Coronavirus in DFW - News & Discussion (Dallas, Abbott: designs, working)

[RJ312]

Originally Posted by DPatel304

I'm curious as to when people here think would be a good time to start re-opening.

Realistically, we can't shut the world down until there is a vaccine, so we will have to start taking some risks at some point, right?

I have numerous personal and professional initiatives that are tied up right now due to Coronavirus. I have also been financially annihilated by this and need to get the clock started on the recovery.

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by calgirlinnc

Yes I am well aware of all those things. Do you realize how condescending you sound by asking me basic questions like that?

I have been "educating myself" about how Covid is affecting communities outside the US, which is why I posted the article about the World Food Programme warning about worldwide starvation. I posted about a girl in the U.K. who killed herself. But somehow I'm moving goalposts and not reading about how this impacts people around the world? That doesn't even make sense.

ETA: my argument has never been that Italy and Spain or anywhere else shouldn't have shut down. My argument is that the impact of the shutdown will also take lives. It's possible that the number of lives saved by shutting down will be exceeded by the number who die from something such as starvation. If somehow you can prove that isn't true, by all means go ahead.

OK Italy and Spain have been under total lock down for much longer than the United States. So please show me the stats that show that more people in those countries have since died from starvation than the disease. Based on your logic you should be able to pull up examples pretty easily. I'll wait.

[Ralph_Kirk]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

OK Italy and Spain have been under total lock down for much longer than the United States. So please show me the stats that show that more people in those countries have since died from starvation than the disease. Based on your logic you should be able to pull up examples pretty easily. I'll wait.

We have to remember, though, that Spain and Italy both have better social safety nets than the US. So there may be fewer people (proportionally) starving or lacking medical care in those countries than there would be in the US.


The US economic system more tightly enslaves workers to wages than European system.

[DPatel304]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

OK Italy and Spain have been under total lock down for much longer than the United States. So please show me the stats that show that more people in those countries have since died from starvation than the disease. Based on your logic you should be able to pull up examples pretty easily. I'll wait.

I think it's too soon to start comparing economic ramifications of this shut down. I think that's something we'd have to analyze as far as 5-10 years from now to get an accurate comparison of which country had the right strategy.

[Stelletti]

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

We have to remember, though, that Spain and Italy both have better social safety nets than the US. So there may be fewer people (proportionally) starving or lacking medical care in those countries than there would be in the US.


The US economic system more tightly enslaves workers to wages than European system.

LOL...what is your source for this? People in Europe don't have mortgages? Rent? Food? Bills? You are reaching here big time.

[roodd279]

"They also are basically including anyone who dies from flu or pneumonia with those numbers, "

Untrue. We have enough problems without posting this kind of nonsense.


I can't contribute to the economy if I'm dead. Killing people - whatever their age - IS killing the economy. It is a complicated puzzle - lots of moving parts - no obvious solution.



There is no "magic number" of dead people where the economy doesn't notice. Those dead people buy cars, meals, vacations, gifts, boats, clothes, diamonds, booze, and millions of other things. It's not like someone is picking up the slack. Nope. That's just money gone from the loop.

[calgirlinnc]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

OK Italy and Spain have been under total lock down for much longer than the United States. So please show me the stats that show that more people in those countries have since died from starvation than the disease. Based on your logic you should be able to pull up examples pretty easily. I'll wait.

Spain and Italy are not the only countries affected by this. Do you only care about Europeans? Your comment makes no sense. It's not about people who have "since died from starvation." It's about people who will die of starvation.

The US is the number one exporter of food in the world. Our supply chains are breaking down. Farmers are facing slaughtering their animals because meat processing is shutting down. Minnesota farmers are set to euthanize 200,000 pigs.

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/...lant-closures/

Farmers are destroying their crops.

https://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-chief-w...curity-council

Tyson is warning of a disruption in the supply chain.

"Tyson Foods is warning that "millions of pounds of meat" will disappear from the supply chain as the coronavirus pandemic pushes food processing plants to close, leading to product shortages in grocery stores across the country.

"The food supply chain is breaking," wrote board chairman John Tyson in a full-page advertisement published Sunday in The New York Times, Washington Post and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/busin...-ad/index.html

Food shortages are looking more certain as this goes on.

Food banks in the US are overwhelmed already.

"Food banks nationwide are squeezed between short supplies and surging demand from needy families as the coronavirus pandemic has put more than 26 million Americans out of work. In New York City, the mayor appointed a food czar as lines of masked people form outside overstretched charities. More than a third of the city’s food banks have closed for lack of supplies, donations or volunteers, who are harder to recruit because of infection fears, according to the New York Mission Society. In San Diego, a local food bank waits on a $1 million order it placed weeks ago. Chicago and Houston food banks say they are nearly out of staples."

"Before the pandemic, 1 in 7 Americans relied on food banks, according to Feeding America, a national network of the charities. Now, demand has doubled or tripled at many organizations, U.S. food bank operators told Reuters."

"And yet farmers are destroying produce, dumping milk and culling livestock because the pandemic has upended supply chains, making it impossible for many to get crops to market. Grocery stores struggle to stock shelves because suppliers can’t adjust to the sudden shift of demand away from shuttered restaurants to retailers, which requires different packaging and distribution networks."

(Snip)

"Less than a year ago, food banks were overwhelmed by a glut of food from the USDA. The administration’s Trade Mitigation program bought billions of dollars in food from U.S. growers who saw their export markets - especially China - cut off in the tariff war started by President Donald Trump in 2018."

"The excess prompted the Greater Chicago Food Depository to build extra cold storage for milk and meat. Today, that storage has been emptied, and food banks are scrambling to buy increasingly scarce and expensive staples, such as canned fruit or peanut butter."

"Some items are no longer available or require two-month waits for delivery, said Greg Trotter, a spokesman for the Chicago food bank. “Food manufacturers have struggled to keep up with demand” from grocery consumers, he said, “and are therefore selling less food directly to food banks.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile..../idUSKCN2261AY


And while the US might not be facing starvation (just hunger and malnutrition), there are poor countries around the world that are already on the brink. The economic devastation is just making everything worse.

This is from the address that David Beasley, Director of the WFP, made to the UN last week:

"So today, with COVID-19, I want to stress that we are not only facing a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe. Millions of civilians living in conflict-scarred nations, including many women and children, face being pushed to the brink of starvation, with the spectre of famine a very real and dangerous possibility.

"This sounds truly shocking but let me give you the numbers: 821 million people go to bed hungry every night all over the world, chronically hungry, and as the new Global Report on Food Crisis published today shows, there are a further 135 million people facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. That means 135 million people on earth are marching towards the brink of starvation. But now the World Food Programme analysis shows that, due to the Coronavirus, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people."

(Snip)

"Lockdowns and economic recession are expected to lead to a major loss of income among the working poor. Overseas remittances will also drop sharply - this will hurt countries such as Haiti, Nepal, and Somalia just a name a couple. The loss of tourism receipts will damage countries such as Ethiopia, where it accounts for 47% of total exports. The collapsing oil prices in lower-income countries like South Sudan will have an impact significantly, where oil accounts for 98.8% of total exports. And, of course, when donor countries’ revenues are down, how much impact will this have on life saving foreign aid."

"The economic and health impacts of COVID-19 are most worrisome for communities in countries across Africa as well as the Middle East, because the virus threatens further damage to the lives and livelihoods of people already put at risk by conflict."

https://insight.wfp.org/wfp-chief-wa...d-3ee3edb38e47


Mock me all you want. That doesn't make me wrong. People whose jobs revolve around food production and distribution are ringing alarms every single day, and the message is clear: food shortages are coming. You keep making assumptions which don't relate to anything I've said, when maybe you could read and educate yourself.

[CDContribuitor]

@cal That is a great post. Thank you for sharing that insight and all that research. Appreciate it.

[CDContribuitor]

You are right. It will take years to analyze the impact. However, I do think that US will rebound quicker and much stronger than many of the current predictions. We always do.

Originally Posted by DPatel304

I think it's too soon to start comparing economic ramifications of this shut down. I think that's something we'd have to analyze as far as 5-10 years from now to get an accurate comparison of which country had the right strategy.

[calgirlinnc]

Originally Posted by CDContribuitor

@cal That is a great post. Thank you for sharing that insight and all that research. Appreciate it.

You are welcome. Glad someone got something out of it.