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Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

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Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's Red Cross supposedly advised Italy yesterday that 'total economic shutdown'[1] is the only way to contain the COVID-19 situation in the country now. It all comes to what part of the curve the country is now, the choice being total lockdown incl. economic shutdown vs aggressive testing. Considering US lapsed on aggressive measures in the beginning and that proper test kits are just being flown in from Italy[2]…

> total economic shutdown seems to be the only option left That's quite the overreaction. Italy found that among fatalities the median age is over 80 (older than the average lifespan of an Italian man). 99% of fatalities were among people with a prior illness. About 50% of the deaths were people suffering from at least three other illnesses. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-tho... To put it an…

It's not just old people though. Infants. Immunocompromised individuals. People with asthma. People undergoing chemotherapy.

The narrative that this disease only affects the economically unproductive is dangerous at best, and inhumane at worst.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#262
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough, all the simulations show we’d need to basically reduce our number of interactions a day by 75% and double the number of ventilators by 100% to “stay under the curve” that’s if we didn’t have a huge number of celebrations and people in lines, etc. Projections are 500k dead by June. Maybe with the precautions we can slow the millions dead by the end of the year. It remains to be seen.

I mean, italy is no longer exponential, China clearly contained their issues. The doom and gloom is somewhat overblown.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

Looks fairly exponential to me. (log y axis) And that's just confirmed cases.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#263
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't, because we triage patients.

Ventilators are first come first serve. Once someone is on a ventilator it’s not like you can unhook them for a younger patient.

And there are always ventilators becoming available and patients getting triaged for their order in line (if there is a line).

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#264
post #248
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no treatment other than providing ventilation to the very sick.

Yes there are some possible treatments and a number of vaccines are already being studied now.

Vaccines are at least a year away. In order of most to least likely to work:

1. Chloroquine is hepotoxic and since cytokine storms is already one of the way covid19 leads to death there is a lot of question whether chloroquine can actually help (in terms of aggregate effect on CFR).

2. Remdesivir didn't work for ebola (original target) and there is no reason to think it would work for covid19.

3. Favipiravir shows activity against many viruses (SARS-CoV-2 included), but doesn't actually reduce mortality for other viral illnesses (unknown for convid19).

Key to understand, many things show activity with the virus but don't actually improve the disease progression.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#266

The virus is terrible. But our solution could turn into an economic catastrophe. It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time. The solution is aggressive, continuous testing so that people can feel safe going back out. 1. Make hundreds and millions of the rapid tests available. 2. Deploy them to every business, every institution. 3. T…

> It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time.

Thinking abstractly, why not? If the businesses are open, the money is there to pay everyone. If you send everyone in the economy home, where has that money that would have been used for salary gone?

Someone is holding it rather than distributing it, that's the only reason. So, take a look at who is hoarding money like a dragon sleeping on a pile of gold, tax it, and pay everyone else enough for a roof and food.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#267
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe the no-contact thermometers could be a scalable approach. Go to the bank? Forehead scan to get in. Go to the grocery store? Same. This is the reality in China. Literally every single public place have a remote thermometer they scan on your forehead. supermarket? scanned. subway? scanned. restaurant? scanned. If you have a fever you'll go into quarantine in no time.

People can take ibuprofen prior to going shopping.

People can do a lot of things. It's not a big deal that measures won't be perfectly effective - in the presence of any suppression measures, once the case count stabilizes, there's a lot of room between "literally impossible to spread the virus" and exponential growth.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#268
post #262
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, italy is no longer exponential, China clearly contained their issues. The doom and gloom is somewhat overblown.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ Looks fairly exponential to me. (log y axis) And that's just confirmed cases.

Try to fit it. More easier is to look at daily new cases. For past 4 days they are increasing linearly (meaning total is quadratic)

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#269
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should companies not return profits to their shareholders? CEO's should be in jail for doing so? Be serious.

They definitely should return profits, they shouldn't take on additional debts to increase share price.

All debt is an alternative to raising capital by selling shares and diluting ownership. It doesn’t matter what order you do it in, and sometimes you get a good deal on a loan.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#270
post #266

The virus is terrible. But our solution could turn into an economic catastrophe. It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time. The solution is aggressive, continuous testing so that people can feel safe going back out. 1. Make hundreds and millions of the rapid tests available. 2. Deploy them to every business, every institution. 3. T…

> It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time. Thinking abstractly, why not? If the businesses are open, the money is there to pay everyone. If you send everyone in the economy home, where has that money that would have been used for salary gone? Someone is holding it rather than distributing it, that's the only reason. So, take a lo…

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