The Fed just slashed the interest rate to zero. Sigh. Just wait for the next wave of bad news to just wipe that out like a speed bump.
This just went out officially over the airwaves here in Ohio. All TV stations carried the governor’s message, then local authorities came on to address the details. Carry-out and drive-thru service as well as delivery services like Grub Hub and Door Dash will remain available. Only eat-in, sit down service is effected (which is still a HUGE economic blow). Minimum two weeks duration, probably longer.
I have to think this will be followed up by a mandatory stay home order later in the week, similar to what would be issued during a major snowstorm. My wife sent my kids out to the store Friday, and she and I have both made trips over the weekend as well, so we should be in pretty good shape if the shelter-in-place order comes down.
People here are going to lose their shit as we don’t have any confirmed cases in my area, but all I can say is that it’s refreshing to see Ohio on the forefront of something like this for a change, making informed and proactive decisions. I hope it works.
I think nobody is buying these “two weeks” timelines. We are planning for 2-4 months (but we are in a very badly affected area).
Yeah, good on ya, Ohio! I wish NY was doing better with that kind of aggressive, early action. (And I use the term “early” quite loosely, of course.)
Aceris
4044
I believe on the policy side the CDC had a full pandemic response plan ready to go.
Then Trump happened.
Seriously? You do realize there is a significant difference between stating “in the worst case, up to 50% people might get infected” and stating “we would like 60-80% of the people to get infected”? Nowhere does this plan suggest that one should let people be infected in order to develop herd immunity. In fact it says the direct opposite: if one cannot build up herd immunity with a vaccine, it is important to reduce the impact of the pandemic (4.46).
Yes - assuming no effective treatment was available and zero measures of any kind whatsoever are taken (see 2.21). Which is kind of the point - this is an imaginary number, the very worst case imaginable. But people do follow hygiene rules, effective measures can be taken, and flu does have effective treatments available. The stuff people die of when they get the flu are problems that can be treated. That is why the typical CFR of flu in first world countries is at one-tenth of a percent. The problem with Covid-19 is that the condition people die of with this disease is something that there does not exist any effective treatment for. Which is why the best-case scenario for Covid-19 (CFR 3.0%) is worse than the worst-case scenario in that plan (CFR 2.5%).
I’m not sure what the point of this argument is? The UK health care system is not built to handle a worst-case response to flu, as described in that action plan, because the very idea is a nightmare. The fact is, no country anywhere in the world has health care capacity to handle 50% infection of its population over a few months with the virulence of Covid-19, because it’s a once-every-hundred-years type of event (if we’re being generous).
I understand why some of you guys from the UK want to argue that the UK response is smart and well-timed, despite the majority of other countries experts (and a lot of your own experts as well), disagreeing with your govt’s top boffins. The alternatives, are not fun, after all. So I think I’m going to stop here - these discussions clearly serve no purpose.
For the rest, the article that @Gordon_Cameron posted makes the same argument that I’ve been trying to make for a few days now, and with more authority. It’s well worth a read.
Teiman
4046
Congrats to Ohio, hope that pay in the long term. But is a marathon so who know.
Absolutely. My own expection is that we are going to be locked down at a minimum until after easter (mid-April). We’ll see what happens after that - if the situation seems under some sort of control, government will probably try to see if they can shift back into containment mode, at least in some areas. But who knows - a lot of things can happen in 4 weeks.
Italy is taking full control of an airline
MikeJ
4049
I read in the local paper they were modeling the effects of reducing contacts to 40% of normal for 15 months. In Ontario that was the difference between 3000 deaths and 120,000 deaths.
Edit: it’s a bit ambiguous since it says avoid school and work and 40% of normal social contact.
LOL. We’re blaming them, they’re blaming us.
You’ve just misquoted the action plan. I don’t really know how can continue to discuss if it you’re going to mischaracterise things so grievously.
BTW, the story about that dude in Tennessee who bought up all the hand sanitizer?
A twitter user was able to use the photos of his operations to track down his storage locations via google maps.
The Tennessee AG then used that info to visit those locations and commandeer his supply for donation to those in need.
Sabotai
4055
Spain just ordered everyone to stay inside.
Police sends people back in. Hospitals are overflowing, same as in Northern Italy. Medical staff have to choose who to help.
And they will act so surprised when the number that winds up dead far exceeds that because of obliterated capacity. Who knew epidemics were so hard?
ZeTh1
4058
If anything not horrible comes out of this whole thing, it will be the end of the populist moronic clowns who have been “leading” in various Western countries during the past few years.
It is really amazing the detective work people can do online. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
