COVID-19 Stuff Here

[boyo]

"Stephanie Kelton is an American economist and academic. She is currently a professor at Stony Brook University and was formerly a professor University of Missouri–Kansas City."
Take it up with her, and see how you go.

All mouth and no trousers.

Perhaps your username should be "No guts".

 

[boyo]

The vaccine is no given, it may happen, it may not. If the virus mutates, like the flu, it will only protect against the pre-mutation strains. As to herd immunity, at this point there is no evidence it can actually be achieved and if it can, how long it will last. Personally I think the most likely outcome will be effective treatment, which I think is a far higher probability then the other two.
As to the suggestion that we are going to have the same outcomes as the US etc as things get back to normal, I guess that's possible but at this point I would regard it as mere alarmist speculation, just like the eminent epidemiologists who were saying we would have 500,000 death two months ago.
I don't intend to get into the arguments about wages, again it belongs in a politics discussion where you guys can battle it out with Boyo.

You try to couch your points as being apolitical, but as all decisions about management of the C.V. pandemic are being made by politicians , it is political (no matter what you, and your ilk, say).

 

[Froggy]

So what is my 'ilk' Boyo?
All I am trying to do is have a discussion about COVID-19, as per the topic of this thread, without getting into some left versus right political argument.

 

[Lindommer]

Our Septic friends have powered through 95,000 deaths, in fact they're now over 96k. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Not a word of empathy from the orange one.

While browsing through these awful numbers it's illuminating to note the deaths per 1million of population, as at this morning:

Belgium 804.2
Spain 598.0
UK 542.1
Italy 537.6
France 421.2
Sweden 380.1
Netherlands 335.2
Ireland 326.2
USA 294.0
Denmark 96.8
Finland 55.5
Norway 44.2
NZ 4.3
Australia 4.0
India 2.6

Why is the figure so high in Belgium? The Scandinavian figures seem to indicate Sweden's approach to non-lockdown badly backfired.

 

[Derpus]

I dont think the death figures can be used to suggest an approach to non-lockdown backfired. I think that decision is a tacit acknowledgement that a bunch of people are going to die and that the government is A-ok with that.

 

[Teh Other Dave]

I dont think the death figures can be used to suggest an approach to non-lockdown backfired. I think that decision is a tacit acknowledgement that a bunch of people are going to die and that the government is A-ok with that.

The argument from Belgium is that it's all in the reporting. They include non-hospital mortality in patients with COVID-like symptoms

 

[formerflanker]

Our Septic friends have powered through 95,000 deaths, in fact they're now over 96k. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Not a word of empathy from the orange one.

While browsing through theses awful numbers it's illuminating to note the deaths per 1million of population, as at this morning:

Belgium 804.2
Spain 598.0
UK 542.1
Italy 537.6
France 421.2
Sweden 380.1
Netherlands 335.2
Ireland 326.2
USA 294.0
Denmark 96.8
Finland 55.5
Norway 44.2
NZ 4.3
Australia 4.0
India 2.6

Why is the figure so high in Belgium? The Scandanavian figures seem to indicate Sweden's approach to non-lockdown badly backfired.

So the evil orange man sees 8 countries doing worse than the USA.
He's so bad that he donated his Q4 '19 salary to fight the virus. He sent 2 hospital ships to help affected cities. In restricting travel from China in January he helped minimise the spread of the virus. In signing the $8.3 billion coronavirus emergency spending bill i"d say he was doing a lot more than just emoting.
He's not perfect I agree, but does have a list of accomplishments in trying to deal with the virus.
I don't see any politician with a spotless record of dealing with these uncertain times.

 

[Derpus]

Hes activetly encouraged his own citizens to break the law and breach social distancing and isolation measures. I dont think the orange man gets the credit he deserves for his political nous and is clearly not an idiot. He is a shockingly bad leader though.

 

[fatprop]

NSW and Vic are the only States to have opened their borders. WA, SA, NT and Tas are consistent with Qld. If the dire predictions of a second wave come true before those States feel comfortable, then I think it will be NSW and Vic who change their approach.

We can't lock down forever, whenever they open up and return to some version on normalcy there will be more infections. We locked down originally to get the resources in place so we could get through this, not to hide until it goes away, that simply isn't realistic

It simply can't be stopped if we have tourism and international trade in our future

This shelter in place also has a cost

More than a thousand workers in the struggling retail industry are at risk of losing their jobs after the owners of discount department store chain Target decided to close as many as 75 stores.

Now it maybe an acceleration of a fragile business, but it is still another 1,000 plus jobs gone

For those who can happily work for home and do their Zoom meetings this has less downsides, but for those in the Retail, Tourism, Entertainment, Fitness & Hospitality industries (and so many are really small businesses) this approach is destroying their futures

 

[fatprop]

The argument from Belgium is that it's all in the reporting. They include non-hospital mortality in patients with COVID-like symptoms

It is an interest problem, if you have stage 4 pancreatic cancer but also had COVID-like symptoms at death, what did you die from?

 

[Braveheart81]

We can't lock down forever, whenever they open up and return to some version on normalcy there will be more infections. We locked down originally to get the resources in place so we could get through this, not to hide until it goes away, that simply isn't realistic

It simply can't be stopped if we have tourism and international trade in our future

This shelter in place also has a cost

Now it maybe an acceleration of a fragile business, but it is still another 1,000 plus jobs gone

For those who can happily work for home and do their Zoom meetings this has less downsides, but for those in the Retail, Tourism, Entertainment, Fitness & Hospitality industries (and so many are really small businesses) this approach is destroying their futures

Those heavily exposed businesses around the world have cratered regardless of whether lockdown measures are enforced or not.

We clearly aren't locking down forever. The restrictions clearly are already being gradually lifted.

Consumers need to firstly have the capacity to spend and secondly the desire to go out and spend money. No country has escaped a serious economic retraction and it has little to do with the lockdown measures enforced. The guidance at the moment is that countries that have had a smaller outbreak of COVID-19 are likely to recover much faster.

 

[Derpus]

FP - wasn't your point that we were all effectively isolating without enforced measures. What's the diff? these businesses would be fucked regardless.

It will be interesting to see if the imminent collapse of entire industries will spark a more serious discussion around UBI. Retail has been in a death spiral for a decade. Manufacturing and primary industries are rapidly automating etc.

 

[I like to watch]

So the evil orange man sees 8 countries doing worse than the USA.
He's so bad that he donated his Q4 '19 salary to fight the virus. He sent 2 hospital ships to help affected cities. In restricting travel from China in January he helped minimise the spread of the virus. In signing the $8.3 billion coronavirus emergency spending bill i"d say he was doing a lot more than just emoting.
He's not perfect I agree, but does have a list of accomplishments in trying to deal with the virus.
I don't see any politician with a spotless record of dealing with these uncertain times.

I don’t want to get political, but he bills the secret service more for cart hire than the wages he donates.
that excludes accommodation costs that he bills out at the maximum allowed under the regulations.

he sent 2 ships to states that were in an emergency?
that's the bare minimum!
he didn’t stop travel, 40,000 Came through after his ban. Passport colour is not a vaccine.....

bear in mind 32 other countries placed travel bans on before he did, even the Marshall Islands were ahead of the”world leaders”

he signed a bill, that’s all he did. The Bill of $8.3B dwarfed his suggested $2.5B response..
etc etc etc

 

[fatprop]

FP - wasn't your point that we were all effectively isolating without enforced measures. What's the diff? these businesses would be fucked regardless.

It will be interesting to see if the imminent collapse of entire industries will spark a more serious discussion around UBI. Retail has been in a death spiral for a decade. Manufacturing and primary industries are rapidly automating etc.

My outlook prefers a world where we are trusted as somewhat intelligent human beings to make informed decisions for ourselves most of the time.

They lost me at the lockdown, quite happy to see prudent advise on distancing and washing hands etc, and yes people were making generally prudent decisions at that stage.

The evidence O/S in areas of low infection, like Aus, that was sufficient (and yes I appreciate the 20/20 hindsight)

I don't like "us" being treated like unruly babies to be chased away from parks and beaches, it made no sense.

Remind us to be safe, don't fine someone belligerent arsehole for sitting a bench eating a kebab by himself Or being asked where I am going on the way to the office

UBI? I don't see how it is anything other warehousing the unemployed under a new, improved label.

 

[fatprop]

he didn’t stop travel, 40,000 Came through after his ban. Passport colour is not a vaccine...

The were US citizens and visa holders, I don't know how you stop them returning or whether you should

There is an argument around quarantining

 

[Braveheart81]

The were US citizens and visa holders, I don't know how you stop them returning or whether you should

There is an argument around quarantining

I don't think this is accurate. There has been no restriction on the arrival of foreign nationals into the US aside from those who have been in certain countries in the last 14 days.

 

[I like to watch]

The were US citizens and visa holders, I don't know how you stop them returning or whether you should

There is an argument around quarantining

Ok, 40,000 arrived with no screening, and no requirement to isolate or quarantine.
.....for the pedants

 

[fatprop]

I don't think this is accurate. There has been no restriction on the arrival of foreign nationals into the US aside from those who have been in certain countries in the last 14 days.

The number comes from early articles bitching about the travel restrictions being useless and racist

Since Chinese officials disclosed the outbreak of a mysterious pneumonialike illness to international health officials on New Year’s Eve, at least 430,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after President Trump imposed restrictions on such travel, according to an analysis of data collected in both countries.

 

[Up the Guts]

FP - wasn't your point that we were all effectively isolating without enforced measures. What's the diff? these businesses would be fucked regardless.

It will be interesting to see if the imminent collapse of entire industries will spark a more serious discussion around UBI. Retail has been in a death spiral for a decade. Manufacturing and primary industries are rapidly automating etc.

Hmm, I don't really buy the those "businesses would have closed down anyway" line when we have reasonable counterfactual comparisons such as Sweden where restaurants etc. remained open and serviced customers.

 

[Braveheart81]

Hmm, I don't really buy the those "businesses would have closed down anyway" line when we have reasonable counterfactual comparisons such as Sweden where restaurants etc. remained open and serviced customers.

Except heaps of them closed anyway because they weren't generating the business required to stay open. A friend lives in Stockholm and runs a nightclub and they have been closed for a couple of months and not because anyone forced them to. It just made no sense financially to stay open.

Sweden is predicted to have a larger economic downturn than Australia and a slower recovery. This concept that they have somehow avoided economic catastrophe because they didn't have a lockdown is a fiction.

Mobility data from Google shows significant decreased movement of people even without being forced to stay at home.