COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[The Beast]

4 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Right now this bill will add about $2 trillion. however, because the Federal Reserve is going to simply buy up the bonds that are issued as part of their $4 trillion package, the effect in terms of increasing interest rates will be muted/gone as there's absolutely a market for those bonds. In a normal time, printing up $2 trillion and handing it to people would drive inflation, but that's 10% of the economy and the size of the economy is about to drop by more than 10%, so it's still probably not large enough to be a major inflationary push. And if it is...GREAT WE LIVED THROUGH THIS.

Thanks for explaining, I admit to not knowing everything about finance and the fed but I always am concerned about the impact on taxpayers like me. ?

[Soxbadger]

35 minutes ago, mqr said:

I know this is the last thing on anyone else's mind but I'm both morbidly fascinated and terrified how the small to mid level music industry is going to come back from this. 

Baseball is going to bounce back. I'm not sure something like the Metro will. 

Metro has been saying that they are fine. It really depends on who owns that building. If they own it they should be fine because that real estate has a lot of value. 

[The Beast]

3 hours ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I actually read the entire reworked UI proposal from the senator from Colorado. He didnt even write that for COVID - he's been working on it for months. It was an interesting and solid proposal but not one that is being reviewed today. 

Bennet? If so can you link me?

[mqr]

Just now, Soxbadger said:

Metro has been saying that they are fine. It really depends on who owns that building. If they own it they should be fine because that real estate has a lot of value. 

They're just the first thing that popped into my head. 

[Soxbadger]

4 minutes ago, mqr said:

I think a huge number of them are probably boned. Who knows how long after the legal obligation to be closed ends that crowds are ready to come back. It's depressing the hell out of me. 

The entertainment business is already WAY too concentrated and this is only going to make it worse.  It sucks. The priority s keeping people alive, but the other end of this crisis is bleak. 

The good news if you read a lot of forums is that there are music fans who want to go out there today and are mad that things are closed. 

[ron883]

I hope Cuvee survives this

[Soxbadger]

1 hour ago, mqr said:

They're just the first thing that popped into my head. 

Well in Chicago the ones I know are:

Double Door (currently moving to Uptown so they picked a great time to be closed)

Green Mill expanding

Riveria ( I was wrong on this one. They are Jam. I just received an email asking for donations for their staff. Which seems to indicate the company is fine, but their workers arent.)

 

Aragon are owned by Live Nation so basically they are fine unless the entire music industry collapses.

Radius is a brand new club, obviously terrible timing as they only were able to put on 2 weeks of shows. 

Other ones like Concord etc I havent seen anything about. Ive seen a bunch of Milwaukee clubs asking for assistance.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Soxbadger

[Texsox]

On the music front a good friend of mine performs on South Padre where he and his wife happen to own a restaurant. He was playing for customers who would stay in their cars while waiting for their take out. The city shut down his playing because he was "drawing a crowd". The next day he had zero take out orders. 

[mqr]

1 minute ago, Soxbadger said:

Well in Chicago the ones I know are:

Double Door (currently moving to Uptown so they picked a great time to be closed)

Green Mill expanding

Riveria/Aragon are owned by Live Nation so basically they are fine unless the entire music industry collapses.

Radius is a brand new club, obviously terrible timing as they only were able to put on 2 weeks of shows. 

Other ones like Concord etc I havent seen anything about. Ive seen a bunch of Milwaukee clubs asking for assistance.

I'm thinking the Empty Bottles and Subterraneans will be in trouble. 

[Soxbadger]

1 minute ago, mqr said:

I'm thinking the Empty Bottles and Subterraneans will be in trouble. 

Really depends on the landlord. My guess is that most landlords are considering forbearance agreements because there is no point evicting a tenant when you arent getting another one any time soon. 

[tray]

The rate of infection can be slowed but probably not stopped given that there are tens of thousands who have been diagnosed so far and the fact that CV-19 is highly contagious.   This makes me think that the measures we put  in place to flatten the curve may  do that but may also lengthen the curve considerably. That could mean this shit will be with us for years not months, unless and until a vaccine is invented. That also does not bode well for baseball this year.

I am laughing at all the people that whined about Bernie's socialist agenda but now want government to bail out their business or pay them unemployment. The rationale for helping a low income person who cannot make ends meet  is not much different than the rationale for bailing out businesses when they need help.

Edited March 25, 2020 by tray

[Balta1701]

8 minutes ago, tray said:

The rate of infection can be slowed but probably not stopped given that there are tens of thousands who have been diagnosed so far and the fact that CV-19 is highly contagious.   This makes me think that the measures we in place to flatten the curve may  do that but may also lengthen the curve considerably. That could mean this shit will be with us for years not months, unless and until a vaccine is invented. That also does not bode well for baseball this year.

I am laughing at all the people that whined about Bernie's socialist agenda but now want government to bail out their business or pay them unemployment. The rationale for helping a low income person who cannot make ends meet  is not much different than the rationale for bailing out businesses when they need help.

We've seen China reach a point where, if government numbers are believable, they have very low transmission on an average day. 

South Korea has passed their peak, and are down to a few dozen new diagnosed cases per day. 

If you have available testing for everyone, and I mean everyone whether they're prisoners, homeless, immigrants, of a race people don't like, whatever - then we can get past this peak over the next 3-4 weeks and then as new cases pop up, the US would have plenty of resources to trace where it came from. Once you're doing that, we've seen how the incidents drop.

This can be done, but it requires everyone working together and a commitment from everyone, including the government.

[tray]

China? Small sample size..  (kidding)

[bmags]

6 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

We've seen China reach a point where, if government numbers are believable, they have very low transmission on an average day. 

South Korea has passed their peak, and are down to a few dozen new diagnosed cases per day. 

If you have available testing for everyone, and I mean everyone whether they're prisoners, homeless, immigrants, of a race people don't like, whatever - then we can get past this peak over the next 3-4 weeks and then as new cases pop up, the US would have plenty of resources to trace where it came from. Once you're doing that, we've seen how the incidents drop.

This can be done, but it requires everyone working together and a commitment from everyone, including the government.

UK is about to send out in-home testing kits en masse. Iceland tested everyone. We need 1) FDA to allow in home test kits and B) scale up production of both kits and equipment needed to perform kits to a huge huge level of the pop. 

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, bmags said:

UK is about to send out in-home testing kits en masse. Iceland tested everyone. We need 1) FDA to allow in home test kits and B) scale up production of both kits and equipment needed to perform kits to a huge huge level of the pop. 

For all the talk of available tests, it seems like even this week people who should be tested either can't get one or they're having to wait many hours to get access to the test. 

[bmags]

Just now, Balta1701 said:

For all the talk of available tests, it seems like even this week people who should be tested either can't get one or they're having to wait many hours to get access to the test. 

For now it's not the kits, it's the lack of equipment (swaps, masks, etc).

[mqr]

25 minutes ago, Soxbadger said:

Really depends on the landlord. My guess is that most landlords are considering forbearance agreements because there is no point evicting a tenant when you arent getting another one any time soon. 

Hope your right. 
 

Ultimately, this is a huge issue for all small business, but small business that depends on large crowds and people who aren’t exactly financially solvent will have it extra hard. 

[TaylorStSox]

34 minutes ago, mqr said:

I'm thinking the Empty Bottles and Subterraneans will be in trouble. 

The Empty Bottle is owned by 16 On Center. They're fine. 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

48 minutes ago, The Beast said:

Bennet? If so can you link me?

Can download here:

https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?id=E52B6523-9C69-4B96-B0EC-7C7C6C9F4EFE

[pcq]

Just now, tray said:

The rate of infection can be slowed but probably not stopped given that there are tens of thousands who have been diagnosed so far and the fact that CV-19 is highly contagious.   This makes me think that the measures we put  in place to flatten the curve may  do that but may also lengthen the curve considerably. That could mean this shit will be with us for years not months, unless and until a vaccine is invented. That also does not bode well for baseball this year.

I am laughing at all the people that whined about Bernie's socialist agenda but now want government to bail out their business or pay them unemployment. The rationale for helping a low income person who cannot make ends meet  is not much different than the rationale for bailing out businesses when they need help.

Duh socialism is for corporations. Bumpkins don't get this. 

[bmags]

330 new cases in illinois after 250 on Tues and 230 on Monday. Testing up to 15k (~2k up from yesterday)

[Texsox]

Is anyone else seeing an uptick in "busy work" at work? Damn, it's like my athletic department opened a file of "if we have time lets . . ." projects. 

[Balta1701]

I would highly recommend everyone read through this detailed discussion by biologist Ed Yong, really well formatted and thought through.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/

[mqr]

well this is bleak. 

[StrangeSox]

10 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I would highly recommend everyone read through this detailed discussion by biologist Ed Yong, really well formatted and thought through.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/

It’s likely, then, that the new coronavirus will be a lingering part of American life for at least a year, if not much longer. If the current round of social-distancing measures works, the pandemic may ebb enough for things to return to a semblance of normalcy. Offices could fill and bars could bustle. Schools could reopen and friends could reunite. But as the status quo returns, so too will the virus. This doesn’t mean that society must be on continuous lockdown until 2022. But “we need to be prepared to do multiple periods of social distancing,” says Stephen Kissler of Harvard.

 

Much about the coming years, including the frequency, duration, and timing of social upheavals, depends on two properties of the virus, both of which are currently unknown. First: seasonality. Coronaviruses tend to be winter infections that wane or disappear in the summer. That may also be true for SARS-CoV-2, but seasonal variations might not sufficiently slow the virus when it has so many immunologically naive hosts to infect. “Much of the world is waiting anxiously to see what—if anything—the summer does to transmission in the Northern Hemisphere,” says Maia Majumder of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Second: duration of immunity. When people are infected by the milder human coronaviruses that cause cold-like symptoms, they remain immune for less than a year. By contrast, the few who were infected by the original SARS virus, which was far more severe, stayed immune for much longer. Assuming that SARS-CoV-2 lies somewhere in the middle, people who recover from their encounters might be protected for a couple of years. To confirm that, scientists will need to develop accurate serological tests, which look for the antibodies that confer immunity. They’ll also need to confirm that such antibodies actually stop people from catching or spreading the virus. If so, immune citizens can return to work, care for the vulnerable, and anchor the economy during bouts of social distancing.

 

Scientists can use the periods between those bouts to develop antiviral drugs—although such drugs are rarely panaceas, and come with possible side effects and the risk of resistance. Hospitals can stockpile the necessary supplies. Testing kits can be widely distributed to catch the virus’s return as quickly as possible. There’s no reason that the U.S. should let SARS-CoV-2 catch it unawares again, and thus no reason that social-distancing measures need to be deployed as broadly and heavy-handedly as they now must be. As Aaron E. Carroll and Ashish Jha recently wrote, “We can keep schools and businesses open as much as possible, closing them quickly when suppression fails, then opening them back up again once the infected are identified and isolated. Instead of playing defense, we could play more offense.”

Whether through accumulating herd immunity or the long-awaited arrival of a vaccine, the virus will find spreading explosively more and more difficult. It’s unlikely to disappear entirely. The vaccine may need to be updated as the virus changes, and people may need to get revaccinated on a regular basis, as they currently do for the flu. Models suggest that the virus might simmer around the world, triggering epidemics every few years or so. “But my hope and expectation is that the severity would decline, and there would be less societal upheaval,” Kissler says. In this future, COVID-19 may become like the flu is today—a recurring scourge of winter. Perhaps it will eventually become so mundane that even though a vaccine exists, large swaths of Gen C won’t bother getting it, forgetting how dramatically their world was molded by its absence