pandemic

[Wesley]

Here in Pennsylvania, it has gotten bad enough that they finally issues "Shelter At Home" orders for many counties, including where I live. So far there are only 22 cases of COVID-19 in my county, but of course we want to keep that number low.

So what does a person do when you have to stay at home? I can't work, and since I am self-employed, I can't get financial assistance from the government. It is going to be an interesting year.

But enough about me. The world has not seen a medical emergency like this for 100 years. With the knowledge we have from the last few times anything like this happened, we should be able to fix it quickly, right? In theory, yes.
However, all of our jobs, insurance, taxes, that kind of stuff... for decades the system has been geared so that business owners get the cream off the top, and everyone else has to fight for what is left. Now that thousands of people are not able to work -- by the way, many business owners wanted the people to keep working so they could make money, even though a pandemic was spreading around the globe -- but now that so many people cannot work, we need to re-think how business operates. Here in America, we have no UBI, no safety net for when a tragedy happens. I think after we figure out how to deal with this Coronavirus, many changes will be made. Work conditions, pay, taxes, medical insurance -- it will all be re-examined and "fixed."

Slightly off-topic, but those of you who do not live in America may have seen how greedy American businesses are.
For about 30 years, it has been getting a little worse, and a little worse, and a little worse. 30 years ago, a "good job" was about ten bucks an hour. Now a basic beginner job is about ten bucks an hour. And someone with 20 years of experience may make 15. So a 5 dollar increase in 30 years? Oh, but get this! Top executives who used to make 1 to 2 million 30 years ago, now they make over 100 million. They are asking the employees to work harder, longer, for the same (or sometimes less) money, while they keep taking more and more and more. And this is all businesses, including hospitals. Why do you think we don't have enough equipment to deal with this disaster?
It saves the company money to have just enough supplies on hand, no extras. HA! Well now we need the extra stuff, and god dammit, you should not look at human health and suffering as a check box on your ledger.

Anyway, I am out of money, no job, stuck at home, watching the world burn. Let's see how this turns out.

[Moe]

Minnesota put our "stay at home" order in place on the 27th. The plan is for it to last 14 days, with the understanding that it will offset how many people get it at one time, knowing that the same amount of people overall will probably get it.
Businesses deemed non-essential will remain closed through the 1st of May.

Department of Corrections, right next door to us had a confirmed case, which who knows how many people that inmate came into contact with before getting confirmed, including DOC staff, who shop at the same places as our staff, so it's only a matter of time before it explodes on us.

[bella]

Lets hope it won't last months. It is sad to see that many politicians have their priorities on the economy, not on the well-being of their workforce. This crisis shows that these low-paid jobs are vital to the system. People don't work for the economy, economy works for the people.
The good side is, it brings people together, they help and support each other. And the air is getting cleaner. We might even reach our climate goals here for 2020, who would have thought that.

[Moe]

Welp, We've had our first suspected case at work today. Lives on our assisted living unit. Woke up this morning with shortness of breath. So that unit has been on lockdown all day (and will remain as such until further notice), and he got moved to the unit we opened up as an isolation unit until we get his results back. Here's to hoping that his results come back negative, and this was just a practice run for the real deal.

That being said, if any of our guys got it, he would be one of the most likely ones, since he still goes out 3 times a week for dialysis, whereas all of our other transports have been cancelled.

[Moe]

Our governor signed a new order allowing for certain non-critical non-public facing businesses to reopen with certain guidelines, which are that they must submit a plan to both OSHA and the states department of health, which will have to include continuing social distancing, keeping people that can work from home, at home, and other things of the sort.

[Wesley]

Things are getting a little weird.

Many people can't work, because of safety restrictions based on the spread of the virus.

The economy is driven from the bottom up. People buy chewing gum and iced tea, and that money goes to the drugstore. The owner then buys more stuff, and that money goes to another business, etc.

I have friends who think letting people get sick and die is a fair trade off for just keeping the business machine moving.


I think they have an incomplete understanding of the Human immune system. "People will get sick, but some won't.
And people will somehow share this immunity they have developed internally until nobody will get sick from Coronavirus. Except for the ones that do. And they will die. But that is okay because we will all be better then. The End."

It is a very complicated thing the world is going through. And to me it seems that we are going to have to stop pretending that those in power have our well-being in mind. Also, "they" certainly do have the power to keep us from suffering financially. They always have. We have been operating under the illusion that we have to "work hard, earn your way, then grow old and die." Yeah, that is febreeze. That is how "they" keep us fighting amongst ourselves and relatively weak, while the conglomerate power and money and keep us working like rats in their machine. Only now, we can't go to work, so the machine is grinding to a halt. There are those who say,"Let those who cannot work fail and die. Survival of the fittest." Hmm, yeah... it does not work like that. No matter what a selfish piece of shazam! you are, we are all connected. THAT is how we are going to fix this thing. VOTE! Get some humans that do not work for "them" in office. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, be less materialistic.

Ah, more on this later. Maybe.

[Clarence]

The kind of people you are talking about are retarded

[bella]

Personal freedom over flattening the curve. The problem is you cannot argue with such people. They want to believe that disinfectant helps cleaning you from inside and UV-light will magically solve the problem in summer and if you come up with reasonable, proven arguments, it's all fake news. Meh.

[Beany]

I haven't got anything to add to this discussion, but just wanted to say that I hope you're all doing okay and coping as best you can with the current situation.