Sweden is taking an approach that that takes into consideration who is at risk. I agree with them.
UK did the same, until today. Next 2 weeks will make things a lot clearer.
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I think Coog51 is correct.
When you start a war many unexpected things will happen.
So, a war has been declared against the virus.
One has also been declared against World economies.
They speak of V or U shape recovery. I think it will be longer than they would like.
Many companies will fail. Everyone on this forum can probably name some large companies that are in danger already. Millions will be unemployed. Poverty also kills.
When you start a war, expect the unexpected.
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The vast majority of small businesses have at most 30 days of operating capital with no revenue. What will they do? The SBA making low interest rate loans available is nice and needed but how much do you borrow? How quickly will the SBA get you the cash? What is the new normal when things reopen? How many of your employees do you hire back? There are 30.2 million small businesses in the U.S. that makes up 99.9% of all businesses. We have just put all of them at grave risk.
I strongly suspect that small businesses are only going to rehire a fraction of their employees when they reopen. They need to know what the normal is when they reopen. That will cause a cascading effect and a negative business loop. We very well may plunged ourselves into a depression. I hope I am wrong.
Shuttering an economy is the biggest step into the unknown. No one knows what happens next. I know I am getting a lot of heat for my stance, but we should have kept the economy going and anyone over the age of (pick an age) shelters in place and tries to work from home and anyone over the age of 70 is quarantined. The vast majority of serious and critical cases are impacting the elderly. Yes we can come up with some cases of young people having a serious case. But the data is clear that this a virus serious to older people or people with preexisting conditions.
No one knows how we reopen. No one.
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Folks, the pneumonia from SARS-CoV-2 that doesn’t kill someone still does a helluva lot of damage.
I’ve had double pneumonia. It resulted in all sorts of problems and eventually required surgery.
For those who are only focused on the age distribution of death rates, broaden your view to encompass the damage to the survivors. Think of a hurricane, and how it wreaks havoc far greater than the lives it takes.
And that’s not downplay the impact of potentially 1M+ American deaths (across nearly all ages even if weighted towards seniors) if we don’t fight the enemy!
This is why statements like “a virus that is dangerous to the elderly” completely miss the mark.
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40% of those infected that require hospitalization are between the ages of 20-50
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I posted something similar earlier in this thread and it wasn’t responded to.
The scariest part of that is how many people would end up dying (or get permanent lung damage) because we can’t treat them all.
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https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894
This is a great read.
Shows great data on the virus. Of all the deaths caused by Covid-19 in Italy 0.8% of the people that died had no preexisting condition. So flip that…99% of the deaths in Italy were immune compromised. The hysteria behind this is EXTREME!
Praying that our leaders are making the correct decisions in all of this. It seems a bit insane to me to tank our economy over this but who am I…just my opinion.
Go Coogs!
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It is unknown what the economic impact of a shutdown, how long these shutdowns will last, and how much governments can really do to mitigate the downturn. But we are increasingly understanding what will happen if we do not enforce social distancing to at least slow the spread of the disease down.
Wuhan was able to get the spread of the disease under control, but only after they straight up quarantines because it had gotten so bad out there. Italy represents a worst case scenario of what happens when you wait too long and reactively enforce social distancing. South Korea is the example of what happens when you are proactive.
The thing is that its looking like the Italy model is being validated in NYC, Iran, and potentially Spain and France. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the temporary shut down of much of society is simply what it takes to control the disease.
I’ve worked in finance for 10+ years…got my bachelors of finance and my mba from UH. The economic fallout from this scares the crap out of me…but the data around the disease itself has scared me for months too. At the end of the day, the potential loss of life outweighs the economic impacts. We are quantitatively dooming a lot of people to die if we do nothing.
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So let’s boil it down:
Those at higher risk, those who love them and those who treasure life: “Social distancing! Flatten the curve! The economy will bounce back after this passes.”
Those at low risk, those whose jobs may be lost, those who treasure money: “Forget the first group - survival of the fittest! Save the economy!”
It sucks for everybody, but divided we fall.
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Whether this was China’s goal all along is arguable. Whether this benefits China is not.
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There are a lot of people who preexisting health risks though. If you end up critically I’ll, it basically depends on how capable your body is to fight pneumonia, as that will distress your entire body…including your cardiovascular system. Things like obesity and diabetes put you at a higher risk…guess what we have epidemics of in the US? In the US we are already seeing a greater proportion of deaths of people under 50 than what has been seen elsewhere in the world
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It’s more than just deaths. It’s also about limiting hospitalization and serious illness. With hospitals swamped by Covid19 patients, other critical patients (stroke, cardiac, cancer) patients can’t get the care they need. It’s also about preventing long term health problems for those who show up at hospitals. Infected population double every 2-3 days. In Texas all you need is 10,000 critically sock people all showing up at hospitals in a short span of time and you’ve swamped the healthcare system.
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Daily new deaths and daily new confirmed cases running about 17% growth per day, doubling every 4-5 days. I would assume new infections are doubling at the same rate.
New confirmed cases are not new infections, as confirmed cases usually require symptoms, waiting for a test, and then waiting on a test result. By the time the test result confirms, the patient was probably infected 10 days prior.
So new confirmed cases are running at a 10+ day lag from infection, while new deaths are running at a 23-24 day lag (as that is the average time from infection to death).
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Here’s a screen shot from a Fox News segment.
- Shows great data on the virus. Of all the deaths caused by Covid-19 in Italy 0.8% of the people that died had no preexisting condition. So flip that…99% of the deaths in Italy were immune compromised. The hysteria behind this is EXTREME!*
This also says then that it is at least 8 times more deadly than common flu for healthy people. I can’t see that as a positive thing. Do nothing and our health care system will be overrun and unavailable for general population.
Damage the economy but get govt assistance to
personal service workers to lessen their load.
Seems like they social distancing to let virus burn itself out is the correct course of action. Best to follow China’s approach to dealing with this if it’s not too late.
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US cases were suppressed due to lack of tests, and are simply catching up.
Worldwide outside of China, new cases are increasing 16-17% per day. Worldwide, new deaths are increasing 16-17% per day.
There is one area I have not seen addressed:
We do proper social distancing across the country, bit the bullet for money, fewer people get sick, the hospitals are not over run, and finally the curve doesn’t just flatten but goes down to near 0.
Then we all go back out into public and resume our lives. What is to stop this from kicking back up in the fall and spreading again?
Few people will have caught it to build any immunities so the natural defenses will be the same as they are now. The hospitals are not going to be adding thousands of beds just as a precaution. Do we just rinse and repeat the social distancing policy every spring and fall until we have enough people that have built up defenses and a cure is developed? I don’t think we have a cure for those that get the flu yet.
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I don’t think anyone is assuming this will be wrapped up by the fall. I think most are assuming things will continue until we get a vaccine or effective treatment.
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