This is like looking at just the income statement as sign of business health. Balance sheet and cash flow are pretty important.
As someone with an economics degree I can assure you that a complete and utter collapse of aggregate demand is an underlying financial issue.
As I expect this to largely continue to be a problem through summer the tourism industry in downtown is going to be hit very hard.
The economic side of this is going to hit like a ton-of-bricks. It's going to be very painful, and we should do everything we can as a society to take care of those that are hit hardest by it.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/canada-suspends-cr...
We should consider more radical measures like temporary rent/mortgage freezes.
Well, no, if you bailed out businesses and consumers directly, there also wouldn't be a credit crisis.
Structurally, though, that's fiscal stimulus, which isn't the Feds job, and good luck getting much of that through Congress, and by that I mostly mean the Senate Republican Caucus.
> We should consider more radical measures like temporary rent/mortgage freezes.
While not that particular measure, a number of states and localities have adopted or are considering eviction and/or foreclosure bans, which leaves mortgage/rent technically due but limits nonpayment consequences.
Oh and by the way the timetable on the retail apocalypse just got pushed up to this week.
https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/sba-newsroom/press-releases-me...
Also from the announcement, lol:
"businesses with credit available elsewhere are not eligible"
Ah, so if you can get credit elsewhere, you can't get our help, even if it's needed.
You'd hope owners would keep a buffer of either cash or loans/credit-line to last three months, but a lot of them starting up may not have that bootstrap capital. Restaurants that have been around for years with good management can probably weather a month or two. Even the best well restaurants are going to feel the strain if we go to month three.
Coming out of the Xmas period, May, June, July looming which are low turnover periods.
If you're already teetering, you're going to fail. The UK's had a lot of big chains shut down or scale back recently too, there was a big explosion in restaurants and bars about 5 years ago and the first round of losers happened over the last couple of years.
(And, yes, I'm sure the more leftist and anti-capitalist out there will say "but are you really surprised?," and they'll absolutely have a point.)
It isn't so much about greed but rather responsibility. Is it really a businesses responsibility to take care of citizens? Shouldn't the government be doing that, and don't you pay them to do that?
I know America is skewed a bit, having businesses provide you your healthcare probably confuses their role in society. But something is off if you feel we should turn to a commercial realtor for community support.
(Or I could risk going without, while living at this continent’s ground zero for a pandemic.)
Entire industries are being shut down. There are no easy answers here.
A 1% reduction in the case fatality rate saves roughly 2M people. Let’s assume that each would live another 10 years and that each person year is worth $100k. That means a 1% reduction in the case fatality rate is worth 2 trillion dollars. That’s roughly 10% of GDP. You can play with the numbers a bit, it’s hard not to end up in the “taking a multi year recession might be worth it” territory. Obviously, there are decreasing marginal returns to various actions, but the it’s important to keep in mind the scale of what we are trying to avoid.
Infected Fatality Rate will likely end up at 0.3% taking the diamond princess cruise ship as a model (this assumes access to quality care and a PCR false negative rate of 29% adjusted for the higher average age on the cruise).
Worst case: 327 million people * 0.6 (a worst case nr) * 0.005 = 981 000 dead.
More likely 30% gets infected, we figure out what treatment options are optimal and we end up with something like 30% infected and a 0.2% IFR = 196 000 dead.
Older people are more affected by SARS-2, but they are also more affected by nearly every disease. It comes with age.
Another huge factor is we're very, very early in this crisis. On average, it takes longer for younger, stronger people to succumb to their symptoms. Even if death is not a common outcome for young people, there are concerns of long term lung and organ damage. Not to mention if you have a bad case, it literally feels like you're suffocating.
Data I've seen from Italy and China showed two important factors:
* 41% of people in China's ICU's were under 50 * Italy's average death age from COVID-19 has been dropping. I'd expected this trend until we're about 4 to 6 weeks into this being widespread in Italy (currently 2 or 3 at the moment).
I don't think it's appropriate to model current output though. This is a social / political question as much as a economic one. I mostly view retirees as "paid up" members of society and, since I'd like my kids and grandkids to think this way when I'm old be not feeble, believe they should be treated as full members of society.
Do you realize how that sounds?
https://time.com/5523805/china-aging-population-working-age/
Like someone said on twitter, “In the end, it will be impossible to know if we overreacted or did too much, but it will be QUITE apparent if we under reacted or did too little.”
http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/#g8
US is tracking highly with Italy, but 12 days behind.
Most of Europe and North America is on a steady exponential curve upwards with no sign of slowing down yet. Germany has already clearly said that they expect 70-80% of the population to be infected eventually - 60M people, of whom ~2% or 1.2M will likely die. Scale that up to the USA.
Without a vaccine, the only way this virus peters out is through eventual herd immunity, which will require a sizeable fraction of the population to catch it.
The official Chinese death statistics are probably severely under-counting deaths, in Wuhan at least. IIRC, they only counted deaths of confirmed cases, but the medical system was so overwhelmed that many, many cases weren't getting confirmed, and people were dying at home.
The wikipedia page lists 700 infections and 7 deaths.
Of course there are still certain biases: on one hand it happened early, when hospitals weren't overloaded; on the other, cruise ships tend to have more older people. And as I don't speak Japanese I haven't traced those numbers to primary sources.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_on_c...
So more like 11m excess deaths.
I live an SRO. I don't have a kitchen. I currently don't have a fridge. I have a small grill and some shelving to store stuff.
I eat a lot of takeout. I'm glad to see I can still get takeout.
But, wow. This is beginning to look pretty scary.
I was homeless for a few years. The quarantine/containment measures are turning into a really big problem for the homeless population.
I don't even know where to begin trying to talk about that. At this point, I find the whole homelessness in the US thing simply infuriating. We mostly need to solve our housing supply issue and people are wholeheartedly against that and it's just infuriating.
I will add that Little Caesar's now has a "pizza portal" where you order online, pay online and enter a code to get your pizza yourself without ever interacting with a person. I don't know how to scream this from the rooftops so everyone gets the memo, but someone should.
This is the main benefit I see of having our government take these measures: making people like you realize THIS IS SERIOUS. It has "looked pretty scary" for almost two months. And no one has taken it seriously. And now we're here.
I just think I am unlikely to get coronavirus because I'm a fucking hermit who works from home and doesn't touch anything and practices germ control so my genetic disorder won't kill me.
Maybe read all my comments before making insulting assumptions about me. I've already talked about having CF in this thread.
I probably can't do that in my building. It's a secure building and I've never figured out how to get delivered food here. You need a key to enter the building.
But it's good info and thank you for posting it. I hope it helps other people.
We've torn down about a million SROs in recent decades and zoned out of existence a lot of housing options that are being termed Missing Middle Housing.
The current YIMBY movement and Missing Middle Advocacy is the latest attempt to try to address this issue. New Urbanism was a previous one.
None of them get at the roots of the problem, which date to "the boys" returning home from WW2 and the birth of the modern American suburb.
In a nutshell, the vast majority of our housing financing mechanisms, tax incentives, etc etc are aimed at helping people get single family detached homes and homes today are more than twice the size they were in the 1950s while housing about one less person.
So our housing policies have caused "home inflation" in some sense. Homes are bigger and have more amenities -- or don't exist at all.
We now expect single people to rent a place designed for a nuclear family and get roommates to fill the empty bedrooms and split the rent. Then we make movies, like Single White Female, about what a nightmare it is to be forced to make ends meet by living with a total stranger and do nothing to change our policies.
I've made several stabs at trying to write about this, but none of that has gotten any traction.
Here's a few things by me:
http://projectsro.blogspot.com/2019/11/americas-housing-ghos...
https://americanhomeworks.blogspot.com/
https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing...
You are right that posting on the internet is mostly a waste of time. But I'm medically handicapped, so it's where I spend the majority of my time, though I would prefer to actually have a life. I simply don't.
I am involved in stuff locally in my small town. I'm no one important and it may never lead to better housing here. On the upside, the local police department does hand out my fliers for homeless resources -- which is mostly websites, mostly written by me. So maybe the time I spend online isn't a total waste.
Have a great day.
Edit: Those are not intended to be "substantive" supporting links. I've studied this problem space for decades. I wanted to be an urban planner before life got in the way. I don't know of any other sources that will say exactly what I would like them to say. Sorry.
Someone is thinking about it, but it was crappy before, and now it’s crappy and scary.
That’s the only thing I’ve noticed about the homeless population here
These are electric appliances.
Cooking for yourself is a good way to protect against the virus. Heat kills it.
I hesitate to ask about the size of the space you have available, but in Paris it's pretty common to find one room apartments that are only 9 square meters. Typically you put a one or two top induction or electric stove (portable ones are actually very cheap and work well) above a minifridge and a hutch for dishes/spices with a sink about the size of your hands.
Thank you for both your concern and for being respectful. I don't wish to get into the details of my living space in this discussion.
I have a form of cystic fibrosis, as does my oldest son. My younger son is a carrier.
People with CF typically require up to a quarter of a million dollars in medical treatment annually. With two people in the family who have it, that's a half million dollars annually.
I've supported all three of us on well under $20k annually for like more than 8 years or something. And I can do that because we've done a metric fuckton of research and made a lot of dietary changes and gotten off all the boat loads of drugs we used to take.
So having my food supply cut into like this potentially does enormous harm to me. And I will get zero sympathy from a world that didn't give a flying fuck about me when I was homeless and has spent years telling me to my face I'm a lunatic making up the whole thing about having CF and getting well when that's not supposed to be possible.
For me, this is very scary stuff. I literally am better off not eating than eating the wrong things.
A silver lining of the past decade of horrifying shittiness is that poverty and social callousness taught me this: My condition actually benefits from semi-fasting and I can live for several days at this point on almost no food. It no longer even causes nose bleeds and fun stuff like that.
I'm a good bit stressed out and suggestions that I'm too dumb to be aware that ready to eat options exist are in no way comforting to me.
A lot of them are things I absolutely cannot eat for fear of being immediately sick and beginning to undo nearly two decades of extremely hard won, painful progress against a Dread Disease that should have already killed me and I often wish it had. This is a shitty life in a shitty world full of amazingly callous people and I'm really not happy to still be here at this point.
> I was homeless for a few years. The quarantine/containment measures are turning into a really big problem for the homeless population.
How so? I assume that soup kitchens and the like will still be open.
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/fipg6s/covid19_is...
Do you currently have enough funds or collateral to purchase a modest home but there are no homes for sale in your area? Or do you mean the taxpayers should provide homes for free to the homeless?
To say nothing of the moral imperative to care for our most vulnerable people. A wealthy country with a homeless population shames itself.
It's clear that some people DO NOT see this as a threat worth worrying about. Shame on them, I say. They're probably the same idiots that show up to work sick, and cough without covering their mouth around others.
A lot of people who apparently don't believe in biology, and don't have the ability to see past their own 2 feet.
The UK are focused on minimising deaths, by avoiding COVID-19 striking during next winter, when the NHS is at peak load due to winter flu. Instead, they will guide the first strike towards summer (NHS's least load), and impose measures to protect at-risk folk during that time.
The sad thing is it were places popular with the crowds that live paycheck to paycheck most of whom cannot afford any sort of medical emergency or being under a forced quarantine.
NYC: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589463
California ("calls for", not enforced): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22587062
Others?
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/03/millions-stay-home-as-...
Young People at the lowest risk from this virus are going to be much worse off than just catching a fucking bad cold.
The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods.
Happy to be downvoted to nothing because I am so over this.
It's not a "fucking bad cold" for young people.
- Over 50% of ICU patients in Netherlands from COVID-19 are under 50. [1]
- Over 50% of ICU patients in France are under 60. [2]
- Over 40% of patients requiring hospitalization in China were under 50. [3]
Young people are not invincible. The fact that they can use up a significant chunk of already scarce medical resources suggests that we really shouldn't be sending that message and encouraging young people to not give a sh*t about the epidemic.
[1] https://www.ad.nl/dossier-coronavirus/40-a-50-nederlandse-co...
[2] https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/300-...
The UK's answer to the problem may result in manyfold more dead than this approach. We won't be able to know until after the fact.
In that state of unknown, I prefer the approach that values lives over dollars.
Case B: Drastic lock down, your daughter lives on your dime for a few months or a year before she gets a job. You live to see your grand kids grow up.
And you'd rather risk case A?
https://politicshome.com/news/uk/health-and-care/illnesstrea...
The cost will be at least the delta 1.3 million preventable deaths. This doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of folks left with pulmonary fibrosis, which has a 3-5 year life expectancy.
You mean the answer that consists in maximizing the dead count?
Closed shops can be reopened, dead people can't be brought back.
EDIT: it really scares me to see there a real actual living human beings on HN here who would in all seriousness downvote this.
> you would not have even noticed given the actual numbers.
Surely you'd notice if 15%+ of your family's elders died in one year. People don't seem to get that it's not so bad (health wise) as long as you take serious decisions to slow the spread, so yes, you're right, it _looks_ serious, because it is, and it would be much worse if governments didn't do anything about it.
So most of us are indeed used to losing about 15% of our elders each year, and have been forever.
I find this to be personally true, because if the government and media had not informed me of this illness, I would be unaware and unconcerned.
I think you probably want some discussion of this point, but it is so plain and obvious it is hard to discuss.
I suspect you are trying to argue your personal judgement that the media is a "circus", that they are not justified in their reporting. That is not judgement-free and could use some supporting arguments.
I have yet to see you substantiate that claim in any way.
On the contrary, the responses I've received were 1) Point #2 below. That is fair. 2) Failing to read my post, e.g. saying healthcare will collapse while I already include that assumption. 3) Appeal to emotion like (literally) "[you are] not human" or "shit HN says"
If you have something better, I welcome you to comment on my other post.
Two new pieces of information I got since then:
1) Medical supplies are in danger because of the local disruption (e.g. local blood drives are cancelled in King County so they say the supply is collapsing), factory closures, and shipping disruption - again, the cure is worse than the disease and it just reinforces my point.
2) People noted that sudden death spike would cause economic disruption due to panic too, however I argue that (a) without the media and govt attention at the early stage, the panic would be brief, (b) even after healthcare collapses, the panic and impact would be much less significant than now, as evidenced by Italian doctors on FB/Twitter being unhappy with the common reaction of reading the horror stories and then going out with friends.
Surely there has to be a balance between protecting the vulnerable at the cost of ruining the economy and protecting the economy at the cost of ruining the vulnerable.
How about instead of shutting down planet earth we advise people over the age of 60 to self-quarantine for a few months. The disease will run its course and then they will be protected by herd immunity. Neighbors and friends can drop off supplies on the front doorstep during this time.
Shutting them down is the right move. Taking care of small businessowners running on thin margins - like mom/pop restaurants - is also the right move.
EDIT: Unless the government has no plans to help small businesses. Which is completely possible and probably even likely.
"These are very difficult decisions, but hours count here and very strong measures are necessary to slow the spread of the disease. I know there will be significant economic impacts to all our communities and we are looking at steps to help address those challenges."
Given that the Fed cut their interest rate to 0% and that treasury bills are under 1%, credit is approximately free to governments, so a well-run small business support program could end up costing much less than doing nothing.
"I know there will be significant economic impacts to all our communities and we are looking at steps to help address those challenges."
People literally don't have enough money if they don't go to work, and states literally don't have enough money to pay people (or businesses) not to go to work.
Are you expecting states to wait for something that might not come?
Call me a cynic but after 9/11 I’m weary of temporary measures that become permanent in one way or another.
Do you really think there's any way that the State of Washington will be permanently banning events over 50 people?
Do you really think there's any way that the State of Washington will be permanently preventing the operation of bars, dine-in restaurants, and entertainment facilities?
I'm generally pretty skeptical of creeping government powers myself, but this just...doesn't seem like a place where the government is going to keep these things shut down permanently. Which of these enacted bans are you concerned about becoming permanent?
Diamond princess looking to be 1% mortality. Korean mortality matches China’s, when you adjust for age groups.
Further, mortality rises when the health system is overwhelmed, as in lombardy and wuhan. The math of this suggests every place gets overwhelmed without containment.
Not only does coronavirus morality rise, but you ALSO get excess mortality as the hospitals are taken out of commission for stuff like heart attacks, trauma, etc. hospitals become covid-19 treatment centers.
Source on WHO mission: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/2/21161067/coronavirus-covid19-ch...
The UK's Chief Medical Officer is the right person for the job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Whitty
If you want to hear him talk about the UK's plan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfJcwDaZrsA is long but informative.
Eg kitchen staff is infected, coughs into meal
1. Do you get if it’s cold food, like a salad or sushi?
2. If yes, do you get it if it’s warm food, like indian food?
3. If yes, do you get if you reheat/microwave the food? If so, what is required/
Have not seen a lot of discussion about this. Did see that in china restaurants would certify the body temperatures of all involved.
The worst case is probably dishes where many people interact with raw ingredients to create a high-touch item. Compared to physical contact with people, it's still considered a relatively small transmission risk, but in relative terms, it's higher than something that's boxed up right after it's cooked.
More: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/03/11/coronavirus-..., https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/coronavir..., https://www.fdacs.gov/News-Events/Press-Releases/2020-Press-..., https://www.insider.com/what-temperature-kills-germs
Containers are a big risk though. Be sure to handle carefully and wash your hands afterwards.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/transmissi...
And WHO says it lives on surfaces for a couple hours up to several days.
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
So, personally, I'm not eating anything if someone coughs on it or around it. I'm not even buying fresh fruit and veggies at the store right now.
I can't find any information about heating the virus to kill it.
Just cook it.
Heat also kills the virus so cooked vegetables should be fine (and cooked fruit too if you're into that I guess).
Full disclosure: I live in Seattle.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/seattle-are...
There is very little precedent I could find, however baltimore did impose a curfew in 2015 for a short period of time.
But, if the US is ~11 days behind Italy in terms of infection rate, then we can expect a lockdown by ... Friday, March 20.
Good Lord.
Why, though? The whole point is to stop people gathering in public places.
> Curious about other commercial operations that could satisfy the rule
Again, why? These rules weren't put into place as a challenge for entrepreneurs.
Well, for most people losing their family would feel way worse.
There are many ways to mitigate the economic impact down the line. Governments at all levels, companies and organization are already helping blunt the impact. For example, the California state government has promised to keep paying teachers and school staff. Many tech companies are continuing to pay maintenance staff despite office closures. NBA players have donated to arena staff affected by cancellations.
But nothing can bring back our loved ones.
Sources: https://edsource.org/2020/newsom-assures-districts-theyll-be.... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-google-facebook-.... https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/us/nba-player-donations-coron....
(for perspective the normal moratlity rate is 0.77% in a normal population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate)
55% * 6% fatality rate * 330 million is >10,000,000.
That's a lot of people to sacrifice to keep bars and restaurants open.
If you comment, make sure you're up to date the site guidelines. Note this one: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
I disagree. I don't think the fact that a subject is a launchpad for abuse in some threads is sufficient grounds for suppressing it elsewhere. Those are frequently the subjects that need the most, and most non-nasty discussion. Yes, very much, please, head the advice to steel-man your debate opponents relentlessly. That's the proper response, not banning the whole conversation. dang, I love you man, but your tendency to preemptively kill stories on controversial topics, not so much. I can see that it makes moderation easier, but the cost is high.
;-)
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/03/15/charlie-ba...
EDIT: It's until April 5th, so 3 weeks not a month:
https://whdh.com/news/all-mass-restaurants-and-bars-ordered-...
I don't think anybody can give you any actual number. But it's not hard to test a sample of people and determine the virus rate of spread, so we will know it when it happens.
You have to “keep your foot on the brakes” until the disease is no longer a threat. Take a look at countries where there is success - Taiwan, Mainland China outside Hubei, HK, Singapore, SK - they must keep whatever countermeasures are working for them in place to some degree or risk another wave of infections. I think the culture of wearing masks really helps, despite the public messaging to the contrary. It seems like it would be good if mask manufacturing spins up enough to totally saturate the world over the next few months, and western cultures get over themselves and start making it common to wear them in public.
The one thing we, in the US, have been consistent in this is that we’re too slow to act.
There’s obviously a risk of the pendulum swinging the other way but until we see a down tick in cases we have to assume we’ve got ground to make up.
Case growth won’t start decreasing until social distancing is widely adopted.
Tbh, I am slowly starting to get worried as recent FED move again focuses on banks and not on small business relief.
As you can see, bailing out businesses, as you framed it, could be helpful in avoiding full fledged system collapse, which just happens to be their mandate.
edit: corrected opening sentence
Funny enough that my country of birth, Peru, just declared a national emergency and declared quarantine for everyone in the country. Peru is a democratic country - at least for the last 20 years - but it had to enact this to stop the virus from spreading. It's a bold move, it's not a popular one, but it's the right one imho.
We should be doing the same, our current leader is - unfortunately - a coward who will always be afraid of taking a risk. It's on us then, as responsible citizens to make sure we don't go out unless we really need to for a while - at least that we can control. Just my two cents.
Weird you expected better out fo him.
Wouldn't be perfect but could slow transmission down while giving them a way to earn money.
Right now matters, this is why:
https://old.reddit.com/r/WeAreNotAsking/comments/fitsej/covi...
Basically, we have one shot at this. Max number of unidentified transmitters coupled with max number of potential infected people.
Depending on how many of us will, can isolate hard, 20 days from now the wave of sick, and weaker people hit the hospitals.
We have a 5th the beds per 1000 compared to many of our peer nations.
On rare occasions it may be necessary to close a school(s) due to weather or other emergency situations. If this occurs, the district will make every effort to ensure that our students' educational opportunities continue while at home. Throughout the years, the district has compiled a comprehensive collection of online content and digital resources. The district also provides mobile devices for students to check out for home use to ensure that district students (non charter) can continue their learning without interruption.
...
The Instructional Continuity Plan (ICP) has three components: Content Delivery, Mobile Devices, and Internet Access. Content Delivery explains which resources students will use for core instruction and which materials can be used as supplemental resources to enhance core instruction. Mobile Devices provides the steps the district is taking to ensure that any student who needs a mobile device to access the instructional resources will be provided with one, upon request, for the duration of the schools' closure. ... Internet Access poses the greatest challenge to ensuring that M-DCPS students can continue their studies while at home. The district has taken steps throughout the years to assist students in getting access to the internet at home through projects such as The 1Million Project; however, partnerships with service providers is crucial to providing free or reduced-cost internet service to students should the district close in case of emergency situations.
http://icp.dadeschools.net/#!/fullWidth/2943
Also:
Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is continuing its efforts to provide support to students and their families during school closures, which begin tomorrow, March 16. From distance learning, to community feedings, to facilitating childcare for essential medical personnel, M-DCPS stands firm in its commitment to support the South Florida community during this time of uncertainty.
A support hotline was established for teachers, students, and parents seeking assistance with distance learning.
During school closures, students and families may pick up hot meals to go, both breakfast and lunch, between 9:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.
A Mental Health Services hotline will be available for students.
An Employee Assistance Program hotline will also be available.
http://covid19.dadeschools.net/#!/fullWidth/3024
In contrast, I am extremely disappointed in how haphazard things are going in NC. I'm particularly disappointed in the UNC system which appears to have done zero advanced planning.
I'm in Seattle and, other than these closures, complete movement restrictions would be the next step here.
Still like comments about original restrictions of larger gatherings, many grocery stores and big box stores can have more people in them than a restaurant and touching more items too
The moral choice isn't always the most efficient one. I wonder if we will have the courage to make the moral choice?
