Dublin_rfk

So LA county's decision to not test unless a positive result will change treatment isn't a new idea?

AANYC1981

DL just did this on my brothers flight in FC earlier this week....they had the space though and had everyone one row apart.

LAXlocal

in LA if you do not have a fever they will not test you....... at least that was last week for my friend.....

Stay safe

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

There's no reason the airlines need to fill middle seats and most flights you could have a person per side of each row. However, people need to determine their own level of risk. BTW if you become infected and you are healthy the odds are very, very high you're aren't going to die. Any at risk people that choose to fly are in the camp of those that speed and don't wear a seat belt.

Visconti

Because Politicians are hedging their bets.

This isn't to diminish the value of life, but I'm quite familiar with the concept of exponential growth projections, since my business has been the product of that phenomenon. I also realize when sacrificing for the unknown based on future projections will always be, at best, an uncertain endeavor for anyone ain't name Nostradamus.

There are several scenarios that will play out now. In CA, the shelter in place will be effective in flattening the curve, which shouldn't be confused with decreasing infections or directly attributable mortality, but merely stringing it out. The cost/price/sacrifice will be several trillions of dollars.

Some outcomes:

1. The measures prove ineffective and the bottleneck occurs regardless. If this is the case, what was the point of murdering the economy when it was all futile anyway? To make us feel better? Grandiose virtual signaling? What?

2. The measures prove effective, and we "flatten the curve" and reopen the economy. Infections will still occur, but at a measured and controlled rate. Now, if this doesn't happen to Japan, South Korea and/or Singapore, why did we have to resort to such draconian measures when those respective countries hadn't? Out of fear? Out of making us feel as if we're doing something?

In either case, our Politicians had better be right. It's not fair, I know, but they wanted the job. Is there evidence to believe these extreme measures are an improvement over vigorous mitigation--using masks, social distancing, self quarantine, high risk demographics remain isolated? I'm not unfamiliar with the concept of sacrificing for the unknown based on uncertain projections, but I have NEVER placed a degree of certitude on one over another.

We're, in the USA, going to flush down the toilet of a month of GDP and pay the self inflicted wound of several trillions of dollars. [OMNI/PR content edited by Moderator.]

notquiteaff

Did you notice that we don’t even have enough masks for medical staff? People are being asked to donate what they have to hospitals and get their sewing machines out to assemble PPE supplies...

Did you notice that in CA and elsewhere (FL beaches, NoLa, ...) calls to implement social distancing were ignored by many?

Bars and restaurants were shut down because people were still gathering there. People who “know better”. If they had followed social distancing, the bars and restaurants would have been shut down for lack of customers.

Visconti

I don't know. Maybe produce more in January? If I, you're regular run of the mill American without any special insights, knew enough to order masks, wouldn't the CDC? Maybe, after this, our CDC should marshal resources to focus on this rather than some of the other things they're working on.

Shame them. Criticize them. Call them all sorts of names that FT would scrub within a nano second. But, to exercise emergency powers over a pathogen with a mortality rate that is likely far below 1%? What happens during the next one? What if we have a killer virus that kills 15%? Restaurants should be free to run their business as they deem fitting including but not limited to limiting to one person per table.

PS - We have only a few shots left in the chamber, and we've blown it on an event that has a mortality rate that is likely below 1%.

QtownDave

U.S. to Ramp Up Mask Production, But China Is Bottleneck for Raw Materials

https://globalbiodefense.com/headlin...raw-materials/

Sharp will use a TV factory to mass-produce face masks

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/1/21...ory-production

SJOGuy

But if they become infected, they put other people at risk too. That's the flaw in that argument.

TravelingZoomer

For those of you saying, “Why can’t we be Korea”, we had the opportunity. Except one country decides to bunker down and prepare. The other spent weeks calling it a hoax.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN2153BW


Granted this was a couple days ago but point remains. I was in Korea shortly after Lunar New Year. Everyone was taking it seriously. You were screened twice for health reasons at the airport. Everyone was wearing a mask walking around town. Restaurants sprayed your hands with alcohol cleaner before coming in.

Meanwhile, people in the US are STILL not taking it seriously. Hell, I nearly blew my brother’s ear off when I found out he decided to go cliff diving at sunset cliffs, two days ago.

You cannot bake your cake and eat it too. Both the US Govt and the American people are paying for our collective inaction

Dublin_rfk

It makes my response to an LA area customer really easy.
Don't call me when the lights go out.

username

For those who are doctors...I heard that if you have no symptoms, the swabs are not likely to pick up any virus anyway. Therefore, there is no point testing these people with no symptoms at all as they will most likely come back negative. How true is that?

Thanks.

kalderlake

Apparently, masks, and other related supplies, were under [Moderator edit: U.S.] tariff regime (15% and then 7.5%) until the government decided to grant exclusions sometime around the beginning of March.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN20T2ON

Loren Pechtel

I used to consider them neutral, but too often I have been catching them taking official statements as proven truth.

Which doesn't change the fact that the reality on the ground doesn't agree with their "facts".

TravelingZoomer

Not in the land of the “me-ism”