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Originally Posted by matese  Pennsylvania Governor is "talking" about reopening some non-essential stores. I personally think it's to early, yesterday's news 1740 new cases of the virus were reported here in Pa. Ppl have to weigh which is more important, going back to work for a week possibly contracting this virus and maybe die, leaving their families in worse condition or hunker down, stay home, mortgage companies, and other loan insertions are put in place, no evictions for non payment of rent has been set in place. Here in Pa. more food banks just opened, there is help out there for ppl that need it. |
Of course as more testing is done, more positive cases are going to be reported. But even in 85 and older, less than 33% of patients die from the virus, and the younger, the numbers hold at less than 2%. Remember, even if you have a relatively mild case of Covid19 but die of a stroke or heart attack after a history of smoking or years of HBP, heart disease and die from those already serious health risks that would have soon killed you soon anyways, the death is attributed to Covid19. I doubt the true death rate from the virus alone in an otherwise healthy person is 80% of the numbers being reported.
Many states operate at near bankrupt financial status, owing billions in loan debts, as does our federal government, and all too soon food banks run out of product, so do state and federal sales tax coffers and as more businesses fail and more unemployment funds are needed, there is no $ left, as those funds often already having been raided by legislatures for other projects and needs, corruption rears its ugly head even higher than normal times and black markets spring up. And don't forget, there is no Social Security fund, that was raided decades ago and the program is funded just by workers and employers paying into it currently. If banks start to fail, we're in big, big trouble. As jobs dry up, so does it! And those IRA's and pension funds waste away with Wall Street losses and no incoming contributions, interest or anything.
So taken to extremes, the economic picture is just as bleak as the health one if one thinks of Covid19's current deaths as a rule of thumb to use alone in making economic decisions. As long as our hospital ICU's are not running at capacity and even the military hospital ships can stay at sea, not in port providing extra hospital beds, maybe enough people can get back to paying jobs so they can help others, pay taxes and buy a bit more, helping sales tax funds. You cannot have soon half the population sitting at home bingeing on TV series when the disease itself hasn't that high a mortality or morbidity rate to count as a long term economic influence vs. a whole country going into economic depression and the high crime and health risks that poses to the elderly, kids who can't get enough protein or fruits, etc. to even grow up hale and hardy. Kids of the Depression were thinner, smaller, less muscle mass and had many more medical problems than kids afterwards.
If we start having much higher death rates, hospitals overrun again or other problems, we can always go back into quarantine but states and the federal economy can't run like this for very much longer without some current funding for a time. I think we have to try to see if opening w/masks, gloves, social distancing can work.