Japan and Taiwan both being prime examples that wearing masks and washing your hands is effective. You can even throw China into that mix
Think about this when you argue that keeping the economy humming is job one (did you like the pun there?) because the stressors of financial hardship due to lockdowns harm mental and physical health, perhaps shortening a person’s life span.
If you callously shorten MY lifespan by immaturely resisting the moral imperative of following science and expert professional advice to reduce the sheer death toll, I WILL BE ALIVE AT LEAST 26 FEWER YEARS TO SPEND MY ENTIRE INCOME in your damn precious economy. I’m 70, my biological mother is 96 and kicking along. Do the math.
Silly lens of mine, that I don’t want to die prematurely because of selfish ignoramuses. And I do think we could shell out the resources to keep people afloat at a subsidence level until a vaccine is available-hopefully early 2020.
Tax the wealthy at the same level I am. Reduce military spending a tad-use troops and military structure at home to battle the virus and provide basic civil services and infrastructure. Rinse and repeat the first idea.
You do know we have been subsidizing the richest for generations, right? Subsidize the rest of us for a few months. The rich will survive-I might not.
Well that ship might have sailed.
Agreed.
Please, I implore you, remember to check your registration to vote and VOTE. Sounds like you will, but I had to say that.
Getting yourself and those you love to get a flu shot early in September is also a contribution to the welfare of all in these coming months. Not only protects you but also reduces the spread of the flu and potentially overwhelming hospitals and caregivers with flu patients.
So, keep those good responses of yours coming:brain:, vote 
, get that flu shot 
. I will too.
Oops. That was supposed to be brain 
,. I was trying to complement you. Thanks for giving me a second chance.
Sorry, but for significant technical reasons I’m not voting in November.
Thank you for kindly listening to my plea and responding. Taken in the spirit in which it was offered.
Are you willing to pay my rent and other bills?
No?
Then I’m going to have to go to work even if I am over 50 and have an underlying condition. Since I’m considered “an essential worker” I wasn’t laid off, indeed, for a time I had mandatory overtime. Quit my job you say? Then I won’t be eligible for unemployment. I’ll be penniless. Sure, could get food stamps and visit a food pantry, but my landlord does not accept kumquats in lieu of rent. I’ll be homeless before the end of the year, which means either sleeping on the street or, worse yet, in a nice, crowded homeless shelter where no isolating is possible.
That’s one major flaw right there - too many people who HAVE TO work because they have no other option. I’ve basically been drafted.
^ This.
People act like wearing a mask is punishment. If you can remember to put your trousers on in the morning and wear shoes to work you can manage a mask.
FMLA is unpaid leave. That might be a problem.
Yes, it’s stretchy, but how willing the employer is to do the stretching is also a factor.
The submarine base exchange/commissary system seriously enforces masks, hand sanitizer and controlling the number of people in shopping at one time, with social distancing arrows and places to stand, and they wipe down the carts between uses …
being seriously immunocompromised, I pretty much go only to medical appoinments and back home. mrAru only shops on base and strips down by the washer/dryer as soon as all the supplies are back home, and showers immediately. When I go out, I mask and glove up [I even carry spare masks and gloves] and strip and shower immediately as well.
So far neither of us has it, and I got tested about a month ago before going in for the colonsocopy/sigmoidoscopy/biopsy at the local hospital and was negative. Hopefully as long as we maintain the practice we can get through this without catching it.
Millions of idiots are wandering around without masks on.
Including ALL of my co-workers. 
Luckily, I’m working from home.
I’m in favor of mandatory masking laws.
Not trying to be a jerk, but the article like the one in the OP is more feel-good nonsense and it keeps us from complying and managing the virus. I’ll say it: any information like this that makes us feel in any way more confident and less vigilant is destructive.
We’ve been trying to find the upside to this since it visited our shores, trying to find a way to justify not wearing masks, not staying indoors, and going on with our lives to find some ‘normal.’ Sometimes, there is no upside and you have to accept the fact that life has changed.
All the countries, states, or cities that have tried staying open or reopening without having the right resources have failed miserably. And not just because government overreacted and ordered businesses closed – people are forgetting that most of us don’t want to end up in the hospital for weeks. Most people don’t want to work in an office where we see colleagues dropping like flies. Most of us don’t want to dine in restaurants when we know there’s a good chance someone sitting next to us has a fatal disease. It’s common sense. Why is it so hard to understand?
This thread makes no sense to me. Most of the lockdowns are over. And that’s the reason why there are more people dying than elsewhere. Way too many states gave up on the lockdown before the science said it was time. The countries (and states) that locked down properly are now doing a lot better.
People losing jobs is something we can mitigate with financial stimulus. People dying is not.
My state, Arkansas, never even did the full lockdown. And now we’re paying for it.
The US is having COVID-19 INCREASE right now. While others countries have flattened the curve, we hit a stalling point and then started going back up.
You’re suggesting the opposite of what needs to be done.
I absolutely want to be sensitive to your situation. But let me ask you this: are you willing to pay the rent and other bills of all those who lose their jobs due to the lockdowns? If I recall correctly your job is fairly secure but what do you tell the tens of millions of people who are worried they won’t have a job to come back to? I think we need to explore policies that help and protect you but also minimize job losses.
To me this is obvious AND in order to protect all, people need to wear their masks and keep distance. We can’t have total lockdown because people need income, especially those who own their own businesses and/or are self-employed. Those people probably don’t have health insurance anyway, but at least they will have income. I was a freelancer my whole career and never had health insurance. Fortunately I didn’t get breast cancer until I was on Medicare (which BTW is a SOCIALIST program).
In many European countries (as I’ve said elsewhere), there is a social(ist) safety net, so people will still be paid something BY THE GOVERNMENT and they will KEEP THEIR HEALTH INSURANCE while not working. We don’t believe in that here-- let people sink or swim on their own. Mostly sink.
I know someone who is executive assistant to a big-wig @ USAA, an insurance company and the nation’s 101st largest business. This week, and this has not been announced, this week the Board of Directors voted to keep WFH policies in effect until Q1, 2021.
In addition, USAA had a voluntary return policy this month where they asked for volunteers to start working at the office again. Expecting 5,000 responses (their HQ holds about 8,000), fewer than 500 volunteered to come back, most of them people (a) in rural areas with craptacular internet connections or (b) people who just can’t be productive from home. Therefore, they cancelled the program and are working to improve the @home conditions for these employees.
You can’t fix the economic crisis until you fix the health crisis. It’s just that simple.
I work for a different large insurance company that competes with USAA.
Maybe insurance companies are accustomed to thinking about risk. 
Or maybe it’s just an industry that is easy to adapt to working from home. But I think that’s going to be the new norm for technologically competent insurance companies.
No, I’m not individually willing to, but nobody should have to fight this individually. The point is that this is a nationwide crisis that requires a collective response, which we’ve desperately needed but not had. We’ve instead watched what had been until fairly recently regarded worldwide as one of the best public health systems in the world roll around on the floor like a drunken sailor in total dysfunction and confusion, giving out conflicting and confusing information, starting from the federal system itself (i.e. CDC, DHHS, and others).
I tell them think about who they’re voting for, but more importantly, what they’re voting for. Yes, I know I’m getting political, but it’s absolutely impossible not to involve politics in this discussion. We’re talking about public health policy and its failures. We need some coherence. We need people to understand the importance of developing a country that’s a little less individualistic and a little more cooperative and collectivist. We can do that without giving up our essence.