Ontario has cancelled all public schools classes for two weeks after March break (basically the next 3 weeks), universities are going online, our stock market is absolutely tanking (TSX fell 12% yesterday).
Hopefully things turn out better but it's not looking good at the moment.
The stock market is funny money. It isn't real. If some breakthrough vaccine was discovered tomorrow it could easily jump back up 25%. It's speculation and emotion...
The stock market is funny money. It isn't real. If some breakthrough vaccine was discovered tomorrow it could easily jump back up 25%. It's speculation and emotion...
Yeah, but there isn't gonna be a vaccine for 12-18 months, minimum.
As a working father, how does this impact you on a daily basis going forward??
My daughter is 12 and trustworthy so I'm not personally concerned (other than I won't be home to make sure she doesn't spend all of her time on YouTube!). I'm pretty informed and have kept her informed so she was already expecting this. I told her yesterday this was probably going to happen. It's funny, if you don't treat your kids like they're fragile China vases, they can be far more mature than most parents realize.
YouTube was the *least* of my concerns when the kids were given access to a computer. Of course, I had a link on *my* computer that would give me access to their browsing history so I could track their activity.
Please be aware that for viruses, in most instances a "vaccine" does not *cure* the infection but only increases the likelihood that you will avoid the worst of the symptoms--you can still catch the flu after receiving that vaccine.
For now, if you were planning on attending any public event in the next two months it is safe to go ahead and assume that it has been canceled or postponed indefinitely. Don't be fooled, though. The event may phrase its cancellation as if it is doing so out of the goodness of its heart or out of concern for the community but the reality is that they are cancelling for liability purposes--they don't want to risk a class-action lawsuit because a dozen people contracted coronavirus at their event then spread it to 500 other people.
There are several reasons vaccines don't provide total protection against viruses:
- the vaccine won't always stimulate an immune response. That tends to happen in up to 5% of cases, but in almost all of those a second vaccine dose will be effective. That's why vaccines often have booster shots (for instance a single measles vaccination protects 95%-97% of recipients, but a second dose increases that to almost 100%).
- someone may already be infected before they are vaccinated.
- in very rare cases an individual's immune system may not be capable of protecting them (due to genetic conditions or radiotherapy treatment for instance).
For the vast majority of people, a vaccination will give full protection against a specific virus. In most cases though vaccinations won't protect against a family of viruses. This is commonly seen in flu where there are 4 main types of virus, with hundreds of different sub-types. Vaccinations only give specific protection against the 3 or 4 sub-types considered most likely to be present in particular areas of the world for that year. However, these vaccinations may also offer partial protection against very similar strains of the virus - that's the situation that @Mathsorcerer describes where you may get flu, but avoid the worst symptoms thanks to that partial protection.
Coronaviruses as a family tend to mutate a lot and that's likely to be the case with Covid-19 as well. Already 2 different main types have been identified, with considerable minor variations within those. If vaccinations were developed using the same approach as with flu it would thus be likely those would not be able to provide complete protection in future. However, there are some different approaches being tried with the aim of developing a more general vaccine rather than one narrowly targeted at a particular virus sub-type. This article provides a bit of information about things being tried.
Netherlands, just like Austria before it, has now also prohibited 100+ people strong events. Both the Czech Republic and Slowakia are now closing their borders for SARS-CoV-2 hotspots (which now includes Germany). And France has now closed all kindergardens and schools - national wide.
The Fraport (Frankfurt Airport), Hesse's second largest employer, now undertakes aggressive cost-cutting measures. Meaning unpaid leaves, no new hires and of course cutting jobs. Lots of cutting jobs. Trump's childish blame shifting ain't helpful for anyone either.
Funny fact: where I live, folks can no longer buy tickets inside busses. They can't even enter the bus from the driver's side as a precaution. Ticket controls? What's that? Can you eat it?
Here, in Bulgaria, it's now a state of emergency till March, 29. What it means:
- all schools/other education buildings are closed;
- all shopping centres are closed;
- all restaurants are closed;
- all employees must work remotely;
- no mass gatherings;
- all women's consultation, prophylactic inspections, planned operations are stopping.
Only pharmacies and food shops are staying open. What it means in reality, for me: just today (the decision about the emergency was taken at 3pm, I was in the optic shop today at 10am) I ordered contact lenses for the next 4 months, which were scheduled for delivery on Monday. But now I find out that the shop would be closed till March, 29 (and imagine they can very well continue the state of emergency after that). So there is a real risk of me going with poor eyesight very soon.
As of two days ago, school's closed down, and large gatherings aren't happening. I'll be surprised if local schools don't decide to "extend spring break" at this point. Even social services are "talking" about shutting down. My family's mental health team are talking about video meetings. I REALLY hope its video meetings and not just shutting down.
Took long enough, now if both sides AND YES I MEAN BOTH SIDE BOTH DEMS AND REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN TRIVIALIZING THIS, can stop lying and tossing dirt on each other for 90 seconds, maybe we can take control and avoid some of the worse case scenario, I've been seeing (no article this time sorry) that the virus is definitely going to hit if it already hasn't up to 160 million in the U.S.
US Population 2019 – 329.6712 Million (Estimated)...
Too many people like to down play it regardless whether or not to cause a panick, ignoring that is just as dangerous as ovrrhyping it as the end of the world.
But the fact of the matter is, if rather see us over prepared for it than underprepared. One of those two have higher life loss, regardless of age.
In the US, we are still about 10 days out from the shit hitting the fan. And it's just lulling people into a false sense of complacency every 24 hours.
It's interesting that the UK is out of step with most other countries in the preparation work being done for Covid-19. For instance the government has not decided on any school closures or public event bans as yet (though a lot of organisations have made those sorts of decisions for themselves). The rationale for that I think goes something like this:
- Covid-19 is likely to establish itself as an endemic disease. That means this won't just be a single outbreak, but it will recur in the future in the same way as flu.
- at present there's no guarantee that a vaccination program will offer an easy or effective solution to the disease. The alternative way to provide protection in the future is therefore to rely on herd immunity - as a result of most people already having had it.
- the plan therefore is not aimed at preventing people getting the disease, quite the reverse. The intention though is to delay the natural spread of the disease in order to avoid the sort of sudden peak in cases that would overwhelm the health service - disrupting general services and meaning that there would not be enough resources (such as ventilators) to help the most serious Covid-19 cases.
The intention is therefore to gradually ramp up preventative measures over time as a way of flattening out the natural peak in cases. That requires close monitoring of the progress of the disease in the general population.
In a political sense, this is a high risk strategy. If the disease progresses more quickly than anticipated and does cause considerable disruption, the plan will most certainly come in for considerable criticism. However, for the time being I support what's being done. Information provided has been pretty clear and consistent and I think it's admirable that the government is working closely with scientific advisers to tackle the crisis rather than working against them. I also think it's good that the plan is not only considering what happens over the next few weeks and months, but also considering how that affects what happens in future years.
As for Germany: a good chunk of its federal states has ordered the closure of KITA's and schools starting next Monday. Kids will require video chat tutorings at home for at least past the Eastern holidays (April 18th). This of course bodes to be a nightmare for working parents: can't just thrust your children to the grandparents since they are part of the vulnerable group of the virus.
We are also having closed cinemas, museums, zoos and even parts of the agency for labor all stopping in the wake of COVID-19. Oh, and the Bundesliga (German soccer league) has ceased all of its tournaments. Guess the burden of not having any stadium spectators was too great for them.
Some federal states even prohibited events with 75+ people now.
With the NHL season paused, the goalie of the Florida Panthers is donating $100,000 to PT workers at BB&T arena, the rest of the team will match that and the ownership will foot the rest.
Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers did the same for the PTs at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
It is good to see athletes looking at the bigger picture and who in fact gets hurt the most when a season sets prematurely cancelled and giving back to their communities accordingly.
With the NHL season paused, the goalie of the Florida Panthers is donating $100,000 to PT workers at BB&T arena, the rest of the team will match that and the ownership will foot the rest.
Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers did the same for the PTs at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
It is good to see athletes looking at the bigger picture and who in fact gets hurt the most when a season sets prematurely cancelled and giving back to their communities accordingly.
And yet Jeff Bezos is suggesting that Whole Foods employees "donate" their sick leave to other co-workers who need it, even though he could literally give every damn one of them $10,000 sight unseen and not see a significant dent in his net worth. This virus is going to expose once and for all how much corporate America has been fucking us. And how much of it is bullshit they can easily stop doing and rectify when push comes to shove. ATT lifting their "data caps" being a prime example.
And yet Jeff Bezos is suggesting that Whole Foods employees "donate" their sick leave to other co-workers who need it, even though he could literally give every damn one of them $10,000 sight unseen and not see a significant dent in his net worth. This virus is going to expose once and for all how much corporate America has been fucking us. And how much of it is bullshit they can easily stop doing and rectify when push comes to shove. ATT lifting their "data caps" being a prime example.
It's fascinating just how many things we were told are mandatory or impossible turn out not to be when it's a pandemic out there.
With the NHL season paused, the goalie of the Florida Panthers is donating $100,000 to PT workers at BB&T arena, the rest of the team will match that and the ownership will foot the rest.
Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers did the same for the PTs at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
It is good to see athletes looking at the bigger picture and who in fact gets hurt the most when a season sets prematurely cancelled and giving back to their communities accordingly.
And yet Jeff Bezos is suggesting that Whole Foods employees "donate" their sick leave to other co-workers who need it, even though he could literally give every damn one of them $10,000 sight unseen and not see a significant dent in his net worth. This virus is going to expose once and for all how much corporate America has been fucking us. And how much of it is bullshit they can easily stop doing and rectify when push comes to shove. ATT lifting their "data caps" being a prime example.
I am pretty sure whole food employees don't get more than 2 week of sick leave so no one will be donating shit since you need to self quarantine for like 10 days. Just wait until 80% of the store's staff gets sick and it can't open.
But its good that these things are coming to light. As consumers, if we do not agree with the type of practises corporations do, it is best to just take your business elsewhere. Why I never shop at Walmart. I may add Whole Foods to the list, but spending a premium on vegetables isn't my style anyway.
At 'Shock Doctrine Press Conference,' Trump Bails Out Oil Industry, Not US Families, as Coronavirus Crisis Intensifies. "Trump has once again put the interests of oil and gas executives ahead of the interests of people and communities."
We continue to be on the exact same trajectory of exponential growth as Italy. Our social distancing measures are currently on a state by state basis and scattershot at best. Even WITH our complete lack of testing for all but the most obvious and crucial cases (they are being rationed nearly everywhere even today), we are likely looking at 20,000-30,000 cases in ten days. Minimum. Seeing anecdotal tweets like this from all over the country, but in New York, of all places, this is a horrific sign:
My private music conservatory is shutting down for at least three weeks. All lesson payments for those weeks are being refunded by the conservatory, and being deducted from my pay.
This is a bad financial hit for me. People who are paid per service, which is a lot of people besides music instructors (drivers for hire, for example), will suffer quite a bit financially.
I'll probably be okay since I have savings to dip into, but my retirement prospects are looking bleak.
I feel really bad for other people who are in the same type of employment as I am, who don't have any savings.
If I was living paycheck to paycheck as so many are, I'd be in a financial panic right now.
And yet Jeff Bezos is suggesting that Whole Foods employees "donate" their sick leave to other co-workers who need it, even though he could literally give every damn one of them $10,000 sight unseen and not see a significant dent in his net worth. This virus is going to expose once and for all how much corporate America has been fucking us. And how much of it is bullshit they can easily stop doing and rectify when push comes to shove. ATT lifting their "data caps" being a prime example.
Money ain't gonna feed you if all stores shut up because none's producing and delivering any goods anymore.
Comments
Hopefully things turn out better but it's not looking good at the moment.
Yeah, but there isn't gonna be a vaccine for 12-18 months, minimum.
As a working father, how does this impact you on a daily basis going forward??
My daughter is 12 and trustworthy so I'm not personally concerned (other than I won't be home to make sure she doesn't spend all of her time on YouTube!). I'm pretty informed and have kept her informed so she was already expecting this. I told her yesterday this was probably going to happen. It's funny, if you don't treat your kids like they're fragile China vases, they can be far more mature than most parents realize.
Please be aware that for viruses, in most instances a "vaccine" does not *cure* the infection but only increases the likelihood that you will avoid the worst of the symptoms--you can still catch the flu after receiving that vaccine.
For now, if you were planning on attending any public event in the next two months it is safe to go ahead and assume that it has been canceled or postponed indefinitely. Don't be fooled, though. The event may phrase its cancellation as if it is doing so out of the goodness of its heart or out of concern for the community but the reality is that they are cancelling for liability purposes--they don't want to risk a class-action lawsuit because a dozen people contracted coronavirus at their event then spread it to 500 other people.
- the vaccine won't always stimulate an immune response. That tends to happen in up to 5% of cases, but in almost all of those a second vaccine dose will be effective. That's why vaccines often have booster shots (for instance a single measles vaccination protects 95%-97% of recipients, but a second dose increases that to almost 100%).
- someone may already be infected before they are vaccinated.
- in very rare cases an individual's immune system may not be capable of protecting them (due to genetic conditions or radiotherapy treatment for instance).
For the vast majority of people, a vaccination will give full protection against a specific virus. In most cases though vaccinations won't protect against a family of viruses. This is commonly seen in flu where there are 4 main types of virus, with hundreds of different sub-types. Vaccinations only give specific protection against the 3 or 4 sub-types considered most likely to be present in particular areas of the world for that year. However, these vaccinations may also offer partial protection against very similar strains of the virus - that's the situation that @Mathsorcerer describes where you may get flu, but avoid the worst symptoms thanks to that partial protection.
Coronaviruses as a family tend to mutate a lot and that's likely to be the case with Covid-19 as well. Already 2 different main types have been identified, with considerable minor variations within those. If vaccinations were developed using the same approach as with flu it would thus be likely those would not be able to provide complete protection in future. However, there are some different approaches being tried with the aim of developing a more general vaccine rather than one narrowly targeted at a particular virus sub-type. This article provides a bit of information about things being tried.
The Fraport (Frankfurt Airport), Hesse's second largest employer, now undertakes aggressive cost-cutting measures. Meaning unpaid leaves, no new hires and of course cutting jobs. Lots of cutting jobs. Trump's childish blame shifting ain't helpful for anyone either.
Funny fact: where I live, folks can no longer buy tickets inside busses. They can't even enter the bus from the driver's side as a precaution. Ticket controls? What's that? Can you eat it?
I'll bet Uncle Jimmie won't be at any Comic-Cons anytime soon...
- all schools/other education buildings are closed;
- all shopping centres are closed;
- all restaurants are closed;
- all employees must work remotely;
- no mass gatherings;
- all women's consultation, prophylactic inspections, planned operations are stopping.
Only pharmacies and food shops are staying open. What it means in reality, for me: just today (the decision about the emergency was taken at 3pm, I was in the optic shop today at 10am) I ordered contact lenses for the next 4 months, which were scheduled for delivery on Monday. But now I find out that the shop would be closed till March, 29 (and imagine they can very well continue the state of emergency after that). So there is a real risk of me going with poor eyesight very soon.
Took long enough, now if both sides AND YES I MEAN BOTH SIDE BOTH DEMS AND REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN TRIVIALIZING THIS, can stop lying and tossing dirt on each other for 90 seconds, maybe we can take control and avoid some of the worse case scenario, I've been seeing (no article this time sorry) that the virus is definitely going to hit if it already hasn't up to 160 million in the U.S.
US Population 2019 – 329.6712 Million (Estimated)...
Too many people like to down play it regardless whether or not to cause a panick, ignoring that is just as dangerous as ovrrhyping it as the end of the world.
But the fact of the matter is, if rather see us over prepared for it than underprepared. One of those two have higher life loss, regardless of age.
In the US, we are still about 10 days out from the shit hitting the fan. And it's just lulling people into a false sense of complacency every 24 hours.
- Covid-19 is likely to establish itself as an endemic disease. That means this won't just be a single outbreak, but it will recur in the future in the same way as flu.
- at present there's no guarantee that a vaccination program will offer an easy or effective solution to the disease. The alternative way to provide protection in the future is therefore to rely on herd immunity - as a result of most people already having had it.
- the plan therefore is not aimed at preventing people getting the disease, quite the reverse. The intention though is to delay the natural spread of the disease in order to avoid the sort of sudden peak in cases that would overwhelm the health service - disrupting general services and meaning that there would not be enough resources (such as ventilators) to help the most serious Covid-19 cases.
The intention is therefore to gradually ramp up preventative measures over time as a way of flattening out the natural peak in cases. That requires close monitoring of the progress of the disease in the general population.
In a political sense, this is a high risk strategy. If the disease progresses more quickly than anticipated and does cause considerable disruption, the plan will most certainly come in for considerable criticism. However, for the time being I support what's being done. Information provided has been pretty clear and consistent and I think it's admirable that the government is working closely with scientific advisers to tackle the crisis rather than working against them. I also think it's good that the plan is not only considering what happens over the next few weeks and months, but also considering how that affects what happens in future years.
We are also having closed cinemas, museums, zoos and even parts of the agency for labor all stopping in the wake of COVID-19. Oh, and the Bundesliga (German soccer league) has ceased all of its tournaments. Guess the burden of not having any stadium spectators was too great for them.
Some federal states even prohibited events with 75+ people now.
With the NHL season paused, the goalie of the Florida Panthers is donating $100,000 to PT workers at BB&T arena, the rest of the team will match that and the ownership will foot the rest.
Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers did the same for the PTs at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
It is good to see athletes looking at the bigger picture and who in fact gets hurt the most when a season sets prematurely cancelled and giving back to their communities accordingly.
And yet Jeff Bezos is suggesting that Whole Foods employees "donate" their sick leave to other co-workers who need it, even though he could literally give every damn one of them $10,000 sight unseen and not see a significant dent in his net worth. This virus is going to expose once and for all how much corporate America has been fucking us. And how much of it is bullshit they can easily stop doing and rectify when push comes to shove. ATT lifting their "data caps" being a prime example.
It's fascinating just how many things we were told are mandatory or impossible turn out not to be when it's a pandemic out there.
I am pretty sure whole food employees don't get more than 2 week of sick leave so no one will be donating shit since you need to self quarantine for like 10 days. Just wait until 80% of the store's staff gets sick and it can't open.
But its good that these things are coming to light. As consumers, if we do not agree with the type of practises corporations do, it is best to just take your business elsewhere. Why I never shop at Walmart. I may add Whole Foods to the list, but spending a premium on vegetables isn't my style anyway.
Funny, we hear "HoW yA goNNa PaY fOr iT" when it's anything for us but when it's corporate interests it's how many trillions do you need, no problem!
Pence says Americans 'cherish' cruises.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference-3/
At 'Shock Doctrine Press Conference,' Trump Bails Out Oil Industry, Not US Families, as Coronavirus Crisis Intensifies. "Trump has once again put the interests of oil and gas executives ahead of the interests of people and communities."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/13/shock-doctrine-press-conference-trump-bails-out-oil-industry-not-us-families
and now i will become a paranoid wreck when i should be fine as i never leave the house.
This is a bad financial hit for me. People who are paid per service, which is a lot of people besides music instructors (drivers for hire, for example), will suffer quite a bit financially.
I'll probably be okay since I have savings to dip into, but my retirement prospects are looking bleak.
I feel really bad for other people who are in the same type of employment as I am, who don't have any savings.
If I was living paycheck to paycheck as so many are, I'd be in a financial panic right now.