Who's Going to Pay the Bills?: Purpose-Driven Coronavirus Business Shutdowns Cause Economic Catastrophe

[jeannetherese]

The discussion wasnt about what the Church teaches or what we believe, it was about the lack of legal rights of fetus’

Understood. There are those who might say “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” Others might say: The State giveth and the State taketh away.
Our founding fathers described life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights with which men are endowed by their creator.
Some states have, in the a past, and even now, suggested differently and used the force of law to enact that philosophy.
I believe this was discussed in regard to slavery upthread. It has also been discussed in regard to the killing of the preborn, more recently.

 

[AlNg]

The success in Taiwan was not due to the absence of a broad-based lockdown.

But did Taiwan have a lockdown? Yes or No?

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with complete certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice.

I’ve seen this quote (or paraphrases thereof) floating around the Internet for sometime.

I find it useful for contemplation.

There really are moral absolutes, and they must be upheld.
At the same time, life can get hella messy, and we need to uplift each other going through hard times.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

The success in Taiwan was not due to the absence of a broad-based lockdown.

But did Taiwan have a lockdown? Yes or No?

I already answered that question. And I also pointed out that the absence of a lockdown was not the thing that produced their superior results.

 

[AlNg]

And I also pointed out that the absence of a lockdown was not the thing that produced their superior results.

The original question was whether or not lockdowns were effective or are there other stategies which can produce better results. The data show that lockdowns are not effective and there are other interventions which work much, much better.
Taiwan - no lockdown - 7 deaths due to corona virus.
USA - severe lockdowns and disruption of the economy - 90,000 deaths due to corona virus.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

And I also pointed out that the absence of a lockdown was not the thing that produced their superior results.

The original question was whether or not lockdowns were effective or are there other stategies which can produce better results. The data show that lockdowns are not effective and there are other interventions which work much, much better.
Taiwan - no lockdown - 7 deaths due to corona virus.
USA - severe lockdowns and disruption of the economy - 90,000 deaths due to corona virus.

First of all, the USA has not had a severe lockdown. We have had spotty irregular restrictions that were poorly followed. Wuhan had a more real lockdown, and it was more effective than the USA.

In general, broad-based lockdowns are not very effective. But when it is the only tool you have because all the better tools were left in the shed, that is the one you use.

 

[AlNg]

broad-based lockdowns are not very effective.

I am glad you agree with me on this. It is pretty obvious that there are other strategies which are much more effective than lockdowns.

the USA has not had a severe lockdown

A total of roughly 33.5 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the USA over the course of seven weeks during the pandemic.
IMHO, 33.5 million is pretty severe.
Taiwan - no lockdown (but other strategies) 7 deaths due to corona virus.
USA- lockdown with 33.5 million filing for unemployment - 90,000 deaths due to corona virus.

 

[EndTimes]

If you were following the conversation

Again. Fetus’ arent given the same rights as human beings.

I am part of this conversation.

Catholic Forum .

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

 

[farronwolf]

When a country doesn’t respond to a pandemic by either having, or following a clearly defined strategy for mitigating, identifying, tracing and treating the disease, but instead just wings it like the US has done you end up exactly where we are right now.

Very high numbers of infections and deaths, excessive spending to try to offset the resulting unemployment and economic turn down.

We ain’t seen the end of this yet.

 

[otjm]

You appear to make an argument that Taiwan is the model the US should have followed, instead of lockdown. Any one who cares to do minor research knows that the economic cost to the US is somewhere between awful and horrible. However, yuou leave out so many differences between Taiwan and the US, that either you are arguing out of anger or lack of knowledge.

Sweden decided to not do a lockdown either, and their death rate is higher than surrounding northern European countries, so far starters, that is a case made against your comments.

To add, Taiwan has a central government coupled with local city governments; it consists of an island of 13,974 square miles with no equivalent to the US, which is a country with both a federal government and state governments. Taiwan has approximately 23,780,000 people and the US has approximately 328,200,000 people spread over 50 states and 3,531,905 miles.

You are also comparing an Asian culture with a culture in the US which might politely be called as independent as a pig on ice.

Taiwan appears to have far, far more information and on far far fewer people than the US, where the issue of privacy appears to be far more intense.

We have two great dangers facing us. The first is the dearth of factual information on the virus. There is a vast number of scientists and doctors in a multitude of nations who are scrambling as fast as humanly possible to sort through a multitude of issues. Those include how we can reduce (as we will not eliminate) the transmission of the virus as we open up businesses and people agian, in many instances, will have to work in close proximity. It does not matter how controlled the virus is in Taiwan; the genie is out of the bottle here and we are not going to push it back in; so we have to figure out how to deal with it in the safest fashion. And we are only beginning to get a grasp on parts of that.

The following provides some initial information: https://www.erinbromage.com/post/th...fRQC7Dsa0TTViy616hEmnE4tCNh5ubdF30h9-HuFyMj18
(continued)

 

[AlNg]

Sweden decided to not do a lockdown either, and their death rate is higher than surrounding northern European countries

Let’s look at it:
Belgium, Spain, italy, United Kingdom, and France had lockdowns and all have higher death rates due to corona virus than Sweden which has no lockdown.

You are also comparing an Asian culture with a culture in the US which might politely be called as independent as a pig on ice.

Pigs on ice have nothing to do with the obvious fact that lockdowns are not effective. Whether it is a pig on ice or a polar bear on ice, the facts remain the same:
Taiwan has no lockdown but using other strategies 7 deaths due to corona virus
USA severe lockdown with 33 million people filing for unemployment - 90,000 deaths due to corona virus.
Taiwan has been successful not because of pigs on ice but because the strategies they have used with no lockdowns have been effective.

you are arguing out of anger or lack of knowledge.

i would say that it is you who are arguing out of lack of knowledge. I don’t see any evidence that there is any correlation between death rates due to corona virus and pigs on ice.
I do read serious studies such as the one by Thomas A. J. Meunier showing that lockdowns do not work and have NO IMPACT ON THE COVID-19 epidemic.

Exposure To Bacteria Is Healthy For Our Immune System, Keeping Autoimmune Diseases At Bay

https://www.aei.org/articles/lockdowns-dont-work/

Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic | medRxiv

 

[otjm]

(continued)

The second danger we face is already active, and that is the politicization of the whole of the viral epidemic in the US. That politicization is going on not only between elected officials and paty members, but both sides of the press, who cannot go far enough out of their way to twist anything which comes across their screen.

And the net result is that truth - from the scientists and the doctors - is going through the massaging of each side of the political spectrum, and the public, which for the largest part appears to be unable to step back from politics, hears what it wants to hear from the side it supports, without realizing that side has been and continues to skew information to fit its politics.

And the danger from all of that is that we have people on one end of the conversation refusing to wear face masks and wanting to mix as if there was no danger to themselves or others, and on the other end, people who are fearful to even go outside (where transmission is in practical terms exceedingly low) and have absolutely no intention of either going to work, or doing any business beyond occasionally going to the grocery store.

I have no clue as to how we are gong to untangle this Gordian knot. And the US is by no means at all the only country facing this conundrum.

And it is not helpful in the least, nor does it move us forward, to get into a rehash of whether or not the lockdown was successful, not successful, partially successful, or some other variation. Those who want to play a blame game are not moving the US forward to reopen businesses and get at least part of the 30,000,000+ unemployed back to work. When 70% +/- of the GDP depends on consumers, failure to get things moving forward will result in an economic meltdown that will make the Great Depression look like a walk in the park

And failure either by state governors or the federal system (or both) to cogently and intelligently get information out as to how we reduce the spread of the virus is most likely going to result in a further rapid spread of the illness, not only killing many more, but causing others to suffer what appear to be indefinite and/or permanent physical damage.

And we are only beginning to account for how many people had symptoms but did not need hospitalization, as it appears the reported cases are based on being admitted to a hospital. all of which makes the dangers of this virus far more impactful than we are seeing.

 

[otjm]

Pigs on ice have nothing to do with the obvious fact that lockdowns are not effective. W

If you can’t do any better than a smart alec response, I am going to ignore you.

 

[AlNg]

If you can’t do any better than a smart alec response,

This is your quote:

You are also comparing an Asian culture with a culture in the US which might politely be called as independent as a pig on ice.

I am going to ignore you.

I would expect so. Although the study by Mr. Meunier has not yet been peer reviewed, still it is a serious study which shows the following:
“Comparing the trajectory of the epidemic before and after the lockdown, we find no evidence of any discontinuity in the growth rate, doubling time, and reproduction number trends. Extrapolating pre-lockdown growth rate trends, we provide estimates of the death toll in the absence of any lockdown policies, and show that these strategies might not have saved any life in western Europe. We also show that neighboring countries applying less restrictive social distancing measures (as opposed to police-enforced home containment) experience a very similar time evolution of the epidemic.”

you are arguing out of anger or lack of knowledge.

Unlike yourself, I am bringing forth studies showing that lockdowns and social distancing methods do not have an impact on the Covid-19 epidemic. It is true that this particular study has not yet been peer reviewed, but at the same time there is other evidence indicating the same thing.

 

[EndTimes]

the obvious fact that lockdowns are not effective.

Quarantining is effective -
as per at least 4 nations which are in close proximity to e.g., China.

 

[Socrates92]

Does anyone have an opinion on this video (exosome theory vs. virus theory)? I have no medical background, but it seems like an interesting possibility that lockdowns aren’t statistically significant simply because our understanding of viruses is wrong. I’d be interested to hear some more informed opinions. exosome theory - Bing video

 

[farronwolf]

Or social distancing could be really effective.

Areas with no social distancing see 35 times the amount of coronavirus spread, study finds​

Researchers found that social distancing policies can reduce the daily growth of new coronavirus cases by as much as 9 percent, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Health Affairs.

The study, which looked at confirmed cases in the United States between March 1 and April 27, found that the longer the social distancing policy was in effect, the slower the growth rate was of COVID-19, the disease associated with coronavirus. For policies that lasted 16 to 20 days, the rate plunged 9.1 percent.

No social distancing policies could lead to 35 times more cases, the study found.

The policies the researchers studied include bans on large events, shelter-in-place orders and the closure of gyms, bars, restaurants and other businesses.

The researchers, from the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and Georgia State University, found that by April 7, 95 percent of the U.S. had mandated social distancing measures. Most states have begun allowing businesses to reopen, those plans vary widely from state to state.

 

[1cthlctrth]

The United States had the best economy in world history prior to the coronavirus-related business shutdowns. From January 2020 and February 2020:
https://bongino.com/trump-boom-u-s-adds-225k-jobs-in-january-far-surpassing-wall-st-estimates/
The U.S. added 225,000 jobs in the month of January, far surpassing estimates from Wall Street, according to new numbers from the U.S. Labor Department.
Economists were predicting a nonfarm payroll growth of 158,000 and for the jobless rate to stay it’s record low of 3.5 percent.
Unemployment rate went up to 3.6 percent.
The employment-to-population ratio in the household rose to its highest level since November of 2008, to 61.2 percent.
Average hourly earnings also .2 percent month over month and rose 3.1 percent since last year to $28.44. “That marked 18 consecutive months of wage gains above 3%.
The unemployment rate for African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian-Americans has reached the lowest levels in history. African-American youth unemployment has reached an all-time low. African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded.
The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years. And, last year, women filled 72 percent of all new jobs added.

https://bongino.com/february-jobs-boom-economy-adds-273000-jobs-unemployment-at-3-4-percent

and

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy/robust-u-s-job-growth-boosts-economy-as-coronavirus-rages-idUSKBN20T1SW

From February 2020: The Labor Department’s closely watched monthly employment report on Friday also showed solid wage growth and the unemployment rate falling back to near a 50-year low of 3.5%. Employers also increased hours for workers last month.​

Now that Governors have shut down businesses, disaster has struck:

Over 2.98M Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, pushing two-month coronavirus job losses to 36M | Fox Business

More than 2.98 million Americans filed for unemployment last week for the week ending May 9, as the shutdowns caused by the coronavirus outbreak continued to deepen the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.
This pushes the two-month total of losses since states adopted strict stay-at-home measures to more than 36 million.

Coronavirus layoffs in April hit women, minorities the hardest | Fox Business

Unemployment for women spiked to 16.2 percent from 3.4 percent as recently in February, while men saw their jobless rate surge to 13.5 percent from 3.6 percent in February. In a one-month span, women lost roughly 1.5 million more jobs than their male counterparts.
There were also disparities in unemployment rates between races: The rate was 14.2 percent for white workers; 16.7 percent for black workers; 18.9 percent for Latino workers; and 14.5 percent of Asian Americans – record rates for all groups, except African Americans.

The concern now MUST BE:
Will the Governors wait too long to re-open the economy?
Will too much damage already have been done?

 

[AlNg]

Areas with no social distancing see 35 times the amount of coronavirus spread, study finds

Other studies show social distancing and lockdowns to be ineffective.

Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic | medRxiv

 

[whatistrue]

The United States had the best economy in world history

Really? I hope you will forgive me if I take this with a large block of salt.