As most countries managed to beef up their healthcare systems, the curve was flattened in most places, I don't think government officials should restrict retail, bars, restaurants anymore, specially if they face popular opposition.

Those anti-social mobs believe everything will be back to normal, that bars will be full again, companies will throw social events, and economic depression will magically be avoided. When they realise half of population will still at home and those establishments will be in trouble anyway, they won't have anyone to attack.

Governments can't force businesses to open if they don't want to, they can't force people to go out to bars, restaurants, stores, etc. and spend their money. If people don't want to, they simply won't. Many people seem to be taking this seriously and taking steps to follow social distancing, the people screaming "Reopen!" who seem to be expecting everything to immediately snap back to how things were in February are going to be in for a rude awakening.

Yeah, how selfish of us wanting to be able to pay our electric and water bills, buy food, and not go into foreclosure on our homes.

If only we were not such horrible people. Bad Americans!! :superwhip

ok, how do you explain 2-3x higher per capita deaths in Europe (thus far)?

are new yorkers especially selfish, given the huge per capita deaths in NYC?

Population density... We're getting tired of repeating, viruses spread faster where they find many many clustered hosts.

NYC is very densely populated. Manhattan is even way more dense than Central Paris, which is quite a feat.

Almost all other regions in North America (including Canada) are nothing comparable.

See the population density in the UK or in Italy. That is a major factor for the virus to spread more easily. Europe as a whole is far more dense than North America.

You think Northern Italy is a 3rd world? Their healthcare system is both cheaper and more efficient than that of the US based on the corporate system. Same to the UK. They had a very fine healthcare system before it was messed up by excessive financialization as of the 1980s. I know, I saw it in the media from English reporters themselves, and I believe what they say in that matter.

I don't know how the Germans manage to be mostly spared, though. Their country is very dense as well, and their results just humiliate us all.

Policy is based on information 1,000x as good as yours -- fact-based concepts vs. wild guesses, and actual analysis and modeling, particularly as information has improved.

The idea that a "figurative" island can be accomplished is pure fantasy. There are too many points of contact, too much chance of transmission between people and even food supplies. Testing and PPE would only improve the odds, given that testing doesn't work until well after people can infect others, and PPE only reduces transmission. A worker who was infected the previous day but passed the test would likely pass it to others, and kill much of the building's population. Of course even that would need to wait until we had more test kits. With that as a given, we need to keep infections down outside the islands as well.

I know it's tough having rules you don't understand. And 'murica. But sometimes the grownups need to be in charge.

There have also been instances of healthy people aged 30-50 surviving but with serious lung damage that may be permanent.

But I think people on the reopen without a solution side are being extremely fucking naive if they think that everything is going back to normal tomorrow if the government suddenly lifted all stay-at-home orders. We all want to go back to normal, but we are not going back to normal until someone comes up with an effective treatment or vaccine.

Traffic jams are back in Chicago(sort of)!

Anyways, Georgia's deaths and hospitalizations have gone down by a lot. Schools are open or opening up in the next two weeks in Europe.


Time to open up every city, everywhere.

How about the federal government pay wages and support small business more, as some other countries are doing. I said this is another post just above the one you quoted.

But Manhattan has some of the lowest rates in the tri-state metro. And other dense metros have very low rates. Canada has higher weighted density than U.S., but lower rates. California has very low rates, but very high weighted density. And New Orleans and Detroit, two very sprawly metros, have very high rates.

The European strain has higher death rates. This strain is prevalent in the New York region. I thought this was common knowledge.

Despite this, despite outbreaks earlier than most places, and despite some potential disadvantages (I'm guessing that kiss-greetings, cafe culture, and three-generation households have been an issue), southern Europe and New York have cut their death rates dramatically because of smart policy and (especially in Europe, reportedly) people following the rules.

Other places like the UK and Sweden haven't, and they're currently paying.

The US reported death rate is about 6.7x the reported world average. It's probably closer in reality but it's still horrible, and likely some multiple of the average.

Quick question, how much would all that cost per month? Pay the wages of every employee? How much is that?

You should ask the governments that are currently doing that very thing. They would know.

A small restaurant nearby has temporarily converted to a bottle shop, and after a long walk I picked up some excellent beer that's hard to find normally. A bit later on my wife and I put in an order with another nearby bar which I picked up and got a pint of draught in a mason jar to go. The latter is pretty illegal but I don't think anyone cares right now. I actually hope some of these changes stay! They are in legislation until January which means they are likely to be permanent - apparently Ontarian's can deal with normal alcohol rules!

Most places I like are doing ok, thankfully. My favourite breweries are actually making more money than before (the distribution system here actually worked in their favour for once). The "lockdown" here doesn't really seem that restrictive aside from bars and hair salons, really. Stuff like record and clothing stores are closed but are all doing online sales which is better than nothing. There have been some failures with small business support from upper levels of governments but from what I know they are being worked on. All streetfront retail will be open for curbside pickup as of next week. Some of my friends in the food industry have been called back to work already as takeout business is doing well. Many are also moving away from uber eats to their own systems again which can only be a positive thing (uber is predatory and sucks).

I'm not on the rabid "open up at all costs!" side, but from what I can tell there are some weird inconsistencies in the US. Stuff in New Brunswick here will be open before it is in Toronto and I think that makes complete sense. The last thing that will open will be borders, including inter-provincial ones (I realize this is a non-starter in the US, even though I don't understand it). I'll be back sitting at the bar after work on a Friday before I can travel elsewhere, and work will likely still be the laptop on my kitchen table.

Despite the negatives I'm cautiously optimistic.

On the jobless side, assuming 25 million jobless and $2,000 per month, the cost would be $500 billion per month. A couple months of that would be $1 trillion.

If 2 million small businesses need $25,000 per month on average (since wages are already addressed), that would be $100 billion over two months.

In other words, what I said would cost a fraction of the stimulus bills we've gotten so far.

Thanks for the nice, soft lob.

What do you think the overall-population IFR is?

Sure, it would probably be <10k if we locked up all groups with an IFR > 0.1% for a year. But... I'm not sure how we do that. Free hotels for all old/sickly people living with healthy people?

Here are some links about the German model, which is seeing increasing adoption in Europe:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...beit-us-europe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...s-up-quicktake

Yeah the American stimulus program is ridiculous. Sure, my wife and I will take $2,400, but we certainly don't need it as much as people who have lost their jobs...

Because the federal government is supported by taxes (i.e., all of us). The longer this goes on the more of our future output is going to be siphoned away to pay the bill.

What should happen as a result of this is progressive taxation based on age. Older people should pay more tax at any level of income in order to pay their “fair share” of the cost of efforts to mitigate the effects of the economic shutdown that was imposed to protect them. Their lives are protected but they will need to engage in a little bit of belt-tightening going forward. After all, we have decided that lives are more important than material wealth.

It’s ridiculous that it goes to retirees on pensions or social security who haven’t had their income reduced at all.

Manhattan is young, affluent and fit. It will have fewer deaths per capita than a place that is similarly exposed to the virus but is old, working class and fat.

Great plan! America is so good at doing this so far.

Let’s see, businesses are on hold for hours when they apply, and large numbers either weren’t approved or the program ran out of money because it is on a first come, first serve basis. And, of course, Universities like Harvard got shit tons of money meant for small businesses (which they’ve since returned, but still).

Meanwhile, while waiting for this shitty plan to stem their losses dying businesses are told that if you try to work, you’re a really bad person and you will go to jail because the Governor-King hath declared it so.

Americans are such horrible people for having a problem with all of this.

Texas has one of the lowest per capita death rates in the country

Incorrect.

The money allocated to Harvard was from the CARES Act - the $14 billion Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. Harvard never applied for the money, it was auto allocated by the government.

This was typical Trump smoke and mirrors. It's kinda like your car is racing towards the edge of a cliff and the brakes are broken yet you rage on on the dust on the dashboard and who didn't clean it last.

I don’t think Texas is a particularly old state, in fact I would expect it’s the opposite.

None of this changes the fact that lots of businesses got nothing. And they are getting wiped out. Getting back to mhays’ point that I was responding to.

Plain and simple, regardless of anybody’s politics, if you are economically struggling and you are vilified for trying to work to pay your bills—and haven’t gotten adequate Government help—then the system is being cruel to you.

It sure would help if insensitive people would stop adding insult to injury by shaming them and telling them that they are bad while they are struggling. It’s a callous and dick thing to do.

Family friends of ours have a cottage on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. They're American, and hearing that the borders will be open by June 1, and plan on visiting soon thereafter. I don't know if this is based on anything substantiated, however.

Maybe the person that came up with the small business help program went to Trump University?

The first year curriculum was:

1) How to declare bankruptcy
2) How to lie
3) How to deflect responsibility
4) How to blame everyone else for everything
5) How to have no plans
4) How to stay in physical shape lol

Thanks, but you are calculating that a little differently than what will happen in practice.

This won't last just two months. People won't magically all be rehired after two months. Also, the government will be dying from the lack of tax income. The avalanche of hurt will go from businesses to government at the exact same time that we were relying on government to pay everyone's wages. Also, there are 33 million unemployed people. This will only go up in May, my guess would be that there will be an extra 6-8 million more unemployed, so around 40 million people to pay for. This isn't possible. So it will be about 1.5 trillion over two months and that would be just the start. I saw one restaurant industry association leader say that for every month of closure, it takes 6 months to recover.

It ain't looking good.

If you mention %rump, you get your post deleted, it's political. Can't help yourself, can you?

Ah good point. Ill put it in the Trump thread!

just for comparison, my insta friend in bali, indonesia, 2200k sq mi, 4.22M pop, says its not a big thing there, or isnt yet — they have 306 known cases as of today.

It's still more bang for less buck. The existing stimulus measures (which have been necessary and expedient but not well-targeted) don't cover much either. They don't give enough to the unemployed (iirc, 25 million new, 33 million total).

Two months would cover the worst of it for most places. Half the cost for another two months (we're still only up to $1.65 trillion) would cover much of the rest.

As places start to reopen (despite continued major outbreaks in some cases), the unemployment numbers could be dropping already. Yes with continued pain.

Completely unsubstantiated. Just yesterday our (normally dumbass) Premier reiterated that they want the US border closed for some time. This is obviously a Federal decision but the other Provinces seem to be adamant as well. They may be referring to extensions of closures which happen in 30 day chunks - there will almost definitely be more.

^ What about US exclaves in Canada? It might be a shitty time to live in Point Roberts right now...

I mean, by "closed" it doesn't mean there isn't any access. I'm sure people in those situations can get through, but a cottager going to the Bruce Peninsula will get turned back.

Maybe a stupid question and I can probably google it, but you folks are well traveled:

Can Americans travel to Europe right now?

No, not without a reason that meets the definition of essential travel. Which is problematic for me as I have a trip planned to Sweden in mid-June that I'd hate to miss. As of now the restrictions are set to expire on May 15th but they'll probably be extended to June 1st on Monday. Hoping that after that they start to ease restrictions a bit...

I hear Minsk is lovely this time of year.

https://www.kayak.com/travel-restrictions/

Thank you!

So I could travel to the UK in two weeks if I wanted? Surprising, honestly.

But you'll be quarantined for an undetermined period, per Boris.

Don't make reservations for the Lake District or the Cotswolds just yet.

But the French and UK governments have mutually agreed that their respective quarantines for arriving travellers will not apply to travel between the two countries, so game on for my usual visit to the French Atlantic coast.

https://apple.news/AhHcFrk4iQAeYhibas0mA7A

Vive la Frangleterre!

Good luck getting there. Flights into London Heathrow are severely reduced and I think Gatwick has no flights at all.

What could you do in London now anyway except and marvel at the nothingness?

https://www.pentreath-hall.com/wp/wp...r-2002-021.jpg

Yes, I think even Belarus has a quarantine for incoming travelers. Kind of surprising given their government response. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-...nment_response,

Ah ouais ? Cool. Where are you going? Biarritz? Arcachon? La Rochelle? Brittany?
Beware of Normandy. They have some cute pretty towns, but weather is often unstable over there, even in July or August.

It's true that the Mediterranean coast is overcrowded and full of dorks and slobs in the summer. Especially the Riviera that draws too many people like it may be annoying.
Just don't forget there are decent sea resorts around the Montpellier area, like Cap d'Adge Cap d'Agde or La Grande-Motte. It is generally less overcrowded than the Riviera. You may actually have a good time over there too.

But yeah, the Atlantic coast is sportier and more youthful anyway. It's a different atmosphere and I see why you'd like it better.

The French will stick to France this summer. That might kind of make up for the lack of foreign tourists, although the season is likely to be painful to the tourism sector anyhow.
No wonder...

Edit: I'm sorry, I misspelled Cap d'Agde out of a typo, 'cause the spelling is a bit odd.
I went there once. It is known as a naturist resort, but not everyone is naked.
And I didn't see any freaking orgy over there back then. Lol. I can assure you.
Often, people are scared of naturism and don't understand it.
Never mind.

^ I go to Cap Ferret, the peninsula across from Arcachon.

I’ve been cycling a lot. It’s never been better with so little traffic.

Oh, I don't plan on going to the UK, but I am surprised I am legally able to.

Was supposed to be in Barcelona right now and Scottsdale golfing and partying at the end of the month. Woke up instead to half an inch of snow on the ground in the middle of freakin May.

My strength is waining.

Yeah, I was supposed to go to Santiago de Compostela for a conference, followed by a a month on the Greenland ice sheet to deploy an experiment. There's a very small chance we'll be able to go to Greenland in August, but hope is fleeting by the day.

lower fifth ave manhattan

crickets


http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/...psdyw5ewk9.jpg