jimnyc
04-25-2020, 10:19 AM
Good news all the way around, for starters. If a ton more were infected, that would effectively drop the mortality rate way way down.
Slowly open the better areas first. Do so with common sense and all necessary protections in place. I saw a restaurant, for example, preparing to open again next week. They cut their tables down to 1/3rd of what they had before and massive space between tables. Excessive amounts of digital thermometers and all get tested, and employees much more so. All would take a quick course, wear masks, clean properly and sanitize and be prepared. That's one store.
A company I read about were planning on having employees come back, but also 1/3rd at a time, shifting each day. The others working from home in between. Also all kinds of testing, and handing out supplies to those coming in.
So some will still not make as much as they used to, but it's a start. And how things play out will determine how things pan out over the upcoming weeks and months.
--
The Economy Will Reopen Sooner Than You Think
There will likely be a reopening of our economy on the very near horizon. And this reopening will be much sooner rather than later, with full acceleration within just a few months, perhaps even weeks. Here’s why. Problematic coronavirus testing issues may fast disappear as critical preconditions to reopening the economy. Testing issues won’t go away; they are simply likely to be left largely unresolved. In addition, new reports suggest that infections may be much, much more widespread than most had thought, which, in turn, means that there is a strong likelihood that we have much, much lower death rates from the coronavirus in all age groups. While most working people (not sheltered in place) may get the virus, the death rates for the entire population may turn out to be not much higher than the seasonal flu. For younger workers under the age of 60, mortality rates, which are already very low, will drop even lower.
Here’s the analysis supporting this reopening. According to a number of recent reports, the true infection fatality rate from the coronavirus for the entire population may well be much, much lower than had been previously thought, perhaps in the range of about 0.12 percent to 0.2 percent. At the high end in that range, if there’s an eventual infection rate of, say, 50 percent for the entire U.S. population, that’s a death toll of about 330,000 people. Most of these deaths, though, will likely to be of older Americans above 60 years in age. Older folks have much higher coronavirus mortality rates, perhaps 10 to 20 times higher than younger age groups. Actually, data now show that Americans over 55 may account for well more than 90 percent of all deaths from the virus. Looking at comparative data on death rates by age, we are not actually “all in this together,” though that’s a nice sentiment. Of course, this isn’t a big secret, and awareness of this reality grows as each day passes. It’s evident every day on our streets, in our parks, and at the widespread protests across the country for reopening the economy.
If the death rate for aging Americans over 60 (about 30 million people) turns out to be only 2 percent (a small fraction of the death rate from infections today in this age group), there may still be about 300,000 deaths in this group, assuming the same infection rate of 50 percent in this population. Of course no one really knows what the ultimate rates of infection and death will be in this country. Also, we might find vaccines and treatments down the road. The future, of course, is very much uncertain. In the short term, though, the death rate is certainly likely to be much higher for our aging population and our younger virus-vulnerable populations. Our black population, young and old, might be particularly hard hit due to the high incidence of hypertension and diabetes. Similarly, young and old Hispanics may be hard hit for those without the benefit of work-at-home jobs. Similarly, our less affluent workers seldom have the luxury of working at home and most live from paycheck to paycheck. They simply need to work. Older folks and these more vulnerable groups will be advised to continue to shelter in place and to wash their hands a lot. Those who can’t do so will either receive financial support or simply return to work and take their chances. That one’s a toss-up right now.
Serious problems with testing portend a much earlier rather than later reopening. This seems counterintuitive, but this is the situation now unfolding. There have been numerous reports in recent weeks on the unreliability of testing due to high rates of false negatives. Recent data also show an unexpected and increasing number of problematic “asymptomatic” infections (perhaps a large percentage of all infections in younger people). This is one reason virus infection rates appear to be rising. Another emerging testing issue is the potential for second, and perhaps even third, reactivated infections in persons who were thought to have recovered and who had previously tested negative for the virus. Reactivated infections are now showing up in South Korea, China, India, Japan, and recently in the United States. If unsolved, these testing issues portend very widespread infections. With this virus we always seem to be slightly behind the curve.
Think about the task of solving all those complex and related testing issues as a precondition to “safely” reopening the economy. We may likely go nowhere fast. The reality is that we now have a tsunami of complex and difficult testing questions on the table, and they may not be solvable in our near future, at least to the extent of preventing widespread infections in our communities. It’s possible that our big-tech innovators and biotech researchers might use their talents and data analysis skills to solve these testing problems. Anything is possible, but that seems unlikely in the short term of the next few months. Once these testing issues are widely perceived as not realistically solvable in the near term, there will likely be enormous pressure to reopen the economy.
Rest - https://spectator.org/the-economy-will-reopen-sooner-than-you-think/
Slowly open the better areas first. Do so with common sense and all necessary protections in place. I saw a restaurant, for example, preparing to open again next week. They cut their tables down to 1/3rd of what they had before and massive space between tables. Excessive amounts of digital thermometers and all get tested, and employees much more so. All would take a quick course, wear masks, clean properly and sanitize and be prepared. That's one store.
A company I read about were planning on having employees come back, but also 1/3rd at a time, shifting each day. The others working from home in between. Also all kinds of testing, and handing out supplies to those coming in.
So some will still not make as much as they used to, but it's a start. And how things play out will determine how things pan out over the upcoming weeks and months.
--
The Economy Will Reopen Sooner Than You Think
There will likely be a reopening of our economy on the very near horizon. And this reopening will be much sooner rather than later, with full acceleration within just a few months, perhaps even weeks. Here’s why. Problematic coronavirus testing issues may fast disappear as critical preconditions to reopening the economy. Testing issues won’t go away; they are simply likely to be left largely unresolved. In addition, new reports suggest that infections may be much, much more widespread than most had thought, which, in turn, means that there is a strong likelihood that we have much, much lower death rates from the coronavirus in all age groups. While most working people (not sheltered in place) may get the virus, the death rates for the entire population may turn out to be not much higher than the seasonal flu. For younger workers under the age of 60, mortality rates, which are already very low, will drop even lower.
Here’s the analysis supporting this reopening. According to a number of recent reports, the true infection fatality rate from the coronavirus for the entire population may well be much, much lower than had been previously thought, perhaps in the range of about 0.12 percent to 0.2 percent. At the high end in that range, if there’s an eventual infection rate of, say, 50 percent for the entire U.S. population, that’s a death toll of about 330,000 people. Most of these deaths, though, will likely to be of older Americans above 60 years in age. Older folks have much higher coronavirus mortality rates, perhaps 10 to 20 times higher than younger age groups. Actually, data now show that Americans over 55 may account for well more than 90 percent of all deaths from the virus. Looking at comparative data on death rates by age, we are not actually “all in this together,” though that’s a nice sentiment. Of course, this isn’t a big secret, and awareness of this reality grows as each day passes. It’s evident every day on our streets, in our parks, and at the widespread protests across the country for reopening the economy.
If the death rate for aging Americans over 60 (about 30 million people) turns out to be only 2 percent (a small fraction of the death rate from infections today in this age group), there may still be about 300,000 deaths in this group, assuming the same infection rate of 50 percent in this population. Of course no one really knows what the ultimate rates of infection and death will be in this country. Also, we might find vaccines and treatments down the road. The future, of course, is very much uncertain. In the short term, though, the death rate is certainly likely to be much higher for our aging population and our younger virus-vulnerable populations. Our black population, young and old, might be particularly hard hit due to the high incidence of hypertension and diabetes. Similarly, young and old Hispanics may be hard hit for those without the benefit of work-at-home jobs. Similarly, our less affluent workers seldom have the luxury of working at home and most live from paycheck to paycheck. They simply need to work. Older folks and these more vulnerable groups will be advised to continue to shelter in place and to wash their hands a lot. Those who can’t do so will either receive financial support or simply return to work and take their chances. That one’s a toss-up right now.
Serious problems with testing portend a much earlier rather than later reopening. This seems counterintuitive, but this is the situation now unfolding. There have been numerous reports in recent weeks on the unreliability of testing due to high rates of false negatives. Recent data also show an unexpected and increasing number of problematic “asymptomatic” infections (perhaps a large percentage of all infections in younger people). This is one reason virus infection rates appear to be rising. Another emerging testing issue is the potential for second, and perhaps even third, reactivated infections in persons who were thought to have recovered and who had previously tested negative for the virus. Reactivated infections are now showing up in South Korea, China, India, Japan, and recently in the United States. If unsolved, these testing issues portend very widespread infections. With this virus we always seem to be slightly behind the curve.
Think about the task of solving all those complex and related testing issues as a precondition to “safely” reopening the economy. We may likely go nowhere fast. The reality is that we now have a tsunami of complex and difficult testing questions on the table, and they may not be solvable in our near future, at least to the extent of preventing widespread infections in our communities. It’s possible that our big-tech innovators and biotech researchers might use their talents and data analysis skills to solve these testing problems. Anything is possible, but that seems unlikely in the short term of the next few months. Once these testing issues are widely perceived as not realistically solvable in the near term, there will likely be enormous pressure to reopen the economy.
Rest - https://spectator.org/the-economy-will-reopen-sooner-than-you-think/