Getting restarted and opening back up.

[Boise_Chief]

It looks like smaller less populated states will lead the charge. Yes I know Texas and California are working that direction. Places like my home state of Idaho have not been as hard hit. The real question is how do you open back up.

I think many maybe even most companies can go back to work with a little intelligent and innovative work.

Basic offices could still have many people work from home. Those that can not you could run 2 shifts to bring the number of employees and distance between each to a reasonable manageable result. All employees can be made responsible for sanitizing their work area.

Your big issues come in on big venues, weddings theaters etc.

What is your industry and your ideas for safe re opening of it.

My thought is that we could discuss solutions. We all know the problems. How can you make your industry safe.

[Ubeja Vontell]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

I'm lucky because I've been working same as always since this all started. But I know many people that haven't been, or had to shutter their businesses. And several people that are losing their retirements.

And when you look at the numbers there's no good reason to keep the country shut down completely for two more months. And honestly I don't think the country would recover from that. Too many businesses would be killed off, and too many families would be destroyed. We have to get things going again even if it's just on a partial basis. Otherwise the damage is going to be a lot more than the death toll from the virus.

i confess I'm scared, there are just too many people I care about in my life so the odds aren't good we all stay healthy. I can't lose anyone, and this makes me afraid.

Sure, start back up, maybe we'll get lucky.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by Ubeja Vontell

i confess I'm scared, there are just too many people I care about in my life so the odds aren't good we all stay healthy. I can't lose anyone, and this makes me afraid.

Sure, start back up, maybe we'll get lucky.

Hey, everyone's anxious and worried about their families and friends. Many of my friends are over 60, the danger zone. The odds aren't great for anyone that has family and friends.

But we're approaching a crossroads and we have to make a choice pretty soon. Crawl into a hole and hope we don't die from a bug, simultaneously allowing our country to bleed to death. Or get up and move forward and know that we're probably saving the country from unprecedented economic ruin.

[Chiefs4TheWin]

Originally Posted by Spott

I’ve actually been busier over the last month at work. Even more pressure to keep that whole internet thing working, especially with more people calling in at work.

Same. School done for the rest of the year here. Trying to get get these devices out to elementary students has been a fricken nightmare.

[Fat Elvis]

Originally Posted by DJay23

I'm a teacher in Pennsylvania. The state has been hit pretty hard, but most of that is in the higher population density areas (and because a bunch of New Yorkers decided to run to the Poconos, bringing the virus with them), though with more testing the numbers are slowly increasing in the less populated "Pennsyltucky" part of the state. Our governor ordered shelter in place to individual counties for a few weeks and as it was apparent that numbers were going up everywhere just at slower rates he issued the order for the whole state. Schools were closed at the end of the day on March 13th.

My district went two weeks before they decided to go ahead with online lessons. Our problem is that the district is spread out. Most of the population is in town but we have a huge land area that we cover that is less populated, but part of the district nonetheless. Internet service is spotty in a lot of those places and doesn't exist in some. Because of that we are not allowed to offer new instruction. We are doing what is called Review and Enrich. So I have been creating review lessons that can be done at home and online (I'm a 7th grade science teacher) which probably 80% of my students can access online and for the other 20% we have to put those lessons in paper form. That document is sent to one secretary who is allowed in buildings and she prints out all of these paper packets to be sent to students who don't have internet. We are continuing the school year until our scheduled last day of June 5th.

All of that background because if we are still ordered to stay home come September, what do we do if we can't offer new instruction? One of the ideas is for the district to push and help fund the expansion of internet in our district to those places that have none. I'm not sure exactly how all of that works because the major internet provider here is Comcast and they don't service past a certain point. What does it take to get them to go past that point? Anyway we would have to get internet (and devices, which the district already has) to everyone.

Now, if we can get everyone hooked up, we could conceivably work this way indefinitely. (Child care becomes an issue as some parents go back to work though. Another issue is that families with several school aged children plus parents that have to work from home with limited devices makes for a logjam on the computer). That allows us to continue educating kids until we are given the all clear.

There really isn't any other way to do it in my opinion. If this is prolonged well into the fall or beyond there will need to be some kind of unique solution that isn't obvious to me right now. Playing with the school calendar or even promotion requirements (which has already happened this school year. We eliminated grades for an entire quarter since we can't grade work.) Maybe staggering when kids come to the school. Some stay home and do online assignments and those who don't have internet get to come in. But then keeping distances even with those few students will be a fight.

In short, I don't think we'll be going back to "normal" school until there is a vaccine widely available, blanket serology testing, and there are no active cases at least in the state. There's just no way to jam that many people into one place at one time and keep proper distances.

Some of the districts around here are putting hotspots in buses and parking them in neighborhoods where kids/families don't have internet access.

[bowener]

Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief

https://unherd.com/2020/04/how-likel...f-coronavirus/

This is an article that discusses the Imperial model and the CEBM model. They are both using data from other studies and their own models to predict the case fatality rate. The Imperial model, the genesis for the shutdown, now is predicting a 1% IFR/CFR and the CEBM model has it at .1 to .26. This would be for all ages. If we take the higher IFR of the Imperial College it would still be less or equal to the normal flu for those with no underlying condition under age 60. If you look at the CEBM model, it would be way less for younger healthier individuals, as there are very little deaths under age 40, and it would be about normal for older ages over age 60. Out of all the deaths in NY/NJ, it is under 200 the number that died that were less than 60 without an underlying conditions. The article goes through the reasons for the modeling as well. It's a good read.

To be clear, I'm not saying we did the wrong thing by the actions we took. At the time the CFR/IFR was thought to be 3.6%. A lot of folks are worried when they think they think 3-4 people out of every 100 will die. However, they live more normally when the actual number is 1-2 out of 1000 like the flu...

The next few weeks, along with additional data, will give us a clearer picture, but for now most model shows it way better than most thought 5-6 weeks ago.

Thank you.

I had a long response, but nobody cares. The article doesn't explain how an economic crash would cause more deaths. He links to a study on austerity deaths in the UK. The issue with that is the UK has easier access to affordable healthcare than the US population, and we have greater rural populations than they do. I'm not saying he is wrong because it seems like an obvious truth, but I have no way of judging my own opinion on this matter.

Personally, I believe there will be more deaths if we open too soon and crash the healthcare infrastructure, which in turn would crash the economy.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you. I can't form an educated opinion about this. On the surface, I understand the arguments, and my mostly unfounded opinion is that a healthcare crash would lead to an economic crash for nearly the same reason they argue an economic crash would lead to more deaths. If people can't afford to get healthcare they won't get proper care... if hospitals can't accept more patients people won't ger proper care.

[Boise_Chief]

I agree that opening too so could be bad. But some areas of the country are lightly effected. Not everywhere is NY, yesterday they started adding suspected cases to bolster the numbers of new cases. Our Governor is taking a bunch of heat and there are many calling for a recall.

The updated stay at home is vague at best. Non essential businesses can reopen with curbside service. A dog groomer is grooming on the sidewalk.