When is it time to panic

93EXCivic said:

In reply to oldopelguy (Forum Supporter) :

I agree. A big part of my frustration is it feels like there are two sides and no one is willing to listen to anything in between. It is either throw everything wide up or stay in lockdown until???? And we have two medias largely feeding that. 

I have heard exactly nobody say we should stay locked down forever.  Just that people should retain a sense of caution and act responsibly.

The only extreme I have seen is people who want everything wide open.

I went to a restaurant yesterday evening. It was quite tasty. As hard as it is to imagine, the employees were quite happy to be a work for a change. 

I was just speaking with my contractor ( I need a roof.. thank you hail)..  Anyways he's not super into the whole deal about the Covid.. but when I mentioned I know three people who lost their parents due to it..  His jaw dropped.   Some people just need to experience it for themselves...

oldopelguy (Forum Supporter) said:

For some people staying home is far worse than even catching the disease.

If only it were that simple.

The reality of the disease is that roughly 80% of the people who catch it would be asymptomatically Typhoid Marying it up all over the place.  I mean, we as a society JAIL people who deliberately injure/kill other people so they can make money...

Typhoid Mary, for those who are not aware, was a one person epidemic.  She was an asymptomatic restaurant worker who had typhoid fever and was infecting everyone who got near her.  Her attitude was, well, I need to work, so those people are just going to have to get sick and die.  (Alternatively, she believed it was fake)

Nothing. New. Under. The. Sun.

TopNoodles said:

bobzilla said:

In reply to aircooled :

I've been saying this for a while. The mental side effects the lockdowns have had on people may be a longer lasting effect than the actual virus. When you struggle to find the good in a normal day and then have the world take all of it away and tell you deal with it it's for your own good, it's bad. Real bad. 

The pandemic response highlights a truth about mental health that will probably not change anytime soon: mental health almost always takes a backseat to physical health. Yet both lead to pain, injury and even death. Because mental health is harder to measure, or perhaps just overlooked, people will always focus on what they can see with their eyes, the physical.

People put on a brave face and ignore need for therapy, counseling or spiritual guidance. It works until it doesn't, and the lucky ones live through the sudden crash and get into treatment. But many don't live through it.

The good news to me is none of this is new so ultimately the treatment is the same. Gotta look out for myself and do whatever it takes to stay healthy, and don't pretend to be OK just because other people can't see anything wrong.

This right here. I am lucky. I went back to therapy at the end of December. I can't imagine just how poorly I'd have handled all the things that have cone our way and continue to pile on without it, my supportive wife and a select few of you that I chat with daily. 
 

as for the "suicide is a choice" comment.... sigh. It's not a choice for me. But I have been far enough down the path to understand why some choose it. Being alone, cut off and possibly out of income to support the basics could and has pushed those people already on the edge way over it. 
 

I believe with no facts to support it that this pandemic has and continues to create more chaos for those on the ledge and possibly cause more harm than the actual virus itself. This isn't something we will see today or even next week. It's a long term mind berkeley for those with struggles. Just because you (royal not pinning any one person here but I want to) have it together and don't see a problem doesn't mean others do.
 

We are really alone with our own thoughts here. as much as we try to fool ourselves that "we are all in this together"(that phrase really bothers me) we aren't. 

Toyman01 (Forum Supporter) said:

I went to a restaurant yesterday evening. It was quite tasty. As hard as it is to imagine, the employees were quite happy to be a work for a change. 

 

Me too!  It was yummy!  
 

My waitress was cute as a button above the bridge of her nose.  We joked about how surreal it is watching people talk with no mouths.

She smiled a lot.  I think.  But she sure was happy to see me.

I left her a big tip.  

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I have heard exactly nobody say we should stay locked down forever.  Just that people should retain a sense of caution and act responsibly.

The only extreme I have seen is people who want everything wide open.

Surely you've heard from the can't reopen until there's a vaccine camp.

The0retical (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

Curiosity question. If you were provided $24k per year as part of a UBI program, would you still do what you do, or would you maybe take a lower paying position doing something else?

I probably wouldn't because I enjoy what I do, but I may take a reduction in hours to do some community service work or other work I enjoy.

UBI provides a means for those in lower income categories to take chances, explore other opportunities, or take a break to get creative or inventive rather than being locked into in the daily drudgery that so many jobs are. Essentially it provides the opportunity to free up the brain power potentially locked into menial tasks simply because they need to survive. The current unemployment situation isn't really any different.

Also:

In before the "massive inflation" argument (VOX)

The 2017 study VOX cites

In before the "sit around and do nothing" argument (The Guardian)

In before the "it's too expensive" argument (Quartz)

I'd do what I do. I'm good at it, and enjoy it. 
 

I spent 10 years of my life as a full time volunteer working with underprivileged people.  A big part of that was giving people a hand up, not a handout.  It was very rewarding.
 

I'm pretty happy with my life, and don't think I'd want to take a government check to be less productive.  

People seem to forget that a vaccine is a treatment, not a cure.

The current influenza vaccine has been 45% effective.  50% effective against influenza B/ Victoria viruses, and 37% effective against H1N1. 
 

Just think... if we had a vaccine for COVID-19.  If it had similar performance, would it quench everyone's fears?  Would it make things better?

I'm all for all the research and technology we can throw at this thing, but I don't believe it will be a bandaid that fixes this.  We need a change of heart and a different mental perspective to conquer our collective fear.   
 

Fear is a much bigger monster than COVID.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:.

Typhoid Mary, for those who are not aware, was a one person epidemic.  She was an asymptomatic restaurant worker who had typhoid fever and was infecting everyone who got near her.  Her attitude was, well, I need to work, so those people are just going to have to get sick and die.  (Alternatively, she believed it was fake)

Bit of a clarification here: she was actually a personal cook (as in for rich people).  
 

Typhoid fever is spread from person to person via poop and pee.  As a cook, she was just TOO busy to wash her hand after taking a huge dump.  Soooooo... she made a bunch of poo tainted food.  If she was diligent about washing her hands would she have spread it? Maybe, but far less likely.

She did however have a very "I don't give an F" attitude and eventually had to be jailed... until she died... to keep her from sticking her poo covered hands into people's mashed potatoes.

Ain't history fun.... anyone want some mashed potatoes?

More clarification: the India study is 80% are effectively unaffected.  CDC says 40% are asymptotic.  I have not seen anything on asymptotic transmission but I would guess the chances are very low.  I think it's the mildly symptomatic (cold like symptoms) that are the danger.

E.g. wear your f'ing masks and stay the hell away from people if you are sick in any way.

100,000 deaths in the United States.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

93EXCivic said:

In reply to oldopelguy (Forum Supporter) :

I agree. A big part of my frustration is it feels like there are two sides and no one is willing to listen to anything in between. It is either throw everything wide up or stay in lockdown until???? And we have two medias largely feeding that. 

I have heard exactly nobody say we should stay locked down forever.  Just that people should retain a sense of caution and act responsibly.

The only extreme I have seen is people who want everything wide open.

Really I have seen a lot of people talking about how everywhere is reopening too soon... 

Saron81 said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I have heard exactly nobody say we should stay locked down forever.  Just that people should retain a sense of caution and act responsibly.

The only extreme I have seen is people who want everything wide open.

Surely you've heard from the can't reopen until there's a vaccine camp.

Those people are fooling themselves as much as the people who think everything should be wide open and wait for herd immunity to kick in.

The issue is that a lot of people don't seem to know where the line is in a social contract. That requires the government needs to step in with rules and regulations which usually further pisses those people off who don't know where the line is.

Honestly, this is just my personal opinion, I get a bit touchy about the whole Puritan work ethic constantly being held up as the ultimate standard for living your life. Especially when there are a huge number of studies, spanning decades, showing that the defacto model since the industrial age began, isn't optimal for anyone except the 1%.

I'm all for reopening, but I we really need to spend a bit of time examining our systems failure points then fix them for the next shock.

We also need to come to an understanding that, as my conservative friends like to say, your rights end where mine begin. If it's a bit inconvenient, for only little while, it's better than these haphazard responses.

I'm actually a bit concerned that places that have had a cohesive response are going to recover faster and create their own trade bubbles. That could lock out the US from any growth on those zones for a period of years. That would be catastrophic in the long run. 

Saron81 said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I have heard exactly nobody say we should stay locked down forever.  Just that people should retain a sense of caution and act responsibly.

The only extreme I have seen is people who want everything wide open.

Surely you've heard from the can't reopen until there's a vaccine camp.

I don't doubt that they exist, but they aren't as vocal or violent as the people protesting that taking precautions is evil and wrong. (Then transmitting the disease at their little pathogen-rallies, and taking them home to their small towns)  I don't mean things like "Shut down everything!", I mean things like anti face mask people.  I could say "don't like 'em, don't wear 'em", but given that YOUR mask protects US from YOU, it should really be "Don't like em, stay home".

In reply to The0retical (Forum Supporter) :

Don't understand. 
 

I have no opinion at all about the Puritan work ethic. I couldn't care less about imposing that on anyone. But I enjoy my job. 
 

Are you saying that we need some sort of government handout to be happy?  I'm really happy not sucking on that teat any more than I have to. 

I have been far down that long dark road. Dealing with unemployment and heavy debt and the fear that money for food and rent isn't going to come and that at my age things are just going to get harder. I talked to therapists and hotlines and all kinds of experts. I had two bouts of unemployment in the last four years. One bout only lasted a day, but only because I never stopped moving long enough to worry about my situation. I broke the speed limit and several traffic laws to get to an interview on time less that 12 hours after getting canned. It was a crazy time for me. The car's battery only started the car occasionally and the nursing home kept calling me about Mom's bill. 

I remember the story of a martial arts instructor I once knew about a problem student who was fed up with his instruction, fed up with everybody else in the dojo and just generally fed up with life to the point that he wanted to escape by putting a gun in his mouth. The instructor told him bluntly that if that is the way you feel, then to just leave. The student walked towards the back door. The instructor said, "Stop. That isn't your door". The student, confused, walked towards the front of the building and grabbed the door handle. "Stop", said the instructor. "That is not your door either." Looking around, the frustrated student looked around the corner to the fire escape and headed in that direction. "Stop!" said the instructor again shaking his head. "That is not your door!".  "There is no way out of this life that brings us to another world or another dimension that we know of.  In this world. In this reality. There is no door that leads anywhere else.  We are stuck here with each other. Now sit down and let's deal with this reality. 

I could put a gun in my mouth, but that the woman I love would be devastated. My four dogs would probably end up living in at the city shelter crying for me every night until they got euthanized.  Nobody adopts dogs as old and messed up as they are. The Miata sitting in my driveway not running would probably end up in a wrecking yard and everything else in my home that I have ever loved would probably go straight into a dumpster. My friends and relatives would cry at my funeral. Everybody I love would be upset. But my creditors wouldn't care less. They would file my death certificate and write off my debt and close the file. My house and cars would be sold off to pay what I owed and nobody in the transactions would care who owned any of it or what it meant to them. Just papers in a file. Numbers in a ledger. 

I was then asked what would happen if the unemployment ran out, or if unemployment was denied and I couldn't pay my credit card bill. There would be nasty phone calls from collection agencies and my credit rating would crash. What else? Not much. I would still be alive. I could enjoy a cheap meal at McDonalds. What if my house was foreclosed on. What if I went bankrupt. What if I had to move into a tiny apartment. What if I ended up homeless. What if. What if. What if. 

Look for another job. Look for other ways to make money. Pay what you can. Take one day at a time. Take one problem at a time. It's better than blowing your way into who knows where. There may be a heaven or a hell but there is no sense of going there before it is your time. Put your head down. Keep moving. Stop worrying. Deal with one problem at a time, then the next and the next and so on. I went forward and things got better. 

The world sucks right now. You can lose your job or you can get the Coronavirus. You can even get fired and infected on the same day. It's dognuts crazy right now. Don't believe its not. I have seen a lot of crazy stuff in the last few years. 

We may not all be in this together but I think we all have the same fears. Fears of losing jobs, of getting sick, of not being able to pay bills. I may be stark raving crazy. Some people think I am. Who knows. The only thing that allowed me to survive these first 60 or so years is to just keep my head down and keep going no matter what. Stop worrying and start moving forward....or backward or somewhere. Once you get back up again, you start to get a rhythm going and then you are like a sled dog, not trying to predict the future anymore, but just wanting to see what is around the next bend.  

The0retical (Forum Supporter) said:

The issue is that a lot of people don't seem to know where the line is in a social contract.

That difference of opinion could probably be diagrammed out as a simple urban/rural divide.  It really is two different cultures, and different priorities.  You tend to take it more seriously when you live in an apartment block.  Or, say, for instance, your next door neighbor's patio is 20 feet away from you and he spends his evenings outside hacking and coughing and spitting now that the weather is decent.  (Man I wish I could close my bedroom window, but it's freakin' hot in there if I do not)

That requires the government needs to step in with rules and regulations which usually further pisses those people off who don't know where the line is.

You mean like coal-rollers causing the EPA to have to crack down on everybody?  Yeah.  It's like that.

In reply to Snowdoggie :

I am cautiously optimistic but I have been on the "eat twice a week and couch surf when you can't sleep in your car" plan before.  It sucked but I pulled through.  I actually have $5k in the bank right now, which is more money than I have ever had in my life.  I also have $5k in revolving debt (berking Volvo engine failure over the winter...) but this just means if things go south I have a cash stash to make minimum payments on that revolving credit for a time while I weather things.  Which I have had to do before, too.

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to The0retical (Forum Supporter) :

Don't understand. 
 

I have no opinion at all about the Puritan work ethic. I couldn't care less about imposing that on anyone. But I enjoy my job. 
 

Are you saying that we need some sort of government handout to be happy?  I'm really happy not sucking on that teat any more than I have to. 

No, not to the extent that everyone should have their every need catered to anyway. Hard work should be rewarded, but hard work isn't necessarily what drives someones social mobility in our current system.

What I'm saying is that there are various items in a strong social safety net which provide a way for a larger proportion of the citizenry to find fulfillment in their work rather than being chained to work to meet their basic needs.

Things like decoupling increasingly expensive healthcare from a job for instance has shown that it can make people much happier and productive as they don't need to continue to engage in work they find to be complete drudgery for fear of going bankrupt from a unexpected medical bill. There's also societal effects like allowing a partner in an abusive relationship to leave without fear of losing medical insurance. Something that does happen.

UBI we could debate a bit. I cited some studies but they're fairly small scale compared to seeing what the effects would be on a whole country. The premise does seem to be solid however.

The current climate of austerity as the solution to economic problems is simply creating more economic problems and is putting more pressure on those who are already on the edge.

I'm pretty nonplused about people who are making a bit more on unemployment than they would otherwise. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of money being spent on industries which the sun was already setting on before COVID-19. (Ironically the unemployment assistance in the stimulus bill seems to have been predicated on a $15/hr wage, but that's a different topic.)

It's not as much about a handout as it is positioning the country to meet, or enable the meeting of, a good portion of the bottom two layers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for as much of the populace as possible. That's really how I view the role of government.

In reply to The0retical (Forum Supporter) :

Not sure how to respond. 
 

That sounds very educated. Institutional. Lofty. 
 

I'm a simple guy.  I help people, they get better. 
 

The value of work as I see it is that it sets people free. It gives them control of their destiny. 
 

Government does the opposite. It controls.  Without limit. The best way to control people is to make them think your goal is benevolence, and make them think what is best for them is to willingly give up their freedoms to receive your benevolence. 
 

I received unemployment only once in my life. It was degrading, humiliating. They forced me to do things that made no sense to receive the pittance they offered. They insulted me, and made me take training classes to become more of the person they wanted (even though I was expert at the skills they made me train in). They logged my time, and tracked my whereabouts. They failed to help me get a single job interview, or assist me in any way. They offered me only 22% of what I had made in my job.  I quit receiving unemployment when I had exhausted only half of the benefits due me, because I couldn't stand how degraded I felt. The "safety net" was full of thorns and thistles.  I will never suck off that teat again. 

I accept, however, that some people need that form of support, and am more than happy to give.

However, I think government is a bad mommy.  That form of support is better administered by churches and non-profits.  So I support them (very well).

I'm not sure why this has anything to do with COVID, but you asked, so I answered. 

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to The0retical (Forum Supporter) :

 

 

However, I think government is a bad mommy.  That form of support is better administered by churches and non-profits.  So I support them (very well).

So you would rather have an organization controlled by wealthy donors in charge of all of us than an organization controlled by the voters. 

There is no way you will convince me that this is a good idea. It's actually sounds Anti-American.

In reply to Snowdoggie :

What organization did I name controlled by wealthy donors?

The organization I spent a decade volunteering for was Habitat for Humanity.  The average donation is about $20. Perhaps you have contributed.  
 

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Snowdoggie :

What organization did I name controlled by wealthy donors?

The organization I spent a decade volunteering for was Habitat for Humanity.  The average donation is about $20. Perhaps you have contributed.  
 

All organizations that take donations are controlled by their biggest donors.

I wonder how these people plan to get it on later?  It reminds me of that scene in one of the naked gun movies with the full body condoms.

Cotton said:

 

I wonder how these people plan to get it on later?  It reminds me of that scene in one of the naked gun movies with the full body condoms.

They look kind of like body bags.