Is/will the covid crisis be a bigger national crisis than 9/11 for the United States?

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Atari2600

Golden Member
Nov 22, 2016
1,409
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Even if you did find an expert it would be nothing more than a - are you ready -- for this -- an educated guess!!

Bit harsh on him/her there Yoda.

With so many unknowns, there is a large element of (educated) guesswork in getting the assumptions for any model setup.

Garbage in = Garbage out.

In England, they completely f**ked up the assumptions - I called it at the time based on the published results not passing basic sniff tests - and there was a U turn weeks later when they realised.


For instance, right now we've no idea how it responds to UV, so what its persistence will be across the summer months.

Or even about how widespread among the community it actually is. Very few places have extensive enough testing to give a real handle on the mortality rate. Germany has tested loads and has a very low mortality rate compared to elsewhere - is that because nowhere else (with exception of South Korea) is testing sufficiently?
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,636
8,522
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The problem is you are looking ahead. This crisis has only just begun, and much of the pain we suffer will only exist due to our response.

For example, we currently have... 3k dead?
Swine Flu.
CDC estimates that from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, there were 60.8 million cases, 274,000 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths

Did we have a bigger national crisis in 2009-2010, than September 11th? No.

Raw numbers of dead, by themselves, do not make a crisis. So it is a meaningless milestone, especially as we expect it to grow FAR bigger in the coming weeks and months. The impact of the virus is expected to be big, but our reaction is already FAR bigger than anything since WW2 / Great Depression. We have thrown ourselves into this situation and it's (arguably) already worse than anything in living memory.


It's surely significant that you only posted this yesterday and it's already out of date. US now has 4000 dead. Deaths running now at 900+ a day. At that rate it's going to surpass those 12,000 flu deaths less than two weeks from now. But this also puts a lot more sufferers in intensive-care than flu does, it seems. It's a much more disabling condition, even for the young, so it's going to be a much bigger problem for society.

(Three otherwise-healthy teenagers have died of it here in the last two days - I admit I don't know how frequently that happens with flu, though...maybe it just doesn't get reported - need to research that)

You seem to be coming close to the same line a number of economists are promoting - that it's an 'overreaction' that is the problem, the effect of that on the economy, rather than the disease itself. That doesn't appear to be correct, from what I see.

Indeed, I personally think this is exposing the limitations of the economist mindset. For some of those guys, I start to think maybe economics might be formalised psychopathy! Discounting lives because they are not sufficient contributors to the GDP. I think a certain type of hard-line free-market economist is struggling with this because it's something that can't be addressed purely individually, a pandemic requires a collective response. That law professor who made a fool of himself the other day (making up his own 'epidemiology facts') has close links to Chicago-school economists.
 

Commodus

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 2004
9,215
6,818
136
Expect half a billion dead & a global economic depression.

I don't know if it'll be that bad, but I can't help but worry about how developing countries will fare.

It's one thing to see the US go through this. It's another for Africa, for India, for other regions where working from home, online food orders and quality medical care just aren't options. Some people will be fine, but you could see this ravage villages and slums. And I worry that those countries won't get the aid they'll need so long as people like Trump, Johnson and Bolsonaro are in office.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,336
136
Almost every small business that requires public contact is going to close in the next few months and not re-open. A glut of vacant commercial properties is going to tank the real estate market. Unemployment is going to reach great depression levels. 1st and 2nd quarter GDPs are likely to go -10% or more. As the global economy contracts sharply, major powers will start fighting over basic resources. Unless something changes soon, this is going to be way worse than 9/11.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
It's surely significant that you only posted this yesterday and it's already out of date. US now has 4000 dead. Deaths running now at 900+ a day. At that rate it's going to surpass those 12,000 flu deaths less than two weeks from now. But this also puts a lot more sufferers in intensive-care than flu does, it seems. It's a much more disabling condition, even for the young, so it's going to be a much bigger problem for society.

(Three otherwise-healthy teenagers have died of it here in the last two days - I admit I don't know how frequently that happens with flu, though...maybe it just doesn't get reported - need to research that)

You seem to be coming close to the same line a number of economists are promoting - that it's an 'overreaction' that is the problem, the effect of that on the economy, rather than the disease itself. That doesn't appear to be correct, from what I see.

Indeed, I personally think this is exposing the limitations of the economist mindset. For some of those guys, I start to think maybe economics might be formalised psychopathy! Discounting lives because they are not sufficient contributors to the GDP. I think a certain type of hard-line free-market economist is struggling with this because it's something that can't be addressed purely individually, a pandemic requires a collective response. That law professor who made a fool of himself the other day (making up his own 'epidemiology facts') has close links to Chicago-school economists.

They all understand that the business cycle actually exists as part & parcel of Capitalism. The bigger & more unrestrained the upside the worse it gets on the downside, particularly for the little people whose assets are quickly depleted by overhead expense. When you're extremely wealthy, it doesn't change your life, no matter what it looks like on the balance sheet. Get liquid, sit back, buy back in when the fire sale gets going good. It's all highly abstract.
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
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I don't know if it'll be that bad, but I can't help but worry about how developing countries will fare.

It's one thing to see the US go through this. It's another for Africa, for India, for other regions where working from home, online food orders and quality medical care just aren't options. Some people will be fine, but you could see this ravage villages and slums. And I worry that those countries won't get the aid they'll need so long as people like Trump, Johnson and Bolsonaro are in office.
One thing they got going for them is life expectancy is generally not high enough for a lot of people to get into the risk group.
 
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blankslate

Diamond Member
Jun 16, 2008
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I would say that with the confirmed deaths in the U.S. from covid19 and the current Unemployment claims that we have already passed the point at which this pandemic has impacted the U.S. more than 9/11...

Due to the fact that because of Trump's Criminally Negligent early reaction to it... we're going to see a more serious harm to the U.S. than if he had took this seriously from the start in January.

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trump-have-best-words.jpg


....and we're still in the midst of it so we won't know the full count of those who have died from covid19 for a while...
or if covid19 will return at some time in the future in some slightly mutated form.

___________________
 
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