Remain isolated or restart the economy?

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I think it makes sense to let those who have the antibodies and have already been exposed to continue life as normal. Those who are immunocompromised can stay quarantined until a vaccine comes out, but it does not make sense to continue this for another year to save a select few. In the end most people have to get it for the craziness to end. It will end in more problems economically and many people may end up homeless and jobless. The whole livelihood of many young people especially could be destroyed, just to try to save more elderly people and select younger people with diseases, and no on knows if it will really prevent that many deaths
 
But WHEN is too soon and WHEN is too late? I understand the dilemma, I really do. I, personally, think April 30th is too soon. I’m more in favor of mid May but I have a friend that’s a nail tech and as a self employed person, she’s getting nothing! Of course, she also wanted government to get out of her way as a business person… She’s an example that could return soon…she sees clients one at a time and can sterilize between clients. Kids returning to school? Please, no! It’s complicated…
 
Socrates92 said:
When did this start happening? I’ve so far only heard talk in terms of essential/nonessential business.
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There has been chatter the last few days; one big go-around between Trump and the press indicating it was coming, and yesterday a not that teh governors of Oregon, Washington and California had been in discussions concerning how they intended to start opening those states - just that there was a conversation, not details. A local discussion I heard today had to do with the construction trades and getting them back on the job, as much of what they do does not require a lot of close contact.

No idea what restaurants will do as most have close contact between those eating. Staff con keep some distance; but sitting down for a meal usually is an extended time of closer contact. It has been suggested that will self regulate as customers will have to decide if they wish to engage.
 
He probably wasn’t talking about you and your family then. I’d have no problem volunteering.
 
Well, I watched a little of the White House briefing today about the phasing in of reopening. It sounds like the government is trying to add some objectivity to see when and where things can reopen and seems rather reasonable to me. As yo kids back at school, I sure hope by the fall.
 
tafan2 said:
As yo kids back at school, I sure hope by the fall.
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Oh, me too! Hopefully a nice hot summer will see much fewer infections and little to no deaths! Plus, my daughter and I really don’t want to homeschool forever. It’s hard work and we’re not teachers!
 
Are the states making decisions now to reopen some businesses? I am looking forward to going out to a restaurant or even a cafe. Any news on that front where you are?
 
ontheway1 said:
There is an important debate under way about the isolation we are currentlysubject to and the need to restart the economy. It is argued that every human life is important and that we should follow the recommendations of medical science regarding social distancing. The flip side of the argument is that this will lead to the ultimate collapse of the economy and civilization as we know it, leading to many more lives being lost.

Where do you stand on this issue? Should we all return to work ASAP or remain in our homes indefinitely?
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We need to start opening again ASAP, it’s getting a bit ridiculous in my honest opinion, At the outset of all of this the scientific community was estimating 2 million deaths by this point, even with self quarantining, social distancing and such.
Yet here we are at 40,000 deaths, now I’m not saying 40,000 is a low number, but if you look at the statistics it is relatively low for the amount of people that have had the virus, also keep in mind by mid March of this year alone the CDC estimates that 59,000 people have died of influenza.

Now let’s take a minute to consider that, The flu thus far this year has been more deadly than COVID-19.

Do we get into this kind of panic every time the flu comes around every year?

Do we self Quarantine and social distance and close down restaurants and small businesses and movie theaters every time the flu comes around?

For those of you out there who have underlying condition such as COPD or asthma and are elderly stay home, same as you should be during flu season.

Also I think it’s ridiculous that most people don’t realize that they have to wash their hands more often than they do, come on people wake up you shouldn’t need the news to tell you this.

People can say that there isn’t that many businesses closed down currently due to COVID-19 and that it is less than 15 or 20%, but for those of us that have been unable to work for weeks on end, For those of us that are self-employed living paycheck to paycheck, social distancing and self Quarantine are destroying our lives, there are those of us who struggle to keep basic bills paid when we are working let alone having to sit home for weeks on end, it is honestly no way to live.

I pray to God for a swift end to this pandemic.
 
It depends on the jurisdiction. Some didn’t go into such strict restrictions and could go longer as they are now. Others probably need to relax restrictions somewhat, particularly those restrictions that make the least difference in the transmission rates of the virus.
 
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Actually, no, infectious diseases eventually extinguish themselves when each infected party on average infects fewer than one other party. That can happen due to herd immunity (because virus is less likely to find a host without immunity) but it can also happen because infected people are so isolated they just don’t have any close contacts to infect before they recover and stop throwing off virus.

The problem is, it isn’t clear how long it takes for infected people to stop throwing off virus.
 
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Yes, but no good news on restaurants and such. I look forward to enjoying a coffee at our local coffee shop with my wife also. I am afraid it may be quite a wait.
 
I don’t think it will extinguish itself, bit eventually herd immunity can be reached and less people will be at risk of getting it
 
Herd immunity through infection is not going to work. There won’t be enough volunteers to get infected, especially when news of people dying and becoming crippled are spreading. Opening the economy would work only for a short time, afterwards, consumers would just stop coming, and there is no way to compel them. Especially well-to-do people would tend to be more careful and have better opportunities to isolate socially. In many cases, people with discretionary money belong to the elderly or other risk groups. Their money would be out of personal-contact economy until the virus is under control.
The only way to get economy rolling reliably is to get the virus quickly under control with determined measures and ensure the safety of the consumers.
Trying to achieve herd immunity through infections would cause the stagnation to linger for a long time. Even in Sweden, where there are very few legal restrictions, businesses become bankrupted, because there are enough careful consumers who don’t want to come.
 
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rosejmj said:
I don’t think it will extinguish itself, bit eventually herd immunity can be reached and less people will be at risk of getting it
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Probably, yes. That’s a totally reasonable conclusion, but they are still learning about our immune response to this virus class (and it does mutate around a bit). With influenza, we have a vaccine to slow transmission. We don’t have that with this virus. So while we’d eventually reach a conclusion with herd immunity–at what cost?

New York is currently estimating that 3 million New Yorkers have been infected with --that is with the social distancing measures put in place. That’s 15% of the state. If that is the infection rate, they’re looking at a 0.7% death rate. Extrapolated nationally, that would be in the neighborhood of 344,000 deaths. The estimated death toll for pneumonia and influenza in 2017 was 55,672. They’re still estimating the 2019-2020 flu season, but the toll was in the 22,000-55,000 range through March 7. That is a reminder that the New York COVID-19 death toll is in addition to the influenza toll. The incidence of influenza was already tailing off by March 21.

 
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Let us not forget that we should not merely be talking about fatality rates! The annual round of seasonal influenza does not impact hospitals as COVID-19 has. People who need hospitalization for COVID-19 tend to be hospitalized for far longer. That’s really what this shutdown business is all about: that is, the devastating impact of a COVID-19 outbreak on hospitals and health care workers.

About 9% of all COVID-19 cases in Italy were among health care workers. Dr. Li Wenliang, a Chinese ophthamologist who was one of 8 doctors censured by the police for “rumor-mongering” and forced to retract his statements to the medical community in December about the seriousness of the disease died of it at the age of 33.

There is not enough personal protection equipment (PPE) for health care workers to treat some of the huge outbreaks the world has been seeing. That the President chided health care workers for not wanting to re-use protective equipment that they know very well was designed and manufactured for single use tells us that we are not ready to re-open. That is an irresponsible risk of the lives of front line responders.

This is a quote from the President:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...ers-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-31/
We gave one hospital in New York City 300,000 masks. Before the virus, they were using 10,000. And now we got them 300,000, and they got rid of them very quick, which I — quickly — which I sort of say, “How did that happen? Why?” Because they became very valuable — the masks. I say, “How did that happen?”
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My administration continues to leverage the Defense Production Act to dramatically increase the manufacture and delivery of critical medical supplies. We finalized three contracts to produce 39 million more N95 masks in 90 days. And as you know, we’re also using a sterilization process. Some great equipment that will sterilize the masks up to 20 times per mask. So that’s like ordering 20 times more masks. And it’s working very well.

We just want the hospitals and the institutions, where it is, to use it. A lot of people don’t use it. They’re so used to getting a new mask, they don’t want to use it. They want to go and immediately get a new one. We’re asking them to use the sterilization process. Every bit as good — up to 20 times. Think of that.

This tells me that the President doesn’t quite understand how hospitals operate when they’re dealing with an infectious agent that has this way of putting people under their care into the morgue, an infection that has put colleagues around the world into the morgue. He is talking about equipment that was designed and manufactured for single use and he talks as if people are wasteful when they don’t want to use it over and over. When you have enough PPE, you aren’t asked to use it 20 times.
 
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Agree,there has to be an effort to close the gap between saving lives at the expense of crashing the economy. Both are death knells
 
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Jeanne_S said:
Agree,there has to be an effort to close the gap between saving lives at the expense of crashing the economy. Both are death knells
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There is a difference between actual and metaphorical death knells, though.

Still, I’d agree that places that have stopped commerce and activities that can be conducted within physical distancing guidelines ought to consider how much additional physical safety is actually achieved by the greater economic price that is paid. Yes, a balance has to be found, particularly if the virus is NOT so rampant in a given area that even slight gains in transmission could represent the tipping point between expansion or extinguishing of the epidemic.

That is the problem, though, isn’t it? When testing is still limited and when people are encouraged not to seek medical intervention when they don’t have serious symptoms, it is hard to know where the virus is gaining traction and where it is not. It isn’t as if everybody who feels a bit run down and has lost their sense of smell is getting tested, is it?

California thought they had their first COVID-19 death on Feb 28. Autopsy has since shown in was actually Feb 6. The victim was a 57-year old woman in good health, someone who exercised regularly, who was not on medications for any chronic condition, who didn’t smoke. She was a frequent traveler, but had not traveled recently. She was originally thought to have died of a heart attack while recovering from the flu.

In other words, we don’t necessarily know how widespread this is. We don’t have a way to do the testing we would need to do so that we could know.
 
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