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Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

governor.wa.gov

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Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#501
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, covid-19 is basically a "slightly worse flu". Most people are not at risk of dying and in fact most people don't even need to go to the hospital to recover. Surely there has to be a balance between protecting the vulnerable at the cost of ruining the economy and protecting the economy at the cost of ruining the vulnerable. How about instead of shutting down planet earth we advise people over the age of 60 to s…

It is not a slightly worse flu though. There are numerous experts in record pointing to it's long incubation time, that some people are asymptomatic, that it may be airborne, the death rate... It is not normal seasonal flu and it demands a different response. Now, what that response is can be debated, but it should be more than doing nothing.

> that it may be airborne

To be pedantic, it's not airborne. It's a respiratory virus. An airborne virus can linger in the air, possibly for hours or even a day. It's much much more transmissible.

The danger with SARS-cov2 is that, when going back to some of these cities where the first patients appeared, WHO researchers have found people with large viral load in their throats, and they didn't develop symptoms for over a week! So just being within 3~4 feet of them breathing could spread the disease. Sure, it's less likely than if they coughed or you shook hands, but it's still dangerous.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bob’s Drywall Supply has net 60 for a delivery of drywall. Constructor Bill now can’t pay. Bob’s Drywall is a creditor and is on the hook for a product he already shipped. Now Bob’s Drywall Supply can’t pay the company that provided him with Net 90 terms. So Bob and Bill are now insolvent. And they fire their employees. Suggesting that creditors somehow deserve “pain,” is just cruel. Creditors don’t “inflict pain” on…

That's where 0% credit comes in. It needs to take the whole chain. We shut down for 3 months. Net 60 terms become net 150. Net 90 becomes net 180. Everyone pays as planned, just up to 6 months later and with no interest.

This could help, but note that it still puts a crimp in things, because entities that extend credit (in any form) are counting on previous debts being paid in order to offer money/goods to other customers.

This applies even to the banks at the top of the chain -- at least until you get to (in the U.S.) the Fed itself, which can will money into existence if needed.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No precedent for it, and a lot of Supreme Court precedent against it. Nonetheless, as an also Seattle resident, it has dramatically changed the city through voluntary behavior of the population. This has been an incredibly destructive blow to everyone in the formerly thriving restaurant and bar industry in the city.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-quarantine... > The C.D.C. rewrote its quarantine guidelines in 2017 and they have never been tested in court. The Supreme Court has also never dealt with an infectious disease quarantine case, [Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University Law School who specializes in public health law] said.

Relatedly, the Supreme Court has suspended sessions that have oral arguments, starting today: https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/press/pressreleases/...

“The Court’s postponement of argument sessions in light of public health concerns is not unprecedented. The Court postponed scheduled arguments for October 1918 in response to the Spanish flu epidemic. The Court also shortened its argument calendars in August 1793 and August 1798 in response to yellow fever outbreaks.”

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#504
post #477
post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've never seen studies that say anything about "permanent lung, kidney, and testicle damage, even in young and healthy patients". Where did you read this? It's obviously bullshit. How would we know about "permanent" damage from a disease a few months old.

Ya know, because we humans can't regenerate organs at the drop of a hat... or at all. So if your lung tissue starts dying, that's it. The best you can hope for is permanent scarring to replace the dead tissue. Scar tissue is a poor replacement for the original by many measures.

>regenerate organs

Some organs can and others can grow in size to compensate for reduce efficiency. Plus, there's no real evidence that Covid is causing organ damage.

> if your lung tissue starts dying, that's it

That's definitely not "it". Your lungs can repair damaged tissue and the system as a whole can adapt to compensate for portions that can't be repaired. And also no real evidence that long term damage is being done.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#505
post #42

This is going to be an economic catastrophe unless there's somehow a nationwide bailout to literally all brick and mortar businesses. I know of several local bar/restaurants that are considering shutting down for good, and a colleague near Melbourne told me of 4 that already have (I'm eastern US). Even if this all blows over in 3 months, we'll have a huge surge in homelessness and folks needing social assistance acro…

A lot of restaurants stay in the red for the first 3~5 years. I have a friend who just opened a brewery in Tennessee in December. They don't serve food; it's just beer, so they might be alright - but I should probably call and see how he's doing. I sure hope they've started bottling to canning. You'd hope owners would keep a buffer of either cash or loans/credit-line to last three months, but a lot of them starting u…

This time of year is the beginning of a slump past Mother's Day for restaurants too (at least in the UK). And they probably won't get much out of Mother's Day this year either.

Coming out of the Xmas period, May, June, July looming which are low turnover periods.

If you're already teetering, you're going to fail. The UK's had a lot of big chains shut down or scale back recently too, there was a big explosion in restaurants and bars about 5 years ago and the first round of losers happened over the last couple of years.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#506
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, covid-19 is basically a "slightly worse flu". Most people are not at risk of dying and in fact most people don't even need to go to the hospital to recover. Surely there has to be a balance between protecting the vulnerable at the cost of ruining the economy and protecting the economy at the cost of ruining the vulnerable. How about instead of shutting down planet earth we advise people over the age of 60 to s…

Sorry this is not a "slightly worse flu". The "Spanish Flu" was both less virulent and less deadly and killed ~50 million world-wide. This is the mostly deadly pandemic since the "Black Death" of medieval times.

It's no where near the Black Death. From what I've heard from multiple people are the limits are most likely a lower bound of 0.6% and an upper of maybe 1.5%.

That's still a lot of people. America is ~330 million. 1% is more than 3 million. Assuming only 1/3 of Americans get infected, there could still be an upper bound of a million people dying (although it'll more like be 300k ~ 1m with all the efforts to spread out everything).

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#507
post #463

This may get downvoted, but I think the following judgement-free statement is true: this is starting to look scary/serious /solely/ because of the measures the governments are taking, and the media circus around it. Otherwise (while it would have almost certainly "started to look serious" eventually, probably for a short time), at this point, you would not have even noticed given the actual numbers.

You should not call the media a "circus" if you are trying to be judgement-free. So, removing judgement: this is starting to appear serious because of government actions and media reporting.

I find this to be personally true, because if the government and media had not informed me of this illness, I would be unaware and unconcerned.

I think you probably want some discussion of this point, but it is so plain and obvious it is hard to discuss.

I suspect you are trying to argue your personal judgement that the media is a "circus", that they are not justified in their reporting. That is not judgement-free and could use some supporting arguments.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, 2% is very dubious. Italy is at 7%. The Philippines at 8%. I mean, sure these figures are out of people who were tested, but 2% is looking awfully optimistic at this point. So the potential for death reduction is even greater than the intentionally unassailable 1% figure you picked.

In terms of fatality, the Diamond Princess cruise ship [1] has the helpful property that everyone on board was tested. Nobody recovering/asymptomatic not getting tested, nobody being refused a test. The wikipedia page lists 700 infections and 7 deaths. Of course there are still certain biases: on one hand it happened early, when hospitals weren't overloaded; on the other, cruise ships tend to have more older people.…

WHO Sitreps have the aggregated data.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry this is not a "slightly worse flu". The "Spanish Flu" was both less virulent and less deadly and killed ~50 million world-wide. This is the mostly deadly pandemic since the "Black Death" of medieval times.

It’s not more deadly. The fatality rate is 0.6% or so, and almost entirely focused on the very old or il.

You can't just cherry-pick South Korea's case fatality rate because it's convenient to your argument. The case fatality rate worldwide is currently 3.7%. Regardless of what the reasons for that may be and whether it will remain the same, that is a cold, hard, fact about the current reality.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#measuring-and-interpr...

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#510
post #446
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: the west has had quarantine measures in its traditions for centuries, while developing the individual rights approach. We haven’t had to use them much in living memory, but they were not permanent in the past. Quarantine has been a necessary fact of human life for centuries. We just lived in a blessed time.

The word quarantine comes from having to spend 40 days mooring outside of Venice before being allowed to enter for trade.

Wow thanks! Can’t believe I never noticed the linguistic connection.
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