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[Iduno]

I thought we just had the weak-sauce "if you go out we'll give you a ticket" kind of enforcement.

I don't think we have that, either.


Also, https://twitter.com/MrT/status/1252990795059060739

[Frumple]

Can you make that not sound condescending?  That tone doesn't help.

Mate, that tone isn't condescension, it's extremely intense frustration. There's a lot of people going around spreading horseshit right now about how what we need to do to properly manage a fucking plague is somehow bloody unknowable, when it's not. At all. The right course of action is friggin' solved on the top level of things (test hard, limit movement and means of spread, support your population), it's just logistics and people refusing to do it that's the actual trouble.

That said, while I think that is possibly a solution, it doesn't address "balance" (people want to go to work because their bored, not merely because they aren't paid).

It absolutely address balance. People get to go to work to alleviate boredom, without getting people killed, when the situation is such they can go to work without it getting people killed. Which means identification of infected individuals and control of their movement, management of protective equipment, adapting new behavior to prevent spread, and so on.

It's also not practical at all.  I mean are you really suggesting that we forcibly incarcerate people for quarantine? 

Mandated quarantines have already happened in the US -- there were stories earlier this year of poor bastards getting held in the hospital for days/weeks and then getting the bill for it shoved up their ass. Some other nations, some of them even democracies, also seem to be managing something vaguely in that direction.

And absolutely, if you're confirmed positive you should be locked down pretty hard, and probably have the law bust your ass with something (fines, incarceration, whatever) if you don't comply and go screwing around trying to infect people with something that kills somewhere between one in a hundred to one in fucking ten of the people that catch it.

Every effort should also be made to make sure it doesn't screw you over one way or another (from going stir crazy to going bankrupt), and probably to reward willing compliance if that'd help, but if you want your balance point between economic activity and people not fucking dying to the goddamn plague you have to limit the movement of the infected. Ideally without coercion, but if basic goddamn sense and decency doesn't stop someone from spreading a plague you go to your next options.

[hector13]

The Republicans in Wisconsin are asking the state Supreme Court - which currently has a conservative majority of 5-2 - to overturn Governor Evers attempt to extend the safer-at-home policy ‘til May 26.

‘cause refusing to broaden absentee voting in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC is not damage enough.

[Naturegirl1999]

The Republicans in Wisconsin are asking the state Supreme Court - which currently has a conservative majority of 5-2 - to overturn Governor Evers attempt to extend the safer-at-home policy ‘til May 26.

‘cause refusing to broaden absentee voting in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC is not damage enough.

here’s hoping the court values safety over partisanship, sadly unlikely

[TamerVirus]

An autopsy out in California has identified a COVID death from February 6, weeks earlier than the first official death. That means this person was infected around mid to late January.

How widespread is this virus? Antibody tests seems to support the idea that large amounts of people were infected and going under the radar

[ChairmanPoo]

Antibody tests seems to support the idea that large amounts of people were infected and going under the radar

Depends on what you are asking. That huge chunks of people are asymtomatic or oligosymptomatic has been known for a while. Most estimates go around 50%-90% of all cases being asymptomatic.

If what you are asking is whether that means that enough people have been infected to call off the lockdowns... the answer is no, we're not there. If you cancel the lockdowns right now you get another peak fast and it throws rhe effort back another month

[Frumple]

An autopsy out in California has identified a COVID death from February 6, weeks earlier than the first official death. That means this person was infected around mid to late January.

How widespread is this virus? Antibody tests seems to support the idea that large amounts of people were infected and going under the radar

We don't know. We're still not fucking testing to nearly the degree we need to be to be able to answer that question with any actual certainty. We know we're not identifying a great many of the infected, though, yes. We're also aware those unidentified folks are still dying, tested or not. That's why NY's death toll suddenly jumped a bit ago -- they started including the likely, but unconfirmed, in their fatality numbers.

[McTraveller]

I think I'm just suffering from fatigue.

I want to live my life enjoying it, not huddled inside with fear and gloom at every turn of the media.  Maybe I should start taking online courses to get a psych degree - gonna be massive demand for PTSD and depression.

[Frumple]

I mean, yeah. Having to basically huddle under the blankets for couple months (repeatedly, for probably a year or two) sucks hard for most folks.

It just doesn't suck as hard as like one out of a hundred or worse of your people dying in agony. It's a pain in the ass we can probably suck up if it means hundreds of thousands or millions of people, y'know, not dying from a viral pandemic.

.. though that said, and I get it's probably sort of a joke, while PTSD and depression treatment's basically always badly needed, you'd probably want to remember it's, well, pretty shitty from the doctor's side, too.

Imagine for a second listening to stories as bad or worse than everything going on with the crow plague, and trying to help people through that, except rather than being something you're engaging with sporadically and can sorta' remove yourself from at times, it's literally your job and you're doing it every work day. It's rough shit, burn out and depression/suicide rates among psych doctors dealing with those kinda' issues are pretty high. If just stay at home stuff is too much, it's probably not a good fit

[McTraveller]

It's not the stay at home that gets me - I work from home mostly anyway. It's the "no matter what we do, people will either die or it will suck."  The constant fear-mongering, opportunism, etc.  The fact that mass surveillance, ability to just force people to stop working, etc. are all now being normalized, worldwide.

Doesn't help that it's late April and snowing outside again, but just flurries so it's just nasty out and not like go sledding or whatever, so the kids are even more cabin-fever than usual '

[martinuzz]

The fact that mass surveillance, ability to just force people to stop working, etc. are all now being normalized, worldwide.

Yeah. That scares me just as much, if not more, than the pandemic.

[Jimmy]

Speaking as an Australian, where we've had our state's borders closed to our fellow Australian neighbours, bans on gatherings of more than two people, school closures and business shutdowns, and even a government tracking app rolled out, I only have one real comment about the powers being used.

Total Australian deaths: 74

People need to calm down, stay home, and if they want to protest, make a damned YouTube video about it. If they disagree with the way things are being handled, write to their local politician. If they don't give a satisfactory answer, vote for someone else, or even run themselves if nobody else is doing a good enough job.

[Jopax]

Seems like Italy will be opening its borders on May 1st, probably won't ease up most of the restrictions yet but it seems an attempt at returning to normal is being made, atleast on the economy side of things. Not sure how it will pan out tbh, either a resurgence in cases in their own country or a potential spread to anyone doing business with them, because if there's anything this whole thing has taught me it's that people are fucking dumb and really bad at following simple steps at preventing a shitstorm if the shitstorm isn't immediate and obvious.

[misko27]

The way I've been thinking about it is imagine a big debt, with punitive compound interest rates.

Not social distancing early is like, instead of paying off the debt entirely, only paying it off partially, or waiting, etc. With the US efforts we only just barely have started paying off more than the interest to actually get to the principal of the debt, and now we've paid so much that not everyone can pay, distancing is going on too long and isn't indefinitely sustainable, etc. But we're paying more now than we would have to begin with if we had acted fast. If we had had, two weeks self-isolation, globally, or at least close to it, this would be over, or at least much reduced. But now not only is that too late, but it's impossible to do without a cost that is simply too high. So now we're going to have to spend a long time paying it off slowly because we literally cannot pay it off quickly.

And everyone pays for those who didn't.

[wierd]

It's almost like there is some hidden cost... ... some not well-defined catch-22... ... some *reason* why naked capitalism is BAD, and you really should NOT seek to extract the absolute highest value the market can bear, to the point where there is no excess that can be saved!

It's almost like those wasteful safety nets are necessary!

Financial heresy! /s


No seriously-- The slavish devotion to "Gotta INCREASE those earnings this quarter AGAIN, or the world will end!" leads to situations where all fat gets cut. Then some meat. Then some more meat. Then some more meat. Then some more meat--- until you end up with a fucking lich of an economy:  People don't make enough money to have a savings, because "GOTTA CUT COSTS! GOTTA INCREASE EARNINGS!! NO RAISES THIS YEAR!(except for management(tm))".  People don't have enough money to buy things, but still, "GOTTA BOOST SALES! (and fire people who don't perform)", etc.

Then something comes along and knocks those skeletal legs out of it, and it lacks the strength to pick itself back up again.

But how DARE I question the necessity of fleecing the economy to the point where you take the top few layers of skin too, because "There's some hair shaft embedded in that skin, and we have to have THE WHOLE FLEECE!"  I mean, think of the investors! /s


Inefficiency is not always a BAD thing.  Try explaining that to an economist though.  "savings" is an inefficiency, because that is money that is not being immediately re-tendered.

The economist *WANTS* everyone to live paycheck to paycheck. That is the most efficient, because all dollars are constantly circulating.