CAN WE AUDIOPHILES DO OUR PART?

We are close to the age of "high risk", so we don't want to go volunteer direct. But we're lucky to be working from home at full salaries. Here's some things we are doing:Paying our housekeeper who is sheltering at home. Cleaning our own house.
Getting take out weekly from local restaurants we like. Probably more often than we went out to before.Buying gift certificates from our local hair salon. We may never use them.
Just bought a streamer from my local stereo shop.Donating to local food distributors with each paycheck.Mostly staying home and being safe. Being nice.
Wishing others will stay safe and sane.
...this too will pass...

I’m with MC and n80 on this one.

As a sole proprietor business, most my projects/clients have been put on hold as people become fearful from the start. One was a Doctor who has suffered significantly as only 15% of his patients were classified as ‘essential’ service. I was fine with this when we didn’t know exactly what we may be dealing with, but we have a better idea now. We have done a damn good job, flattened the ‘curve’, and many parts of the country never became NYC as initially feared, and seemingly never will. As has been said, at this point some of these shut-downs and restrictions are doing more harm than good, and oddly enough, even the health sector is hurting overall, with no patients to serve and empty hospitals.

But what is more harmful is the continual fear put into the vast majority of the population, which at this point, seems largely unfounded, as smart rational protection measures can be put into place to reduce risk. And many have been and have become accepted.

I don’t get unemployment when I don’t have clients, and haven’t gotten help from any government entities in regards to my business as I have no employees, and right now, I don’t see any coming. My only hope is the return of clients who become not overly fearful to move forward and reconsider the services I provide. 3-4 months ago, this was not an issue. I’m certainly not alone.

I’m more than willing to be smart and take precautions as we move forward. But we most move forward. There is always risk to get up in the morning and go throughout our days. We are big boys and girls, we understand the risks, always have, and do what is required to reduce it. Thank goodness we seem to be slowly getting back to work, but after 3 months with little income, it would be silly to think many can do this for another 5-6 months. We will destroy many peoples lives, already have, and there is not enough government money to ‘fix it’. At that point, we will have bigger problems than we can imagine.

I can't believe I'm about to do this on an audiophile thread. I'm a sucker for punishment, it seems. Here we go. I'm an inpatient internal medicine physician in a badly hit hospital on the east coast. We had less than 20 covid positive or rule outs on the day the lock downs started I'm our area. We peaked at just shy of 200 in hospital(that is total admitted at that moment in time, not total positives. People die or get discharged. Hundreds died. Fortunately, hundreds more have been discharged)with respiratory failure with covid. The peak was about 20 days after the lockdowns started and have slowly but steadily declined after a plateau of about a week(average time to death or discharge is 16 to 18 days). This is pretty much right in line with how you would expect it to go in relation to a lock down and the timeline as it pertains to covid-19 illness. Numbers played out similarly in the surrounding hospitals. 

In hard hit areas, I'm not so sure the "cure" was worse than the disease. The hospitals here were certainly not empty. We opened up 2 extra wings. We turned the same day unit into another ICU. We were still full. We weren't laying people off. We had nurses from around the country flown in to help. Same goes for physicians. Similar stories in the surrounding hospitals.

I'm very happy that in many parts of the country...it didn't play out this way. That is, after all...the point, though. The entire point. I am amazed when I see people point at the current numbers and call out that the numbers aren't that bad. "See! It's not that bad!" Yea, it's not horrible. After taking drastic measures it's not horrible. 

I'm not going to argue that things were managed properly. I won't argue that the lockdowns don't have costs of their own(of course they do, no $#!?). I won't make a claim that I know how to handle this moving forward systemically. I will say that claiming that empty hospitals during a pandemic means mistakes were made or that we've clearly screwed up isn't really a great statement in isolation. Once again...that is the point. Stop the spread of the virus. Waiting until it gets a foothold in an area before you adjust means waiting until it's too late.

I get it. As a physician, not being able to get things done for your non covid patients in an area that isn't really affected by covid is probably a horrible feeling. It's not fair to those patients. They are paying a disproportionate cost. I don't pretend to have the answer for how we should manage that. I don't think the proper pushback against that is to claim none of this is a big deal, though.

I'm also not claiming that hospitals aren't hurting financially. They are hurting in the areas that have not been touched much by the virus. I know there are layoffs. The hospitals that are the most busy with covid are also getting crushed. Despite being completely full during April with 30 admissions held in the ED and people in the hallways...revenue was down something like 60 or 70%. All the low level but high volume stuff isn't there. I don't have the answers for how to help the hospitals, but, again, I don't think the answer is to claim that covid isn't a big deal(or that it's just a political thing). 

*This was typed in a rush on a phone, and I'm not going back to proofread. I'm sure there are plenty of typos etc. Please...forgive them. 

It all boils down to that timeless expression:
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

They admitted up front that many govt's seriously considered
letting the virus run its course. Let'em die was the cry. Grandma's not got many living years left anyway. I want the house!

Many countries did elect to do just that. Was that the wiser path?
We can tally that up in a few more months. Winners and losers.
The American way.

If you want get elected or re-elected bodies in the streets are not
the photo op you want. Can't have it. Better to mtg off the
kids future. 

Dems now offering $2k month to everyone. (who can vote)
What will Trump counter with? Stay tuned.

SNAFU

snarbut,

There were no typos etc. Quite an achievement, indeed.