[lex24]

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.  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

Going to get a lot worse before it gets better, but it should get better soon, at least for some.

Production is starting to roar in Asia so there will be lots of goods to buy for the wealthiest Americans, once they get vaccinated.   The large companies that survive will be rolling in revenue soon enough, and will be able to find lots of available workers at low rates too.   

The poverty and unemployment could take a lot longer to recover. 
Lots of industries will be changed forever, but all of that is trivial compared to those that have lost loved ones during this pandemic.  
Everyone please stay safe during this holiday season.

“The poverty and unemployment could take a lot longer to recover.

Lots of industries will be changed forever, but all of that is trivial compared to those that have lost loved ones during this pandemic.”

What is the bigger tragedy, the death from Covid of a 75 year old with at most a couple years to live; or a family of four being plunged into poverty because their breadwinner has lost his/her job.  It is a ghoulish question. I get that. I also think it’s tough to answer. Unless of course you are either a family member of the 75 year old or the family of four.  

Change the scenario to 85 year old, and I think it’s an easy answer.

Yikes!   That sounds like a death panel perspective for sure.
Though now that I think about it that is what some political leaders said in public.

Even if you accept 75 year-old deaths are best for society, they still consume human resources and facilities for the 2-4+ weeks while they slowly die in the hospital.   In that ghoulish world you'd need to keep them out of the hospital so that others without COVID could be treated.   Either the COVID issues add deaths beyond COVID, like that 50 year-old breadwinner suffering a heart attack or getting into a car accident on their commute, or the COVID fatality rate must climb as some with potentially survivable COVID get forced to out of hospital hospice care until recovery or death.   Ultimately it would need to be more ghoulish than you implied.

The death or jobs was a false choice lobbied often by those that gave us a world with so many deaths.
Tracing, testing and society adoption of PPE would have done so much to save the 75 year old AND keep the jobs.   Sadly, we had political leadership at different levels and states that didn't believe in testing or PPE use.   So now we discuss the death or jobs choice.

The USA had the access to economic solutions to pump money directly to the hypothetical family of four, but failed to do that for the duration of the pandemic.   That would have reduced COVID spread too.  Could have been a choice between death or national debt.  

Lots of COVID fatalities below the age of 75, so for those families this ghoulish calculation doesn't apply or we'd be adding to the ghoulish portion.

Feels like too much ghoulishness for officials tasked with saving lives, so as I respond I have a greater appreciation for the dilemma of the local health care officials since they normally would be discouraged from talking about the ghoulish stuff as that would create economy crushing panic.

As many of us know watching NCAAF games, SiP is largely as CA and Northeast concept.   There are millions of Americans suffering from COVID or now living in poverty that have just started wearing masks and never have had anything like a SiP.

Analysis is already showing what were the best choices for mitigation and/or economic sustainability in 2020.
It is already becoming clear that the USA made a lot of bad choices for a number of different reasons.

I agree that at some point, perhaps 2-5 years from now, the USA will need to work on a much better national pandemic mitigation plan.  With globalization we are certain to see more of these events over the next 30 years than we saw over the last 30 years (SARS, MERS, Swine-flu, COVID-19).

My question is in a situation such as this where the vast majority of hospitilizations  and death are known to be elderly and particularly elderly with comordibities, is there a way to do a more targeted approach.  That’s what I hope they look at moving forward.  Of course, no guarantees the next pandemic hits the same demographic hardest.  But I’m not sure the one size fits all approach is best, taking into account all aspects of this.

Also if a LTCF patient has a terminal illness and gets Covid, does he/she go to ICU? Does that change when the capacity becomes limited? I don’t know the answer to this. Either actually or ethically. It also lines up with an ethical societal question relating to health care costs: how much do we spend to keep elderly terminal patients alive; often with poor life quality. Hard to talk about. I’ll use a personal example. My father. With whom I was extremely close. At 82 he was diagnosed with Pulminary Fibrosis. No cure. Which I consider a terminal illness (Drs on the board, please correct me if I’m wrong) At 84 they decided he needed open heart surgery as that might help him some. At 85 his prostate cancer came back. Dr wanted to prescribe hormone meds. Dad said “ Are you nuts, I’m dying”. Dr probably had no choice but to suggest it. I didn’t think twice about the surgery (which maybe gave him a few more months, maybe even a year) at the time. After all, I wanted Dad around as long as possible. But really, should that procedure have been prescribed to a dying man? These are ethical questions in the health care arena that are exceedingly difficult.

Dad gave me one last gift. About a month before he died he told me he was ready. He had a good life. But the quality was gone. That is a blessing to give those that survive.

I apologize for the personal story. But it’s the best way I can think of to frame a very difficult issue. And maybe show I do have a heart....

[lex24]

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.  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

Going to get a lot worse before it gets better, but it should get better soon, at least for some.

Production is starting to roar in Asia so there will be lots of goods to buy for the wealthiest Americans, once they get vaccinated.   The large companies that survive will be rolling in revenue soon enough, and will be able to find lots of available workers at low rates too.   

The poverty and unemployment could take a lot longer to recover. 
Lots of industries will be changed forever, but all of that is trivial compared to those that have lost loved ones during this pandemic.  
Everyone please stay safe during this holiday season.

“The poverty and unemployment could take a lot longer to recover.

Lots of industries will be changed forever, but all of that is trivial compared to those that have lost loved ones during this pandemic.”

What is the bigger tragedy, the death from Covid of a 75 year old with at most a couple years to live; or a family of four being plunged into poverty because their breadwinner has lost his/her job.  It is a ghoulish question. I get that. I also think it’s tough to answer. Unless of course you are either a family member of the 75 year old or the family of four.  

Change the scenario to 85 year old, and I think it’s an easy answer.

Yikes!   That sounds like a death panel perspective for sure.
Though now that I think about it that is what some political leaders said in public.

Even if you accept 75 year-old deaths are best for society, they still consume human resources and facilities for the 2-4+ weeks while they slowly die in the hospital.   In that ghoulish world you'd need to keep them out of the hospital so that others without COVID could be treated.   Either the COVID issues add deaths beyond COVID, like that 50 year-old breadwinner suffering a heart attack or getting into a car accident on their commute, or the COVID fatality rate must climb as some with potentially survivable COVID get forced to out of hospital hospice care until recovery or death.   Ultimately it would need to be more ghoulish than you implied.

The death or jobs was a false choice lobbied often by those that gave us a world with so many deaths.
Tracing, testing and society adoption of PPE would have done so much to save the 75 year old AND keep the jobs.   Sadly, we had political leadership at different levels and states that didn't believe in testing or PPE use.   So now we discuss the death or jobs choice.

The USA had the access to economic solutions to pump money directly to the hypothetical family of four, but failed to do that for the duration of the pandemic.   That would have reduced COVID spread too.  Could have been a choice between death or national debt.  

Lots of COVID fatalities below the age of 75, so for those families this ghoulish calculation doesn't apply or we'd be adding to the ghoulish portion.

Feels like too much ghoulishness for officials tasked with saving lives, so as I respond I have a greater appreciation for the dilemma of the local health care officials since they normally would be discouraged from talking about the ghoulish stuff as that would create economy crushing panic.

As many of us know watching NCAAF games, SiP is largely as CA and Northeast concept.   There are millions of Americans suffering from COVID or now living in poverty that have just started wearing masks and never have had anything like a SiP.

Analysis is already showing what were the best choices for mitigation and/or economic sustainability in 2020.
It is already becoming clear that the USA made a lot of bad choices for a number of different reasons.

I agree that at some point, perhaps 2-5 years from now, the USA will need to work on a much better national pandemic mitigation plan.  With globalization we are certain to see more of these events over the next 30 years than we saw over the last 30 years (SARS, MERS, Swine-flu, COVID-19).

My question is in a situation such as this where the vast majority of hospitilizations  and death are known to be elderly and particularly elderly with comordibities, is there a way to do a more targeted approach.  That’s what I hope they look at moving forward.  Of course, no guarantees the next pandemic hits the same demographic hardest.  But I’m not sure the one size fits all approach is best, taking into account all aspects of this.

Also if a LTCF patient has a terminal illness and gets Covid, does he/she go to ICU? Does that change when the capacity becomes limited? I don’t know the answer to this. Either actually or ethically. It also lines up with an ethical societal question relating to health care costs: how much do we spend to keep elderly terminal patients alive; often with poor life quality. Hard to talk about. I’ll use a personal example. My father. With whom I was extremely close. At 82 he was diagnosed with Pulminary Fibrosis. No cure. Which I consider a terminal illness (Drs on the board, please correct me if I’m wrong) At 84 they decided he needed open heart surgery as that might help him some. At 85 his prostate cancer came back. Dr wanted to prescribe hormone meds. Dad said “ Are you nuts, I’m dying”. Dr probably had no choice but to suggest it. I didn’t think twice about the surgery (which maybe gave him a few more months, maybe even a year) at the time. After all, I wanted Dad around as long as possible. But really, should that procedure have been prescribed to a dying man? These are ethical questions in the health care arena that are exceedingly difficult.

Dad gave me one last gift. About a month before he died he told me he was ready. He had a good life. But the quality was gone. That is a blessing to give those that survive.

I apologize for the personal story. But it’s the best way I can think of to frame a very difficult issue. And maybe show I do have a heart....