Throughout many issues in life, many people see things in a snap shot rather than understand the calculus. Let's say someone has a vice-maybe $10 in weed a week, or a $10 case of beer a week, or maybe $10 at a movie theater a week. $10/week doesn't sound like much, and that is where the debate ends for some people. But that is $520 a year, which may be how some budget minded people think. Over $15.6k in 30 years, where some imperfect people may think. And let's just assume they could collect 2% a year and no inflation, that would be about $21.3k where financially incline people may think. Ok, it's not much. But there was a time 20 years ago when you could expect some 5-7% returns from the bank account, so a 5% return could yield $35.4k. And if you could get an 11% return in the stock market...well I could go on an on. At one point in the past what separated the common man from a millionaire wasn't necessarily getting a good job-but working hard and saving hard. A man and a woman could come together, be fiscally responsible, work 2 jobs each even at minimum wage, avoid risk and avoiding unnecessary spending like avoiding health insurance and baby making, and within a few years settle down and have a family in their own home. But thanks to the feminism, the family courts (Joe Biden), and Obamacare, the good old days are gone-unless you are the women free to make as many false allegations as you desire. The corona crash is making the American dream harder to realize.
The rate of the population who has corona in a country at any given time varies greatly depending on how testing is done in that country. Coronavirus is deadly, at barely over 1% fatality rate in South Korea. If you catch it there then it is near about 10x more deadly than the flu. To up to near 10% fatality in Italy which lacks adequate medical care. The estimate is 20% of a population will need hospital beds.
The end of the recommended federal social avoidance guidelines are about coming to a close. Trump is considering opening up our country again for business before a total economic collapse. Doctors are alarmed.
What should a reasonable person think. A reasonable person can draw many conclusions. Including the conclusion that if I don't take certain risks, then I will lose everything and have nothing left to live for anyways. The curative steps could carry with it a higher mortality than the disease itself, and so Trump is rightfully concerned. But don't get me wrong, I don't want to go out in this stuff-nor my family either. But even that level of concern may be a bit on the paranoid side. I am willing to accept a different theory, but not in personal practice.
As much as the media wants to say this is a pandemic and highly contagious. I kept wondering why I haven't hear retail workers getting heavily hit. Reportedly retailers don't give a damn about the safety of their employees from the pandemic, but of all the millions of people shopping at these stores-reportedly only two confirmed cases.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/22/target-walmart-coronavirus-workers-not-protected
That is just a snapshot and I am sure it will grow exponentially too. But outside of the healthcare industry, these guys are next on the front lines.
The latest snapshot is about 50k Americans infected, and 600 people killed by the disease. Both numbers may change drastically as I am writing. Our economy doesn't shut down over the numbers when it applies to the flu (tens of millions infected, 12k-61k die annually), or car accidents (about 37k/year). And this is rightfully, in a way, causing reasonable people to ask what is going on with our response to the so called pandemic.
But Corona is still growing exponentially in this country, the snap shot views may be myopic. On March 20th there were 25.5k cases in the us, and on March 22nd there were 43.8k cases. I am not sure How John Hopkins is measuring a day since they are missing the 23rd. But in that two day period there was a gain of 71.76%, or about 31.06% a day. A rate of double about every 2.56 days. So one could expect Whatever numbers John Hopkins reports for the 27-28th, it will likely be about 200k. I still think that is manageable-well maybe not in New York. But when we get to about April 3rd-5, just the number of cases requiring hospitalization [20%] could start matching the number of ventalators in the country. How many cases that result in hospitalization needs ventilation, I don't know. But anything after the 3rd is really about the time when the crap could really start hitting the fan; still the number of deaths may still be about a mild flu season. Due to an expected decay in the rate of new cases, it may be a few weeks after that point. But I cannot predict a decay in the infection rates yet. Easily some could point out we are on day 4 since the 20th and just now see the doubling (about 50k from 25.5k)-This could suggest some decay in the overall rate of infections, or it could be in how John Hopkins report their numbers [say end of day, so we are still on day 3], or both.
Let's suppose each hospitalization results in a ventilator being used (I don't know the true rate, but from Italy we could assume it could be about 50% or more if they have a death rate of about 10%). In the time we have about a million infected the death toll could be at least 12000. But for the next million cases, which would be a few days later, the death toll for just that million could exceed 120k people. And in a few more days when the cases jumps another 2 million, we could see another 240k deaths. And so on and so fourth.
The doctors are alarmed that hundreds of Americans could get this, and thus tens of millions could die if we don't shut down. I am sure they probably have S,I,R values now for their markov chains or other equations by now and can do better modeling than I can at this point. But it is just a model. Despite all their chicken littling, it is about controlled in China, Singapore, and South Korea. So their model could be wrong....And then there is Italy whose number of cases will soon exceed china that supports the idea that the sky is falling.
Meanwhile others are saying everyone will get it-so if everyone will get it-why all these precautions? Can they slow it down long enough to develop a vaccine, do they want everyone to get vaccinated against it when it becomes available, do they want some other mechanism of controlled exposure, do they want to stretch it out for as long as possible so that equipment is readily available?
By april 5th, we might get a clearer picture from Italy of what to expect. Reportedly the number of new cases there is declining so it may be on its way to peaking, and, if Italy is a worst case scenerio then that could provide guidance on how bad the USA will have it. Italy has about 60 million People, the USA has about 5-6 times that. Just because Italy's numbers are slowing down doesn't mean it will peak at about 70k cases. Maybe New York city will prove to be a better model of a worst case scenerio in terms of overall infections; about 1/8th of the Population of italy, but about 1/5th of the cases-in terms of infetions per person, New York City is worse than Italy itself.
What do New York and Italy have in Common? Oh, just politicians with a mix of telling citizens to hug a Chinese [sic] to combat racism during the Corona scare, and attend new years, and not pay attention to Corona Myths. We live in a clown world, and SJWs are killing people by the thousands by sheer stupidity.
https://twitter.com/NYCHealthCommr/status/1226508570646269954
- NYCHealthCommr
Why pushing Economic development and culture over the safety of one's population. What Could go, Wrong? Mr. Trump? Well At least Trump is allowing the decisions to be made at the local level....You know a certain state who is supposed to be their own sovereigns who was begging for instructions on what to do next and now have 20k+ cases, and local politicians who would encourage people to hug Ebola patients to show love, support, and to combat racism. Strange how the Democrats want to be central planners and they can't even manages their own cities or states.
The true model that the disease will ultimately follow in the USA will likely be observed in two weeks. Somehow, I think federal policy decisions will be made too early. It will certainly be something for the history books. Could be: World enters an economic depression due to poor leadership from a disease that fizzled out, or; massive casualties due to poor central planning [aka leadership]. Trump is Between Scylla and Charybdis, and so are we.
Let people be their own leaders, and let evolution decide instead of damning everyone. Arguably those who are working retail right now have immediate needs because they are not able to quit and stay safe by social isolating-and they don't have a professional duty to help nor the personal protective equipment. Again, only 2 cases reported in retail. Doesn't make sense.
The path to socialism sounds so easy. Supposedly I could get $1-2k for doing nothing, and talks of up to $30k in student loans forgiven (I don't know if he corona stimulus bill has passed yet or know what all is in it). As infowars suggests, it feels like social is being forced upon us-so much being offered to a nation of people indebted to student loans that opening Pandora's box of socialism is had to say no too-the very thing Trump said he wouldn't allow in this country. It's like the whole house and senate turned Bernie Sanders and AOC overnight. All this social isolation isn't just making people a prisoner in their own homes, but like an actual jail or prison it is going to cost people to lose their homes, their apartments, their cars, their jobs. Only unlike a prisoner, they will be given a pittance of freshly minted money that they will have to depend upon and vote upon. Still it will take maybe 2 more weeks to see what the end game is. Conspiracy theories [as well as paranoia] are perhaps enough to keep an open mind to, but not enough to make policy decisions on.