New coronavirus in/from China

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 05 May 2020, 14:09

fuzzy wrote:
Of the 1.5 million the gov claims are necessary to do nothing, [because the mekon brains say so] maybe 1/2 - 1 million will be below 68 [our brave new world retiring age]. They will be told they are unemployable by the gov, based on made up science, without an antibody test that might show they may have already had batflu, and it was jackshit. Maybe 500000 will receive no welfare if they are a couple with one still working. At least they won't have to visit job centres for a while.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/28/number-h ... -12622798/

What do they plan to do about those that "need shielding" that have healthy family members living with them. Force one or the other to find new housing? Keep the whole family on lockdown?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 05 May 2020, 14:12

vtsnowedin wrote:US unemployment for March was 16.1 percent but does not include those stilll being paid under the PPP payroll protection program. The numbers are still coming in but if you close all non essential business and send their employees home all those that can't telework are unemployed that day no matter what you call it.
Every sit down restaurant both chain lines and family owned business are closed and will never reopen profitably so will soon be filing bankruptcy as will the owners of the real estate they occupied. Every hotel and vacation spot is closed and will never turn a profit again, All airports and all their staff have taken 70 percent reductions in flights and the need for services. Meat packing plants are closing along with other links in the food distribution system. Farmers are dumping milk and burying eggs and crops. Gas is less then $2.00 a gallon but no one has anywhere to drive to that is open. No domestic oil driller can make money at the current price of oil so are laying off staff.
Significant adjustments indeed!

Nobody wants to see massive job losses, but not all of those outcomes are bad - in particular with respect to airlines, meat packing and fracking for oil....
Hopefully in time, some/most of those jobs can be replaced with other jobs in battery technologies, vegetable packaging plants and producing renewable energy...
Significant adjustments indeed !

boisdevie · Post by **boisdevie** » 05 May 2020, 14:29

Mark wrote: Hopefully in time, some/most of those jobs can be replaced with other jobs in battery technologies, vegetable packaging plants and producing renewable energy...

Meanwhile here on planet reality.......

Hope is not a plan. Should I plant a garden or just 'hope' everything works out for the best?

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 05 May 2020, 14:41

You should always hope for the best but plan for, and act against, the worst.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 05 May 2020, 15:12

Mark wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:US unemployment for March was 16.1 percent but does not include those stilll being paid under the PPP payroll protection program..........................No domestic oil driller can make money at the current price of oil so are laying off staff.
Significant adjustments indeed!
Nobody wants to see massive job losses, but not all of those outcomes are bad - in particular with respect to airlines, meat packing and fracking for oil....
Hopefully in time, some/most of those jobs can be replaced with other jobs in battery technologies, vegetable packaging plants and producing renewable energy...
Significant adjustments indeed !

I agree, Mark. We have had a climate emergency for a decade or more but no one has done anything about it because "we can't afford it" and anyway "it is several decades down the line. We have plenty of time to address it later."

Meanwhile we have been, in the UK at least, increasing our population by uncontrolled immigration, increasing our GDP and using more energy and not bothering about food security because we can always buy from abroad. All political parties have been supporting this line backed by their supporters in industry and finance.

So now we have the result of human beings going into overshoot and destroying the environment upon which we rely to live healthily; a true pandemic, probably the first of many. It is forcing us to close our endeavours down and luckily it is impinging on the one's which we can least afford environmentally, the oil industry, airlines and the tourist industry. Rather than lamenting the loss of jobs in those industries now is the time to find those people work in other more useful industries. The government is moving along those lines as shown by this ministerial answer to an MP's question

Unfortunately the Minister's title, the Minister for Clean Growth, rather shows that they haven't quite got the whole message yet that exponential growth is a bad thing and leads to unacceptable situations just like with the growth in the coronavirus outbreak. Hopefully that message might filter through eventually.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 05 May 2020, 15:57

boisdevie wrote:
Mark wrote: Hopefully in time, some/most of those jobs can be replaced with other jobs in battery technologies, vegetable packaging plants and producing renewable energy...
Meanwhile here on planet reality.......

Hope is not a plan. Should I plant a garden or just 'hope' everything works out for the best?

TBH nobody really has a clue.

* Will everything back back to normal soonish?

* Or will we see Wave #2 when we lift lockdown (It took 26 days for the bug to return after the lockdown was lifted in Japan)

* Will our employers, customers, suppliers, industries still be there in a few weeks time?

* More subtly, will all those key personal work contacts still be there?

* Will anyone have any money to spend on anything?

* Will all those Chinese products such as car tyres still be available?

* Will other countries have the time or inclination to deal with foreign countries such as the UK?

* Will there be food shortages?

* If (when?) it becomes clear than we should expect multiple waves of the bug and that whatever happens the economy is broken, what will all those people expecting/hoping for a prompt return to normal do?

Even if a medication or vaccine arrives tomorrow, life will be tough for months. Without a 'cure' the death rate could climb to silly numbers and most of us will know people who have died .. and not all will be old fogies, some will be friends, business people etc.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 05 May 2020, 17:06

A leaked internal White House report predicts the daily death toll from the virus will reach about 3,000 on 1 June, almost double the current tally of about 1,750, the New York Times revealed on Monday.

Via The Gruaniad and the NYT :

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper ... top#page=1

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 05 May 2020, 17:25

Even the Republicans are campaigning against Trump now.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 05 May 2020, 17:52

Vortex2 wrote:
A leaked internal White House report predicts the daily death toll from the virus will reach about 3,000 on 1 June, almost double the current tally of about 1,750, the New York Times revealed on Monday.
Via The Gruaniad and the NYT :

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper ... top#page=1

I don't know which of the two models in the news today is more laughable. The one from the white house calling for 134,000 deaths by August which will probably be low if the current trend continues or this new "Un vetted leak which predicts a severe upward change. If that one is a deliberate leak (I don't know as the Trump white house is that clever) it might be setting a target that when numbers fall short Trump can call a victory. He has continually bid low and lost so perhaps he is changing tactics. Or it might be NYT and DNC whipping up fear to keep the Democratic governors in line thinking all continued bad conditions will fall on Trump if they beat that drum enough.
If I had to bet the rent I'd place my bet on both models being far wrong.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 05 May 2020, 18:27

Meanwhile, a poll of Britons suggests that four out of five are against opening up at least the school and social side of the lockdown.

Looks like LJ has abandoned us in favour of Facebook. He seems to have more friends there.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 05 May 2020, 20:11

kenneal - lagger wrote:Meanwhile, a poll of Britons suggests that four out of five are against opening up at least the school and social side of the lockdown.

Looks like LJ has abandoned us in favour of Facebook. He seems to have more friends there.

Don't be so childish Ken. It's not a good look.

Post by **clv101** » 05 May 2020, 20:12

Looks like we're in the process of fluffing up contact tracing. Yet more British exceptionalism. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.ther ... virus_app/

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 05 May 2020, 20:31

clv101 wrote:Looks like we're in the process of fluffing up contact tracing. Yet more British exceptionalism. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.ther ... virus_app/

The NIH (Not Invented here) syndrome has always annoyed me.

A quick phone call to Google or South Korea would have sufficed.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 05 May 2020, 20:32

Latest HMG data as at 5 May

As of 9am on 5 May, there have been 1,383,842 tests, with 84,806 tests on 4 May.

1,015,138 people have been tested, of whom 194,990 tested positive.

As of 5pm on 4 May, of those tested positive for coronavirus in the UK, 29,427 have died. This new figure includes deaths in all settings, not just in hospitals. The equivalent figure under the old measure would have been 24,735.

7-day moving average new cases daily data seems to have levelled off at around 4900 a day.

Despite a daily uptick in the raw data, 7-day moving average hospital deaths is still dropping steadily and smoothly. Currently at about 480, dropping by about 30 per day.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 05 May 2020, 20:48

The White House coronavirus task force will start to wind down later this month, a senior White House official told CNN on Tuesday.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/05/poli ... index.html