Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Like some hotels, Central Park Carousel's and Skating Rinks, Virginia Winery's, select golf courses, etc.

 

I fully expect a hotel/golf resort bailout at the top of the list. We all know who will be at the front of the line.

 

All entertainment and leisure. The idea of bailing out Disney is pure comedy (not that they need or are asking for one).

Now I do have sympathy for all the mom and pop shops that are suffering. Just not sure how to help them. Throwing cash at Marriot or Disney isn’t going to help them. The problem is loss of customers. Govt can’t force people to go out in a pandemic.

I guess you can argue it’s not terribly different from Hurricane FEMA handouts or the oil spill “lost business” fund. But those are typically localized, covering VERY short term business losses, and in the case of the oil spill the “bailout” came from BP, not from taxpayers. You can’t bailout every hotel and restaurant and leisure activity across the country to make up for losses which might be several months or more.

 

I am far less troubled by industry bailouts than most. Plainly it can and always be abused. All programs, public and private, are abused and produce unintended consequences on occasion. It's all in the percentages.

But I think there are both too little and too much of morality considerations entering into the decisions, all stemming from one common misperception, namely that we are all individually responsible for our individual economic outcomes and are not mutually dependent. Though obviously personal responsibility plays some role, maybe even above 50%, the economy is a social organism. We don't have recessions because everyone got collectively more lazy or stupid. We do depend on each other, as much as many of us like to deny that when considering public policy decisions.

In terms of the morality of bailouts, it's hard to conceive that many businesses can effectively plan around or avoid the economic impact of a pandemic. Within each example there are various levels of rational response, and plainly some will do it better than others. But generally, a lot of key businesses will suffer problems that are not of their own making, at least to a large extent. Plainly there is the risk of moral hazard, but I think we greatly overstate it in these circumstances. And systemic risk is most present in the finance sector but is present in every sector. We all suffer when sectors fail. I think we both overestimate the degree of personal culpability in the losses during situations like this and underestimate the moral argument for avoiding that suffering. Again, that's not to say that all bailouts are virtuous, with no moral hazard, and no one suffers bears any responsibility for their situation. But I think we've gone too far the opposite way.

 

Not only that, I think they would have blocked any emergency measures like it was some form of FEMA/Jade Helm/anti-vaxxer hysteria

 

Hubei is home to 58.5 million people.

 

Maybe we need to buy lottery tickets today. Agreeing with each other on two posts must mean something.

 

Yes, and China effectively put 50 million people on lockdown quarantine, and restricted their movement not just effectively locking people inside the province, but locking people inside their homes. The effect was the virus could only infect members of the same family of someone who was already infected, and it stopped the spread of the disease outside of Wuhan.

Italy just instituted a similar lockdown for the entire country. But it's not as Draconian, as Italy is allowing what they consider necessary travel to and from work, and to get food. China didn't even allow this kind of travel. We'll see if the Italian measures are as effective as the Chinese.

As for us, could you see entire cities on lockdown? What about states? Just how far would our government go to enforce a quarantine?

 

Just sheer mental craziness 100% of the time on Fox.

You’d think we had an Ebola outbreak in this country effecting thousands based on that Fox coverage, but in reality their freak out was because we brought something like 10 (TEN!) individuals into this country for medical treatment, with effectively zero risk to the general public. As I recall two of the nurses/physicians that treated them did contract the virus. That’s it. That was the whole story. Otherwise the U.S goal was to help stop the outbreak at its source. Seems like our CDC had a good handle on things back then, and were honest about the risk to the public. Fox’s coverage, in hindsight, gets a lol. There’s no truth there, just political nonsense and telling a crazed audience that yes, Obama was the devil.

Basically nothing but a propaganda machine, somehow connecting the dots that treating 10 desperate patients at the most specialized level of healthcare is part of a “socialist agenda” or plot to destroy America. These are some seriously mentally disturbed people. But I don’t expect any of them to view this clip or see their insane hypocrisy.

 

Yes. But Ebola was from "Africa" with a different President

 

Anybody who watches fox is getting the stupid they deserve. Luckily, nowadays these ill informed people are easily identified by a MAGA hat so no one has to waste time engaging them.

 

might be the wrong forum, but, imo, it is being blown way out of proportion. remember the H1V1 virus? what about swine flu? zika virus? all came and went with no real impact on crowds at events, i believe more people in the US get the flu in 1 winter month than all reported cases some far worldwide, just my opinion.

 

I hear what you're saying but none of those viruses have spread nearly as quickly as Covid 19. If the trajectory keeps up COVID 19 will far suprass the flu. It already has surpassed H1V1 and swine flu in far less time.

 

If your heading were "virus panic affects spring practice" you'd be okay on this forum.

 

The problems are the unknowns. First, it seems to be more contagious than the flu. Second, it seems to be more resilient in transmission and more lethal to its recipients. Third, the incubation time is quite long, allowing it to spread far and wide before you ever feel anything. And fourth, it seems to be unaffected by weather, so it is unlikely it will diminish as spring arrives.

The power of all of this is its unknown nature. Business hates unknowns (see crash, stock market). Medicine hates unknowns (see Italy and China, national quarantine).

 

I agree 100%. The news for sure have started a worldwide panic that just keeps getting worse and worse everyday. We are in the flu and pollen/allergy season and now everyone that coughs or sneezes thinks they have it. This whole canceling games is an exaggeration, like every virus or epidemic before like Ebola, bird flu, swine flu, etc.. it will pass. As we get into spring and summer this will normalize.

 

It spreads faster than the flu?

i know the media spread rate of this is infinitely worse than the flu, but it seems to me to have less of a physical impact than regular flu for those under 70.

 

Ok nobody panic !!! everything is completely under control ....DON'T TOUCH YOUR FACE !!!!! WE GOT THIS

 

Can't get the link to work but New York is calling out the national guard.

 

The flu has a .1% fatality rate. So far, the data shows Corona virus has about a 3% fatality rate - and that is assuming the chinese numbers can be trusted that they are not much higher there. This virus also seems to be contagious even when are not symptomatic, which is very scary.

It could be this is overblown - or it could be even worse. As someone else mentioned, it is the unknown that makes this so challenging right now. China does have massive air pollution and more high percentage of smokers which probably skews their numbers.

The flu has an R0 (how many people each person infects) of 1.3. This virus has an R0 so far of 2.0-2.5 (one person infects up to 2.5 other people). If this thing spreads twice as fast as the flu and kills a much higher percentage than the flu, that would be very bad. Let's hope these numbers drop significantly in the US.

Hopefully we handle this much better than the Chinese, Iranians and Italians.