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Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

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Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#251

Post by rocha »

acangiano wrote: post #225
topkai22 wrote: post #144

When talking about economic damage it is also worth thinking about what we are trying to avoid in the US- if SARS-Cov2 gets to 60% of the population, then at a 2% case fatality rate we are looking at 4 million excess deaths. Most importantly, that is a humanitarian tragedy that we must avoid. However, having numbers also let’s us put an economic value out there for what we are trying to save. A 1% reduction in the ca…

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.

Note that in both cases there is a selection bias, due poor testing, and having the majority of initial reported cases being severe enough to reach hospitals. In my opinion, South Korea has better data, due to massive testing, and not having a completely overwhelmed health system. The rate there is 0.6%, which is still significant.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#252

Post by [deleted] »

ncallaway wrote: post #153
reedx8 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing false about it. Fatality rate for 50 and below is a paltry 0.2%, let alone the infection rate is very low as well. The incubation period is long and symptoms for most are mild, so it’s here to stay as it’s easily spreadable. I dont understand your position!

"There’s nothing false about it." Actually many of the statements from your post were absolutely false. "Fatality rate for 50 and below is a paltry 0.2%" For a typical seasonal influenza, the fatality rate for that age bracket is around 0.01%, so this is much more lethal to those people than the flue. https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-compared-to-flu-...

[deleted]

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#253

Post by sb8244 »

DickingAround wrote: post #234
sb8244 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lives and money are not the same thing. Hard stop. I understand your point, but I just disagree with the expected outcomes here. Realistically how much would it cost to bail out these businesses and provide a safety net to people? I imagine the numbers are less than we'd first think. It's a choice. It's not inevitable.

People work their whole lives to make the value we measure in dollars. We humans have been dying for millenia for lack of the material wealth we have now. Having materials/dollars/whatever you want to call it is clearly worth lives because people spend vast portions of their precious lives getting it. If anything, valuing 1 more year of working life at 80 over ten years over 10years of working in your 20s would be si…

I'm not saying that people don't need material wealth to survive in our society. I think that wealth can come from somewhere other than packing a petri dish bar with patrons who want to drink. For example, we're realistically looking at govt intervention at some point.

It starts with a concerted decision that lives are more important than money. If we can't get onboard with that, then there will always be people that put their well-being over others.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#254

Post by nneonneo »

hartator wrote: post #218
topkai22 wrote: post #144

When talking about economic damage it is also worth thinking about what we are trying to avoid in the US- if SARS-Cov2 gets to 60% of the population, then at a 2% case fatality rate we are looking at 4 million excess deaths. Most importantly, that is a humanitarian tragedy that we must avoid. However, having numbers also let’s us put an economic value out there for what we are trying to save. A 1% reduction in the ca…

Current total deaths are 6,000 with China already saying the worst is behind them. Why the US would have 4M deaths?

The worst is behind China because they've instituted heavy lockdown measures beyond what would be acceptable in the US, and enacted emergency measures like constructing temporary hospitals and isolation centres. They're still under lockdown - Beijing for instance is mulling a mandatory 14-day quarantine for anyone entering the city. So far, only a handful of other countries, mostly Asian ones, have had success slowing down this virus.

Most of Europe and North America is on a steady exponential curve upwards with no sign of slowing down yet. Germany has already clearly said that they expect 70-80% of the population to be infected eventually - 60M people, of whom ~2% or 1.2M will likely die. Scale that up to the USA.

Without a vaccine, the only way this virus peters out is through eventual herd immunity, which will require a sizeable fraction of the population to catch it.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#255

Post by icelancer »

ekianjo wrote: post #249
icelancer wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death rate is highly correlated with unemployment. They are not NOT the same thing. https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising-unemployment-causes-...

Why do you expect long term unemployment here? Unless the virus crisis lasts for a year, in a few months things will be back to normal hopefully and you can expect the economic activity to take off again.

...

If small businesses are not economically relieved, there will be significant - and permanent - damage to those sectors.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#256

Post by ehnto »

eyegor wrote: 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…

Australia already has an economic stimulus under way, but I am not sure how much it will help brick and mortar retail and hospitality.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#257

Post by PopePompus »

philwelch wrote: post #107
jandrewrogers wrote: post #87

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.

Citation? My understanding is that quarantine powers are well established in law. This isn’t the first epidemic. Furthermore, the lockdown of the Boston area after the marathon bombings is a very clear and recent precedent relating to a different public safety emergency. Worse comes to worst, I suspect we’ll see MRAPs on the streets first and any legal fallout, later.

The Boston "lockdown" was voluntary.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#258

Post by code_duck »

john61 wrote: post #143
Taek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid19 is closer to SARS than the flu, and is known to cause permanent lung, kidney, and testicle damage, even in young and healthy patients. Even among young patients, the ICU rate is as high as 10%. A low mortality rate for young people assumes access to an ICU. All of New York State only has about 600 unoccupied ICU beds. If the number of infections in New York breaches 6,000, the fatality rate among young people…

Also if the healthcare system is overloaded it is also overloaded for young people that get another disease or have an accident.

Yep, I am in the unfortunate situation of being an Oregon trying to arrange public health insurance and make doctor's appointments as soon as possible for a worsening long-term digestive condition. I'm definitely concerned about being put off or crowded out of hospitals.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#259

Post by rtpg »

anigbrowl wrote: post #168
mc3 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about solvency, and the knock on effect to creditors. They can't pay the booze supplier and they go out of business etc. This could go on for months. Most businesses don't make those sweet SaaS margins. Same for airlines.

Creditors can experience some of the pain that they normally inflict on others. They are not sacrosanct and are the least important parties in economic relations during an emergency. As normality is restored, they will have new opportunities during the ensuing large scale financial restructuring.

The thing is that a lot of creditors (suppliers basically) are just other businesses. It’s not all bankers holding onto a bunch of debt obligations

Probably ironically banks will be able to make even more money as people pull into credit lines to go over this hump

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#260

Post by sb8244 »

icelancer wrote: post #221
sb8244 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lives and money are not the same thing. Hard stop. I understand your point, but I just disagree with the expected outcomes here. Realistically how much would it cost to bail out these businesses and provide a safety net to people? I imagine the numbers are less than we'd first think. It's a choice. It's not inevitable.

Death rate is highly correlated with unemployment. They are not NOT the same thing. https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising-unemployment-causes-...

This is either a straw man argument, or I disagree that there should be long term unemployment here. Govt programs and laws will probably be needed to provide that safety net.

I'm not saying that death rate and unemployment are unrelated (equating lives and money together). I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage.

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