Remain isolated or restart the economy?

[sorrowful1]

IMHO, the “reopening” should be done in phases/levels like New Zealand is doing. Mass gathering and outing should still be restricted. A very strict precautions should be taken at all times because this is an invisible enemy we’re battling against

I’ve seen patients suffer (and die) mercilessly due to viral infections, their beloved ones would keep praying at the bedside and often, they would vent their anger on us helpless students. And keep in mind, half of the cases were relapses viz. they re-emerged again after a significant improvement due to carelessness.

So, that’s it. From my perspective (and my brief experience) a viral case isn’t something we can easily ignore. That too, of a massive scale such as this one right now, these days - the Covid -19. A sound economy is important but who handles it? Not sickly human beings.

 

[EssentialBeing]

should be done in phases

Yes i believe the same, as the incidents of re-emergence is clear around the world, question is whether it was caused by re-opening the economy too fast? True, that re-opening too early or too fast could be a big mistake.

If after re-opening there is a re-emergence that leads to a second shut-down this will most defiantly prove to be disasters for many more businesses (of course lives too). Bad enough the first time round but even worse the second.

I don’t think nations will have a choice other than a very tightly controlled re-opening, which seems at best, experimental at this stage

 

[whatistrue]

It is meant to avoid overwhelming the medical infrastructure. If we run out of ICU beds and/or ventilators (because they are all in use already) then we cannot save new patients who need them. Plus using resources to treat more coronavirus patients means those resources can’t be used for heart attack or trauma (or any of the things that hospitals treat every day already) patients.

 

[toddy]

Only 70% swaps tests are accurate, and 21% to 32% people, who can spread virus silently, have covid19 antibodies. These leakages maybe occur when reopening the economy!

 

[ALittleBitCrunchy]

If we lift the restrictions too soon, the economy may restart, but then the increased illness will bring the economy down again. If we stay isolated and hoard goods, though, the economy will crash and, with it, the ability to help the afflicted will dry up. So either way, we will actually end up losing both the economy and human lives. What we need to do is shift the economy away from nonessential services and maintain a focus on health care, infrastructural resilience and hunger relief while isolating as much as we can without hoarding.

 

[ontheway1]

If we lift the restrictions too soon, the economy may restart, but then the increased illness will bring the economy down again.

Does this mean that we are entering a permanent state of emergency? Are we to remain isolated and behind face masks for ever? What will happen to the freedoms that we have enjoyed for so long?

Political pundits are predicting that things will never be the same again.
There are some scientists who predict that living with viruses of pandemic proportians is now permanent. They predict that we will never be actually free of pandemics.

 

[Bernoulli]

There are various scenarios about the future. One possibility is that the disease can be eradicated locally in various regions, which allow relative freedom within the regions and travelling to other regions in similar situations. People from other regions where the disease is not controlled are allowed to travel only through a quarantine and testing or not at all.

 

[ATraveller]

The Chief Medical Officer said while there was a likely easing of some restrictions this week, Australia would have to contend with long-term changes even after the pandemic ends.

“I think in so many parts of our society, hygiene practices need to change,” Professor Murphy said.

"Even when the coronavirus has gone, that will have influences on influenza, colds, gastro, all of those things.

"We, as a first-world, very wealthy country, have probably become a bit too relaxed about hygiene and I think it’s time that we focus on those things [we] have learned from these measures.

'Bold' easing of restrictions possible if more people download COVIDSafe App, CMO says

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy wants a greater uptake of the coronavirus tracing app in a bid to abate lingering concerns about containing the virus and to allow leaders to ease more restrictions.

www.abc.net.au

Since we’re so concerned about the economy, remember regular flu can damage the economy too but not to the same extent.

The estimated average annual total economic burden of influenza to the [US] healthcare system and society was $11.2 billion ($6.3-$25.3 billion).

Economic burden of seasonal influenza in the United States - PubMed

This study provides an updated estimate of the total economic burden of influenza in the U.S. Although we found a lower total cost than previously estimated, our results confirm that influenza is responsible for a substantial economic burden in the U.S.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Keep our new habits on handwashing, covering our mouths and noses when sneezing and coughing, staying home if we’re sick, and avoiding face-touching to suppress normal seasonal flu as much as possible to help with the economic recovery over the next few years.

Hong Kong’s coronavirus response leads to sharp drop in flu cases​

Winter influenza season ends more than a month earlier than usual

Ho Pak-leung, a leading microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said data showed the flu season had shortened from an average of 98.7 days to 34 days this year. He said the sharp fall was probably due to the widespread adoption of personal hygiene measures including washing hands and wearing face masks.

https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4

But using too much cleaners to clean surfaces can be bad for building up immunity. Handwashing with regular soap and water isn’t bad.

 

[JoeFreedom]

I think this is good common sense. Washing your hands, covering your mouth and nose with your elbow and turning away from others while sneezing, staying away from visibly or audibly ill people. And using chemicals too broadly is also a bad thing, as ultimately many of the VOCs from use or outgasing are not good for our overall bodily health.

 

[PetraG]

New York State appears headed to a mortality at plateau of 1,637 per million by August 4.
Our state, Oregon, appears headed to a mortality at plateau of 48 per million by August 4.
(Combining current information from United States COVID: 34,766,404 Cases and 623,029 Deaths - Worldometer
with rough projections from COVID-19 and COVID-19)

That is a rate of mortality that is 34 times as high as ours. That’s the state of New York, too, not the City of New York, which has an even higher per capita mortality.

If our state were to lose as many as the state of New York, the total would be about 6,389 more people (6,582 instead of 193) than we are projected to lose now. Setting our typical annual mortality at the 2018 total of 36,191, that is a difference between a 0.5% rise in mortality and an 18 percent rise.

Those are all just pencil-on-napkin estimates, but the difference is staggering. If our death rate for the year went up by 18% due to deaths that happened chiefly within the space of six weeks, that’s mind-boggling.

They have estimated the overall infection rate in New York (based on antibody testing) to be about 27.6% in the Bronx and down to 3.6% in less-populated parts of the state. This means that our state, while we have saved a lot of lives, still have a lot more people who haven’t been infected yet.

Still, usually 70-90% of a population needs immunity to prevent epidemic outbreaks (aka herd immunity). New York is closer than we are, but they aren’t really “close,” even if immunity is long-term, and we don’t know that it is.

I hope we’ve bought time to obtain more PPE for our health care workers (because they were so short just last month that they couldn’t protect themselves according to protocols envisioned by the manufacturers) and to get better testing and tracing in place. A vaccine, however, is still a long ways off. The virus hasn’t mutated into something less deadly (cowpox vs smallpox).

Even if we re-open as a nation, we’re going to be in “super-flu-season” for a LONG time, especially those of us who are in the 1/3 of adults who are “vulnerable” and in the parts of the country that have managed to keep our overall infection rates very low (which means outbreaks will go farther faster).

 

[skelly]

And don’t buy a turkey at Thanksgiving and save it for Easter!

 

[PetraG]

And don’t buy a turkey at Thanksgiving and save it for Easter!

The freezer length of time should be OK. Besides, freezer burn doesn’t give you food poisoning.

 

[skelly]

Must gradually peal back restrictions. They can’t print enough money to save millions from famine after they collapse the US economy into worse than Great Depression numbers.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

And don’t buy a turkey at Thanksgiving and save it for Easter!

The freezer length of time should be OK. Besides, freezer burn doesn’t give you food poisoning.

I was just going by the expiry date on the wrapping plastic — you’re supposed to be able to do that. I think the turkeys had been thawed and refrozen.

 

[PetraG]

I was just going by the expiry date on the wrapping plastic — you’re supposed to be able to do that. I think the turkeys had been thawed and refrozen.

You probably have something there…that is, the addition of another thawing cycle gave the bugs more time to grow.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

I was just going by the expiry date on the wrapping plastic — you’re supposed to be able to do that. I think the turkeys had been thawed and refrozen.

You probably have something there…that is, the addition of another thawing cycle gave the bugs more time to grow.

I have also wondered, with it being some no-name, off-brand organic poultry concern, relying on many organic small farmers, if something could have gone wrong in the slaughtering process, or packaging, of whatever, and made the turkeys kind of “skunky” or otherwise unwholesome. They were all but giving the turkeys away.

From now on, the whole turkeys and breasts will be Butterball. I get Kentucky Legend or Oscar Mayer to make baked sliced turkey casserole for my family — a couple of StoveTop cornbread dressings and a jar of turkey gravy, layer the turkey into it, bake for 30 minutes, instant Sunday dinner. They love it!

 

[ontheway1]

Must gradually peal back restrictions. They can’t print enough money to save millions from famine after they collapse the US economy into worse than Great Depression numbers.

Information about the virus and its cause, as well as statistics are becoming more and more muddled and confusing. There are so many "“experts” giving so much contraditory information that it is difficut to follow and believe anything.

Are we stil to believe that this is a global health criist, or has this become a global economic crisis?

 

[JoeFreedom]

Exactly. What I find interesting it that those who tell us that we must, absolutely MUST trust science, and only science; when the science they side with says that “we are faced only with a black and white choice of shutting down for months on end and that if we do not, billions will die and those who don’t comply simply want others to die and are responsible for murder”, don’t also look at the science that goes against what they are saying, particularly when that science they don’t agree with comes from well respected medical professionals and institutions.

Edit: and the massive “do what I say and not what I do - watch the other hand” morons out there, Chris Cuomo, among others, goes out while infected with COVID on bike rides and belittles people for “getting in his way and being outside” and going to his vacation home and then going on TV and essentially stating that if you go out you are a murderer.

Or Illinois governor Pritzker, whose wife went down to Florida because she “needed a vacation to visit family” while the rest of us rubes are told to stay in another month and will be fined if we go outside without a mask on.

Or the truly evil Chicago Mayor Lightfoot, in a press conference, when asked about her going to get a haircut, and CAUGHT, proceeded to fester like an open sore, ripped back at the reporter and told them that “she IS the face of TV and she must look good, and because she takes her hygiene seriously, and she FELT like she NEEDED a haircut, it was OKAY”. Now the rest of you go home, shut up, and do what I tell you.

 

[whatistrue]

says that “ we are faced only with a black and white choice of shutting down for months on end and that if we do not, billions will die and those who don’t comply simply want others to die and are responsible for murder ”,

Whoever says that is not actually following the science. There is no one correct response to the situation; it depends on local conditions. Of course the effects of travel between areas has to be accounted for as well.

and the massive “do what I say and not what I do - watch the other hand

Yeah, those folks need to be called out and practice what they preach. Not sure how widespread that really is, so “massive” may or may not be accurate.

 

[JoeFreedom]

Yeah, those folks need to be called out and practice what they preach. Not sure how widespread that really is, so “massive” may or may not be accurate.

To be fair, there are some that are practicing what they preach.

Whoever says that is not actually following the science.

What I’m talking about is that when John Hopkins says “x” and the NIH says “y” and x and y contradict, who are you to believe. I’m not talking about situational stats. So when two or more highly respected institutes or doctors or scientists come out with studies or science that contradict each other, then what happens is that the “stay inside forever crowd” sides with the “science” that aligns with them, and ignores the other studies.