@CometKeith here's the article I read. This is from the U.N. :
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/...hreats-coronavirus-economic-downturn-n1189326
This paragraph boils it down:
"As a result of the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent economic ramifications, the food agency found an additional 130 million people could be on the brink of starvation by the end of the year. The working poor would be hit the hardest as a result of the decline in tourism and exports, collapse of oil prices and any declines to foreign aid."
My point for sharing that was that politicians who simplify these policy decisions with "if we save one life, it's worth it" or "economic hardship is not death" are deflecting from the full picture. Destroying the economy of the entire country is in fact NOT worth saving one life, even if it were true or possible. But the reality is, for many people economic hardship IS death. In some parts of the world that means people may starve to death. That's the ripple effect of the decisions that are being made. It's so easy to say "stay home save lives" but what if you learned that everyone staying home is actually costing other people THEIR lives? The narrative gets a little muddier. Aren't we then saying "well, SOME lives are more important to save than others"?
Are you advocating just to open things up and let people die?
Every media outlet would have you believe that those are the only two choices - either we stay in lockdown, or people die. But no one ever said that this lockdown policy would be able to stop people from getting sick. And if people get sick, some will die. Somehow we went from "flatten the curve" to "eradicate the virus". The first was doable - the second is not feasible. I think we definitely need to get back to work, in ways that keep people AS SAFE AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. And because we are humans, there is only so much we can do. (And by the way, there are lots of reports that say that Illinois HAS flattened the curve. Now the say we need to "bend it". Keep moving the goal line and we'll never be "successful".)
Something like 35,000 people die every year in car accidents We've ALL known someone who died in a car crash, maybe even a family member. Maybe an older person, maybe even a child. We're all vulnerable in a car. We know getting in a car carries those risks. And yet we do it. We do everything we can to mitigate the risks, to make cars as safe as possible and every year we learn a bit more about how to protect people from dying in accidents. But we don't say "until we can GUARANTEE that no one dies, we will cease all automobile traffic". That's all I'm saying. Do the best we can, but allow people to assess the risk for themselves. Now some people are so afraid of being killed in a car accident that they won't get in a car - that's fine. Entirely their choice. The same goes for the virus - if your decision is that the risk isn't worth the potential that you may get sick, then stay home. But don't expect everyone else to assess the risk and come to the same conclusion that you did. I can carry the analogy one step further - people say "well if we allow people to choose, they will end up infecting and killing other people". The same can be said for my car analogy - some people choose to drive recklessly or drive impaired and end up injuring or killing other people. We STILL allow people to choose, because we have determined that the benefits of travel by car outweigh the risks that will NEVER completely go away. The risk of getting sick from this virus will NEVER completely go away as long as we have humans coming in contact with other humans.
Once the curve goes down and they can do massive testing and contact tracing things will be a lot better
And that's exactly what I was alluding to in my previous comment - the message is now "we need more testing - THEN we can open the economy". Testing does one thing - it allows health officials to see potential hot spots. It doesn't stop people from getting sick. And who are we going to test - every single human every single day? Because you can be clean today and infected tomorrow. Unless we develop a test that is A. 100% accurate and B. gives you instant results it's only giving you information after the fact - by the time you get that positive test you've already infected (the numbers say) three other people. And those three have each infected three... and so on.
People have more money in the bank? Sure. Some people do. We, in fact, do as well. But that's the point - that's money that we would have spent at businesses who provide jobs so OTHER people can ALSO have money in the bank. I'm sure an extra $600 a month in unemployment is helpful, but I know a whole lot of people who take pride in supporting their own families. A government check isn't the same as working to earn a living. And I really don't think it can be considered a positive thing that
some people are not that interested in going back to work.
That's exactly what some politicians hope will happen - more people dependent on a government check every month means more people who will vote to keep those in power who will make sure they keep getting that check. That should never be the goal. But one politician even went on record as saying that people should simply refuse to go back to work. There's some sound advice for you. And now some politicians are supporting the idea of sending everyone $2000 a month. Pay people to stay home. Listen, I'm no math genius but even I know that's hardly sustainable. Unless you keep printing money that has less and less value every minute. So much for your money in the bank.
I don't think there are any easy answers and we just all need to keep doing the right thing.
We can definitely agree on the first part. But reasonable people can disagree about what 'the right thing" actually is.
Here's a quote from the Dr. Ezike, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health from April 20:
"If you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it's still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone who's listed as a COVID death doesn't mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of the death." Dr. Ezike outlined.
Is that right or wrong? I'll argue that's a flagrant attempt to inflate the numbers. Why would they want to do that? What public policy decisions are served by that approach?
Here's another decision I would question - in New York, nursing homes were forced to admit patients who tested positive for Covid-19. Introducing the virus into a population that has been identified as the MOST vulnerable. And that's a policy decision that was made by one of those people who is telling the rest of us to "do the right thing".
Sorry
@CometKeith - that was long! I appreciate the open discourse. I don't doubt for a minute that you want what's best for our country - I hope you know that I feel the same way.
