Official Austin COVID-19 thread and discussion. (West, Howe: gated, linear, corporate)

[DMChicago]

Anybody still mad they cancelled SXSW?

[N610DL]

Check out this site (I'm newish to Austin - Chiming in):


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-us-cases.html


Travis County only has 7 deaths so far, so we're obviously doing something right as we're the 2nd largest state in the country. Most metro areas are well into the hundreds in terms of death counts. Maybe it's the heat, IDK.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by DMChicago

Anybody still mad they cancelled SXSW?

TBH I vastly underestimated how incredibly damaging Covid-19 was going to be to the national economy early on, but even after having been laid off I have no regrets. Congregating that many people in one area at one time causing it to become a en-masse breeding ground would have brought us one step closer to overloading over our healthcare system. At this point I dont think it would have mattered much given the trajectory of the economy at this rate. Even if it were hosted, alot of travel was already being canceled at that point, and many were threatened the possibility of not getting a return flight back home as airlines were already shedding collateral and many probably would have chosen not to come so it probably wasnt going to be anywhere close to as strong as a turnout as prior years.

I'm more worried about the current situation over the national economy. In just a few weeks, we have already shed off half of the number of jobs we gained in an entire decade between The Great Recession and Now...and have already doubled the job loss accrued over the Great Recession.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/this...ronavirus.html

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

TBH I vastly underestimated how incredibly damaging Covid-19 was going to be to the national economy early on, but even after having been laid off I have no regrets. Congregating that many people in one area at one time causing it to become a en-masse breeding ground would have brought us one step closer to overloading over our healthcare system. At this point I dont think it would have mattered much given the trajectory of the economy at this rate. Even if it were hosted, alot of travel was already being canceled at that point, and many were threatened the possibility of not getting a return flight back home as airlines were already shedding collateral and many probably would have chosen not to come so it probably wasnt going to be anywhere close to as strong as a turnout as prior years.

I'm more worried about the current situation over the national economy. In just a few weeks, we have already shed off half of the number of jobs we gained in an entire decade between The Great Recession and Now...and have already doubled the job loss accrued over the Great Recession.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/this...ronavirus.html

covid hasnt been damaging to the economy, our response to it has been damaging to the economy.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by DMChicago

Anybody still mad they cancelled SXSW?

not angry, I think we would have been fine, but it was definitely a tough call. We can look at new orleans as a comparison. They are smaller than the Austin metro area (1.2M vs 2M) They held mardi gras about the same time as SXSW, but for a month. We have 9 deaths and they have about 380. 20000 infected vs 10000 infected in texas.

Eventually we will have everyone infected and the number of people that are going to die will happen. As long as hospitals arent swamped we will have the minimal death rate.

Lets say infections drop and hardly anyone was infected. Then what?

[CarnivalGal]

Originally Posted by N610DL

Check out this site (I'm newish to Austin - Chiming in):


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-us-cases.html


Travis County only has 7 deaths so far, so we're obviously doing something right as we're the 2nd largest state in the country. Most metro areas are well into the hundreds in terms of death counts. Maybe it's the heat, IDK.

I think we are doing a decent job here, but I also think population density has a lot to do with it.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by Austin97

covid hasnt been damaging to the economy, our response to it has been damaging to the economy.

In an economic standpoint it is definitely crushing, but I don't see that it could really be better in any other situation. The mortality rate of this disease does seem to be impacted by the response of nations and available healthcare. Italy for example experienced a 12% mortality rate as they attempted to plow through it, not only did they cripple their healthcare systems but were forced to shut down anyway to prevent further damage. We were also a bit sluggish but the U.S. currently has a 3.4% mortality rate based on confirmed cases.



The lack of immunity is what the real problem is. You see, we're comparing it to the flu (although Covid-19 and the Flu are not even in the same family, they only share 'some' similar symptoms but their class of virus are altogether different, the flu shows symptoms in as early as 2 - 3 days where as Covid-19 in as early as 5 days and as late as 2 weeks - all of which is still contageous and spreading throughout that duration, unknowingly.), however; what prevents the flu from spreading rampantly is many people are immune to the current mutated strands (not only due to vaccinations but also exposure) thus less potential infected means it cannot use that host to spread to others. Covid-19 however? Noone is immune, it would have spread like a wildfire. Much faster than the flu and many more would have experienced severe symptoms because of how many people are potentially able to be infected at one given time (technically everyone who comes in contact with it.) Even if thats not a fatality, that's still enough to send far more to the hospital than the healthcare system is capable of handling as the percentage of people who experience complicated or severe symptoms are also higher than the flu and many times more people will be infected at one given time.

Originally Posted by Austin97

Lets say infections drop and hardly anyone was infected. Then what?

I personally think its going to be a bumpy ride. My personal opinion is it will subside in the summer and everyone will come out of hiding, then come fall there will be another surge into the winter causing yet another shutdown. It's probably just going to be a rough road until immunity builds up or some sort of vaccine is designed. One decent thing we have in our favor is the Coronavirus family does not mutate as quickly as the flu.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by Austin97

covid hasnt been damaging to the economy, our response to it has been damaging to the economy.

Even according to your own incredibly messed up value of “human life is directly exchangeable for money”, you’re laughably wrong. Here’s a reminder from two pages ago.

Originally Posted by Westerner92

Also, here's a quote from your thoughts on cancelling SXSW because of COVID-19:

Considering that holding Mardi Gras in New Orleans (two weeks prior to when SXSW was even supposed to begin) is responsible for deaths numbering in the hundreds so far, it's safe to say that, in addition to having misplaced priorities, you have missed the calls on everything concerning this virus due to consuming biased media.

[Need4Camaro]

The U.S. just overtook Italy at over 2,000 deaths per day and 20,000 deaths total. That's already more than half of what the flu killed in the U.S. between 2018 and 2019.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-52258284

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

Even according to your own incredibly messed up value of “human life is directly exchangeable for money”, you’re laughably wrong. Here’s a reminder from two pages ago.

you may not want to admit it, but every day you make choices to not save human lives, therefore put a price on human lives.

You could save a child in africa for under $100. You choose to spend your money on luxuries and therefore have put a value on those lives at under $100.

The federal govt uses a number of around $8million per life saved. I havent bothered to respond to your posts because they are full of emotion so it was pointless to respond.

the financial impact of mardi gras I believe is comparable to SXSW, over 4 weeks instead of about 10 days. I believe that everyone will need to get infected and the deaths are going to happen anyway. The main thing we are avoiding is hospitals getting flooded. New orleans hospitals arent flooded and they might have hit the current peak without getting flooded. I believe they made a reasonable choice. There is no alternate history for SXSW, but I think we could still have had it, had more deaths now instead of later, and put many people in a much better financial position to weather the recession.

Would you cancel SXSW to save 1 person? 10 people? Where is the cutoff? I laid out a way that the federal govt makes those calculations.

Anyone that has been spared so far will eventually get infected unless they isolate for the rest of the year.