I saw four articles yesterday that really quantified just how bad the situation is surrounding the handling of the Coronavirus.
First:
1 in 4 American workers have filed for unemployment benefits during the pandemic
More than 40 million Americans have filed for first-time unemployment benefits since the coronavirus pandemic forced the US economy to shut down in March. One in four American workers has filed for unemployment insurance.
Second:
Of small and medium-sized businesses that have been forced to shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, more than half of owners surveyed by Facebook said they won’t rehire the same workers they had before the crisis.
ccording to the report, only 45% of owners and managers of small and medium-sized businesses surveyed by Facebook said they would rehire the same workers they were forced to let go or furlough once they reopen. If that estimate holds true for similar businesses across the country, it could devastate predictions for a swift economic recovery from the crisis.
About a third of closed businesses surveyed said they do not expect to reopen, with many citing an inability to pay bills or rent.
Understand those small businesses make up about half of our GDP and employ half of American workers.
Third:
The Most Important Coronavirus Statistic: 42% Of U.S. Deaths Are From 0.6% Of The Population
2.1 million Americans, representing 0.62% of the U.S. population, reside in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
According to an analysis that Gregg Girvan and I conducted for the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, as of May 22, in the 41 states that currently report such figures, an astounding 42% of all COVID-19 deaths have taken place in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
And 42% could be an undercount. States like New York exclude from their nursing home death tallies those who die in a hospital, even if they were originally infected in an assisted living facility. Outside of New York, more than half of all deaths from COVID-19 are of residents in long-term care facilities.
Fourth:
COVID-19 Targets the Elderly. Why Don’t Our Prevention Efforts?
Even among the youngest age cohort, COVID-19 is a very scary disease and can be lethal. It is scarier among those in their 40s than those in their 30s, scarier still for those in their 50s, and so on. But according to the CDC, almost 60 percent of those who have died from the disease in the U.S. were 75 or older. Almost 80 percent were age 65 or older. Only 7 percent of deaths were those age 54 or younger.
Now put all of that together.
The government’s response to the Coronavirus was to collapse the strongest economy in a generation.
One-fourth of America’s workforce is not working.
One-sixth (one-third of one-half) of the US economy and one-sixth of American jobs have been killed off permanently.
All of this to curb a virus in which 80% of the deaths were in people over the age of retirement.
I’m not discounting the value of human life and I love my grandmothers.
But…
Had we simply isolated everyone on Social Security and let the rest of us live and work normally, we would have had at least half a many deaths and only a tiny fraction of the economic damage.
We have permanently damaged the futures of young working people for a disease that overwhelmingly affects the septuagenarian plus demographic.
We literally told America’s workforce to no work to save the lives of people who have aged out of the workforce.
I’m not one of those people running around saying “Okay Boomer.” In fact, I’ve come out against that. But this is un-fucking-believable.
Great texts will be written on how this outbreak was mishandled.
I’m convinced that the continuing fear-mongering over the virus is to keep people from realizing what was done to working America and why otherwise the whole of the country would look like Minneapolis caused by younger Americans who were driven out of work and into bankruptcy because of a disease that would almost never harm them.
[…] The after action report of the Coronavirus is going to turn the whole of the US into Minneapolis rig… […]
Never to be reported on (unless it can somehow be blamed on Trump), but I suspect that what you discussed above, coupled with legitimate sense of anger over George Floyd’s death. Add in various activists pushing the narrative that the white establishment is responsible for everything, which added fuel to the fire and you get Minneapolis. I suspect that without the Wuhan fever, this would have been a largely peaceful protest.
I really want to see a comprehensive report on this “crisis.” I have a whole laundry list of items that items that must be in the report. A real analysis of the people who died, and was the virus really the cause.
Also, I need to know what, exactly, is so horrific about this virus that any of these measures were necessary. Compare it to any other virus that spreads through human contact.
What I do not want to see is a report that arm chair quarterbacks any government’s response. No government will do it right. Not a single one. And… I know that you would never have called the play that Bill Belichek called, but guess what? I bet he is saying exactly the same thing to himself after it went wrong as well. Hindsight is about as useful as using last week’s winning lottery numbers.
the report I want to see is never going to be written, and if it is, I have a feeling it will be shredded by every Government expert on the planet to hide the fact that they panicked (or were being deliberately malicious)
I can understand some businesses not hiring all of their old employees. It would be a chance to get rid of deadwood without much drama and with other businesses folding, some really good employees will again be available.