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The OP did pose the question in a very cold manner, but despite being likely to lose someone to covid, I also fear an economic Depression, too, and would remind folks millions died of malnutrition during the Great Depression.
I like the NY approach, as its the epicenter. Like WH idea, which is similar.
14 straight days dropping indices being the trigger to start a very gradual, phased in reopening.Then, 100% occupancy goes bye bye until 2021, if I had my way. Be happy to be allowed 50% in 2020.
Recent surveys indicate 1 in 4 small business are either about to, or contemplating permanent closures. My opinion is, in hospitality, 1/2 never reopen. I expect millions of the newly unemployed to be uninsured for years. That leads to less medical care, and death also.
I want us to be careful, with both the virus medical and economic implications. Cool heads are required when its hardest to be cool.
If I truly thought the economic implications were short in duration, that would be one thing. Having been in business decades, I fear the D word economically. I pray our leaders balance virus and economy well, and empathize how hard that is, when we are dealing with so many unknowns.
The mortality rate in the Great Depression for Americans was lower than the mortality rate preceding it.
1) First, you've got to account for the fact that even if we maintain house arrest for the next two months, we will continue to see people die. Since we're beginning the downward part of the curve (nationwide), let's say 20,000. That is the FLOOR.
2) Then, we as a society have ALREADY decided that 45,000 deaths a year in car crashes is a price we are willing to pay to allow people to drive cars, given how they have become so embedded in ability to function - getting to work, to stores, just living one's life, etc. So, that's another 45,000. (If we had determined that 45,000 lives was a price too high to pay, then car ownership and use would be felonies, punishable by prison. We don't do that.)
3) Finally, we get to the TRUE costs in additional deaths (beyond what we have as a society already determined is acceptable), and I'd say 10,000 - the majority of whom are elderly and have already completed 95% of their lives. That is what we truly would be paying in "additional lives lost" in order to keep from falling into a Great Depression with 30% unemployed, and the increase in disease, crime, and suicide that comes from desperation of poverty and isolation.
Total: 75,000.
Got it, Rachel. The "death panels" the Republicans feverishly warned Americans about in 2009-2010, during their infamous ObamaCare hysteria, have finally materialized.
Last edited by corpgypsy; 04-19-2020 at 05:45 PM..
Got it Rachael. The "death panels" the Republicans hysterically warned Americans about in 2009-2010 have finally materialized.
First, I never said there were death panels. (But I take it you are a Democrat and thus that is why you made a criticism of Republicans.) But do you disagree with the idea that we WILL have to accept some deaths - just as we do with the flu every year and just as we do with car accidents - rather than keep everyone shackled to their homes, and collapse the country in the process? You’re not one of these liberals who want to see the deaths go to zero, even if it takes a year and brings on the Great Depression, before we let people back to work, I hope.
The mortality rate in the Great Depression for Americans was lower than the mortality rate preceding it.
The "starvation myth" of the great depression is long lived among right wingers. Sure, some people did, but nowhere near the "7 million" that is being bandied about on here.
One of the main reasons why is because of the relief programs that were implemented by the Roosevelt administration implemented. Of course right wingers will say that those programs weren't necessary or did more harm than good.
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Sure, some people did, but nowhere near the "7 million" that is being bandied about on here. 