https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Every profession, every institution, everything is being turned upside down lately. I was telling the wife the other day, it’s like reality has been put through a wood chipper.
I work part time at the most popular diner in the south. If we close, you know the world is about to end...lol
Business was a tad bit slower this weekend. They have us sanitizing almost everything once an hour. This weekend taxed my old self physically, but I understand the necessity. Hope we stay open as I need the income!
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Note the parabolic shape of “Active Cases in the United States” graph. The “Total Coronavirus Deaths in the United States”” graph is starting to follow in its footsteps. If unchecked by measures to stop the spread that include mandatory quarantines (that may include minimum security prisoner furloughs and the requisition of prisons to house quarantined individuals in an easy to monitor environment) and regulations re large gatherings, we may soon see hundreds of deaths per day. Just like Italy.
Two points. One - overreaction costs are mainly economic while underreaction costs are in lives lost. No one is going to starve to death from any economic contraction. The Green Revolution a century ago means that 1% of the population produces enough food to make the other 99% obese, with enough surplus to export to godforsaken places like China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
Two - this is an election year. The elderly tend to vote for Trump. Leaving aside the purely humanitarian aspects of mass death and illness, we don’t want the elderly shunted off to an early grave or ICU’s so that Democratic ballot harvesters can turn them into Biden voters. We need to put Trump back in office for another term. To do that, we must get this pandemic under control, and soon, to keep elderly voters healthy. And if that means losing a few points of GDP in the next few quarters, so be it. We’ll get them all back once Trump is in for a second term.
It’s the potential, don’t you know. Potential is a killer. It can’t be prevented, it can’t be sterilized, hell it can’t even be quantified.