How long should the lock down last?

[Rekt]

Thank you for a thoughtful response. This is the information I've been trying to get for days. At this point, with how contagious, and widespread we think this virus is in the community, are a large number of people really not going to be exposed?

We won't really know the prevalence in the community until we start random antibody testing. Right now, we are pitting the known effects of an economic lock down against the unknown number of "lives saved" by the lock down. I think we will soon find out if it's been worth it.

He's assuming that the affected 25% will completely isolate which is absurd. They'll continue to infect at least someone, who will go on to infect someone, etc. Also while ignoring the 20-60% that have been found in multiple studies to be asymptomatic, so it's really just a completely useless comment.

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[GeneralVeers]

He's assuming that the affected 25% will completely isolate which is absurd. They'll continue to infect at least someone, who will go on to infect someone, etc. Also while ignoring the 20-60% that have been found in multiple studies to be asymptomatic, so it's really just a completely useless comment.

I understand that a lot of their projections are absurd. I'm simply trying to understand how "social distancing" is going to "save lives" as the news media keeps pointing out. The problem is that it's essentially untestable in that we won't know how many "lives are saved" which will allow the politicians who've made questionable decisions (including Trump) to declare victory.

 

[deleted109597]

I have read the TOS. I would argue that it is "being nice" to dislike posts that are spreading misinformation during a global pandemic that has killed nearly 100,000 people. I'm not sure why you would create a "dislike" button and subsequently punish people who use it. That would be inherently antithetical to the free exchange of information and if that is the mindset here I will happily abandon my admittedly lurker usage of this site.

No judgement has been handed down here. Review does not equal punishment. It just means that the threshold for outside review has been met.

While you may disagree with GV, there isn't misinformation being spread here. He isn't saying this isn't real, or that people aren't dying. He's merely saying that in his community, the economic damages seem to be outweighing the public health benefits of a lockdown. That isn't false, it's what many cities are trying to ratiionalize.

Everyone needs to play nice in the sandbox. Not everyone needs to agree.

 

[WilcoWorld]

"Likes" do not, but, if (2 or 3, I'm not sure) dislikes are given, that trips a mod review. Likewise, I don't know how many it is, but, "inappropriate" also clicks things. Maybe the newest admin, @Matthew9Thirtyfive , can fill us in on the details.

If you read the TOS (which you did affirm when you signed up), the prevailing thing is to "be nice". "Dislikes", while present, are not that. Then again, I'm just the proletariat. I have no authority.

I think "dislike" buttons are counterproductive to a good conversation. If one disagrees with something - state the reasons. Simply saying "boooo!" adds nothing to the conversation, IMO.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

"Likes" do not, but, if (2 or 3, I'm not sure) dislikes are given, that trips a mod review. Likewise, I don't know how many it is, but, "inappropriate" also clicks things. Maybe the newest admin, @Matthew9Thirtyfive , can fill us in on the details.

If you read the TOS (which you did affirm when you signed up), the prevailing thing is to "be nice". "Dislikes", while present, are not that. Then again, I'm just the proletariat. I have no authority.

There are two things: dislike (thumbs down) and inappropriate (the no smoking sign looking thing). A dislike will negatively affect your score (like karma on reddit), but will not trigger any sort of review. The inappropriate will trigger an automatic report if a post gets 3 of them. This is to encourage users to report inappropriate posts, as it has come up in the past that users will see inappropriate posts but not want to actually report them for various reasons. The "inappropriate" reaction is a quick thing you can do and it makes it so there has to be multiple people who think it should be reported.

Edit: as far as being nice, using the inappropriate reaction is encouraged for posts you find to be actually inappropriate. So far, the way the system is set up we have not seen any abuse of it.

 

[ShockIndex]

I understand that a lot of their projections are absurd. I'm simply trying to understand how "social distancing" is going to "save lives" as the news media keeps pointing out. The problem is that it's essentially untestable in that we won't know how many "lives are saved" which will allow the politicians who've made questionable decisions (including Trump) to declare victory.

I’m not sure if you follow EMRAP, but I found last week’s EMRAP Live event that was published on 4/7 very informative. They did a segment with Dr. Andrea Bertozzi who is a mathematician and applied science engineer at UCLA on the idea of mathematical modeling of this disease. The first couple of minutes are a little dry, but her segment picks-up and there is some really good back and forth between her, Mel, and the rest of the clinicians. Her segment begins at the 15 min mark but the first 15 min are valuable too:



A couple things they cover and that I took away:

1) Flattening the curve means that, while a similar number of people may become sick under social distancing vs. liberal movement (ie the areas under the curves are similar), the social distancing will prevent a sudden spike that overwhelms existing resources. That is how lives are saved. Social distancing may also reduce spread (effectively reducing the area under the curve) by preserving PPE, buying time for a vaccine, etc. But this is more theoretical and the more clear benefit is not having your hospital overrun causing salvageable people die due to lack of resources. This was the problem in Italy and Spain last month.

2) Do not watch this and expect to come away from it with the warm fuzzies. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions but nothing that she had to say made me think that we are going back to the old normal anytime soon.

 

[Apollyon]

Edit: as far as being nice, using the inappropriate reaction is encouraged for posts you find to be actually appropriate. So far, the way the system is set up we have not seen any abuse of it.

I think you have a typo there.

 

[Birdstrike]

Why is there a dislike option if this is so frowned upon? Do "likes" trigger mod reviews as well?

That's fine, hit the dislike button all day long. It doesn't say anything other than "This post sucks so I'm gonna take a big crap on it. Here: 'Dislike.'"

Honestly, you're better of clicking the "like" button, then responding with a blisteringly wild, funny, or snarky disagreement. That makes the forum entertaining, more interesting, keeps a thread moving and lets people know that even though you disagree, you enjoying the back and forth. But just coming in and dropping "dislikes," especially if you're new to a forum, is just lame, in my opinion. I disagree with people constantly, and a lot of people hate me for it. But at the same time they enjoy blasting back without mercy. Which is fine because that's what keeps any forum from dying. But I rarely just drop a dislike without taking the time to explain what I dislike. In fact, I don't think I've ever clicked the dislike button (?) That doesn't give anyone anything to go on, but it leaves them with a slightly negative feeling.

But, whatever. You do you.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I think you have a typo there.

Indeed! Autocorrect to the rescue.

 

[RustedFox]

I say "let the dislikes stand"; dissent is often the catalyst for change.

 

[Birdstrike]

I say "let the dislikes stand"; dissent is often the catalyst for change.

 

[WheezyBaby]

The whole point of stay at home orders and social distancing, as I understood it, was to flatten the curve. Give hospitals time to prepare and spread out cases so that things like running out of vents wouldn’t happen. And that’s fine and it makes sense.

But I have yet to have anyone explain to me how (barring hospitals being over-run), continued state-wide shutdowns will change the AREA UNDER THE CURVE. If 100,000 people die in one month, or 10,000 people die each month for 10 months, that’s still 100,000 people dead. We aren’t saving granny, she’s just going to die in September instead of May. But meanwhile her grandkids will lose their jobs and homes.

So I will ask the same question posed by other posters, but in a slightly different way: Barring PRN “shutdowns” of hotspot areas where it appears hospital resources will be overrun, how do continued large scale shelter in place orders change the area under the curve?

Flattenning the curve buys time for testing refinement and roll out and investigation into therapies. In not sure if any truly effective therapies will emerge, but if we have an effective testing system and strict true quarantine procedure for positives, that can reduce mortality

 

[thegenius]

Yep. And stupid flows down its pressure gradient. So, apply social distancing pressure to malls, restaurants, and auditoriums while leaving beaches and parks open means that the stupid flows into the open beaches and parks. It’s like pushing on a partially inflated balloon. What were once unpopulated beaches will look like a MTV beer bong fest. The only way to avoid it is to apply limited pressure that allows only locals on the beach. While that may work, we should keep in mind that Italy didn’t start making progress until they clamped down on all outdoor activities - beaches, parks, jogging, Twister, random bathhouse sex, etc.

stupid is as a stupid does

Our Bay Area state parks are closed, and police are ticketing cars in the parking lots.

Social distancing is against our "social genome" and hard to practice. I agree with these general punitive-feeling measures until we have a reliable way to isolate, quarantine, or vaccinate individuals.

 

[thegenius]

No. First please explain how social distancing saves lives assuming a non-saturated clinical environment.

These two things don't exist above. If there is no social distancing then you get an overwhelmed clinical environment.

I think the crux of your position over the past several weeks is we are social distancing TOO MUCH. I'm not sure why you believe that 330,000,000 people can social distance in a responsible way to only spread the virus slowly.

NYC was really really bad not but extraordinarly terrible (a.k.a Italy) because people either left the city or stayed in their homes.

 

[thegenius]

The whole point of stay at home orders and social distancing, as I understood it, was to flatten the curve. Give hospitals time to prepare and spread out cases so that things like running out of vents wouldn’t happen. And that’s fine and it makes sense.

But I have yet to have anyone explain to me how (barring hospitals being over-run), continued state-wide shutdowns will change the AREA UNDER THE CURVE. If 100,000 people die in one month, or 10,000 people die each month for 10 months, that’s still 100,000 people dead. We aren’t saving granny, she’s just going to die in September instead of May. But meanwhile her grandkids will lose their jobs and homes.

So I will ask the same question posed by other posters, but in a slightly different way: Barring PRN “shutdowns” of hotspot areas where it appears hospital resources will be overrun, how do continued large scale shelter in place orders change the area under the curve?

???

Because hospitals can save lives. People think there is a 1% chance you die if you get COVID-19, regardless of social structuring, availability of health care resources, etc. But that is completely not true.

Some people just need O2 support for 1-2 weeks. That's it. Instead of being 65% SpO2 for 2 weeks, they are 95% SpO2 for 2 weeks.

if you have 10,000 people who are sitting around with 65% SpO2 for 2 weeks, you might have 5% of them die
If you have 10,000 people who are sitting around with 95% SpO2 on 4L for 2 weeks, you might have 0.5% of them die.

That's how we save lives. Medical care saves lives despite there not being a "cure" for COVID-19

 

[thegenius]

But I have yet to have anyone explain to me how (barring hospitals being over-run), continued state-wide shutdowns will change the AREA UNDER THE CURVE. If 100,000 people die in one month, or 10,000 people die each month for 10 months, that’s still 100,000 people dead. We aren’t saving granny, she’s just going to die in September instead of May. But meanwhile her grandkids will lose their jobs and homes.

It's not that... it's 200,000 people die in one month or 10,000 people die each month for 10 months.

Look...I suppose you can lift social distancing and lock downs by a little bit, and match it just right to hospital resource consumption, but how the hell are you supposed to do that?

it's not like there are dials and you twiddle them over a few hours to balance both things. Dial down distancing, dial up hospital resource consumption. Oops...we went to far. So just dial down distancing just a little. And boom you get immediate changes. It doesn't work like that.

 

[sunshinefl]

It's not that... it's 200,000 people die in one month or 10,000 people die each month for 10 months.

Look...I suppose you can lift social distancing and lock downs by a little bit, and match it just right to hospital resource consumption, but how the hell are you supposed to do that?

it's not like there are dials and you twiddle them over a few hours to balance both things. Dial down distancing, dial up hospital resource consumption. Oops...we went to far. So just dial down distancing just a little. And boom you get immediate changes. It doesn't work like that.

Maybe I’m stupid but wouldn’t most people need to be exposed, albeit incrementally? Or how would we ever get off shelter-in-place? Because if 95% of the country is still a susceptible host, the second we “go back to normal” whether in 1 month or 4 years, if a single person still has the virus aren’t we just back at square one?

 

[WheezyBaby]

Maybe I’m stupid but wouldn’t most people need to be exposed, albeit incrementally? Or how would we ever get off shelter-in-place? Because if 95% of the country is still a susceptible host, the second we “go back to normal” whether in 1 month or 4 years, if a single person still has the virus aren’t we just back at square one?

Case identified, tracking down and testing of exposed individuals, quarantine til resulted, positives remain quarantined, selective continuation of social distancing strategies to limit the development of superspreaders

 

[thegenius]

Maybe I’m stupid but wouldn’t most people need to be exposed, albeit incrementally? Or how would we ever get off shelter-in-place? Because if 95% of the country is still a susceptible host, the second we “go back to normal” whether in 1 month or 4 years, if a single person still has the virus aren’t we just back at square one?

If you don't have a vaccine, the answer to this is yes until you reach herd immunity. That percentage varies with viruses. Measles is 96% from what I hear. Others can be as low as 30%-40%. I think it has something to do with R0, although I'm not totally sure.

If one cares about human lives, then you never want to exceed the capacity of the health care system. Because we have seen that the death rate increases if you overwhelm the health care system (Italy, Spain, Wuhan, NYC, etc.). I do think there is a theoretical "best-case scenario" case fatality rate for COVID-19, and it's probably quite low (maybe 0.1% for instance). In the best-case scenario 1 in 1000 people die from COVID-19. It might even be less.

So ideally...you twiddle the "social distancing, quarantine, isolation, and lockdown dial" to just the right amount that you have a steady incidence of infections to minimize deaths, but not high enough to overwhelm hospitals, until one of three things happen:

1) the virus dies off (practically impossible for COVID-19 at this point, but it did happen for SARS);
2) herd immunity, but we don't know what percentage that is;
3) immunity via a vaccine - 12-18 months away

Hope that makes sense

 

[sunshinefl]

Case identified, tracking down and testing of exposed individuals, quarantine til resulted, positives remain quarantined, selective continuation of social distancing strategies to limit the development of superspreaders

I hear you, but that’s the strategy we started with and it devolved into unchecked community transmission.

 

[sunshinefl]

If you don't have a vaccine, the answer to this is yes until you reach herd immunity. That percentage varies with viruses. Measles is 96% from what I hear. Others can be as low as 30%-40%. I think it has something to do with R0, although I'm not totally sure.

If one cares about human lives, then you never want to exceed the capacity of the health care system. Because we have seen that the death rate increases if you overwhelm the health care system (Italy, Spain, Wuhan, NYC, etc.). I do think there is a theoretical "best-case scenario" case fatality rate for COVID-19, and it's probably quite low (maybe 0.1% for instance). In the best-case scenario 1 in 1000 people die from COVID-19. It might even be less.

So ideally...you twiddle the "social distancing, quarantine, isolation, and lockdown dial" to just the right amount that you have a steady incidence of infections to minimize deaths, but not high enough to overwhelm hospitals, until one of three things happen:

1) the virus dies off (practically impossible for COVID-19 at this point, but it did happen for SARS);
2) herd immunity, but we don't know what percentage that is;
3) immunity via a vaccine - 12-18 months away

Hope that makes sense

Yes, thank you. I agree with all of this.

 

[WheezyBaby]

I hear you, but that’s the strategy we started with and it devolved into unchecked community transmission.

That's not at all the system we started with. We had basically zero testing, our early test turn around time was days, and we had markedly delayed isolation strategies. Look at South Korea response

 

[deleted428653]

That's fine, hit the dislike button all day long. It doesn't say anything other than "This post sucks so I'm gonna take a big crap on it. Here: 'Dislike.'"

Honestly, you're better of clicking the "like" button, then responding with a blisteringly wild, funny, or snarky disagreement. That makes the forum entertaining, more interesting, keeps a thread moving and lets people know that even though you disagree, you enjoying the back and forth. But just coming in and dropping "dislikes," especially if you're new to a forum, is just lame, in my opinion. I disagree with people constantly, and a lot of people hate me for it. But at the same time they enjoy blasting back without mercy. Which is fine because that's what keeps any forum from dying. But I rarely just drop a dislike without taking the time to explain what I dislike. In fact, I don't think I've ever clicked the dislike button (?) That doesn't give anyone anything to go on, but it leaves them with a slightly negative feeling.

But, whatever. You do you.

I would imagine that the reason the reaction buttons were added to the site was to allow for increased user engagement for folks who don't have the time or motivation to respond with a post. So perhaps "This post sucks so I'm gonna take a big crap on it. Here: 'Dislike.'" is a valid response. If it's too much of a "negative feeling" for someone to see a thumb's down next to their post, they are probably not that confident in their opinion, or are too much of a "snowflake" to tolerate any opposing viewpoint.

 

[turkeyjerky]

That's not at all the system we started with. We had basically zero testing, our early test turn around time was days, and we had markedly delayed isolation strategies. Look at South Korea response

Exactly.

The problem is that, we're so far into this thing (despite the current extremely aggressive social distancing which has resulted in significant suppression of the outbreak) that actual containment is likely to be impossible.

We would need a Wuhan-style shutdown for months in order to get back to point where aggressive containment would be possible.

 

[WilcoWorld]

I would imagine that the reason the reaction buttons were added to the site was to allow for increased user engagement for folks who don't have the time or motivation to respond with a post. So perhaps "This post sucks so I'm gonna take a big crap on it. Here: 'Dislike.'" is a valid response. If it's too much of a "negative feeling" for someone to see a thumb's down next to their post, they are probably not that confident in their opinion, or are too much of a "snowflake" to tolerate any opposing viewpoint.

I think the reaction buttons were added to increase time on site.

 

[WheezyBaby]

Exactly.

The problem is that, we're so far into this thing (despite the current extremely aggressive social distancing which has resulted in significant suppression of the outbreak) that actual containment is likely to be impossible.

We would need a Wuhan-style shutdown for months in order to get back to point where aggressive containment would be possible.

This is fair, but I don't think it would need to be applied homogenously across the country. NYC and some others maybe. Talking out of my ass though, don't have professional experience in this area

 

[Birdstrike]

Social distancing reduces deaths from hospital overcapacity and running out of ventilators. It does prevent infection or reduce the total amount of people who will eventually get COVID-19 and die from it. At a time without a vaccine or cure, it only delays the inevitable.

Therefore, extreme shutdowns in places where hospital overcapacity is not going to happen, where there are plenty of ICU beds, may not be gaining us much, if anything.

Other than a few densely populated cities (NY area/Detroit/New Orleans) the vast majority of the country has not had their hospitals systems anywhere near overwhelmed like the dire predictions made months ago.

There are likely huge potions of the country where the risks of extreme shutdowns will soon outweigh the benefits, if not already.

 

[ace_inhibitor111]

Social distancing reduces deaths from hospital overcapacity and running out of ventilators. It does prevent infection or reduce the total amount of people who will eventually get COVID-19 and die from it. At a time without a vaccine or cure, it only delays the inevitable.

Therefore, extreme shutdowns in places where hospital overcapacity is not going to happen, where there are plenty of ICU beds, may not be gaining us much, if anything.

Other than a few densely populated cities (NY area/Detroit/New Orleans) the vast majority of the country has not had their hospitals systems anywhere near overwhelmed like the dire predictions made months ago.

There are likely huge potions of the country where the risks of extreme shutdowns will soon outweigh the benefits, if not already.

I definitely rather have the country open up rather than the state we are in now, but here is some mathematical evidence for why social distancing (decreasing Ro) would theoretically reduce the total number of infectious cases. Read “Will an Epidemic Affect Everyone?”

“The conclusion we can draw from all this analysis is that, in general, a fraction of the population will escape infection. That is, s∞ < 1. This is one of the fundamental insights of mathematical theory of epidemics.... As R0 gets larger, the final size of the epidemic gets larger as well.”

https://web.stanford.edu/~jhj1/teachingdocs/Jones-on-R0.pdf

 

[thegenius]

Social distancing reduces deaths from hospital overcapacity and running out of ventilators. It does prevent infection or reduce the total amount of people who will eventually get COVID-19 and die from it. At a time without a vaccine or cure, it only delays the inevitable.

Therefore, extreme shutdowns in places where hospital overcapacity is not going to happen, where there are plenty of ICU beds, may not be gaining us much, if anything.

Other than a few densely populated cities (NY area/Detroit/New Orleans) the vast majority of the country has not had their hospitals systems anywhere near overwhelmed like the dire predictions made months ago.

There are likely huge potions of the country where the risks of extreme shutdowns will soon outweigh the benefits, if not already.

I would think this is true, but this virus easily spreads asymptomatically.

 

[thegenius]

Darn it! I just read we are going to have a shortage of pork in the near future.

Bacon is so damn delicious.

 

[bravotwozero]

Darn it! I just read we are going to have a shortage of pork in the near future.

Bacon is so damn delicious.

That is awesome. No more filthy pigs and pork tapeworm.

 

[Apollyon]

That is awesome. No more filthy pigs and pork tapeworm.

What are you, Jewish or Muslim? I've eaten bacon, ribs, and ham my entire life, and have had ZERO parasites. Your worry of Taenia solium is, frankly, absurd.

Or, maybe, you're outside the US. Then, your concerns might be valid.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

VINCENT
Want some bacon?
JULES
Naw, man, I don't eat pork.
VINCENT
Are you Jewish?
JULES
I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
VINCENT
Why not?
JULES
Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
VINCENT
Yeah, but bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good.

 

[TwoHighways]

Never should have been implemented for those not at risk.

 

[Rekt]

Never should have been implemented for those not at risk.

It's time to open.

 

[ShockIndex]

VINCENT
Want some bacon?
JULES
Naw, man, I don't eat pork.
VINCENT
Are you Jewish?
JULES
I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
VINCENT
Why not?
JULES
Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
VINCENT
Yeah, but bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good.

 

[hundreddaysoff]

I think "dislike" buttons are counterproductive to a good conversation. If one disagrees with something - state the reasons. Simply saying "boooo!" adds nothing to the conversation, IMO.

They're also confusing. I always assumed Dislike meant that I dislike the content of the message, ie I'm kind of trying to empathize with the poster and agree with their intent and whatever silver lining they hope to encourage in posting this horrible thing.

Turns out SDN thinks it means I dislike the message and quite possibly the poster themselves and I am also possibly trolling?

No more disliking for me then...

 

[KGflyboy]

I think most of the country could probably start a limited transition pretty soon. It looks like much of the country has plenty of hospital and ICU beds, ventilators, and healthcare personal to handle infection at the local level. The only resource in short supply for most of us is actually PPE. Many hospitals have record low volumes. There is plenty of capacity where most of us work. Testing capacity is rapidly increasing, which will also make it easier to guide when each state or locality is ready to start easing social distancing guidelines.

Although I expected the initial Trump plan to reopen the country to be garbage, I kind of like it. It has pretty solid criteria for states to meet before opening back up.

Although we will likely be in some sort of partial shutdown for a very long time, I would be thrilled if we could at least get to phase two here in the next couple months. I think it's reasonably likely where I live.

I think places like NYC will unfortunately struggle for a very long time to get past phase 1. I think entering phase 1 will trigger an increase in cases in highly populated areas, making it hard to progress. They may even have to move backward to more restrictive phases while the rest of the country advances. I will be shocked if NYC gets to phase 3 by the end of 2020.

What do the rest of you think about the criteria and 3 phases of reopening the country?

 

[Siggy]

You are right. Barring some sort of massive shift, I think Panicky Politicians trying to avoid blame will keep things locked down indefinitely.

I hope Trump unilaterally declares recommendations to re-open the country despite the screaming from CNN. At least some state governors would have cover to get things moving again.

I guess it's too bad that the Constitution (remember that old thing) doesn't give Trump the power. Never mind the fact that he abdicated that responsibility multiple times to the governors. Can you imagine the Obama Derangement Syndrome if Obama ever said that he took no responsibility? All of a sudden the ERs would be packed with psych patients.

 

[Siggy]

That would be an interesting Court case during times of national emergency (when many Constitutionally protected rights have been put on hold in the past: Lincoln with habeus corpus, FDR with Internment). Its not as clear cut since the Constitution does grant specific exceptions during time of invasion or rebellion.

You don't understand. Let me break this down for you. Lincoln was wrong for denying habeus corpus to the real Americans supporting the CSA (unlike those fake Americans who stayed "loyal" to their masters). FDR was right because those people weren't real Americans. Real Americans aren't supposed to be limited like this. By the way, we're at 12x the deaths from 9/11/01. When do we start invading other countries (or start the investigations. How many Benghazis are we at?)

 

[Siggy]

No. First please explain how social distancing saves lives assuming a non-saturated clinical environment.

Explain how to prevent becoming saturated... and the use of social distancing once saturation has occurred.

 

[bravotwozero]

The craziest thing to me in this country right now is that we have people lining up at food banks by thousands on one end, and farmers deliberately throwing away tons of produce, spilling out milk by the thousands of gallons, and deliberately destroying crops due to falling demands from restaurants. The disconnect is unbelievable.

 

[bravotwozero]

Or the will do it isn't there. Here lies an opportunity to fix a food shortage problem without relying on the taxpayer's dime...

 

[Birdstrike]

How would it not be on the taxpayers dime? If the government wouldn’t pay for it, where would you propose the money come from? Food doesn’t get harvested and packaged and shipped for free

From that magical pot of gold called, "Some other guy's pocket."

 

[thegenius]

How would it not be on the taxpayers dime? If the government wouldn’t pay for it, where would you propose the money come from? Food doesn’t get harvested and packaged and shipped for free

From that magical pot of gold called, "Some other guy's pocket."

I have a steadily flowing river of money in my back yard. That's why I'm a rich SOB. You guys want to dip into that to help the food crisis?
I will let you.

 

[Laradd]

It depends, because here in my place, lockdown would be until 30th April however if the cases would still increase it will extend.

 

[GeneralVeers]

It depends, because here in my place, lockdown would be until 30th April however if the cases would still increase it will extend.

That seems to be a silly metric. Cases are going to increase in number, perhaps indefinitely. Case numbers will never go down without a time machine.

 

[thegenius]

That seems to be a silly metric. Cases are going to increase in number, perhaps indefinitely. Case numbers will never go down without a time machine.

It’s not silly, it’s the right thing to do. Wuhan didn’t open up until they had a week of no cases. You don’t open up when cases are increasing. That’s daft.

 

[KGflyboy]

It’s not silly, it’s the right thing to do. Wuhan didn’t open up until they had a week of no cases. You don’t open up when cases are increasing. That’s daft.

I think his point was number of total cases can only increase. It's impossible to ever decrease. The only way it will ever not increase is if it is totally eliminated smallpox style. The better metric would look at something else like number of new cases and the trajectory of rate of change of the new cases.

 

[deleted1005514]

The craziest thing to me in this country right now is that we have people lining up at food banks by thousands on one end, and farmers deliberately throwing away tons of produce, spilling out milk by the thousands of gallons, and deliberately destroying crops due to falling demands from restaurants. The disconnect is unbelievable.

The farmers near my hometown have been posting their produce on Facebook, either seriously discounted or free to pick, just so they don’t have quite so much go to waste. Couple of guys with pickup trucks carry loads to the local churches and food banks.

pouring out milk is due to the limited amount of time they can hold it without it being tested and pasteurized. If the pasteurization plants are closed, they have to dump it or find a farmer to feed it to their pigs. In some states it’s illegal to sell unpasteurized milk products.