That's the message I am getting this morning even with the defiance in the air:
"ANALYSIS: Saving lives or saving the economy? Reopening doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition" by Shirley Leung and Larry Edelman Globe Columnist and Globe Staff, May 13, 2020
As Massachusetts prepares to follow other states down the uncertain path of lifting coronavirus restrictions, the clamor of competing messages grows louder: Moving too fast will bring a surge in deaths. Moving too slowly will bury the economy.
Better too slow than too fast, right?
Right?
The debate over when to reopen will continue to rage between public health leaders, politicians, and business owners, but just as important is how. A growing number of scientists, economists, and business leaders have eschewed all-or-nothing thinking as they map out approaches to a new normal with COVID-19 until there is a vaccine.
I wrote FUCK OFF in reaction to this above-the-fold, lead story and feature as they start jabbing you right from the get-go.
In any reopening, scientists and economists agree that testing, tracing, and social distancing measures are paramount in keeping the virus under control. Selective lockdowns and restrictions come with their own trade-offs: they are hard to implement, even harder to enforce, and the downsides may be difficult to offset.
This isn't about a virus anymore, this is about total control over the population.
If the people over the age of 70, for example, need to be isolated for a prolonged period, will they need new services and programs? If an employer signals to older workers to stay home, is that a form of discrimination? If restaurants are restricted to outdoor dining or by capacity, how can businesses make money?
Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera — who is on Governor Charlie Baker’s reopening advisory board, which is expected to deliver a plan on Monday — said members of the group are mindful of striking a balance between public health and business interests.
A group of MIT economists began looking at how best to restart commerce and wondered whether the country really faces a stark choice between saving lives and saving the economy. That led to a report published last week that focused on developing policies differentiated by age — the conclusion: Combining a protective lockdown of those 65 and older with lesser restrictions on younger adults could decrease both deaths and economic harm.
F**KING MONSTERS!
Going to sort us like livestock -- complete with abuse and branding.
One of the coauthors, Michael Whinston, said such a measure could “reduce deaths by 33 percent while reducing economic losses by 35 percent. The point is, with targeted policies the available options just get much, much better.”
Then again, it could not!
Virus-related deaths have been concentrated in the older population. In Massachusetts, for example, people 80 or older have accounted for 15 percent of COVID-19 cases, but two-thirds of the deaths.
This is what is making me think something really nefarious is going on. The useless eaters are being slowly and systematically eliminated the longer this goes on. EVIL!
Whinston said protecting seniors would go a long way to preventing more deaths and allow the rest of the population to emerge sooner from their homes. Think of it as the difference between heating your entire home with an old-fashioned thermostat, or in zones with a smart thermostat. A zoned system lets you be comfortable at far less cost by targeting heat where and when you need it. “With the right kinds of policies, the choices don’t have to be so grim,” said Whinston.
OMFG!
Look at him pushing a misplaced metaphor while promote the $urveillance $tate "smart" home.
These articles are disgusting on a daily basis.
Helen Jenkins, an epidemiologist and assistant professor of biostatistics at Boston University, said the MIT idea sounds “very appealing in theory,” but she wonders about the logistics of locking down one age group. Still, Jenkins said that reopening the economy does not have to be an “either-or” and that society will need to be “creative and innovative” in how to live before a vaccine arrives.
Jab, jab!
Even before the MIT paper, the concept of protecting some groups had surfaced in recommendations and protocols. Georgia was among the first states to reopen its economy in late April, yet Governor Brian Kemp kept the stay-at-home order for the elderly population and medically fragile in place until mid-June. In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine is strongly recommending the elderly take extra precautions as others go back to work. In Massachusetts, Governor Charlie Baker highlights in his four-phase reopening plan how there will be “limitations” placed on a “vulnerable population.”
Employers are also looking to bring back employees based on age as a way to reduce infection. A recent report by the Massachusetts High Technology Council highlights a phased approach starting with young workers in the first wave, while keeping staff who are 60 and older working from home as long as possible, but one big obstacle is that more than 36 percent of people 65 and older are in the workforce, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and many can’t work remotely, change jobs, or afford to retire.
How many will have no job to go back to (if they are not neglected or murdered in the interim).
Another challenge is that many older people live in multigenerational households with children, grandchildren, and extended family members. In many cases, segregation from younger relatives isn’t possible. “We live together,” said Margaret Morganroth Gullette, a resident scholar at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center and author of “Ending Ageism, or How Not to Shoot Old People.” “There are midlife people who take care of older people. There are grandparents taking care of children,” she said.
That leads to the same kind of talk from the U.N. puke and the guy out in California who is pushing the same thing. Authorities forcibly entering homes and removing family members.
In its report, the high tech council suggests young workers living in multigenerational households in COVID-19 hot spots consider alternative living arrangements. Telling people to live elsewhere to contain a virus would have been outlandish before the pandemic. Now here and elsewhere hotels have been converted into isolation facilities for people who have coronavirus but cannot safely isolate at home. Rather than shutting down much of the economy, government, for example, could provide housing in hot spots.
EVIL!
Families have survived viruses for centuries, and are in fact strengthened by them! Herd immunity!
Similarly, in protecting seniors, government could create special hours for them to walk in public parks, just as grocery stores set up special shopping hours during the pandemic.
What do they to want to control in the "Land of the Free?"
Bain Capital cochair Steve Pagliuca, who helped lead the tech council’s research on reopening the economy, said it’s possible to create a safe return but everyone bears some responsibility. “This is a systemic problem and we need to solve it with a systemic response,” said Pagliuca. “You need a thoughtful, phased approach and you have to monitor where you are based on the spread factor, and then push forward or pull back based on the trend."
Boooooooo!
Indeed, on Wednesday Baker sounded another note of caution, saying it would be “incredibly irresponsible” to open the economy all at once. He has warned he would issue another stay at home order if the virus flares up again.
Age is not the only demographic factor to consider.
A recent working paper by epidemiologists at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies found that during the early stages of the outbreak the mortality rate climbed higher in Massachusetts locales with larger concentrations of poverty, people of color, and crowded housing. It’s the same kind of health disparities that researchers have long found among racial, ethnic, and economic groups.
“It’s not just age” that puts people at risk, said Nancy Krieger, a professor of social epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an author of the COVID-19 report. “It’s also racial and economic inequities in living and working conditions. It’s both — not either-or.”
Madonna said we are all equal now.
Until a vaccine is available, it’s inevitable some workers — in high-volume stores, for example, or health care facilities, or restaurants — will be at greater risk than those who can work at home or in low-density offices, and then there are nursing homes. More than 60 percent of COVID-19 deaths in Massachusetts have been tied to long-term-care facilities, according to state data. Residents were often infected by staff, many of whom are poorly paid, work multiple jobs, and lack access to sufficient personal protection equipment.
The long-term care workers were supposed to get raises long ago.
Making these facilities safer will require “more money, better monitoring, and better pay,” said Morganroth Gullette of Brandeis. It may also require tighter controls on family visits until testing is widespread and routine, and more is understood about immunity among people who have already had the virus.
Like other scientists, Marcus, the infectious disease doctor at Harvard, worries about reopening the economy too soon, but it’s not too soon to think about life after quarantine. In a recent article published in the Atlantic, Marcus wrote that “quarantine fatigue is real,” adding that “what Americans need now is a manual on how to have a life in a pandemic."
Based on the latest government numbers, it has passed that point. It's not out of control anymore. If anything, it's past its peak for now.
The truth is, the entire restructuring of society under the cover of the mysterious COVID-19 is occurring.
Marcus urges policy makers and public health experts to help the public differentiate between lower risk and higher risk activities. Being in enclosed crowded settings, for example, is more dangerous than hanging out outdoors with a few friends.
That means redesigning outdoor and indoor spaces to reduce crowding, for example, or increasing ventilation, and promoting physical distancing. Cities could close down streets to allow for more outdoor recreation or dining.
“I don’t think there’s a way to do it with risks completely eliminated,” Marcus said in an interview, but there is a “way that reduces risk as much as possible.”
That attitude means do not ever get out of bed.
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Related:
"Days before Massachusetts is slated to begin to reopen its economy, Governor Charlie Baker insisted Wednesday that a deliberate, phased approach, underpinned by the continued expansion of COVID-19 testing, is the best path toward a new normal, as the state’s coronavirus death toll topped 5,300. “The last thing we’re going to do is reopen in a way that fires that virus up again,” said Baker at a news conference in the parking lot of a community health center in Fall River that is providing drive-through testing. The cautious rhetoric from Baker is nothing new, and contact tracing in Massachusetts, where residents who come in close contact with an infected person are tracked down and urged to isolate, also continues. “This is not a virus to be trifled with,” Baker said, and he also spoke to the importance of continuing to ramp-up testing, saying, “We view this as a critical component of getting to a new normal.”
It looks like he is reading straight from the Rockefeller playbook, and it turns out Governor Baker is part of the global public health mafia, which makes him EVIL!
Meanwhile, Dr. C. Robert Horsburgh Jr., a professor of epidemiology at Boston University, said the new guidelines for testing are both prudent, necessary, and “a great next step.”
Also see:
"As the number of COVID-19 patients in Massachusetts hospitals slowly ticks down, another grim metric — somewhat under the radar — has steadily been going up. That’s the case fatality rate, the percentage of deaths among known COVID-19 patients. It stands at about 6.6 percent, up from 1.6 percent on April 1. This increase may seem alarming, but it does not mean the disease is getting deadlier. Here [is the only thing] to know about this number: Will we ever know the true mortality rate of COVID-19 in Massachusetts? Probably not. Not only do we not know exactly how many people were infected, but it appears we don’t know how many deaths are due to COVID-19. Early statistical studies on excess mortality — the number of deaths above what is normal for a certain time period ― suggest that some coronavirus deaths are going uncounted, but, in time, the data will get better, and so will the estimates. Antibody tests may provide decent numbers for how many people were actually infected. Studies on excess mortality will be refined to yield a more accurate death toll......"
They are “never going to be able to accurately calculate it,” are the dodgy f**kers, and I am at my Wit's End, readers!
Now for a fundamental $hift:
"Fed chair warns the economy may need more as Congress hesitates" by Jeanna Smialek and Jim Tankersley New York Times, May 13, 2020
NEW YORK — The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, delivered a stark warning Wednesday that the United States was experiencing an economic hit “without modern precedent,” one that could permanently damage the economy if Congress and the White House did not provide sufficient financial support to prevent a wave of bankruptcies and prolonged joblessness.
Powell’s blunt diagnosis was the latest indication that the trillions of dollars that policymakers have already funneled into the economy may not be enough to forestall lasting damage from a virus that has already shuttered businesses and thrown more than 20 million people out of work.
No, men and women did that. The "virus" did nothing out of the ordinary, and they have been with us for eons. That's why we have an immune system.
Yet the warning comes as discussions of additional rescue measures have run aground, with Democrats proposing sweeping new programs and Republicans voicing concerns over the swelling federal budget deficit, which is projected to hit $3.7 trillion this year. President Trump and his economic advisers have pressed the pause button on negotiations for additional spending, waiting to see how much the economy rebounds as states begin lifting restrictions on business activity.
Yeah, Pelosi threw down a political marker as Republicans flipped her the bird.
Powell lauded Congress for the more than $2 trillion relief effort it had already funded, but he made clear that a rebound could take months to materialize, requiring more support.
“The recovery may take some time to gather momentum,” Powell said at a Peterson Institute for International Economics virtual event. “Additional fiscal support could be costly, but worth it if it helps avoid long-term economic damage and leaves us with a stronger recovery.”
What if it makes the money worthless?
We all have to go ca$hle$$?
That "nonparti$an" research organization that hosted the virtual event has a board of directors that includes Stanley Fischer; Maurice R. Greenberg (of AIG fame); Paul H. O'Neill, Former Secretary of the Treasury (now dead); David Rockefeller (also dead, from swine flu); David M. Rubenstein (the $avior of us all); George Soros; Lawrence H. Summers (has crawled out from under his rock); Peter D. Sutherland, Chairman, Goldman Sachs International, and Paul Adolph Volcker, among others, with honorary directors being Alan J. Greenspan and George P. Shultz.
Just the guys you want in charge of, well, anything, right?
Stock markets swooned after Powell’s comments, and as the virus persists and the number of unemployed grows, Powell and his central bank colleagues have begun trying to prod Congress and the White House into action by reminding them that the Fed alone cannot carry the burden of digging the economy out of its deep hole.
They put us there, so WTF?
Fed officials have slashed interest rates to zero, purchased bonds at a record pace to restore order to roiled government bond markets, and unveiled nine emergency lending programs in partnership with the Treasury Department, but Powell reiterated Wednesday that the Fed’s programs, which will buy bonds from companies and local governments and make loans to midsize businesses, can only temporarily supply credit. The Fed lacks spending powers, which are reserved for Congress.
Yeah, more credit does us no good, and more Congre$$ional borrowing from the Fed just fattens the banking consortium and cartel that is the Federal Re$erve.
Powell characterized the Fed’s ability to help as a “bridge across temporary interruptions,” while suggesting that more may be needed as huge uncertainties confront the economy, from the speed of reopening to the scope of testing and the timing of a vaccine. “There is a sense, a growing sense I think, that the recovery will come more slowly than we would like,” he said.
Whether Powell can push lawmakers into action remains to be seen. The Fed chair has cultivated solid relationships with key congressional Republicans and has a history of influencing economic thinking on Capitol Hill, yet many Republicans, urged on by Trump, have begun trying to shift the conversation from federal spending support to efforts to help the economy rebound as quickly as possible. They have largely stopped conveying the sense of urgency that Powell voiced Wednesday.
Time for a second wave then!
Senator Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, when asked about Powell’s remarks, said, “I'm not sure that pumping more money out of Washington is going to do more good than harm at this point. I think we have to think that through very carefully.”
Yeah, now that the corporations and banks got their trillions and the American people got Chump change!
On Tuesday, House Democrats released a multitrillion-dollar, 1,800-page proposal that includes hundreds of billions of dollars for state and local governments to shore up holes in their budgets and additional direct payments and tax credits for low- and middle-income Americans, but the proposal also contains a wide range of provisions that Republicans dismissed immediately as not directly linked to those struggling amid the pandemic, including bailouts for troubled pension plans and lifting a cap on state and local tax deductions.
That's all back page news and going nowhere.
Republicans are working on their own proposals that Democrats have similarly said should be off the table, including shielding businesses from virus-related legal liabilities. Lawmakers and the White House have also begun pushing for additional individual and business tax cuts.
There they go again.
Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota did not seem spurred to action by Powell’s warnings, noting “It’s one person’s voice — a smart person, that I tend to agree with a lot — but it is just one person. I think we have to be very targeted about the next few weeks,” he said.....
Isn't that what Rand Paul said about Fauci?
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Related:
"Wall Street’s earlier bets that the economy can make a relatively quick rebound from the coronavirus pandemic suddenly don’t look so good. Treasury yields sank in a sign of pessimism after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell warned about the threat of a prolonged recession. Powell said the government may need to pump even more aid into the economy, which is bleeding millions of jobs every week. His comments came one day after the top US infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned of the dangers of reopening the economy too soon....."
On top of that, the UN forecasts that the world economy will shrink by 3.2 percent this quarter.
Also see:
"As states grapple with how and when to lift restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump is voicing disagreement with one of his top public health experts on the issue of reopening schools in an interview Wednesday with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo....."
What the Globe story missed from the interview (must have been asleep at the wheel) was Trump echoing recent statements made by Bill Gates, and telling America that the U.S. military is preparing to vaccinate “most of our population” by the end of the year, and "if Trump is going to push a medical police state on America, he no longer deserves to be president at all and should be voted out of office at the next opportunity or pressured to resign before the election. You can’t Make America Great Again if you’re running armed vaccine goon squads that “medically RAPE” Americans so that Big Pharma can cash in on a deadly pandemic. Trump is going to need to pick a side here, and if he picks Big Pharma, then Trump becomes the enemy of the People. It’s as simple as that. All the Trump supporters out there need to come to their senses and realize that, based on current observable evidence, it looks like Trump is about to become the anti-Christ."
Are you ready for Project Zypher and the planned gulags for COVID-19 deniers?
And CUI BONO?
"Moderna is moving at unprecedented speed to develop a vaccine to prevent infection from the novel coronavirus, but the biotech’s soaring stock price is moving faster, which raises an important question: Are investors taking on too much risk? Wall Street looks forward, of course, which for Moderna means a hoped-for day when a coronavirus vaccine might help the planet return to some sense of normalcy...."
They are biotech's new Tesla.
"Americans will likely get Sanofi’s COVID-19 vaccine before the rest of the world if the French pharmaceutical giant can successfully deliver one. That’s because the United States was first in line to fund Sanofi’s vaccine research, chief executive Paul Hudson said in an interview with Bloomberg News. He warned that Europe risks falling behind unless it steps up efforts to seek protection against a pandemic that’s killed more than 290,000 people worldwide.“The US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk,” Hudson said. The United States, which expanded a vaccine partnership with the company in February, expects “that if we’ve helped you manufacture the doses at risk, we expect to get the doses first.”
It's a gamble at best.
Atul Gawande to depart as CEO of health venture, Haven
He says that leaving the Haven CEO job will allow him to focus on Covid-19.
At least, that is what a little Bluebird told me.
