Opening Up...

Daryl wrote:A few points on this.
As Anna says, a slow opening will allow the health systems to properly treat all of those who become ill. Meaning that possibly only 1% die, not 10%. Having 10% die is not an economic positive.

With viruses such as this, they then tend to attenuate over time. A high mortality rate isn't a good thing for the virus either. Better that you stumble around coughing on everyone and spreading it. So less deadly strains become more common.

Herd immunity isn't a binary situation. The more people who recover from the various strains, the less spread in the future.

I do support fly in his honesty, and agree that it can become a numbers game. How many die from covid, versus suicide, versus lack of other support like elective surgery, or poverty for that matter? I'll upset a couple here by pointing out that the civilised and developed countries will have less trouble with the poverty bit, due to their welfare and health nets.

Being in an at risk situation I'm less sanguine than fly about how people like me will likely die anyway from some other cause.
I'm 71. A nasty case of leukeamia that morphed into Evans Syndrome, has gone into (at present) indefinite remission. It left me with very little natural of an immune system, a heart that is healthy except that it has burnt out nerves (heart block) so I need a four way pacemaker, and overweight due to the steroids that enabled me to survive all that. So, I fit into a number of at risk categories. However apart from that I hope to live for decades yet, and continue to contribute to society. It does mean that I do have to stay secluded at the present. Normally I winter in Europe, but not now and for some time.

The E wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:If we don't get the economy restarted, a huge number of people are going to be living in poverty. Poverty is lethal. Nothing reduces human life expectancy as much as being poor. Poverty can be survivable in a society that is wealthy enough to support the poor. Poverty is extremely lethal in a society that can not afford to support the poor. Making the reasonable presumption that the death rate from a resurgence in the Coronavirus pandemic will mill 2.5% to 5% of Americans, that is some 7 million to 15 million people. Most of the dead will be elderly people or unhealthy people who are at high risk of dying from something else anyway.

It's telling that your only response to "our system is bad for people who are unable to work" is "we need to let people work again, even if that means spreading diseases and overloading the health care system".

How does sacrificing people for the sake of a few rich people's bottom line feel?

Joat42 wrote:

cthia wrote:It's the stupidest thing we can do right now. The decisions, based on money, will be nothing short of murder!

So when is it a good time to relax the restrictions?

Remember, as long as there is no effective treatment or vaccine you are only delaying the inevitable while trashing the economy for years to come - and trust me on this, a prolonged recession will in the end lead to more people dying. It's trivial to prove it mathematically using available statistics, health and life-expectancy are strongly correlated to a persons income.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:
Excellent point.

The possible "economic" effects go far, far beyond a recession or even a depression. Continued lockdowns will transform much of the world into Venezuela. Food processing plants are being shut down. There will be no wealth or even food for the socialists to redistribute.

doug941 wrote:

Annachie wrote:
One slight problem with your assertion. As of April 21st the death rate in the US is 5.53% of known infections, NOT 10%.

While opening the floodgates makes me nervous, NOT opening them terrifies me. Until a proven vaccines makes it onto the market, the only way to defeat COVID is to reach herd immunity and that CAN NOT gained by metaphorically hiding under your bed. Let those who want/need to be outside runs the risks and let those who want to shelter shelter.
The second reason the relax is in 6 weeks the unemployment levels have gone from 3.5% in February to nearly 18% now.
Headline in Fortune magazine April 16th:

"22 million have lost their jobs over the past month—real unemployment rate likely nearing 18%"

Being locked into our homes for another month or three WILL see unrecoverable job loses which by themselves will see other non-COVID health problems.

With proper medical attention the mortality rate for covid-19 is about 1%. It blows out to about 10% if there's no treatments.

More people infected at once the closer that mortality gets to 10%. At the moment lockdown is the best preventitive we have.

The ecconomy will recover eventually, but nothing will bring the dead back. After all, as the right tell us all the time, all lives matter.

n7axw wrote:Actually, it is not only a few rich peoples bottom line. Everybody has a stake in this. If ordinary people can't work, they can't support themselves.

If the stock market crashes, people like me whose pensions are in the stock market suffer. There are millions of us. I saw a figure one time about the percentage of people in USA who either participated directly in the stock market or who had 401 k accounts which are pensions. I don't remember it, but it is huge.

The E wrote:You know what would help there? Some form of universal basic income.

The E wrote: SMIP

(Content Warning: Angry New Yorker)
Here's Vic Dibitetto being very on-point.

SNIP.

The E wrote:

n7axw wrote:Actually, it is not only a few rich peoples bottom line. Everybody has a stake in this. If ordinary people can't work, they can't support themselves.

And why is that?

Why is there no social security fund that can help people out? Why aren't mortgage payments halted?

(Content Warning: Angry New Yorker)
Here's Vic Dibitetto being very on-point.

Why, in a nutshell, is the US government prioritizing help for corporations over help for citizens? Why aren't they using restrictions on their help programs similar to what the danish government is doing (TL;DR: the danish government only helps companies that do not pay out dividends, are not registered in tax havens and have not performed stock buybacks)?

If the stock market crashes, people like me whose pensions are in the stock market suffer. There are millions of us. I saw a figure one time about the percentage of people in USA who either participated directly in the stock market or who had 401 k accounts which are pensions. I don't remember it, but it is huge.

You know what would help there? Some form of universal basic income.

n7axw wrote:E, there is something fundamental here that you seem to be missing. This seems to be a "socialist" blind spot. A social security check (which I have), a form of universal income, etc. does no good if the economy is not producing the goods and services we need. In that event, all you are doing is shoveling money that is worthless for anything but papering walls or wiping our arsses.

For us all to prosper, there has to be a pie to divide. I agree that things are far from being equitable here. It's far from an ideal world. But the point is that unless people can get back to work in a reasonably short period of time, the pie will shrink to the point where talk about how we divide it will seem pretty silly.

Don

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