I’m glad Contagion didn’t start with a bug that killed like 1%, then mutated and came back over the summer killing 50%. Because just about everything other than the death rate in Contagion is spot on. Oh yeah and the incompetent executive branch. That’s a plot twist no disaster movie has ever seen coming.
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Don’t underestimate the value of bodyweight squats and lunges. Compound movements are fitness gold, and I think like 100 BW squats done quickly will give you more cardio benefit than jogging slowly on a treadmill.
My turn.
I’m going to rehab/PT twice a week currently after having hip surgery a month ago to fix and injury and underlying bone issue. I can do most of the exercises at home, but they also doing a bunch of physical manipulation/massage while I’m there to stretch and mobilize the joint. While they are very good about sanitizing everything in between each patient, it’s obviously still a risk. There are usually one or two other patients there at the same time. Do I stop going now and accept the likely setback in progress? I’m leaning towards yes.
Eta: I’m otherwise 100% on lockdown, not leaving my house. So going would jeopardize the efforts I’m making in that regard.
Is it reasonable to think the April 15 tax deadline will be extended?
IANAE, but this seems right to me. Obviously measured GDP falls when restauarants, etc. shut down, but it’s also the case that consumption of restaurant, etc. services shut down. The things that need to happen are:
- Shifting financial resources from people like me (who are still getting paid but are cooking all of our meals at home and not incurring any leisure expenses) to people who aren’t getting paid and still need to pay rent and eat. Tax-financed UBI would work just fine here.
- Make sure that all the idled productive infrastructure (both physical capital and organizational relationships/businesses/etc) are there when people get back to work so we can step back up to production when people are ready to consume. I’m not really concerned about airlines and hotels–even if they go bankrupt, they’re not going to liquidate. Restaurants and bars, though, will just vanish if they have 3 or 6 months of no sales, and it will not be trivial to piece them back together, although maybe this is the magic of private entrepreneurship.
- Real estate/industrial construction is another potential special case. If people with under-construction projects can’t finish construction or can’t draw on their construction loans, they’ll go bankrupt and you’ll be left with half-built buildings owned by banks, which is not great. That’s a hard one to solve politically though, since the beneficiaries are so unsympathetic.
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I would be surprised if it wasnt.
Man, with this and the IRS being severely underfunded/undedstaffed, this country is going to lose a A TON of money to tax fraud this year
The idiots in my neighborhood are responding to canceled school by…getting all the kids together to play. So I have to explain to my kids why they don’t get to participate.
OHIO
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Gyms are pretty gross germ repositories in the best of times.
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the united states is barely testing people, vegas was open all weekend, magic kingdom had nuts to butts crowds, NYC is shutting down, we have no idea how many people in the country have it right now
but y’all want to go to the gym and play poker. can you just drive past the gym and off the nearest bridge next time for the sake of all of us
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Meanwhile…
https://twitter.com/DaveCoIon/status/1239570548486799362
De Blasio the most tone deaf person in America?
Wtf I thought all these places closed days ago
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Unemployment goes up 1%, 40K Americans die. I’m sure there are similar ratios in other countries, although perhaps way less severe. Maybe that’s the disconnect between Americans here who appear to be selfishly considering the economy and the rest of the world who is looking at us like “WTF, yo, millions of people are going to die!”
Here, ones ability to stay alive is STRONGLY correlated to having money and income. Our unemployment benefits suck, our healthcare system sucks, our social safety net sucks. So far the bill that hasn’t even been passed yet is only going to guarantee two weeks of paid sick leave to 20% of employees. Companies with more than 500 employees are not required to follow it.
So, like, 80% of workers could be totally fucked, and that’s also only two weeks, not a month or two. 40% of Americans have no emergency fund… So .4 * .8 = 32% that are totally fucked right off the bat, going to credit if they have any. That’s a $400 emergency fund, by the way. So a big percentage of the rest are fucked in like a week.
So when we analyze the economic impact, it’s directly correlated to a large loss of life.
Just because in most European countries there is not so much of a death toll tied to an economic collapse, just some financial hardship or quality of life reductions, that’s not the case here.
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Prolonged exposure seems to be a huge key.
Imagine being mayor of the largest city in American and going to the gym at 11 AM in the middle of the largest public health crisis, maybe ever.
At least make sure you wear work-out gloves (and of course don’t touch your face). Virus should be able to live on barbells for quite a while and many gym wipes won’t kill virus.
I’d also immediately change/shower after returning.
In other news, the commuter parking lot next door to my apartment is completely full, even more so than usual.
There is a horrendous impact though–people can’t eat at restaurants, go to concerts, travel, have their kids educated, see the doctor for non-emergency procedures, etc. It’s a big fucking deal.
You are right though–it’s kind of a live demo of Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren. You don’t have to work as hard, and you’ll get by (at least the fortunate among us), but you can’t have a lot of the nonessentials. I also wonder whether people would want to go back to business as usual after living that way for a few months. I mean, in real life, there’s going to be no social assistance, so we’ll probably spiral into some kind of severe recession, and we’ll be desperate for normalcy, but in theory it would be interesting to see.
When exactly do you thing respiratory viruses will stop being a thing we should worry about?
I went to the gym Saturday and was paranoid the whole time. Not sure if I’m going back but I expect it to be closed soon anyway.
I looked at some bench presses on Amazon but of course the only decent ones are expensive and huge and will my floor even support I dunno. Not gonna go that route. I have an exercise bike and can do situps and pushups and maybe pick up some dumbells or something.