Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Legbiter]

Has anyone seen anything on how health services are planning to exit lockdown?

Here it's wait and see. Until after Easter. The virus seems contained but it'll be a bitch to ease back.

[mongers]

France's GDP down 6% in the first quarter. That includes just 2 weeks of lockdown...

Downturn, technical recession, contraction, recession, all of these are inadequate for describing what we and the world economy has entered.

What about the Virus Depression? That works on a couple of levels, hopefully its big immediate effects will only last a year or two; I really don't wont to experience or hear talk of the 2020s Depression al a 90 years ago.

[Tamas]

687 dead today. Stockholm is leveling off, but the rest of the country is increasing. All in all a leveling out.

Swedish tactics seems no worse than other countries so far.

How much testing is done? IIRC Romania recently achieved a great success in fighting the virus by seriously reducing the number of tests they perform.

[Josquius]

As I posted earlier, the closest parallel for what is happening here is the 46-47 winter which saw a huge Spike in unemployment due to the weather.
Things recovered  well straight afterwards however. It was external factors dragging down the economy rather than a flaw in the economy itself.
True, the conditions at the time were far better than today especially for the UK, nonetheless I'm hopeful the recession isn't as bad as some fear.

[Sheilbh]

Many US doctors, nurses, etc are getting laid off / furloughed if they don't work directly with COVID-19 patients. No one knows what is going to happen come June.

I think a lot of private practices and larger corporate groups are going to go bankrupt. My department's revenue is now down 75%. Since we're bigger than 500 employees we can't get access to the SBA loans. Maybe we'll get a bail out, but I doubt it.

It's a good argument for a NHS type system. Ya'll can keep your non-frontline medical staff employed for when normality returns. In Fee For Service systems like the US it all collapses.

Interesting. With the NHS the non-frontline medical staff are being re-deployed to help - so I needed to have physio for an injury I had and I know the entire physio team at my local NHS hsopital were being redeployed onto wards. I assume they'll just be working as healthcare assistants rather than anything more significant because they won't have the relevant training. And I mentioned my friend who is on the data/planning side of the NHS - she's actually been working flat out but in February all of her team were given training on how they could assist if it was necessary to redeploy them to the frontline. There was also that memo from a head of intensive care in a big London hospital basically saying everyone from medical students to dental hygienists were being drafted into helping the intensive care team - again I imagine as healthcare assistants.

Is that not happening or not able to happen in the for-profit/fees hospitals in the US? Is there not some sort of internal fee system so, in effect, the ICU teams hire staff from other teams?

[Sheilbh]

As I posted earlier, the closest parallel for what is happening here is the 46-47 winter which saw a huge Spike in unemployment due to the weather.
Things recovered  well straight afterwards however. It was external factors dragging down the economy rather than a flaw in the economy itself.
True, the conditions at the time were far better than today especially for the UK, nonetheless I'm hopeful the recession isn't as bad as some fear.

Yeah I think as long as this doesn't last for 12-8 months it'll be a shock rather than a severe depression/recession because as you say there's nothing fundamental that's broken in most of the economy. If it does last that long then it'll be a far bigger challenge.

The possible exception is certain export companies because I think a lot of medical equipment/pharmaceutical manufacturing will be onshored and travel which I don't think will recover very quickly. In my view, which could be totally wrong, I doubt we will go back to the way things were on travel any time soon.

[Fate]

Many US doctors, nurses, etc are getting laid off / furloughed if they don't work directly with COVID-19 patients. No one knows what is going to happen come June.

I think a lot of private practices and larger corporate groups are going to go bankrupt. My department's revenue is now down 75%. Since we're bigger than 500 employees we can't get access to the SBA loans. Maybe we'll get a bail out, but I doubt it.

It's a good argument for a NHS type system. Ya'll can keep your non-frontline medical staff employed for when normality returns. In Fee For Service systems like the US it all collapses.

Interesting. With the NHS the non-frontline medical staff are being re-deployed to help - so I needed to have physio for an injury I had and I know the entire physio team at my local NHS hsopital were being redeployed onto wards. I assume they'll just be working as healthcare assistants rather than anything more significant because they won't have the relevant training. And I mentioned my friend who is on the data/planning side of the NHS - she's actually been working flat out but in February all of her team were given training on how they could assist if it was necessary to redeploy them to the frontline. There was also that memo from a head of intensive care in a big London hospital basically saying everyone from medical students to dental hygienists were being drafted into helping the intensive care team - again I imagine as healthcare assistants.

Is that not happening or not able to happen in the for-profit/fees hospitals in the US? Is there not some sort of internal fee system so, in effect, the ICU teams hire staff from other teams?

At least in Baltimore we probably could resume outpatient and elective surgery care and be able to handle the COVID-19 volume, but everyone is being very cautious right now. Outside of certain hospitals in New York, New Jersey, or Louisana, there aren't enough COVD-19 cases to justify conscripting dermatologists, pathologists, radiologists, etc to the front lines. We're just sitting on our asses waiting for work. Hence the furloughs or 50-75% pay cuts.

Maybe the government will bail medicine out, but I bet all the money goes to the major players like hospitals. They will buy up the remainder of US private practice at pennies on the dollar when they go bankrupt.

[Threviel]

687 dead today. Stockholm is leveling off, but the rest of the country is increasing. All in all a leveling out.

Swedish tactics seems no worse than other countries so far.

How much testing is done? IIRC Romania recently achieved a great success in fighting the virus by seriously reducing the number of tests they perform.

I don't know what they base it on, perhaps number of people admitted to ICU? Can't say really.

[celedhring]

As I posted earlier, the closest parallel for what is happening here is the 46-47 winter which saw a huge Spike in unemployment due to the weather.
Things recovered  well straight afterwards however. It was external factors dragging down the economy rather than a flaw in the economy itself.
True, the conditions at the time were far better than today especially for the UK, nonetheless I'm hopeful the recession isn't as bad as some fear.

Yeah I think as long as this doesn't last for 12-8 months it'll be a shock rather than a severe depression/recession because as you say there's nothing fundamental that's broken in most of the economy. If it does last that long then it'll be a far bigger challenge.

The possible exception is certain export companies because I think a lot of medical equipment/pharmaceutical manufacturing will be onshored and travel which I don't think will recover very quickly. In my view, which could be totally wrong, I doubt we will go back to the way things were on travel any time soon.

Of course there's something fundamentally broken in our economy, the fact that nobody hasn't left their homes for approaching a month in most of the west    - jobs are lost, driving demand further downards even when the restrictions are lifted. And there will be a lot of limitations on moving between countries for quite a while, which will disrupt tourism and a lot of industries attached to it.

[Sheilbh]

Of course there's something fundamentally broken in our economy, the fact that nobody hasn't left their homes for approaching a month in most of the west    - jobs are lost, driving demand further downards even when the restrictions are lifted. And there will be a lot of limitations on moving between countries for quite a while, which will disrupt tourism and a lot of industries attached to it.

Fair - but there's nothing structural, there's no fundamental flaw that's going to need to be unwound over years like in the financial crisis or even recessions like those in the 90s. If this lasts for ages then

This is a really bad shock but most of the economy is still there and ready to do stuff so should rebound reasonably quickly (if this is over by September, say, then it'll probably be strongly recovering by winter, no?). Or am I totally wrong?

Travel I agree is fucked - but I think people will still want holidays so we may just see a shift that won't make up for international tourists but will see lots of domestic tourists. I think people will be desperate to go on holidays of some sort after we can get out - but that may just be me speaking

[Gups]

I think you're massively underestimating Shelf. Loads of businesses are going to go bust and jobs lost. There's got to be a fiscal reckoning as well - either tax will have to go up or there will be even more QE.

[mongers]

I think you're massively underestimating Shelf. Loads of businesses are going to go bust and jobs lost. There's got to be a fiscal reckoning as well - either tax will have to go up or there will be even more QE.

Yes, it's a 'big thing'

I think unemployment will spike to over 3 million by early Summer.

And as you say there has to be fiscal reckoning.

I wonder if serious inflation will be a consequence over the next few years?

[Maladict]

The number of occupied ICU beds is down for the first time, very encouraging.

[Grey Fox]

Sweden's death number is really grim. Why is the government there letting you all die?

[Tamas]

Sweden's death number is really grim. Why is the government there letting you all die?

Savings.