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It’s really unfortunate that as a country we haven’t yet figured out how to offer relief for people in industries harmed like this. If it were up to me, we’d b

It’s really unfortunate that as a country we haven’t yet figured out how to offer relief for people in industries harmed like this. If it were up to me, we’d be figuring out how to temporarily suspend rent, loan payments, and taxes to people who are quarantined/isolated/hospitalized/furloughed due to the crisis, and temporarily block evictions. We’d be expanding public food assistance and just directly paying affected workers. We’d be figuring out how to deliver food and medication (and test kits) safely to those in need. We’d be figuring out how to scale out childcare for any child whose caretakers all get sick. We’d be closing all restaurants to the public but organizing restaurant workers to (while taking strong hygiene precautions) make prepared deliverable meals. We’d be organizing taxi drivers to work as delivery workers. We’d be maybe organizing empty hotels to e.g. host medical workers who need to be quarantined away from their own families for a while, or potentially even turning some into temporary hospitals. We’d be retooling existing factories to produce necessary equipment like face masks, antiseptics, mechanical ventilators, ... This is one of the richest societies in the history of the world. A pandemic is an economic challenge but we can afford to keep everyone going through a few months of acute crisis, if we make it a policy priority.

saidajigumi 7y ago
> we’d be figuring out how to temporarily suspend rent, loan payments, and taxes This. Under society-wide crisis, it's madness that the economic impact is supposed to just stop at landlords, moneylenders, etc. There are instances where individual organizations are trying to do the right thing, but the only humane thing to do is spread the impact (and recovery measures) across everyone.
- gwright 7y ago
  > it's madness that the economic impact is supposed to just stop at landlords, moneylenders, etc. Who is advocating this position that you think is "madness"? This is an evolving situation that individuals, local, state, and national officials are figuring out as we go along. There is no consensus on any of this and the response needs to be (and actually is) distributed not centralized, IMHO. Never mind the fact that the huge difficulty with this situation is that the ultimate impact is unknown at this point. How many people will need to be hospitalized? What treatment plans will be discovered? What is the impact of putting the economy on life-support for weeks? Will social distancing be enough to stop the spread?
  - zackmorris 7y ago
    May I ask your age? You sound a bit young. The things you talk about are well-within the purview of the government. If this were happening in the 1980s, I think that we would have kept our calm better. I was a child then, and my grandparents were in their 50s/60s and had seen the Great Depression and World War II. My parents' generation (the boomers) were full of well-trained doctors and nurses. There was a general level of competence and a willingness to give of oneself then that I believe was higher than today, even though we have more access to information now. What I'm saying is that we need central solutions. Scientists and medical experts should be directing this. Like they used to, before several decades of being undermined by political and religious dogma.
    - gwright 7y ago
      Not young at all. Your belief in the wisdom of centralized groups of "experts", is historical naive and dangerous. Note. I'm pretty much poking fun at the idea of things being centralized and driven top down. Not at the notion of "experts"
    - burfog 7y ago
      You're a bit young to really remember the Soviet Union. I'll fill you in, a bit. They used central solutions. Scientists and other experts directed the economy. Without the signalling mechanism of price, demand and supply got way out of whack. The economy collapsed.
novok 7y ago
For restaurants, figuring out how to safely turn in person restaurants into sanitary delivery only restaurants could be a life saver.

saidajigumi 7y ago

> we’d be figuring out how to temporarily suspend rent, loan payments, and taxes This. Under society-wide crisis, it's madness that the economic impact is supposed to just stop at landlords, moneylenders, etc. There are instances where individual organizations are trying to do the right thing, but the only humane thing to do is spread the impact (and recovery measures) across everyone.

gwright 7y ago
> it's madness that the economic impact is supposed to just stop at landlords, moneylenders, etc. Who is advocating this position that you think is "madness"? This is an evolving situation that individuals, local, state, and national officials are figuring out as we go along. There is no consensus on any of this and the response needs to be (and actually is) distributed not centralized, IMHO. Never mind the fact that the huge difficulty with this situation is that the ultimate impact is unknown at this point. How many people will need to be hospitalized? What treatment plans will be discovered? What is the impact of putting the economy on life-support for weeks? Will social distancing be enough to stop the spread?
- zackmorris 7y ago
  May I ask your age? You sound a bit young. The things you talk about are well-within the purview of the government. If this were happening in the 1980s, I think that we would have kept our calm better. I was a child then, and my grandparents were in their 50s/60s and had seen the Great Depression and World War II. My parents' generation (the boomers) were full of well-trained doctors and nurses. There was a general level of competence and a willingness to give of oneself then that I believe was higher than today, even though we have more access to information now. What I'm saying is that we need central solutions. Scientists and medical experts should be directing this. Like they used to, before several decades of being undermined by political and religious dogma.
  - gwright 7y ago
    Not young at all. Your belief in the wisdom of centralized groups of "experts", is historical naive and dangerous. Note. I'm pretty much poking fun at the idea of things being centralized and driven top down. Not at the notion of "experts"
  - burfog 7y ago
    You're a bit young to really remember the Soviet Union. I'll fill you in, a bit. They used central solutions. Scientists and other experts directed the economy. Without the signalling mechanism of price, demand and supply got way out of whack. The economy collapsed.

novok 7y ago

For restaurants, figuring out how to safely turn in person restaurants into sanitary delivery only restaurants could be a life saver.