Questions for those who like to think...
(Here is my second attempt because I accidentally closed the window trying to put a picture in after typing for an hour... So it probably won't be anything like I had it originally.)
Several questions are bubbling around in my mind as I write this article, one of which is: How much pressure can the institutions, governments, polities which we separate ourselves into, by and under take before they respond in a meaningful and positive way? Are they capable of such a feat? The present pandemic lends itself handily as an example.
Governments, health professionals, et.al. knew that a pandemic was possible, and probable. They repeatedly warned us that the only variable was when. Indeed, George W. Bush heeded these warnings and prepared for such an eventuality, as did other governments around the world, so we (humanity) were somewhat (even if drastically under) prepared, at least from a logistical standpoint. If you did not know that a pandemic was possible, you have not been paying attention.
Anyway, in addition to the tremendous burden that this pandemic has and is putting on healthcare, now we find ourselves in the position where millions of people are without employment, without the wherewithal to pay their expenses. Thousands if not millions of businesses worldwide are unable to pay their employees, their vendors and creditors. Governments are looking at their revenue streams disappearing. All of these for an indefinite period of time. The world is teetering on the brink of recession or depression.
My question is: Why?
Are we insufficiently capable of managing the repercussions of this pandemic that we knew was going to occur? Don't answer that, because obviously we are not up to the task at hand, specifically, preventing a slump or even collapse of the world economy without running up tremendous debts that will linger for decades.
Again: Why?
I keep hearing these words bandied about: On Pause. The societies around the world are "on pause". The economies of the world, as an effect, are "on pause". At least, the people who are unemployed, who have been furloughed, laid off or otherwise removed from the benefits of a paycheck are "on pause." If we can put the people who would make the payments on pause, could we not also put the ones who would collect that money on pause also?
Why?
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Just wondering aloud how we get ourselves into such states and cannot seem to find the way out of them when the answers are quite apparent.
i wonder some times,
and when the wind blows, i wind up lost with a wind up alarm clock ringing the dinner bell curve, that i dive straight and saw intwo
, due to my pear of iiiiz, like an
apple in my
i
find myself
lost,
at the lost and
found
myself lost,
at the lost and
found, wear i war battle fatigued close, that opened up my thought process, and maid me hungry, for food, so i up N began a process where as i thawt, then bought, some food, for thought, and couldn't digest the reality of it all, so i stick figure N 8 what most couldn't stomach to digest,
that which what i never say N
jest n case, i over/under eat a 5 team parlay, i all ways try and begin with a process,
put it in my food foe thought processor, and force feed like a buleemic smoking weed growing like grass roots, but from the Astro Turf Farm where they do harm more or less, to artificially enhance ones perception of reality, that i uniformly follow, cause i'm, a litre to the quart ship i christened with a Champagne Super Nova SS ,
as i Rally Wheeled around the family with a pocket full of shells. along with Eddy's Father, who was a real Muther Fckr...
owe, eye c i mite have digressed, but it's watt i herd i due best, over and over, so take the under, where
my thoughts sore, but my throat thinks
before my mind blinks its' minds eye
that turned blindly to sea how deep it could delve
oh yea, what was the thesis of this feces again,,,,?
let me get back to ya shortly, i've got bigger problems than any damn pandemic, my BEER is empty.
The golden rule baby!
"Those that have the gold, make the rules....!"
Who has more lobbyists..... ? Answer: corporations and the wealthy.
Human beings are incapable for the most part, to do the tough changes and always kick the can down the road, hoping it will be someone else's problem. The day comes and it kicks us in the butt and then we try to point at each other and put the blame on them. Humans are way too flawed to ever learn.
You aren't getting cynical, are you? I try like hell not to be, but do occasionally find myself kvetching about something or the other.
KIcking the can down the road is a time honored tradition as far as that goes, but we can never seem to kick it far enough. Seeking for someone or somewhere to place the blame is also a time honored tradition, but as with kicking the can, the results are not lasting, however good they may make one feel.
Really, I am not looking to place any blame with this piece, just trying to get to some kind of understanding of the different arguments for and against and also any alternate ideas on how we could go through this pandemic and come out the other side not in a severe recession.
I guess I am kvetching, but I have been watching what has been going on across the US and what has been said here, and somehow, people just don't get that we are all in this together, despite regional differences. Viruses don't know from geopolitical boundaries, and so listening to people blame and complain about NY, as if this was our fault, well it gets old really quick. You and I have two different realities in this state and I doubt you feel any differently than I do. But explain that to someone in Georgia and they think we are nuts.
I'm not trying to place blame. I am taking about the human experience and my human experience is that we always act surprised when these things happen, despite the fact that we have been warned about it for a very long time. If you can explain the surprise, I would gladly listen. But even when faced with death, people are still in denial.
On average the attention span of an adult has reportedly dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds thanks to social media, smart phones and the internet....
That presents a huge obstacle when we need 333 million people
just in this country
to think the same way and perform the same tasks.
Highly unlikely.
Well then, Perrie, if the people are surprised or still in denial, how then to affect change? I would say that we know why they are that way: They have not been paying attention, but that is not necessarily the peoples fault. There are a multitude of distractions and competition for the small amount of time and money that most of us have is fierce. (Especially if your your mind and body run on Commodore 64 bandwidth while the rest of the world runs with their shiny new 5G iphones)
So....
When you imagine your personal best scenario society, what does it look like? Or, perhaps, moving forward from the situation that we find ourselves in, what path could we take to move towards such a society? That question is large, I know, so concentrate on one tiny aspect and try to move through the hows and whats and all to where you would like to see it, then tell us about it. If you are stuck, well then tell me and I or another on here will try to help.
Well, there are several issues that got us here.
We never prepared for the worse, especially as a nation. Not with savings, not with health, not with warnings from our experts. Anything that becomes inconvenient, we push off. Also, I have to agree with the short attention span, but this has been going on for a long time, so I am not too sure if 2 seconds of attention span makes a big deal.
I guess first, would be listening to our health care advisors and be ready to act when they say something is coming down the pike. Let's go there for a start.
Ok, we'll start from there and move forward. Soooo, it seams we are looking for a way to make the important information stick around in our conscious thoughts long enough for some kind of change to the operating procedure of the public health system. Well, we are in luck, because sitting around with relations for weeks on end can be the memory to tie this to. Going forward, I think our healthcare professionals will have to yell less loudly and the people in government will pay more attention, at least here in the northeast. The trick is to codify the response across the nation.
I'm a Chess player, use to thinking ahead and planning moves to see the endgame.
There are so many moving pieces to this infection, that I can't seem to get any clarity on where we are going to end up.
One thing is for certain..... there are going to be wealthy people telling us which way to think right up to the point that everything breaks down. Wish the sale of Kool-Aid was outlawed and more people would start thinking for themselves.
I call it the Sesame Street phenomena.... five second burst of attention getting learning. It yields a short attention span.
How many kids do you know these day put puzzles together, or build models, both of which that take patience and visual spacial reasoning?
The rise of nationalism and the strong man has happened across the globe. The only reason that it happened is because individuals have stoked primal fears of xenophobia towards tribalism. Divide and conquer is one of the oldest tricks in the playbook. The weak minded can be counted on to always swallow the Kool-Aid, and they are never culled from the herd.
That has absolutely nothing to do with my mindset right now. To me it’s more about the narcissistic trend we seem to be going through. Everybody has to get their own way or they are being picked on or abused.
People say they have no money but every room has a TV with an expensive cable plan, every child expects a car and a smart phone with an expensive data plan. People are building house square footage they don’t need. Weddings cost almost more than my first mortgage and somewhere along the line colleges have convinced all the youth they ALL need a college degree they likely will never use. I could go on but personal accountability these days seems to be in short supply so it makes little difference
I just love it when I hear people that make good money complain about not having enough. Those are the nimrods that are hoarding TP and Hand sanitizer right now.
We need to get back to the basics and learn to appreciate what we do have. This whole pandemic sucks for us all but I gotta tell ya for me and mine it hasn’t been bad. The worst part has been, and it really does suck bad, we haven’t been able to have any face time with two aging parents for going on two months. That sucks hard, really hard.
No amount of money, TP or hand sanitizer can bring that back.
A little perspective. Be happy with what you have, when you have it. It could be much, much worse.
Amen to that!
As you stated the pandemic was known but the only question was when will it hit.
To that end, IMO, most humans do not want to face and accept bad news and we seem to think it won't happen, it won't be as bad as explained, it won't happen to me or the best of all I'll bury my head in the sand and not acknowledge it.
Just my thoughts
Thank you for your thoughts, Kavika.
Even if one does not want to face and accept bad news, bad news does happen and is eventually unavoidable to even the most staunch of deniers. So, how are we as a society going to deal with the reality of the situation? What will society look like on the other side of this pandemic? Is society the same in terms of its relation of people to money? Can this rupture of the exchange system generate a modification of the societal norms around the ideas of capital?
Things are going to look very different on the other side...... and I can't get a handle on the amount of pain we Americans are going to have to go through to get there.
I agree Kavika. When I asked my friends on FB in JANUARY, "Is anyone else scared to death of this virus?," most replied with, "No. It's just you" or "It's just like the flu. What are you worried about?" Some of those people that commented in such a way are now the ones freaking out and some are still in denial and going to protests in Lansing. Several of my friends have lost someone they love to this virus now and it's finally sinking in that it's actually happening. It seems that people that aren't affected personally, don't take it seriously. I don't need to be personally affected by it to worry about the potential of doing so.
I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home and still receive a regular paycheck. My husband lost his job; however, we lived on my paycheck alone for nearly 3 years, so it's not much of an adjustment for us. I realize that a large percentage of people are not that lucky. I realize that there's people that are looking at an empty refrigerator and empty cabinets, wondering how they're going to feed their families. However, that's what food pantries are for and that's what charities are for, but there are some that are too embarrassed to ask for the help they need. I've received charity once upon a time. It happens. Asking for help is something that many people just don't know how to do.
I say that as long as I'm not forced back into society before I'm ready, then let the people that are screaming for reopening go back out into society. I can still order my groceries through Instacart or do curbside pickup, which is what I have done long before COVID-19 hit the US and I can still work from home and keep my family safe. Michigan has closed school for the remainder of the year, so my kids are home. My husband lost his job, so he's home. I can make money still without going to the office and save money in car maintenance and gas for commuting, but still help support the economy from my couch. It's an interesting world we live in today.
I believe that his pandemic is showing us the real gaps in the system. Health care being, IMO, one major area.
How does one look on the other side of the pandemic? I believe that most people at the moment are very concerned not only about their well being but the financial disaster that they are facing. And for the moment probably not concerned or contemplating the financial disaster the local/state/federal governments are facing. This is when we'll be paying the piper.
Will it change/modify our attitude towards capitalism, hopefully, it will, in the end, provide a more well-balanced society in regards to the financial inequities that exist.
Thank you, once again, for sharing your thoughts.
You note healthcare as an area in which there exist "real gaps in the system." Not being obtuse, but what are these gaps that you perceive? How would you recommend that these gaps be filled?
You ask how one looks at the other side of the pandemic. We can't with surety say exactly what it will look like, but we can get a general idea and plan accordingly. Also, if we have a conception of what we would like to see,what we want society to look like, we can take steps towards making society look more like we envision.
You say that you hope that society's attitude towards capitalism will take on a more well-balanced, less inequitable look. Could you perhaps be more specific and give an idea of what the society that fits that definition looks like? Perhaps you can't tell what it looks like, if so could you give an example of some of these inequities that exist and we could start exploring from there?
With the current system, we have millions with no coverage at all and many others with minimal coverage. To me, in a country with the wealth of the US that is an unacceptable situation. With this pandemic, the people that work for companies that employer-paid health care could/will see that coverage end for them. What is their alternative? Corba is way too expensive if you're unemployed or on minimum wage. My solution is for both a private and public option so that everyone is covered.
I believe that the first thing to look at is the poverty rate, which for a country such as ours is unacceptable. The so-called wealth gap is real but I'm not advocating for a more socialist society but one that offers more opportunity and better wages for the minorities and those without the wealth/money to attend higher ed without going into debt for the rest of their lives.
The unions built the middle class and I have no problem with seeing the union make a comeback along with US manufacturing.
This part I slightly disagree. Before Obama-care came into play, I was able to afford my $100 copay for an ER visit, but after Obama-care came into play, I received bills for the doctor I never saw of $240, an ambulance bill of $600 for a 1/4 mile ride, and $2200 for "ER space usage" when I was only there for about 45 minutes... but my cousin that was covered under Obama-care never had to pay a dime because at 34, didn't have a full-time job despite being very capable of working full time. My insurance rates went up immediately after Obama-care even though the company I work for covers the majority of the cost.
And as far as offering opportunities... I know that the city of Detroit has Union-led courses for those that live in the city at NO COST that teach people trades and they can take the journeyman's testing at the end of the courses for a mere $20. If someone can't scrounge up $20, there's a bigger problem. Just by walking around the neighborhood, one could find many returnables at $.10 ea.
I can't speak to those in other states or cities; I can only speak to what I know.
What I was talking about was a private plan as many people have today and a pubic plan for those that don't have a private plan. That would seem to satisfy both sides of the coin.
I can't speak for Detroit but in many of the cities and rural areas that I'm familiar with there is a true lack of opportunities and with this pandamic there will be a hell of a lot less IMO.
I can tell you that trade school are one of the better bargains out there. Most trades work while they are going to school. The cost for a journeyman’s education is minuscule compared to even some two year college degree s
Now college degree costs are truly out of control. One wonders where all that inflated tuition is going.
I think we have a tendency to fear the danger we can see. We can see a car coming at us, a house fire, a threatening person, an advancing army. A microbe? Nope. We might even be afraid to get near a person who is visibly ill, but with coronavirus, they may not look ill until they're near death, if they ever have symptoms at all.
Thank you for commenting.
What then do we need do to prevent the delayed to non-existent initial reactions in the future? Is it possible to plan for and make the consequences less severe? How do you think this might be done?
I think it's possible, yes. But I also think a lot of people won't like the measures we'd have to take, so I don't know if they'd be implemented.
Travel restrictions, for example. I had no problem with restricting travel when it was clear that this virus was pretty serious. But we didn't stop travel, and we didn't adequately test or isolate travelers. We seemed to think that US citizens returning from China, for instance, were exempt from infection. We should have done a lot more isolation and testing of returning travelers, and those processing them in customs should have had training and equipment to protect themselves.
Enforcement of social distancing by law enforcement officers, if necessary. We've had in-person church services, protests, etc. And even for those of us practicing social distancing, others can sometimes make it difficult. Most times when I get groceries, at least one person, and often more, get way too close to me - within a foot or even touching, and certainly not the 6 feet we're supposed to try to maintain. Some people don't seem to understand or care what social distancing is about, and foil the efforts of those of us who do. Let police warn or even arrest those who defy orders against large gatherings, or who won't even do something so easy as stand on the little stickers marking 6-foot intervals in grocery store checkouts.
Maintaining supply chains and prevention of hoarding. I'm talking PPE and basic necessities, like food. It's easy to tell people to try to leave their houses as little as possible. But when store shelves empty within an hour of being stocked, many people find themselves going shopping more often, and making more stops per trip, just to buy enough groceries to get them through a week or a few days.
I am sorry that I could not respond sooner.
So, you have some good ideas there. Let's explore some of them.
On the travel restrictions,do you think that there should be certain trigger points and criterion for determining when each level of these restrictions should occur? Should we err on the side of peoples health or the side of the economy? Personally, I think that we should favor the people for the economy is a construction of the people.
Here we are coming into the realm of the state constitutions and just what they allow for each emergency declaration. In most cases, I do not believe that the declaration of a state of emergency grants the authority to suspend the rights of assembly. However, I do not know this for a fact and it will require further study. If you would like to look into this point, feel free. What do you think the trigger point should be to access these restrictions on the right of assembly?
How do you envision this happening?
Most likely, and those should be determined by epidemiologists, dependent on an infection's severity and ease of transmission. International travel would be restricted at a lower threshold than local travel.
I lean more toward erring on the side of health. I think, though, that we can't forget the economy. It may be a social construct, but it's our reality. If we operate without regard for the economy, society may well cease to function.
I imagine it would be difficult to establish one. When a disease threatens the health of the public, including those members far removed from the protest/church service/etc., I think restrictions are easier to justify. None of our rights are absolute. We have the right to peaceful assembly; if we're harming others, especially non-participants, by way of contagion, I think we may well question whether assembly is peaceful.
I think this is probably best achieved by business, either voluntarily or by mandate. Limit amounts of in-demand items consumers can purchase - no filling your shopping cart with toilet paper or hand sanitizer. I'm in health care, and when suppliers knew how serious the situation was in China, they noticed hoarding by existing accounts, and a proliferation of new accounts buying large quantities of PPE. They limited the amount of PPE they'd sell to existing customers, and refused to sell to new customers. They saw a problem looming, and took the initiative themselves to mitigate it.
Same with anthropogenic global warming. The frog in the slowly boiling pot of water.
How about the person in the slowly boiling water.....
There will come a point in our evolution where we will have no choice any longer. We will pass from our present adolescence into adulthood, or will be knocked back. We are NO different from any other life on this planet in this regards. Natural Law conquers all. This present crisis elaborates our disillusionment that we can control Nature. We have used the tools we have created from the raw materials found in our world, to both create and destroy. Can we use them to save ourselves? Good question.
We need a systemic change. Money is the ruler of our global society. Until that changes, no manner of planning, caring, good intentions or even, plenty, will cure our ills. Life itself, all life, needs to take precedence over money.
as an example we have Americans waiting in lines for food, while we destroy tons of the stuff because of supply chain issues.
Thank you, Larry, for commenting.
You say we need systemic change. How would you accomplish such change? Perhaps more importantly, what would these changes be and how would society be arranged around them to make the society maintain some cohesion of thought and ideals? I would posit that some amount of cohesion is necessary. Would you agree?
You mention supply chain issues. Do you have an idea how these could be addressed?
Easy to say, difficult to do or accomplish in the real world as we currently know it. What would we replace money and all that term implies with?
How about suspending capitalism for the duration of the emergency?
Here is an example of what Thomas might have in mind. When people are shut out of work they often lose their income or operate at a greatly reduced income. Many banks today are suspending late fees, deferring payments etc. That might be an example of suspending capitalism. Another example, which is not in effect, is for credit card companies to do likewise and not gouge at 16% for people who are (stupidly or due to lack of choice) relying upon credit cards as if they were a line of credit.
Another more direct example would be a public company that has simply laid off 10% of its employees. This is business as usual and, given the dynamics of our existing system, there are not many alternatives. The company sheds costs (employees) to shore up its balance sheet (and stock value) while the laid off employees bear the burden of losing their livelihoods during a pandemic. This illustrates the lopsided relationships that exist under our current system — one that is business-centric, not employee-centric. In an employee-centric economic system the burden would be more distributed. Like an insurance plan, the hardships (when they occur) are buffered by the distribution. All employees, at all levels of compensation and power, tighten their belts, not just the expendables.
You are no doubt looking at this as a small business owner. There is not much you can do in this regard; you have few tools with which to work. If your business opportunities shut down and you have employees 'on the bench' you cannot carry them very long without seriously damaging your business. That is the nature of our current system. So the plight of the small business owner is noted.
Now, do you say 'no' to every alternative that would mitigate this situation? Given nobody can possibly imagine every alternative, on what basis can one categorically state 'no'? For example, unemployment insurance is part of our existing system. Given the pandemic, do you find that to be a bad measure? One change to our system might be to improve the extant unemployment insurance to provide a better safety net when the shit hits the fan. Would you categorically say 'no' to something like that?
Actually, TiG, I was (am) advocating for the total suspension of monetary exchange.
A great deal of the world is closeted at home. A great number of the worlds businesses are shuttered. Why are they starting to open? Because the risk is gone? No! Because they have bills to pay. Everyone has bills to pay. So, as a consequence, all of these people who have been doing the right things to save up and watch their spending, well they might be , MIGHT be, all right.
But the people who were, for whatever reason, living from paycheck to paycheck... they are just screwed.
And when we get to the other side of this debacle, after who knows how many months extreme financial hardship, businesses that were once running will not be. People who worked at those businesses will be looking for work. People who owned those businesses will be looking for a way to rebuild, for money to try and start over. the governments around the world will have increased their debt load. This exact scenario will play out across the states. Across the nations.
Across the world.
And why does it have to be this way?
It has to be this way because we, us, you and I and everybody else, lacks sufficient imagination to keep it from happening. We are all so caught up in our own brain treadmills that we do not realize that we can simply step to the side. Oh my God, I have to pay my landlord, I have to get paid by work or else.... Or else what? The world is definitely not going to stop turning. The Sun will not stop shining. Weather will keep occurring. This virus that has us all in its grip, it does not care what we do. It will grow and multiply and die, regardless of whether we have the money to buy gas and groceries.
Push the button and turn it off.
Not forever. just until we get to the other side of this global crisis.
There is absolutely no real reason why we cannot do this. Oh, I am sure that you and everyone else can think up scads of justifications why we cannot simply pause the global economy. But, if the alternative is global recession, why not? We can, by agreement, cease the medium of exchange without ceasing the exchange. Money is agreement solidified into actual currency. As we can see with the banking systems , it can be as ethereal as an electron flipping a bit on a microchip. Money is what we say it is, because we say it is. (It is the ultimate Trumpian dream.) Therefore, if we agree that we don't need it, we don't.
At least for a little while.
Let's just start with the basics: the essential services. When we turn things off, who will make the food, who will pick up the trash, who will provide the utilities?
We certainly could quiesce financial organizations. New cars, homes, clothing, etc. need not be built. Vanity services, sports, art, entertainment, etc. need not be provided. But I am still left with this question: if we could handle the utterly enormous complexity of quiescing non-essential dimensions of the global economy, how do we pay people (and their organizations) to produce what is essential? The supply chain for this goes all the way back to the acquisition and refinement of raw materials. The essential dimensions are rather deep. I do not see them working for free.
Your thinking along the same lines I have been over the last couple of decades. As a species we have to learn to value something other than the accumulation of wealth and power.
I pay my bills with money, but I value knowledge above everything else.
A Forbes article linked a study related this very subject. I've only scanned it but intend to read it thoroughly later today. Here's the link:
Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evidence from the 1918 Flu
Thanks for the link. I will look at it and respond when I can.
Interesting. The Abstract from the Paper:
We know a devastating hurricane or typhoon will hit the United States; we don't know when or where. We know a large earthquake will affect the United States; we don't know when or where. We know a large asteroid will strike the planet; we don't know when or where.
So, what do we really know?
We know every human dies; we don't know when or where. What do we really know? Should we live our lives planning for our own death every day because we know it's going to happen?
We can make a million predictions and one of them will be correct; we don't know which one. What do we really know?
Hindsight is a result of experience, not knowledge. We only know because we have experienced what has happened. While it's easy to talk about knowledge, the reality is we are comparing experience to a guess. Predicting the future isn't knowledge; we really don't know the future.
Very fatalistic views. Lets explore some of them.
That isn't exactly true. We don't know the specific timing or landfall of future hurricanes, but we do know that in North America they are statistically probable between May and November from the Gulf Coast to Nova Scotia. They typhoons occur on the west coast, less frequently. As a country, we have devoted a good deal of money to the prediction of and preparation for just such an occurrence. Surely you can't be suggesting that these have been unwise investments?
We know that one is likely to occur, we know that one is likely to happen. We have spent years and untold amounts of money on studies of earthquakes, how to engineer for them, preparedness for them, civil planning around what to do when one occurs... Likewise seemingly very important social and governmental investments.
Even this scenario is in the disaster preparedness quiver of NASA:
You Said: " So, what do we really know? "
Well, we knew about January that something really bad was occuring in Wuhan , China. I can recall as the month progressed hearing and reading many reports that this was really bad . On the 12th of January China shared the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus (Why would they do that? I wonder) and on the 14th a case was reported in Thailand. Just so you know, while we were fiddling, China was obfuscating, and the healthcare community was running around trying to get somebody to pay attention to what was happening. On the 30th of January, two days after a team from the WHO went into China on what was supposed to be a ten day fact finding mission, the WHO declared Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) . We all know where it goes from there. When China closed down the City of Wuhan, that closing should have been the call to action to the world health authorities.
Enough of that though. Do you actually have something constructive to add? If you do, by all means, continue to post. If all you intend to do is say that there is no use planning for any eventuality, why that is just plain silly.
Gee, that's swell. But according to the provided WHO timeline, the WHO did not reach consensus until Jan. 30 that the outbreak in Wuhan constituted a public health emergency of international concern.
Here is another timeline published by CNN: Coronavirus Outbreak Timeline Fast Facts
The original information out of China concerned an outbreak of pneumonia cases of unknown cause that was not SARS or MERS. The WHO first published information for technical and public health community on Jan. 5 and specifically advised against any travel or trade restrictions on China. The cause of the outbreak was confirmed as a new coronavirus on Jan. 7. The first fatality in China attributed to the new coronavirus was reported on Jan. 11. Jan. 20 the NIH announced it is working on a vaccine against the new coronavirus. Jan. 22 the WHO convened an emergency committee which concluded there wasn't enough data available to declare a public health emergency. Jan. 30 the WHO declares the coronavirus outbreak a puble health emergency of international concern. Jan. 31 President Trump placed restrictions on travel to/from China.
So, what did we really know?
Something bad is happening around the world on a regular basis. The United States recorded 289 suspected and probable cases of coronavirus SARS in 38 states during the 2003 outbreak . The WHO and US public health agencies followed the plan to monitor reports and perform contact tracing. That was adequate for the 2003 outbreak.
The WHO and US public health agencies followed the same plan for the current coronavirus outbreak. But the current SARS-CoV-2 has proven to be more virulent that the 2003 SARS-CoV virus.
The United States wasn't any slower to respond than the World Health Organization. In fact the WHO was providing mixed signals until the end of January.
The reality is that the experts didn't know because there wasn't enough data. And if the experts don't know then what are mere mortals supposed to do?
Now we know from experience that SARS-CoV-2 is really bad. But in January everything was guesswork, speculation, and predictions; that's not knowledge.
Today's guidelines and plan haven't changed over the last 100 years. The guidelines and plan were developed by medical experts 100 years ago. The guidelines and the plan used to be part of basic health education in public schools.
Cover your coughs and sneezes. Wash your hands often. Keep surfaces clean. Avoid close contact with sick people. Stay home if you are sick. Wear a face mask.
So, who didn't follow the guidelines and the plan?
Probably the people who did not realize that there was anything wrong with them.
They hadn't been to China. No one they knew had been to China. The Chinese authorities were not indicating that it was even communicable at first, even though there is a high likelihood that they knew that it was. It took real boots on the ground to alert the WHO, but we all should have known when the case turned up in Thailand.
So, moving forward, are you going to change any behaviors.
Controlling infectious disease requires everyone follow the guidelines and plan all the time. The role of public health education is to make everyone aware of the guidelines and train them to follow the guidelines.
The guidelines and plan aren't something that sits on the shelf awaiting a pandemic. The guidelines are intended to be normal daily practice for everyone. That has been the normal for the last 100 years; it isn't a new normal.
Cover your coughs and sneezes. Wash your hands often. Keep surfaces clean. Avoid close contact with sick people. Stay home if you are sick. Wear a face mask.
But the public guidelines are designed to control spread of infectious disease where people live. Isolating the source of the infectious disease does not change the public guidelines or plans for controlling spread of infectious disease.
We don't know when the SARS-CoV-2 virus began spreading to other countries. The SARS-CoV-2 virus began spreading during flu season. It's quite likely that doctors didn't recognize that patients with pneumonia symptoms consistent with flu were infected with a new virus. The virus may well have been spreading last November or earlier well before anyone recognized it was a new virus. People may have been dying from COVID-19 before it was recognized as a new disease. We simply don't know.
The public guidelines and plan were intended to address that circumstance.
I have changed my behavior very little. I was trained to follow the guidelines. I carry a handkerchief which can be used to cover coughs and sneezes and used as a face mask. Although the special purpose face masks are more convenient so I do carry one of them now.
Setting aside the fact that it is not normal daily practice to wear masks, what happens when these are not enough? When it's been demonstrated that a virus spreads easily without direct contact at conversational distances, do we just continue as we are, or do we need to modify our behavior to reduce social contact, limit trips outside our homes, etc.?
Of course we should be washing our hands, coughing into a tissue or our elbows, and keeping surfaces clean. That might suffice at times when pathogen transmission is low. But it may not suffice during a pandemic of an especially infectious virus.
I doubt very much that you wore a facemask or remaned six feet away from persons as a matter of course while conducting normal daily tasks before the pandemic. There was no apparent reason to.
The fact remains that asymptomatic people have the ability to shed the virus when they had no reason to believe that they had anything wrong with them. Even following the hygiene protocol, they still dramatically increased the risk level of others around them.
Sandy,
I agree the face masks were not the "norm" whatsoever; at least not in the US or Europe; China is a different story and it's not necessarily only to keep out pathogens but pollutants too.
Personally, I loathe shopping in public and being in crowded places. Therefore, this keeping my distance from people is something that I've always done as a personal preference. I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse that my normal life is now considered a reaction of a pandemic. I work in the IT department and don't have to work with people face to face. In a prior work life, I was often required to wear an N95 mask [working in a shop where there's welding, painting, brake dust, gas and diesel fumes, etc. and I was the only pregnant mechanic in two different shops].
I'm glad I can work from home, I feel blessed that I can. And from what my supervisor [and his] says, we're probably going to be working from home for quite some time. It makes me happy because I can get my job done, I can be here for my kids, I can save money on my car maintenance / repair / gas / insurance and less stress from my 60 mile round trip to and from the office.
I am one of only a handful that is just fine with things like they are now. My husband and I only go out to dinner once a year. We never go to the bar. I get my hair cut once, maybe twice a year. I've been ordering my groceries online and doing curbside pick up for years now. I only go into the local "mom n pop" grocery store for fresh produce and meats. With 2 teens and a tween in the house, I have to buy a large quantity of things they can "graze" upon, which yes, includes processed, boxed, frozen, or long shelf-life items. T
he only things we do that's around the public is go to car shows [and in Michigan, that's only in the summer or to Auto Rama in Feb.] and my daughter and I will occasionally go to do a "girl's day" and get massages and get girly products at Ulta... I can do without the girl's day stuff, I'm a tomboy, but my daughter enjoys it. We've just been going out and about on our Honda Sprees instead. My family adapted to this way of life before it was a mandated thing. The only difference for me now is that I have to wear a mask in the mom n pop grocery store.
I didn't realize that the US ever had a typhoon problem.
Well, typhoons occur in the Pacific, hurricanes in the Atlantic... think Hawaii
I forgot about HI.
Easy to do. In grad school, in a bar, I was displaying my geography skills by drawing a map of the united states. Everything fit together perfectly, until someone said, "Where is Nevadaon your map?" Doh! Face-palm
In reality, this corona virus will probably end up killing about the same number of people as the season flu does. The victims who succumb to it are overwhelmingly elderly and have underlying conditions. Yes we should have been better prepared and had all the medical chips in a row before this happened, but all the US governments have done for decades is to kick the can down the road as has been previously mentioned. And that includes the present one...mistakes were made and stupid things said.
But in the race to mitigate the threat and find a cure, millions of American families lives and livelihoods have been ruined, some perhaps permanently. Who knows at this point how severe the ongoing fallout from these draconian shutdowns will be and how long lasting the affect on the nation will persist.
and African American or American Indian...
Nonsense, everything will rebound except the national debt, which was unnecessary IMHO
Do you have statistics or a link to that ?
Has your business suffered?
I would be interested to see if anyone does a study later to see if those that regularly received the regular flu vaccine actually contracted the corona virus, or at least in a far reduced capacity. I understand the flu vaccine fights different aspects than the COVID, but maybe there is something in it that suppresses symptoms to the point where you either feel like you have a minor cold, or just be asymptomatic.
In healthcare service facilities, it is nearly mandatory to get a yearly flu vaccine. If you don't want to get one, then most facilities require you to wear a face mask for the duration of flu season while you are in the facility. I'm curious if there is any correlation of health care workers who did not get the vaccine came down with the virus at a much higher rate than those that did.
Bugsy,
I can't say much regarding the flu vaccine and it's affects on CoV-19, but I wondered the same thing. My immediate family [incl. my parents / step-parents] never gets the flu vaccine. And no one in my family has suffered from this. My aunt, uncle, and cousin did come down with CoV-19 and my uncle had it the worst, but was still manageable from home. My aunt works in an office in a hospital and my cousin works in a lab that was performing some of the testing; therefore, people that were exposed through their work environments.
I did however, read an article out of the UK with input from US and a few Asian countries regarding the surprisingly low number of smokers / former smokers that have caught CoV-19 let alone had to be hospitalized, ventilated, or died from it. The article stated it had to do with ACE inhibitors / receptors... something like that, but ironically the only people in my family to catch CoV-19 are, and always have been non-smokers. The doctors that contributed to the article were baffled that the one group (smokers / former smokers) that they thought for sure would catch, suffer, and had a high death rate from CoV-19, didn't. Then again, those with COPD [which is most often caused by smoking] are at very high risk.
Hello Thomas. A quick reference, if writing a piece or even a long response, a lot of people write it on an offsite platform, something on their computer like note pad. Then copy and paste the body to the site. I have written long, what I thought, well thought out response and hit a wrong button .. poof.
As far as economy. I don't trust the way those are reported or calculated. Any data can be manipulated to show a narrative. I don't think they show true cost of goods or true inflation.
I don't like or trust the idea that we have had the best economy in years, the best unemployment in years, when true statistics show the economic divide is growing. We rely on low paying service sector jobs that depend on other lower paid service sector employees to spend what little money they do have to keep the cycle going. Basically we hire people to sell useless garbage or useless services and encourage others to do the same.
Government is not prepared to handle such things because Imo it is not run by our elected officials. It is run by what the 1%, corporations want or lobby to get.
I don't like the idea that the stock market is any indicator of economy because I consider it nothing but pieces of paper that some put a value on. Unrealistic and unreliable except for those at the top that can manipulate their so called worth.
We are also getting back to a point where most people are in debt to a point where if something did happen they would lose it all. Not many true home owners or people paying off homes.
Sorry if this seems like ramblings, just thoughts going through me head. I guess my point would be there is not really much we can do. The wealthy will be fine, the poor will be poor and it goes on and on.
Nothing can or will change when people do not want to think for themselves and rely on talking heads for their opinions.
Thank you, Ender, for commenting.
What steps do you think could be taken to clarify the process? It is, I think, standardized in the dataa used and the methods of calculation, so we can get an idea of the trueness even if the actual number is wrong.
How, then, would you change this? Specifically, how would you alter this jobs scenario?
So what would you like to see instead?
You realize that money, currency could be described in a similar fashion? What alternate way would you arrange things so that we could track how the economy is doing?
So how do you see us addressing this?
Actually I don't think there is any way to address it/change things.
In times past when people had enough they would rise up.
Now they just pit us against each other and we oblige instead of directing our ire in the direction it should go..
It is about as right as six degrees of separation on how they calculate unemployment.
How certain items or necessities are not calculated into inflation.
To me it’s a relatively easy concept. A simple risk/reward analysis. The concept is simple. Getting agreement on how much of either is acceptable is the problem.
Taking little risk means less deaths but kicks the can even further down the road. Taking more risk potentially causes more death but speeds the process up. Certainly not an easy analysis to get agreement on but a simple concept just the same.
LOL, you are appealing to the accountant in me. But remember there is always a way to make those numbers you want. That is what cost accounting is all about. You are not wrong, but again human nature will always kick in.
And now the biology teacher kicks in. Viruses don't know from kicking down the road... in fact, they almost like it better if you did. Remember, their sole purpose on this planet is population control. The further we kick it down the road, the better they can do their job. Just think! We are helping them by buying more time for mutations!
I agree.
The longer we all stay at home, the more economic damage is done, the longer it takes for everyone to catch the virus and gain a possible immunity for following years. The farther the can gets kicked down the road economically and medically.
There is no way around it. It does no good to survive if everyone simply starves when it burns out.
the future
From the Title, something came to mind:
Questions for those who like to think...
Seems we spend a lot of time talking to many who ARE like the Boy,
in the plastic bubble.
We tend to provide
Answers for those who DON"T like to think...
.
It is amazing how dense some cro-magnum craniums truly are.
Although it is something that appeals to Trump, which I am loathe to agree with, the best thing for the U.S. to do right now is spend whatever money is necessary to keep small businesses in business.
The national debt is irrelevant. We have to borrow from the future to keep the economy intact. We could double the national debt and it wouldnt matter.
read
One thing that remains true throughout history is that aristocracy runs the show. Ownership is power. Ownership by a few means those few can dramatically affect the many. This ownership has taken many forms from early settlements (after the hunter / gatherer stage) to kingdoms and eventually to financial empires.
Another truism is that people place a higher priority on (local,current) over more (global,distant) concerns. What happens to one's immediate family now is far more important than what happens to society in general over time. Those in control, being people, are susceptible to this behavior. Thus we see our current crop of politicians making decisions that benefit themselves in the short term at the expense of their constituents over the long term.
As long as we have the few calling the shots for the many, we will see benefit to the few at the expense of the many. To expect altruism is, historically, unrealistic.
That established ...
The culture of worldwide society is one of conformance. People naturally rely upon others to take care of things. This is another aspect of (local, current). People focus on their families and friends and spend far too little time thinking in terms of society over time. This enables a minority of others the opportunity to provide short-term local benefits (e.g. jobs) in return for work that ultimately grows their base of power. This seems like a very good trade-off but over time, when one looks at the big picture, this is detrimental to society as a whole.
You asked a great question:
This pandemic has made it impossible for most to conduct business as usual. Businesses, faced with a reduction in revenue, will typically cut costs. Cutting costs means the loss of jobs. The business effectively transfers its liabilities to its employees. Jobs are cut, costs are brought more in line with demand and the business remains solvent. Those laid-off and/or with reduced compensation and/or greater work are the ones truly bearing the burden.
There is no easy, quick solution to this. This, as I noted, is how we have operated since before recorded history. The solution, ultimately, is to evolve into a societal structure where economic power is distributed among an active, engaged demos. In such a system, the economic consequence of a pandemic such as this would not be absorbed by those with low economic power and barely touch those with high economic power.
Not in our lifetimes.
That seems to be a mighty big part of the problem.
Everyone thinks it can't happen, in 'their' lifetime.
Well, this Pandemic, DID, and because of our societies that do constantly kick the can down the road, many ,
have sore toes.
Thank you for commenting, TiG.
I don't think that we can evolve quickly enough for this crisis.
This pandemic has spawned at least two problems and probably more. One of the problems is, of course, the fact that a great many people have become sick all at once. That is, in my opinion, the greater of the two basic problems. The lesser of the two problems is one that we have created for ourselves by virtue of our societies and have nonetheless thrown up our well wrung hands at and said, "We can do nothing to stop the financial ruin of many people and businesses! We cannot fix this Problem for it is too large and would sink all of our nations!" That is, quite simply put, poppycock.
It is not that we cannot, it is that we, us, society, are unwilling to even conceive of taking the actions necessary to make this problems severity decrease to the point where it is no more.
You said," There is no easy, quick solution to this." I say," There is!" But as a culture and a society we have been so inured in the trappings of capitalist thought that we would rather plunge the world into another Great Depression than suspend our debt collections for a few months.
I come from New York, and I know the suspicion that everyone is out for themselves and damn the rest, and WTF are you tryin' ta pull? I get that. But I also see the possibility of making a positive change out of a dire circumstance and I see no better time than right now to do just that.
Without a doubt we cannot. The evolution that I see (if ever) will be generational.
Suspending debt collections does not seem easy to accomplish nor would it address the full problem. I can explain my position, but first I should hear what you have in mind.
Well, first off, let us define the situation in which we are presently mired.
It is called capitalism with the golden egg being money. I can hear you laughing. OK, less hyperbolically.
We have millions of people without a paycheck or work. We have businesses closed or severely restricted in their ability to operate. We have Russia and the Saudis flooding the oil market at the same time as demand falls off a cliff. We have tankers parked off the coast waiting to unload because there is no demand charging $20 to 50K a day storage fees. We have Landlords who can't get paid because their tenants are out of work because they have children who can't go to school...
Or Musically:
We have the governments, around the world, going into Debt, to pay the businesses, to pay the workers, who stayed at home, from their jobs, to watch their young zooming and schooling and learning at home.... We have doctors and nurses to catch Covid, but we have no money to pay Amazon...Perhaps we're screwed..
(If you read that while thinking of "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly" it makes more sense.)
Sorry, it just seems so absurd to me that we think that we have an insurmountable problem. Commerce has been forced to a crawl because people have to remain separated to stop the spread of the virus. Everyone, worldwide, knows that this is the case. Everyone, worldwide is in the same boat because all of our economies are interwoven and the virus is on all continents except Antarctica.
So, before I totally lose my mind, would you agree that that is a very basic (and not that Complete) summation of the Problem?
I think that summarizes the problem nicely. Further, I agree that a healthy system is one that is moving. The forced (and necessary) isolation is atrophying our economic systems and of course is taking quite a heavy human toll. Without money consumers cannot spend; without consumers spending, the economy tanks in a vicious cycle. So certainly I agree that it is important that consumers have the means to consume. And, as a corollary, producers need to be free to produce (they need to be able to reopen 'shop' and go to work) to meet the demand.
My focus is on the word 'easy'. I can appreciate 'easy' in the sense of conceptually easy to understand. But I cannot appreciate it in the sense of easy to accomplish. As an illustration, it is conceptually easy to envision a system where the major banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, auto credit companies, utilities, medical institutions, etc. all grant a refinancing of debt during the crisis wherein payments are dramatically reduced, interest charges are forgiven and no late penalties. It is also conceptually easy to envision the granting of emergency credit to enable consumers with a compromised livelihood to continue to buy essentials. Imagine the credit card companies (this will be difficult to suspend disbelief) offering low single digit or zero interest credit and increasing credit limits for a few months; effectively granting a genuine line-of-credit that can be instantaneously realized by the super-majority of citizens.
But the challenges to accomplishing the above are not easily overcome. Gaining cooperation is certainly not easy. Even with said cooperation, one must deal with the equitable and effective distribution of benefits. That involves means-testing and the myriad information and political complexities of just that element. It also, crucially, involves fraud prevention, detection and resolution.
I think that given time it would be possible to formulate an emergency economic program that could substantially help people (and the system) weather a short term (i.e. less than a year) crisis like what we are experiencing. But such a program for the USA would certainly be complex and a long-time coming. IMO.
Thank you, TiG, for your well reasoned and carefully thought out post.
I came back up her and wrote this after the rest of the post. It appears that I am about to rant.
I appreciate the perception that this would be a very hard thing to do. It will be, unless we just do it. I know, you have to get everybody to agree on the what and the where and things have to be implemented... There is no time to ask permission. If we don't do it now, we will be mired in the false debt of nobody's fault or choosing. It does not need to occur in that fashion. But it probably will.
Who created the concept of money? Humans.
Who created the concept of exchange? Humans
Can we not see the evidence in front of our eyes that the economic systems we have in place, all of them, will not work in situations such as a pandemic because there is limited commerce? Why do we then cling to these models? How stupid are we?
We invented money, but we cannot control it? Why?
I contend that we can control money and do control money, but that control rests in the hands of the few (a.k.a. the "rich") and it is those few who will not release control. (They probably don't trust us lesser individuals with to much of it) These people, these individuals and entities, who have more than they could ever possibly want or need, do not care about the poor except to remove even more money from them.. The controllers of the money are to blame for all of the economic fallout from this pandemic because they cannot relinquish that control for just a little while, no matter the cost to the common man. That is travesty.
What makes money the end all and be all in situations like this? Why?
There are people worried about AI taking over everything... money has already done that. Everything has to be accounted for in the massive quid pro quo, even if the system breaks under certain conditions, conditions like are occurring right now. So, instead of suspending the system momentarily, we let it grind people and businesses to dust so the system can be maintained. That is fucking bullshit.
If you see someone in need, give them what they need or connect them with someone who can. Facilitate the transaction.
PPE is a great example of how the system we have does not work under these conditions. One of the most important things to have, a mask, maybe gloves or some hand sanitizer, when you find them they are outrageously expensive. We need this stuff to live, and somebody knows that, if we are able, we will pay. But that is if we are able. There are quite a few who are not able, and that is where the true problem lies.
What really really frosts my cookies though is that you can be damn sure that some hyper-small group of people out there among the uber wealthy is going to be licking up all of those cheap stocks out there and when we get to the other side of this, as we will, they are going to be holding onto a box of everything while the rest of us of lesser means have to lick their figurative balls and be happy for the privilege. You think the wealth distribution curve is wacked now...
Sorry. I don't know what came over me. I will get back in line for da'man ball-licking thing so I can get my paycheck and go do my plebe thing and send my money back to da'man.
"and the sick stay poor", as the uber Rich, just want, get, and will grab MORE, like Trump and 'pussy' they/we, just let em'.
.
interesting, thought provocativetation your seeds do plant in the minds of this sub-set of an IGNORANT NATION ALL messed & dressed up, and no where or one to go/blow in many thinking individuals a weigh too heavy a wait, to lift those with out iiii'z and never wish 2 C
watt i've herd, should be relatively easy four about all, accept me a quarter of the time as i won't change n 2 dimes and one cut in half, doesn't make five census
to an unpopular notion wiped on like a Corona Lotion on the Sandy Beech, wear like apples, Sponges Bobbed smell fishy, and out of reach,
cuz like that plastic bubble, some minds R impossible to reach
a round is squarely owed
asz all deserve to get Blown
up like a bombshell, that exploded over US
all the while Happy Ending Style
.
AMEN!
Thomas, I've been asking these things all along! If companies big or small and people, no matter their wealth status could just say... let's just wipe the slate for a while and barter or forgive loans for 6 months... whatever it takes. Not loot. Not steal. Bargain. Work for the local market for 40 hours for a weeks worth of food. Work at a farm for a few days [if possible / some places don't have farms close enough] for some milk and eggs and maybe some beef or chicken.
I just don't get why we NEED money for everything. I'm willing to bet that my local mom n pop grocer would be just fine with me working for some food.
I realize that this isn't necessarily possible to do for everyone, but let's be real, why couldn't I say, fix someone's computer and they walk my dog for a week. I mean, that's just an example, but I think you get the point.
The Native American people bartered and exchanged goods and services throughout the entire US and Canada... why does this little piece of paper with a dead president's face on it dictate whether or not I can get food or water or heat or transportation, etc.?