However, schools provide a level of isolation - you’re with the same people day in and day out, with limited time to do much else. Now all kids have a blank slate with what to do with their days. I’d rather my kids be with the same group of people daily, than suddenly have to return to a school with hundreds of kids who have spent the past month doing god know what, where and with whom. I consider that far riskier than simply staying in school all along. It prevents a single school’s population from being turned into a hot spot, but individual risk of infection remains the same if not worse (unless you plan to lock your kids in their bedrooms indefinitely).
Its significantly lower threat of virus spread if a school is closed.
Mingling with 100’s of kids and staff in close quarters all day long is much worse for virus spread than what kids would do normally.
When kids aren’t in school they absolutely don’t range the country unattended interacting with 100’s of people. They play on their ipad all day.
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I agree. And “Paid sick leave” screws a large number of small business owners who wouldnt be eligible (and maybe have to fund their employees out of their own pockets).
I think they should do something like those old economic stimulus checks. Provide “paid” time off so those living paycheck to paycheck can survive, but then deduct it from their tax return the following year. Yes, it’s just loaning them their own money - but it does stablize their cashflow, which is the primary problem with missing days/weeks of work.
Yeah the media activity and general reaction to H1H1 swine flu was much much less than what we have now with Covid19. Probably 50x more news on Covid19
60M people in the US were infected by swine flu eventually. But that took over a year. Covid19 is just getting started. H1N1 didn’t spread as fast as Covid19 is and it wasn’t as lethal.
For comparison: We’re at roughly day 60 of the Covid19 outbreak. Comparing H1H1 to Covid19 at this day 60 point the current Covid19 outbreak has infected over 2x as many people and killed 16 times as many people so far compared to what H1N1 did in the first 60 days.
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Usually this kind of shit happens at Walmart. Stay classy America!
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Let’s keep in mind, the average age of a Covid-19 fatality is 80. Schools are being closed not to protect the kids, but their grandparents. All of this is being done so we don’t lose a double digit percentage of our oldest citizens and completely overwhelm out medical system with many infected patients.
For almost anyone under 60, the financial and social burdens of this outbreak will far outweigh the physical effects. I think if given the choice between losing 25% of our portfolio balances or getting infected and tolerating a dry cough with fever for a couple days (the most common symptoms for those under 60), most of us would choose the latter.
If the world gets the disease and survives, or not, say in the next six months, most of your portfolio would likely return to about the prior values. Sure they will have lost some money in the meanwhile, but most of the value of a business is their future profits for the next decade or more, not the next six months.
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These places are probably just ridiculous because the smallest package size is like 50 rolls.
I have to say my overall sentiment is improved from two days ago. (Not that I think the market’s hit bottom or everything’s roses now. Im still also fully invested but not leveraged anymore.).
A lot of policy activity today scattered across many states, unclear if we avoid Italy course, but maybe we can. Guess we’ll see over the next couple days if enough policy is put into place. We want <1% death rate instead of up to 5%. Problem is how scattered the efforts are.
Seems like a good article with nice charts (data/ chart sources are all linked) and explanation. It’s pretty crazy how massive a difference just a single day of extra delay can make (theoretically 40% difference in the example based on Wuhan). That’s why the next couple days really matters for policy.
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Seems like blood in the actual streets as opposed to just blood in the (wall) streets would also likely cause a large hit to his portfolio.
Is April 15 still tax day ?
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I believe it is still officially on for April 15th for everybody but there has been a bit of talk about extending the deadline for most taxpayers and business. Visit Coronavirus Tax Relief and Economic Impact Payments | Internal Revenue Service to get the latest from the IRS.
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Why dont we get any stats and figures that actually matter?
What I want to know is, if an infected person standing 3 ft in front of me coughs, what are the odds of my actually being infected. Is it 99%? Or is it more like 50% or 30% (or even less)? If someone who’s infected licks the seat on the bus and I subsequently rub my hand over that area, how likely am I of catching the virus? If an infected dude on the subway wipes his nose on my shoulder, then I go home and hug my kid, what are the odds of that snot residue transmitting the virus to my children? These are the stats I want to base my decisions on.
But instead, all we hear about is being “exposed”, and even that centers on “potentially”. That’s pretty much as pointless as you can get, with the only purpose seeming to be to incite panic.
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So how do you intend to set up the controlled scientific tests to determine those? Take a couple hundred healthy people (for each of those situations). Have someone infected lick the bus seat followed by someone sitting and rubbing their hand over the area. Repeat 100X. Wait 3 weeks. Tally the stats?
Edit: and also conduct more tests of groups of 100 of each demographic - Kids, under 30, ~45, 60+, 80+
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Well yeah, you’re right of course. Cause someone directly blowing in your face really isnt any different than rubbing shoulders with someone who’s family member might’ve sat in the same seat as someone who might’ve been in the same room as a confirmed case. Since, ya’ know, being exposed to the virus is being exposed no matter how it happens. So all we need to talk about is potential exposure.
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I don’t usually watch “news” outlets on TV, but have some lately. When the question of virus living on surfaces has come up, the responses I’ve seen have directly qualified that “It’s been detectable for up to 9 days… BUT it’s less likely to be viable the longer the time period, meaning you’re less likely to contract the virus/get sick as the quantity of the virus goes down” I agree it’s unlikely much of the public can process the distinction.
I’d question that - no one returned from Italy on a plane by themselves. All the passengers on that plan were exposed to some degree. Not to mention everyone in the terminal, shuttle buses, etc ticket counters, etc, etc. If it’s the certainty you say, and being nearly a month into it, half the US population would have it right now.
What you’re saying is that we should assume that exposure equals infection, until proven otherwise (like after a 2 week quarantine). But I dont want to turn my entire life upside-down on someone’s assumptions.
Size of the dose? Really? So if someone coughs in my face, I’m going to get sicker than if I touch a contaminated wall with my pinkie finger then pick my nose? Seriously?
From this local lady’s story and other I have heard including some really detailed story from Asia, my guess-estimate would be 80 to 90% range. This apply to close family members or friends in a party situation. Airplane ride is a bit different because you usually don’t have a lot of interactions.
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When did a government declaring a state of emergency mean for everyone to start panic buying? I was at Sam’s Club two weeks ago and it was normal. Yesterday the city declared a state of emergency and suddenly there’s long lines everywhere and everything is sold out. I thought the whole point is for governments to activate emergency response teams and for state and local governments to request federal aid. 
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The people hoarding stuff from Sam’s club or Costco is appalling. But stores have their responsibility in the process too. For example, they could have limited purchase quantities. At Sam’s club today, they were completely out of any of the basics like milk, butter, eggs, pasta, rice, … no limit on purchases. I went to Aldi where they limited people to 2 gallons of milk or two dozen eggs, etc… necessities and they had plenty left of everything as a result. Yes it’s inconvenient but it seems like a better system to control irrational hoarding.
At times like this, Sam’s and others like it should control sales more tightly. It doesn’t make sense for the community to have some folks with no basic necessities while others have pallets of it.
That said, the crowd at these places are sheep too. They see someone buy 200 rolls of TP, they rush to get the same amount. The funny thing was the length of the check out line at Sam’s today. Was snaking through the store like I’ve never seen. None of the sheeple using the scan and go feature on their phones but all patiently waiting 45 min to check out while breathing the germs of the others in line. The poetic justice of natural selection in full display IMO.
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