Feeling bad probably has more to do with hanging out with friends around a campfire indulging in some Root Beer shine

If we survive the apocalypse and you ever make it up to Maggie Valley, NC, stop by Elevated Distilling Co. They make a root beer shine called Raymond Fairchild’s White Lightning, and it is some of the finest alcohol I have ever had the pleasure of vastly underestimating the potency of.

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So your main concern is a few immigrants may get a freebie?

People not getting healthcare early enough will be why the US will get this worse than other nations. Need a system based on the public good.

Healthcare is a constellation of Goods and services that need to be produced.  PERIOD.  Nationalizing, or removing the profit motive, from any form of economic activity reduces productive capacity.  When you reduce productive capacity you INCREASE scarcity.  When you make a constellation of Goods and services MORE SCARCE then the cost INCREASES.  That INCREASED COST has to be reflected through the rationing mechanism.  In socialized systems where the is no front line price mechanism, that cost is adjudicated through RATIONING of elective care.  

Case and point, right now in Italy you have a healthcare system that has been systemically lagging behind Demand for years.  I posted an article in this link.  They were already at point of shortage that required rationing and delays in elective procedures and long wait time for patients.  In a country of 60 million people you see them being brought to their knees by what amounts to an increase of 2.5k hospitalizations.  As an example, New York State alone has more ICU capacity than the total hospitalization load of Italy to this point in the pandemic.  During swine flu our Healthcare system processed 2-3 times that amount (adjusted for population density) per month and that's without the 2 month ramp up of converting single rooms to double rooms, dipping into strategic reserves of ventilators to increase ICU capacity, or tapping third party vendors to divert a lot of front line testing capacity away from general treatment of hard hit patients.  Our Hospitalization capacity isn't infinite, but it is one of the most abundant and Dynamic in the history of mankind.

When you look at the biggest bottlenecks in our current system, they are generally state created. The CDC had guidelines that made it problematic to adopt the WHO Coronavirus test. In a free market that would have been purchased by every hospital and care facility that could afford it the day it was made available. It also took a while for the FDA to approve the High through put automated testing that is going to allow hundreds/thousands of tests to be processed instead of 30 to 40 per day. There was a bottleneck for CBP staff at international airports to handle the influx of passengers after the announcement of the travel ban. The biggest hurdle had to do with requirements for certain certifications when they were just looking for people to competently hold a digital thermometer and read the results. The coastal areas that have the greatest access to international travelers are obviously the hardest hit, there should be a natural flow of healthcare professionals from areas of low viral concentration to areas of high viral concentration, but that's made problematic by state requirements for licensure and certification.

To answer Eric85's question, this will (in some sense tragically) be the greatest case study for more freedom in the provision of healthcare that the world has ever seen. The problem is finding someone to make this case in a microwave society that just wants the pain to go away. As Milton Friedman once said, "The Free Market doesn't have very many press agents."

Id like to close by pointing out a somber truth. As we move into a position of mandatory curfews, mandatory closing of businesses etc. the group that has the highest ability to provide mutable unskilled labor is the age group between about 18-24 that show the greatest natural resilience to the virus and are more likely to be uncoupled meaning that if they did contract the virus they could self isolate in an apartment or ride out a quarantine without leaving a wife/child at home. In a sane world this would be the group standing tallest to do the work that needs to be done to keep essential supply chains open and take the risk that those pregnant, already sick or over the age of 55 can't shoulder. Unfortunately, this age group has been raised by an educational establishment that has taught them to be first in line looking for green government issued pain killers, rather than the employment line in a time of crisis.

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Apparently the trend now is for each and every business entity to promulgate a statement on how they’re dealing with the virus to protect Mr. and Mrs. Consumer. A coworker said he even got one from the corporate offices of his storage facility. Whew, crisis averted.

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We need to be practicing social distancing.

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We need to be practicing social distancing.

Get away from me.

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JJ is on to something. I have been depressed the last 2 days because the numbers are starting to bother me. Doing the math, if people don't quarantine, we are going to overwhelm our hospital system. The virus doubles every day. At 4 cases currently, we will be at 65k cases in 2 weeks. On the flip side, if we flatten the curve, we are going to destroy our economy, because we are going to expose ourselves to the virus too slowly. Even if everyone self-quarantined for 30 days, there will still be transmission at the grocery stores, which means there will still be cases after 30 days, only the general population hasn't been exposed and we start all over.

The only thing that makes sense is to quarantine all households with an occupant over the age of 45. All households without any persons over the age of 45 should go to school and work. This way, we expose a significant portion of our populace to the virus without overwhelming our medical system. After 30 days, we change the restriction to 65 and over. None of this is exact math, but the idea is to keep our economy moving while limiting the threat to our healthcare system.

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Just a flu!

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Italy is a good example of what happens when government is in charge of health care.  They only have a population of ~60 million and cover an area roughly the size of Florida and Georgia.  They are unable to handle the number of cases that need hospitalization.

Once again as I have said before, it's not that big of a deal for us in the U.S.  We have the best medical facilities available, the best personnel and we are able to handle this epidemic.  The most danger is to the elderly and people with chronic conditions.

A reasonably healthy 20, 30, 40 or even 50 something person should not be alarmed and should not be forced to stay home just because someone in their building tested positive.

There is no reason to stockpile bottled water, toilet paper or other items because of this (though I have my normal stockpile of beer).

People (fueled by the MSM and social media) act like this is THE plague that will wipe out humanity.

I work around and with people from overseas every day.  In my place of work alone today we had people from Norway, Greece and Spain that just flew in over the weekend.  We take NORMAL precautions to sanitize our equipment between use.  By the end of the week we will have visitors from Chile and New Zealand as well.

If I end up getting this "flu" (which is pretty much the symptoms) I'll just stay home until I get over it.  If I'm only exposed to it I'll "self quarantine" out on my property and enjoy being away from people.

Really people need to stop over-reacting from a non-problem.

This post gets funnier by the day

It gets more true every day. But PANIC ON people, PANIC ON!!!!1

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

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JJ is on to something. I have been depressed the last 2 days because the numbers are starting to bother me. Doing the math, if people don't quarantine, we are going to overwhelm our hospital system. The virus doubles every day. At 4 cases currently, we will be at 65k cases in 2 weeks. On the flip side, if we flatten the curve, we are going to destroy our economy, because we are going to expose ourselves to the virus too slowly. Even if everyone self-quarantined for 30 days, there will still be transmission at the grocery stores, which means there will still be cases after 30 days, only the general population hasn't been exposed and we start all over.

The only thing that makes sense is to quarantine all households with an occupant over the age of 45. All households without any persons over the age of 45 should go to school and work. This way, we expose a significant portion of our populace to the virus without overwhelming our medical system. After 30 days, we change the restriction to 65 and over. None of this is exact math, but the idea is to keep our economy moving while limiting the threat to our healthcare system.

You make a good point, which is, the theory of suppressing the curve relies on enough people getting sick and recovering that we build up some immunity in the general population.   So, ironically, if we do too good a job of suppressing the curve with steps like social distancing, it does no good, because not enough people will get sick, and we'll be right back where we started.

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JJ is on to something. I have been depressed the last 2 days because the numbers are starting to bother me. Doing the math, if people don't quarantine, we are going to overwhelm our hospital system. The virus doubles every day. At 4 cases currently, we will be at 65k cases in 2 weeks. On the flip side, if we flatten the curve, we are going to destroy our economy, because we are going to expose ourselves to the virus too slowly. Even if everyone self-quarantined for 30 days, there will still be transmission at the grocery stores, which means there will still be cases after 30 days, only the general population hasn't been exposed and we start all over.

The only thing that makes sense is to quarantine all households with an occupant over the age of 45. All households without any persons over the age of 45 should go to school and work. This way, we expose a significant portion of our populace to the virus without overwhelming our medical system. After 30 days, we change the restriction to 65 and over. None of this is exact math, but the idea is to keep our economy moving while limiting the threat to our healthcare system.

You make a good point, which is, the theory of suppressing the curve relies on enough people getting sick and recovering that we build up some immunity in the general population.   So, ironically, if we do too good a job of suppressing the curve with steps like social distancing, it does no good, because not enough people will get sick, and we'll be right back where we started.

An even bigger hurdle, from what I've heard, is that in some cases even those who recover exhibit a weak immune response.  By that I mean, if someone gets sick and recoverd from the measles they have an immune response that is lifelong, in the case of some covid-19 patients that immune response dissipates and leaves the possibility of being reinfected.

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Coronavirus party! We’ll all gather and cough in each other’s faces. Then life can get back to normal in two weeks.

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As soon as the Florida heat comes back this virus will die. At least here anyway.

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JJ is on to something. I have been depressed the last 2 days because the numbers are starting to bother me. Doing the math, if people don't quarantine, we are going to overwhelm our hospital system. The virus doubles every day. At 4 cases currently, we will be at 65k cases in 2 weeks. On the flip side, if we flatten the curve, we are going to destroy our economy, because we are going to expose ourselves to the virus too slowly. Even if everyone self-quarantined for 30 days, there will still be transmission at the grocery stores, which means there will still be cases after 30 days, only the general population hasn't been exposed and we start all over.

The only thing that makes sense is to quarantine all households with an occupant over the age of 45. All households without any persons over the age of 45 should go to school and work. This way, we expose a significant portion of our populace to the virus without overwhelming our medical system. After 30 days, we change the restriction to 65 and over. None of this is exact math, but the idea is to keep our economy moving while limiting the threat to our healthcare system.

You make a good point, which is, the theory of suppressing the curve relies on enough people getting sick and recovering that we build up some immunity in the general population.   So, ironically, if we do too good a job of suppressing the curve with steps like social distancing, it does no good, because not enough people will get sick, and we'll be right back where we started.

Combining everyone's social behavior over the past weekend with the new testing capacity (apparently), we're nowhere near flattening the curve. I'm expecting to see a vertical spike in the next week accompanied by nationwide panic - then we'll start to see it taper off.

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I'll play you in ping pong. 

If this were MERS COV everyone should be panicking. Hard. That has a morality rate of 40%. FORTY.

This piece of nothing has a 2.5% mortality rate.

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If this were MERS COV everyone should be panicking. Hard. That has a morality rate of 40%. FORTY.

This piece of nothing has a 2.5% mortality rate.

2 1/2% of 100 million people is 2 1/2 million people

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If this were MERS COV everyone should be panicking. Hard. That has a morality rate of 40%. FORTY.

This piece of nothing has a 2.5% mortality rate.

2 1/2% of 100 million people is 2 1/2 million people

Okay... 80% of the positive tests are false positives.

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If this were MERS COV everyone should be panicking. Hard. That has a morality rate of 40%. FORTY.

This piece of nothing has a 2.5% mortality rate.

2 1/2% of 100 million people is 2 1/2 million people

It's not going to kill any healthy people. It still hasn't killed one young healthy person.

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2 1/2% of 100 million people is 2 1/2 million people

Okay... 80% of the positive tests are false positives.

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2 1/2% of 100 million people is 2 1/2 million people

It's not going to kill any healthy people. It still hasn't killed one young healthy person.

Yeah, [BLEEP] it.  Kill off the old people.  Who cares about them?  #amiright

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Okay... 80% of the positive tests are false positives.

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It's not going to kill any healthy people. It still hasn't killed one young healthy person.

Yeah, [BLEEP] it.  Kill off the old people.  Who cares about them?  #amiright

That's not what I'm saying.. his number would only be accurate if 100 million OLD people got infected.

If 100 million YOUNG HEALTHY people get it, the number would be ZERO.

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Yeah, [BLEEP] it.  Kill off the old people.  Who cares about them?  #amiright

That's not what I'm saying.. his number would only be accurate if 100 million OLD people got infected.

If 100 million YOUNG HEALTHY people get it, the number would be ZERO.

Does it state anywhere that 2.5% mortality is only in those 65+? IIRC, it's averaged among all who test positive. 

FWIW, my wife is healthy and young, but she's a recovering asthmatic and is absolutely terrified.

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I'll play you in ping pong. 

I did the numbers just for the seniors in Jacksonville earlier in this thread. It's easily enough to overwhelm our medical system. People shouldn't panic, but at least start recognizing the threat is real.

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Yeah, [BLEEP] it.  Kill off the old people.  Who cares about them?  #amiright

That's not what I'm saying.. his number would only be accurate if 100 million OLD people got infected.

If 100 million YOUNG HEALTHY people get it, the number would be ZERO.

Not really how that works.

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You make a good point, which is, the theory of suppressing the curve relies on enough people getting sick and recovering that we build up some immunity in the general population.   So, ironically, if we do too good a job of suppressing the curve with steps like social distancing, it does no good, because not enough people will get sick, and we'll be right back where we started.

Combining everyone's social behavior over the past weekend with the new testing capacity (apparently), we're nowhere near flattening the curve. I'm expecting to see a vertical spike in the next week accompanied by nationwide panic - then we'll start to see it taper off.

Here's a good article that illustrates the social distancing stuff well. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/...simulator/

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