The problem is that we have no travel controls across states or reliable contact tracing. Hospitals in Houston might not be overwhelmed right now but a few imported cases from another city/state is all it takes to turn things into NYC level infection 1-2 month later.
I don't see that level of infection being possible anywhere except NYC. Public transportation and walking FTL.
For restaurants this seems pretty pointless. I think this an ass backwards decision by Abott. No sufficient testing yet and you want to open up the gates already? Georgia and Tennessee have already had increases since opening back up.
Yeah. Do you want all restaurants out of business? The bug is out there. Unless you plan on everyone staying in their houses forever the best you can do is mitigate. Keep at levels hospitals can deal with.
You realize that 25% capacity for restaurants wont cover food, staff and operating costs on a daily basis right? Thats assuming people even show up. Theyre thousands of restaurants in Houston and some are going to go under regardless.
And 0% will? Less will go under with 25%. Less waitresses will go broke. 25% is financially better than 0% if the restaurant is not conceding bankruptcy.
That's going to be true two months from now too, though. It's not like we're getting a vaccine in 2020. The whole goal of social distancing was to buy time for hospitals and such to get ready and slow the curve. It was never to try to eradicate the virus.
No one's being required to open up. The ones that think it will benefit them can try opening up and those that can't won't. If bankruptcies due to lack of capacity are your concern, it seems you're arguing that they should open *faster*.
Bending the curve was the strategy adopted by all the countries outside of APAC and a flawed one in my opinion because it essentially never considered victory as a possibility, and all it does is give us a slow burn for 2+ years or whenever a vaccine is widely available. APAC countries instead focused on eliminating COVID19 and getting deaths as close to zero and have seen great success with containment. Most of the US population is going to be in lock down for 2 months+ without the virus being contained. I don't expect the US to have the capability or feasibility to have pulled off a hard lock down but there's little excuse why the UK for example, didn't try to stamp it out given that they're an island nation and have mass camera surveillance in place to help with contact tracing.
Yeah this is a plan that involves both sides involved and not a lockdown or nothing. The older more vulnerable groups need to continue to stay home. If someone else doesn’t feel they want to go out, then don’t. I’m anticipating this plan to be followed by a bunch of others as time goes by. Most of the others have no plan whatsoever. The longer they take, the further they will be from recovering. You’re not going to just open everything up at once. This isn’t a bad jumpstart. Purpose was to not overwhelm hospitals. They’re not and aren’t even close.
Yes, that’s kind of where I am with all of this. We are going to have to try and live with this at some point. Right now, the hospitals aren’t being overwhelmed. Hopefully, people using social distancing, and using masks will be enough until we have a vaccine. People need to still use caution, and people at extreme risk need to use extreme caution.
I suggest you go about those activities in reverse order. Not to pick on you, but despite the push from many in the media, the government, the loony a$$holes protesting, and many around here, all is not hunky dory. The virus hasn't gone anywhere. Lots of people are about to get sick. And worse...
I guess the images of bodies piling up in the streets and being carted around in open pickup trucks just got old to me after a while. Glad you've been entertained though.
Abbott on KPRC2: Any apprehensions or fear? Because of all the time we spent on this, day after day after day that we've consulted with doctors, we feel very comfortable with where we are. Not a decision we made today. We've been able to track the spread & decline of the Coronavirus. President was talking just moments ago, he called out Harris County as a county where there's a good decline. Because we're seeing that, because we know the strategies we are using are doctor approved to prevent spread, we think it's the right move. Insight on the decision making? We've been getting a lot of information from all these businesses across the state who want to see businesses open. We take that & try to hone good strategies. We run them by the doctors and doctors will say let's put this twist or that twist to it or this will make it safer or that simply won't work. We take that information and we come out with the finished product. What do you think critics are saying? Nothing you can do in a situation like this that will be free from criticism. All you can do is make the best decision possible, putting public safety first but also understanding there's a need to empower our economy again. In addition to all the people who have apprehensions about their healthcare, there's people's who livelihoods have been destroyed. We're trying to make sure people can start making a living, people will be able to open their businesses back up while at the same time maintaining public safety. People may argue this is too soon? I wanted to make sure we would not open too soon and would open in the right way. Both boxes were checked. What has this global pandemic exposed in our state that we can work on? A couple things exposed in this state but really the United States. We offshored all of our supply chains. One challenge we as a state but really we as a nation had from the very beginning is inadequate supply chains for things like PPE, even for medications. One thing you'll be seeing in the future is a reshoring back to the USA our own manufacturing. In addition to that, over the past month, we in the State of Texas have tapped into our manufactures here in the state to make sure we'll have ongoing supplies of PPE. Difficulties with not opening all businesses? Extremely hard. We know there are owners who are losing their savings/livelihood. They want to get back to work. Customers want them to open. We feel their pain. Acting with swiftness they would expect when someone is suffering like that. Working on strategies to open other businesses as soon as possible. Mask mandate? All doctors strongly encourage, if out in public, the best practice is to wear a mask. We shouldn't have government imposing fines, penalties or threatening jail for someone not doing that. Phase 1, you're gonna leave it up to the business owners to police themselves, right? They will be in charge of self-policing. However for a restaurant or other types of businesses, they have licensing authority from the state. The licensing authorities have a responsibility to make sure everyone is following the law. How are you? I'm doing great. You've been very busy. Very busy but it's great to be able to constantly connect with so many people around the state, to hear what their needs are and be responsive to their needs. We're ready to go. Announced Phase 1 today. We're already working on Phase 2. We're ready to go. May 18th for Phase 2? Some things, finger crossed, may happen before then.
I dunno. Servers and bartenders make negative money per hour working after taxes and tipping out coworkers. Going in and making awful money along with chancing getting sick. Good luck
