What I am hearing is that we cannot open the economy until there is no chance of catching the virus. How long will that take? Can we get that testing guarantee into place within say one month? Or will it take 6 months? The theory is any risk of getting the virus is Russian Roulette. Yet, we all play Russian Roulette every day. Life is a game of Russian Roulette.

A prolonged depression will kill people just as the virus does. We don’t know the probability of either one. But what I am hearing that if keeping the economy shut down forever saves just one life, it is worth it. What if reopening the economy saves just one life?

Opening up the economy wouldn’t be an all or nothing deal. It would have to be a progressive process based on immunity within the population. Hence, the clamor for accurate testing, both viral and antibody, and vaccines. Start with those one the front lines and expand outward from there. That’s pretty much the only way you’re gonna keep some semblance of control over R0. Concerning the timelines for this all happening? Who knows at this point. Might be tomorrow, could be many months down the road. What you don’t hear much about is how much feverish work (no pun intended) is being done behind the scenes to develop the tools we need to get this going. Most everyone knows the stakes are high. Others may wish to gamble but just remember that the house is always favored to win and guess who the house is....

Many people are saying "reopen the economy" now or "stay on shut down" now - and we can't have EITHER. The only logical thing to do right now is bring it back, step by step. Reduce restrictions, but don't lift them entirely. Start bringing people back to work under safe conditions.

Train-wise, let's maybe start thinking about 4th of July, Labor Day, Fall Foliage trips, with limited capacity on board. Would you rather have the trains packed full and bringing in tons of revenue, of course. Is that safe/ethical to do right now, having full coaches? No. Is it better than nothing? In many cases, probably, yes.

You can always "what if?" yourself literally to death with over-the-top caution--not just for yourself, but everything around you, if you have the power to impose your fear upon others.

Thus far--with the tacit acknowledgement that "things" could certainly change with a few more Mardi Gras celebrations and New York Citys in general, and other acts of human stupidity and that "flattening the curve" just means we're kicking some deaths down the road--the apparent mortality "worst case scenario" as projected by even the medical field is on the order of one hundred times less than that ghastly "10-20%" scare tactic. Further, more expansive testing is revealing that huge numbers worldwide apparently were exposed to the virus and showed no symptoms long after the supposed "latency" period of this virus.

If we were looking at mortality rates of 10-20%, entire cities in China would be being wiped out about now, with cases skyrocketing in Italy and Iran, and we could see the mass graves being dug by satellite. And we would be preparing for up to a BILLION deaths worldwide. As cynical (with good cause) as I may be about China's honesty and integrity on an international scope, I find it impossible to fathom that the evidence of such sweeping mortality, if it existed, wouldn't be played endlessly on all the newscasts, websites, etc. to further scare us into "behaving" or "submission."

I certainly advise all appropriate caution and societal measures for the time being, especially in dense urban populations. But this nation/humankind cannot sustain this current state of affairs for a year and a half, like someone here seems to advocate. Saving even a million lives globally is not worth it, long term, as caustic and heartless as it sounds.

And the response from someone on indefinite furlough, watching the unemployment starting to run out, watching the back rent pile up, kids that should be in school going crazy, trying to find a food bank with food left to feed the family will be.........

"ok boomer"

And he/she will mean it with more contempt and malice than you can imagine.

And I'm beginning to fear this schism in our national well-being far more than the damned disease.

I think this quote sums it up. This thread alone shows there's a huge split. I'll keep my political beliefs to myself, but I want to thank Ron Travis for typing this. I definitely agree with you.

I'm hoping the wedge is more 'accidental' (and expedient for various groups based on short-term misperception) than chronic ... or generational.

Ross: PM me and I can put some of this in more common-sense terms. I'll need to do lots more of that in the next few days anyway.

Follow the science. That's all...... proposed:

Moratorium on debts for the unemployed until whenever each of us can go back to work, phased in as each person can, and after they have, earned for a couple weeks. Guys like me with critical jobs in critical facilities will continue to pay since we can. The cost of dealing with the effects of not maintaining a long and slow flat curve will be far more than going slow as the science shows we can safely absorb in terms of interaction down the line.

I think what people need is the ability to feed and care for their families - not the fiction of going back to what provided the breeding ground for this and other adverse agents. Self actualization comes way down the list from food and shelter. It should be expected that not everything will be as it was immediately on some magic date in our Julian kludge of a calendar.

The percentages Rick alludes to - and I know he's smarter than not to see how he has the cart pulling the horse on this one. The only reason we have "just" 2% is because we are (some idiots excepted) behaving responsibly. If we allow this to become unmanageable, dealing with the current situation will seem a walk in the park compared to it, economically as well as humanistically.

In a different time and political context the argument that we should consider the costs of keeping people alive was referred to as "death panels," ironically by some of the same people who are now arguing that keeping people alive is too expensive. Also ironically, an attempt was made a few weeks back to set up such a panel mostly composed of CEOs, who told the authorities that they wanted nothing to do with it, that the economy shouldn't open up until we know for sure who is infected and who is not.

Testing, testing, testing. Fortunately the latest bill that just passed in the Senate contains $ 25 B devoted to testing AND mandates that the Trump administration lead and organize a federal project to supply the states with the testing tools ( swabs, viles, chemicals etc.) they need to achieve rapid high volume testing.

Hopefully this will put an end to Trump's repeated false talk ( daily ! ) that we're doing " a terrific job" testing when the truth is we're doing an awful job and we're WAY behind the 8 ball on this.

We cannot begin to reopen the economy until we can rapid test ( results in under 15 minutes) by the millions AND contact trace all those who test positive. Until then we will continue to fly blind and any attempts to reopen things before we have that capability are begging for a new wave.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Total number of Coronavirus tests conducted to date by each country is the next to last column (scroll down) on the right side of this page:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

PC

Hi Rick,
I live in a county that, as of 6:28 PM, has 2,206 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 83 deaths...... do you think your local elected officials would welcome my visiting your museum right now?

We can see mass graves being dug in NYC.


I understand that they stack the pine boxes three deep.

One could look at it another way. In 2018, in an average day 6,542 Americans passed away from all causes. This week, roughly 2,000 Americans passed away every day from Covid, in addition to the preexisting deaths from all other causes. That's a 31% increase in the number of Americans dying every day.

I had reported previously that we have found work building morgue carts for area hospitals. Andrea is in charge of that business line. In the last six days, she has received inquiries from possible new customers from six states, and DC.

Perish from a pandemic versus perish of lack of income is a false dichotomy, at least in developed, first world countries. Risk losing the vulnerable to a serious illness or starve need not be our only alternatives. Someone mentioned Germany’s Kurzarbeit, their unemployment system that never runs out. And Germany runs a budget surplus every year.

This crisis is really holding a mirror up to us.

I have reports I consider reliable from people reporting 1) upticks in suicides and 2) suicide hotlines/crisis centers desperately needing more volunteers for being overwhelmed.

If we want to be expansive, let's also factor in such issues as stress, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, etc, brought about by the financial woes. And the "damage" will increasingly manifest itself later, after the immediate "crisis," once back rent is due, bankruptcies are declared, businesses liquidated, unemployment stays high, retail business stays depressed, etc.

Problem is, there's no "lab test" for THAT.