TrickstaPriest

Just went to a restaurant since this mess started (Texas is 25% open now) and we literally had the ENTIRE place to ourselves.
 
Everything is disposable now (menu's, silverware sleeves, etc.) except the silverware and plates.
 
It is straight up creepy to see how dead and inactive everything is.  I felt bad for the place so I left a $20 tip.
 
 

This is a really important concept a lot of people don't get.  Both in terms of the difference in responsibilities, and that neither party was exactly wrong.
 
Keep in mind it's also about concentration.  I did some pretty idiotic things at the start of this mess, and when I was sick.  Not taking off my shoes after coming back from the hospital was just one of the stupid things I did.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, HERO gamers. If they had the time they'd stat out the apocalypse as it was happening.
 

Oh yeah, without a doubt.  A lot of it is going to depend on how serious the economic consequences of Coronavirus happen to be.  If we just rack up a bunch of government debt, but by next year the economy has mostly recovered?  There probably won't be that much motivation to change things.  It would be easy enough for people to chalk it up as a once-in-a-lifetime natural disaster and just move on.  But if we've got 30% unemployment and people are losing their houses?  If half the restaurants in town are shut down forever?  There might be a lot of people hunting for jobs who'd be chomping at the bit to work at a factory or something like that.  The bigger the impact from this virus, the more changes we're going to see one way or the other.
 
I'm normally all about free trade, but this is potentially becoming a national security issue.  It doesn't make sense to have such glaring vulnerabilities, all in the name of cheap junk.

You just have to buy all your social skills with "costs END" as part of the package...

I'd do it out of convenience if the internet was good enough and the deliveries were reliable.  Getting 5 million dollars would be like getting paid to breathe.  I was going to do that anyway.

From "Murder by Numbers" by the Police

I feel like I'm watching helplessly as a mass murder is committed.

The biggest omission from that list is probably property taxes.  Plus, remember, they were trying to pay salaries and benefits to as many as possible.  63,000 workers, salary + benefits....3000 per month per worker, let's say (those benefits add up fast)...that's $190M per month.
 
Debt service and amortization are huge.  I never thought about them for major properties like a large hotel/casino, but I have for a plane.  An Airbus A320 neo runs $110M or so.  So, figure debt service alone might be (interest and amortization) 6-7 mill.  That's per plane, whether it's flying or not.  The accounting for a big hotel is quite different, I'm sure, but it's still a big chunk.
 
 

Even closed, there needs to be security guards and surveillance agents to monitor the property, engineering maintenance crews to repair the various bits that break, and some bit of IT to make sure that the computer systems and servers are maintained. Other costs include licensing/rentals of the slot games, debt servicing, utilities*, signage costs**.
 
 
*The biggest part of that is power for air conditioning. Since there are still people and equipment in the buildings, the A/C must be kept on.
 
**Most electronic marquee signs are provided by Yesco, a local signage company, who also services them.

If anyone's interested, a few days back The Daily (With Michael Barbaro) interviewed both Gov. Whitmer and one of the protesters, giving them both a chance to make their points. Which they did, quite reasonably. This particular protester, however, talked about the business of which his is VP,, which does animal and pest control. He is quite sure the work can be done without an employee coming anywhere near other people. He said he was not happy to find various wackadoodles also showing up the protest. Gov. Whitmer, OTOH, talked about the dangers of *anyone* going *anywhere* -- her example was the gas pump handle everybody touches and so could pass the virus from person to person.
 
I can't say either of them was flat-out wrong. But Mister Pest Control was only responsible for a small group of employees, whereas Whitmer is responsible for everyone in Michigan -- and must make decisions based on a significant fraction of those people being complete idiots.
 
Dean Shomshak

As far as I can tell from the news, Michigan's Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been following the advice of health care scientists in maintaining a firm lockdown of her state by declaring a state of emergency. Her state legislature is attempting to pass restrictions on her power to do so, which she's expected to veto. She's publicly refused and criticized President Trump's call for an earlier opening of the state's economy, for which she's been criticized by state and federal Republicans, and been on the receiving end of Trump's tweetgun, including provocative comments which probably galvanized the lockdown protests in the state.
 
Whitmer is a Democrat. Michigan's legislature is currently dominated by Republicans. Michigan is also polling as a swing state in the upcoming presidential election. To me that looks to be the basis for accusations of Whitmer's "overreach." If Whitmer ends up committing political suicide in order to save lives, I will have to commend her. But it's not insignificant that her name is being bruited about as a possible Biden vice-presidential pick.

Probably the signs telling me I have to wear a mask when I go into stores when I'm north of the border...
 
(Fortunately for me, not that I think anyone is actually enforcing it, I've got the mask my Mom made for me in my clipboard for just such an occasion).

Las Vegas had another round of layoffs yesterday, as the casinos are trying to deal with not opening in the near future, and conserving cash reserves. My company announced layoffs, as well as a staggered schedule to reopen some properties, once the go-ahead is given. They are paying wages through May 15, and health benefit premiums through September 30 for those affected. My co-worker and several other folks I know were laid off, but I'm still employed and being paid at least through the end of May.

Welcome to random variables with very high variance.  Some places will get crushed, while others dodge the bullet.  But there's more bullets out there.

Look at Nebraska.  Go back to early April...very few cases.  Last 10 days?  Looks like 4 days with 300+ new cases that day, in that period.  Even within Nebraska, using the NY Times county-level data, you've got Dakota and Seline Counties that had nothing, it looks like, until 7-10 days ago.  Douglas County has 700 now.  Even narrower?  Nebraska's health people have put some work in:
 
https://dogis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/21bec056a9a6449abcca89a329868fd6  and
https://dogis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/21bec056a9a6449abcca89a329868fd6
 
The X axis labeling is done badly;  it's too long.  But expanding across a couple monitors...the left edge is March 6th;  the major ticks represent a week.  So on March 27th, about 40 cases.  in 5 weeks, about 17x that.  The case total doubled between April 3rd and Aprl 17th...but between April 17th and today, May 1st...it's 2.5x higher.  That's not good....but that is the coronavirus.  I mean, to paraphrase Allen Funt...
 
Don't be surprised if sometime, somewhere, someplace when you least expect it, someone steps up to you and says.... 'Smile, you've got a major Covid-19 'outbreak in your area.' 
 

As far as possibilities of where they can come from.  I had a cousin who was working in Asia when it hit (Vietnam, but I never can remember).  I think he was quarantined for a couple days when he got back.  (I think one person on flight had some telltale signs, so they needed to test him first, but I cant remember all the details.  It was about a month ago)
 
So, an isolated case of that or 2, could probably get a place started.
 
Note: and my cousin, 60 years old, and a heavy smoker until he got pneumonia a few years ago.  So, he dodged a bullet, I'd say.

Case spikes can sometimes be misconstrued.  Last week or so in Ohio we had a massive one day case spike and found out a couple days later that they had gotten around to full inmate testing and posted all the results that day.

Yeah, several others did go with some plastic facemask type (looks like a clear "welder" mask).  Not really feasible, for me,  I realized in my mind quick, I would probably in my job whack one hand or another on it about 15 times an hour.  THe cloth mask does seem to be quasi-helpful during disinfecting duty......in lessening my exposure to breathing that  (I have occasionally had to go get a little fresh air, maybe I am just more sensitive to it, I don't know)
 
Of course, with my large head, I can barely get those straps around my ears.  

As for other conservabubble-sourced stories, I note the same tired pattern of skewed facts.  Sure, maybe 99% of people will survive a COVID-19 infection, but 1% is still 3.5 million dead.  Sure, many of those fatalities will be the elderly, as if they weren't still people.  Sure, after sacrificing those 3.5 million people there might be herd immunity, except herd immunity is not a thing if, like other coronaviruses, immunity only lasts 18 months.
 
California HHS data shows that with the lockdown, hospital bed occupancy has remained constant.  This is good, because it means the hospital system there hasn't been overwhelmed.  It's also bad, because it's not dropping either--it's a constant.  That means that the lockdown is only barely keeping a lid on the pandemic.

Politics, the great enemy of getting anything done.
 
It's unfortunate how much science and scientific analysis is affected by this.  It's why keeping the actual scientific method and review process reliable is so important.
 
Consider the damage that may have been avoided if the 1960s study inspecting heart problems hadn't been bribed to avoid sugar and to blame fat instead?  How many have died or had terrible health because of decisions made based on that?

Politics, the great enemy of getting anything done.
 
It's unfortunate how much science and scientific analysis is affected by this.  It's why keeping the actual scientific method and review process reliable is so important.
 
Consider the damage that may have been avoided if the 1960s study inspecting heart problems hadn't been bribed to avoid sugar and to blame fat instead?  How many have died or had terrible health because of decisions made based on that?

I've always known to keep clear of those feathered bastards.
 
 

IIRC, the current COVID-19 death count includes only those that can be verified by available means -- usually people that died in the hospital. Of the many more people who died at home, how many of their deaths were caused by the virus with very few people knowing it? And what happens if (and I hope this doesn't happen) someone dies by suicide after developing COVID-19 symptoms? Do those count as COVID-19 deaths?
 
The point is we may never know the number of people who actually died as a result of this virus -- and that the death count is underreported with no way to correct the figure.
 
I've been told to expect to spend another month in isolation. That sounds so incredibly unfun that words fail.