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There are loads of teachers, librarians, sports coaches, parks employees, etc, etc that can’t do their jobs due to COVID. Those people could be doing contact t
by cameldrv 6y ago
There are loads of teachers, librarians, sports coaches, parks employees, etc, etc that can’t do their jobs due to COVID. Those people could be doing contact tracing.
- MaximumYComb 6y agoGood luck making it work in a hyper individualistic society. Person A who has been told they're required to do contact tracing will get annoyed that their neighbour B doesn't have to do it but is still getting money. Add to that mix the antivaxxers, conspiracy theorists, people that dislike government, etc.
- cameldrv 6y agoThese people are already being paid their normal salaries by the government. If they don't want to work, they can quit. Now, if someone is in a high risk group, they probably shouldn't be out in the field, but a lot of contact tracing is done over the phone.
- pmiller2 6y agoMy response to that right now would be “Too damn bad.”
- bobthepanda 6y agoTeachers are still working during COVID, in fact they probably have to do more work to adapt to hasty, scrappy adoption of online learning. I don’t think the other ones exist in significantly large amounts to be meaningful and even then, keep in mind that furloughed people are not getting paid. The money has to come from somewhere to start paying them for whatever again, and states and cities have limited funding resources even before COVID blew a hole in most tax revenues.
- pmiller2 6y agoThere are enough people generally out of work to hire all the contact tracers we could ever need.
- bobthepanda 6y agoYou do have to pay people money to hire them though, and states and cities do not have the financial slack to just hire more people as tax revenues keep falling. The only entity capable of nationwide deficit spending is the federal government, which seems unwilling to step up to the plate.
- pmiller2 6y agoExactly my point. The question is: why?
- bobthepanda 6y agoStates and cities often have balanced budget laws. Even if these were repealed (look how easy that has been for the Eurozone), states do not have the mechanism for bankruptcy (see: Puerto Rico). And cities have one but it can get extremely messy (see: Detroit, New York in the '70s) The feds have decided to prioritize the economy in an election year, for some short-sighted definition of a good economy. And the party in power has never liked a strong federal government anyways.
- pmiller2 6y agoMy question was regarding the federal government's involvement. I can't fathom why they would let so many people die, unless we elected hundreds of sociopaths to federal office.
- refurb 6y agoTeachers? I’m not sure the teachers unions would go for that.