That’s a good thing. It’s called being prepared and shows that all of the SAH and social distancing in CA worked well. I would much rather be over prepared in a pandemic than under prepared (like we were in Feb/March)
/where I work hasn’t finished peaking yet. It is at peak now and will be for a while longer. We are supposed to go to school to clean our classrooms for year end. I don’t understand not waiting until after the peak.
Other countries don’t get better results in overall healthcare outcomes. The US compares very well on statistics such as 5-year survival rates for cancer.
Which will reduce economic activity, because when their kids are burdened with caregiving to parents who need nursing care, the kids may be spending their time being less productive (in an economic sense) than they would be if they continued to work in jobs that they would be more productive in.
Not sure who the “we” is but the airports in my area are fine. The airports and much of the infrastructure in NY is a mess because of long term government mismanagement. Doesn’t seem like a smart idea to hand the exact people who’ve continually wasted all that taxpayer money even more money to waste. Get rid of the Port Authority and put that out to bid and you’d see an immediate improvement in the NY airports. You can’t have nice things because you’ve put too many critical systems in the hands of fat bureaucrats.
For comparable government spending and much higher government + private spending, the US is not doing any better (and is doing probably worse) overall compared to other rich countries, even if the US is doing better on a few measures: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/
I had blood drawn for an antibodies test today. The most time-consuming part of the experience was finding a parking spot. The test was done at the outpatient lab for the U.W. Hospital Outpatient Clinic, which is part of the hospital building. Everyone entering the building is required to wear a mask. I went through a very brief Q&A screening at the front entrance, had my temperature taken (normal, no fever), checked in at the registration desk, and waited five minutes or so at the lab itself to get a chair and have the blood drawn.
I wonder… if so many more people are working from home, and are more flexible in how they spend their time… I wonder if weekend evenings will lose some of their allure for socializing purposes. Why fight the crowds on Saturday night when you can go out Wednesday night instead?
I don’t think most people are lying.
Look at the people just on this board. Lots of talk about buying stuff, granted it’s mostly groceries. But others things people are buying online are mentioned pretty often. Big uptick in people at nurseries getting shrubs and trees and vegetables to plant.
If people are traveling - hotels aren’t seeing them and neither are the airlines. They are cutting routes and mothballing planes.
Then there are the shopping stats. I was talking to my neighbor yesterday (properly social distanced of 30 ftish, because I paid bills on Tuesday. My discretionary spending has gone down to zero and she said the same things. We could both afford to be shopping a lot, but why? We aren’t going anywhere besides our back yards.
Then there is the data.
“Retail sales tumbled in every category except online shopping, the government said Friday. Sales also sank by a revised 8.3% in March, easily marking the worst back-to-back declines in modern American history.
Economists polled by MarketWatch expected a 12.5% plunge.”
Drunk driver may kill a few people. One person passing on this virus will kill many more than that.
We had to get some things from DS’s school and saw lots of young people sitting outside with no social distancing. There were people walking with masks and being careful but there were multiple very large groups of young people who are not following current state guidelines. Makes me feel less like watching to chance eating in the restaurants surrounding the area where these young people were congregating.
I can’t judge any individual person, not knowing their life circumstances. However, it is true that increased social interaction = increased spread. If the RO isn’t below 1 we are going to have increased cases. Those who didn’t follow the request to stay home when they could blew it for the rest of us. Those who rush out to congregate and end up passing on the virus in places where courts overruled science-backed recommendations are spreadign the virus. Those young people I saw today could easily be spreading the virus and killing others as a result. I didn’t get mad but I got concerned. I wondered if I should call the police and inform them they might want to patrol there as the groups are out in broad daylight. However, I think that having them move from that spot will result in them just going elsewhere and doing the same. Being outside is less likely to spread
Oh, yes they do get better results in many areas. We may do as well on cancer survival but are doing much worse in such basics as life expectancy, child mortality or childbirth deaths (the only developed nation where it’s steadily RISING)
20% of your customers provide 80% of your revenue is the kind of statistic I’ve seen a lot. And people not yet ready to go out to restaurants today might be ready in a few weeks. The early adopters will get things started.
I would hate for this thread to devolve into a discussion of US vs. Utopian health care, can’t see any way for that to end well or inform anyone of how the fight about Covid is going in different areas.
Nothing wrong with the airport in my area! It’s wonderful.
I know we’re part of a large organization that has tracked all of our purchases since the latter 80s. At that time it was Nielson. It’s since changed its name, but I believe it’s still owned by the same folks.
We often do polls for them too.
Now I’m wondering if I’m one of those 4/5 and if they got it totally from a poll or the poll just substantiated the data they’re seeing from our (collective) shopping habits.
I know they send us occasional updates on how we compare to others and we’re quite normal at the moment. A fair number of times we spend less than normal. For “us” we’re spending more than normal on groceries now considering there are 5 of us eating here. We’re not really spending on other things though - just groceries and take out. Add plants and some seeds for the farm plus the typical pony wormers. Then add middle son’s and H’s birthday board games that we bought locally from a closed shop (bought them via a phone call and did curbside pick up). Those would be the only “luxuries” I can think of. No more are planned anytime in the near future. My birthday isn’t until August.
SFO is just fine thank you. The new Harvey Milk terminal, the BART connection, the off site auto rentals and the parking works well.
We arrived at JFK and my thought was ‘what a poo show’. No way would SFO or SJC allow such a backup of cars. Parking in the no-parking zones, complete disregard for the traffic control officers who were trying to get people to move their cars. Fully blocked lanes going past the arrivals terminal.
You so much as put it into park for more than 60 seconds at either SFO or SJC while waiting for a passenger and you will received a warning and strict orders to move it along
It was a WOW moment.
@Creekland – we’ve also seen a huge drop in spending. Yes, we spend more on groceries. But less on “stuff,” gas and eating out, even though we do get take out at least twice a week – those drinks, beers or glasses of wine do add up when you’re eating in the restaurants. Birthday gifts also proved to be less expensive than usual, since we usually take kids out to a nice restaurant and as gifts, help fund trips for both of them. No traveling this summer, so daughter got a sleeping bag/pad for backpacking; son got some new cookware. I could get used to this aspect of stay-in-place…
A lot of what the link is measuring is overall age-adjusted mortality, which is a ridiculous measure of healthcare quality. To begin to compare overall mortality rates between countries, you would need to control at a minimum for differences in exercise, diet, obesity, and tobacco/drug/alcohol use.
I do our budget and the amount we can save now by not traveling (for pleasure and H for work - gas costs) is sort of amazing. I always knew it was there, of course, and we’ve had to use that $$ elsewhere during the last economic downturn, but it’s still amazing to my mind when it comes to paying the cc bills (since we buy most things on cc for the rewards).
To date I’ve been donating the extra to causes we want to support. So far this month I’m (mostly) holding off to see if the economy comes back on its own with opening up places.
I don’t pretend to predict the future. I watch it and act according to what seems best and aligns with how we want our $$ used.
Beer bread. No yeast.
I seem to remember just a few days ago someone specifically mentioned they were planning to go to Hawaii, that they had plenty of time to sit through the quarantine, etc. After some reactions and pushback, either that plan has now changed or - as I suggested - people are just being quiet about their plans.