One New Positive COVID-19 Test in Humboldt

How about if we listen to people that study this?

We could slowly roll out making sure that the deaths stay within the capacity of our hospitals and supplies.

We could urge urge people who have underlying conditions (which is over half of the population by my estimation) to limit contact. And support their employers in keeping them in safe situations.

In fact, we could still urge all people even those who are apparently completely healthy to minimize contact as much as possible using masks, handwashing, and social distancing.

We continue to ramp up access to testing. We isolate those who test positive. And track those who have come into contact and quarantine them.

And we have a federal government that makes sure the hottest spots are getting the most tests, supplies, and medical personnel.

We get universal healthcare in place so the costs of hospitalization and medical treatments don’t bankrupt people.

Generous sickleave policies sound like they would be helpful, too

That sounds like a list of suggestions that would help to me.

Or we could just say hey tweekers, criminals, and people who light off fireworks in July on dry hillsides, I totally trust you to monitor yourselves and we’ll just go back to normal.

Greedy rich bosses will probably not stay in isolation while forcing health compromised workers back to jobs, and those workers probably won’t get sick in large numbers and land on an already shaky healthcare system, thus infecting first responders and medical workers and further crippling the medical system.

Thousands who would otherwise have lived productive lives probably won’t die, won’t produce the goods they would have produced, won’t impact supply lines when they die, and won’t cause economic damage when they die…

Dead, dying, and ill people impact the world in a number of ways that we haven’t learned to quantify. But we do know that improving health generally improves economic growth–people tend to produce more and be more innovative when they aren’t afraid, ill, or dead…

This study looks at the economic impacts on parents who lose a child. “For example, the chances of being out of work some years after the loss is up to 9% greater than if the child had not died” https://theconversation.com/how-to-calculate-the-economic-impact-of-grief-68936

Probably death of a spouse, a parent, a close friend, also has an economic impact on a family. And multiplied those also have impacts on society. Multiplied thousands of times…those deaths can have incredible economic impacts.

And as usual those economically struggling will least be prepared to deal with the loss of a parent’s income and will need to fall back on the state (ie the taxpayer) for resources.

So, I believe the steadiest course forward is to slowly opening up the economy while being prepared to roll back if illnesses start to overrun our healthcare system.