FlyBitcoin

US lost jobs in April .... 21 million
US CV-19 cases in April ... 1 million

21 jobs lost per 1 case.
1 case takes down an entire medium-sized restaurant.

I don't think most people had any clue of these multiples.

Yes, this is an instantaneous derivative of the data and will normalize eventually, but is it now that we understand the virus more than we understand the scope of the health effects of poverty, stress, confinement, closed schools we have self-imposed as part of the treatment?

And does the 8th week of job loss make things worse more than the 8th week of "stay at home" orders makes things better?

Smiley90

Jobs can come back after you re-open the economy, they're temporarily lost. The dead won't come back.

FlyBitcoin

That is not the point and you know it. Anyone who uses the term "reopen the economy" has a very rudimentary view of the multiple layers of variables in play here, so I will try once and let it all go.

A CV-19 viral infection is largely temporary. For 99% or higher. But it lasts 2-3 weeks and it's over. That is the norm. The outliers get all the attention.
A job loss lasts longer, (April numbers) negatively impacts 300 people for every one death, and negatively impacts people across all demographics, not just older with preexisting morbidity. The negative impacts of poverty and job loss on health and society are well-described. Yet for some reason, forgotten. Don't forget the 900,000 cases where a recovered patient is being traded for over a year of job loss.

it is about taking the derivatives to know the impact of two variables at any one moment in time.

Wonder if the dead would want us grieving their loss by creating even more hardship on 20 million (now closer to 40 million since the job numbers lag) who never got the virus.

Would you say that extending to an 8th week of mandatory stay-at-home orders nationwide has a greater interval benefit than the 8th week of exponential unemployment (many for 8 weeks, and for 20 million they have been added in the last two weeks since the jobs report) growth does damage?
Does it have that benefit for a county with 40,000 people, 65 cases and no deaths which peaked 2 weeks ago and never came close to overloading its healthcare resources? They not allowed to earn a living safely and under strict safety orders because prisons and meat packing plants are spiking numbers nationwide? Yet this little county has no say even though they have done everything right all along and still lost thousands of jobs and dozens of businesses waiting around for others to get their act together?

Do you at least understand that "reopen the economy" needs to be retired. It means different things to different communities and different industries.

stimpy

As this is the fact-based thread, please include a link to a reliable study or some kind of proof that gives any indication that all these jobs lost will be coming back. Like in the next 5 years.

nk15

The other thing that we are also not really aware of is how workers will behave in relation to indoors mask usage in a regular work shift, for 8 hours. How many times they will take it on and off, how long they would really wear it, inappropriate handling, etc. Some people drink something all the time, e.g., sipping coffee or water. And that's the best of them, imagine those that don't really want to wear a mask, they don't believe in it, or are bothered by it (dyspnea, sweating, etc.). If the average face touching is 10-25x per hour without a mask, I am not sure how will people can adjust even with a mask.

Smiley90

Fact: More jobs will come back than dead people come back to life.

How long will it take to get most/all of these jobs back? Impossible to predict and I'm not gonna speculate. But more jobs will come back than dead people will come back to life.

The question really is how many lives one is willing to sacrifice per job.

FlyBitcoin

Let's all wear them in groups indoors and find out.
It cannot make it worse, especially if you touch your mask, use sanitizer. And don't share computer keyboards and obvious stuff like that.
Questions need to be answered with answers, not more questions.
You don't want to wear a mask in my public space? Then you are fired since that is my policy. I will have no trouble replacing you.

Washington Post (behind paywall) notes that 23% of people don't think their job is coming back. It is perception, uncertainty and despair that leads to the health and social destruction of unemployment, not just being out of work for the time being.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...os-poll-finds/

Also remember there is also an unprecedented closure of entire small businesses. Compete loss of owner's sweat equity over decades in many cases. This is a huge price to pay. The 1 case that led to 21 staff in the restaurant being unemployed also lead to an owner(s) who just lost a huge part of her net worth. That restaurant that could have been sold for $300,000 in February is now worth zero.

FlyBitcoin

We certainly are numb to tolerating a lot of dead teens driving when we celebrate their 16th birthday with a drivers license and a 2-ton death machine to operate. We have an acceptable threshold of dead bodies there, most with 60 years life expectancy remaining.
And what threshold of "dead" bodies is needed to completely destroy the lives of many uninvolved? How many? And why when we cross that threshold is it an all or nothing argument? You never assess the counterbalance of the scale?

But one who is still in the BARGAINING stage of grief with regard to this virus cannot have a conversation with one who is in the ACCEPTANCE stage of grief. Especially when it comes to smartly moving forward.

stimpy

Thanks for the link and note of course that is just the jobs lost in the US. As many of us are international travelers we should know a small hit to the US economy is a big punch to the economy world-wide. This is a study from the good times. Many studies will be written about the C19 times. https://voxeu.org/article/understand...ole-us-economy

Or another way to put it, economic disasters here lead to malnutrition and starvation elsewhere. And here if we keep this up. So how many lives will be lost due to something other than C19 due to our extreme overreaction, versus lives lost to C19? And how many lives will endure long term negative impact due to our extreme reaction.

Smiley90

Your turn to provide facts with a claim - how many deaths are predicted due to malnutrition and starvation in the US due to furloughs/layoffs? Compared to COVID19 deaths? How many of those deaths are entirely preventable with government subsidies?

I'd predict "people will die from starvation" to be extreme fearmongering with no evidence - unlike C19 that people are actually dying from.

If people (like FlyBitcoin) just made the argument that X deaths / job are acceptable, I'd understand that argument - albeit I'd disagree. But claiming "people are gonna starve to death" is nonsense.

EDIT: I'd be happy to move predictions on what's gonna happen upon re-opening to the appropriate thread instead of the facts one.

nk15

The virus is running an attrition war on us, until we run out of mental health and money. Whichever way we go, whatever strategy we pick, it will be a pyrrhic victory.

FlyBitcoin

Start with this Google search: what are the negative effects of unemployment on health
Then compare the depth and duration of this, multiplied by the number of people involved in unemployment (now 40 million in US) and compare to the 900,000+ cases where it lasts 2-3 weeks, recovery and no hospitalization.
Yes there are 70k deaths at an average lost life expectancy of almost 10 years each, but that number excludes the morbidity of living with the preexisting conditions, so could be more like 8 years. Still the 900,000 needs to be factored in with the 70,000.

2,500 teens age 16-19 die in MVA's yearly which is 75,000 over 30 years. We accept that as a society and don't blink and eyelash. One large scale pandemic over 30 years and we are at the same threshold at this point in time. CV-19 deaths will rise, but the next wave will have already known it is out there and how to mitigate it to some degree. Yet the collateral damage of job loss and lost business value does not happen with the teen drivers. That is at zero, not 40 million x 6-60 months.
It is hard outcomes to compare and I am not saying it is a perfect comparison, but it is one way we as a society value a life with 60 years left vs a life with 8-10 years left), nor am I diminishing the effects of the virus, but the point is that there is a balance here and taking the derivative of the numbers now needs to help steer us slightly until we have our next set of numbers.

Smiley90

The problem is that you're comparing C19 cases WITH lockdown to jobs lost. The actual comparison would be C19 cases WITHOUT lockdown to jobs lost, since those are the two alternatives.

Or lives lost, if you want - let's assume 0.5% mortality of 300 million Americans - that's 20 million temporary jobs lost vs. 1.5 million deaths. Are you okay temporarily sacrificing ~13 jobs per live saved? I'd argue yes, you might argue no - either way, neither of this is fact based reporting but speculation and should really be moved to another thread.
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azepine00

i dont think it's a fair way to assess the situation and the real case count is probably 3-10 times higher based on several Ab studies
the alternative was (simplified): jobs lost 1M; cases 20M; deaths 1M as we would greatly exceed healthcare capacity and face much higher mortality rates and then of course job loss would spiral out of control too..

i am all for incremental reopening as we brought this (mostly) under control but we must realize that control we have now is a result of actions taken in march and april...

Dieuwer

Fake News!
Having fiat currency (aka the printing press) you CANNOT run out of money I am sure the FED will happily print another cool trillions of dollars to oblige the wishes of Congress (or Wall Street).