End in Sight for the Situation?

well said.

Exactly. It's the route and the distance that is open to question, and what is not is that one will be taxed on the journey.

So much for being rational.

Corona virus has killed more businesses than people.

Rational can also include making sure we don't have an out-of-control syndrome and then adjusting back to normal life when you see it's not all that it might have been cracked up to be.

My English teachers were after me for run-on sentences as you can imagine.

I call it conversational English cuz it would make sense if we were just talking to each other and the infections were heard? the teachers weren't buying it.

Shorthand for dummies?

The use of cell phones to monitor contact and alert anyone with strong exposure.. could be implemented here without further intrusion and most business could resume with social distancing as needed.

We currently stand extremely well (new daily cases now at or near zero), but our situation (being an isolatable land mass) and government response (quick and effective) is completely different to that of the US.

Opening the US back up at your stage of the pandemic is (in my opinion as an outsider looking in) going to be disasterous from a death and financially toll. Unfortunately continuing a lockdown in your situation is not much better (financially that is).

Seriously, good luck and try and be as safe as you can because as far as I can see it has only just started in the US.

I really hope to be proven wrong, it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

People that are out of work need to get back to their jobs so they can pay their bills. That having been said, we should all assume that everyone we meet is infected and behave accordingly. It's up to businesses to maximize the safety of both employees and customers as much as possible, and I think most of them will do that.

All joking aside, humanity will get through this but things will be different for awhile. People are resilient. Unfortunately we've already lost many. There will also be many fiscal failures along the way. Denying what has happened by immediately trying to return to the old normal will doom even more in both health and finance.

ADMIN Note: This post has been edited to remove political commentary.

In our locale, Oregon, the governor has been challenged in court and it's going through the appeals process. The state constitution has time limits on governor's emergency orders and the governor hasn't bothered to observe the constitutional time limits or the requirements for extending those time limits. The state supreme court has taken a position which is likely unconstitutional with regards to the state constitution and left the governor's emergency order in place pending review which has no identified completion date.

It's a lot of legal hocus pocus that could be resolved almost immediately if the governor would call the state legislature to approve extension of her emergency order.

Based on recent press conferences it is apparent that the Oregon leadership in this crisis is oblivious to the basis for the models used, the mechanics of disease transmission and reasonable steps to characterize the disease enough to formulate workable plans to manage the transmission.

There is a paradox here. Most legislative chambers cannot accommodate social distancing while containing a quorum of legislators.

They seem to have that problem even if they all attend. Present, but not accounted for.

Friends,

In the USA we have a crazy balance of powers and authorities between the states, federal government, and localities. At the state and local level the response has been "all over the map", but has been fairly strict in closing venues and enforcing social distancing. At the federal level the big problem has been in trust--people to the leaders and leaders to the scientists and experts. This has created problems in availability of critical or necessary products and testing.

At the individual level we initially had dismissal of the problem, followed shortly after with fear, and now followed by angry refusal to conform. We have many more deaths per year from traffic accidents, influenza "flu", cancer, smoking, and other conditions. However the fear of the unknown has been a strong driver of our responses.

The apparently fairly low rate of mortality compared to morbidity (death to sickness) with SARS-Covid-19 is reassuring (compared to some much more deadly epidemics). However we are still fairly early on the learning curve regarding the various ways that the infection manifests itself in the human body (or in animals also), such as the often-seen respiratory problems, plus the blood clotting problems, plus the adolescent inflammations, plus others we have not really recognized yet--all due to the ways in which the virus affects various tissues and proteins in the body. The wide variations in mortality rates from one geographic location to another is due to differences in the demographics, susceptibility of different groups, and amount of data being collected; all make understanding more problematic! Also, providing data as number totals instead of rates or percentages makes comparisons much more difficult.

For myself, I must socially distance because cancer has severely compromised my immune system. Yet interacting with people is important and healthy, and sometimes necessary. So a balance has to be found--not easy. Working now?--not, and not likely for months.

--JMM

It’s not a crazy balance of powers,... just people looking at getting and sustaining the recently acquired powers.

this whole situation is still being played out, To see what was the best played.

Paul Lutus published a treatise on his website, Coronavirus Math, (see here) with a graphing function that allows the reader to adjust the parameters of the model.

His introductory comments include, ‘Albert Einstein once said, "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality".’ And, ‘This article explains policy in-depth, and more, it allows the reader to use an interactive mathematical tool to experiment with different assumptions and pose "what-if" questions.’

Madiganistan is toast. I can't wait to retire and move north and become a cheesehead.

Crook County has over 70% of the cases, but the Governor is treating the state as a unit and is too slow letting rural counties work to re-open.

I always thought Cook county has always controlled the state.

I have been working. I like to work. I don't really want to get paid for not. Maybe I should have my head shrunk.

In South Africa we started from Financial Junk Status at the outbreak. There is no financial aid that will be enough to save our country from total economic ruin. With the lock down even the sale of liquor and cigarettes was declared against the law. I am privileged because I do not use any of those but I see the effect it has on those that are accustomed to using it. There is just no way to see light at the end of the tunnel if the end seems to be months away.

The financial situation in every country to handle this is unaffordable. Money is being spent at a tremendous rate, money that never existed.

And getting out of this no one knows. I suspect, and it’s already happening is a lot of finger pointing.