.This is the thread for non-political news and events.
German police detain suspect after deadly shooting outside synagogue
Two people were killed in a shooting in the eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday and police said they had detained one person.
Mass-selling daily Bild said the shooting took place in front of a synagogue, and that a hand grenade was also thrown into a Jewish cemetery. An eyewitness told n-tv television that a perpetrator had also fired shots into a kebab shop in Halle.
‘Bad news’: radiation spikes 16 times above normal after forest fire near Chernobyl
In the news here this morning – they’ve cancelled the twelfth of July.
It’s pretty serious. was reading earlier that 30% of those admitted to hospital with Covid-19 symptoms have died.
The audit suggested that men are at much higher risk from the virus – seven in ten of all ICU patients were male, while 30% of men in critical care were under 60, compared to just 15% of women. Excess weight also appears to be a significant risk factor; over 70% of patients were overweight, obese or clinically obese on the body mass index scale.
Yeah, this has all gotten very serious, very fast.
It’s pretty serious. was reading earlier that 30% of those admitted to hospital with Covid-19 symptoms have died.
An English nursing teacher on YouTube, Dr John Campbell gives some pretty clear and straightforward updates on the pandemic. He usually provides the number of cases in the US and UK and then says, “but we know that it’s really probably 10x or 20x that number” as he knows testing is too far behind.
On the positive side, it means that 80% of all cases will be mild. Many to the extent that people will have it, get over it and not even know they have had it. On the negative side, this means they probably gave it to other people before the stay at home policy. However, there is a question if the people who were not adversely affected had strong immune systems or if the strain they had was not very strong.
It does seem that if you do not get a mild case, then the case will actually be very severe and life-threatening. The majority of people in ICU’s are dying even with the ventilators available. It’s another point he makes. Ventilators are a last resort. Testing widely, isolating and tracking will save more lives by preventing infection from spreading.
He usually provides the number of cases in the US and UK and then says, “but we know that it’s really probably 10x or 20x that number” as he knows testing is too far behind.
Definitely, in both countries they are mainly only testing those already admitted to hospital. Those with milder cases treating themselves at home are not making the statistics.
If you are going where I think you are going let me say this.
I don’t expect there to be any further actions. No prosecutor ignores evidence that can lead to a successful conviction.
Evidence tried is not admissible for a new action (in most circumstances).
If there are further allegations, and new evidence surfaces, it will need to be absolutely damning for any new action to stick – “Tendency” and “Coincidence” evidence (which is a type of testimonial evidence, often used when the time passed from the offence is so significant to lack primary evidence sources) will not be enough.
The BBC is reporting this:
New data has since suggested a deep recession in two of its largest economies, France and Germany.
The Bank of France said that the country’s economy shrank by about 6% in the first three months of 2020, the worst contraction seen since 1945.
In Germany, gross domestic product is set to shrink by almost 10% between April and June, five top economic institutes said in a report prepared for the German government.
A few days ago, they said this:
Meanwhile, University of Bristol researchers say the benefit of a long-term lockdown in reducing premature deaths could be outweighed by the lost life expectancy from a prolonged economic dip.
And the tipping point, they say, is a 6.4% decline in the size of the economy – on a par with what happened following the 2008 financial crash.
It would see a loss of three months of life on average across the population because of factors from declining living standards to poorer health care.
Goodbye, French and German people. It was nice knowing you 
In the Houston area, the petroleum industry is a huge part of the local economy. We ride on regular cycles of boom and bust. That’s just part of life. We go into a recession and we come out of it. COVID-19 just hit the accelerator on things.
Circles and cycles.
In populations, there are degrees of death. For example, statistics tell us that in a recession old people will be dead more than young people, poor people will be dead more than rich people, black people will be dead more than white people.
Lots of people are going to die sooner than they would otherwise have died. Not just of the virus, but because of the virus.
We are facing the end of the world as we know it. I am not sure why more people are not running around the streets screaming in terror. I would, except I have people who I can’t afford to see me scream. I’m supposed to be the optimistic one, so I am only screaming on the inside.
News last night was that this “DEADLY NEW VIRUS!!!” has killed six people.
Sorry, I have sympathy for those people obviously, but six deaths in a month makes this the most pathetic virus in history. Why are we supposed to be panicking over this?
We are facing the end of the world as we know it. I am not sure why more people are not running around the streets screaming in terror.
What a difference a couple of months make!
Precision matters here – there is dead and there is the monitoring of deaths, with the statistics that are compiled – similar but distinct.
Is it scary? Yes. But all you can practically do is look after yourself and those near you as best you are able. That’s it. A whole lot of this is stuff you have no control over.
And yet, there is no shortage of reason to worry. The employment horror stories get worse day by day for instance.
We are facing the end of the world as we know it.
It’s already happened – working practices have changed massively and won’t go back to what they were before. Things deemed to absolutely be The Way It Is have suddenly gone up in smoke. There are weekly displays of support for NHS staff where before no one gave a fuck about them.
There is going to be lots more change but some of it might, just might, be good.
I think the problem with comparisons to the 2008 crash and the even the Great Depression is they were as a result of inherent failings in the economic system.
The lockdown will behave somewhat differently because of the forced closure of economic activity. Some of those which are fairly essential will just start off where they left. So the massive rise in unemployment will have an element of a reverse when that happens. Some companies with poor cashflow will have gone bust though and some like the travel industry will suffer for a long time. A recession is certain but the unprecedented nature of this is going to make it hard to forecast. So much depends on how long lockdowns last.
I expect as well that any easing of lockdown will be phased. If we see reductions similar to the levels seen in some Asian countries then I think they’ll allow non essential work back in first. That can be controlled to a degree. I think mass gatherings like sporting events, pubs being open etc would last longer.
Population growth isn’t actually an issue. We produce enough food right now to support an extra two billion people or more, and birth rates decline as quality of life increases.
As always, it’s an issue of where we as a species decide to deploy our resources.
The issue I’m referring is not so much coping with a population crisis but more the fact that our current measure of economic success, GDP, is almost entirely reliant on it. Where we have recently seen populations decline we’ve seen things like Japan’s ‘lost decade’ where all the economic indicators stagnate. More people make more things, buy more things and that’s how success is measured, it’s a huge part of the US success in the second half of the 20th century, it pretty much doubled from 152m to 290m. Largely via immigration and much faster than Europe.
Oh yeah, long-term that’s not sustainable at all. But so long as there’s a growth in the next quarter, the people in a position to change things have no incentive to do so.
Assuming a conservative mortality rate of 1% (the exact rate won’t be calculated until after the pandemic) that’s potentially 665,000 people in the UK and 77,600,000 globally.
If you want to be optimistic, and assume not everyone is infected? Let’s say a quarter of the global population, as with Spanish Flu, catch the disease and then 1% of those die?
19,400,000 people.
Optimistically.
As of this very post, there are 1,593,137 confirmed cases with 95,026 deceased worldwide. That is a 6% fatality rate.
But, there have been 355,561 total recovered, or 23%.
Focus on the deceased vs recovered numbers for now. In every region, more people have recovered than have died. Recovery numbers will outstrip deceased numbers and the fatality rate will continue to drop.
Based on the figures available, the UK has 65,000 confirmed cases and 7,978 confirmed deaths. That’s 8.14% mortality.
Which doesn’t include the asymptomatic cases? So let’s assume half the people who catch it don’t end up on the figures due to no symptoms and lack of testing? That takes us to 4.06% mortality.
Still very high, but that’s what China has managed to achieve with its very strict lockdown. South Korea’s figures put their mortality rate at about 2% so far, so well done to them.
However, cutting it 1% requires at least 520,000 cases in the UK and 455,000 of them being undiagnosed or otherwise not counted.
Could be, and let’s hope even more people aren’t making it onto the tally sheet.
Good! He’s full of antibodies!
Let’s drain him.
Based on the figures available, the UK has 65,000 confirmed cases and 7,978 confirmed deaths. That’s 8.14% mortality.
Which doesn’t include the asymptomatic cases? So let’s assume half the people who catch it don’t end up on the figures due to no symptoms and lack of testing? That takes us to 4.06% mortality.
Still very high, but that’s what China has managed to achieve with its very strict lockdown. South Korea’s figures put their mortality rate at about 2% so far, so well done to them.
However, cutting it 1% requires at least 520,000 cases in the UK and 455,000 of them being undiagnosed or otherwise not counted.
Could be, and let’s hope even more people aren’t making it onto the tally sheet.
In the Netherlands mortality among confirmed cases is over 10 %. I’ve read analyses from people saying the number of confirmed diagnoses could be less than the real number of infected people by a factor of 10 or more, if this would be the case in the UK the current mortality is less than 1 %. In the Netherlands the rule is don’t come to the doctor at all if you have mild flu-like complaints, you will not be tested, only people with very serious ailment get tested. That makes me suspect the number of mild cases that don’t get noticed could be huge.
There are countries that have a mortality rate below 1 %, like Australia and Israel. I hope that number is closer to the real number than the number in the Netherlands.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
I would be wary of trying to draw any firm and meaningful specific conclusions (like mortality rate) from the current incomplete figures, which are collected on very different bases from country to country and often use methodologies that skew them in very dramatic ways.
Not to mention that they are then filtered in other ways (I suspect the Chinese figures have been misrepresented for political reasons, for example.)
As frustrating as it is while we’re in the middle of it, we aren’t going to get a clear perspective on it for a long time.
…When exactly the public health measures would be lifted wasn’t immediately clear, although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated at his daily briefing Thursday that efforts to keep case numbers down will take “months of continued, determined effort.”
“The initial peak — the top of the curve — may be in late spring, with the end of the first wave in the summer.”
The prime minister, citing Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr.Theresa Tam, said there would likely be “smaller outbreaks” for several months after that.
He said “this is the new normal” until a vaccine is developed. …
I was figuring that. Some people talk like there’s a magical date in a couple of weeks where we can all go “back to normal”.
Normal got smashed and the pieces don’t fit back together.
Would you want to sit in a packed arena for a concert/sporting event before there’s a cure?
I’m out west (British Columbia) and it’s social distancing, stay home, etc. Schools closed, bars & restaurants too.
But a lockdown isn’t forced on us yet. Currently have really good weather for a long weekend, and this will be huge.
I think most get it, but there are a lot (well, some) that don’t (and not just the young either).
_________________________________________
Anyways, I can’t ramble on about every thought in my head (and there was a bunch), but one more (could go in the health thread).
Quit smoking. You, if you smoke, quit. Now. Today.
A Pandemic is ongoing that attacks the respiratory system.
It’s time.
I’m working on my 16th month of no smoking, with no cheating.
It can be done. You can do it too.
Stay safe and stay healthy!
Dave is right. Mortality rates are sketchy at best because we really have no idea on asymptomatic numbers. There’s a lot of anecdotal stories about people having a slight sore throat and fever and saying they’d had it but we have to remember that the introduction of Covid-19 doesn’t eradicate the flu and common colds.
The only way to truly know is to antibody test a significant proportion of the population and right now nobody has had the ability to do that, either because the tests are unreliable or they don’t have the resources to carry it out.
As I’ve mentioned before though you can’t just look at the headline stats. One of the reasons the UK quickly ditched the ‘herd immunity’ strategy is a practical one of healthcare capacity rather than statistical modelling. Even in a city as rich and populous as New York they pointed out they normally have capacity for 800 ICU places. If you let it run through 60% of the population like that initial plan that’s 5.2m people in NYC alone with Covid-19. Now stats have shown that 30% of those hospitalised will die (and that’s one we can rely on because we can definitely track those admitted) so even with a 1% mortality rate those needing hospital care will be over 3%. So now they need beds for 155,000 people, ICU for tens of thousands in a system designed to handle a fraction of that.
The medical staff treating them are already getting sick and dying outside the risk groups of age and underlying health conditions due to the heavy exposure, so you massively exceed capacity while also reducing resources to deal with it. No capacity to treat people with other conditions like heart disease, stroke, overdose, cancer, car accident sending death rates from those dramatically upwards. Your mortuary and undertaker systems also collapse.
Now outside capacity let’s rewind a little there to the doctors and nurses dying below the age of 50. If we see that result in a contained situation then it can be a definite possibility that uncontained that effect can hit the general population. People working in customer facing roles will hit the virus again and again when 60% of their customers are positive. So we see an increased fatality rate in the productive under 60s that also screws the economy.
When you take that into account it’s easier to understand the practical realities and why people like Trump and Johnson who are ideologically opposed to the measures taking place are having to do them anyway because the real consequences of letting it run through 60% of the population is a systemic collapse.
I don’t think anyone can suggest it’s an overreaction when hospitals around the world are already choked despite the measures being taken – there is a risk of Y2K syndrome when we come out the other side though.
Definitely and for people like Lorcan and myself who worked long hours to prevent it, Y2K syndrome is exceptionally annoying. I was doing 80 hour weeks at times running patches and testing scenarios. I can categorically say that without that work (not just me of course but hundreds of people), the bank I worked for would have had a systems crash on new year’s day.
I suspect anything short of complete disaster and armchair experts will be playing the same card to the endless frustration of health professionals who not only risk exhaustion but far more seriously, their lives.
In the Netherlands mortality among confirmed cases is over 10 %. I’ve read analyses from people saying the number of confirmed diagnoses could be less than the real number of infected people by a factor of 10 or more, if this would be the case in the UK the current mortality is less than 1 %. In the Netherlands the rule is don’t come to the doctor at all if you have mild flu-like complaints, you will not be tested, only people with very serious ailment get tested. That makes me suspect the number of mild cases that don’t get noticed could be huge.
There are countries that have a mortality rate below 1 %, like Australia and Israel. I hope that number is closer to the real number than the number in the Netherlands.
There is a current German study speaking to that: There is a region in Germany, Kreis Heinsberg, where we had our first outbreak. There was a carnival celebration there where to people were infected and a lot of people got it very quickly. The area was quarantined for a while and everything, and that makes it a good subject for further study, which virologists from Bonn university have now conducted.
For one thing, the study pretty much proved that you’re immune after infection. Also, mortality is not quite 0,4 percent. This is under ideal medical conditions, of course, but it’s encouraging.
Based on the figures available, the UK has 65,000 confirmed cases and 7,978 confirmed deaths. That’s 8.14% mortality.
Which doesn’t include the asymptomatic cases? So let’s assume half the people who catch it don’t end up on the figures due to no symptoms and lack of testing? That takes us to 4.06% mortality.
Still very high, but that’s what China has managed to achieve with its very strict lockdown. South Korea’s figures put their mortality rate at about 2% so far, so well done to them.
However, cutting it 1% requires at least 520,000 cases in the UK and 455,000 of them being undiagnosed or otherwise not counted.
Could be, and let’s hope even more people aren’t making it onto the tally sheet.
According to the BBC last night, it is much worse than that. The figures that are reported to us are hospital deaths only. There are large numbers of elderly people in care homes dying and not being added to the figures.
I do hope that we’ll move away from neo-liberalism and I do hope that this crisis reminds us of a few things when it comes to the value of public structures, the need for a healthy and strong state, the relative (lack of) importance of consumerism and the economy, and the need for regulations that make sure that there is more stability in the economic and financial sectors. But then, that’s what I’d hoped for after the financial crisis, and look where that got us.
Hmmm.. yes this is where we remain today:
A group of would-be holidaymakers who flew in a private jet from London to the Côte d’Azur in France have been turned back by police.
Seven men and three women arrived on the chartered aircraft to Marseille-Provence airport, where helicopters were waiting to fly them on to Cannes, where they had rented a luxury villa.
The men, aged 40-50, and women, aged 23-25, were refused permission to enter France and ordered by police to fly back to the UK.
This time their wealth doesn’t put them above the rules, look at the ages there though!
It could do the opposite mainly because many national governments were behind the curve. Regular citizens and businesses had already started isolating, distancing and working from home before the government issued any orders to do so. I think Sweden still hasn’t done so.
Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine today!
Speaking of Sweden by the way:
https://time.com/5817412/sweden-coronavirus/
We think there is no scientific evidence for their strategy,” says Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, an expert in microbial pathogenesis who signed the letter. She says the government has been reluctant to share its data with scientists, leading her to believe that the government’s strategy is “not based on evidence.”
Carina King, an infectious diseases epidemiologist, agrees that the government’s lack of transparency makes it “really hard to give proper scientific thoughts on their approach because they haven’t released their science.” She added that the government has made no concrete efforts to test, contact trace and quarantine—as South Korea did—which is standard protocol to stop localized spread at the beginning of an outbreak.
Nevertheless, she says Sweden could be a rare case where a nationwide lockdown may not be necessary. “Sweden is unique,” she says. “It doesn’t have many intergenerational households. It is a country where you could have a mixed approach.”
Though interpersonal distance is valued in Swedish culture and 40% of Swedish households are single-person households without children, other experts say that COVID-19 can still spread rapidly and widely in these conditions. Sweden has the second lowest number of critical care beds in Europe after Portugal, with only 5 beds for every 100,000 inhabitants. The healthcare system would likely be unable to handle a severe COVID-19 outbreak.
Currently, experts say the Swedish government is not following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines, which advise countries with COVID-19 outbreaks to contact trace where possible and to adopt strict self-isolation measures. “I’m surprised and frustrated that they still have not taken any action or listened to the advice of organizations like WHO,” says Brusselaers. “They disregard any prediction model that has been published by experts in the field and they don’t even give a defense.”
And mirroring what Jonny said:
But Söderberg-Nauclér believes this outbreak could bring an end to a long history of public trust in government. “If you put people’s lives at risk in democratic society and then you do not help them, how will society trust politicians?” she says. “I don’t want to live in a society that treats people like this.”
For all it’s uniqueness the stats still say (excluding micro countries with tiny populations) Sweden has the 8th worst death rate per 1 million population in the world. Worse than the USA and Iran.
The interpersonal nature may be helping it from being worse, I was just reading that intergernerational households could be a reason for the disproportionate number of BAME background suffering in the UK, but it’s not really showing to be the model to follow some desperate for lockdown to end are claiming it to be.
A group of would-be holidaymakers who flew in a private jet from London to the Côte d’Azur in France have been turned back by police.
So far all the evidence does point to contact tracing being the best method. South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore have not been perfect but have arrested the curve faster than anyone else using that.
You make a good point on cultural behaviour too. We now seem to acknowledge that widespread use of masks prevents transmission and everyone wears them in this part of the world. People in those countries are good at voluntarily taking precautions without
The other thing with ‘lockdown’ is it is being interpreted very differently across the world. Even Sweden is not truly ‘business as usual’, they’ve banned drinking and eating at bar type scenarios, they’ve stopped large gatherings, restaurants remain open but managed with segregated tables so people don’t mix outside their group. It’s being approached differently in every US state, what they have in the UK is way laxer than in Malaysia where the curve is reducing.
Lots of people are going to die sooner than they would otherwise have died. Not just of the virus, but because of the virus.
Disease is a part of life though, it has always been. This is not worse than the Spanish flu of 1920. It is in all probability much milder.
I am currently much more worried about overreaction, and the damage that is producing. I think one day we may look back and think, well that was all a bit much, we didn’t have to take those strict measures.
Yeah, Governor Cuomo pointed out that the deaths in NYC at this point in the Corona outbreak, are far less (numbers and proportion) than the same point in the the 1918 flu outbreak, but he attributed that to better scientific knowledge instead of the seriousness of the viruses. I think it could be two things.
Considering the advance in medical science, of course the Covid 19 pandemic is not going to be worse than a virus 100 years ago.The Asian flu of ’57 and Hong Kong flu in ’68 killed millions of people. More people around the world will probably die from AIDS this year than Covid19.
The problem has always been that health care runs close to capacity based on what nations and international agencies expect. So, an international pandemic with a new disease that started with a lot of unknowns – and probably outright misinformation – in China and then spreads to the entire world was a burden the system could not bear. This could have happened with SARS in China in 2002 or with MERS on the Arabian peninsula in 2012, too, and those were far more deadly coronaviruses, but it could be that the success in limiting their reach led to less preparation and a sense that this virus would follow the same pattern.
Sorry for weighing in with what I think is a good thought, but have not fact-checked in the slighest (and it would be different all over).
But just “going by the numbers”, is that taking into account those that survived?
Someone that had to be hospitalized, and made it (good for them).
That’s one bed in use that another can’t use. One ventilator in use that another that can’t use.
Don’t think it’s not a strain on the system. Where I live outside of Covid-19 you can have babies born and heart attacks dealt with but that’s about it. Surgeries postponed, patients moved off-site awaiting the worst case scenario.
Some (most?) hospitals run over-capacity normally.
Possibly having to make a decision on who gets a ventilator or not is a scary thought.
Age? Have you ever smoked? Are you worth saving?
I guess I’m trying to say that “by the numbers” talk sometimes sounds like some don’t take it serious enough.
A good thing to be pre-emptive.
Bad thing to wake up like it’s the beginning of “28 Days Later” and then wishing you got serious.
Kinda weird that the better of a job you do now gets viewed as “well that was nothing” or “the media blew it all out of proportion”.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and help those that need it.
It’s a good point Sean. Stats are important but they need to be put into context. Reports of medical staff struggling to cope in virus hotspots shows you that 1% or 2% could push things over the brink on a human level.
Saying it isn’t as bad as Spanish Flu (it isn’t) has to come with the context that that disease killed more US troops than the actual First World War. That bodies were piled high and people had to dig their own family graves as there was nobody else to do it.
Dan Harvey shared a cartoon on how it can work while maintaining the privacy element. Can’t find it now but basically your phone throws out random strings via bluetooth and other phones around do the same exchanging them with each other. When you are tested the doctor gives a code to put into the app which will then inform everyone who was around you to pick up your random strings.
So it can do it without even registering your name or using GPS to know where you’ve been.
We do have to accept that it is very possible that the social response to the pandemic may inflict worse consequences on everybody – especially the most vulnerable people – than any effects caused by the actual virus itself.
This may turn out to be true, but it isn’t the pertinent question. The question is whether the response inflicts worse consequences than the virus would have inflicted without the response.
And that isn’t something that we’re ever going to know for sure, even after the event. And I’m sure people will continue to argue about it and some will say that the eventual impact of the virus proves that the world over-reacted – even if it may in truth be the case that the reaction contained the virus and prevented something far worse.
It’s a bit like Gar’s Y2K example from the other day, although the but-for outcome is maybe even less predictable than in that case.
Even in retrospect it’ll be impossible really to quantify the economic effects. As I mentioned a little while back the Dow and FTSE crashed many days before lockdowns were instigated or even expected. A recession was guaranteed. The travel and hospitality sectors (and everyone that feeds into those, caterers, cleaners, engineers etc) were done for regardless.
So if we say deaths and illness due to poverty or suicide are up you can never know by how much. How many suicides could come from job loss compared to grief at the death of loved ones? How many job losses would happen if another path were taken? Could you have locked down super tight, no public transport, no walks in the park, but lifted it faster meaning fewer firms go bust? Nobody can know.
We sometimes have to be at peace with not being able to know everything. We can learn a lot from what we do know though.
We have to remember that when the governments lift the lockdown as well. As far as economic effects, I think that should be a more bottom up decision – people and businesses know their needs better than the state and federal governments so they should be allowed to asses their own risks. I certainly agree that we need to start preparing now for going back to work. It would be stupid to lift orders on May 1st and then wait and see how to do it.
As far as the stimulus packet, I think it was too heavily weighted to big business. As Robert Reich pointed out, big businesses don’t need bailouts and the money they get never gets to the working class. Big businesses know how to take care of themselves.
“Normal” was pretty fucked up in many ways.
We have to remember that when the governments lift the lockdown as well. As far as economic effects, I think that should be a more bottom up decision – people and businesses know their needs better than the state and federal governments so they should be allowed to asses their own risks.
I don’t know how you implement this. In Australia, we’ve passed a moratorium on commercial rents and relaxations on debt incurred during this period. It’s all designed around when the pandemic is “over” and for a 24 month recovery period afterwards. You can’t have businesses saying well, I think I’m doing well enough to start paying my rent to my landlord and to start paying my mortgage on the other business premise I own, because they never will.
I have to say that is very disappointing and I assumed there were similar mechanisms in place to protect against loss incurred by small-medium enterprises. I suppose, in America, SMEs do not contribute as much to the fabric of the economy as large corporations and transnationals but it’s still disappointing. How do they expect the bars and restaurants to survive?
I know, as Todd has said, S & Ps global ratings are virtually negligible now but the future forecasts aren’t good for Australia and worse for America. There’s an expected drop in US GDP for somewhere around 10-15% which is pretty huge. Trump’s “reopening” of the country seems to be predicated solely on addressing that drop, but it’s basically inevitable now and you should be putting in mechanisms to help the recovery over the next 24 months. Naturally, he may not care about that if he doesn’t expect to retain power which could be some of his motivation for pushing responsibility to the states.
Basically, I think we need to be showing way more foresight here than we are. We need to be putting in economic recovery plans now to last for the next 2 – 5 years. We know how Black Monday turned out and this could be worse.
“Normal” was pretty fucked up in many ways.
Well, I guess some people like how things are now. They can fall in a ditch.
Really, if someone is wishing for this to go away and go back to how it was before, and you say “well things were pretty bad before…” C’mon. Billions worldwide are locked up in their home, millions will die, kids can’t play outside, elders are dying in nursing homes without being able to see their loved ones. This is awful and a return to “normal” would be good.
Maybe that’s not the parts Steve was talking about? Sure, “back to normal” means we can all leave the houses and not have to fear COVID-19, but it also means record numbers of homeless people while there are more vacant houses than homeless people in every country, millions starving when we could feed billions, and the incremental dismantling of public services in the name of profit.
You’re arguing that you want a crisis to end so you can go back to sticking you head in the ground about the crises that don’t effect you personally.
You’re arguing that you want a crisis to end so you can go back to sticking you head in the ground about the crises that don’t effect you personally.
I think that’s interpreting Arjan’s comment in the harshest possible way.
While the crisis is ongoing, the wish to return to the state we had before the crisis is not only understandable, but also realistic. And it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t reassess what brought us to this, and how fucked up things were before it. But judging people who want this to be over and go back to normal is counter-productive on all counts.
In the same way though, Steve formulating that things were fucked up before was also interpreted harshly by Arjan; it is valid and necessary to point out that going back to normal won’t be enough, that we have to make things better than they were when the crisis is over.
I guess what I am saying is, give each other a break, guys. None of you are wrong, and let’s empathise a little with each other here. We’re all a little on edge, some more than others, so let’s put on the kid gloves and be a wee bit gentle here.
On a different tack:
Malaysian scientists have created a barrel-shaped robot on wheels that they hope will make the rounds on hospital wards to check on coronavirus patients, reducing health workers’ risk of infection. “Medibot” is a 1.5 metre (five-foot) tall white robot that is mounted with a camera and screen via which patients can communicate remotely with medics.
I still think one thing being missed here is the viral load element of the disease. 31 medical staff have died just in the UK, all of them outside the expected age and health demographics for those at greatest risk (you don’t typically have 70+ year olds working in ICU, some have been under 30). Working age bus drivers in an enclosed space all day with hundreds of different people have also died. This looks like a clever option.
I say we burn it all down and build TimWorld from the ground up.
In TimWorld, everything is fair and equitable and everyone gets a puppy, except if I dont like you in which case you get a bag of carrots… maybe.
Puppies like carrots.
Am I a carrot or a puppy owner in TimWorld? (What’s “normal” for me is that is not the weirdest sentence I’ve ever written).
