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Covid 19 virus
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Mr. Scram:

--- Quote from: james_s on March 19, 2020, 04:04:11 pm ---I understand math quite well, that's not the issue here. If the economy crashes because everyone is panicking and my income falls to $0 and I can't find work again, I am screwed. At that point I can't afford to go to the doctor if I have a medical problem and neither will many other people. Emergency rooms cannot refuse treatment but they will be flooded with people and even though they can't refuse treatment, they can still send you a huge bill that will go to collections. If enough dominoes start crashing down clinics will start closing, research labs will shut down, manufactures producing all kinds of goods will close, imports of critical supplies and materials will stop, people will not be able to get food, medicine, shelter, electricity, heat or other essentials and people will die. If you're not familiar with the Great Depression of the 1930s you should look it up because the effects were catastrophic and lasted many years, it took a massive world war to pull the US out of that slump. It seems to me that you are advocating panic to the extent that we just shut everything down indefinitely regardless of the impacts and completely ignoring the fact that doing that could easily lead to huge numbers of deaths. Like I said already, if you don't prioritize keep flying the plane (keep the economy going) then it will crash and all the passengers will die, making your heroic efforts to solve the problem at hand irrelevant.

An interesting article I came across discussing the current state of things:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

--- End quote ---
Without wanting to start a political debate about the merits of various systems the various degrees of social welfare in Europe will likely blunt that issue. No country has infinite resources but people getting by while and until the world recovers and they do too eliminates a lot of unnecessary hurt. Cooperation will also go a long way as countries aren't hit equally hard simultaneously so resources can likely be diverted and pooled. As long as food is being produced and basic necessities are met a secondary catastrophe is averted.
coppice:

--- Quote from: james_s on March 19, 2020, 04:04:11 pm ---I understand math quite well, that's not the issue here. If the economy crashes because everyone is panicking and my income falls to $0 and I can't find work again, I am screwed.

--- End quote ---
If the economy crashes everyone is screwed. No economy == no food, heat and other essentials for most of us, however much money we might have. That's why isolation measures can only be pushed so far.
tinhead:

--- Quote from: Mr. Scram on March 19, 2020, 04:41:55 pm ---No country has infinite resources

--- End quote ---

normally i would say "no, US can print as many Dollars as they wish", but now with Covid-19 they will have soon no paper anymore, or toilet paper will be more worth than Dollar ^^  that means i agree with you, this time.
james_s:

--- Quote from: coppice on March 19, 2020, 04:57:30 pm ---
--- Quote from: james_s on March 19, 2020, 04:04:11 pm ---I understand math quite well, that's not the issue here. If the economy crashes because everyone is panicking and my income falls to $0 and I can't find work again, I am screwed.

--- End quote ---
If the economy crashes everyone is screwed. No economy == no food, heat and other essentials for most of us, however much money we might have. That's why isolation measures can only be pushed so far.

--- End quote ---

That is essentially what I was getting at, it's not just me that is screwed but everybody. The #1 priority needs to be keep the economy going because if that all comes crashing down then everything else is moot.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/coronavirus-will-bankrupt-more-people-than-it-kills-%E2%80%94-and-thats-the-real-global-emergency/ar-BB116Wlf
Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: coppice on March 19, 2020, 03:05:41 pm ---Countries in East Asia are getting used to waves of infection, and they've learned what works and what doesn't. They've had SARS, and bird flu, and swine flu, and MERS and they are getting used to epidemic management. Finding the infected quickly, and isolating them is a big win (i.e. test as soon as someone realises they might have an issue, SK style).
--- End quote ---
As a westerner, my own appreciation of Chinese efforts is about exactly that.  I've not talked about anything else, only considered the (forced) isolation efforts.  It is increasingly looking like those efforts are what is needed to minimize both human lives lost, but also the financial impact, of this pandemic.
(In particular, I have not considered what happened in Nov/Dec 2019, with early whistleblowers, et cetera.)

Here in Helsinki, Finland, there is a suprising number of people who simply ignore any recommendations for social isolation. (I mean, they go out with friends to have fun, and thus endanger those who have to interact with others to keep the society going.) It seems stupidity will prevail even over a pandemic.

The Finnish numbers are a complete lie, by the way: only some "special" patients get to be tested.
They say this is because of lack of resources for testing, but considering there are Finnish companies exporting millions of these tests, and while the testing stations need trained people to run the tests, we have had weeks to crash-course a few dozen specialists to help with that.. we just have chosen not to, because our leaders have more important things on their mind than a pandemic.  >:(
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