5933

Not in the US. And thing obviously aren’t normal here, given we have the 2nd highest rate of cases per capita.

But from this perspective I’ve been quite amazed at some of the US and UK attitudes to this, and wasting the two weeks head start they could have had. Half-baked decrees don’t really achieve anything. You need people to actually change their behavior, not continue on as normal.

Fair enough! That certainly wouldn’t count as normal, and kudos to your company for that.

5934

The thing is, now, every single business in the entire state of Pennsylvania is shut down, by our governor. And they’ve done the same thing in other states too, like California.

Think about that, California if it were a country, would be the 5th largest economy in the world.

And now everyone there is ordered by their governor to stay home.

That’s an immense act.

And it’s the right one. And if we had acted sooner, and the feds had their act together, it would have been better. But still, things are being done.

5935

The US is weird since it’s very much a state by state response, but here in Michigan everyone I know is living a dramatically different life now. I know of people who aren’t taking it seriously still, but they also don’t have a lot of public places to go to be dangerous to anyone but their family at this point.

5936

Has she not heard of a little thing called smartphones, or FaceTime?

5937

I mean, what?

The list of businesses that have to close and those that can stay open:

5938

As long as they still have food and are scared of going out. The last part doesn’t take long once they pay attention.

It depends on much consumption governments want and can fund until it does, because firms aren’t going to produce to sell to no one, and no other country will help with that for a while.

I’ve seen pictures of the US with packed transit and malls in places where that shouldn’t be happening days before. I know I’ve joked about Darwin awards, but now I know better, I’m horrified thinking about what will happen, and, even being strongly atheist, nearly praying it doesn’t. To anyone at all, despite the impossibility.
Hopefully someone or something can break my ego and prove me very, very wrong on this.

5939

Oh, don’t get me started. The last thing I want to do is to roll into a “back in MY day” lecture.

But seriously. When I was her age we had a single phone line into our house. I think we MIGHT have had this new thing called “call waiting”. What she considers a quarantine, younger me would have looked on as something out of that new “reboot” Star Trek show with the bald guy.

5940

If what was posted upthread about London hospitals was accurate, by Monday they may be in full meltdown and then people are going to start understanding what we’re up against. Despite the fact that Italy had the second best healthcare in the world by some metrics, for the average American they’re some quaint old fashioned back water. When shit hits the fan in the UK, a “modern” country full of white people, it will start to hit home.

And here in the States, folks are about to get an alarming lesson in exponential math. And when our hospitals starts failing (and everyone I know in healthcare says they do not have what they need and are in no way prepared so it will fail) people will begin to understand why we’re locked down. And, hopefully, if this drags out, people will understand it’s dragging out and taking longer to clear up then it should because we didn’t act fast enough.

5941

Amen. Game-ify this problem QT3. You have trained for this your whole life. The princess is in another castle.

5942

You voted for this, America. Now you’re gonna get it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/19/unemployment-insurance-today-coronavirus/?utm_source=reddit.com

5943

OMG YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!

angrily leaves the room

(I assume this would be the reaction)

5944

Okay boomer /s

5945

I can’t tell if the state-by-state response is just a side effect of our Federal system, or if it’s because of the obvious lack of competent leadership at the top of the Federal Government.

5946

My neighbors have had an all day play date. The guys are rebuilding a deck and the women and their several kids are hanging out in the yard. Three families, all day. Our neighbors kids still go to day care every day.

They had wanted my daughter to babysit for a while. Nope.

5947

More the incompetence of the current administration.

5948

It’s been kind of fascinating to watch the state reaction through the lens of “Well, I guess we’re on our own here.”

5949

I think you have two big problems in the US; one, the idiot-in-chief at the top, who destroyed every advantage you had, and is now quite likely impeding any ability the administration had to act effectively, and two, spring break, which absolutely is a disaster waiting to happen.

Stuff like this is worrying too:

So - everyone has a lack of equipment right now all over the world, but you/we are just at the beginning of the epidemic. It shouldn’t be so bad, this early, that nurses are having to write their names on masks and reuse them for five days. The CDC should not be needing to advice healthcare workers to use bandanas and scarves in place of a mask.

Meanwhile, orange cheeto is bragging at a press conference that he has rebuilt the best health system in the world, or BS like that.

5950

Sure dude, it’s not literally everything. Because people still need things like food.

But when you look at the list… it’s pretty much everything. My city’s a ghost town.

5951

Are hospitals not privately funded? This seems like a problem with that particular hospital and not the cdc. You can’t double dip and blame every problem on the national system while allowing private local businesses to dictate the minutiae like mask supply and usage.

5952

The problem isn’t that the hospitals can’t buy masks, the problem is that there ARE NO MASKS TO BUY.