There should be a national dialogue in getting back to work

[B-Man]

Contra Andrew Cuomo, While A Grim Choice, We May Have To Restart The Economy

by Jazz Shaw

 

FTA:

 

The coronavirus may have resulted from bad decisions by people who didn’t understand the consequences of all of that food mixing in the wet markets, but once the genie was out of the bottle, the coronavirus became, for purposes of this discussion an accidental Act of God. We’re fighting it as hard as we can and I partially agree with Governor Cuomo that we have to do this intelligently. It’s not an all or nothing, binary decision. But half measures (or far less) in terms of avoiding another great depression aren’t going to do.

 

I’m not talking about economic Darwinism here or saying we should just start digging mass graves for all the senior citizens. (Including yours truly.) We can turn the economy on again and do it in a smart way that saves us from a decade of economic despair while minimizing the health risks, can’t we? I will again agree with Cuomo that it would be reckless and irresponsible to send everyone back to work at once. But his plan to send only those who have survived the disease and developed immunity back on the job is far too timid. It will take too long to get the test kits distributed and identify them all, and even then, we’re probably only talking about a few tens of thousands of people at most, at least for now.

 

Surely there is a way to keep the oldest and those with other, underlying health issues (making them more vulnerable to death) isolated at home and eligible for government support. At the same time, the young and the healthy could return to work, but with better practicing of social distancing and cleanliness at the workplace. As more people get the disease and survive it, the herd immunity grows and we slow the rate of additional infections until we have either a vaccine or a working antiviral medication. If we got a significant body of people back to being productive, the total burden would be decreased and shared.

 

And something has to give soon. Congress is on the verge of essentially taking two trillion dollars (roughly 10% of our GDP) and setting it on fire. How many times can we do that before we hit the point of no return?

 

If you wouldn’t shut down all of the highways to prevent a single person from dying in a car crash, if you wouldn’t ban the sale of cleaning products to prevent accidental poisonings, if you wouldn’t destroy all the bridges to prevent anyone from leaping off of them, why would you send the nation (and the world) into a great depression to prevent some possible deaths from a disease that was totally beyond our control to prevent and will take time to bring to heel?

 

I say this as a person in their sixties who has had respiratory issues. If I catch the coronavirus, there’s a more than fair probability I will die. Of course, I might get hit by a truck tomorrow. I’m going to die eventually. I’m not saying that the possibility I’m suggesting is pleasant.

 

I’m not saying we should be complacent about any preventable deaths. But the alternative is pretty grim also. Are you sure that driving the number of COVID-19 deaths down to the absolute, conceivable minimum is worth the price we’ll wind up paying?

 

 

 

 

 

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[SoCal Deek]

I love the way has adopted the phrase "through no fault of their own" when referring to businesses closing and so many people out of work. No it wasn't their fault....however it was the fault of those in government that told everyone they had to close.

[B-Man]

 

 

DO:  

 

As Discussion On Reopening Economy Begins, Get Ready Regardless. 

 

 

 

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[Magox]

13 hours ago, B-Man said:

Contra Andrew Cuomo, While A Grim Choice, We May Have To Restart The Economy

by Jazz Shaw

 

FTA:

 

The coronavirus may have resulted from bad decisions by people who didn’t understand the consequences of all of that food mixing in the wet markets, but once the genie was out of the bottle, the coronavirus became, for purposes of this discussion an accidental Act of God. We’re fighting it as hard as we can and I partially agree with Governor Cuomo that we have to do this intelligently. It’s not an all or nothing, binary decision. But half measures (or far less) in terms of avoiding another great depression aren’t going to do.

 

I’m not talking about economic Darwinism here or saying we should just start digging mass graves for all the senior citizens. (Including yours truly.) We can turn the economy on again and do it in a smart way that saves us from a decade of economic despair while minimizing the health risks, can’t we? I will again agree with Cuomo that it would be reckless and irresponsible to send everyone back to work at once. But his plan to send only those who have survived the disease and developed immunity back on the job is far too timid. It will take too long to get the test kits distributed and identify them all, and even then, we’re probably only talking about a few tens of thousands of people at most, at least for now.

 

Surely there is a way to keep the oldest and those with other, underlying health issues (making them more vulnerable to death) isolated at home and eligible for government support. At the same time, the young and the healthy could return to work, but with better practicing of social distancing and cleanliness at the workplace. As more people get the disease and survive it, the herd immunity grows and we slow the rate of additional infections until we have either a vaccine or a working antiviral medication. If we got a significant body of people back to being productive, the total burden would be decreased and shared.

 

And something has to give soon. Congress is on the verge of essentially taking two trillion dollars (roughly 10% of our GDP) and setting it on fire. How many times can we do that before we hit the point of no return?

 

If you wouldn’t shut down all of the highways to prevent a single person from dying in a car crash, if you wouldn’t ban the sale of cleaning products to prevent accidental poisonings, if you wouldn’t destroy all the bridges to prevent anyone from leaping off of them, why would you send the nation (and the world) into a great depression to prevent some possible deaths from a disease that was totally beyond our control to prevent and will take time to bring to heel?

 

I say this as a person in their sixties who has had respiratory issues. If I catch the coronavirus, there’s a more than fair probability I will die. Of course, I might get hit by a truck tomorrow. I’m going to die eventually. I’m not saying that the possibility I’m suggesting is pleasant.

 

I’m not saying we should be complacent about any preventable deaths. But the alternative is pretty grim also. Are you sure that driving the number of COVID-19 deaths down to the absolute, conceivable minimum is worth the price we’ll wind up paying?

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

Substantively speaking, as I said earlier there is very little room between Trump's and Cuomo's outlook.  They both got serious about social distancing pretty much on identical timelines and they both began speaking about phasing in the workplace at the same timeline. 

[3rdnlng]

1 hour ago, Magox said:

 

 

Substantively speaking, as I said earlier there is very little room between Trump's and Cuomo's outlook.  They both got serious about social distancing pretty much on identical timelines and they both began speaking about phasing in the workplace at the same timeline. 

Initially it appeared that Trump and Cuomo were on the same page but if you have listened to any of Cuomo's briefings in the last few days there is a very subtle effort to distance himself from Trump. Not really anything that would show a fracture today but Cuomo is leaving room to blame Trump for anything that goes wrong down the line. Cuomo has quit praising Trump but if he praises anything it's the federal government instead. Something to watch.

[Magox]

6 minutes ago, 3rdnlng said:

Initially it appeared that Trump and Cuomo were on the same page but if you have listened to any of Cuomo's briefings in the last few days there is a very subtle effort to distance himself from Trump. Not really anything that would show a fracture today but Cuomo is leaving room to blame Trump for anything that goes wrong down the line. Cuomo has quit praising Trump but if he praises anything it's the federal government instead. Something to watch.

Without doubt, Cuomo is already looking at his political national profile.  And I wouldn't be surprised that there are discussions with him and his closest of closest of advisers who wouldn't ever betray him of the possibilities of becoming the Democratic nominee.

 

He's not going to play Mr. Nice guy with Trump in the not so distant future.  He will ruthlessly savage him with sky high poll ratings and him and Trump will go after each other.  And with Biden becoming the melting ice cube that he is, with all these terrible performances, I am sure that there are discussions between Democratic activists how they can replace Biden with Cuomo.

 

What I was talking about was on the substance of their decisions.  Cuomo wants to get the NY economy going again as soon as he can realistically do so.

 

 

[3rdnlng]

33 minutes ago, Magox said:

Without doubt, Cuomo is already looking at his political national profile.  And I wouldn't be surprised that there are discussions with him and his closest of closest of advisers who wouldn't ever betray him of the possibilities of becoming the Democratic nominee.

 

He's not going to play Mr. Nice guy with Trump in the not so distant future.  He will ruthlessly savage him with sky high poll ratings and him and Trump will go after each other.  And with Biden becoming the melting ice cube that he is, with all these terrible performances, I am sure that there are discussions between Democratic activists how they can replace Biden with Cuomo.

 

What I was talking about was on the substance of their decisions.  Cuomo wants to get the NY economy going again as soon as he can realistically do so.

 

 

Yes, he does but he wants that decision recommendation to come from the White House so that he has cover. He wants the upside of the economy getting back going again without the downside of things going wrong. 

[mannc]

On 3/25/2020 at 8:18 PM, SoCal Deek said:

I love the way has adopted the phrase "through no fault of their own" when referring to businesses closing and so many people out of work. No it wasn't their fault....however it was the fault of those in government that told everyone they had to close.

As I write this, the entire state of Oregon has been shut down with the governor's "shelter in place" order, issued on Monday.  Among other things, doctors and dentists statewide have been ordered to perform no non-emergency procedures. 

 

The public health emergency that made all this necessary:  Through today, a grand total of 90 people in the state have been hospitalized for the coronavirus--it's not even clear how many of them were already in hospital when they were infected--and 11 deaths, all of people over 63-years old, with pre-existing medical conditions.  

[3rdnlng]

10 minutes ago, mannc said:

As I write this, the entire state of Oregon has been shut down with the governor's "shelter in place" order, issued on Monday.  Among other things, doctors and dentists statewide have been ordered to perform no non-emergency procedures. 

 

The public health emergency that made all this necessary:  Through today, a grand total of 90 people in the state have been hospitalized for the coronavirus--it's not even clear how many of them were already in hospital when they were infected--and 11 deaths, all of people over 63-years old, with pre-existing medical conditions.  

I'm in a WNY county known for its recreation with many people from downstate (who have summer homes here) and easy drive distance from Cleveland, Pittsburgh and of course Buffalo. Our lake is well known and houses the famed Chautauqua Institution where people come to "Summer".  As of 2 days ago we had no confirmed cases in the county but there has been a large amount of people who have suddenly decided to start their "Summering" 3 months earlier than normal. My hopes for a quick release of the stay at home rules here are now dashed. 

[mannc]

7 minutes ago, 3rdnlng said:

I'm in a WNY county known for its recreation with many people from downstate (who have summer homes here) and easy drive distance from Cleveland, Pittsburgh and of course Buffalo. Our lake is well known and houses the famed Chautauqua Institution where people come to "Summer".  As of 2 days ago we had no confirmed cases in the county but there has been a large amount of people who have suddenly decided to start their "Summering" 3 months earlier than normal. My hopes for a quick release of the stay at home rules here are now dashed. 

This thing is going to behave differently in different parts of the country, which is why criticism of Trump for not enacting a one-size fits all, federally mandated national shutdown is so off base. 

Edited March 27, 2020 by mannc

[Doc Brown]

19 hours ago, Magox said:

Substantively speaking, as I said earlier there is very little room between Trump's and Cuomo's outlook.  They both got serious about social distancing pretty much on identical timelines and they both began speaking about phasing in the workplace at the same timeline. 

Trump has a muddled way of talking though and the media takes advantage of that.  To me they're both realistic people who understand that we may have to make tough choices in balancing possible loss of life with the state of the economy.  That's why we need more data on this thing as quickly as possible.

[ALF]

The  main focus should be to not overwhelm the healthcare system. Running out of PPE in NYC puts their lives in grave danger. 

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, Doc Brown said:

Trump has a muddled way of talking though and the media takes advantage of that.  To me they're both realistic people who understand that we may have to make tough choices in balancing possible loss of life with the state of the economy.  That's why we need more data on this thing as quickly as possible.

Doc, we make those choices every day we get in our cars, or on an airplane, or turn on the heater in our homes...or shake hands. Over the years we’ve  made all sorts of adjustments to make life safer amidst the risks that come with a modern society. You don’t even think about the vast majority of those risks when you walk out the door each morning. This pandemic will likely require some risk taking and some societal changes.

[3rdnlng]

2 hours ago, ALF said:

The  main focus should be to not overwhelm the healthcare system. Running out of PPE in NYC puts their lives in grave danger. 

Who takes on the main responsibility for having an adequate supply of such items?

[ALF]

10 minutes ago, 3rdnlng said:

Who takes on the main responsibility for having an adequate supply of such items?

 

Each State  ,  but FEMA  needs to be the biggest supply.  Like Bill Gates said this country spends trillions to prepare for war but a pandemic can cost even more lives and damage to the economy.

[3rdnlng]

2 minutes ago, ALF said:

 

Each State  ,  but FEMA  needs to be the biggest supply.  Like Bill Gates said this country spends trillions to prepare for war but a pandemic can cost even more lives and damage to the economy.

Each state, yes. FEMA should have backup capabilities but NYC for example is already supposedly running out. Barely over a week ago Mayor Bill was encouraging NYC residents to get out and do the things they always have done. That's some recipe: Don't stock essential life saving supplies and encourage people to spread the virus. 

[Tiberius]

 

Quote

 

Traditionally conservative sites like The Federalist have started running articles suggesting the economic downfall of social distancing could ruin people’s lives to the point that “[p]robably almost everyone would be willing to live a somewhat shorter normal life rather than a somewhat longer life under current conditions.” The site even advocated solutions such as hosting “chickenpox parties” to expose children to the novel coronavirus to build herd immunity — an article Twitter swiftly suspended for promoting scientific misinformation.

It’s not an argument being made solely by stringent nationalist conservatives.

R.R. Robin, editor at the religious journal First Things, suggested that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s declaration that he would do anything to save lives was “demonic” in nature.

“Satan prefers sentimental humanists,” he wrote, and called the mass shutdown of New York City a sign that political and religious leaders had “signal[ed] by their actions that they, too, accept death’s dominion.”

Variations of that sentiment have found adherents in more popular conservative pundits and even a few prominent politicians. Radio host Glenn Beck, the onetime Fox News star, declared this week that he “would rather die” than kill the economy.

“I would rather have my children stay home and all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working, even if we all get sick,” he said during his Tuesday radio panel. “I would rather die than kill the country, because it's not the economy that's dying, it's the country.”

And Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, himself a former radio talk show host, went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to argue that older Americans would willingly sacrifice themselves to keep the economy afloat and prevent the country from sliding into a depression.

“Let’s get back to living, let's be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we'll take care of ourselves,” Patrick said.

Fox News anchor Brit Hume later called the theory “an entirely reasonable viewpoint.”

Matt Lewis, a conservative opinion columnist at the Daily Beast, was unsurprised that his peers had made this suggestion, though he cautioned the view was not shared by the vast majority of right-leaning Americans, commentators and politicians.

 

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/older-americans-work-coronavirus-151240

[mannc]

1 hour ago, SoCal Deek said:

This pandemic will likely require some risk taking and some societal changes.

More than many recognize.  There isn’t going to be a neat end to this, when everyone can just resume normal life, risk-free.

 

It is possible that, even after this pandemic ends—and we will eventually have a vaccine for it—coronavirus may now be a permanent part of the human health landscape, waxing and waning on a seasonal basis around the world.  Like the flu vaccine, the CV vaccine will help but probably not eliminate sickness from the virus.  Hundreds of thousands still die every year from the flu, despite our vaccines against it.  The extent to which we might just have to grin and bear it with regard to CV19 remains to be seen.  

Edited March 27, 2020 by mannc

[B-Man]

 

 

Narrative shifting: Gov. Andrew Cuomo is starting to sound a lot like Donald Trump on opening up the economy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[3rdnlng]

13 minutes ago, mannc said:

More than many recognize.  There isn’t going to be a neat end to this, when everyone can just resume normal life, risk-free.

 

It is possible that, even after this pandemic ends—and we will eventually have a vaccine for it—coronavirus may now be a permanent part of the human health landscape, waxing and waning on a seasonal basis around the world.  Like the flu vaccine, the CV vaccine will help but probably not eliminate sickness from the virus.  Hundreds of thousands still die every year from the flu, despite our vaccines against it.  The extent to which we might just have to grin and bear it with regard to CV19 remains to be seen.  

What percentage of the population of the U.S. get a flu vaccine? What percentage of the world's population get one?