staff and law enforcement that could have been saved for those who really need them. You put your life on the line for what, those people? I think this is the area our government needs to also step up. It's not just about providing them supplies, it's also about making sure our precious resources are spent on the most critical places instead of those hopeless. Certainly more can be done in that department.

Remember what James Ryan said in front of the tombstone of Captain Miller? "Tell me I am a good man. Tell me I earned it."

There's an argument for letting willfully ignorant people gather, but those are the people that are going to be overcrowding hospitals in about 3 weeks. An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure, even if some people don't understand it.

All these situations where police have to break up crowds, I wish the policemen were given protective gear (from infection.)

[LKN]

Btw, Washington recovery rate is very promising. In a day or two it will jump over 10%. If it wasn't for those early outbreak nursing homes where lot of the elderly died, it could have even higher.

Lousiana on the other hand...

There's going to be a very unfortunate divide in the US between richer states with better healthcare and poorer states with worse healthcare.

Some of the southern states in particular are very vulnerable. There are small towns where the closest ICU bed is ~50-100 miles away

[niQ]

What the hell is that sign saying?

"How often did he save everyone on Gilligan's Island?"

I read “how of ten.”

IQ dropping, getting fat as **** here at home.

Granted, that is some horrible handwriting. There's no rhyme or reason when they decide to use capitals or not.

[madmaxmedia]

Healthcare is not a separate issue because large proportions of the country have health insurance coverage thru their employers, they are let go they lose they paycheck and the healthcare coverage.

Having an healthcare system primarily based on getting healthcare plan from your employer only works when people are...working.

I wonder what the typical hospital bill will be for unemployed/uninsured people who require hospitalization due to COVID-19.

[SactoKingsFan]

How much are people in your state following social distance rule? Everyone including restaurant are still open to deliver or pick up with many people still using fast food drive thru lines etc.
Those 100-240k CDC projected dead in next two weeks figures have to be the low estimate in hope that infected or those who know someone infected stay home but many that have had contact with untested sick people are not stopping their lives. I'm seeing and hearing about the majority of Ohio people who have had contact with sick people are still plugging along with their jobs in hopes it's all a bad dream ... And so it will be. I predicted a long time ago astronomical death rates and it got hate and shushed.
I was right and it ain't over not even close.
Roxane put on the red light...

I'm in Northern California. Most people seem to try to maintain social distancing as much as possible. Health officials have suggested wearing some kind of mask when going out in public. There's low # of confirmed cases in Yolo County but Davis City Council has already passed a moratorium on evictions and late utility bills.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[shakes0]

Mar 30, this is still happening.

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Is it legally possible to have laws saying that if you want to go crazy, your name goes into a database that if you ever get infected you are the least prioritized to accept medical treatment.

Doctors and nurses are risking their lives to safe people. So many are forced to stay a home sacrificing their paychecks, jobs, and careers to fight this thing together. If you want to be this thick, this is no different than ruining others lives and indirect murdering.

We want the government paychecks to go to those who need them the most, we also want the thickest nutjobs to get the heftiest punishment.

honestly, those cops should've just lit that crowd of morons up with tear gas and rubber bullets. I feel terrible for those unprotected cops who had to stand right next to those idiots. I wouldn't be surprised if at least one person who ends up dying can directly connect their illness to this crowd.

Honestly it's becoming more and more serious. Everyone is calling them morons but the fact is those morons are wasting too much precious resource from medical staff and law enforcement that could have been saved for those who really need them. You put your life on the line for what, those people? I think this is the area our government needs to also step up. It's not just about providing them supplies, it's also about making sure our precious resources are spent on the most critical places instead of those hopeless. Certainly more can be done in that department.

Remember what James Ryan said in front of the tombstone of Captain Miller? "Tell me I am a good man. Tell me I earned it."

yep, its ridiculous. And in our current climate of cops getting fired/sued/jailed for police brutality they are now too scared to do things that society NEED them to do, like police these idiots who are basically trying to kill us all with their selfishness.

At the very least they should let cops go around beating people who are out with sticks like they are doing in India.

No way LA cops are going to do what needs to be done there, not with cameras on them and their department's checkered past. Too bad because it looks like that passive attitude is going to result in lives lost.

[shakes0]

Honestly it's becoming more and more serious. Everyone is calling them morons but the fact is those morons are wasting too much precious resource from medical staff and law enforcement that could have been saved for those who really need them. You put your life on the line for what, those people? I think this is the area our government needs to also step up. It's not just about providing them supplies, it's also about making sure our precious resources are spent on the most critical places instead of those hopeless. Certainly more can be done in that department.

Remember what James Ryan said in front of the tombstone of Captain Miller? "Tell me I am a good man. Tell me I earned it."

There's an argument for letting willfully ignorant people gather, but those are the people that are going to be overcrowding hospitals in about 3 weeks. An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure, even if some people don't understand it.

All these situations where police have to break up crowds, I wish the policemen were given protective gear (from infection.)

tear gas fired from 50 yards away would work 100x better than any gloves and masks. And honestly, its better than these terrorists deserve.

[mademan]

I'm actually gonna be interested to see how many people take the vaccine when it comes out in a year or 2. If it's a person in an at-risk group, ofc they should take it. But im unsure if i, a healthy, young person should take a vaccine that doesnt have long term rigorous data on it. And im always on the pro-science side. A lot of Americans arent

[Stillwater]

I am so f tired of watching the tv and the computer... I may have to shut off the power soon and go full caveman

[zimpy27]

Read on Twitter

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Legit real.

If you want to look behind the curtain of what is actually saving us from impending doom, it's a bunch the most unassuming people you may ever meet and they aren't doing it for money, they do it because they like solving hard specific problems that the world needs answers for.

Smart people that like making money will make money.
Smart people that like solving problems will solve problems.

The sad thing is that smart people are still being ignored by stupid people all over the world.

They were ignored when they said that close contact with wild animals could create new viruses.
They were ignored when they said that the world wasn't prepared to handle a pandemic.
They were ignored when they said that there was a problem brewing in Wuhan and everyone should start preparing.
They were ignored when they said that the virus was way worse than the flu.
They were ignored when they said that the hospitals were going to be overloaded.
They were ignored when they tried to have people grasp the enormity of the situation, that 70% of the population could get infected without measures to mitigate and that millions would die in that scenario.
They were ignored when they said that the shut down was going to have to last for months.
They were ignored when they said that panic buying toilet paper is a stupid thing to do.

And the ignorance continues.

Smart people are being ignored when they say that resources need to be mobilized in a co-ordinated fashion.
Smart people are being ignored when they say that the world needs to set aside its differences and learn to work together to battle this virus.
They are being ignored when they say that life will not return back to normal, perhaps ever.

We are at a turning point. This event is the most significant thing to happen to the world since the second world war. We will come out the other side either more united and stronger than ever or divided, bitter and more vulnerable to a collapse of our global civilizations.

People en masse are completely reactionary. Proactive decision making is only afforded to the individual.

I think if you are smart then you understand this and when thinking up a solution this has to be taken into account (i.e. if you see an issue then you sound the alarm by spreading info but if nothing happens you need to come up with a better solution).

Climate change is a very similar issue, there is so much attention given to people sounding alarms (Leonardo DiCaprio and Greta Thunberg) and others just parrot it on their SM. They are all just sounding an alarm, their solution isn't working, just getting a lot of attention. The real solution will come from a group of scientists/engineers who have been building tech for years that provides an elegant solution by capturing carbon out of the air and transforming it to fuel or building bricks. And yet the loud people spreading the message will get remembered for being major contributors (even though they were redundant).

[Paija]

Nigeria

Trapped by Coronavirus, Nigeria’s Elite Faces Squalid Hospitals

For decades, powerful Nigerians could ignore the government’s failure to invest adequately in the health-care system by seeking medical treatment abroad. The coronavirus pandemic means they can no longer escape.

Among Nigeria’s registered health professionals are 75,000 doctors, 180,709 nurses and 25,000 pharmacists, according to the health ministry. With 0.5% hospital beds per 1,000 people and a population of roughly 200 million, that’s far below thresholds set by the World Health Organization. Only five laboratories are able to test for the virus.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-02/trapped-by-coronavirus-nigeria-s-elite-faces-squalid-hospitals?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-africa&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=africa

Well, in some respect this is case in Russia too. Russian super rich elites never relied on domestic health-care and usually went to clinics in Germany, Switzerland, Israel, US or other countries. They never bothered too much about the conditions in seriously under-financed Russian hospitals. Now it is becoming a problem, which they tried to partially solve by purchasing e.g. ventilators privately. So the brand new hospital which was recently visited by Putin is hastily trying to hire more personnel, because the Chief Doctor is Covid positive and not only interacted with Putin, but also with a lot of hospital personnel.

[LKN]

Healthcare is not a separate issue because large proportions of the country have health insurance coverage thru their employers, they are let go they lose they paycheck and the healthcare coverage.

Having an healthcare system primarily based on getting healthcare plan from your employer only works when people are...working.

I wonder what the typical hospital bill will be for unemployed/uninsured people who require hospitalization due to COVID-19.

The states that failed to expand medicaid are in big trouble (and honestly they should be doing it right now to get the federal money)

There's going to have to be a giant bail-out package for hospital systems regardless

[SSUBluesman]

Btw, Washington recovery rate is very promising. In a day or two it will jump over 10%. If it wasn't for those early outbreak nursing homes where lot of the elderly died, it could have even higher.

Lousiana on the other hand...

There's going to be a very unfortunate divide in the US between richer states with better healthcare and poorer states with worse healthcare.

Some of the southern states in particular are very vulnerable. There are small towns where the closest ICU bed is ~50-100 miles away

Yep. The NYTimes had a a heat map that showed the areas where distance traveled had reduced up to March 26th as the final recorded date. Almost the entire south/south east had not. They're going to be absolutely decimated.

With Washington state getting hit with Kirkland early on probably spurred on a response quicker than the trickling turning into cascading of cases that is seen elsewhere. Once again this shows that being aggressive with quarantining and distancing has value.

[Dirk]

Final post about masks.

Find. Make. Put it on when you going out in public. Don't fiddle with it. Wash your hands after taking it off. Done.

Read on Twitter

[NoDopeOnSundays]

"We estimate that the benefits of each additional cloth mask worn by the public are conservatively in the $3,000-$6,000 range due to their impact in slowing the spread of the virus."

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

It's happening.

[LKN]

Final post about masks.

Find. Make. Put it on when you going out in public. Don't fiddle with it. Wash your hands after taking it off. Done.

Read on Twitter

There's many people making them on ETSY if you want a reusable one.

Just read reviews carefully (like with anything else)

[madmaxmedia]

This is a pretty sobering article exploring what happens after the shut-downs:

Canceling Everything Was the Easy Part
Shutting entire states down was painful but clearly necessary. Governors still have many ugly choices ahead of them.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/decisions-are-only-going-get-harder/609337/

Quick, decide: If 20 percent of a city’s police department is infected or quarantined because of the coronavirus, how should the remaining officers decide which problems to take on? Already, some police departments are closing buildings to the public. No more walk-ins. Others are focused on providing only essential services, such as investigating violent crimes, and are leaving the investigation of nonviolent or property crimes for another day.
...
Also decide: Which patients should doctors and nurses prioritize for life-saving efforts if hospitals simply become overwhelmed? Who wants to write that policy?

[Dirk]

Metro areas - adjusted for population
NY - Pharmcat
Detroit - Motownmadness
New Orleans - Pelsfan
Atlanta - they passed on Luka

[Triples333]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-covid-weekly-initial-jobless-claims-march-28-165758189.html

This is just the beginning on unemployment filings. In upsets me that congress passed legislation that comes nowhere near close to help everyday Americans with this, as we all healthcare coverage.

Well, Healthcare is a separate issue, but unemployment wise they did in fact go above and beyond with the proposal of the $600 a week on top of one's unemployment benefits (and vastly extending who qualifies for these benefits) for up to 4 months. I was incredibly surprised this much money was flat allocated. It is a major pay raise for a huge chunk of Americans who were laid off. Now we will see how seamlessly it is distributed, as that is a whole other matter (granted, to their credit, this is the reason why a flat amount was proposed).

Healthcare is not a separate issue because large proportions of the country have health insurance coverage thru their employers, they are let go they lose they paycheck and the healthcare coverage.

The employment issue they decided on still leaves tons of people unable to get unemployment benefits due to being self employed, or gig workers, etc. Also the unemployment is based on a state by state basis, and every state has different ways to apply, different payouts, etc. Here in Florida for example the website for unemployment has been outdated and not working right for years and out of spite our politicians refused to fix it. Now thousands are trying to get thru on the website and apply but they cant, it just crashes over and over. Reality is that unemployment numbers are likely far below what they are reporting because people are having trouble just applying for unemployment. Seems like regular people have to jump thru hoops just to do an application, while large corporations have an easy and short application process for help.

Also nothing has been done at all to freeze mortgage, rent, utilities, student loan, car, credit card payments, etc., except for some instances here and there. Bills are still coming and funds from the government seem a ways from arriving.

Also, in the last 2 weeks more people have lost their jobs than the first 6 months of the Great Depression, meanwhile Congress left Washington for 3+ weeks.

I understand that healthcare is important and tethered to many people's jobs, I'm simply saying that it is a whole other bag of issues. And there are indeed provisions for many here. A) They offered small business loans that do NOT have to paid back for many small businesses who keep their employees under contract. B) If the employees are laid off and below the poverty line they can apply for medicare for free. C) If they are laid off but had health insurance and not below poverty line, many can apply for COBRA insurance for 3 years (granted, it will be more expensive for them). But again, it is its own bag of issues.

Concerning unemployment money itself, it is clear you did not read much up on the bill. As I mentioned, it vastly extended those who are available for unemployment benefits. In most instances now, if your job was mitigated or lost due to Covid-19 - regardless if you were self employed, a gig worker, an Uber driver, etc, you are indeed covered (granted I imagine they will be paid last as this will not be as easy for them to process). Which means that on top of whatever state benefits they earn, they will receive the $600 on top. And they made it a flat $600 simply to try to push the money out as easily as possible (and it does in fact create a situation where a SIGNIFICANT portion of America will now be receiving the biggest pay increase of their life). There is also the $1200 check that will be coming for most Americans by the 17th.

MANY states and their utility companies have also put a moratorium on rent/bill payments until they receive their money as well. I know that in my county rent can be back-paid, and the gas/electric company simply will not shut down your power during Covid-19. The government has quite literally never done more for employees who were out of work in the history of the country. To still be saying they did not do enough seems pretty disingenuous and short sighted. I realize that this is not the case everywhere (at least yet), but I would say that by and large most citizens should not be reliant on a government much more than what has already been proposed/passed and enacted.