Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: billwilliams on 15/06/2020 21:37:42
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This virus has the potential to do much more damage to every country on the planet in the long run.
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Your concerns are not entirely off base. (I for one don't think you're necessarily overreacting, just possibly misdirecting your fears) But, without proposing an alternative, I don't know what you think we should do (have done) instead. Corpses aren't particularly good customers either...
If people could actually quarantine properly, it would be comparatively painless. It would be a good use of money for the government to pay everyone* to stay home for 5 weeks. We allocated >$2,000,000,000,000 for the "bail out" but if this had instead just been directed towards covering people's salaries for a few paltry weeks, it would have been more than enough. Instead of paying people $1200 and expecting them to cover rent and food, and using the rest to prop up the corporations, we could have paid everyone in the US $20,000 to stay home (contingent on them actually doing that), and they would have pumped that money right into the economy.
*We would still need some people working in hospitals, fire departments, harvesting/transporting food, keeping the power grid stable. But really, almost everything could grind to a halt for a few weeks without doing longterm damage to the country.
It is important to note that this is 110,000 people in 4 months with some modicum of containment attempted--it would surely be an order or magnitude higher already if we had done nothing. Also, I know people who have "recovered" from this disease, who are still gravely handicapped, and likely will be for the rest of their lives. I wonder how many of our survivors are similarly well-off.
I have no doubt that the unrest here is related to the quarantine, but it's been a long time in the making. There is also a lot of concern that melanated (black and brown) citizens are baring the brunt of the pandemic--including deaths and unemployment. So wee can't blame the protests entirely on the pandemic or entirely on the police.
I hope that Trump wouldn't initiate a war with China, but honestly, nothing would surprise me at this point... :'(
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It could mingle with ebola and give us the black death. ....
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To the list of potential effects we can add mental health problems: Anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and suicide, in both short and long term.
A team at Sydney University looked at the potential impacts of COVID-related unemployment, isolation and fear on mental wellbeing. They suggest over 1,000 deaths in Australia and considerable lost productivity over the next 5 years if no action is taken to improve mental health services. (By way of comparison, to date, Australia has recorded a little over 100 fatalities from the virus itself).
The government has paid attention to the report, and allocated some money to mental health services. But PTSD could be a long tail to this pandemic.
See: https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/05/13/modelling-shows-path-to-suicide-prevention-in-covid-recovery.html
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government giving out so much money that it eventually has no value
There are two ways of doing this: By borrowing, or by "printing" it (even though only a small fraction of our currency is actually in the form of coins and notes).
- If you borrow money, you have to pay it back (with interest), so that is a long-term cost. If every country is borrowing, who is going to do the lending? (China is one country with very large foreign exchange reserves, due to a large population, a positive trade balance and years of tight currency control.)
- If you print money, that produces an inflationary pressure which will result in spiraling prices. This creates unrest from wage earners and people living on investments. It can take many years of tough economic measures to bring inflation under control.
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This virus has the potential to do much more damage to every country on the planet in the long run.
No, most people are sustained artificially into there old age and the actual lethality of the virus is very minimal. Spanish flu was a pandemic on a populace with minimal healthcare, no vaccines, poverty etc, the unfittest where already passed ie life expectancy, yet an awful lot of people died. Im sorry but men are mortal and no one gets out alive, psycologically the reaction to this covid 19 outbreak is something to behold, and beware of.
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Lethality is currently around 5.5% worldwide and rising from the initial 4%, but that is a rather conservative figure as most of the infected areas so far are relatively civilised with free public health services. Corrupt banana republics like the USA will find it closer to 10% in the long run, but as the poor will suffer most, it doesn't matter - they are unlikely to vote for Trump anyway.
The longterm health consequences are quite severe. We may find another 10% permanently unfit for work after recovering from the acute phase, which will damage civilised economies, but America will become Great by abolishing unemployment benefits and imprisoning anyone who complains.
Help the economy recover: buy shares in private prisons and gun shops.
The silver lining is that Trumptopia makes the Cummings administration look incompetent rather than criminal.
God help America.
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Lethality is currently around 5.5% worldwide and rising from the initial 4%, but that is a rather conservative figure as most of the infected areas so far are relatively civilised with free public health services. Corrupt banana republics like the USA will find it closer to 10% in the long run, but as the poor will suffer most, it doesn't matter - they are unlikely to vote for Trump anyway.
The longterm health consequences are quite severe. We may find another 10% permanently unfit for work after recovering from the acute phase, which will damage civilised economies, but America will become Great by abolishing unemployment benefits and imprisoning anyone who complains.
Help the economy recover: buy shares in private prisons and gun shops.
The silver lining is that Trumptopia makes the Cummings administration look incompetent rather than criminal.
God help America.
Conservative ? no in the states they are called the "Rebublicans", also strangley in the states the left is blue and the right red, weird freaky reactionary separatists that they are.
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I hope this provided you the answer you where looking for bill, i suppose it must, as you have not been on line since 5 days after you posted the original comment. Oh i wonder wence art thou bill?
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And 3 months later the number of excess deaths has doubled, which I think answers the question.