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> If you have a seven year old and both parents work an hourly job, where exactly is that kid supposed to stay? Anywhere that minimizes contagion of the virus.

> If you have a seven year old and both parents work an hourly job, where exactly is that kid supposed to stay? Anywhere that minimizes contagion of the virus. I'm not trying to be coy or flippant. I recognize that there are hardships involved. You gave a very general scenario so I can only re-state the fundamental invariant. > get a bunch of parents together and rotate which house all the kids will stay at each day and pool their wages That could work. Except better not to move them around, and limit their exposure to adults who do move around. I'm not an epidemiologist so I'm not qualified to give detailed advice. I do feel pretty confident about telling people to stay home because that's how you slow down a pandemic. The streets should be deserted right now. Here's the messed up thing: the virus doesn't care. If we have set up our society in such a way that we can't respond properly to this thing it will fuck us up and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves. IF there are too many parents working, and not enough extended family (or whatever), and/or not enough sick leave, and/or a system that can't make and distribute tests, or any of a bunch of other factors, THEN people are going to die. A lot of people. And if enough of the die (or just get really sick all at the same time) major additional problems could occur. Most cities have only about three days of food in the pipeline. After that, the only food is our pets, and then "long pork". The best thing you can do to stave that off is stay home now before it's too late. Maybe our civilization are fundamentally at odds with surviving a pandemic, I hope not, but be clear about the danger here.

jedberg 7y ago
If you live paycheck to paycheck, your choices are to stay home and starve when you run out of money, or to continue with life while making sure you wash your hands a lot and don't touch your face. Sounds to me like the choice is pretty obvious. I suppose the government could step up and provide to replace your paycheck while you stay at home with your kids, but honestly, this isn't that bad of a virus to warrant that. People that are high risk should stay home. Everyone else should wash their hands and avoid their face and avoid crowds. > The streets should be deserted right now. You're probably overreacting. And let's hope all the health care workers decide that work is more important than staying home.
- chefkoch 7y ago
  > but honestly, this isn't that bad of a virus to warrant that. How bad would it have to be?
  - jedberg 7y ago
    Measles but without the vaccine. And even then, people seemed to get by just fine for thousands of years with it out in the wild.
    - danielrpa 7y ago
      Back then, diseases often spread much more slowly, if at all, due to the limited transportation methods.
      - jedberg 7y ago
        I don’t think that’s true at all. It just takes one person to start a new city. After that transportation doesn’t really matter. For reference, only 20% of the world’s population has ever flown in airplane. In 2020 there will be about 40 million flights. In 1965, when the measles vaccine was first introduced, there were about 5 million flights, and about 1/2 the world population. But in both cases the majority of those flights were by the wealthiest people in the world. So really not a significant difference in travel. If anything it would be density that would be the problem, since a lot more people live in cities now.
    - watwut 7y ago
      Measles have lower lethality then coronavirus. You also did not had whole population exposed to it at the same time. You can get them only once, so even when kids get sick, adults around wont.

jedberg 7y ago

If you live paycheck to paycheck, your choices are to stay home and starve when you run out of money, or to continue with life while making sure you wash your hands a lot and don't touch your face. Sounds to me like the choice is pretty obvious. I suppose the government could step up and provide to replace your paycheck while you stay at home with your kids, but honestly, this isn't that bad of a virus to warrant that. People that are high risk should stay home. Everyone else should wash their hands and avoid their face and avoid crowds. > The streets should be deserted right now. You're probably overreacting. And let's hope all the health care workers decide that work is more important than staying home.

chefkoch 7y ago
> but honestly, this isn't that bad of a virus to warrant that. How bad would it have to be?
- jedberg 7y ago
  Measles but without the vaccine. And even then, people seemed to get by just fine for thousands of years with it out in the wild.
  - danielrpa 7y ago
    Back then, diseases often spread much more slowly, if at all, due to the limited transportation methods.
    - jedberg 7y ago
      I don’t think that’s true at all. It just takes one person to start a new city. After that transportation doesn’t really matter. For reference, only 20% of the world’s population has ever flown in airplane. In 2020 there will be about 40 million flights. In 1965, when the measles vaccine was first introduced, there were about 5 million flights, and about 1/2 the world population. But in both cases the majority of those flights were by the wealthiest people in the world. So really not a significant difference in travel. If anything it would be density that would be the problem, since a lot more people live in cities now.
  - watwut 7y ago
    Measles have lower lethality then coronavirus. You also did not had whole population exposed to it at the same time. You can get them only once, so even when kids get sick, adults around wont.