CHICAGO | General Discussions

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by tjp

Right, I think people will chill out and not mind being on a crowded train or sidewalk once there's a vaccine.

which we may never get. theres already evidence its mutated.

and once the genie is out of the bag its never going back. worldwide, my company is 100k people. all are working seamlessly from home. our CEO has basically said no one will be forced to come back into the office who isnt comfortable doing so. how do you handle crowded elevator banks in the moring/evening? how do you handle the fact most offices have shifted to open layouts? how do you handle the fact most common areas will be shut down? how do you handle that even if they come back to the office in a reduced/limited capacity, employees will be required to wear masks at their desks the entire time theyre at work?

this is like pre 9/11 and post 9/11 and saying you want to go back to a time when you could walk right up to an arrival gate without a boarding pass or go up to see your spouse in an office without first passing a security desk. the issue is right now its September 12th and our federal leadership (and half of our population) is acting like the world hasnt changed or that a bunch of people just need to die so everyone can go back to shopping malls.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

which we may never get. theres already evidence its mutated.

9/11 isn't a great comparison. Humanity has faced pandemic disease since the beginning. It has never stopped our species from engaging in social behavior permanently.

Vaccine is only one of three possible endpoints... the other two are herd immunity through natural (if slowed) progression of the virus through the population, ala US in 1918, or effective control of the pandemic through test & trace, ala South Korea 2020.

Without a vaccine eventually herd immunity is inevitable anyway, at which point the disease will fade away... so no, none of the social distancing measures need to be permanent. One way or another the Covid-19 virus will eventually cease to be a major problem.

But I am optimistic about a vaccine or at least an antiviral treatment, since the world is facing this issue together and throwing the full resources of our planet into research. Even if the US is shitting the bed there's still many other countries who are undertaking Apollo-level programs to beat this thing.

[Via Chicago]

well sure herd immunity is possible, its also a literal worst case scenario (tens of millions of deaths). we also dont know if re-infection is possible or how long immunity might last for, so that may not even count for very much.

[bnk]

Illinois is fucked and will likely be one of the last states to return to normalcy. Wow like we were not already in trouble, hey lets make it worse to save 99 year old Alzheimer's patients.



Does anyone here know of anyone that died in our age group or younger hold your hand up, id like to see it.






https://www.illinoisreview.com/illin...ings.html#more



Illinois trade association objects to Pritzker’s 5-Phase plan; Calls for public hearings

Illinois Review ^ | May 6, 2020 | Staff

We have significant reservations about the effectiveness and wisdom of the Governor’s plan. At a minimum, the General Assembly needs to hold hearings on the plan, and the likely effects on the citizens of the State of Illinois.

The group proposed questions that need to be answered by the Governor’s administration in public hearings:

1. Precisely who are the “experts” he refers to that are guiding the Governor’s COVID planning?
2. Who are the economic advisors that are a part of the Governor’s planning team?
3. Why is the Administration unwilling or unable to share basic source data for their fatality and case count?
4. Why is there significant divergence between the Administration’s COVID fatality numbers and those report by the Center for Disease Control?
5. Will the Governor’s office release the expert reports, documents, and the detailed statistical model they are using for projecting the risk to Illinois citizens?
6. Is any other state, or any other country planning to extend their police powers until there is a vaccine?
7. What statutory authority is the Governor acting under that allows him to unilaterally extend his emergency police powers and project them indefinitely?
8. What has the economic cost to Illinois citizens of the Governor’s emergency actions to date?
9. What is the daily cost of extending his limited shelter in place?
10. How many Illinois families are unemployed because of the emergency response?
11. What is the status of the thousands of Illinois workers trying to claim benefits under the Administration’s backlogged Unemployment system?
12. How is the State of Illinois going to be able to pay costs already incurred for extraordinary COVID expenses, and the Governor’s plan to stand up a new “tracking” workforce and program?

…

"Illinois citizens are suffering from more than just the risk of infection. Nearly one in five Illinois workers is unemployed, negatively impacting them and more than a million families throughout the state. It is past time that there was a public explanation and discussion about the future direction of the State and the freedom of its citizens."
Then they pointed to the source of many of Illinois' COVID deaths: state-regulated nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
"The Governor’s Administration well knows that the single largest group at risk are those who reside in Illinois Department of Public Health licensed and regulated long term care facilities. The IDPH should be regularly reporting on their efforts to secure this most vulnerable population," TMA said.
"It is both wrong and cruel to lead the Illinois public to believe that government action can prevent future COVID deaths. It is well past time for the Administration to stop trading in fear, and report statistics in a measured, comparable, and verifiable manner. No other state in America we are aware of is threatening its citizens with police action to limit their freedom of association, assembly and movement until there is an 'effective treatment' or a vaccine," TMA's statement said.
Illinois borders five other states, has the second largest interstate network in America, is the railhead to the nation, and is home to both O’Hare and Midway airports. "We find it hard to conceive of how Illinois will benefit from extreme response measures that our neighbors in surrounding states do not adopt," the statement said.

...

[the urban politician]

I’m in line with the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board on this one:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opini...cmm-story.html

I think Pritzker is being too rigid here.

Also, for those out there making comments like “Are restaurants more important, or lives?”, or “Are deaths worth a trip to a shopping mall?”, these comments are at best disingenuous, at worst tone deaf or even cruel.

This long ago stopped being about a trip to the corner restaurant. It’s about millions and millions of lost jobs, furloughs, businesses that were people’s entire livelihoods now shuttered, with no end in sight save for a prayed for rescue check from the Government. It will end up destroying municipal budgets and their ability to provide vital services, as well as being able to employ unionized Government workers, if it continues for too long. There are families out there staring at a financial abyss and they are very worried.

This is also about all of the millions of kids who are staying home from school with parents who might actually have to leave their jobs to stay home with them if they can’t find child care if schools don’t reopen this fall.

This is absolutely unprecedented, so let’s please be adults and stop making it a “waaaah! Stop crying about losing your favorite Thai restaurant” kind of dismissal.

[SIGSEGV]

I'm watching a webinar by https://www.anl.gov/profile/charles-m-macal, whose group is making the models that the City is using for guidance. They have a sophisticated agent-based model that models all households in Chicago and seems to fit the current data pretty well.

Here's an interesting prediction:



The y-axis here is a little confusing (I'm not sure if it's something like R0, related to the derivative of the prevalence or what. Otherwise the peak at 4/1 doesn't make sense to me).

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Skyguy_7

^^ In my opinion, after working from home on and off for two months, I've never craved human interaction and face-to-face brainstorming more. Working from home is a horrible place to accomplish tasks. Perhaps more people have realized this as well.

I completely agree. I now hate working from home. I can't wait to get back into the office.

[jtown,man]

Good news, it seems people don't give a shit about government orders. I've been stuck in traffic jams in the last two days. Great news actually!


I hope people are right. I hope people are craving human interaction(I am). But at the same time there are tons of under 50 folks who are terrified, unjustly, of corona. So who knows when these anti-science people will be comfortable.

Our transit systems are gonna be hit HARD. Our downtowns are gonna be hit HARD. I don't know if this is a year process or forever, I don't know. But I do know this- if Illinois is going to shit and cities start to turn into pre-2000 hellholes again, I will put my happy ass in a Texan suburb.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Good news, it seems people don't give a shit about government orders. I've been stuck in traffic jams in the last two days. Great news actually!


I hope people are right. I hope people are craving human interaction(I am). But at the same time there are tons of under 50 folks who are terrified, unjustly, of corona. So who knows when these anti-science people will be comfortable.

Our transit systems are gonna be hit HARD. Our downtowns are gonna be hit HARD. I don't know if this is a year process or forever, I don't know. But I do know this- if Illinois is going to shit and cities start to turn into pre-2000 hellholes again, I will put my happy ass in a Texan suburb.

Awesome! So all you care about is everything getting back to normal, not a single care about so many people getting very sick and potentially dying from the disease? Sweet!

Anti-science? I'm the literal opposite of that (many people here know my background is as a geologist, even though I currently am doing nothing of the sort), and while I'm not afraid of COVID-19, I have a healthy respect for it and don't wish to suffer from it. Everything will eventually return to some level of normalcy in stages throughout the summer, just as it is and will be doing throughout much of the world. Masks will likely still be required in most places, and I'm not sure how restaurants and bars are going to be managed in terms of any level of social distancing, but generally speaking, some amount of normalcy will be obtained.

Lastly, maybe you should go to that Texas suburb right now, since you already think cities are going to die off again quickly as a result of this. Go ahead, Chicago will be fine without you.

Sorry if my response is harsh, but I found your post to be quite abhorrent.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Good news, it seems people don't give a shit about government orders. I've been stuck in traffic jams in the last two days. Great news actually!


I hope people are right. I hope people are craving human interaction(I am). But at the same time there are tons of under 50 folks who are terrified, unjustly, of corona. So who knows when these anti-science people will be comfortable.

Our transit systems are gonna be hit HARD. Our downtowns are gonna be hit HARD. I don't know if this is a year process or forever, I don't know. But I do know this- if Illinois is going to shit and cities start to turn into pre-2000 hellholes again, I will put my happy ass in a Texan suburb.

A lockdown people don't follow is worse in every way than a lockdown that people follow, since it doesn't achieve the goal and still hurts, so I'm not sure why you're celebrating.

Science is all about models. Please share with us your model for the spread of COVID-19 if you disagree with consensus models. I hate to appeal to authority, but, have you actually talked to many scientists about this? It's one thing to argue that the economic impact is not being taken into account in COVID-19 mitigations, it's another thing to label others anti-science. Some of us, it turns out, are actual scientists. I'm not that scared of COVID-19 (although I don't want to get it...it's far more likely to kill me than anything else I do even though it's not that likely to kill me). I am, however, scared of exponential growth.

We'll be fine, after this is over. Opening a few weeks earlier does nobody any good if we'll have to close things down again because we were too eager to open. We need to wait until that's sufficiently unlikely to happen before reopening, lest this all be for naught. That's what's behind the decision-making being made, which, at least in Illinois, is based on the most sophisticated models available running on the Argonne supercomputers.



Everybody wants this to be over as quickly as possible, believe me.

Edit: here's an interview with the modeler whose slide I posted. https://wgnradio.com/john-williams/a...navirus-cases/

[pip]

There is a big difference between people walking outside on the sidewalk than being in an enclosed place of business.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Stockerzzz

It's not smart to lock down the city and kill small businesses when everyone stopped adhering to the Stay Home Order weeks ago.

Drive around the neighborhoods on a Saturday or Sunday. No one is staying home.

Less than 50% are wearing masks.

People's non-compliance are factored into the model, but I agree, that a lock down had higher compliance (or... enforcement) would be much more effective and would have lasted less long.

[emathias]

Living in the very core might actually become more popular if businesses don't decamp to the suburbs. After all, living downtown in Chicago means you can walk to work and avoid public transit. But we'll see, I don't know what to expect in the midterm. People who hate being cooped up aren't likely to enjoy living in the suburbs. In the long term, the research into universal vaccines may bear fruit in 10-20 years. At that point, if society hasn't collapsed, What will the impact be for cities?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by emathias

Living in the very core might actually become more popular if businesses don't decamp to the suburbs. After all, living downtown in Chicago means you can walk to work and avoid public transit. But we'll see, I don't know what to expect in the midterm. People who hate being cooped up aren't likely to enjoy living in the suburbs. In the long term, the research into universal vaccines may bear fruit in 10-20 years. At that point, if society hasn't collapsed, What will the impact be for cities?

To the contrary, I think the suburbs are highly desirable right now.

While in normal times I will always prefer dense and walkable urban environments, right now I am better off in sprawl. Easy to isolate. When traveling by car you are never exposed to anybody.

But more pertinent—everything that I love about city living has vaporized with stay at home orders and social distancing. Other than going for strolls, there’s no destination! No bars, no restaurants, so many neat shops are closed. Festivals are all canceled, you can’t enjoy the lakefront, you can’t visit the river walk, riding trains has begun to spook people, etc.

I mean, why pay the higher rents for city living if you can’t enjoy it? Might was well live in the burns and drive around on relatively low traffic roads with low gas prices. We go on bike rides, walk around our neighborhood, and have been grilling on our deck almost every week. I’ve become somewhat of a connoisseur of grilling steaks at home.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

We go on bike rides, walk around our neighborhood, and have been grilling on our deck almost every week.

My family has been doing the exact same things here in Lincoln Square.

Uprooting our whole lives right now and moving out to the burbs would be a rather drastic long-term solution to a very temporary problem.



But perspective has never been an American strong suit, so......

[IrishIllini]

I don't know what'll happen, but I know for a fact people said the city (commercial/residential high rises) was over after 9/11 and we went on to see downtowns across the country surge in popularity. Humans need cities for social and economic reasons and the general demographic trend of this country is increasingly pro-urbanization.

[ardecila]

^ We do have other ways of measuring the impact of Covid, it's just that the media and government PR folks have focused everyone on one stat for simplicity's sake. Plenty of data are publicly available to any journo, scientist, or citizen who wants to look.

Excess death studies do sort of get at that problem. They're not widely publicized because they can understate the problem to the lay observer. Deaths in Illinois from March 8-April 11 were up 13% from the average year. 13% doesn't seem like a lot but that still equates to thousands of people, especially over a longer period. The number of excess deaths recorded was more than twice the number of official Covid deaths, suggesting (but not proving) that more than half of the fatal Covid cases are not being reported.

Also, shelter-in-place is probably reducing the non-Covid deaths at the same time, due to fewer car accidents, less street crime, etc so even some of the deaths that are not considered "excess" because they fall within the normal range are still probably due to Covid.

So Musk's idea that the numbers are somehow inflated is just bullsh*t.... if anything the official numbers understate the problem, potentially by a factor of 2 or 3 or even higher. We just don't have a great way to get more accurate numbers... this is why the recommended social distancing and shutdown measures SEEM more severe than the numbers would require.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

To the contrary, I think the suburbs are highly desirable right now.

Some of the amenities that make city living attractive are diminished for the next few months. So if someone is doing a cost/value proposition and is sitting on the edge, suburbs are more likely *right now* to come out ahead. But even then it's hard to see suburbs as "highly desirable." The value proposition in the short term is less unfavorable than it was last year.

Just because suburbs are cheap doesn't make them "desirable." If people don't need to be in cities, then they don't need to be in the suburbs either. I'd rather do email on a deck overlooking a lake than next to poorly constructed single family homes and the occasional dreary commercial strips and large commercial buildings on streets without sidewalks that have been retrofitted to maximize auto throughput and parking.

[Via Chicago]

i think you under-estimate how many people love suburbia. the entire american mindset is based on easy mindless consumerism, facilitated with the least amount of resistance possible. people are protesting right now at statehouses because they cant buy grass seed or whatever. the vast vast majority of these people are not on the verge of decamping to some off the grid self-sufficient based existence in a rural pocket of the country.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by ardecila

^ We do have other ways of measuring the impact of Covid, it's just that the media and government PR folks have focused everyone on one stat for simplicity's sake. Plenty of data are publicly available to any journo, scientist, or citizen who wants to look.

Excess death studies do sort of get at that problem. They're not widely publicized because they can understate the problem to the lay observer. Deaths in Illinois from March 8-April 11 were up 13% from the average year. 13% doesn't seem like a lot but that still equates to thousands of people, especially over a longer period. The number of excess deaths recorded was more than twice the number of official Covid deaths, suggesting (but not proving) that more than half of the fatal Covid cases are not being reported.

....

You do not think that the increased death toll is not related to at least a 50% drop in people getting any kind of health care for any reason because of the shut down? I've seen people with heart attacks waiting for 3 days before they come to the hospital out of fear and now they are too late to fix with a stent in the Cath lab, their heart is too damaged and die from multi organ failure and not the virus. The media did an extreme job scaring the living crap out of at least 50% of the people in this country. These people in their 40-50's had 30 more years to live. But to get reimbursed they will be fudged into covid deaths to get federal money. The last I heard it was $39,000 reimbursement for every covid death.

The Shut down is killing more people the virus now at this point.