Coronavirus COVID-19 Thread

Kaus_Borealis

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NaffNaffBobFace

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"urgent care clinic"

Yeah, they can remove the words "Urgent" and "Care" from that description.
 

Radegast74

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Excuse my my confusion, but I fail to see what your point is?
I was referring to the breakdown on the $2T bailout. Like all my off-topic posts, my response is pretty much equal components of "Serious Response," "Cynicsm," and "Sarcasm" --see chart below :^)
sankeymatic_1200x1200.png


/Begin Rant
Serious Response Component: My take ---> if we were serious about this being a bill about fighting the COVID19 pandemic (as well as protecting ourselves from future pandemics), I would think that the amounts in the bill would be somewhat different. It would be nice to prioritize the medical response, as well as funding emergency production of masks and gowns, and ventilators, as well as paying to stockpile these things....however the largest single amount in the bill goes to "Large Corporations." I would rather see larger amounts spent on Public Health (since really, it was gutted over 10 years ago during the "Great Recession" and we are really just playing catch-up... as well as more for the COVID19 response (again, with more for laying the ground work for the next pandemic, which seems to be a serious threat abotu every 10 years: SARS in 2004-ish and H1N1 in about 2009-2010).

Cynicsm component: My take ---> Isn't it great that we as a nation can come together in a crisis and agree on something? That we all want "free stuff" from the gubbmint?

However, taking on large amounts of debt now, for things that aren't completely necessary will limit our future abilities to take action. If we had some money saved for a rainy day, "in the bank" so to speak, it would be one thing, but, if we are going to just print money and take on *even more debt* we are going to seriously inhibit our future abilities to respond to the next crisis, whether that is in 2 months, 2 years, or 20 years.


Sarcasm component:
My take ---> Closely related to cynicsm above, but on a more indivdual hypocritical level: Everybody **loves** getting something **for free** from the government for themselves (and when I say "free from the government" I mean your tax money and my tax money), but when people talk about acting collectively and using taxes to fund a "worthy" program, a lot of people will turn around and complain that "we can't afford it" (not just social programs, thinking of the space program here), "they don't deserve it" or "they didn't pay for it so they shouldn't get it." Well, here we are, borrowing and printing money to give ourselves something, and large corporations even more, and these people don't have a problem with that. There's a saying "somewhere," right? about ...something something...speck of dust...something something log...eye...amirite?

\End Rant
 

Montoya

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Excuse my my confusion, but I fail to see what your point is?

Its an American thing.

Under normal situations, the government giving money to normal working people is socialism, which as we know is communism and the ghost of Carl Marx has risen from the grave, ready to posses us all.

This week we had the most unfortunate of situations where capitalism failed, and sprinkles of socialism , where your own tax dollars are coming back to help you, is the biggest and most popular news item of the day.
 

Aramsolari

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This week we had the most unfortunate of situations where capitalism failed, and sprinkles of socialism , where your own tax dollars are coming back to help you, is the biggest and most popular news item of the day.
See you gotta wrap that Socialism in an American flag. Call that money Freedom Bucks!
 

Radegast74

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Its an American thing.

Under normal situations, the government giving money to normal working people is socialism, which as we know is communism and the ghost of Carl Marx has risen from the grave, ready to posses us all.

This week we had the most unfortunate of situations where capitalism failed, and sprinkles of socialism , where your own tax dollars are coming back to help you, is the biggest and most popular news item of the day.
Well, there also is the common sense part, too!

$2T is 2,000,000,000,000. A quick check on-line says that the retail cost of a ventilator is about $20,000. I'm sure we could get them for less, but let's say we paid retail. We could buy 100,000,000 ventilators with that money...100 million...or, 1 for every 3 Americans...more if we got the volume discount.

Now, I know what you are saying..."There is now way anybody could shit out 100 million ventilators right now, " and yeah, that's true. But, what about the next crisis? Wouldn't spending money developing our public health system, and shoring up our hospitals, buying and stockpiling protective gear to protect the medical workers and patients...ah fuck it, nobody gives a crap about planning ahead.

In a couple of years in the next crisis, if we spent wisely and planned carefully, we could all be saying "Thank God we prepared for this after the last scare!"

In a couple of years, when I'm flying to CitizenCon in Frankfurt or Manchester, as my knees are banging into the seat in front of me, and as the person in front of me is lowering their seatback into my face, and as the person next to be is banging their shoulder into me, I doubt I will be saying "Thank God I bailed out this crummy airline!"
 

Lorddarthvik

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Its an American thing.

Under normal situations, the government giving money to normal working people is socialism, which as we know is communism and the ghost of Carl Marx has risen from the grave, ready to posses us all.

This week we had the most unfortunate of situations where capitalism failed, and sprinkles of socialism , where your own tax dollars are coming back to help you, is the biggest and most popular news item of the day.

See you gotta wrap that Socialism in an American flag. Call that money Freedom Bucks!
Nah, you all get it wrong!!! It's top-tier Capitalism!
The parent company is injecting funds into its underperforming assets to keep em alive so they can turn a profit later. Also you can't run a business without customer's, so Customer retention is important but sometimes it costs money, like running ads or buying a few thousand ventilators.
It's just business as usual!
No socialism here at all!

/s or /jk or whatever. Ppl can call it whatever they want, fact is it was neccesery. They did what any government is supposed to do, give something back for the tax money they've taken. They gotta give money to big business so the market doesn't totally crash, you can't run a country on mom and pops cheese&watch shop unless you are Switzerland. Looking at the charts I would've expected higher numbers for the healthcare system, but I live in a pseudo socialist country with a govt. healthcare system that's constantly bankrupt, so what do I know lol
I just hope it turns out to be the right call and works out for you all!
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Many thanks for the responses to my query, I had a whole economy on file support and without this there wouldn't be an economy to bail out in the first place thing planned, but your comments have made that very much void. Learned something another thing about 'Merica today.

Cheers!
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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UK update for the 28th.

Confirmed cases 17089, fatalities 1019.

Chartorama28-03-20.jpg


And a closer look at the Orange line:

Fatalities 28-03-20.jpg


Well and truly busted through the 1000 mark. Government keeps repeating if we can keep it below 20,000 deaths we will have done well.

At this stage in proceedings I feel it would be better to aim for zero and have to concede every additional death rather than setting a limit and trying to stay below that. It's a Pandemic not a Quarterly Sales Review.
 
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Montoya

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Many thanks for the responses to my query, I had a whole economy on file support and without this there wouldn't be an economy to bail out in the first place thing planned, but your comments have made that very much void. Learned something another thing about 'Merica today.

Cheers!

The real stress test here is the American health care system.

Under normal circumstances, if a person goes into the ICU and needs 14 days of real intensive care, the $280,000 bill goes to the insurance company, and the patient still needs to pay the $5000 deductible, and additional arguments about how the anesthesiologist is an out of network doctor that will be billing you separately for another $13,000.

Now we have ICU's overflowing, hundreds, if not thousands needing what would usually be billions of dollars of billable hours. Insurance companies would be broke, hospitals would be broke, and thousands of dead people cant pay bills.
 

Montoya

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Headline from WaPo: "Trump says he is considering a quarantine on New York, parts of New Jersey and Connecticut "

A great lesson from Wuhan is that you do NOT ANNOUNCE your planned lock downs of entire cities!

If Trump comes out tomorrow and says that NY is going into lock on Monday, you will see tens of thousands driving out of the NY on Sunday, which accelerates the virus spreading to all surrounding areas much faster!
 

SoloFlyer

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Headline from WaPo: "Trump says he is considering a quarantine on New York, parts of New Jersey and Connecticut "

A great lesson from Wuhan is that you do NOT ANNOUNCE your planned lock downs of entire cities!

If Trump comes out tomorrow and says that NY is going into lock on Monday, you will see tens of thousands driving out of the NY on Sunday, which accelerates the virus spreading to all surrounding areas much faster!
Unfortunately this is what happens when a world leader routinely puts out stream of consciousness updates on a regular basis.
 
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