Coronavirus COVID-19

[Ibanez]

There's another, economic, reason to re-open sooner rather than later - unemployment insurance. UI costs billions $$$. Billions which states aren't currently replenishing b/c nobody is working at pre-COVID19 levels. If you re-open businesses, you can get people off unemployment as well as deny unemployment to those that work at a business that has been re-opened ( even if you don't want to return due to health fears). Georgia, like many other states, is experiencing higher than normal claims. They've had something like a 2,000+ increase. I'm guess that once Kemp opens up retail and many other businesses that are staffed by low income people, that those people will no longer be in an involuntary unemployment status and won't be able to receive the benefit. Even with the CARE act, payments are 1-2 weeks late due to staffing shortages. The state is projected to have a $1B shortfall this year and $4B for FY2021 (which begins in July.)

On top of that, Ga also has one of the lowest sin taxes and income taxes in the country. In fact, it's capped by a constitutional amendment. Kemp is doing all he can to save money, possibly at the expense of the poorest, in order to not raise taxes which the state will desperately need.

South Carolina has been cutting UI taxes for almost 10 yrs. I suspect we're about to have the same problem. UI applications have increased 4,000% in South Carolina since March 14 while we have cut the budget by 34%. We are going to be screwed.

Absolutely - unless the federal government is going to assume full payroll for upwards to 30M people for the next month or two, then the only option is to get people back to work. UI in any state was never going to be able to handle a surge like this - UI is meant to handle the gradual ebb and flow of unemployment, not a historic upswing like this. The more people that can get back to work is like a double good thing - one is they get off of needing the unemployment benefit and two is that they start earning a salary again and they start contributing, through taxes, back into the UI coffers. I don't know why I'm not included in the list of front-line heroes - by me working through this pandemic I'm contributing my taxes to the greater good everyday.

haha. I have all the respect for healthcare professionals dealing with this but can we stop calling people that do the job they chose and trained for "heroes?"

People want to get back to work. But let's be honest as to why. It has less to do with the virus and more with the economics of the shutdown.

[89Hen]

haha. I have all the respect for healthcare professionals dealing with this but can we stop calling people that do the job they chose and trained for "heroes?"

[Ibanez]

haha. I have all the respect for healthcare professionals dealing with this but can we stop calling people that do the job they chose and trained for "heroes?"

And while we're at it - quit with the "We're together in this" commercials. We get it.

[89Hen]

And while we're at it - quit with the "We're together in this" commercials. We get it.

again. Saw three commercials in a row last night that were almost verbatim of each other.

[Gil Dobie]

And while we're at it - quit with the "We're together in this" commercials. We get it.

again. Saw three commercials in a row last night that were almost verbatim of each other.

Glad we record almost everything except live sports. Most shows have smart FF so we can letter her rip past commercials.

[89Hen]

again. Saw three commercials in a row last night that were almost verbatim of each other.

Glad we record almost everything except live sports. Most shows have smart FF so we can letter her rip past commercials.

That would be awesome during campaign season. I don't record much since I don't watch many things regularly.

[kalm]

All fair points.

Here’s one of what I hope are many opening salvos into the economics that will inform rational decision making:

“But the dollars and cents of a virus are less intuitive. Rebelo uses a modified version of what’s known as an SIR model, an acronym for categories of people: susceptible, infected, and recovered. It simulates how a disease moves through a population based on how infectious and lethal it is, and how much contact people have with each other. To put a price on the results, Rebelo takes the number of predicted deaths and calculates an economic estimate of the value of the lost lives. The approach is similar to the price that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used to gauge the costs and benefits of environmental regulations: $9.5 million per life.

His initial modeling efforts showed that even a yearlong lockdown makes economic sense, to allow time for a vaccine to be developed. The pause would shrink the economy by approximately 22%—a cost of $4.2 trillion. By comparison, the model shows that without containment measures, the economy would contract by about 7% over that year—but as many as 500,000 additional lives would be lost, which translates into a loss of roughly $6.1 trillion.

Andrew Atkeson, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles, agrees that the economics point strongly toward strict measures. If the epidemic is allowed to grow unhindered, he predicts the economy will grind to a halt anyway as people see an explosion of infections and stop going out. “Either you shut off the economy now and have people staying at home, or you let this thing rip and you have people staying at home scared,” he says.“


https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03 ... e-covid-19#

No offense to this Rebelo fellow, but that's just patently stupid. I'm sure he's fine with a yearlong shutdown, but it's that kind of tone-deaf, lack of real world comprehension, that makes a mockery of models like that. Who's going to feed all these people out of work? We have 22M out of work now - if we go another 48 weeks of shutdown don't you think that number will be a little higher? 30M? 50M? More? Nowhere in his calculations does he measure the damage done to people to be out of work for 12 months, so that's a fairly large gap in his model.

Like I said, and I'll repeat it here: We owe it to them (the most effected) to have a good reason why they need to wait 1-2 months to get back to work when they could do it now with the same restrictions now that they'll have in place 1-2 months from now when they do get back to work. What is the 1-2 months of economic misery buying us? I don't see those answers out there.

I'm still waiting to hear the answer to that. We know what we'll do to go back to work, we know what it will look like and it won't be with 20M tests a day nor will it be with a vaccine or a magical cure. It will be with what we're already doing today - temperature checks, masks on everyone, social distancing (one-way aisles in stores, limiting number of people in stores, spacing out people in restaurants and stadiums), frequent disinfecting, etc. We can do that today because, surprise, we're already doing that today in all the businesses that are open, which aren't minimal. Open them all up, open up the hospitals again and let people see their doctors and let them start elective surgeries and the like again. We know how to do this, waiting 1-2 months to start allowing people to do it is capricious and elitist.

You may have missed some of the article. Economists are indeed weighing the possible affects of continuing the shutdown.

I may have posted this before but it provides an explanation for waiting further based on the need for greater and more accurate testing. While the LA County numbers are a positive, what’s the rate of accuracy of the tests and how available are they for not just medical but to businesses?

Then there’s the anecdotal instances of super spreader scenarios in places like both Dakotas, a meat packing plant in Wa State and nursing homes throughout the world. Plus more needs to be known regarding reinfection rates and low antibody counts in some of the already infected.

Ebola almost burned itself out through its aggressive nature, this virus may be more clever (apologize for the anthropomorphizing).

Bottom line, we need more time to learn and yes, the federal government is Probably going to need to let loose most if not all of its arrows from the economic quiver to provide cover.

The good news is there’s still a slight chance things can be sped up and the threat is less than the greatest fears. But Ibanez is right, it’s still hunker down time at this point with an eye on July.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/road-map-reco ... d=70230097

[Ibanez]

And while we're at it - quit with the "We're together in this" commercials. We get it.

again. Saw three commercials in a row last night that were almost verbatim of each other.

If I have learned anything it's that State Farm/McDonalds/VW/Ford/Chevy/Toyota/Facebook/Red Cross/CarVana/Sprint/Verizon among a litany of local businesses and I are in this together.



And that if I buy a car and lose my job, i'm covered.

[Ibanez]

again. Saw three commercials in a row last night that were almost verbatim of each other.

Glad we record almost everything except live sports. Most shows have smart FF so we can letter her rip past commercials.

Even with that, some FF features are turned off. I can't FF Hulu and even live TV that I record won't always let me FF through them.

[Gil Dobie]

Glad we record almost everything except live sports. Most shows have smart FF so we can letter her rip past commercials.

Even with that, some FF features are turned off. I can't FF Hulu and even live TV that I record won't always let me FF through them.

We switched from Direct TV to Comcast when we moved. The only shows besides live TV, that we can't fast forward, are On Demand Shows. Even Roku lets me FF when I'm on another TV, but it doesn't have the Smart FF.

[Ibanez]

Even with that, some FF features are turned off. I can't FF Hulu and even live TV that I record won't always let me FF through them.

We switched from Direct TV to Comcast when we moved. The only shows besides live TV, that we can't fast forward, are On Demand Shows. Even Roku lets me FF when I'm on another TV, but it doesn't have the Smart FF.

I stream AT&T. Some channels/shows will let you FF and others don't. Most do.

I can't on hulu b/c I don't pay for that feature. My mute button works well enough.

[kalm]

haha. I have all the respect for healthcare professionals dealing with this but can we stop calling people that do the job they chose and trained for "heroes?"

Most didn't sign up for a pandemic and while the rate of exposure to a highly communicable and deadly disease is unexpected, the correlation between rates of exposure and severity of infection is also troublesome.

Yeah... Im gonna still call them heroes.

[AZGrizFan]

Lil CCU showed an interest in math 3 weeks ago and now she's doing simple addition and subtraction.

I'll bet she can correctly solve: $500 million divided by 330 million people.

Let's ask Aho Old Guy.

[UNI88]

I don't know why I'm not included in the list of front-line heroes - by me working through this pandemic I'm contributing my taxes to the greater good everyday.

Thank you Ganny!

[UNI88]

No offense to this Rebelo fellow, but that's just patently stupid. I'm sure he's fine with a yearlong shutdown, but it's that kind of tone-deaf, lack of real world comprehension, that makes a mockery of models like that. Who's going to feed all these people out of work? We have 22M out of work now - if we go another 48 weeks of shutdown don't you think that number will be a little higher? 30M? 50M? More? Nowhere in his calculations does he measure the damage done to people to be out of work for 12 months, so that's a fairly large gap in his model.

Like I said, and I'll repeat it here: We owe it to them (the most effected) to have a good reason why they need to wait 1-2 months to get back to work when they could do it now with the same restrictions now that they'll have in place 1-2 months from now when they do get back to work. What is the 1-2 months of economic misery buying us? I don't see those answers out there.

I'm still waiting to hear the answer to that. We know what we'll do to go back to work, we know what it will look like and it won't be with 20M tests a day nor will it be with a vaccine or a magical cure. It will be with what we're already doing today - temperature checks, masks on everyone, social distancing (one-way aisles in stores, limiting number of people in stores, spacing out people in restaurants and stadiums), frequent disinfecting, etc. We can do that today because, surprise, we're already doing that today in all the businesses that are open, which aren't minimal. Open them all up, open up the hospitals again and let people see their doctors and let them start elective surgeries and the like again. We know how to do this, waiting 1-2 months to start allowing people to do it is capricious and elitist.

You may have missed some of the article. Economists are indeed weighing the possible affects of continuing the shutdown.

I may have posted this before but it provides an explanation for waiting further based on the need for greater and more accurate testing. While the LA County numbers are a positive, what’s the rate of accuracy of the tests and how available are they for not just medical but to businesses?

Then there’s the anecdotal instances of super spreader scenarios in places like both Dakotas, a meat packing plant in Wa State and nursing homes throughout the world. Plus more needs to be known regarding reinfection rates and low antibody counts in some of the already infected.

Ebola almost burned itself out through its aggressive nature, this virus may be more clever (apologize for the anthropomorphizing).

Bottom line, we need more time to learn and yes, the federal government is Probably going to need to let loose most if not all of its arrows from the economic quiver to provide cover.

The good news is there’s still a slight chance things can be sped up and the threat is less than the greatest fears. But Ibanez is right, it’s still hunker down time at this point with an eye on July.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/road-map-reco ... d=70230097

Maybe people worried about opening things up too soon just need to ...

chill the fuck out.

[Baldy]

Calm down, Karen.

In an ideal world, yes we would and could wait. When Bank of America and the like puts a moratorium in place to not collect loan payments and put food on their table, then rant away. Otherwise, most of these people have bills to pay. Take a chance with the virus or sit by and watch everything they have worked for slowly fade away?

Settle yourself, Sally. I've said from the beginning that any decision to close/open is damned if you do and damned if you don't. Common sense tells you that you can't practice socially distancing in many businesses. There are 2 bad decisions yet one has to be made.

Then why go off in the first place?

[kalm]

I don't know why I'm not included in the list of front-line heroes - by me working through this pandemic I'm contributing my taxes to the greater good everyday.

Thank you Ganny!

You could almost start an - if cs.com posters were a Simpsons character thread.

cleets:

[kalm]

You may have missed some of the article. Economists are indeed weighing the possible affects of continuing the shutdown.

I may have posted this before but it provides an explanation for waiting further based on the need for greater and more accurate testing. While the LA County numbers are a positive, what’s the rate of accuracy of the tests and how available are they for not just medical but to businesses?

Then there’s the anecdotal instances of super spreader scenarios in places like both Dakotas, a meat packing plant in Wa State and nursing homes throughout the world. Plus more needs to be known regarding reinfection rates and low antibody counts in some of the already infected.

Ebola almost burned itself out through its aggressive nature, this virus may be more clever (apologize for the anthropomorphizing).

Bottom line, we need more time to learn and yes, the federal government is Probably going to need to let loose most if not all of its arrows from the economic quiver to provide cover.

The good news is there’s still a slight chance things can be sped up and the threat is less than the greatest fears. But Ibanez is right, it’s still hunker down time at this point with an eye on July.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/road-map-reco ... d=70230097

Maybe people worried about opening things up too soon just need to ...

chill the fuck out.

Its a matter of risk tolerance and studying best practices and results...iow's knowledge.

This a tremendous breakdown. I just don't see those desiring an immediate return willing to go Taiwan level to get there.




Color me conservative on this one I guess.

[89Hen]

Gil:


JSO:


Raul:


Trip:


Andy:


Alphie:


Flaggy:


Cleets:


kalm:


BDK:

[UNI88]

Maybe people worried about opening things up too soon just need to ...

Its a matter of risk tolerance and studying best practices and results...iow's knowledge.

This a tremendous breakdown. I just don't see those desiring an immediate return willing to go Taiwan level to get there.



Color me conservative on this one I guess.

I don't disagree that it's a matter of risk tolerance, best practices and results. I also think that the advice to "chill the fuck out" applies to hysterical people on both sides - those arguing that we have to open things up know and those arguing that we have to stay in lockdown.

[Ibanez]

Gil:


JSO:


Raul:


Trip:


Andy:


Alphie:


Flaggy:


Cleets:


kalm:


BDK:

Nailed it, especially BDK.

[AZGrizFan]

Gil:


JSO:


Raul:


Trip:


Andy:


Alphie:


Flaggy:


Cleets:


kalm:


BDK:

POTY winner right there.

[kalm]

Gil:


JSO:


Raul:


Trip:


Andy:


Alphie:


Flaggy:


Cleets:


kalm:


BDK:

I was expecting to be beat up on this one pretty good but the placement of me and Cleets is fucking funny.

[89Hen]

I was expecting to be beat up on this one pretty good but the placement of me and Cleets is fucking funny.

I'm glad you noticed.

[Gil Dobie]

Never watched the Simpsons, so I don't know if it's good or bad.