Early on some public health officials commented that the US was at a structural disadvantage when fighting pandemics because universal health coverage doesn't exist. What do people with little or no health coverage do in the US? Do they get turned away or does some federal/state system kick in when a pandemic hits? Is the capacity large enough to service a population it doesn't normally cater to: those extra 30 million people with no coverage who wouldn't normally access it? It does seem to be a structural disadvantage. Canada has its entire universal public health care system to throw at this thing and it's built large enough to service 100% of the national population rather than just 90% of it.

The big problem in Canada seems to be people ignoring social distancing pleas. Just like the US, Canada's health care system will get overwhelmed if the numbers spike too high. The table below doesn't tell the whole story but as of 10 minutes ago the counts were as follows:


United States

Total cases: 46,145
Cases/1 million pop: 139
Deaths: 582


Canada

Total cases: 2,091
Cases/1 million pop: 55
Deaths: 24

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Kudos to Quebec for not waiting for the Feds to do what was needed earlier on. That said, governments have been too reactive rather than pro-active. Just a few days ago, some government official in BC was arguing that lock down wasn't needed because numbers weren't high like one sees in Italy. That sort of 'logic' is so asinine and frustrating. So this government official was waiting for infection rates to spike higher first?

My mother has a high ranking position in a provincial health care system. She pleaded with them to follow WHO advice and lock down all nursing homes/long term care facilities a week ago. That fell on deaf ears as they wanted to take advice from the government instead. It's a big mistake to wait for governments to be brought up to speed. By the time that happens it's often too late. Follow the advice of experts like the WHO, not politicians. She managed to get her facility locked down last week despite it all. Thankfully a province wide lock down finally happened the other day.

Sure they did. I’m quite sure that the bad guys in the Vietnam movies were the heroes in the WW2 movies, and that generally held throughout society.

A nice bike tour.


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On a side note, this is really empty compared to how it normally is.

NYC State of Emergency : East Village, Manhattan & Williamsburg Bridge (March 21, 2020)

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This one's pretty good at showing Lower Manhattan.


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On a side note, its never been a better time to bike in NYC. Paradise for bicycles in an f'd up way. Or for car drivers too!

Apparently the word has gone out around here for people to shine a light in the darkness of this miserable situation by putting their Christmas lights back up. I had to go out last night to get medication for my cat and on the way back I counted 23 houses or apartments, plus one church all lit up.

Not sure, I’m more likely going to tell them upfront rather than call the state, and I think I might today. I’m sure I f I approached them point blank and said “I’m not coming, I’ll work from home and if anything urgent pops up I’m a 20minute bike ride away” they wouldn’t really argue; but it definitely doesn’t help your standing in the office to be “that guy,” so it’s a matter of swallowing my pride.

Though it's worth pointing out that it's due to all of our presumptive cases being added into the total yesterday. They were not in there before.

Obviously these are all "real" cases and we are clearly seeing an increase, but normally they would been added progressively on a day-to-day basis.

I would not expect cases in Quebec to triple again today, and tomorrow and the next day.

At least I hope not.

Something is broken there. The health region is government. You would expect the local management team within each nursing home/long term care facility has the authority to lock down their own facility without asking permission. The senior management team with the health region should be able to do the same across its facilities. The medical people in the ministry of health as well.

The current NDP government in BC has reversed this trend, but prior to that for the last few decades the focus has been on reducing the number of people directly employed by government and instead contracting non-profits to build and operate services such as care homes. Their management team generally has better situational awareness and can make decisions more quickly.

Today’s press conference:



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Sorry to hear that. . . what a pisser! Feel free to PM me if there's anything you think I can do to help out. . .

. . .

Oliver Stone portraying the system sending his generation off to Vietnam as the 'bad guys' is a far cry from Millennials and Z'ers today blaming all the world's problems on a single generation...many of them began when they were too young to make an impact.

Thanks, Tom.

Hopefully, we'll be ok.

We have significant savings, and other assets that could be liquidated in a shit hits the fan situation.

My wife's new consulting business venture is in its infancy, but as long as we don't enter into some decade long collapse of civilization, she realistically believes it could be a 6 figure thing, so we'll see. But the timing is certainly less than ideal.

And we also have SOLID family support.

And with me not working, no more crippling daycare payments for the time being.

And we're all currently healthy...........

So we're quite blessed in so many ways, despite the current shittyness.




Going for a walk in the woods.........

Hold on now, let's not pretend that much of this "ok boomer" stuff wasn't in response to nearly 15 years of "millennial are so spoiled/lazy/entitled/irresponsible". Millennial mostly took it on the chin, too worried about paying down insane student loans while also looking for a job, I imagine. Gen Z came of age in a stronger economy so they've been more ready to stand up for themselves.

Hold on now, let's not pretend that much of this "ok boomer" stuff wasn't in response to nearly 15 years of "millennial are so spoiled/lazy/entitled/irresponsible". Millennial mostly took it on the chin, too worried about paying down insane student loans while also looking for a job, I imagine. Gen Z came of age in a stronger economy so they've been more ready to stand up for themselves.

If this isn't the perfect learning experience for people who have been less financially responsible, I don't know what is. This is what you save for. It's good you're taking a high-minded approach, I know when I was laid off once before it really hit me hard after about a week. I hope you're able to keep taking this self-inventory every day to get through it.

Good attitude.

Source: https://katu.com/news/local/oregon-g...virus-outbreak

Let's cut the crap about "reassuring words". The president saying it was ok to go to work sick didnt help anything. He was trying to pump up his stock market

All he cares about is The Line, and his re-election. He doesn’t give a single fuck about anyone.