News COVID-19 pandemic

[4throck]

Same here regarding renters. No one to be evicted for none payment of rent for three months.

I'm curious - after 3 months you still have to pay what's due, right ?

 

[gattispilot]

I don't get the stubborn U.S. resistance to testing. And lack of big data to integrate all that demographic/location data. So much for high tech..

It's like they don't want anyone to get tested.

I think it is they don't have the supplies (mask/gown,....per test) for everyone now. Maybe in future. But right now they are really only testing first responders,... and the elderly that may have a fever.

 

[4throck]

But the current measures are rather foolish. Taxes are delayed, no abatement. The government loans have to be repaid after the virus, when the economy is still sorting itself out.

Same here, I guess Europe has something to do with it. My Prime Minister has been talking with your Chancellor, so it's no wonder some measures are the same.

 

[Notebook]

I'm curious - after 3 months you still have to pay what's due, right ?

With quarantine measures and illness likely to force many people out of work in the coming weeks, new legislation is to be introduced to prevent this from leaving those unable to pay their rent homeless.
The legislation is expected to pass through Westminster and be consented to by Holyrood within the coming week.
Here’s everything you need to know about the new legislation.

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman....-work-and-advice-if-you-cant-pay-rent-2503808

From a Scots newspaper, but they are usually reliable!

 

[jedidia]

What is the situation in other countries?

Switzerland has a thing called "Kurzarbeit" (literally translated: short work) which is a standard emergency measure companies can apply for if they have sudden and unexpected work shortage. Rather than having them lay off employees to keep afloat in the short term (which hurts everybody in the long term: THe employees, the company and the state) They can apply for "Kurzarbeit" under certain very strict conditions, which means they can reduce work hours and the state will pay the salary difference for the affected employees.

The conditions for applying have been loosened in face of the current crisis, with "job not being able to reasonably be performed from home" being pretty much the main condition for the time being. So swiss companies should be able to wither a few months if they have enough liquidity to survive the temporary loss of income.

My job, as always in such situations, is unaffected. There's not much difference doing my job from home or from the office, and my workload is related to the length of the backlog (which is... not short), not to incoming orders, so as long as the liquidity holds we'll keep on as usual. The entire technical branch of the company is affected, though.

 

[4throck]

From a Scots newspaper, but they are usually reliable!

Edinburgh, beautiful city!
I use to go to Scotland every summer. I have no personal relation to the land but for some reason I love the culture and scenery.
I like the UK in general, but Scotland is something special.

 

[Notebook]

Edinburgh is a great place to walk around as a city. Long time since I was there.
I live in Northumberland, one of the English border counties, so used to holiday in the local beauty spots as a child.

Went to Isle of Sky and onto Inverness a few years ago. Furthest North I've been, lovely places, but there's always...midges!

 

[Urwumpe]

Edinburgh is a great place to walk around as a city. Long time since I was there.

I wish I could go there one soon day. Just saw a documentary about the history of geology and the role that Edinburgh played there, lots of great pictures of castle rock.



And of course, the Royal Mile always looks beautiful.

 

[Notebook]

Its a unique place, not many capital cities have an extinct volcano nearby?

 

[4throck]

The latest numbers here:
2,060 cases, up 460 (28.74%) from yesterday.
It's starting to grow strong.

---------------
Edinburgh is a must for geology: besides walking up Arthur's Seat check Our Dynamic Earth and the Scottish National Museum (here also look for the Gemini Paraglider!).

 

[Urwumpe]

OK, we just had the first official Corona fatality in town. Stay safe!

Latest official numbers of the RKI:

22.672 cases, up by 4.062 since yesterday, so much to the weekend effect. 86 deaths until midnight.

John Hopkins university reports 26220, but its way of counting isn't very accurate for Germany, they are roughly reporting the numbers of tomorrow + 1000. But tabloids rather use their number here because it is updated more often and produces more bad news to sell.

EDIT: Only good news: The numbers are no longer doubling every three days. We should have been at about 28000 today at the trend of the past week. Still, Hamburg and Bavaria are approaching the limits of their hospitals, with already 51 cases/100.000 citizens in Hamburg, at about 120 it will become dangerous there.

 

[Notebook]

Yes, stay safe to all.

Strange news here. The Government has temporarily suspended all rail franchises and is refunding season ticket purchases for people who don't travel.
Don't know how they'll check that?

 

[GLS]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47xf-qPoRf8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47xf-qPoRf8[/ame]

 

[Frilock]

Wisconsin Governor just issued a stay at home order now. We have 4 deaths and 200 cases as of yesterday. We don't have today's count, but the last time it updated it went up by 100 cases (that's in a day). Just three days ago Gov Evers said he didn't expect to issue the order. I don't know what changed his mind, but I'm expecting to see a sharp increase in confirmed cases today.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

A good article that quite nicely sums up why the current response in the U.S. isn't the right one: https://zerohedge.whotrades.com/blo...f-K497IYY3yWSxJgG4NdZbOaw_0VlWbeFFc3KQo4MG3LE

 

[dbeachy1]

A good article that quite nicely sums up why the current response in the U.S. isn't the right one: https://zerohedge.whotrades.com/blo...f-K497IYY3yWSxJgG4NdZbOaw_0VlWbeFFc3KQo4MG3LE

I've seen that ZeroHedge article floating around. From my perspective, the author’s dismissing the entire world’s aggressive efforts to flatten the curve seems callous to me. This quote from the author sums it up:

It is important to note that in both scenarios, the total number of COVID-19 cases will be similar. “Flattening the curve’s" focus is a shock to the healthcare system which can increase fatalities due to capacity constraints. In the long-term, it isn’t infection prevention. Unfortunately, “flattening the curve” doesn’t include other downsides and costs of execution.

So the author is correctly pointing out that that the goal of flattening the curve via social distancing is to lower the death rate / severe complications from running out of hospital beds / healthcare capacity for severe cases. But one sentence later, the author basically says, “...but that lockdown is not worth doing because of the economic costs of doing it.” From my perspective, life is a balance; i.e., “How much lockdown is necessary to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed?” We will likely have no way to know “what would have happened” if medical experts and governments around the world did not take these aggressive steps to flatten the curve, but personally, I would rather we as a race do err on the side of caution.

It’s easy for the author to argue the world is overdoing the social distancing because it’s too expensive when it’s not the author’s elderly parents dying or having permanent lung damage from COVID-19 due to there being no remaining healthcare capacity to treat them.

To that point: from the U.S Surgeon General today (highlight added):

US surgeon general warns 'this week, it's going to get bad' as hospitals struggle to keep up with sharply increasing coronavirus cases

(CNN) The war against coronavirus has intensified across the country as more workers are laid off, medical supplies dwindle, and authorities plead for Americans to stay home.

"I want America to understand -- this week, it's going to get bad," US Surgeon General Jerome Adams told NBC's "Today" show Monday.

"We really, really need everyone to stay at home. I think that there are a lot of people who are doing the right things, but ... we're finding out a lot of people think this can't happen to them."

That is a direct quote from the U.S. Surgeon General.

 

[jedidia]

A good article that quite nicely sums up why the current response in the U.S. isn't the right one: https://zerohedge.whotrades.com/blog...eFFc3KQo4MG3LE

I do like how he goes into detail with mortality rate per capita to quell panic. I really do. But then he seems to forget that the total tally in the end will not be per capita. It will be one big sad number. And that even if the US has only a fourth of the deaths per capita than italy, the final number will still be larger. His conclusion is basically "screw that number, it's only certain parts of the population, and people should be more scared of the government taking away their liberties". It is this stubborn refusal of accepting the concept of extraordinary circumstances that is difficult to understand for a Swiss.
We value our civil liberties very much, but there is also a strong solidarity in our culture. So strong that Switzerland has the ability to become a temporary planned economy in severe crisis such as war (and has been so during world war 2), and that's something we're willing to accept because we realise that there are times when a population needs to cut back for a while for the greater good. People aren't *happy* about it for sure, but people accept the fact.
Americans seem incredibly, stubbornly opposed to that reality.

 

[Urwumpe]

I do still prefer the way that Merkel sketched out - we are not giving up our liberties, if we can avoid it. We just try to act as reasonable and social as possible. We restrict our liberties ourself for the sake of the liberties of others. Especially the liberty to stay healthy.

I think, that is the difference between democracy and plain anarchic libertarianism. We are not fighting for the freedom of the individual. We fight for the freedom of all citizens, not some nicely relabelled "might makes right". We respect and value each other, care for the other citizens. We take responsibility.

I really wish, more people would think the same. But as with crime, there are also always some, that don't want to be reasonable citizens and care for others - and must be stopped at the point, where they start harming the freedoms of others.

 

[Sunhillow]

Small side note: yesterday a Bavarian group of anti-fascists cautiously praised bavarian prime minister Markus Söder for restricting individual civil rights in order to prevent the social right to stay healthy.
In normal times they really do not like him very much!

 

[jedidia]

Something funny for a change: