[teejers1]

In the past five months, nearly 7.8 million Americans have fallen into poverty, 2.3 million of them are children under 17.  Poverty rate is now 11.7%, up 2.4% since June.  Nearly 40% of active duty military families are seeking food support.  The drastic fall is more than double the worst recorded since poverty rates started being recorded nearly 60 years ago.  

https://www.greenwichtime.com/business/a...807427.php

https://dnyuz.com/2020/12/16/pandemic-le...ssistance/

Mick, you're not changing any minds here.  Plus, the ones who favored SiP (and maybe still do) have the fallback position that "those poverty numbers would be much less bad if we had just taken our medicine early for a longer time" - which makes sense, in theory.  But really, given the complete failure of track and trace everywhere in the USA (with possible exception of pro sports teams), I doubt the US ever could have really gotten this thing under control in any meaningful way.  The US was destined to be stumble through, fits and starts, see what works and doesn't work and hope to learn from trial and error.  And hope to stave off crippling damage until a vaccine combatted the virus.

And this leads to me to a broader point:  has the US learned anything from this (ongoing) fiasco?  I hope so.  But I'm not sure.  Given that there will likely be another pandemic in most of our lifetimes, it would be nice to have the infrastructure to respond semi-quickly in better shape - even if that means funding bureaucrats that do very little for years at a time (isn't there some of that going on already, anyway)?  Maybe folks will more easily embrace masks and social distancing.  Or maybe folks will just assume (perhaps incorrectly) that all the US needs to do is better isolate/protect the vulnerable/older population and only take those measures . . . when the next virus may have a completely different damage profile.

And despite the death totals, there remains a colorable argument as to whether the economic shut down was "worth it," particularly given numbers that Mick posts in these parts.  I know most all folks here reject that out of hand, but this board is not a representation of the country at large.

The whole thing is pretty mind-numbing.  And at this point, I've resigned my "hopes" (such as they are) to (i) continuing to be smart/not stupid, and (ii) plugging along with vaccine distribution - and then see where the numbers are in 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, etc.  Hopefully headed in the right direction.  Hopefully noticeably.

P.S.  The SCC Dashboard for LTCF was updated today.  To say there has been a big spike in cases there would be an understatement.  Since November 29, there have been 459 (!) positive cases reported at LTCFs.  That is ridiculous.  And again, I bet a significant chunk of these patients are populating the SCC hospitals.  If this is at all representative of what's going on in the rest of the country then we really, really need to get the vaccines to those populations.

[teejers1]

In the past five months, nearly 7.8 million Americans have fallen into poverty, 2.3 million of them are children under 17.  Poverty rate is now 11.7%, up 2.4% since June.  Nearly 40% of active duty military families are seeking food support.  The drastic fall is more than double the worst recorded since poverty rates started being recorded nearly 60 years ago.  

https://www.greenwichtime.com/business/a...807427.php

https://dnyuz.com/2020/12/16/pandemic-le...ssistance/

Mick, you're not changing any minds here.  Plus, the ones who favored SiP (and maybe still do) have the fallback position that "those poverty numbers would be much less bad if we had just taken our medicine early for a longer time" - which makes sense, in theory.  But really, given the complete failure of track and trace everywhere in the USA (with possible exception of pro sports teams), I doubt the US ever could have really gotten this thing under control in any meaningful way.  The US was destined to be stumble through, fits and starts, see what works and doesn't work and hope to learn from trial and error.  And hope to stave off crippling damage until a vaccine combatted the virus.

And this leads to me to a broader point:  has the US learned anything from this (ongoing) fiasco?  I hope so.  But I'm not sure.  Given that there will likely be another pandemic in most of our lifetimes, it would be nice to have the infrastructure to respond semi-quickly in better shape - even if that means funding bureaucrats that do very little for years at a time (isn't there some of that going on already, anyway)?  Maybe folks will more easily embrace masks and social distancing.  Or maybe folks will just assume (perhaps incorrectly) that all the US needs to do is better isolate/protect the vulnerable/older population and only take those measures . . . when the next virus may have a completely different damage profile.

And despite the death totals, there remains a colorable argument as to whether the economic shut down was "worth it," particularly given numbers that Mick posts in these parts.  I know most all folks here reject that out of hand, but this board is not a representation of the country at large.

The whole thing is pretty mind-numbing.  And at this point, I've resigned my "hopes" (such as they are) to (i) continuing to be smart/not stupid, and (ii) plugging along with vaccine distribution - and then see where the numbers are in 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, etc.  Hopefully headed in the right direction.  Hopefully noticeably.

P.S.  The SCC Dashboard for LTCF was updated today.  To say there has been a big spike in cases there would be an understatement.  Since November 29, there have been 459 (!) positive cases reported at LTCFs.  That is ridiculous.  And again, I bet a significant chunk of these patients are populating the SCC hospitals.  If this is at all representative of what's going on in the rest of the country then we really, really need to get the vaccines to those populations.