COVID-19 Shutdown Exit Strategy?

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My 84 year old MIL refuses to wear a mask. She has been mainly staying home alone, but today she went to the grocery store and to a restaurant for take-out. She says she isn’t scared of the virus because the death rate is very low. I told her that even her son and I are wearing masks, and trying to go out only for essential reasons and not often. Still, she seems to be in denial. We live far away and have limited influence.
 
Scuba said:
My 84 year old MIL refuses to wear a mask. She has been mainly staying home alone, but today she went to the grocery store and to a restaurant for take-out. She says she isn’t scared of the virus because the death rate is very low. I told her that even her son and I are wearing masks, and trying to go out only for essential reasons and not often. Still, she seems to be in denial. We live far away and have limited influence.
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My 83 FIL (with a bunch of underlying conditions) says he's not worried about the virus. His 80 year old girl friend is the same way. They've went to Home Depot 3 times in the last couple of days because "the front door just has to be painted!" We don't even try to reason with him anymore.
 
Gearhead Jim said:
I'm healthy but old enough to be in the high risk group, so I certainly want to get this under control.


But looking at the economic and political pressure to get things moving again, a US covid-19 death toll of 250,000 seems to be the upper limit of current "responsible" projections, that's less than 1/10 of 1% of the US population.


At some point the politicians will have to use the old philosophy of "You've got to break some eggs to make an omelet", and decide what is an acceptable level of casualties.


I hope it works out well for the country, and maybe for me too.
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The latest update out of the University of Washington projection is 60,000 deaths. It's come down quite a bit lately as they put in new information. The naysayers will bring up the normal flu deaths (again) and demand everything be opened back up. My guess is we'll open the economy too quickly and not wait for the testing to ramp up to the degree necessary to do so. I still know people that think it's all a hoax.
 
doneat54 said:
I also think that studies and data on antibody and immunity are going to play a big role. If you have the means to ID people accurately and therefore remove them from the risk pool, these restrictions can be reduced. The down side of that might be some social disorder if you now have identified one set of people who are restricted and another set who are not. I read an article of one country using wristbands to ID (what they think are immune people, but I don't think that science is there yet) the "safe" people. It wasn't going well...
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Do you have a link to the article?

That's what I'd expect in the US as soon as we have an antibody test. We've got lots of companies trying to sell finger prick, 15 minute antibody tests today. Within a month, I expect some of those will turn out to be good enough.

NY city has 80,000 confirmed cases. Most of those people will recover and want to get on with their lives. Almost certainly, there is a larger pool who had symptoms but didn't get tested. They are recovering and want to get on with their lives. Then, there are people who lived with C19 positive people, but never had symptoms. They expect they fought the virus off efficiently, they want to get on with their lives.

That's a big enough pool to provide lots of pressure to start issuing some sort of "positive antibody" card. Once that happens, we'll see young people trying to get the virus. All the ideas about keeping a tight lid on will have to adapt.

(I know we can't prove that immunity lasts 5 years or even 5 months. It certainly lasts for some time, that's embedded in the fact that people recover. It doesn't suddenly disappear, but wears off gradually. Every re-exposure boosts the immunity up again. I think that's "good enough" for the recovered to move forward.)
 
Independent said:
That's a big enough pool to provide lots of pressure to start issuing some sort of "positive antibody" card. Once that happens, we'll see young people trying to get the virus. All the ideas about keeping a tight lid on will have to adapt.
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This is going to be messed up. One of many scenarios: "I need to get the virus so I can come into work and be in the office for the boss. That way, I'll get promoted."

Saw that at Megacorp. Distance workers were almost always last for promotions. Out of sight, out of mind.
 
Gearhead Jim said:
I'm healthy but old enough to be in the high risk group, so I certainly want to get this under control.


But looking at the economic and political pressure to get things moving again, a US covid-19 death toll of 250,000 seems to be the upper limit of current "responsible" projections, that's less than 1/10 of 1% of the US population.


At some point the politicians will have to use the old philosophy of "You've got to break some eggs to make an omelet", and decide what is an acceptable level of casualties.


I hope it works out well for the country, and maybe for me too.
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But don't we risk more than 250,000 deaths if we open up the country (to whatever extent) too early?

I thought the 100K to 250K estimates of fatalities was based on most/all of the country practicing stay at home/social distancing. That number has now been lowered, but I worry that it's going to send a message that we can reopen restaurants, bars, retail stores, etc. and not trigger another outbreak of cases.
 
Study from University of Oxford in UK says there are a lot of people offering a COVID-19 antibody test but accuracy is still a problem.

"...“We see many false negatives...and we also see false positives...None of the tests we have validated would meet the criteria for a good test...Last week, the FDA granted an emergency authorization to its first antibody blood test for COVID-19, developed by Cellex. According to the company, the test agreed with positive results from PCR tests 93% of the time and negative results 96% of the time...the antibody blood tests currently available for mass screening do not meet the government’s accuracy standards...There are 100 or more such test kits from different suppliers available...and it is important that each of these is checked for accuracy before making them available to the public...adding that countries such as Spain have already returned inaccurate tests to companies...it will take “at least a month” for a test sensitive enough to be scaled up for widespread use...”

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medte...accurate-enough-for-mass-screening-say-oxford

https://www.research.ox.ac.uk/Article/2020-04-05-trouble-in-testing-land
 
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PatrickA5 said:
My 83 FIL (with a bunch of underlying conditions) says he's not worried about the virus. His 80 year old girl friend is the same way. They've went to Home Depot 3 times in the last couple of days because "the front door just has to be painted!" We don't even try to reason with him anymore.
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Perhaps when some folks reach a certain age, they are willing to risk it, but my DM and DF ages 87 and 90 will not go anywhere.
 
What will Recovery Look Like

Here in Oklahoma we have about 400 people currently in the hospitals from Covid. There have been about 80 deaths from Covid, and about 80 deaths from the 2019/2020 flu season.

The shutdown of all but "essential " businesses and the decrease in the oil price has the state government hurting for money.

I think a place like this might be a reasonable candidate for seeing what an economic restart would look like. Any thoughts about what such a restart would look like?
 
The bars and restaurants are gonna kill!
 
Dwhit said:
Here in Oklahoma we have about 400 people currently in the hospitals from Covid. There have been about 80 deaths from Covid, and about 80 deaths from the 2019/2020 flu season.

The shutdown of all but "essential " businesses and the decrease in the oil price has the state government hurting for money.

I think a place like this might be a reasonable candidate for seeing what an economic restart would look like. Any thoughts about what such a restart would look like?
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I believe it will depend upon hospital capacity. How is the hospital capacity there? As you know, this whole stay at home thing is about hospital capacity, not you or me or any individual person. Once the peaks are past and the hospitals can handle the load, IMO that is when things will open up.

That said, businesses can open but many people will not go to visit them. A virus that is spread by people that do not show symptoms, that is more contagious and has a higher death rate than the flu, and for which there is no treatment or vaccine is quite the deterrent to casual shopping.
 
timo2 said:
A virus that is spread by people that do not show symptoms, that is more contagious and has a higher death rate than the flu, and for which there is no treatment or vaccine is quite the deterrent to casual shopping.
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But other than that, what’s the problem? :facepalm:
 
We just have to get over this "hump" thing and go back to business so everyone can get infected at a lower rate and get the immunity thing going.

Survive it or die. Natural selection.
 
Until testing is ubiquitous along with an anti-viral treatment protocol and a vaccine, I think it is going to be slow going. Even if this virus goes into hibernation for awhile and infection rates drop significantly, I've still got no desire to fly, cruise or even attend activities where there are crowds. I do think the economy will make a slow come back, say over the next 12-18 months but what do I know ?
 
The Oklahoma figures might be understated, as they have the least testing per 1m population in the USA.
 
I play golf most days with friends (some still working, some not), and I am comfortable with that. If restaurants were to open, I think I would go to a couple of my favorites, especially if they were not too crowded. I know my wife would go to the beauty shop and nail salon.

I'd be comfortable at the local movie theater, because it's almost never very crowded. But it would have to be for a movie I really wanted to see. We have a local theater subscription, but it is always pretty much a full house for each show, so I am not sure how soon we might start that back.

We also do some dancing lessons and dances with friends (country two stepping, some ballroom, etc.). Definitely would have to think about that some.
 
Dtail said:
The Oklahoma figures might be understated, as they have the least testing per 1m population in the USA.
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I think the number of people currently hospitalized is accurate as of a day or so ago. Also the number of deaths should be reasonably accurate, assuming those who die go to the hospital first. But either way, my point was I think Oklahoma, and maybe other places, are not nearly as hard hit as others in the USA, and quite likely could be ready to take steps to re-open soon.
 
Slow. Drawn out. It is going to take a long time to reabsorb all of the unemployed. A lot of small businesses will go bankrupt and away, so new ones will have to be created to create enough jobs. Tht will all take time.
 
timo2 said:
I believe it will depend upon hospital capacity. How is the hospital capacity there? As you know, this whole stay at home thing is about hospital capacity, not you or me or any individual person. Once the peaks are past and the hospitals can handle the load, IMO that is when things will open up.
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I can't help much here. I am not knowledgeable in hospital capacity. Our total number of cases is going up daily with increasing testing, but the death rate is not climbing very much at this time. I don't know what the rate of people from Covid in the hospitals is doing. I was just surprised when I saw the report a day or so ago that there were only 390 people from it.
 
A paper suggests UK's exit strategy should be:

"...Working people aged between 20 and 30 years-old should be the first out of lockdown to help re-start the economy...It is estimated that the move would result in 630 deaths, which is a "far smaller risk" than from ending the lockdown for everybody at once..."

I wonder if the 20-30 yr olds will have a say in this or will it be like a draft/lottery?

https://news.yahoo.com/young-people-least-likely-die-152607422.html

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/econo...ations/policy_briefing_oswald__powdthavee.pdf
 
There is no exit strategy, at least not one that will be well-coordinated. There are numerous state governors and big city mayors who apparently get to make the decision to rescind their individual shutdown orders.

There will be people who will fear for their own life if their area opens up, and there will be people who will fear for their family's livelihood if their area doesn't open up. This is going to get far, far worse.
 
FIREd_2015 said:
A paper suggests UK's exit strategy should be:

"...Working people aged between 20 and 30 years-old should be the first out of lockdown to help re-start the economy...It is estimated that the move would result in 630 deaths, which is a "far smaller risk" than from ending the lockdown for everybody at once..."

I wonder if the 20-30 yr olds will have a say in this or will it be like a draft/lottery?

https://news.yahoo.com/young-people-least-likely-die-152607422.html

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/econo...ations/policy_briefing_oswald__powdthavee.pdf
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But a lot of businesses have supervisors and managers, who tend to be older. So not sure how that could work.
 
There is no perfect plan, but we have to restart sooner or later. We should weigh all the risks, but we can’t wait to eliminate every risk. Some people will die, but nothing like an uncoordinated effort. Over 2 million people die in the US every year due to various illnesses and accidents (excluding old age) and we accept that without much thought. As usual, we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Some people will go back too soon, some people will choose to stay away (long) after we’re allowed.

And some businesses may be forever changed, e.g. large concerts, festivals, sporting events, weddings and funerals, restaurants and bars, museums and galleries, hair and nails, YMCAs and fitness clubs, movies and theater, air travel and hotels - anything that involves crowds of strangers and/or communal use without extensive verifiable cleaning. I think the latter has been more common in Asia, and will become more common in the West now.
 
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