Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

New York State is now some kind of declared disaster area. 10k cases and rising. Army corp and governor are scoping out temporary hospital sites. All nonessential workers are ordered to stay home.
Unfortunately, construction is considered essential so I’ll be continuing to work.
I’ve been involved in a multi million dollar resort development and their not looking to slow down from what the C of W tells me.
‘If someone gets sick we get someone else’ is the word.
I’m expecting a delivery of a unit of plywood this coming week. I’ve told them I won’t accept the load if the drivers not masked. We’ll see.
Also not cutting plywood for at least three days and will be staying the hell away from it in the shop as it’s coming out of Rochester that is having spiking cases.
A good friend of mine just went over the road to some Gold Coast community in Mass. where he’s to begin demo/construction on a commercial job. Expects to be out for 3 months.
I’m glad all the bullsh!t jobs are at least becoming visible. Sucks that construction, as it relates to retail or hospitality, is considered essential.
As a contractor it is not very clear there will be any assistance from the fed. Just opportunities for loans
Heard the banks are going to get a trillion/day to make sure they’ll come thru.
People, not so much.

My wife and I have three modest rental properties we bought over a lifetime of work for our retirement income. We have always had the policy not to ever raise the rent on people because tenants move out often enough. Now I'm going to have to tell our management company not to evict tenants if they can't pay the rent.

The Trump Administration was warned as early as January 2017 about the dangers of a pandemic when the Obama Administration briefed them as part of handing over the keys. In October 2019 a report was issued by members of this administration about the lack of equipment. In January 2020, intel reports warned about the dangers of the coronavirus.

The Trump Administration did nothing for way too long.

a good article, cutting thru the idea of a two party system with each party trying desperately to blame the other for a decades long bipartison market oriented politics.

'More broadly, through the self-serving mythology of rugged individualism, capitalism has been used to shape and reshape social relations. This makes its dependence on serial bailouts both ridiculous and pathetic. Conceived several centuries ago to shift power from Aristocrats to a burgeoning business class, without a large and intrusive government to prevent consolidation and self-dealing, it quickly creates a new Aristocracy to close the door behind it. What is left is the privileged, remote and self-dealing oligarchy that now stands before us.

During ‘normal’ times, when this oligarchy isn’t acting to destroy other nations and the world, malgovernance for its own benefit is made the ordinary working of government. For instance, the U.S. military is wildly overfunded while the healthcare system is structured to let the people die at a politically acceptable pace. During ‘not normal’ times, a hierarchy of privilege is set in motion. First, save the wealth of the rich through bailouts. Second, secure the rights of corporations to profit from catastrophe. Last, let the people die at a politically acceptable pace.'

The Virus and Capitalism

The parties two political factions will be blaming one another over who didn't plan for enough burial pits to be dug.

Trump knew an epidemic was coming two months ago. Instead of preparing, he lied and told people to not worry. Some Americans went out and spread this virus based upon Trump's lies.

Now Trump Admin goons continue to lie. Trump has done everything to make this epidemic worse. Doctors and nurses are telling us that they have no supplies.

Idiot Trump replaced competent government workers with anti science morons. Why does South Korea test 200,000 people a day and we have tested only 20,000 people all together. Ever country that has solid leadership is testing, but America is not testing?

Gee,I dunno Rick. Why does every developed country have some kind of universal public healthcare while the US does not?

Trump do that too? How many people will be dying as a result of the way we have organized health ‘access’ in this country,

Before it gets all Jim Jones level of binary political world view, I loath Trump as much as I loath neoliberals.

Trumps greed and incompetence is only adding to an inhumane system that had already existed and is being currently defended.

I want universal healthcare as well, but the majority of Americans do not as evident by who they pick for our leaders.

Revealing, not just the Trump administrations' utter lack of understanding for the nature of pandemics, but their stubborn refusal to believe scientists over their own "gut feelings."

Then there's the petulant envy by Trump and the RW that led them to destroy the pandemic team Obama Admin put in place.

I’m of the belief that we get to vote on what the party decides, not the other way around.

Trump will no doubt add to the rising mortalities. The overarching state of our medical economy was in place long before Trump got here. One of Trumps campaign promises was to fix healthcare. About as honest as Obama’s pledges in his first presidential campaign.

I hear smoking and obesity are going to be big factors for patient survival rates. As we’re the most obese nation on earth, I’m assuming that will contribute to the mortality rates in a significant way.

I’m bracing for both political parties resolving to make our situation a result of the other faction’s shortcomings while ignoring the broader scientific evidence.

I'm of the same mindset. That both parties will try to make political hay over this in order to gain some political advantages. Although we're seeing some cooperation. So there may be some hope. But I'm use to each party blaming the other for anything and everything that goes wrong or that isn't ideal.

Yeah, we get to vote after the fact on what a political party does or doesn't do. We basically have no say in what a party decides to do or not. All we can do is hope that the party we put back in control isn't as bad as the party we kicked out.